The Butterfly Club Read online

  Maddie liked to make up adventure stories. Her favourite was a story about children going up in a special balloon and landing in all sorts of different countries.

  I liked to make up magic fairy-tale stories.

  I wrote about fairy princesses locked up in castles, and evil witches casting spells, and ferocious giants who stamped on all the little fairy people with their huge boots.

  I loved drawing all my fairy-tale people, but I didn’t write down the stories myself. My hand couldn’t keep up with the story inside my head and I forgot how you spelled the words. So I just said it out loud, and Phil or Maddie scribbled it down for me.

  If we were sitting together at the table, then they’d help me, the way they’d always done in the Infants. But now I was on my own. It was horrible.

  I knew we were supposed to write two pages, but by the end of the lesson I’d only managed this:

  Chapter Four

  MISS LOVEJOY WASN’T impressed by my story. She didn’t think much of my multiplication either. She got cross when we started our Ancient Egyptian project because I muddled up my ‘g’s and ‘y’s and ‘p’s, even though she wrote the title out on the board for us.

  I had to squeeze Baby tightly to stop myself crying. I knew how Selma would scoff at me. But after a bit I started to get interested in the Ancient Egyptians. Especially the mummies. Even the ordinary people looked interesting in Ancient Egyptian pictures. They all walked sideways in those days – even their dogs and their cats and their gods!

  At break time Phil and Maddie and I played at being Ancient Egyptians.

  Oh, it was so lovely being with my sisters! They were very kind and comforting, and felt soooooo sorry for me because I had to sit next to Selma Johnson.

  ‘We’ll tell Mum,’ said Phil.

  ‘Yes, she’ll come and tell old Lovejoy that we’ve got to sit together,’ added Maddie.

  At least we could sit together at lunch time. We have our own lunch boxes with cats on, but mine’s red, Phil has pink and Maddie has blue. We had exactly the same for lunch. We had a cheese sandwich with two tiny tomatoes and a carrot stick. Then we had an apricot slice. Last of all we had a shiny red apple, with orange juice to wash it all down.

  Phil and Maddie ate all theirs up. I got a bit full and bored of eating so I left some of mine.

  It didn’t matter. Phil and Maddie ate it up for me, so Mum wouldn’t get cross.

  After lunch we started doing something called ‘Life Cycles’ in a new exercise book. We began with caterpillars.

  ‘Excuse me, Miss Lovejoy, but we’ve already learned all about them in the Infants,’ Alistair boomed.

  ‘Thank you so much for informing me, Alistair,’ said Miss Lovejoy. ‘However, I’m about to refresh your minds and remind you all over again about the wonder of metamorphosis. Who knows what that long word means?’

  Alistair knew, of course.

  ‘It’s when caterpillars spin a cocoon and later emerge as butterflies. It’s brilliant!’ he shouted.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Miss Lovejoy. ‘Right, everyone, look at the caterpillars on your worksheet. Copy one very carefully.’

  We’d painted caterpillars in the Infants, but we were allowed to do any old green blobs. In Miss Lovejoy’s class we had to do it properly, putting in every segment, with the little feet in the right places. We could use our coloured felt tips. We didn’t have to stick with green.

  I very carefully copied a black-and-white-striped caterpillar with a red head. Well, it might have been its red bottom – it was difficult to tell.

  Selma’s caterpillar looked a mess. She’d tried to do a spiky caterpillar, but she drew the spikes in such a hurry that they just looked like scribble.

  ‘Oh dear, Selma, I think you’d better turn over your page and start again,’ said Miss Lovejoy.

  She tutted when she saw Kayleigh’s caterpillar too. ‘Kayleigh, you haven’t looked properly. Caterpillars don’t have feet on every single segment.’

  ‘Mine’s not a caterpillar, it’s a centipede,’ said Kayleigh.

  ‘Did I tell you to draw a centipede?’ asked Miss Lovejoy. ‘No, I did not!’

  She looked at Peter’s caterpillar. She had to look really hard because it was so small, not much bigger than an eyelash. ‘My goodness, Peter, you’re going to have to draw bigger than that. I’m an old lady. You’ll have to consider my eyesight,’ she said, squinting.

  She couldn’t miss Mick’s caterpillar. He’d drawn a huge one, with great fangs and horns and claws.

  ‘Mine’s not a mini-beast. It’s a great big monster-beast, miss,’ he said proudly.

  ‘Miss Lovejoy. Well, it’s certainly monstrous, Michael. Top marks for imagination and bottom marks for biological accuracy.’

  ‘You what, miss— Miss Lovejoy?’

  ‘Miss Lovejoy means that you’ve done it all wrong, and you have to do it one hundred per cent right when you do biology. Biology means the study of all living things,’ Alistair said importantly.

  ‘What are you – a walking Wikipedia?’ said Mick, and everyone sniggered.

  Even Miss Lovejoy’s lips twitched, though she frowned at him.

  ‘Well done, Alistair,’ she said when she looked at his caterpillar. ‘You will be pleased to know that it’s absolutely one hundred per cent biologically accurate.’

  Then she looked at my stripy caterpillar. ‘Well done, Tina!’ she said. ‘Very well done. My goodness, you’re excellent at art. Your stripy caterpillar is absolutely splendid.’

  She smiled at me and I smiled back, forgetting to be scared. Down on the page my stripy caterpillar smiled too, delighted to be admired.

  Then Miss Lovejoy moved on to the next table.

  ‘Let’s see this caterpillar then, Little Bug,’ said Selma. She snatched my exercise book. ‘Hmm. I don’t think it’s very good at all, do you, Kayleigh?’

  ‘I think it’s totally rubbish,’ Kayleigh agreed.

  ‘What happens when caterpillars get tired of being caterpillars?’ Selma gave me a painful nudge. ‘Go on, Little Bug, what happens?’

  I didn’t want to answer her. I sat tight, clutching Baby under the desk.

  ‘I know what happens – it’s easy-peasy,’ said Alistair. ‘They turn into a chrysalis. They spin all this stuff so that it’s like a duvet all round them.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right. One hundred per cent right,’ said Selma. ‘So let’s give your caterpillar a chrysalis, Little Bug.’ She took her black felt pen and scribbled hard all over my stripy caterpillar, even his little red head or bottom.

  It felt as if she were scribbling all over me too.

  There was a shocked silence at our table. Then Kayleigh laughed a little uncertainly.

  The three boys stared.

  ‘What did you go and do that for?’ said Mick.

  ‘Did you do that for a joke?’ asked Peter.

  ‘It looks a terrible mess now. Whatever will Miss Lovejoy say?’ said Alistair.

  They all looked at me.

  ‘Are you going to tell on Selma, Tina?’

  I wanted to tell. I so, so, so wanted Selma to get into trouble for destroying my beautiful caterpillar. You’re always told to tell on someone if they’ve been mean or nasty. But people in our class don’t like it if you go running to a teacher. You get called Telltale. And if I told tales on Selma, then she’d be even meaner and nastier to me, if that were possible.

  I shook my head and closed my exercise book because I couldn’t bear to look at Selma’s scribble any more. I sank down low on my seat, clutching Baby so hard that she dug a hole in my hand.

  Then, at long last, the bell went for the end of school.

  ‘Right, everyone, put your exercise books in the book bag on the back of your chair. Good afternoon, Class Three,’ said Miss Lovejoy. She looked at us. ‘I expect you all to say Good afternoon, Miss Lovejoy.’

  ‘Good aft-er-noon, Miss Love-joy,’ we said.

  ‘Off you go then,’ she said, making little wavin