The Worry Web Site (6 page)

“But—I—want—seconds—Mr.—Speed!”

“William! Close your mouth! Good lord, lad, you're spraying half-masticated morsels all over us. Watch out, Samantha. We'll have to issue you with protective clothing if William carries on chomping with such abandon.”

I had to wait and chew until my mouth was empty. It wasn't
fair
. Half the other boys got to the
hatch before me. Greg got the last portion of extra chips.

I looked at Mr. Speed.

“Don't look so reproachful, lad, I can't stand it. OK, OK. My concerns for your digestion have done you out of a few chips––”

“A whole plateful, Mr. Speed!”

“I haven't had
my
lunch yet. Stay behind and I dare say I'll donate a chip or two to you.”

He gave me
all
his chips—yummy, yummy, yummy!

“Slow down! You don't have to cram them all in together, William. I marvel at the capacity of that mouth of yours. Now, how are things at home, lad?”

I shrugged. I wouldn't have known what to say even if my mouth
wasn't
full of chips. I mean, home's
home
. What is there to say about it?

“Mum and Dad OK?”

“Mmm,” I said, swallowing.

“And how are you getting on with your brother?”

I didn't say anything but I must have pulled a face.

“That bad, eh?” said Mr. Speed, laughing.

He lowered his voice. “What about the little bed-wetting problem?”

I looked round nervously. Mr. Speed had stopped everyone calling me Wetty Willie but I didn't want them
reminded
.

“It's heaps better, Mr. Speed. Mum took me to the doctor, like you said, and I got this medicine.”

“Great! So things are looking up, William?”

“I suppose.”

“But you still feel a bit — useless?”

I stared at him. Mr. Speed is magic. I wondered how on earth he knew. He could have read it on the Worry Web Site but you're not allowed to sign your name so he couldn't possibly work out it was
me
.

“You're not useless, William.”

“I
am
, Mr. Speed.”

“No, no, no, William.”

“Yes, yes, yes, Mr. Speed. I can't do
nothing
.”

“Anything. And you
can
.” Mr. Speed screwed up his face. “You're very good at—”

I waited.

“You're a very good boy, full stop,” said Mr. Speed.

“But I wish I could be good
at
something, Mr. Speed,” I said.

“Well, perhaps we can give you a bit of extra help with your schoolwork?”

I must have pulled another face.

“Don't look so appalled! OK, OK, we'll try another tack. What about games? We could maybe get Claire to help you with your soccer skills.”

“I'm useless at soccer, Mr. Speed. I always trip myself up when I try to kick the ball.”

“Look, lad, we're not trying to turn you into David Beckham.”

“I had a David Beckham haircut in the holidays. My dad said it would make me look tough. But it didn't work.”

“Never you mind, William,” said Mr. Speed. “We'll make
something
work for you, just you wait and see. Things are going to start looking up for you, lad.”

So I waited. Nothing much happened in the afternoon. I came bottom in the spelling test. I painted a snail picture all different colors in art. I used too much water and the blue ran into the yellow and the red dribbled all down the page so that it looked as if my snail had had a nasty accident.

My mum got mad at me for getting paint all over my school trousers. Richard and I got into a fight over which of us owned a blue ballpoint. I
know
it was my pen. But Richard won. So I couldn't do my homework as I didn't have anything to write with. Then Dad came home and Richard and I played catch with him in the garden. Well, Dad and Richard played catch. I played drop.

Then we had spag bol for dinner (I'm not even going to
try
to spell it all out). It was hotter than I thought so I had to spit my first mouthful out. Mum thumped me and Dad shouted at me for crying and Richard laughed at me for being a baby.

I went to bed. And don't tell anyone but I wet myself because I forgot to take my special medicine.

Things haven't looked up
yet
.

When I got to school I looked at the Worry Web Site to see if I'd got any comments.

I'm sure you're not useless at everything.

Don't worry, I'm pretty useless at everything too.

I bet you're useFUL, not useLESS.

Things started to look up quite a bit. I felt so pleased that people didn't seem to think I was useless after all. Though of course they didn't know it was me. Perhaps if I'd put my name they'd have said I was ultra-ultra-ultra-useless. Especially as I can't always spell my name right.

