Little Bad Wolf

  The bell rang for the next class. Samantha, the one student who had not gone to look at the notice board was talking loudly in a way to ensure that she would irritate at least three students.

  “Of course, I knew about it before hand,” she was saying, almost shouting. “My daddy told Mrs Hurray-Bill to do this. He is very happy with this. He thinks the school is copping on at last and doing something about this mess they have got themselves into.”

  One of her friends asked her which mess. She rolled her eyes and looked over at Little Bad Wolf. Her friend just said “Oh! I see.”

  There was no time given for the new rule to be implemented but most students had guessed that if Little Bad Wolf did not find some clothes before tomorrow that she would very soon have to leave the school.

  Everyone told her this. Her friends said “Do not be afraid we will think of something.” Others asked her what she thought of the new school rule. Several times Samantha walked past Little Bad Wolf with one or other of her friends discussing loudly what they should wear tomorrow.

  Louise and Matt went home that day very worried about the new rule. Little Bad Wolf had told them they need not worry as she had her T-shirts.

  “Do you want to come with me and find clothes for school?” asked Louise.

  “My baby brother would literally be about the same size as you,” said Matt. “You could come home with me and borrow them.”

  “No tha-ank you,” said Little Bad Wolf.

  Little Bad Wolf went off in search of Rosie and ET. She knew that if she had explained to Matt and Louise that she wanted to get away from people for a while they would not have understood why.

  Little Bad Wolf found ET and Rosie sniffing a tree very intently

  “Oh Wolfie,” said Rosie. “Have a sniff. There’s an unusual one here.”

  Little Bad Wolf smelt the foot of the tree as suggested. “It looks like there’s a new dog walking in the woods.”

  “It smells like an older dog to me,” said ET.

  “I know. I meant new to the woods,” said Little Bad Wolf.

  She felt so comfortable walking through the woods with her friends, investigating the smells and talking about things which dogs and wolves understood. It was a feeling that she belonged. Despite Matt and Louise and all the friendship she got from them, it was a feeling she never got at school.

  Rosie was telling them how she had had to go to the vet’s yesterday.

  “I was going to bite his bottom,” she barked as ET and Little Bad Wolf exchanged knowing looks.

  “I am an important dog and not just anyone can put me on a table and start poking around. It’s our crazy owners. Always worrying. I did not eat breakfast as I was not feeling well and they make me feel worse by dragging me to the vet. And all so he can tell them that I am in good health. Waste of my time. I would be perfectly within my rights to bite all their bottoms.”

  Little Bad Wolf went home to the den feeling much happier after having been with Rosie and ET.

 

  Chapter 17 Rock Fashion

  Neither of her aunts understood why she had to wear clothes.

  “It is as if they are trying to figure out some way to find an excuse to expel you,” said Aunt Martha.

  “You have got it in one,” replied Little Bad Wolf.

  “Very strange,” said Aunt Matilda. “If they wanted to expel you, why don’t they just ask you to leave the school and stop these silly games?”

  “I think this is the way people do things,” said Little Bad Wolf. “They have allowed me to come to school and they do not want to admit that they have made a mistake so they invent some reason to expel me.”

  “Very strange,” said Aunt Martha.

  “Very strange, indeed,” said Aunt Matilda. “Let’s just leave the school. You have two of the cleverest wolves as aunts and we can teach you.”

  “You would learn far more about the ways of the forest from us, I might add,” said Aunt Martha, “I think this school has many things lacking in what they teach. At the very least they should have a class on identifying smells.”

  “I know this,” said Little Bad Wolf. “It’s funny but now they are trying to get rid of me, it has become more important. It is sometimes very frightening to go to school past those people with the banners who protest outside. Usually they are quiet when I go past but I hear them before they see me. They say these horrible things about wolves and not just me. They also say stuff about my dad.”

  Neither Aunt wanted to talk much more once she had mentioned her father and they got back to packing her school books as Little Bad Wolf for the first time put on clothes before she went to school. They knew that Little Bad Wolf’s main reason for going to school was to learn the language of the people. Little Bad Wolf thought that if she could speak and read and write, she would convince the judge to let her dad out of prison. Her aunts were not so sure.

  “So who is this Lady Pank?” said Louise. She and Matt could not stop laughing when they saw Little Bad Wolf with a T-shirt with a picture of five very strange, hairy men. They all wore leathers, dark sun glasses and looked like desperados. On top was the text ‘Lady Pank’ and below the picture was the text, ‘Little Lady Punk’.

  “They are a ro-ock band” said Little Bad Wolf.

  “I kinda guessed that much but I’ve never heard of them,” said Louise.

  “I don’t know mu-och about them,” said Little Bad Wolf. “It was my mo-ther’s T-shirt. I thought pe-ople knew about the-ese sorts of th-ings.

  Matt phoned his dad on his mobile phone and was again laughing as he talked with him. “He says they’re a rock band from Germany or Poland or somewhere. He says they have been around for ages and should have been locked up years ago.”

  “Are they crim-in-als?” asked Little Bad Wolf.

