5
Lily, Frances and I are sitting on hard plastic chairs outside Mr Fisher’s room. We are in big trouble. The little row in the canteen escalated into a full-on riot, with girls standing on tabletops, screaming, and boys skidding about trying to catch the rat.
Things got a little out of hand, with chips, doughnuts and dollops of rice pudding being flung about. One dinner lady fainted and landed face down in the fruit salad.
When Mr Fisher finally got the place in order, he looked around for the ringleaders.
‘How did this start?’ he roared, and all eyes swivelled to Lily, Frances and me. As he marched us out of the canteen in disgrace, I looked back over my shoulder and caught sight of Kurt Jones, sitting on the window ledge. A small, whiskery nose stuck out of his blazer pocket, sniffed politely and disappeared from view.
‘This is crazy,’ Lily fumes. ‘How come we’re getting the blame? Like it’s our fault this dump of a school is rat-infested!’
‘I’m going to be in sooooo much trouble!’ Frances wails. ‘My mum’ll kill me!’
Me, I keep a dignified silence, because I don’t quite know the English words for ‘Your school is like a lunatic asylum, the kids are all insane, chip-throwing arsonists and I wish I had the airfare back to Krakow.’ Just as well. It might sound kind of harsh.
I’m right, though, about the lunatic asylum bit. It turns out that the three of us are not in trouble for arguing in the canteen, nor even for starting a school riot. No, it’s weirder than that. We are accused of stealing a rat from the biology lab.
‘What?’ Lily snaps, when Mr Fisher explains the situation and asks us to tell him anything we might know, before the police are called in. ‘You think I nicked that scabby rat? Yeah, right!’
‘I am trying to get to the bottom of a serious crime,’ Mr Fisher replies. ‘The rat was taken from his cage this morning, by person or persons unknown, possibly under cover of the fire alarm. A message was scrawled on the whiteboard in the biology lab… Rats have rights.’
‘Rats have what?’ Lily chokes. ‘Er, no. They don’t have rights, they have fleas and germs and plague and horrible yellow teeth –’
‘I take it you have no animal rights sympathies then,’ Mr Fisher probes, and Lily rolls her eyes and huffs as if the head teacher is an especially annoying insect she’d really like to swat.
‘Animal rights?’ Frances echoes. ‘What do you mean? Are you saying that rat was rescued from the lab? What were they going to do with it? They don’t dissect rats in schools any more, surely?’
‘No, they don’t,’ Mr Fisher assures her. ‘We don’t. But I fear that the misguided pupil who took the rat may have seen the whole episode as a rescue, yes… whereas, in fact, the rat was just Mr Critchley’s pet.’
‘Gross,’ Lily says.
‘Spooky,’ Frances adds.
‘And you know nothing about the theft?’ he presses.
‘No, Sir,’ the two girls chorus.
‘Anya?’ Mr Fisher turns to me. ‘I know you’ve been finding it hard to settle in here, and that you come, of course, from a very different culture. The children in the canteen reported a confrontation between you, Lily and Frances, this lunchtime. And then, very conveniently, the rat appeared, right at your feet. Anya… did you take the rat from the biology lab?’
‘No, Sir,’ I tell him.
But I think I know who did.
*
We end up in after-school detention, Lily, Frances and me.
When Mr Fisher abandoned his search for the rat-napper and tried to unravel the canteen bullying incident, he met with a brick wall. Lily insisted the three of us were the best of friends, Frances blinked hard and agreed there really wasn’t a problem and I just sat there, stunned and silent.
Mr Fisher didn’t buy the cover-up, and kept us all in after the final bell.
‘I cannot help you unless you let me,’ he tells us now. ‘There was definitely something going on, this lunchtime. I don’t know if it was bullying, or if it was linked to the missing rat, but it was definitely something. One way or another, I intend to find out!’
‘Yes, Sir,’ Frances says, rolling her eyes.
We sit in silence, writing out the legend I must respect my fellow pupils over and over again. It’s a bit much, when Lily is the only one of us to have a problem with respect.
Over in the corner, Kurt Jones is writing lines too.
‘He’s in trouble for going missing during the fire alarm,’ Frances whispers, raising an eyebrow. ‘Good job Fisher hasn’t worked out where he really was…’
I remember Frances telling Miss Matthews that she saw Kurt running towards the science block earlier, and follow her gaze across the room. Kurt is leaning over his desk, the tip of a slim pink tail just visible, sticking out of a blazer pocket.
At four o’clock, Mr Fisher looks at his watch. ‘Well, young man,’ he says to Kurt Jones. ‘I hope you’ve learnt your lesson! Disappearing during a fire alarm is a very serious matter, even if you did need to go to the toilet rather urgently. We searched high and low for you!’
‘Sorry, Sir,’ Kurt says. ‘It won’t happen again.’
‘As for you girls,’ Mr Fisher continues, ‘I am not happy about today’s little scene in the lunch hall… not happy at all. I will be watching you all very carefully.’
‘Will you, Sir?’ Lily Caldwell says, fluttering her eyelashes and sticking her chest out a little. ‘Oh!’
Mr Fisher turns a startling shade of pink. ‘Off you go home,’ he says, exasperated. ‘All of you.’
The four of us straggle out into the rain. Kurt gives us a wave and strides on ahead, his school bag swinging, his flared trousers flapping gently in the breeze. Lily Caldwell huddles in the doorway, beneath a Hello Kitty umbrella, lighting a ciggy. She is trying to look cool and hard, but coughing way too much to look either.
Frances McGee falls into step beside me. ‘That girl is something else,’ she says darkly as we walk up towards Aigburth Road, dodging the puddles. ‘Poisonous little witch.’
‘Lily is not nice girl,’ I sigh.
‘I was right, wasn’t I?’ Frances says. ‘You understand a whole lot more than you let on. And you can speak, if you want to! So… friends?’ Frances tugs down her beanie hat against the rain.
‘Yes, friends,’ I tell her.
‘Call me Frankie,’ she says, and links my arm, and the two of us walk along together. ‘What a day,’ she sighs. ‘Arson, animal rights kidnappings, fights in the canteen, rat riots, detentions…’
‘School in England is not like home,’ I say carefully.
‘Well, not every day is like today,’ she laughs. ‘It’s not usually this good!’
I frown. I don’t think I’ve got the hang of this English sense of humour yet.
‘Does it rain always, in Liverpool?’ I ask.
Frankie laughs. ‘Of course not! The weather has been yucky since you arrived, I admit…’ She looks at me, her plump face kind. ‘You hate it, don’t you, Anya?’
‘No, I…’ The words have deserted me, and I wipe a hand across my face, pretending I’m wiping away raindrops and not tears.
‘It’s not so bad,’ Frankie says. ‘Who knows, you might even get to like it. Miracles do happen!’
Yeah, right. Then again, I guess it’s never too late to hope.
We turn the corner into Aigburth Road, and there on the pavement in front of the shops is… an angel.