Agatha Parrot and the Heart of Mud Read online

  “Why don’t I write a message?” I said. “I’ll pretend it’s from James and make it nice and friendly.”

  “But what if Bella writes back?” said Dad.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “She won’t!”

  It always takes me forever to type on a computer, because I like inventing little sideways faces. Here’s somebody trying to lick their nose: (:-9). Ha ha! But I did this message really carefully with CAPITAL LETTERS and everything. Here’s how it started:

  Dear Bella,

  Thank you for your message. I am a very boring person. I do not like any of the things you like. And my only hobby is

  What was the most boring thing I could think of? And then I remembered Ivy and Martha fighting, and thought of the PERFECT thing! After that, the only problem was dealing with the “Love from” bit. Hmm . . . James was right. It’s a bit much to be LOVING somebody you don’t actually know. But it must be all right to LIKE them. That seemed fair enough. Here’s how the whole message looked:

  Dear Bella,

  Thank you for your message. I am a very boring person. I do not like any of the things you like. And my only hobby is spelling. I think spelling is really fun. So you won’t want to send me any more emails.

  Like from James

  P.S. Tell Auntie Zoe that Agatha is very pretty and is going to be a model too. {;-)

  I’d just finished typing it out when Dad came in and looked over my shoulder.

  “Clever!” he said. “But we’d better send it before James sees it.”

  So he clicked SEND and that was the end of that.

  (Actually, you must have realized that this book has lots more pages, so of course that wasn’t the end of that.)

  Welcome to the Club

  The next thing to sort out was getting Martha and Ivy onto this spelling team thing. We’d all been given letters to bring home about it, and mine was still in the bottom of my school bag.

  I went to the hall, got my bag off the peg, and opened it up. Yuck! It’s pretty gross inside my school bag, so I just shut my eyes, stuck my hand in, and hoped for the best. Here are some of the lovely prizes I pulled out:

  One leaky pen with hair stuck to it.

  One old cookie wrapper with hair stuck to it.

  One hair bobble all knotted up with hair stuck to it.

  One comb covered in jam from a random sandwich with hair stuck to it.

  And finally—TA-DA!—

  One crumpled-up letter smeared in chocolate with hair stuck to it.

  I put all the other stuff back (because that’s where it lives) and opened up the letter.

  The new spelling club will meet at lunchtime. There will be three tests, and the best four pupils will be selected for the Odd Street School Spelling Team! The team will compete with other schools to win books for the library.

  My, my, how fun.

  At the bottom of the letter was a permission slip, which you had to tear off and fill in if you wanted to join the club.

  The next morning, we were all outside of school waiting for Motley the custodian to open the doors. I made sure that Martha and Ivy had their slips filled in. Ellie and Bianca came over to see what was going on, so I asked if they wanted to try out too.

  “Ooh, not me,” said Ellie. “Spelling tests are really scary!”

  “What’s there to be scared of?” I asked.

  “I had a bad dream about a spelling test once. I had to spell all these different words, but I was only allowed to use the letter g.”

  Poor Ellie. Everything scares her, but Bianca’s a lot braver. Maybe she’d try out?

  “I better not,” said Bianca. “I’m not very good at welling spurds.”

  “Welling spurds?” we all said. We love Bianca. Don’t always understand her, but love her.

  “Oh, I get it!” said Ellie. “She means SPELLing WORDs!”

  “That’s right,” said Bianca. “I get the metters all lixed up.”

  By this time Ivy was running around the playground with her permission slip hanging out of her mouth like a long tongue. She ended up running into Gwendoline Tutt and Olivia Livid. Gwendoline lives in a really fancy house at the far end of Odd Street, and Olivia is her evil slave who probably lives in a cave somewhere and chews on bones. They’re both really unpopular, so it’s no wonder that nobody likes them.

  Typically, Olivia snatched Ivy’s slip out of her mouth and read it.

  “What is this?” demanded Gwendoline.

  “Ivy’s joining the spelling club!” Olivia laughed.

