Fortune Cookie (9 page)

“Every penny,” I said.

“I can't believe it!”

“I've got it right here,” said Cupcake, “in my – ” she glanced round, to make sure Dad hadn't come back – “in my knickers!”

She hadn't been able to think of anywhere else safe enough, so she'd put the notes in an envelope and Sellotaped it right round herself.

“Good heavens,” said Mum. “How uncomfortable is that?”

Cupcake giggled and said, “Very!”

“But it's a lot of money,” I said. “We couldn't risk losing it.”

“Well, no,” agreed Mum. “Not after all the trouble you've been to to get it.”

“They were going to sit for a whole hour without moving,” said Cupcake's mum. “Can you imagine? This pair? Not moving?”

“People kept prodding us,” I said, “and trying to make us jump.”

“But we didn't,” said Cupcake.

“No, we just
sat
.”

It wasn't really telling lies; we did just sit. Well, for fifteen minutes.

After much furtive fiddling, and keeping one eye on the door, Cupcake succeeded in unsticking herself from the envelope and held it out to her mum.

“All in notes!” said her mum. “How did you manage that?”

Cupcake didn't hesitate. She didn't even blush. “We took it to the Office and Mrs Mlada changed it for us.”

I was impressed! Cupcake is usually such a
truthful
sort of person. Of course it is good to be truthful; I try to be truthful myself, most of the time. But just occasionally, like in an emergency, I think you have to be prepared to tell a few white lies. Cos that's all they were: white lies. It wasn't like we'd done anything wrong. And it made Cupcake's mum so happy! She put her arm round Joey and said, “Did you hear that? The girls have got the money for Cookie's operation. He's going to be all right!”

Joey was so tired he could hardly move, but he managed to give Cookie a little pat and tell him the good news: “Cookie's going be all right!”

Cupcake's mum asked us to say a big thank you to everyone who had contributed. “Tell them how grateful we are.”

Rosie couldn't keep quiet any longer. She'd been remarkably restrained until then, but now it all burst out. She bounded forward, going, “I gave money! I gave
all my savings
.”

Mum said, “Rosie, we don't boast about our good deeds! We do them, and we keep quiet.”

“Why?” Rosie turned on Mum indignantly. “I want people to know!”

Cupcake's mum said she was quite right, people ought to know. “And as soon as Cookie's over his operation we'll have a special celebratory tea and say a real proper thank you!”

Rosie smirked. She sent this triumphant glance in Mum's direction. She is such a brat! But I didn't really
mind. Cupcake's mum said she would ring the vet first thing in the morning and fix a date for the operation.

“I'll see if they can fit him in on Wednesday. The sooner the better.”

That night was the first night in ages that I went to bed without my head humming and buzzing with mad activity, all my brain cells working overtime to solve problems. There weren't any problems any more. We'd solved them all! Or so we thought…

Next morning, we stuck a big notice on our class notice board:

I had printed it off on the computer last night and was secretly quite proud of it. There was absolutely no call for Mr Wendell, who is our history teacher, to point out that the word “operation” was spelt wrongly. I mean, what did it matter? Teachers are always doing this; they just can't seem to stop
teaching
. I suppose it is what they are there for, but really it's like they're obsessed.

“Apart from that,” said Mr Wendell, “who is Cookie and why does he need an operation?”

Eagerly, Cupcake explained. “He's our dog, he's a Beagle, and he has this bad leg. He's got this thing called…” Her voice trailed off. Her mum had told us what it was called, but Cupcake had obviously forgotten, and so had I. “It's like somewhere in Australia. What's in Australia?”

Emily, who was standing nearby, said, “Melbourne? Sydney? Perth?”

“Perth!” Cupcake snatched at it gratefully. “He's got this thing called Perthe's.”

“Ah, I know it!” Mr Wendell nodded. “Perthe's disease. Named after one of the people who first discovered it. It's where there's an insufficient blood supply to the head of the femur.”

You see what I mean?
Can't stop
teaching
. But this time I forgave him, cos he went on to tell us that his Jack Russell had suffered from the same thing. “And now he's right as rain! Racing around like a lunatic, on all four legs.”

It's funny, with teachers. What with them always being so busy teaching, and telling you what to do, and what not to do, and getting mad if you go and break some stupid rule, or forget just once in a while to do your homework, you don't tend to think of them as normal human beings who love their dogs, and their kids, and their mums and dads. Whenever I look at Mr Wendell now, I see him with his Jack Russell, racing around like a lunatic. Cupcake said to me, later, that she was glad he'd told us about his dog. She said she'd been secretly worried that Cookie wouldn't ever be
able to use his leg again, not even after the operation.

