Jelly Breaks the Mould Read online

  Myf whispered to me, ‘We actually did put a LOT of those leaves in the soup – it might be really poisonous – poisonous enough to make certain people a bit poorly if we give them enough . . .’

  We decided we were going to give tiny portions to the people we liked, and bigger portions to the people who we didn’t like.

  Sandy was first in the queue.

  Which was slightly awkward as I did like him even though he was a pig. But luckily Sandy was a very gentlemanly pig and when Cicily came skipping over – ‘Romeo! I too am famished!’ – he let her in front.

  Myf gave Cicily a ginormous bowl of soup but there was still quite a lot left for Sandy.

  Luckily Sonja was very un-gentle-womanly and shoved herself in front of Sandy.

  ‘Soup, please, and make it a big one else I’ll whack you.’

  On the other side of the kitchen I could see Cicily feeding Sandy spoonfuls of soup in a very cosy way.

  When Sandy caught my eye, I couldn’t turn away (ears) so continued to stare until HE looked away. See! Ashamed! He was ashamed because he had forsaken me for another girl.

  Myf and I left Roobs to load the dishwasher because she didn’t like the way we did it at all – so to get out of it we’d started laying the cutlery horizontally on top of the cutlery section and putting the plates in with three-quarters of a nourishing meal left on them.

  –19–

  Murdering the Play

  Myf and I snuck off to watch the second half of the evening performance from the wings – neither of us had watched it properly before because we were either too busy napping or making badges for Jelly and the Mould Breakers and we hadn’t bothered learning our parts (what would be the POINT?? We knew Sonja and Cicily would never give us the chance to be understudies!).

  But as there was NOW a possibility that our soup might make them poorly and unable to go on the next day we thought we’d better try to concentrate. But it was quite confusing with all the language and after ten minutes or so we both nodded off.

  When we woke up, Cicily was DEAD! I nudged Myf.

  Despite the fact that my blood was running with fear I still noticed that Sandy seemed to be very distraught about Cicily’s death.

  ‘We’ll have to make a run for it and hide out somewhere!’ I told Myf.

  We ran to the kitchen to get Roobs. But she wasn’t there! She’d left a note saying she’d gone to purchase dishwasher salt – so I turned the note over and left her a note:

  It was very uncomfortable in the cupboard – and very .

  Myf said, ‘I wonder if Sonja is dead yet?’

  ‘Myf! You don’t seem to get it – we have MURDERED Cicily!!’

  ‘What? In real life?’

  ‘Yes! With the carrot leaves! In the soup!’

  ‘Can you leave fingerprints on soup?’ Myf asked.

  ‘We’ll have to go to prison for the rest of our lives!’ I cried.

  ‘But what about Myf and the Mould Breakers?’ Myf whined.

  ‘JELLY and the Mould Breakers, for crying out loud!!’

  ‘And Boxford’s Got Talent?’

  ‘Well, we won’t be on trial by then so it should be . . . MYF!!! You don’t understand the seriousness of it!! And can you paleeease get your elbow out of my ear!’

  ‘Nah,’ I said dismissively (I wasn’t sure where it was). ‘How about Scotland? My mum always says she’s going to run away there when she’s got P.M.T.’

  ‘Too cold,’ Myf said. ‘What about China? We could get jobs in a trainers factory as child slaves.’

  After much debate we eventually decided on Cornwall because we knew where it was, and thought we could start lives as surfing instructors.

  We would wait till the school was closed then walk to the coach station.

  Then, despite the fact that I was sitting on a cricket stump (the pointy end up) and Myf was perched on a rugby ball (the pointy end up), we both nodded off for a bit.

  –20–

  Cupboard Love

  Suddenly, we were woken by banging on the door.

  ‘Myf? Jelly?’

  It was Roobs.

  ‘They’re not here . . .’ Myf croaked. ‘Only Gary Hook is in here. That’s me, Gary Hook.’

  Then she continued to be Gary Hook in a voice that was more like Gary Hook than even Gary Hook’s.

  ‘Myf, open up!’ Roobs demanded.

  We opened the door.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Roobs enquired.

  We explained that we had poisoned at LEAST Cicily and possibly Sonja – if not the cast – and that we were running away and starting a life as surfing instructors in Cornwall.

  ‘Don’t be so utterly ridiculous!’ Roobs said. ‘You can’t even surf! And anyway you haven’t poisoned anyone – some of the cast have gone down with a 24-hour stomach bug that’s been going round at school – although there have been unfair rumours that it was MY catering . . .’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Myf said, sounding a bit disappointed.

  ‘Yes,’ Roobs told her, helping her off the rugby ball, ‘and Cicily and Sandy, and a few others. They don’t think they’ll be able to do the performance tomorrow. Mrs Lilac asked me to come and find you—’

  ‘Phew! That’s a relief,’ I said, but then it dawned on me what that meant. We were going to have to go on as understudies! The NEXT DAY!