  “That’s just an expression my dad has for people who he thinks are pretty cool. He always says that they should be locked up. I don’t know why. Oh, and apparently this (he pointed at the text ‘Little Lady Punk’) was one of their early songs. ”

  Ms Potterer was their first class of the day. She had looked nervous until she saw Little Bad Wolf and then seemed to find it very hard to stop herself laughing. Ms Potterer was usually very nice to Little Bad Wolf and would ask her questions and involve her a lot in the class. Most of the other teachers now ignored Little Bad Wolf. Whenever hers was the only hand (or paw) up to answer a question they would go on. Mr Clogs was the only other teacher who would regularly ask her questions but his were usually questions that were difficult to answer. Mr Clogs asked all of his pupils questions which were difficult to answer.

  Today though, Ms Potterer was trying not to notice Little Bad Wolf. There were several times where she could have asked the class a question but did not because she knew Little Bad Wolf would want to answer it. She got Claire and Tommy to read as these were the two pupils who sat farthest away from Little Bad Wolf. When the lesson was over, she looked at Little Bad Wolf, said “Nice T-shirt” and winked.

  Mr Clogs did not share Ms Potterer’s appreciation of the T-shirt. He was teaching the class immediately after the morning break. He walked in looking his usual confident self and was about to bellow instructions to the class when he saw Little Bad Wolf in her T-shirt. He went a bright shade of red but instead of exploding in a fit of temper went outside the door. He was there for at least three minutes and the class could hear him huffing and puffing outside.

  He was still fuming when he walked back into the class room.

  “There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law,” he bellowed. “Can one of you fine pupils tell me what is the difference.”

  Only Samantha’s hand shot up.

  “Miss Silliman, thank you but please wait. I would like to ask some others first,” said Mr Clogs.

  “Perhaps, Miss Wolf would like to answer. Tell me Miss Wolf what is the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law?”

  “Mr Clogs Sir, I think
this is an expression used by people which I have never heard before. I do not know.”

  “It certainly looks like you do not know. Maybe one of your friends would like to help you. Louise can you answer this?”

  “Well Sir, it’s like when everyone knows a law means one thing and the purpose of it is that one thing but it can be misinterpreted because technically the words do not actually say what they want to achieve.”

  “I think I understand your meaning and you are very close. However can you think of an example? I would be particularly interested in examples close to the school.”

  Louise did not say anything so Mr Clogs asked her again and this time she just said no.

  “Well Samantha, It seems you have to rescue me. Can you give an example?”

  “Thanks you Mr Clogs. I think if a new rule appeared in school and the pupils instead of following it as intended started doing something which was not at all the intention of the rule. In that case you could say the student followed the letter of the law but not the spirit.”

  “Very good. Could you be more specific?”

  “Well sir, if I came in some T-shirt with a picture of some degenerate rock band on it I might be obeying the letter of the law but this is certainly not what was intended so I would not be obeying the spirit of the law.”

  “Very good, may I now ask you to go over to Miss Wolf and explain this to her.”

  Samantha had a look which suggested she would be delighted to do just that but Mr Clogs stopped her as she was getting out of her seat.

  “It’s OK please sit down,” he said. “But Miss Wolf do you understand that T-shirts with pictures of some degenerates is not what we mean when we put a notice up about how our pupils should be suitably dressed for school.”

  He sighed and then raised his voice again. “Do you understand? Does everybody understand?”

  The class said they did. Mr Clogs at last started teaching.

  Little Bad Wolf left the schools feeling very angry. This rule about clothes was intended just to kick her out of the school and now that she found a way to obey the rule Mr Clogs was giving out to her for not obeying the spirit of the law. The spirit of this rule was very mean indeed and had only one purpose. She left school angry and determined. She hoped that there would be some T-shirt at the den that would be even less acceptable to Mr Clogs. She was also determined that she would not leave school without a fight.

  This time Matt’s father had no idea what the T-shirt was about. Matt had phoned his father again and described it to him. “It’s black with yellow writing. In very big letters there is the word ‘Radiators’ and in smaller letter below that are the words ‘from space’. Oh and the text is slanted going from bottom left hand corner to the top right.”

  “No strange pictures of rock stars?” His father asked him.

  “Not this time”

  “Well we can look it up when you get home.”

  Matt, Louise and Little Bad Wolf would have liked to know more about what this T-shirt meant but seemed happy when no-one else knew what it was about either. That way Little Bad Wolf could not be blamed for having a T-shirt of some offensive rock band.

  “Are you trying to be funny, Miss Wolf?” screamed Mr Clogs. He was teaching the last class of the day. None of the other teachers had made any comments about clothes or anything and the day had gone very well. At least Little Bad Wolf thought the day had gone well. Then Mr Clogs came into the classroom.

  “Please take out your books and open page...” Mr Clogs did not finish his sentence. He stared at Little Bad Wolf and went redder and redder. Every other child in the room was reminded of a cartoon when someone is getting angrier and angrier and smoke starts rising from the top of her head. Little Bad Wolf had no television and had seen very few cartoons. She was more concerned with what Mr Clogs would do.

