The Great Brain Robbery (5 page)

‘What’s all the fuss?’ Frankie asked Neet, as their class filed in.

‘No idea,’ she replied, ‘but stand back, that first-year’s about to explode!’

Frankie looked at a little boy who was so excited Frankie actually thought he could see him swelling up like a party balloon.

Mrs Pinkerton stood up on stage and clapped her hands. ‘Settle down, children!’ she called over the dozens of bobbing heads. ‘Settle down!’ The room hushed quickly.
‘We have a very special visitor here today.’ Mrs Pinkerton beamed like a luminous flamingo. ‘Can anybody tell me who it is?’

Dozens of hands shot into the air.

‘Teddy Manywishes! Teddy Manywishes!’ yelled a nursery tot unable to control herself any longer.

‘Now now, Molly,’ frowned Mrs Pinkerton, ‘don’t shout out. And who knows why Teddy Manywishes is here?’

‘Toys!’ yelled Molly, who was too crazed with excitement to listen. ‘TOOOOOOOOOYS!’

Neet and Frankie giggled at Mrs Pinkerton, who was doing her best to look cross.

‘Now as you all know, Teddy Manywishes is the store mascot for our wonderful new toyshop, Marvella Brand’s Happyland, and he is here this morning to tell you something very special.
So I’d like you all to give him a big Cramley School welcome.’

‘GOOD MORNING, TEDDY MANYWISHES,’ chanted eighty small voices.

The lights turned a dim shade of green and an enormous teddy dressed as a genie appeared in a puff of shimmering smoke.

‘Oooooooooohhhhh!’ cooed the children, their eyes widening into round, sparkling pools. Teddy Manywishes took a low bow, a big furry smile on his big furry face.

‘GOOD MORNING KIDS!’ said the teddy, in a high cartoon-like voice that Frankie thought made him sound like a squirrel with a blocked nose. ‘My name is Teddy Manywishes and I
make children’s wishes come true!’ The enormous bear made a sweeping gesture with his paws and a burst of rainbow sparkles drizzled down over the gobsmacked children. ‘Now, which
of you kiddlywinks likes toys?’ Dozens of hands shot into the air as the assembly hall erupted into shouts of ‘
Me! Me! I do! Me!
’ Some of the children were so excited
they were up on their feet, bouncing up and down like Mexican beans. Frankie wasn’t sure he liked being called a kiddlywink but, as the air fizzed around him, he felt his worries dissolve
like a spoonful of sherbet.

‘Well, let’s just see what ol’ Teddy Manywishes can do.’ The giant bear clapped his furry paws and –
SHAZZAM!
– a large pink envelope appeared
between them.

‘Oh, wow! Oh, wow!’ gasped Neet, jiggling about in her chair.

‘Now what’s this?’ piped Teddy Manywishes in his cheery, squeaky voice. The children held their breath as the bear drew out an even pinker card. ‘Oh, my! It looks like an
invitation! Who’d like to come up and read out what it says?’

Frankie found himself springing to his feet and waving his arms in the air.

‘What’s your name, little feller?’

Frankie couldn’t believe it – Teddy Manywishes had picked him, HIM! Frankie burbled his name.

‘Well, come along now, Frankie Blewitt, we’re all waiting.’

Frankie dashed to the front before the teddy changed its mind. He took the card between his hands. It looked just like the party invitation that his cousin Amelia had sent him the year before
– all pink and sparkly, and decorated with rainbows and unicorns. He took a deep breath and read it out loud:

‘
M
is
s Marvella Brand would like you, the children of Cramley Primary, to come to a party a
t her new store. There will fun, games and
surprises!’

The children of Cramley gasped with delight. Nothing this exciting had happened in Cramley-on-the-Crump since the giraffes escaped from Mr Jojo’s circus and went stampeding down the high
street.

‘Carry on now, Frankie,’ trilled the bear, staring down at him with his big furry face and blinking his enormous mechanical eyes. ‘What else does it say?’

Frankie felt slightly unnerved by this huge smiling face hovering above him like a fuzzy balloon. Or was he just overexcited? He could no longer tell. He continued reading:

‘You will spend the whole day at my magical H
appyland before taking home a toy of your choice!

‘Lots of love and kisses

‘
Marvella XXX’

Frankie’s heart was beating like a hamster’s as the children whooped and cheered around him.

‘You can sit down now, Master Blewitt,’ said the teddy in his strange, squeaky voice. But Frankie was so dizzy with excitement he hardly heard him.

But not everyone was as excited as the schoolchildren of Cramley Primary. Alphonsine hummed and hawed and wrinkled her nose as Frankie told her about the visit over dinner.

