Eventually, Lamp decided he liked earthquakes, so Casper had some more time to look out of the window. When he looked back, Lamp was scratching his oily black hair and then sniffing his finger. “Strawberry,” he said. “Must be Monday.”
Casper frowned. “What?”
“I invented a shampoo that knows what day it is. It changes flavour to match. Monday means strawberry.”
“Oh…” Casper frowned.
“And you know I smelt of eggs yesterday?”
“Was that the shampoo too?”
“Nope, I’d just been eating them. Got my last three here. Want one?” He pulled three boiled eggs from an inner pocket of his blazer.
Casper took an egg to keep Lamp happy and placed it carefully in his backpack.
Lamp licked his lips and saved his two for later.
“OY! WOSSAT?” A shriek tore from the back of the carriage.
“It’s Anemonie!” whispered Casper. “What does she want?”
“I want that! It’s mine!” A small, pointy-nosed girl with squinty eyes and dark hair stomped up the aisle, pointing straight at Lamp with her sharpened pink fingernails. Her sickly sweet perfume made Casper gag.
Lamp plunged his eggs into his pocket and pretended to be asleep.
“What were you holding? Give it.”
“Zzzzzz,” snored Lamp. Then he opened one eye and whispered, “Has she gone yet, Casper?”
Anemonie Blight jabbed a few fingernails into Lamp’s side.
“Ouch! I mean… zzz. Oh, bother.” The game was up.
“Give it.” Anemonie reached for a sharp-tipped pencil that she kept behind her ear. “Last warning, Flannigan. This pencil is leaded.”
“Fine. Didn’t want it, anyway.” Lamp withdrew his trembling hand from the pocket clutching one of the boiled eggs.
“An egg?” Anemonie’s face wrinkled with disgust. She swatted the egg at Milly Mollyband, but it missed and struck Milly Mollyband.
Anemonie snarled. “Now, gimme your lunch money.”
“That was my lunch,” said Lamp, staring hungrily at Milly Mollyband’s blazer.
“How ’bout yours, then, Candlewacks?” Anemonie swung the pencil towards Casper.
Casper considered giving Anemonie his egg as well, but he valued not having a pencil sticking out of his face a bit too much for that. The two one-pound coins that he’d brought for lunch weighed heavily in his pocket. Begrudgingly, he handed them over.
“There. Not so hard, was it?” Anemonie smiled her sickly smile and skipped away back down the carriage to play ‘Ding Dong Bell’ on Teresa Louncher’s pigtails.
Casper sighed. Anemonie had been stealing his lunch money for as long as he could remember, but for some reason he thought going to senior school would change things.
One of Teresa’s pigtails landed on his table with a plap. Evidently things hadn’t changed.
“I miss my egg,” moaned Lamp.
“Here. Have mine.” Giving Lamp his egg back cheered him hugely. He sang some jolly songs until he ran out of breath, and then he went blue because he forgot to breathe in again, so Casper had to remind him.
The road bent round and Casper caught his first sight of High Kobb – an ugly mass of grey towers and belching chimneys scarring the beautiful landscape like a scab on a princess.
As the country roads became paved streets, Casper longed to be home again. The endless dusty concrete and nose-to-tail traffic made his heart sink. Luckily he saw no alligators in the gutters and the people walking the streets looked like businessmen, not murderers. But their business might have been murdering people, so Casper didn’t fully relax.
The tractor turned a corner and rolled up through a pair of massive wrought-iron gates, grinding to a halt inside a drab concrete playground full of pupils dressed in black blazers and yellow ties.
“My new kingdom!” screeched Anemonie. “Move outta the way, I’m getting off first.” She barged Ted Treadington aside with a well-placed elbow, and the rest of the kids scurried out of the aisle to let her pass.
Anemonie jumped down the steps and landed with her arms outstretched on the tarmac. “All right, boys and girls, listen up or I’ll spread you on my toast. The name’s Anemonie Blight and I’m in charge here.”
The High Kobb kids ran about, skipping and jumping and paying absolutely no attention.
“I SAID LISTEN!” Anemonie’s face swelled redder.
Casper, Lamp and the bolder Corne-on-the-Kobb kids tiptoed off the carriage and stood behind Anemonie.
Sixteen older kids whooshed past after a football, creating a small hurricane that blew over Milly and Milly Mollyband.
“YOU BOYS. STOP IT! I’M ANEMONIE BLIGHT! I’M ANEMONIE BLIGHT! LISTEN TO ME!”
A scruffy little boy came flying through the air and crunched to the ground at Anemonie’s feet.
Anemonie screamed.
Casper dashed forward and shoved Anemonie out of the way. The boy looked pretty dazed. “Are you OK?”
“Casper,” gasped Lamp, “did you see that? They can fly in big boys’ school!”
The boy had short, shaven hair and a bony little face. His uniform was made of faded baggy hand-me-downs and there was a cut on his lip. He blinked a few times and then his eyes focused on Casper. “I’m f-f-fine. Just playing r-rugby.”
Casper frowned. “Then why were you—”
“I was the b-ball.”
“Oh.”
“Not my f-f-favourite position,” the boy said. “The B-brewster b-brothers chose it.”
“The Brewster brothers?”
“You’re n-not from r-round here, are you?” Wincing, the boy made his way to a standing position. “My name’s S-snivel. I know what you’re finking. S-stupid name.”
“It’s not that stupid,” said Casper. “He’s called Lamp.”
Lamp waved.
“And I’m Casper.” Casper went to shake Snivel’s hand, but he jumped back, terrified. “Don’t worry, I only wanted to shake hands.”
Snivel stared at Casper’s hand. “Yeah, s-s-sorry. I’m n-not used to…”
There was an awkward shuffling while everyone worked out where to put their hands. Casper put his in his pockets and Lamp put his in Casper’s bag, but then Lamp wanted them back and couldn’t remember where he’d left them, so Casper had to take off his bag to find them for him.
All the while at the side of the group, Anemonie was desperately screeching commands at three girls and a skipping