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certainly hope no one helped you with the winning essay, Flora. That was supposed to be all your own work.’
    Flora shut up then, and went back to her desk.
    ‘Best Spelling!’
    This one was a toss-up, I reckoned. I usually get spelling as well. But Ben was pretty good.
    ‘Ben!’ Miss Tate announced. ‘Though Howard might have won, if he’d not had so much Hungarian goulash spattered over his book that I couldn’t read some words.’
    This is what comes of doing homework at home.
    ‘And the last prize.’
    Miss Tate was beaming at Beth now. Beth beamed back at her.
    ‘Best Num–’
    I coughed.
    She tried again.
    ‘Best Number –’
    I coughed again, even louder. She glanced down at the list.
    ‘Good heavens!’ she said. ‘I knew there was going to be an
extra
prize this year. But I never realised that there’d been a
change
.’
    She read aloud from the list.

    ‘Best Home-made Model!’
    And all hell let loose.
    ‘The spider’s web!’ shrieked Beth.
    ‘No! No! The mastodon!’
    ‘How can you
say
that?’ Ben cried. ‘That baby elephant is better than any of the others.’
    ‘I’d swap everything I own for that lovely Wheel of Fortune,’ Flora said wistfully.
    ‘I’ve become rather fond of theoctopus,’ I admitted.
    ‘Does that lampshade made of dried bread count?’
    ‘The spaghetti tower!’
    ‘It’s not spagh–’
    Miss Tate cut me off, frowning at everybody.
    ‘I do think that, after all the work we did on Egypt last year, a few more of you might appreciate this beautiful papier-mâché scale model of the Valley of The Kings.’
    My big mistake, of course, was writing ‘Best Home-made Model’ instead of ‘Best Home-made Model Maker’. So the wrangling went on for hours, while Joe sat in a daze.
    And, in the end, we took a vote. The disposable coffee cup spaceman won by miles. And Joe stepped up to take his medal with a grin as wide as the mastodon’s.
    ‘Congratulations, Joe!’
    Miss Tate pressed the dingy old medal into his hand. He gazed at it as if it were some twinkling jewel. Then, closing his fingers round it and shutting his eyes from sheer rapture, he threw his arms around Miss Tate, and hugged her.

    ‘Joe! You old silly-billy!’ she said. But you could tell that she was thrilled to bits. ‘I
knew
you had hidden talents. And now I know what they are, I’ll be coming to you whenever I need models to explain the maths.’
    I nudged him as he sat down.
    ‘See?’ I crowed. ‘Things are looking up already. If you’re busy making pyramids and cones and tetrahedrons for her all the time, she won’t be able to spend so much time torturing you into understanding them.’
    His grin got even wider.
    Now Miss Tate was patting the moths back into her bun.
    ‘It must be time to welcome our Open Day visitors.’
    Her hand was on the doorknob before Joe reminded her.
    ‘But, Miss Tate! What about the extra prize?’
    She turned back.
    ‘Whoops! Nearly forgot!’
    She took another medal from her drawer.
    ‘And now!’ she said. ‘By popular request, and secret vote, the extra prize! For the Most Helpful Member of the Class!’
    And she looked straight at me.
    I went for Beth on this one, so I waited.
    And waited.
    And waited.
    And finally, Miss Tate said:
    ‘Well, aren’t you going to come up and get it?’
    ‘
Me?
’
    ‘Who else am I looking at?’
    Stupidly (considering that Joe and I sit in the back row), I glanced behind me.
    ‘I mean you,’ she said.
    ‘
Me?
’ I said again. ‘Most helpful person in the class?
Me?
’
    ‘I was a little surprised myself,’ she admitted. ‘But this was a free vote, and all thepapers except one had your name on them.’
    I looked around at them. They were all sitting, good as gold, looking at me with innocent, glowing faces. I felt a bit suspicious as I went up to the front. But the medal Miss Tate pressed in my hand didn’t explode, or blow a raspberry at me, or shoot a jet of water in my face.
    It was a real prize. No