Bad Becky

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  BAD BECKY

  Gervase Phinn is a teacher, freelance lecturer, author, poet, educational consultant, school inspector, visiting professor of education and last, but by no means least, father of four. Most of his time is spent in schools with teachers and children. Gervase lives in Doncaster with his family.

  Books by Gervase Phinn

  BAD BECKY

  THE DAY OUR TEACHER WENT BATTY

  DOMINIC’S DISCOVERY

  FAMILY PHANTOMS

  IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE

  For older readers

  HEAD OVER HEELS IN THE DALES

  THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DALE

  OVER HILL AND DALE

  UP AND DOWN IN THE DALES

  Illustrated by Lindsey Gardiner

  PUFFIN

  For Christine, the best sister a brother could have

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA), Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 2004

  9

  Text copyright © Gervase Phinn, 2004

  Illustrations copyright © Lindsey Gardiner, 2004

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN:978-0-14-192648-3

  Contents

  Becky Hears a Story

  Becky and the Visitor

  The Birthday Party

  Becky Hears a Story

  Miss Drear opened the big coloured picture book and smiled widely. ‘Today, children, I’m going to read a lovely story about a beautiful princess,’ she said sweetly.

  Oh no, thought Becky, not one of those boring old stories about silly princesses and daring knights in shining armour, where the poor dragon is killed and everything ends happily ever after.

  Why couldn’t her teacher read an exciting story about blood-sucking monsters, or nasty green aliens, or headless ghosts? ‘Oh phooey!’ she cried loudly. ‘I hate beautiful princesses.’

  ‘No, you don’t, Becky,’ said Miss Drear, her smile getting wider. ‘Yes I do too,’ said Becky, pulling her most awful face to wind up the teacher.

  ‘I like beautiful princesses,’ trilled Araminta. ‘I think they are nice.’

  Well, of course Araminta would love a story about a princess, thought Becky. She came to school dressed like someone out of a fairy story – with her long golden curls tied in red silk ribbons, her little velvet dress with pearl buttons and lace collar, her white frilly socks that never seemed to get dirty and her shiny black shoes with tiny pink bows on the front. Araminta was never naughty; she was nice and tidy and always polite and well mannered. Which is exactly why she really annoyed Becky, who was quite the opposite.

  Becky was the youngest in her family. She had older twin brothers, Bernard and Ben, and she much preferred playing soldiers with them, climbing trees, balancing on walls, fishing in the canal, having water fights, making mud pies and kicking a football, to sitting in her room with a doll on her knee.

  ‘I’ve got a Sleeping Beauty doll,’ Araminta continued, ‘and I’m getting Prince Charming for Christmas.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like princesses,’ mumbled Becky. ‘They’re soppy.’

  ‘I’m sure every little girl dreams of growing up into a beautiful princess,’ said Miss Drear, still smiling and peering over the top of her big round glasses. ‘I know I did when I was a little girl.’

  Becky thought that Miss Drear looked like the grinning green frog with the yellow eyes that lived in the school pond. She did not look at all like a beautiful princess.

  ‘I’d like to grow up into a beautiful princess,’ said Araminta.

  ‘When I grow up,’ said Becky, ‘I want to be an astronaut, or a fighter pilot, or a deep-sea diver, or a boxer, or a soldier, not a soppy old princess.’

  ‘That will do, Rebecca!’ snapped Miss Drear. The teacher only called Becky Rebecca when she was cross with her and it was clear she was cross with her now. ‘With all this chatter, we’ll never get to my story about the beautiful princess.’

  ‘Goody,’ said Becky. ‘Can we have a story about killer aliens from space instead?’

  ‘And any more from you, Rebecca,’ said Miss Drear, giving Becky her best rattlesnake look, ‘and you will stand all by yourself in the corridor.’ She turned the first page of the book, coughed lightly and read, ‘“Once upon a time, long long ago, there lived a beautiful princess. She had long golden hair, big blue eyes and soft skin, and her lips were as red as –”’

  ‘Blood!’ shouted out Becky.

  ‘No, not blood,’ said Miss Drear. ‘“She had lips as red as shiny cherries.”’

  ‘I hate cherries,’ said Becky. ‘They have stones. I once got a stone stuck in my throat and I nearly choked.’

  ‘I like cherries,’ said Araminta. ‘I think they are nice.’

  Miss Drear stared at Becky for a moment and then continued. “‘And the beautiful princess was called – “‘

  ‘Doris,’ said Becky.

  ‘No, not Doris,’ said the teacher.

  ‘Why can’t she be called Doris?’ asked Becky.

  ‘Because beautiful princesses are not called Doris, that’s why,’ said Miss Drear sharply.

  ‘My granny’s called Doris,’ Becky told everyone.

  ‘Well, this princess was not called Doris,’ said the teacher firmly. ‘She was called Princess Charisma and she lived –’

  ‘In a dark, smelly, stinky old cobwebby castle full of spooks and skeletons and dead bodies,’ said Becky, grinning ghoulishly at the rest of the class.

