Just Stupid! (14 page)

   I can’t believe it! She’s going to kiss me!

   This is turning out to be the best night of my life. A food fight in a fancy restaurant
and
a kiss from Natasha Teasedale.

   Dad steps between Danny and me. ‘I helped too,’ he says. He closes his eyes and puts his head forward. Mum pulls him back by the arm.

   ‘No you don’t,’ she says, giving him one of her withering looks.

   Natasha giggles. ‘What are you waiting for?’ she says to me. ‘Don’t you want your reward?’

   I close my eyes. Life doesn’t get any better than this.

   WHACK!

   I feel a sharp pain on the top of my head.

   I open my eyes.

   She’s holding a breadstick in her hand.

   ‘That’s for setting my hair on fire,’ she says.

   ‘But . . .’

   She raises the breadstick and brings it down again.

   WHACK!

   ‘And that’s for throwing beer in my face!’

   Danny is bent over double laughing.

   ‘Something funny?’ she says.

   ‘Yes,’ says Danny. ‘You are. That was brilliant. He had it coming.’

   ‘You want to see it again?’ she says, raising the breadstick above her head in a two-handed grip.

   ‘Yes please!’ says Danny.

   WHACK!

   She brings the breadstick down again, but this time not on my head—on Danny’s. He’s not laughing any more. Just standing there with the bottle of champagne in his hand, looking dazed. Natasha drops the breadstick and heads for the door. The waiter runs after her.

   ‘Madamoiselle Teasedale,’ he says. ‘I am so sorry!’

   She stops and turns around.

   ‘It’s okay,’ she says.

   ‘No, it is not okay,’ he says. ‘It is not okay at all.’

   ‘No, you’re right,’ she says. ‘It isn’t.’ She walks back to her breadstick, picks it up and clocks the waiter over the head.

   Boy, that’s some temper she’s got. But it’s understandable, what with the pressure of being so famous and having to learn all those lines and act and sign autographs and everything.

   She’s about to go through the door. Suddenly there is a loud pop. It’s Danny’s champagne bottle.

   ‘Oops,’ says Danny.

   The cork fires out and hits Natasha fair and square on the side of the head. It ricochets and shoots straight up into the chandelier. The chandelier blows apart and beads of polished glass rain down over the restaurant. It is a beautiful end to a brilliant performance.

   Natasha stops, straightens her shoulders, turns around and gives us a look even more withering than one of Mum’s withering looks. Then she turns and walks out of the restaurant without saying a word.

   Wow.

   What a professional.

   What dignity.

   What poise.

   You’ve got to hand it to her. She’s had her hair set on fire, beer thrown in her face, fruit salad tipped all over her, broken up with her boyfriend and just taken a direct hit in the side of the head from a champagne cork, and yet she can still walk out of the restaurant with style.

   She’s a great actress. There’s no doubt about it. And if I ever see her again I’m going to tell her that.

‘m standing at the entrance to the park, trying to decide whether to go in. I know it’s dangerous but I want to get home before the rain starts again and I’ll get there a lot quicker if I cut through the park. I hear thunder. I decide to risk it.

   I walk through the gate.

   I’m not sure if this was such a good idea after all. There are snails all over the gravel path. I have to walk very slowly to avoid stepping on them. If there’s one sound I hate, it’s the sound of a snail shell being crushed. I reckon I hate the sound even more than the snail does.

   But so far so good.

   I’ve almost made it to the pond in the middle of the park. No crushed snails and, even better, no sign of my enemy. I look up at the old gum tree just to make sure.

   But it’s there.

   The mad magpie.

   Waiting.

   For me.

   I look around to make sure there is nobody else in the park. The place is deserted. That’s good.

   I open my bag, take out an ice-cream container and put it on my head. I know it’s not a good look, but it’s better than having a hole pecked in the top of my skull. That’s not a particularly good look either.

   I take a deep breath and start running.

   There is an explosion of swooping, flapping and clicking around my ears.

   Even though I’ve got my container helmet on I’m still scared. What if the magpie goes for my eyes? What if it pecks them out and feeds them to its babies? I’ll be able to see myself being eaten.

   The magpie seems to be everywhere at once.

   There is an especially hard whack on the side of the container.

   I stagger sideways.

   CRUNCH!

   I look down at a grey and brown pasty mess.

   A snail! I stood on a snail!

   I look up at the magpie. It’s getting ready to swoop me again.

   ‘All right,’ I yell, ‘you asked for it!’

   I reach into my bag and pull out my gun.

   The magpie is swooping down fast.

   I point the gun at it. My hand is shaking. I steady it with my other hand and squeeze the trigger.

   POW! POW! POW!

   The magpie veers steeply into the air and flies back towards its tree. It’s only a cap gun, but the magpie doesn’t know that. I blow the end of the gun and slide it into my pocket.

   I kneel down and look at the snail. It is blowing bubbles. It’s alive.

   I’ve crushed its shell, but not completely. The basic shape is still there. Maybe . . . just maybe . . . I could put it back together again. Like a jigsaw puzzle. It’s worth a try.

   ‘I’m really sorry,’ I say. ‘But don’t worry—I think I can rebuild you.’

   The snail blows a little green bubble.

That’s a good sign. Well, I think it is—sometimes it’s hard to tell with snails.

   There’s a picnic table near the pond. I can use it for the operation. I take my library card out of my pocket. I slide it slowly underneath the snail and lift it up.

   The magpie is nowhere to be seen, but I put my hand over the top of the snail to protect it, just in case the magpie tries to launch a surprise attack. I run, crouching at the same time. This is a war zone.

   We make it safely to the table. The top of the table is wet and dirty. I fish around in my pocket and find a handkerchief. It’s got a huge blob of old chewing gum stuck to it. I was saving it for an emergency—and here it is.

   I lay the handkerchief out flat on the table. I bet real surgeons don’t have to work under these conditions.

   I ease the snail off my library card and onto the handkerchief.

   Luckily I’ve got a glue-stick in my bag. I get it out, but it’s hard to know exactly how to start. The glue-stick is jumbo-sized and the pieces of snail shell are so tiny. And the edges are so thin.