said, “Yeh, what do you want, to keep stumpf?”
With her hands on her hips, looking ever so smug, Lousy Linda replied, “A kiss, I want a kiss from each of you!”
“A kiss?” the two boys bemoaned. “Yuk! Anything but that!”
Standing her ground, fully intent on achieving her wish, no matter what, Lousy Linda said, “It’s a kiss or nothing...”
The two boys, their heads lowered, ashamed that they had allowed themselves to get into such a dire situation, drew shapes in the dusty ground with their feet, hoping the moment might pass. It did not.
“Well, are you going to kiss me?” asked Lousy Linda. “Or must I go tell teacher what you have been up to?”
“But...you didn’t see!” mumbled Barmy Bernard.
“So, you have been up to something!” laughed their Lousy classmate. “I knew it, I just knew it!”
“But, but...” the Barmy bungler mumbled.
“Shut up!” warned Horrible Horace. “Don’t you think you’ve said enough?”
Feeling powerful, in control of the conversation – and where it was heading (two big, fat and juicy kisses), Lousy Linda continued with her torturous line of enquiry, “Well, are you boys going to kiss me, or do I have to go tell on you?”
Having painted themselves into a corner, the two boys had no option other than facing their demons.
“Okay,” said Horrible Horace, “we’ll do it, we’ll kiss you.”
“What? Are you stark raving mad!” Barmy Bernard asked, thinking his best friend had flipped his cork.
“Hush,” said Horrible Horace,” we have a fair damsel to kiss,
“What has gotten into you?” asked Barmy Bernard, “I thought you hated kissing, and especially so with HER!”
Ignoring his best friend, Horrible Horace approached his nemesis, then holding his breath he dived in and kissed her on the cheek. Having done it, he retreated as fast as was humanly possible. Wiping his lips clean, he said, “It’s your turn now, Barmy, and the best of British luck.”
Holding his breath, copying his best friend’s selfless example, Barmy Bernard waded in to the affray, kissing Lousy Linda on the other cheek, then retreating fast and furious, to what he considered was a safe distance, he also wiped his lips.
Smiling from ear to ear, Lousy Linda was in paradise. One boy kissing her would have been tremendously good, but two of them left her speechless with delight.
“Okay,” said Barmy Bernard, “now that that’s over, what do we do next?”
Smiling mischievously, Horrible Horace said, “We wait until Miss Battle-Scars rings her bell.”
“Then we will go inside,” Barmy Bernard continued, speaking for him, “and sit down at our desks, waiting for her to do likewise?”
“Yeh,” his best friend replied, laughing. “Then the fireworks will begin...”
Although she was standing a distance from the two boys, Lousy Linda was well within earshot. However, she showed no reaction, no reaction at all, to what they had been saying. Why would she, though, when she was still in paradise?
Ring a ling, the school bell rang out, ring a ling a ling. “Dinner break’s over. Everybody into line,” Miss Battle-Scars ordered. “That also means you, Tommy Tilbert!”
When all of the pupils had lined up to her satisfaction, Miss Battle-Scars said, “First line of children will now proceed into school.” When they had gone in, she said, “Second line of children will now proceed into school.” So it continued until all of the children had filed past her, into their various classrooms.
Sitting down at his desk, Barmy said, “Where did you vanish to, Horrible?”
“I had a bit of business to attend to,” he replied.
“Business? What business?” his best friend asked.
“I can’t say anymore, like spies, remember?”
Seemingly satisfied with this explanation, Barmy Bernard said, “It won’t be long now, Horrible!”
“No, not long at all,” his best friend, answered indifferently
“What’s poured water on your party?” Barmy Bernard asked. “You are acting almost a glum as when you arrived at school this morning.”
Nodding his head in the direction of Lousy Linda, he replied, “It’s her, old Lousy boots...”
“Her? I thought she was okay, that she was happy after we made fools of ourselves, kissing her.”
She was...until she came back into class, to the scene of our crime... look at her, with those beady eyes of hers, scanning everything, wondering what we have done.”
“Do you think she will tell old Battle-Scars?”
“I’m sure of it...and that’s why I–”
“Arithmetic lesson,” said Miss Battle-Scars, as she entered the classroom and began wiping the blackboard with the duster. “Please take out your exercise books.”
Desks opened; small fingers and hands searched for the dreaded Arithmetic exercise books.
