Bill's New Frock by Anne Fine

Author:Anne Fine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Egmont
Published: 2011-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

5

The big fight

It rained all through the lunch hour. The sky went grey, the windows misted over, and from overhead came the steady gunfire sound of huge raindrops pinging smartly on the skylight.

And Mrs Collins slipped into one of her dark wet-break moods.

Everyone knew the signs: the eyebrows knitting together over her nose; the lines across her forehead deepening to furrows; her lips thinning into tightened purse strings.

Everyone knew it was not the time to cause trouble.

So as the rain beat heavily against the window panes, everyone crept quietly around the classroom, trying to look as if they were up to something useful or sensible, or, at the very least, quiet.

And out of the storeroom came the old comic box.

Nobody meant to make a great noise and a fuss. All anyone wanted was simply to go to the box, dip in their hand, and pick out a couple of comics they liked. Nobody meant to end up in a scrum, pushing and shoving the others out of the way, using their elbows, desperate to get an arm in and whip out a favourite comic before someone else leaned over and snatched it.

Nobody meant to end up in a riot.

‘SILENCE!’ roared Mrs Collins. ‘Go back to your places at once! I will give out the comics myself.’

As she came over, everyone melted away from the comic box and drifted back to their own favourite wet-break places. Talilah and Kirsty sat side by side on the fat radiator pipes. Flora perched on the window sill. Philip and Nicky sprawled on the floor beneath table five, and Bill, who probably would have joined them on any other wet day, glanced down at all the marks and smears and tears he already had on his pretty pink frock, and then at the muddy grime and footprints all over the floor where his friends were – and thought better of it.

He settled himself alone, leaning his chair back against the wall, and waited for Mrs Collins to hand round the comics.

They were a shabby and dog-eared lot. It was with a slight shudder of disgust that Mrs Collins dipped her hands in the box to lift them out, and started round the room. Like everyone else, Bill hoped so hard that she would go round his way first, but he was out of luck.

She went the other way. It took her ages.

All of the Beanos went first, of course. Then all the Dandies. She gave out a Hotspur and a Lion, then several Bunties and some Victors.

By the time she reached Bill Simpson, there was very little left.

‘Mandy?’ she offered him. ‘Or would you prefer a June or a Judy?’

He could tell from the look on her face that she wasn’t in the mood for discussion. So he contented himself with replying coldly:

‘I’ll have a Thunder, please. Or a Hornet.’

‘No more Hornets,’ she said, leafing through the last three or four comics left in her hand. ‘No Thunders, either. I thought I might still have a Valiant, but I must have given that to Rohan.

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