‘I do not trust it,’ Alfie sniffed, mopping up some sauce with a crust of bread. ‘I do not like it. I am most suspishy. Why would a toy
shop
be giving toys away? They
must want something. They must be up to something. I smell a fish!’

‘You smell a
rat
,’ Frankie grumbled, disappointed that Alfie couldn’t see how great it would be to spend a WHOLE DAY at Marvella’s. He might even get his hands
on a Mechanimal Generation Three.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Alphonsine, ‘there is something very ratty about it. I do not like it at all.’

‘Alphonsine is right.’ Eddie nodded. ‘I wouldn’t put much past Marvella Brand. I’d stay away from that toyshop if I were you.’ Frankie poked at his dinner,
crossly. He didn’t see what was so very ratty about it. But, all the same, Alphonsine’s doubts left a niggle in Frankie’s mind. A niggle that he couldn’t quite shake,
however hard he tried.

As Class 5C made their way to the playground, Neet reached into the inside pocket of her blazer.

‘I got a card from Wes this morning,’ she said. Frankie’s eyes lit up.

‘How is he?’ asked Frankie. ‘Is he coming to visit soon?’ Neet passed Frankie the card. The front showed a picture of a jolly-looking Father Christmas overseeing his
elves as they loaded his sleigh with toys.

‘It’s a bit early for Christmas cards, isn’t it?’ said Frankie. ‘It’s only October.’

‘Right,’ said Neet. ‘It’s weird. And it doesn’t sound like Wes at all.’ Frankie opened the card and read. ‘Dear Neet and Frankie, I am at my Auntie
Elvira’s. It is raining non-stop. Everything is soaking wet. Hope to see you soon. Wes.’

Neet was right. It was nothing like Wes’s usual notes and letters. There were no jokes or wacky ideas, only the kind of boring stuff you write when you can’t think of anything to
say.

‘It’s like someone else has written it,’ said Frankie, ‘and there is no return address.’

Frankie frowned and started to reread the card. But he didn’t get very far.

‘No playtime for you, Frankie Blewitt!’ Mrs P was blocking his path. ‘You and Timmy are on detention, remember?’

Frankie hated detention. Who doesn’t? While Neet was outside in the autumn sunshine, he had to sit in the classroom with Timmy Snotbags and write ‘I MUST NOT START
FIGHTS’ one hundred times over.
Urrgh! So unfair!
thought Frankie.
I didn’t start it, Timmy did. I never would have hit him if he hadn’t been such a twazzock, and
anyway . . .
But there was no point arguing. He had been sentenced to spend the lunchbreak at his desk, so he picked up his pencil and got on with it.

Timmy was in a funny mood. He had been ignoring Frankie all week, but that afternoon he seemed strangely pleasant.

‘Could I borrow your spare pencil, Frankie?’ Timmy asked politely.

‘Okaaaay,’ Frankie replied, ‘but I’ve only got this green one.’

‘That’s perfect,’ said Timmy with a smile. ‘Listen, Frankie,’ he continued in his most grown-up voice, ‘shall we put it all behind us – let bygones be
bygones?’

Frankie wondered if he had cleaned his ears out properly. But Timmy seemed to be serious.

‘Uhh . . . sure, Timmy!’ Frankie smiled, relieved. ‘I’d like that.’

The boys sat in silence for half an hour, diligently copying out their lines. Frankie had been stuck in detention so many times before that he had perfected a method of writing lines that made
it as quick and painless as possible. He would start by writing ‘I’ over and over again down the margin, followed by ‘MUST’, followed by ‘NOT’, and so on. Try it
next time you’re in detention, it takes half the time, I promise.

‘I’ll take them down to Mrs Pinkerton’s office,’ Timmy offered once time was up, handing back Frankie’s pencil.

‘Thanks, Timmy,’ Frankie replied. ‘That’s nice of you.’ Timmy smiled a small compressed smile that made his mouth look like a squeezed lemon, snatched
Frankie’s worksheet and hurried out of the classroom.

Later that afternoon, Frankie was sitting in his Science lesson, designing a gadget for getting spiders out of the bath and dreaming about the trip to Marvella’s, when a
furious Mrs Pinkerton burst into the classroom. Frankie had never seen her so cross. She had turned such an alarming shade of fuchsia it was hard to tell where her jumper ended and her face began.
Uh oh, somebody’s in trouble
, thought Frankie, glad to have got his detention over with.

‘Frrrankie BLEWITT!’

Frankie looked up from his desk, confused.