“Has everyone got their books open?”Miss Battle-Scars asked, eying each child as she spoke.
“Pst, Horrible,” Barmy Bernard whispered. “She’s not sitting down!”
“Shush!” Horrible Horace warned, speaking rather loudly. “Do you want everyone to hear?”
“Sorry,” Barmy apologised, “got a bit carried away.”
“What did you say?” asked Lousy Linda, from two desks behind.
Ignoring her, the two boys copied down the sums Miss Battle-Scars was writing on the blackboard.
“I heard what you said!” Lousy Linda retorted.
“Turning to face her, Barmy Bernard said, “Then why did you ask, if you already know that it’s on her chair?”
“Hah!” Lousy Linda cried out, “So that’s it, you’ve put something on Battle-Scars’ chair!”
“That’s it? What’s it?” asked Miss Battle-Scars, who had meanwhile stopped writing on the blackboard, to listen.
Along with her teacher’s eyes, Lousy Linda felt those of every child in the classroom fixed doggedly upon her.
“Well?” Miss Battle-Scars asked. “What is so important that you have to shout about it, distracting your fellow pupils from their sums?”
“I, I, I was...” the Lousy pupil replied, her lame excuse fast running out of steam and momentum.
“There will be no ifs and buts, here,” her teacher chided.
“But I never said that...” she protested.
“There have been far too many of those types of excuses, here, already.”
“It was them – THEM!” Lousy Linda snarled, fighting back, pointing a trembling finger at Horrible Horace and Barmy Bernard. “It was those two creeps who started it!” she roared.
“If you are going to try and implicate your fellow pupils in something that is all too obviously of your own making,” Miss Battle-Scars warned, “I suggest you come up to the front of the classroom and sit in my chair, where everyone can keep a watchful eye on you.”
Begrudgingly, reluctantly, the Lousy pupil got up from her desk and made her way to the front of the classroom. Edging closer and closer to her teacher’s chair, Lousy Linda eyed it with growing concern.
“Well, what are you waiting for, child?” said Miss Battle-Scars, “Sit, sit down and start arithmeticking!”
“But, but what if...”
“No ifs and buts, remember?”
Pulling the chair out from under the desk, Lousy Linda was certain she was going to see something lurking there, like a frog, or a wasps nest, or even a stink bomb, ready to explode when sat upon, but she saw nothing, nothing at all. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Lousy Linda plonked herself down on the chair...
KAPOW! BLAM, PHYZZT! The chair (with Lousy Linda still sitting upon it) shot high into the air, so high both it and the startled girl smashed hard into the ceiling.
“What are you doing up there, child?” asked Miss Battle-Scars, from below. “I told you to do your sums, not shoot into the air like a sky rocket. Get down here at once,” she warned, “and finish your sums!”
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Grabbing hold of the light fitting, before the chair returned to earth with a bang, the frightened replied, “But...I can’t get down...”
“Of course you can,” Miss Battle-Scars insisted. “Let go of that light. I will catch you,” she said, standing beneath her, with both arms outstretched.
“Go on, go, on, go on!” the children chanted from the safety of their desks. “Jump, jump, jump!” they shouted.
Did Lousy Linda return safely to earth, or is she still up there, doing her sums, writing and arithmeticking from that lofty location? To find out, let us return to Horrible Horace and Barmy Bernard...
On his way home, Barmy Bernard said, “Horrible, I still don’t understand how Miss Battle-Scars chair was able to shoot up like that. My pet tarantula could never do that – and where is it, anyway?”
“There was a slight change of plan,” his best friend coyly admitted.
“A change of plan?”
“Yes,” he continued. “After Lousy Linda cornered us for a kiss – I can still taste it, the sugar and spice. Yuk! – I had to get my revenge, our revenge.”
“And?”
“Tinkering Tommy.”
“Tinkering Tommy? What about him?”
“I went looking for him – that’s why you couldn’t find me, I was with him. I asked for his help. You know how good he is at making things – and devices.”
“That he is,” his Barmy friend agreed, nodding.
“With our Tinkering friend’s help, I substituted your tarantula for a powerful spring secreted under her seat. The rest is history.”
“But where did the spring come from?” Barmy asked, scratching his head in wonderment at it all.
Smiling ever so mischievously, Horrible Horace said, “From his dad’s motor bike and sidecar, of course. He