We had another spelling test, which was a bit of a nasty surprise as we only usually have one a week.

“Don't look so downhearted, children. There are going to be two special prizes to spur you on. Two of my very special pens, no less.”

Mr. Speed produced a pen from each pocket like a cowboy whipping out two guns. Mr. Speed's pens
are
special. They are black and they write with a very fine line. They make the worst handwriting in the world look much neater. Mr. Speed goes crazy if any of us borrow his special pens. But now he was giving away
two
as prizes—and it wasn't even the end of term.

I wished I was good at spelling. But I am such
rubbish at spelling I knew it was absolutely no use hoping to win a pen.

“I want you all to try very hard,” said Mr. Speed, and then he started saying all these words.

There was a lot of sighing and muttering and nibbling of pens. Some of the class whispered.

“I want absolutely
no
conferring,” said Mr. Speed.

Nobody tried to confer with me anyway. Which is not surprising. I can't even
spell
surprising.

Mr. Speed told us to have a go at spelling everything, so I did. Even the very, very hard words. I'm not going to write them here—I'll never get them right.

I did lots and lots of crossings out. So many that my paper tore. But it didn't really matter. I knew I wasn't going to do well in the spelling test. I knew I was going to do really, really badly.

I was right. We had to swap papers. Lisa marked mine and I marked hers. Lisa is clever. She got fourteen out of twenty. She is also kind. I didn't get
any
of my spellings right. She put up her hand to talk to Mr. Speed.

“William's very nearly spelt
naughty
right, Mr. Speed. And his
because
has only got one mistake. So could he have a half each for those?”

“Absolutely not,” said Mr. Speed. “A word is either spelt correctly or it isn't. And William's
isn't
.”

“But that's not very fair, Mr. Speed,” said Lisa.

“Life isn't fair, Lisa,” said Mr. Speed gently.

I hoped Lisa might win one of Mr. Speed's pens but Holly got
eighteen
spellings completely correct. She was really pleased to win the pen, especially as her little sister, Hannah, had leant too hard on Holly's old pen and made it go all splodgy.

“Maybe you'll win the second pen, Lisa,” I said hopefully.

But Samantha got sixteen spellings absolutely ace-standard correct. She batted her big blue eyes, looking very, very hopeful.

“Now we have the
second
prizewinner,” said Mr. Speed. Strangely, he wasn't looking at Samantha. He was looking at
me
!

“This goes to the child who has had the sheer dogged temerity to resist all my persuasive teaching skills and persists in being a truly inventively gargantuan appalling speller.”

I gaped at Mr. Speed. I hadn't understood a word he was saying. But I understood the
next
bit.

“The second pen is awarded to the child who has the
most
spelling mistakes. Step forward, William!”

So
I
got the second prize pen. Some of the children groaned and said it wasn't fair—but most of them clapped. Greg even
cheered
!

I felt very, very, very pleased.

I didn't feel exactly
proud
, though. I am a bit thick but I'm not completely stupid. I knew it was just a booby prize. It's not the same getting a prize for being the worst at something. I still wished I could be the
best
at something so I wouldn't feel quite so useless.

Mr. Speed always makes up a story for us after spelling. He uses every single spelling word within the story. It was one of his
When I was a little boy
stories. He told us his accommodation was a miniature but pleasant house and his parents paid him every attention even though it was occasionally necessary to discipline him because he was so naughty. He enjoyed eating delicious breakfasts, especially sausages. He ate his substantial sausages with such determined commitment that he invariably made himself physically sick but this was a penalty he bore with relative indifference. His sausage consumption was brilliant training for the daily Enormous Mouthful contest that took place at lunchtime.

Mr. Speed wanted to stop his story then and there because he'd used up all the hard spelling words but we all complained and said, ‘No, Mr. Speed, go on, tell us more,’ because we all wanted to hear about the Enormous Mouthful contest.

“You mean I've never told you about the
Enormous Mouthful contest?” said Mr. Speed, looking astonished. “Well, maybe it's just as well. If I tell you about it you'll only start up something similar yourselves.”

