Birthday Boy

“Definitely rude,” said Mr Barrington. “Ellie?”

“Puddleduck?”

“Hmm. That’s a name.”

“Of a duck, sir.”

“Yes. But still. A name. A surname, in fact. Are we allowed proper nouns, Sam?”

“Sir,” said Sam, “it’s your lesson. I just suggested the topic …”

Mr Barrington considered for a moment. A part of him seemed pleased that, at least, in amongst all the silly wordage, there had been a moment of grammar.

“I think … not,” he said. “Any more for any more?”

“BOTTOM!”

“That’s it, Morris! Detention!”

CHAPTER 12 (#ulink_a92e90d6-dfaa-505f-9d01-969076ad0036)

A PACKET OF WERTHER’S ORIGINALS, SOME SHOELACES AND A JAR OF DURAGLIT (#ulink_a92e90d6-dfaa-505f-9d01-969076ad0036)

A few days later, Sam was walking home with Ruby, who was at the same school, in Year Three.

“So … you’re enjoying it?” said Ruby. “Y’know. Having your birthday every day …?”

“Of course!”

Sam thought this was a weird question. He’d told Ruby about the Silly Words lesson. Today, they’d done a whole class on Who Can Blow The Loudest Raspberry (strangely enough, Mr Barrington, as it turned out). And then a final session on the Stupidest Food (a tie between Cheese Bananas and Cat-food Crumble).

“It’s not getting at all … boring …?”

“No!” said Sam.

“Because when we get home Mum and Dad will have made a cake and party food and stuff. And they’ll have organised some treat, like they did yesterday and the day before … What did they do again …?”

“Oh! It was great!” said Sam. “They …” He paused. “We …”

That was weird. He couldn’t remember.

“… had pizza!” he said. “We went out and had pizza, and then we went to the late-night showing at the Planetarium. It was fun!”

Ruby shook her head. “No, actually, Sam. That was three days ago. Yesterday we went to the zoo!”

She gave him a look as she said it. A look Sam didn’t like one bit.

“What are you saying?” said Sam.

“Nothing,” said Ruby.

“You are. You’re trying to spoil everything. Which is a horrible thing to do … on my birthday!”

Ruby nodded, and seemed to sigh. “OK. Sorry!” she said, and skipped off ahead.

Despite Sam’s refusal to think about what Ruby was saying – he knew it was something troubling, but he couldn’t quite say what it was – he did make an unusual decision as he walked home behind his skipping sister. Which was, a few minutes later, not to go straight home. He suggested to Ruby, because it was on their way home, that instead they should pop in to where their grandparents lived.

His grandparents lived in a place called Abbey Court, which was a building that provided something called “sheltered accommodation”. This meant that it was a place where old people could live and have some help, but not actually an old-age home. It wasn’t, to be honest, somewhere that Sam usually wanted to go, but – apart from wanting to make it clear to Ruby that she wasn’t always the good one – something about what she’d said had made him not want to rush home and get the cake and the party food and the treat straight away, like he normally would. Something about it had made him want to put off the next birthday moment for a little while.