Untitled Adam Baron 2

Lance agreed. ‘You’re brilliant,’ he said. ‘Does that mean you can play … um …?’

‘What?’

He was so in awe he could hardly say it. ‘Star Wars?’

‘I don’t know,’ Veronique answered. ‘Who’s it by?’

Lance had to think about it. ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi.’

‘Is he Renaissance or baroque?’

‘Jedi,’ Lance said.

That was six months ago. She got the Grade 5 back last week. I was at her house. Veronique’s mum came into the kitchen waving an envelope. She had a smile on her face – but it faded. Her mum had the envelope in one hand and the results in the other and she just stared at them, amazement about to turn to disbelief, when she sighed – and picked up her phone.

‘I think there might have been a mistake,’ she said. ‘It’s Veronique Chang. C. H. A. N. G.’

But there wasn’t. The woman on the phone was sure of it. Veronique hadn’t got a Distinction and she hadn’t even got a Merit.

‘Well done anyway,’ her mum said (because she’s really nice). But then she got on the phone again, this time to Veronique’s piano teacher, and walked off into the living room to talk to him. I don’t think Veronique wanted to be there when she came back so we went outside, then down to the little wooden house at the bottom of their garden where her granny used to live (who she calls Nanai). It was quiet in there. And dusty. We stood for a minute, not speaking, just looking at all the old photographs that lined the walls, and then down at Nanai’s chair. It was even emptier than the rest of the place. There was a hollowed-out bit, likethe empty spaces we’d seen at the Pompeii exhibition at the British Museum. On top of it was a photograph. Old. Black and white, no glass left in the frame. I picked it up and we both stared at it until Veronique did something that scared me.

She began to cry.

Eeek! I watched her, with no idea WHAT to do until my hand went out, hovering over her shoulder like an X-wing starfighter, just about to land. It stayed there until her dad came in.

‘Don’t worry, love,’ he said, setting a spade down against the wall. ‘It’s just a grade exam.’

‘What?’

‘It’s okay to be disappointed. But you can do better next time, can’t you?’

Veronique didn’t answer. Instead she just stared at her dad and shook her head, tears tumbling out of her eyes like kids from a school bus. Then she did something that amazed him. She stopped crying – and began to laugh! She laughed and laughed and didn’t stop and her dad was confused. He didn’t know why she was laughing, though I did – I knew perfectly well. Of course I did! It was her NOT getting a Distinction! For the first time EVER! It wasn’t a bad thing. It wasn’t something to make her cry.

In fact, believe it or not, getting just a pass on her Grade 5 piano was one of the best things to happen to Veronique Chang in her WHOLE LIFE.

And this book is all about why.

(See you in the next chapter, then.)

TWO-AND-A-HALF WEEKS EARLIER

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It began on a Wednesday. Though not any old Wednesday. A Wednesday when someone did something.

And it was BAD.

And they did it to Mrs Martin.

I am going to repeat that.

They did it to Mrs Martin, who is, in my opinion, the best teacher ever to exist apart perhaps from Socrates, who our teacher, Miss Phillips, told us about last week. Socrates was really clever and taught this other guy, Plato, in ancient Greece. He’s a teacher legend, though Miss Phillips also told us that he drank poison and died, which must really have upset Plato’s learning pathway. Plato would also have got a supply teacher, wouldn’t he, and if he was an old horror like Mr Gorton (who we get) Plato would have been IN for it.

It happened after PE. We were up on the heath doing athletics (even though it was fr-e-e-e-e-zing). Mrs Martin does it with us because long before she was an AMAZING teacher she ran for Botswana. She even went to the Olympics, which Lance did too when they were in London (though he was only five). His dad took him but he got so excited he wet himself. By the time they got back from the loos, Usain Bolt had already finished.

‘Two hundred pounds,’ his dad says, nearly every time I go round. ‘Each, Cymbeline. To see a man jogging round a track with a flag round his shoulders.’

I’d laugh but I can’t talk, actually, because when my Uncle Bill took me to the fair once I wet myself on the Ferris wheel. It went down on the man below, who shouted up that he was going to punch Uncle Bill’s lights out. When we got off, we had to leg it (as fast as Usain Bolt, actually).

Anyway, our class was up on the heath doing running trials with Mrs Martin to pick who would be on the athletics team. I came third, after Billy Lee and Daisy Blake, though she’s so tall I really don’t think it’s fair. Each one of her legs contains about five of mine. Afterwards, we came back down to school and followed Mrs Martin towards our classroom.

We were just approaching the stairs, and Marcus Breen was doing these incredibly realistic sounds with his armpits (you know what I mean). Mrs Martin wasn’t telling Marcus off – she was trying to do even better ones. THAT’s how cool she is. She was still trying when we all got to the stairs, where she’d left her normal shoes next to one of the drip buckets which catch leaks. Our school’s really old and these buckets are dotted about here and there, and now every class has a Drip Monitor who rushes out when it starts raining and makes sure the buckets are in place. There used only to be one or two leaks, but it’s been getting worse and there are about ten buckets now.

Anyway, Mrs Martin’s shoes were open-top ones, with no straps. We all stopped as she did this little hop thing to get out of her trainers. We watched as she reached out her big toe, using it to slide her right shoe towards her. And it happened, something I need to prepare you for in case you faint, or scream, or simply drop down DEAD when you find out what someone had done.

So here goes—

Brace yourself …

I’m going to say it.

No, I really am this time …

Actually, I don’t think I can say it.

Okay, here goes, really—

They’d put jelly in her shoes.

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Actually, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

Jelly, in her shoes? Even BLUE jelly?

It was almost funny.

The problem was, this was Mrs Martin, the most totally superb teacher in the WHOLE world, and she didn’t seem to see it as funny – and neither did some of the other kids. Vi Delap gasped. Elizabeth Fisher’s mouth shot open in amazement, though probably just because she’s never done ANYTHING bad in her WHOLE life. Other kids were shocked too – because of WHO this had been done to. You see, it’s not just me who thinks Mrs Martin is AMAZING. On our first day in Year 3 she told us all to line up. We were nervous and didn’t know what she wanted. Vi was first, all shy and worried, until Mrs Martin grinned at her.

‘What’s your favourite hobby?’ she asked, her voice all soft.

‘Football,’ Vi said, because she’s really good (and no, not just for a girl – sexist!).

Without even thinking, Mrs Martin sang:

When you’re in goal and the ball flies by,

Who d’you think kicked it? Must be Vi!