“No we won't, Mr. Speed,” we all chorused.

“Oh yes you will!”

“Oh no we won't!”

We went on like this, getting louder, Mr. Speed conducting us with his arms. Then he quickly put his finger to his lips and we all
whispered
—even me. This is a game we play when Mr. Speed is in a good mood.

Then he told us all about the food they had for school lunches when he was a little boy. You couldn't choose in those long-ago days. You never ever had chips (my favorites). You had disgusting things like smelly stew all glistening with fat and gray ground meat that looked as if someone had chewed it all up. You had cabbage like old seaweed and lumpy mashed potato and tinned peas that smelt like feet.

“But we ate it all up because if you didn't you weren't allowed to have pudding. Puddings were the whole
point
of school lunches. We had jam roly-poly and bread-and-butter pudding and chocolate sponge with chocolate sauce and apple pie and custard and, absolute best of all, trifle. There were also a lot of boring puddings like rice and semolina and something particularly revolting called tapioca that
looked like frog spawn—but even these were palatable because we were given spoonfuls of jam or brown sugar or raisins. Those of us who were particularly greedy wangled
two
spoonfuls. These were to be savored. However, the milk puddings needed to be golloped down as quickly as possible because they were so horrible.
That
was the start of the Enormous Mouthful club. Someone got hold of a big serving spoon and we had this ridiculous contest to see who could swallow the largest mouthful.”

“Did you win, Mr. Speed?”

“Do you think I would have been such a rude and ill-mannered and mischievous child as to take part in such an indigestion-inducing eating contest?” said Mr. Speed.

“YES!” we yelled.

Mr. Speed grinned and bowed. ‘You know me well, my children. Yes, I took part. Yes, I choked and spluttered and snorted and got violent hiccups. And
yes
, I won the Enormous Mouthful contest.’ Mr. Speed paused. ‘But you children are strictly forbidden to take part in any similar contest. Do you all hear me?’

“Yes, Mr. Speed,” we said.

“And to hear—?”

“Is to obey,” we chorused.

We heard, all right. But of course we didn't obey. We had our very own Enormous Mouthful contest at
lunchtime. It was not quite as easy for us. We didn't have milk puddings, which are soft and slippy. We have bulky, crunchy, crispy food that won't go with one swallow. We had to experiment and do an awful lot of chewing (and a little choking too).

Chips proved to be the easiest food for the Enormous Mouthful contest. My favorite.

I shoveled up an entire plateful of chips and crammed them all into my mouth and I WON the Enormous Mouthful contest!

I came FIRST.

So I'm not useless. I'm the champion Enormous Mouthful Eater of all time. Whoopee! Whoopee! Whoopee!

Mr. Speed was right. Things have looked up
enormously
.

Type in your worry:

I miss my dad. It's just not the same now he's gone. And my mum is either sad or snappy nowadays. And my little brother is ever so naughty and keeps spoiling all my things. And no one wants to be my boyfriend. And I don't think my teacher likes me anymore either. He always used to pick me to be his special messenger but now he picks Holly. Or Greg. Or Claire. Or even William.

It's so awful. I've always been the girl everyone
likes
. Everyone always wants to sit next to me or be my partner. Everyone wants to be invited for tea at my house or come to my party.

But now it's all changed.

Dad went last year. He and Mum had lots of rows
but everyone's parents have rows. I didn't
like
it but it didn't really bother me. My little brother, Simon, used to crawl into my bed and sit on my lap and he made me cup my hands over his funny little sticky-out ears so he couldn't hear the shouting.

I didn't have anyone to put their hands over my ears but I didn't mind too much. I wanted to know what was going on. I was always on Dad's side no matter what. I love my mum but she's not
Dad
. Dad looks like a film star, he really does, with lovely blond hair and deep blue eyes and he's really fit too because he works out and plays a lot of sport. That was what Mum and Dad rowed about. Dad always flirted with all the ladies he met at badminton and tennis and swimming. My mum used to go too but then she had me and couldn't get out so much and then she had Simon and stayed a bit plump so she didn't want to wear tight sporty clothes anyway.