  ‘No, she did not,’ said Miss Drear, trying to keep her temper. ‘She lived in a tall grey castle with steep walls, hidden away in the middle of an enchanted forest.’ Then, more calmly, the teacher read on, ‘“One day, Princess Charisma was looking out of a window high up in the castle wall, when – “‘

  ‘She fell out!’ cried Becky.

  ‘No, she did not fall out!’ said Miss Drear crossly. ‘And if you don’t listen and stop interrupting, Rebecca, you and I will fall out.’

  ‘Well, I think this story’s boring,’ said Becky. ‘Can’t we have a story about a blood-sucking monster?’

  ‘No, we cannot!’ snapped the teacher.

  ‘I don’t like monsters,’ said Araminta. ‘I think they are scary.’

  ‘That’s because you’re soppy,’ sneered Becky.

  ‘“Suddenly”,’ continued the teacher, ‘“the beautiful Princess Charisma saw a thick cloud of dust in the distance –”’

  ‘It was a
nasty dragon,’ squealed Becky, ‘with sharp teeth and blood-red eyes and long claws and fire coming out of its mouth. And it had come to eat up Princess Charisma!’

  ‘It was not a dragon,’ said Miss Drear, through gritted teeth. ‘It was a handsome prince.’

  ‘I hate handsome princes,’ moaned Becky, pulling another horrid face.

  ‘I would like to be a handsome prince when I grow up,’ said Simon.

  ‘And I’d like to marry a handsome prince,’ sighed Araminta in a syrupy voice.

  ‘Well, I’d like to marry Cut-Throat Jake, the pirate,’ said Becky, ‘with his bushy beard and big black patch over his eye, and his great big silver hook and shiny cutlass, and his two big pistols and his squawking parrot that says rude words.’

  ‘If you don’t listen, Rebecca,’ retorted Miss Drear, fast losing her patience, ‘you will stand in the corridor all by yourself. Now, “Along the road came a handsome prince on his big white horse. Clip clop, clip clop, he went, across the little wooden bridge until –”’

  ‘He fell off the bridge and into the river!’ shouted Becky. ‘And he floated downstream and there were crocodiles and alligators in the water with massive jaws and sharp teeth and they went snip snap, snip snap, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp and they gobbled up the prince.’

  Miss Drear had stopped smiling long ago. She was now beginning to look like Mr Scowler’s dog when it growled and curled its lip. Mr Scowler was the school caretaker who never smiled and always said Becky was the most disobedient and difficult child he had ever met. Becky didn’t like Mr Scowler either.

  ‘Go and stand in the corridor, please, Rebecca,’ ordered Miss Drear. ‘I warned you not to keep on interrupting. You will stay there until you can behave yourself and learn not to shout out in class.’

  Becky liked it in the corridor. It was far more interesting than listening to some stupid story about boring Princess Charisma and the wimpy prince. She knew what would happen anyway. Fairy stories always ended up with the prince rescuing the princess and the two of them riding off through the enchanted forest and across the little wooden bridge and living happily ever after. Soppy! Soppy! Soppy! she thought.

  On the Nature Table in the corridor was a large glass tank. On the front was a label that read MINIBEASTS. It was full of caterpillars and maggots and spiders and ants and earwigs and crane flies and beetles and other glorious creepy-crawlies. Becky loved

  creepy-crawlies and often went searching for them in the garden at home, or in the dark corners of the house. She collected them in matchboxes and jam jars, and sometimes, when her brothers teased her, she put them in their beds. How they shrieked when they found a fat black spider with long hairy legs scuttling across their pillows, or a long brown earwig wriggling over their sheets. They weren’t such big boys then!

  DO NOT TOUCH was written in bold black letters on the front of the tank.

  ‘Huh!’ said Becky, lifting the lid. ‘We’ll see about that!’

  She reached inside and took out all the creepy-crawlies, one by one, and put them on the table. They wriggled and wiggled, squirmed and scuttled, slithered and crawled. This was fun, thought Becky, cradling a huge shiny black beetle in her hand. It tickled. Then she heard the unmistakeable footsteps of grumpy Mrs Groucher, the head teacher. Becky quickly stuffed all the creepy-crawlies into her pockets, scooping up the last earwig just as Mrs Groucher appeared round the corner.

  ‘And what are you doing out of the classroom, Rebecca?’ boomed the head marching towards her with a stern expression on her round red face. She had a voice like a foghorn and looked like a hippopotamus.

  ‘Well, Rebecca?’ grunted Mrs Groucher. ‘Why are you standing in the corridor?’

  ‘I’ve been sent out, Mrs Groucher,’ Becky told her sweetly.

  ‘Sent out!’ repeated the head teacher. ‘You are not in trouble again, are you?’

  ‘Oh no, Mrs Groucher,’ said Becky, putting on her most innocent voice. ‘It’s just that Miss Drear is reading a really scary story about man-eating monsters and killer aliens from outer space, and it frightened me so much that she said I could stay out in the corridor until she has finished.’ Then she added,’ I like stories about beautiful princesses and handsome princes.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ hummed the head teacher. ‘Monsters, eh? Aliens from outer space?’ She peered through the classroom window. ‘Well, it looks as if the story is over now. You may return to your class.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Groucher,’ said Becky, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. ‘Thank you so much, Mrs Groucher.’