  “Spelling club?” repeated Gwendoline. She took the slip from Olivia and read it. “LOSERS club, is more like it! I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that.”

  “It’s going to be awesome, actually,” said Ivy. “Lots of people are doing it!”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Gwendoline. “Who else is a big loser?”

  We all looked at Martha, but Martha just kicked the ground and kept quiet. Gwendoline threw the slip back at Ivy. Then Gwendoline and Olivia wandered off laughing.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” said Martha. She got her permission slip out of her pocket and looked around for the trash can. “I don’t want to do it.”

  “But then you’ll never get to play soccer again!” I said.

  “Do I have to do it if Martha doesn’t?” asked Ivy.

  “If Ivy doesn’t, then I’m definitely not,” said Martha.

  Ooh, I hated Gwendoline Tutt sometimes! Well, most times, actually.

  “Give me those!” I said, taking the slips from them. “I’ll hand them in so you BOTH know that you’re BOTH doing it.”

  Martha and Ivy looked a little sulky.

  “But what about Gwendoline laughing at us?”

  “Don’t worry about Gwendoline.” I promised them, “She won’t be laughing for long.”

  I dug my hand into my bag. It’s lucky I’m organized! I’d put my spelling club letter back in along with all the other stuff, and it still had a blank permission slip to tear off at the bottom. Ha ha—I knew just what to do!

  At recess time, I went to hand the permission slips in to Miss Wizzit at reception. This sort of thing is never easy, because it doesn’t matter who you are or what you want, Miss Wizzit always makes it obvious that she’s far too busy to help. You could be Queen Cleopatra with your pants on fire, but Miss Wizzit would still make you wait until she’d finished finding the end of the tape roll, or polishing the photocopier.

  Today she was in an extremely far-too-busy-for-anything mood because Miss Barking was hanging around watching her. Miss B. is the vice principal, who has big square glasses like TV screens and always carries a folder full of boring forms to fill in.

  I don’t know what Miss Barking wanted, but whatever it was, she wasn’t getting it. Miss Wizzit was madly stapling lots of things together—CHONK, CHONK, CHONK. I had to wiggle the permission slips at her forever before she snatched them, banged a staple through them—CHONK—and chucked them in a drawer. At least it gave Miss Barking something to talk about.

  “Miss Wizzit!” said Miss Barking. “Those are permission slips.”

  “I know,” said Miss Wizzit. “But they’re only for the spelling club.”

  “Only?” said Miss Barking. “ONLY? You need to put all those names on the dangerous-activity register.”

  “Why?”

  “Lunchtime . . . spelling words . . . children . . . Isn’t it obvious?”

  Miss Wizzit shook her head.

  “What if one of the children was injured with an oversharpened pencil?” said Miss Barking. “Or swallowed a book? Or got a finger trapped inside a piece of folded paper?”

  Miss Wizzit wasn’t impressed. “I’m surprised I don’t need a permission slip to use my stapler,” she muttered.

  “You mean you haven’t got one?” Miss Barking gasped. “Stop at once!”

  She hurried over and took Miss Wizzit’s stapler from her. Then she opened up her folder and fumbled for a “Stapler Usage in the Workplace” form or s
omething crazy like that.

  Poor Miss Wizzit. She loved her stapler, but even she had to give in when Miss Barking was handing forms out.

  Miss Wizzit snatched the slips back out of the drawer and flicked through them. “Ivy Malting,” she said, reading aloud. “And Martha Swan. And . . . what’s this?”

  It was a third permission slip, but it was a bit hard to read because it was all crumpled and had a bunch of hair and chocolate stuck to it. Miss Wizzit waved it in my face.

  “Wizzit?” asked Miss Wizzit.

  “It’s Gwendoline Tutt,” I said.

  “Gwendoline Tutt?” Miss Wizzit made the sort of face that you can only make if you’re Miss Wizzit and you’ve just found out that the most spoiled girl in school wants to join the boring spelling club.

  I smiled sweetly. “Gwendoline is spelling crazy. There’s no stopping the girl. Honest.”