  Roobs had studied the play in GREAT depth when planning her menu and explained that in the play Juliet takes a potion to make her look dead so she doesn’t have to marry her fiancé, Paris, and can then run away with Romeo. But Romeo thinks she really IS dead and takes poison and does die, so then Juliet wakes up from her sleep and finds Romeo dead next to an empty bottle of poison. Juliet Romeo to try to get some of the poison on her lips, but it doesn’t work so she stabs herself.

  ‘I see,’ Myf said, not listening. I wasn’t listening either, until Roobs got to the bit with ‘kisses’ in it . . . I felt panic rising in my chest. would be going on as Romeo!

  I was actually going to have to .

  –21–

  I asked Myf to stay the night at mine so we could try to learn our lines. Feeling sick with I set about trying to quickly learn the part of Juliet. Myf still seemed to think she knew her lines for the part of the Nurse and said she would test me . . .

  When I did finally get to sleep I had terrible dreams about being onstage in my underwear and not being able to remember my lines. I was so relieved to wake up and find it had all been a dream, until I remembered it wasn’t a bad dream – I really COULDN’T remember any of my lines!

  Myf, however, was sleeping like a baby –

  On the bus on the way to school I tried to learn my part again but the words were just on the page.

  It was no good – I couldn’t learn it! When we got to the hall Mrs Lilac said that it would be OK if I read from the page and she didn’t look in the slightest bit annoyed – though she didn’t exactly look , either.

  Ten minutes before I had to go onstage I was still feeling very sick . . .

  . . . but Myf was bouncing about with excitement in her giant Nurse’s uniform.

  –22–

  Myf Shakespeare

  My first scene with was a disaster. As soon as he walked on all the girls in the audience started whistling and whooping and shouting, ‘Phwoar!’ He had to wear Sandy’s costume, and Sandy’s tights were a tad too small for him. He was reading from the script, too, but he kept reading out MY lines again so we got all . But no one could hear anyway because of all the whistling and whooping.

  When it came to the first scene with Myf and me, Myf just made her lines up – total gobbledegook. I read out the right lines and she just said whatever she liked back.

  ‘I don’t think you should bother with that Romeo – he’s a right creep.’

  ‘For crying out loud, Juliet, you don’t half go on!’

  And such like.

  But no one seemed to notice! (Though Mrs Lilac almost had the slightest, faintest, spidery frown line
appearing in amongst her face.)

  When it came to the bit where Friar Lawrence (Connor-shrieks of laughter from the audience) has given Juliet (me) the sleeping draught to make her seem dead – I pretended to drink from the bottle and just lay down and looked as dead as possible.

  But Myf ran on to the stage and started shaking me

  ‘Oh no!!’ she cried, picking up the plastic bleach bottle that the prop designer had dressed up to look like a bottle of sleeping draught. ‘She’s drunk this cleaning fluid – it’s got a skull and crossbones on and it says “POISON – do not drink”!!’

  Well I wasn’t feeling very well but I wasn’t dead and it was very hard to stay looking dead with Myf trying to give me the of life. And very hard not to be sick. Then she threw herself on top of me and started wailing.

  Connor quickly pulled the curtains across, and despite the huge applause for Myf’s performance, Mrs Lilac’s patience was now being a tiny bit tested. She explained to the hysterical Nurse Myf that she wasn’t exactly in that scene and that I was only pretending to be dead.

  She told me to reassure Myf that I was OK and I said I actually wasn’t OK – I felt . . .

  –23–

  Sick at Heart

  So the curtains opened on me lying ‘dead’ again for Romeo’s entrance to the tomb. stalked on to the stage to more whoops and whistles from the audience. He drank his vial of poison and dropped down ‘dead’ (his acting came in very handy in this scene).

  Then I had to wake up and read out a lot of stuff and then it was time to him. I leant down towards him and suddenly retched and was SICK! It mostly went on the floor, but some went on ’s hair

  (I would’ve turned away but I was still feeling self-conscious about my ears).

  ‘Urgh!’ exclaimed and up. Mrs Lilac ran on with a bucket of water and mopped up the sick and gave me a wet wipe to clean my face.

  The audience was quite getting into this new version of Romeo and Juliet and started cheering about Romeo being alive after all. So to put the story back on track I gave him the vial of ‘poison’ to drink and whispered to him to lie down and be dead again.

  Then the audience started booing and shouting, ‘Murderer!’ So thinking better of trying to him again, I stabbed myself and the audience cheered . . .

  . . . which was quite upsetting when I’d been so poorly.

  The curtains started to come across but sat up before they met, wiping at his hair with his sleeve.

  Seeing their hero alive once more, the audience started cheering again and the curtains closed to more rapturous applause.

  ‘You’ve been SICK in my hair!’ exclaimed, turning to face me. He sounded a bit annoyed.

  ‘Sorreee – urgh!’ I retched again ‘Ooh. Sorry, Roger.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, looking actually quite furious.

  I followed him to the bathroom saying sorry a few more times. He got out his wash bag (which was ENORMOUS and full of all sorts of products: hair gel, hair wax, moisturiser, foundation, toner, concealer) and started dabbing and daubing at himself.

  ‘Oh, I’ll have to wash it now!’ he said crossly. ‘It took me ages to get it just right earlier.’

  I thought I’d better leave him to it, and give him a chance to calm down, so I backed off.