“It's made me feel loads happier!”

At the end of school we raced back to Cupcake's place to take Cookie for his walk. His last one before the operation! Cupcake's mum said, “Give him a good one… he's booked in at the vet's first thing tomorrow morning. That means no food after seven o'clock. We must all remember.”

“Oh, poor Cookie!” I said.

But Cupcake said no, he was lucky. “He's going to be all right! He is, isn't he, Mum?”

“Absolutely,” said her mum. “Though he's bound to be a bit sorry for himself immediately after the operation.”

Cupcake said that was OK, because the worst would then be over. “And Joey will look after him!”

To get to the park you have to go down some steps and along a narrow passage between the houses. It's quite safe; there're almost always other people around.
Almost
always. Today there wasn't anyone; just me and
Cupcake. Which was when Shane Mackie jumped us…

He'd obviously been lying in wait. He stood there at the entrance to the passage, blocking our way. I said, “What d'you want?” Doing my best not to sound scared in spite of my insides all turning to mush.

Shane said, “I've got a bone to pick with you two!”

I said, “What?”

“I thought you told me that ring was clean?”

Indignantly I said, “It was! We polished it.”

“You told me you hadn't
nicked
it.”

“We didn't nick it! I already said… it came from Cupcake's gran. What's it to you, anyway?

“Enough of the lip!” Shane jabbed a finger in my face. I took a step backwards, treading on Cupcake as I did so. “This didn't come from no one's gran.”

“It did so!” I said. “It's been in the family for centuries… it's an antique.”

“Yeah? Well, it's a hot antique! It's stolen property.
On a list
. I can't deal with stuff like that, I'm on probation.”

I felt like saying, “That's your problem,” but I wasn't brave enough.

“Here!” He pulled the ring out of his pocket and thrust it at me like it was a hand grenade about to go off. “You wanna carry stolen property around with you, be my guest. I'm not gonna get caught with it on me. You can give me the money back and we'll just forget the whole thing.”

I stammered, “We can't give you your money back, we've already spent it.”

“Well, you'd better unspend it, double quick, or there'll be trouble!”

Behind me, Cupcake squeaked, “What s-sort of t-trouble?”

“Sort of trouble you don't want. Believe me! I'll give you till the end of the week. If you don't come up with the money by then—” He paused.

I said, “W-what?”

“I'd have no option but to go to the police and turn you in. Know what they do with first offenders? They
put them in institutions. You wouldn't wanna go to an institution! Take my word for it. Little soft things like you, you wouldn't last five minutes. I'll give you till this time Friday. Be here. With the money.
Or else
.”

With that, he disappeared. Cupcake and me continued, in deathly silence, to the park. It was a long time before either of us spoke.

“What are we going to do?” whispered Cupcake. “We can't give the money back. Not now!”

“No, we can't,” I said. “And we won't!” I said as fiercely as I could, to give myself courage. “We'll wait till Cookie's had his operation, then we'll… we'll make him an offer!”

Doubtfully, Cupcake said, “What sort of offer?”

“We'll tell him we'll pay by instalments.” That's what Mum and Dad had done, when we had to have a new fridge and they couldn't afford one straight off. “Hire purchase,” I said. Already I was starting to feel more confident. Everybody bought things on hire purchase! “50p a week; we'll pay him back in no time.”

“Excuse me,” said Cupcake, “but I don't think you know what you're talking about.”

“Hire purchase is what I'm talking about!”

“50p a week is what you're talking about.”

“That's all right, we can manage 50p! Just means going without stuff for a while. It's for
Cookie
,” I said. “It's for
Joey
.”

“Yes, and it'd take…” Cupcake paused, and I could see her doing silent sums in her head. “Three hundred weeks… that's over five years!”

I said, “That can't be right.” I did some silent sums of my own. Well, on my fingers, actually. I only made it come to
thirty
weeks. Not even a whole year!

Cupcake looked at me pityingly. “You know what Mr Craigen says?”

Mr Craigen is our maths teacher.
He
says I'm a mathematical moron.

“Even if we paid a
pound
a week,” said Cupcake, “it'd still take for ever. Even if—”

I said, “All right! You don't have to keep on.”

“I'm not keeping on. I'm just
saying
.”

“Well, don't! It's not helpful.”

“So you say something!”

“I just did. I said we'd make an offer.
You
said—”

“I know what I said.”

“In that case, just shut up about it!”