  ‘I thought I told you to wait in the corridor, Rebecca,’ said Miss Drear when Becky appeared at the door.

  ‘Mrs Groucher told me I had to return to the classroom,’ Becky replied triumphantly.

  ‘Well, sit down and be quiet,’ said Miss Drear. ‘We are all writing stories about Princess Charisma and the handsome prince.’

  ‘Can I write about a monster?’ asked Becky.

  ‘No!’ snapped the teacher.

  ‘An alien from outer space?’

  ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘But I didn’t hear the story about Princess Charisma and the handsome prince,’ whined Becky.

  ‘Well, make it up,’ Miss Drear told her.

  ‘I’ve nearly finished mine,’ said Araminta smugly.

  ‘I bet it’s soppy,’ said Becky, under her breath.

  ‘I’ve got to the part where Princess Charisma marries the handsome prince,’ said Simon.

  ‘Huh, well there’s a surprise,’ said Becky, and then she started writing. Her story was about a slimy green monster with sharp teeth and long claws that climbed up the castle wall and swallowed the beautiful Princess Charisma in one great gulp. Then it chased the handsome prince across the little wooden bridge and gobbled him up.

  Becky was so busy writing she didn’t notice that all the caterpillars and maggots and spiders and ants and earwigs and crane flies and beetles and other glorious creepy-crawlies were escaping from her pocket. They wriggled and wiggled, squirmed and scuttled, slithered and crawled across the desks.

  ‘Aaaaaaahhhhhhhheeeeeeeooooo!’ screamed Araminta. ‘There’s a spider on my hand, and an earwig on my leg, and a maggot on my shoulder and a caterpillar on my head!’ Then she began

  shouting and shrieking and running round and round the classroom like a cat with its tail on fire. Soon all the children were doing the same. All, that is, except Becky, who was so involved in her incredibly gruesome story that she did not notice the commotion going on around her.

  Mrs Groucher thundered through the door. ‘Sit down at once, children!’ she roared. ‘Whatever is this terrible noise?’

  Miss Drear was standing trembling on a chair surrounded by minibeasts. She hated creepy-crawlies. Becky was sitting silently and putting the finishing touches to her story.

  ‘I’m glad to see that at least one child in this class is being sensible,’ said the head teacher, noticing Becky. ‘And getting on quietly with her work.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Groucher,’ said Becky, smiling widely like the green frog with the biggest grin in the school pond.

  Becky and the Visitor

  ‘Now I want you to be on your very best behaviour today, Becky,’ said Mum. ‘You know what happened last time Great-Aunt Mildred came to visit.’

  Becky remembered what happened last time Great-Aunt Mildred came to visit very well indeed. At teatime, she had put a plastic spider underneath the lettuce on Great-Aunt Mildred’s plate. It had only been a joke and she hadn’t expected her great-aunt to pop the spider in her mouth, crunch on it like a crisp and then scream her head off when she took it out to see what it was. It was only a little spider.

  And it was obviously made of plastic. Some people have no sense of humour, Becky had thought to herself when she had been sent to her room.

  Great-Aunt Mildred was awful. She was always telling Becky what to do: ‘Sit up properly!’ ‘Don’t slouch!’ ‘Wipe your nose!’ ‘Take your elbows off th
e table!’ ‘Don’t speak with your mouth full!’ ‘Use a tissue!’ ‘Don’t cross your legs!’ ‘Speak nicely!’ Nag nag nag nag nag. And then Great-Aunt Mildred would tell Becky what a good little girl she used to be when she was Becky’s age, how she came top in everything at school and was best at sports and music and art and everything else you might care to mention. Huh, thought Becky, I bet she was a real teacher’s pet and I would never ever want to be like her.

  Now Great-Aunt Mildred was coming to visit again and so Becky had to be on her very best behaviour. She could not think of a more boring way of spending a Sunday afternoon than sitting in front of Great-Aunt Mildred, listening to her rambling on and on like a boring television programme that you couldn’t turn off, and then having to watch her chomp her way through all the food put in front of her like some kind of starving dinosaur. Becky longed to be out in the sunshine, chasing her brothers or climbing trees.

  ‘Are you going to put on that nice new dress with the white lace collar and your shiny black shoes?’ Mum asked Becky. ‘And you look lovely with pink ribbons in your hair.’

  No way, thought Becky. The last person in the world she wanted to look like was Araminta. ‘I like my T-shirt and jeans and my trainers,’ she said stubbornly.

  Becky rarely wore anything else when she was at home. She hated dresses and ribbons and white socks and shiny black party shoes. Pink was her worst colour – Becky liked navy and other less girly colours.

  However, she knew making Mum cross wouldn’t help to get her own way, so she decided to try her cute look. She gazed up at Mum with her huge green eyes and a shy smile broke across her freckly face as she slowly hooked a finger into her tangle of red curls.

  ‘Your brothers look really smart in their new suits,’ Dad piped up, folding away his newspaper. ‘Wouldn’t you like to look really smart in your nice new dress?’