  And I toddled out of reception, leaving Miss Wizzit still staring at the hairy permission slip.

  My work was done. Tum-tee-tum. Diddly-dum.

  What???

  That evening Dad was being strange.

  He didn’t say much during dinner. He just kept giving me funny looks and winking when nobody else was watching. Then, as soon as the others were out of the way, he called me into the living room and opened the cabinet door. His computer was already on, and there was an email on the screen.

  Dear James,

  THANK YOU FOR YOUR MESSAGE! I can’t believe it! Spelling is my FAVORITE thing too!!!! I hate theater and dancing. I only said I liked them because my mom said it would make me sound more interesting. I am on the school spelling team and we practice every recess. Today I got NECESSARY, POISONOUS, and AUTOGRAPH all correct! What’s your favorite word?

  Love from Bella

  WHAT?????????

  Zogs and Debras

  I know that last chapter was pretty short, but nothing else happened. Dad had no idea what to do, so we just zapped the email. Deleted it. Killed it. Trashed it. I mean, honestly, how could anyone reply to that? So, moving on . . .

  It was lunchtime on the first day of spelling club. Mrs. Twelvetrees was standing in the corridor outside the library. She’s our principal and wears lots of lipstick and jangly necklaces.

  “Come in, come in, one and all!” she was calling out. “Don’t be shy, gang. Give it a try!”

  Me and Ivy and Martha were hanging around at the end of the corridor, and we had Ellie and Bianca with us too. So far, only three people had gone in. They were Hannah, Nicola, and Andrew from James’s class.

  “They’ll get on the team for sure,” said Martha. “Those three eat books for breakfast. What chance have I got?”

  “You’ll be fine,” I said. “The team has four people, so they need one more.”

  “Come on, Martha,” said Ivy. “It’s just a little spelling test. Let’s get in there.”

  Ivy grabbed Martha’s sleeve and tried to pull her along, but Martha grabbed on to the radiator. Even with Bianca and Ellie pushing too, Martha wasn’t going to budge.

  “It’s all right for you, Ivy,” said Martha. “You’re good at spelling.”

  “I promise I’ll get them all wrong,” said Ivy.

  “But I’ll get them all wrong too,” said Martha. “I know I will, and then I’ll look dumb.”

  “Don’t worry, Martha,” I said. “It’s the first week, so it’ll just be easy words.”

  “Like zog and debra,” said Bianca.

  “Zog and debra?” repeated Martha.

  “She means DOG and ZEBRA!” I said. “But Bianca’s right. It’s bound to be animals because they’re easy. And they always ask for zebra—it makes you practice writing a z.”

  “Maybe you’ll get cat and fish,” said Ellie. “Or lion. Or sheep”

  “I can spell animals!” said Martha.

  She smiled a big smile and let go of the radiator.

  “How about rhinoceros?” said Ivy. “That’s an animal. Or hippopotamus?”

  “Eeek!” yelped Martha, and she grabbed the radiator again.

  “You won’t get anything as hard as that!” I said. “Mrs. Twelvetrees won’t want to scare people off.”

  Martha took a deep breath and let go again.

  “Okay, Ivy,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

  They were setting off down the corridor when Gwendoline came by.

  “Hello, losers!” said Gwendoline. “On your way to spelling club? Or is spelling a bit too exciting for you?”

  Martha ran back and grabbed the radiator AGAIN.

  “Well, THANKS A LOT, Gwendoline!” snapped Ivy as Gwendoline swaggered on past us.

  “Relax,” I said. “Watch this, Martha.”

  Just as Gwendoline reached the library, Mrs. Twelvetrees put on her biggest smile.

  “Ah, Gwendoline!” gushed Mrs. T. “So glad you could make it.”

  “What? Who?” said Gwendoline. She looked around, but there was nobody else there. And definitely nobody else called Gwendoline.

  “Your father is so thrilled that you’re joining our little club.”

  “My father?” Gwendoline gasped. “What makes him think I’m doing this?”