It's not like me and Cupcake to quarrel. Cookie became quite upset. He scrabbled at us, clutching at our legs, with his ears pulled back. We immediately felt guilty. Cupcake picked him up and we both crooned over him.

“Poor little
man
! Did we frighten you?”

I hate it when people talk soppily to babies. I think it is such an insult to their intelligence. The babies' intelligence, that is. But Cookie was only a little dog, and tomorrow he was going to have a
big
operation, and it didn't matter how much that horrible thug threatened us, we were not going to ask Cupcake's mum to cancel it. No way!

“We'll think of something,” I said. “We'll get the money somehow!”

But how? I didn't have any ideas left! Even when I concentrated really hard and
squeezed
at my brain, nothing came out. All I did was get myself in a panic, great waves of it crashing and pounding inside my head. As soon as I got home I rushed to the safety of my room, barricading the door behind me in case Rosie suddenly came bursting in. I took the ring out of my pocket and stood there, my heart galloping, while I wondered what to do with it. I wasn't walking round with it in my shoe any more! Not now I knew it was officially classed as stolen property. In the end I had what
I
consider to be a stroke of genius, as they say. I took my old teddy bear, who was coming apart at the seams, and stuffed the ring deep inside him. Even Mum would have no reason to go prying into my old teddy, and she certainly wouldn't dare chuck him out. All the same, just knowing that it was there was pretty scary. Who was going to believe us if we said our dog had
sicked it up? The old woman would only have to tell them she'd caught us trespassing in her garden and they'd immediately jump to the conclusion that we must have broken in and helped ourselves. No one would ever take our word over hers.

Dad's joke, calling us after his favourite movie, didn't seem so funny any more. The real Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had been outlaws, wanted by the sheriff. Now we were, too. I spent all evening terrified in case there was a knock at the door, and when I met Cupcake for school next day she said that she had been exactly the same.

“I know they don't know who we are, but if they've gone and made a list, like Shane said,
it's on the list
… ”

They'd have sent copies to all the jewellers' shops, asking them to keep a lookout.

“We didn't give our names,” I said.

“No, but the man from the shop might remember what we looked like! They could do one of those things, where they get artists to draw you.” She meant
Identikit. I'd seen it on television. “They could have posters of us!”

It was a frightening thought. We half expected to see big drawings of ourselves stuck in shop windows and plastered on bus shelters…
WANTED FOR
ROBBERY
!

“It's not funny,” moaned Cupcake.

I told her that I'd never said it was.

“You sniggered!”

I said, “That was nerves.”

“So what are we going to do? We could be recognised at any moment!”

It wasn't even like we could disguise ourselves. Our mums would never let us dye our hair, and we were stuck with school uniform whether we liked it or not.

“If we were Muslim,” I said, “we could wear a hijab and cover ourselves up.”

“Well, we're not,” said Cupcake.

“I said if we
were
. You don't have to bite my head off.”

“I'm not biting your head off, but what's the point of saying if we
were
when we're
not
?”

She was right: there wasn't any point. But she still didn't have to snap! “What's your solution?” I said. “Go to Mexico?”

It's what they do in movies when the police are after them: they flee to Mexico. If they live in America, that is, which most people seem to. In movies, I mean. It's obviously easier to be an outlaw in America. Where could me and Cupcake flee to? Scotland? The Isle of Wight?

“Stop being
stupid
,” said Cupcake. “We could be arrested!”

Later on that day we thought we were going to be. Davina came bustling into the classroom, bursting with self-importance, to announce that she had seen
policemen
going into Reception. “Two of them! One man and one woman. Who d'you think they've come for?”

Emily pointed out that they hadn't necessarily come
for anyone. “They might just be going to give a talk on road safety, or drugs, or something.” But Davina said no, they looked like they'd come to arrest someone.

Claire said, “How can you tell?”

“They had this sort of grim look,” said Davina. And then she giggled and said, “Maybe they've come for you!”

I knew she was only saying it because it was the sort of thing she
would
say; I knew it didn't mean anything. All the same, it made me feel like someone had released a load of butterflies in my stomach. I glanced at Cupcake, and wished I hadn't. Her face had gone all pinched and white and sort of…
tragic
. I very quickly looked away again, before someone could notice and ask us what was wrong.

We spent all the rest of the day in fear and trembling, waiting to be dragged out of school in handcuffs. Halfway through geography, the door opened and Mrs Mlada came in. I sat hunched at my desk, not daring to look in Cupcake's direction. I was
sure that she had come for us. After speaking in this
very low mutter
to Mr Hadley she went out again, leaving me and Cupcake convinced we were both going to be arrested the minute we set foot outside the classroom.