  He stormed out of the classroom. They all heard him storm up and down the corridor. He then came back in, stared at Little Bad Wolf and asked whether she was trying to be funny.

  “I am obey-ing a rule that is stup-id,” said Little Bad Wolf. “Al-most half this class have worn T-shirts with ro-ock bands and no-one has ever got into tro-uble.

  “We try to accommodate all students in this school. Even when we get attacked and ridiculed for it.” Mr Clogs was almost but quite shouting. “And this is how we get repaid. Miss Wolf will you please go home and think about what you wear to school.”

  Samantha could see that the class were all full of sympathy for Little Bad Wolf as she packed her bags and started to leave. She had to do something to stop this wave of sympathy. Very quietly she said, “Well done sir.”

  Mr Clogs looked around at her. He was about to smile but instead simply got his composure back and said in a voice that strong but not too loud, “Page seventeen.”

  “Excuse me Sir. Page seventeen?” said Tommy who was only expressing the surprise at being brought back to the lesson which the rest of the class was feeling.

  “You seem surprised that I am asking you to open your book,” said Mr Clogs. “I hope this does not mean I have another pupil who has to be reminded they are at school and not some rock concert.” Mr Clogs said ‘rock concert’ as if it was something very horrible. His voice then lost all of its tension as he asked Samantha to read.

  Little Bad Wolf did not want to go home straight away as if she did she would have to explain to her aunts why she had left the school early so she wondered in the forest. Pretty quickly she came across her two corgi friends who were investigating a tree.

  “Hey Wolfie,” said Rosie. “Good job you came along. There’s a lot of funny smells here and we can’t figure out who they belong to.”

  Little Bad Wolf said she did not really feel like investigating smells and told them what had happened at school.

  “I was wondering why you were wearing a T-shirt,” said ET. Rosie just offered to bite Mr Clogs’ bottom. As always this cheered up Little Bad Wolf.

  “We have had a lot of music in our house recently,” said ET.

  “ET is putting this nicely,” said Rosie. “Marcus has decided that what the world needs now is for him to be singing and playing a guitar. He is even thinking of playing in public but I think he will need me to threaten to bite the bottom of anyone who does not appreciate it.”

  “I am sure they will like it,” said ET.

  “Maybe,” said Rosie. “But the songs are a bit miserable. One starts with ‘Hello darkness my old friend’.”

  “Rosie is right. It seems the more miserable the words the more they like it,” said ET.

  “People are very strange,” said Little Bad Wolf.

 

  Chapter 18 Another Notice

  There are many things in a school which everyone knows a school needs but which are always ignored. The school notice board was one of these things. Until Mr Clogs had pointed out that there was a new school rule on it, none of the pupils could ever remember reading a single word of any notice which had been put on this board. The notice board was situated strategically close to the door the pupils used from the school yard and there was no excuse for any of them ignoring it. The notice informing the pupils that it was not acceptable for them to come to school in the nude had been in the centre of the board but today it was moved to the left. The centre position was now occupied by a notice with the title ‘Elocution tests’. Louise, Matt and Little Bad Wolf had just entered the school and saw Tommy already staring at the poster.

  “Oh great.” said Tommy. “I love tests.”

  “You’re not serious,” said Louise, her voice showing her annoyance with this new challenge.

  “What could be better,” said Tommy. “An elocution test. I love elocution. I love tests.”

  “Have you seen the small print?” said Matt.

  “What do you mean?” said Tommy.

  “Well, it says here that unfortunately any student who cannot pass this test will be transferred to a more appropriate school.”

  “I su
ppose that makes sense,” said Tommy. “If a pupil cannot pass this test then maybe another school would be better.”

  “There’s more small print,” said Louise. “It says they will be transferred to another school if that school accepts them, If not they will have to leave school and apply to come here again.”

  “It’s unusual to have so many extra rules in a test,” said Tommy.

  “It most certainly is,” said Louise. When she looked at this poster for the elocution tests she realised that there was a lot about it that was unusual. Tests were usually done one class at a time and this was the first time that a test for the whole school was announced like this. The poster also went into detail about how the test would be carried out. Each pupil would do the test on their own with a teacher. The other thing which was unusual was what Matt had called ‘the small print’. None of them had ever heard of a test where if you failed you would be expelled.

  Little Bad Wolf had not said anything. She knew what was supposed to happen. The test would have lots of long words with ‘S’s and ‘T’s and ‘X’s. There would be one pupil who would not be able to pronounce these words. There would be one pupil who would not pass this test. That one pupil would be her. They would pretend to be very sorry as they explained that the school has a high standard to keep and they were not in the least bit prejudiced but maybe their heroic experiment in letting a wolf into the school was too early. She looked up at the sign again and sighed and turned away towards the door.

 

  Chapter 19 Elocution Test

  The plan seemed simple. Little Bad Wolf would put the micro radio in her ear and attach a tiny microphone to her fur. Matt’s dad would hear what she was being asked to pronounce and would slowly pronounce the word in a way she could copy. They had practised it and it had worked well. Louise and Matt thought this was a very clever and wonderful idea. Only Little Bad Wolf had any problems with it. She thought it cheating and descending to their level.