LITMIR.BIZ

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– what sort of name is that? I thought.)

      I didn’t dare look at him. I looked at Copper Pie instead. He was leaning back on two legs, almost overbalancing, with a grin so wide it squashed his freckles together. I saw Fifty do a quick thumbs up.

      But me, I was getting a bad feeling about it all. I kept my head down until break, trying to finish my story about an incredibly powerful sea creature wrecking all the fishing boats and poisoning the waters with its toxic waste.

      We’d agreed to sprint straight outside to our territory as soon as the bell went. I was there second, behind Copper Pie. No one ever gets anywhere before him unless he’s not going that way. He’s the fastest in the school.

      Between panting, I tried to abort the mission. ‘How about we let him hang out with us for a bit? He’ll soon see we’re no fun.’

      ‘Keener!’ Copper Pie gave me the look he’s used many times before. I’m always the one trying to stop the others from doing risky things. Most of the time Fifty feels the same but he relies on me to be the wimp. That’s how it works in groups. You all have a job, like leader, ideas person, dangerman, Mr Responsible (that’s me), funny one . . . Fifty’s job is smooth talker. Bee is boss. Copper Pie is secret weapon.

      ‘Take your positions,’ Copper Pie shouted. He stood bang in the middle of the way in, with the wire fence of the netball court one side and the trees the other. I went to the right, blocking the gap that side. Fifty and Bee took care of the rest. We fidgeted a bit to get a tight fit and linked arms. Wedged into the space, we waited. I kept swallowing something that wasn’t there.

      I glanced behind at the tiny triangle of land with the rotten tree stump that we call our patch. It’s always dark and often damp and even more often smelly. Why did it matter so much? I asked myself.

      ‘He’s coming,’ said Bee.

      ‘Time, my noble friends, to defend our homeland from the wretched Gauls,’ said Fifty.

      ‘Someone will lock you up one day, freak,’ said C.P.

      Fifty lives half in the real world and half in some other made-up universe but at least he’d answered my question: it mattered because to us it was a kind of home.

      We all grew a bit taller as the enemy drew nearer. I stuck my chest out, but it made the butterflies in my stomach seem worse, so I tucked it in again.

      What do you think Newboy did?

      Ran at us like a snorting bull? No.

      Karate-chopped our arms to break up the line? No.

      Walked off? That would have been ideal but . . . No.

      He strolled up to us with his hands in his pockets, a half-smile on his face, his glasses slightly too low down his nose so he looked like a professor.

      ‘Is it the beginning of a dance? he said, making a puzzled crease down the middle of his forehead. ‘Do you join arms and waltz round the playground?’

      Nobody tells Copper Pie he’s doing the waltz. Before any of us had a chance to think of a clever reply (not that I can ever think of one until I’m in the bath three days later), Copper Pie’s arm disengaged from Fifty’s, shot out and wrapped itself round Jonno’s neck forcing his head down, ready for —

      Sheesh! I had to do something.

      Copper Pie tried to free his other arm – the hand was already shaped into a fist – but I held it firmly, squeezed between my elbow and my body. Getting another kid in a headlock was one thing but a full-blown assault was a whole lot worse. Copper Pie tried to shake me off but I wasn’t going to let go. He’d have to punch me first. (That would NEVER happen. He’s been my protector since nursery when Annabel Ellis used to bite me.) I held on long enough for Fifty and Bee to peel his other arm from around Jonno’s neck and for Bee to whisper the magic word ‘detention’, followed by the other magic word ‘suspension’. Copper Pie doesn’t need any more trouble. He let Newboy go.

      You’ve got to respect Jonno: he didn’t hit Copper Pie, he didn’t say something mean, he didn’t cry or even do the wobbly bottom lip. I don’t think he did anyway. I didn’t look too closely – I was too ashamed. But not ashamed enough to actually help. Help came quickly enough from another direction.

      ‘Are you all right? It’s Jonno, isn’t it?’ Miss Maggs, the playground monitor, was by his side in a flash. Any hopes the attack hadn’t been witnessed vanished. I let Copper Pie have his arm back and watched him head for the back entrance, because we all knew what was coming next.

      Miss Maggs shouted after him, ‘Wait outside the Head’s office.’

      Bee rolled her eyes. ‘Another fine mess. Copper Pie will end up Prisoner Pie if he carries on like this.’

      She’s right. The last thing Copper Pie needs is another roasting from the Head. Why did Newboy have to get in the way?

       Copper Pie cops it

      The thing about Copper Pie is that he’s the best friend you could ever have in some ways, and a total disaster in others. He’ll always stand up for you, lend you money, borrow money to lend you, eat your unwanted lunch, lie for you and would even lend you his brother, Charlie, to torture – not that anyone wants to. The trouble comes when someone annoys him. He doesn’t seem to understand that other people think differently. No, that’s not it. He doesn’t understand that other people are allowed to think something different. But he is getting better . . . slowly.

      The three of us discussed what we thought his punishment would be. He’s had an essay on ‘Using words to resolve issues’ – I did that for him. And loads of lunchtime detentions for: being rough, unsportsmanlike behaviour (he kicked his goalie for letting in a pathetic shot), not sitting still in class (he was jumping on his desk because it wouldn’t shut) and bringing a weapon to school (a catapult isn’t really a weapon, is it? It’s practical exploration of the basic mechanism of the Roman ballista).

      COPPER PIE’S FACT FILE

      • Bright ginger hair

      • Very freckly

      • Awful at anything to do with dividing, timesing, spelpng or school

      • Good at everything sporty

      • Loves football and food

      • pkes war and weapons

      • Very loyal

      FAMILY STUFF

      Mum – runs a nursery

      Dad – lazy, according to his mum

      Brother – Charlie, aged 3, snotty, stinky, sticky, stupid, absolutely not allowed in Copper Pie’s room

      Bee said, ‘This time it’ll be exclusion. A Year 6 getting a new kid in a headlock for no reason. Exclusion, for definite.’

      ‘It was hardly no reason. He accused us of waltzing.’ I sounded ridiculous. Bee started jogging on the spot (none of us know how to waltz) and giggling, and then me and Fifty joined in (the laughing, not the dancing).

      I was last in the line-up for lunch, and still chuckling, when Jonno came along with an ice pack pressed against his neck. I shut up and turned to study the back of Bee’s head, praying he wouldn’t speak to me, or worse, punch me.

      He didn’t.

      Copper Pie’s punishments were: a talking to from the Head and Miss Walsh, an apology to Jonno, to stay in every lunch break this week and, worst of all, a letter home.

      ‘It could have been worse,’ said Bee.

      ‘Could it? Mum’s gonna hit the roof.’ Even Copper Pie’s freckles looked pale. His mum is quite shouty.

      ‘You could have been suspended.’ Bee

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