Dazzling Danny (5 page)

I was still dithering when Carrie and her friend Jade Sullivan came screaming through the patio door. They’re always screaming, that pair. And they
never
bother to look where they’re going. I didn’t have to hurl
myself because those two great clumsy girls went and barged into me and sent me sprawling.
Thump, bang, clonk,
down to the bottom of the steps.

“What are you doing?” bawled Carrie. Like it was my fault.

Carefully, I picked myself up. I patted at myself. All over. Arms, legs, ribs. Nothing! Not even as much as a bruise. I hadn’t even broken a finger!

“Just look where you’re standing in future!” shrieked Carrie.

Perhaps I should have got the spade out of the garden shed and told her to whack me with it. She’d probably have broken both legs for me straight off.

One morning, driving in to school, Mum said to me, “Aren’t you having a show this term?”

I said, “Sh–show?” Like it was some foreign word I’d never heard before.

Mum said, “Yes! Show! You know? Singing, dancing, acting…
end of term show
?”

“Oh! That,” I said.

Then there was this long pause, while Mum waited for me to go on and I tried to think of something to say.

“It isn’t any good this year,” I mumbled.

“Really?” said Mum. “Why’s that?”

“Dunno. Just isn’t. Not worth coming to.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Mum, “of course we’ll come! If you’re going to be in it.”

“Yeah, well, this is it,’ I said. “I’m not.”

“Oh?” Mum sounded surprised. “I thought they always included everyone?”

“Not always,” I said. “It’s just singing and dancing this year.”

“Well, you certainly can’t sing,” agreed Mum.

“Can’t dance, either,” I said.

“So you’re not in it?”

I said, “No. Hey, look, there’s Darryl!” I opened the window and stuck my head out. “Oy! Darryl!”

Darryl saw me, and waved. Mum let me out the car. She said, “Off you go, then” and I tore across the pavement and through the gates. Phew! Another escape!

Mum didn’t say anything more about the show, so I hoped she’d forgotten it. I thought
that if she asked me again I’d say it was too late to get tickets, they’d all been sold. But then something else happened. Miss Pringle said that next Wednesday we were going to have the dress rehearsal, and that this would mean staying on at school for an extra two hours. She gave us all a note to give to our mums and dads, for them to sign. I didn’t know what to do! I could get Carrie to sign Mum’s name, no problem; but next Wednesday my gran was flying home from Jamaica and we were all going to the airport to meet her. I didn’t want to miss seeing my gran!

I told Coral about it, thinking that she would understand. Coral had been really upset last year, when her gran had died. She’d loved her gran as much as I love mine.

“I’ve got to go and meet her!” I said.

“Why?” said Coral. “You’ll see her when you get home.”

I said, “I won’t! We’re taking her back to her place.”

“Well, you’ll see her in the holidays,” said Coral.

“I want to see her
now,
” I said. “She’s been away for nearly two months!”

“You can’t miss the dress rehearsal,” said Coral.

“But what am I going to tell my mum and dad?”

Coral said, “That’s your problem! Maybe you could try telling them the truth, for a change?”

Girls can be really hard at times. Really unfeeling.

“What about
me
?” said Coral.

What about her?

“What about our
pas de deux
?”

“Oh!
Pardy durr
,” I said, mimicking her like she’d mimicked me.

Coral’s cheeks grew very hot and pink. I knew that I’d been mean, but she’d been mean to me! Did she really think our stupid dance was more important than my gran?

“I might decide not to do it at all,” I said.

Coral looked at me, horrified. “You can’t back out
now
!”

“Yes, I can,” I said. “I can do what I like. I don’t have to be in the show if I don’t want to.”

“If you didn’t want to do it,” cried Coral, “you should have said so right back at the beginning.” She made this little choking sound. “You’ll just go and ruin it for everyone!”

Now she was starting to cry. I hate when they do that!

“You’re just being mean and selfish and – and
cowardly
! Tears went rolling down her cheeks. She wiped them away,
angrily, with the back of her hand. “Danny Allbright,” she said, “if you back out of the show I’ll never speak to you again!”

Huh! What did I care? She was only a girl.

I said this to Darryl, next day, as we mooched round the playground together. Darryl was my best friend! Surely he would understand?

“So you mean… you’re not coming to the dress rehearsal?” said Darryl.

“I’ve got to meet my gran,” I said. “She’s old! She mightn’t live much longer.”

Darryl has met my gran. “She’s not as old as all that,” he said. “She could live for years!”

“But what would I tell my mum and dad?”

“Dunno,” said Darryl.

He wasn’t being at all helpful.

“Wish I’d never agreed to be in the stupid show,” I said.

“Bit late for that now,” said Darryl.

“I could still drop out! If I wanted to. I think I probably will,” I said.

Darryl gave me this
look.
Like I was a bit of bird splodge, or something nasty that had crawled out of a bin.

“Not surprised Coral said she wouldn’t speak to you again!”

“Think I care?” I said.

“Not sure I’d want to speak to you again, either,” said Darryl; and he turned, and went running off across the playground to join some of the others in a football game.

I thought that Darryl was being very
unfair. It is no way for a person’s best friend to treat them.

When I got in after school my sister was there. She was in a really annoying mood.

She kept snapping her fingers and waggling her hips and singing “
GO for it
!
Just – GO for it
!” and giving me these sly looks. I shoved at her and she fell against the corner of the sink and screamed, “Ow! That hurt!” Mum told me crossly to stop behaving like a yob.

“I don’t know what’s come over you these days!”

She must have told Dad about it, because later that evening Dad said he wanted to speak to me, and he gave me this long lecture all about
manners.

“I want you to be a tough guy, but I also want you to be a gentleman. Gentlemen do not go round pushing and shoving at their sisters. You got that?”

I nodded.

Dad said, “Right! I don’t want to have to speak to you again.”

Suddenly it just seemed like everyone had it in for me. At school next day, Coral wasn’t talking. I pretended I didn’t care, but I did, really. Coral’s been my second–best friend
ever since Reception, when she tried to stuff a marble in my ear.

Miss Pringle asked us all to hand in our slips of paper. I was the only one who hadn’t got a signature …

“Oh, Danny, really!” said Miss Pringle. “How could you forget?”

Coral turned and looked at me. I said, “Sorry, Miss.”

“Well, can you make sure and get it done tonight?” said Miss Pringle.

There was this long silence. Coral was still looking at me. I could feel that Darryl was, too.

“Yes?” said Miss Pringle.

I took a deep breath. I said,
“Yes,
Miss.”

Darryl patted my shoulder. “It’ll be all right,” he said.

What did he mean, it would be all right? It was all right for him. He wasn’t dancing with six girls. Wearing
tights.

I had to ask Carrie to do more of her forging. She said, “Well, I will… but you owe me! Specially after last night.” She said she wouldn’t be at all surprised if I’d broken some of her ribs. She said a person could die of broken ribs, and if she died it would be all my fault. “So you can jolly well do my next
six turns
at cleaning the car!”

That was bad enough, but then I had to find some excuse for staying on at school and not going to meet Gran. It meant telling more lies, and one thing Gran has always taught us is that telling lies is “a slippery slope”. In the end I decided just to tell half a lie. I mean, at least it was better than telling a whole one. I
said that Miss Pringle was having the dress rehearsal and that she wanted me to help out backstage.

Mum said, “Oh, that’s nice! I’m glad you’re involved. Can you go back with Darryl afterwards and we’ll pick you up from his place?”

What really made me mad was that I needn’t have bothered asking Carrie to forge Mum’s signature after all. Mum would have signed it herself. Now I was going to have to clean the car
six times
without being paid for it!