I hoped that getting to practise would cheer Veronique up. But it didn’t, much, so I had another idea – I gave her the phone to call her dad.
‘So?’ I asked, after she’d hung up.
‘The doctors can’t find anything wrong with her.’
‘Brilliant!’
‘I suppose.’
‘What do you mean? Nanai’s not a doctor, is she? They’re bound to know better than her, aren’t they?’
‘I suppose,’ said Veronique again, and then Mum appeared, her eyes going wide as Frisbees to see me standing there.
The reason for Mum’s reaction was that I am normally just a tiny bit reluctant to get out of bed in the morning. Schooldays especially. Mum says it was the same when I was being born, only getting me out of bed is even more painful than getting me out of her.
‘Gas and air!’ she shouts, yanking at my duvet. ‘Get me the gas and air!’
It’s not my fault, though. It’s bed. At night you complain about having to get into it, but – magically – by the morning it’s become this perfect thing you don’t want to get out of. A quick splash of the face followed by a bowl of Weetabix are NOTHING compared to it.
‘Veronique,’ Mum said, ‘can you come over every night?’
I soon wished the same thing, because it wasn’t Weetabix for breakfast that morning like I normally have: Mum made scrambled eggs. On a Thursday! Then Veronique fed Kit-Kat and, because we hadn’t really thought what we’d do with him that day, Mum called Veronique’s dad and asked him to take Kit-Kat back to their house again.
He met us at the top of the school steps and told us again about Nanai. They’d done this test and that test, but they couldn’t find anything wrong.
‘That’s great,’ Mum said. ‘Such a relief. Though Veronique’s welcome any time. With Kit-Kat of course. What a sweet hamster.’
‘Oh, he’s not a hamster,’ Veronique’s dad said with a frown. ‘He’s a—’
‘GERBIL!’ I shouted.
‘Really?’ Mum said. ‘I could have sworn you said … Anyway, he’s adorable.’
‘And very good at Subbuteo,’ I added.
Now, after what happened yesterday, I’m sure you were expecting me to have been VERY nervous about going into school. And I was – to start with. But then I saw the van, which I’d completely forgotten about.
It was big and red and right outside the gates.
‘Yes!’ I said, and even Veronique hurried up when she saw it.
We joined the kids crowding round the van, until Miss Phillips shooed us towards the door where Frieda Delap, in Reception, was standing with this big medal round her neck. She was the one we had to thank. She’d been to the Science Museum before Christmas with her family – and seen a competition. You had to write a science-based story right there and then, which your mum or dad typed into a screen. She entered her story and a month later Mrs Johnson (our last head teacher) read it out in assembly.
And it was hilarious. A creature called a Pigglyboo saved the world from climate change by replacing coal and gas with energy from people’s lost odd socks. Veronique objected that that wasn’t very scientific but no one else cared: Frieda won! And she got not only loads of science books and posters for our classrooms but some science experiments here in our OWN SCHOOL!
‘I still don’t think the sock supply would be reliable,’ grumbled Veronique as we walked into the hall.
‘It would in our house,’ said Mrs Martin. ‘We’ve got thousands of them.’
It stopped me in my tracks to see Mrs Martin, but then I was SO relieved. She smiled at me with her big, gappy-toothed face – JUST LIKE SHE NORMALLY DID.
Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww.
Panic over.
Five minutes later, after calming down the BUZZING hall, Mr Baker told us what was going to happen. Each class was getting its own genuine Science Museum scientist – for the WHOLE day. We’d do experiments in our classroom before we all met up later for a finale. I was psyched, and then even more so when we got back to our class. I’d been expecting a wacky old man with fuzzy hair, but instead we got Jen, who had tattoos up her arms and hair that wasn’t fuzzy but short – and bright pink.
‘Okay, everyone,’ she said, ‘sit down.’
We did that, and Daisy put her hand up. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.
Jen studied us. ‘I’m going to show you something that you’ve clearly never seen before.’
‘What?’
‘Soap,’ Jen said.
Now, at first, I was a bit disappointed: what could be fun about soap? It certainly isn’t fun in our house. Mum makes me use it, which I can mostly understand, though not when she insists on me washing underneath some places and behind others WHICH NO ONE IS GOING TO SEE.
But Jen showed us that soap could be fun. First we made soap-powered boats and raced them in trays. Mine came third, after Billy Lee’s and Daisy Blake’s. (How weird is that?) Next we put washing-up liquid and food dye into milk and made these incredible patterns. Then we made bubbles that filled the whole classroom. We chased those, before making some that were so big we got to go inside them, peering out through the weird colours. It was SO great and, let me tell you, it is such a waste of soap that we use it to wash with.
That took us to lunch. After eating I discussed the Wigan game with Mrs Stebbings, our head dinner lady, who is even madder about Charlton than I am. Get this – her sister knows Jacky Chapman’s dad’s brother’s postman’s daughter! Outside I stood with the others, wondering what we were going to do later, watching the scientists setting up the last experiment of the day on the AstroTurf.
Back in class we started to learn about forces, Jen explaining what made the soap boats move. I asked about helicopters because of Jacky Chapman having his own and she told me all about this thing called ‘lift’. Then we made more boats using other things for power, like birthday candles and rubber bands, and then Jen put some cups and plates from the canteen on a tablecloth. I thought she was going to have her lunch, but as fast as she could she pulled the cloth off, leaving all the cups right there on the table!
‘I am so trying that at home,’ said Marcus Breen.
That took us up to two o’clock. We did a demonstration of our boats to the other kids and then went into their classes to see what they’d been doing. Year 3 had made rockets with balloons. I liked that, but what I was really interested in was Mrs Martin. But again she treated me normally and seemed normal herself. Double phew. After that we went into Year 2, where they’d balanced huge weights on eggs. Year 5 was next. They’d turned their whole classroom into a space station, which was wicked – but you should have SEEN the Year 6 thing.
They’d been working in the