  “I told him at the school board meeting,” said Mrs. T. “He’s looking forward to you telling him all about it!”

  What choice did Gwendoline have? In she went.

  HA HA HA HA HA!

  Ivy was hopping up and down with excitement.

  “Come on, Martha,” said Ivy. “We can do this! Let’s get in there and show Gwendoline how rotten she really is!”

  A big smile crept across Martha’s face. “Dog and zebra?” she asked me.

  “Dog and zebra,” I assured her.

  “Let’s go!” said Martha.

  “YAHOO!” shouted Ivy.

  The two of them stuck their arms out like airplane wings and then charged down the corridor into the library, almost knocking Mrs. Twelvetrees over.

  “Golly,” said Mrs. Twelvetrees.

  Me and Bianca and Ellie decided to hang around and wait. We probably talked about something, but I can’t remember what, so here’s a poem instead:

  Tinky tonk

  Tiddly plop

  Tick tock

  Went the clock

  (Okay, I admit it needs work, but at least it passed the time.)

  The door opened again, and Mrs. Twelvetrees let everybody out.

  “There,” said Mrs. T. “Wasn’t that thrilling? I’ll see you all next time!”

  Out came Hannah, Nicola, and Andrew, looking happy. Then Ivy and Martha came out NOT looking happy. Finally Gwendoline shoved her way out between them.

  “Ha ha, losers,” said Gwendoline. “You got them all wrong!”

  “Big deal,” said Ivy. “You only got one right.”

  “Then that beats you, doesn’t it?” said Gwendoline. “And I wasn’t even trying.”

  Off she went down the corridor, knocking into people and laughing.

  “What happened?” I asked them.

  “It’s not like spelling words in class,” moaned Ivy. “To get on the team, you have to get three special words right. Mrs. Twelvetrees calls them her ‘star words’ and they’re the hardest!”

  “You said we’d get animals like dog and zebra,” moaned Martha.

  “Didn’t you get zebra?” said Bianca. “That’s a shame. Zebras are whack and blight and they eat grots of lass.”

  “I DON’T CARE!” snapped Martha.

  (Poor Bianca! I’ll put her zebra facts in at the back of the book to make up for it.)

  “So what words did you get?” I asked.

  “Necessary,” said Ivy.

  “Poisonous,” said Martha.

  “That’s unfair!” I said. “It’s only the first week. I can’t believe they made you spell necessary and poisonous and autograph.”

  Suddenly they were all looking at me.

  “Autograph?” Martha gasped.

  “How did YOU know autograph was the other star word?” ask
ed Ivy.

  It was a good question. How DID I know? I was pulling my hair like mad. It’s what I always do to wake my brain up when I’m thinking. Then suddenly I remembered—those were the three long words that were in Bella’s email. WHOOO, SPOOKY!

  There was only one possible explanation.

  Bella’s teacher must have been using the same lists of spelling words as Mrs. T. They probably got them from some secret teacher page on the Internet. The only difference was that Bella’s teacher was a week ahead. Ooooh . . . !

  I must have had a big grin on my face, because Martha poked me crossly.

  “What’s so funny?” she demanded.

  “I know how we can get you on the spelling team!”

  Inside Information

  That night I told Dad I felt a bit mean about deleting Bella’s message. He was surprised, but he said I could send her more messages so long as I kept them nice and friendly. So, nice and friendly it was, then . . .

  Dear Bella,

  Thank you for telling me your words. We never get words like that. My hardest word was ZEBRA. Tell me what words you get next time. I’m really interested. Honest I am.

  Like from James

  Then there was a day in between when nothing much happened (it was a bit of a “Tinky tonk, Tiddly plop” day, actually), but the next night I got this:

  Dear James,

  I LOVE your messages! Just today we got FOREIGN, ADDRESSES, and SPAGHETTI. Tell me more about yourself. I’ve got long brown hair and I’m the tallest in my class. What do you look like?

  Lots of love from Bellz

  YAHOO! Good for Bella. I carefully copied the words out onto a piece of paper. It looked like this could work!