  –24–

  Sonja the Second

  Sonja reappeared then, having recovered from her stomach bug in time to see Myf getting praise for her interpretation of the Nurse. She was LIVID, and had just pinned Myf to the wall and was threatening to whack her when someone threatened to whack HER.

  It was a GIANT older version of Sonja. She even had the headphones and the voice.

  Then, giant older Sonja went stomping off. Mrs Lilac came and put her arm round Sonja and even Sonja didn’t have the heart to shrug her off, though she did say to us:

  ‘Don’t . . . !’ Myf said to me and Roobs.

  ‘I’m not going to!’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’

  ‘I’m not!’ said Roobs.

  ‘If you start feeling sorry for Sonja, I’m never speaking to you again.’

  ‘But, Myf, she had tears in her eyes.’

  ‘And that sister of hers . . . Poor Sonja.’

  ‘Shut up you three or else!!’ Sonja yelled from the other side of the room.

  Then Mum turned up, saying: ‘That poor girl.’

  ‘Yes,’ Julian agreed from behind her. ‘School bullies are often being bullied elsewhere, usually at home.’

  ‘She’s still a bully!’ Myf said, looking over and seeing Sonja laughing with Benji Butler.

  –25–

  Stare Out

  Although I was still feeling a bit ill, I managed to get to the after-play Everyone else who’d been poorly seemed to manage to get there too. They were all talking and laughing about the performance. I noticed quite a few people glancing over at me and heard the words ‘Jelly’, ‘sick’, and ‘ha, ha ha’, quite audibly.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cicily in a ridiculous Oscars-style evening dress to Sandy and saying she felt weak.

  I was lurking on the sidelines with Roobs. She was feeling responsible for the ‘poisoning’ incident and I was feeling responsible for the sick incident.

  Myf and Sonja were both ‘flirting’ with Benji Butler – which involved having an arm wrestle while he cheered them on. Myf was managing to hold Sonja off for much longer this time as she had both arms down her way-too-big Nurse’s outfit sleeve.

  As all the members of were there for the party, Mrs Lilac suggested they do an impromptu concert for everyone. They set up on the stage and Cicily and Polly up with them and started backing singing to their first number, ‘Short Girl’. They sounded like a flock of seagulls having a row.

  Then a gaggle of groupies turned up and started screaming. When Sonja noticed that one of them was wearing a scarf with ‘Benji’ on it she tried to strangle her with it. But then she tuned in to the music that were playing. It wasn’t at all to her taste.

  She only liked rap.

  She put her headphones on, turned up her rap so you could hear it above the din and left in disgust leaving Myf to take over the task of strangling the girl with the Benji scarf on.

  The impromptu concert was getting a bit out of hand now and groupies were trying to climb up onstage, so Mrs Lilac suggested (very nicely) that they stop playing and maybe it would be better if left.

  Oh for goodness sake! I’d been really looking forward to this party and now Sandy was leaving! Not that I cared as it was I actually had a crush on and he was still there, surrounded by hysterical Year Eight kids demanding selfies with his tights.

  I decided to approach him and see if he was feeling more forgiving towards my sick. Sandy and were leaving (with Cicily and Polly in tow) and I saw that Sandy was glancing over at me so I held his gaze (rather than show my ears in profile) and then did laughing with .

  ‘Course I won’t,’ I said, dragging Roobs with me to follow him along the corridor.

  He said (from a safe distance), ‘So how’s it going with the bass? It’s the Boxford’s Got Talent competition next week, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?!’ I shrieked.

  ‘Oh my God!’ cried Roobs.

  ‘Next week!? We’re not ready!’

  ‘We’ll have to cancel our entry,’ Roobs said.

  Then Myf came stomping along wearing the scarf with ‘Benji’ written on it and said:

  ‘We’re entering and that’s that. Have you seen the competition?’ she said, pointing along the corridor. ‘We’ve got a really good chance!’

  All along the corridor posters for the competition were lined up . . .

  And then at the very end . . .

  I started at the way Jay hadn’t left enough room for the whole name . . . but then . . .

  ‘Hold on! I don’t believe it! You can’t use that name, Roger – it’s ours!!’ I cried.

  ‘You’re called Jay and the Mould Breakers too, Jelly?’ said, nervously shi
elding himself again. ‘That’s a coincidence.’

  ‘No it’s not – Jay’s stolen our name – he makes me sick!’

  At the sound of the word ‘sick’, made his excuses and hurried off.

  ‘Right,’ I said to the other two, ‘I think we SHOULD enter! We’re not going to be any worse than that lot.’

  ‘Yeah! And we’ll get all those boy groupies!’

  ‘Yeah!’ Roobs and I agreed.

  –26–

  Web Sight

  We realised that if we really WERE going to enter Boxford’s Got Talent in a week’s time AND win then we’d better start rehearsing, so we went back to mine to have a meeting in the Faithful Club shed.

  Sue, Julian, Cat ’n’ Fats were rehearsing in the kitchen, Grarol was ‘singing’ in the living room and there was some kind of coming out of Jay’s room too. The racket was pretty .