Monkey Bars and Rubber Ducks Read Online Free

eye-roll. Bee, Fifty and Copper Pie were ahead of me.
    ‘Typical,’ said Bee. ‘The one day—’
    She stopped. Callum was right behind us.
    ‘What was that?’ he said.
    ‘I wasn’t talking to you and you know it,’ said Bee.
    Callum smiled. ‘Where are you lot off to today then? The arcade? Or the café?’
    ‘We thought, perhaps, the museum,’ said Jonno, appearing from nowhere. He’d escaped from Miss Walsh pretty quickly.’ Do you want to come?’ I love the way Jonno does that (not the appearing from nowhere, the sounding like he’s being polite when he isn’t).
    ‘Ha ha,’ said Callum.
    Callum stayed in the line, sandwiched between Jonno and the rest of us, so we couldn’t talk. It was pasta with a lumpy, runny sauce. I opted for a jacket potato. Finally, we managed to get to a table away from our stalker.
    ‘Scoff, Jonno,’ said Copper Pie. ‘Jim’ll be waiting.’
    ‘I know, I know,’ said Jonno, between mouthfuls. ‘Tell me again what I have to do when I’m there, while I finish this.’
    ‘He can talk, you know,’ said Copper Pie.
    ‘I know, but —’
    Maybe Jonno was nervous, I thought. The rest of us know Big Jim, because he’s always lived by Copper Pie, but Jonno’s never met him.
    ‘OK. Go through the gate into the back garden and in the back door. He’ll be sitting in the chair. Make him a hot drink and something to eat, and ask if there’s anything else he wants. Get back here, swifto.’
    It sounded straightforward. Jonno put in his last forkful.
    ‘But what if your mum sees him?’ said Fifty to Copper Pie. I hadn’t thought of that. She’s next door looking after the nursery kids all day.
    Copper Pie shrugged. ‘She never leaves the house in the day. Ever. ‘
    Jonno stood up.
    ‘I’ll take your tray,’ I said. He nodded, and scarpered, still chewing. And that was the beginning of half an hour of torture. Until Jonno was safely back in the school playground, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on anything. The others chatted as normal, and I just sat. So did Callum, watching us from his table. I couldn’t eat all my lunch – swallowing was like squeezing a brick down a straw, so Copper Pie helped out.
    ‘Right, then,’ said Bee. ‘Shall we go and make ourselves hard to keep track of?’
    We all followed Bee’s instructions. Copper Pie went to kick a ball about by the goal. Fifty and I went to our patch – the smelly, damp triangle with the rotting tree stump between the netball courts and the tree, aka Tribe territory. Bee went to chat to Lily in the playground. I could see Callum – he was standing by the doors, watching. His eyes were flicking between our three locations. But I couldn’t see Jamie.
    ‘There’s Jamie,’ said Fifty, reading my mind. He appeared out of the door, and took a position by Callum’s side.
    ‘Do you think they’ll notice Jonno’s not here?’ I said.
    ‘Not if we follow Bee’s plan,’ said Fifty. At that exact moment Bee made the agreed signal – shouting my name. ‘Keener!’ Everyone in the whole school must have heard.
    ‘OK, off I go,’ I said. I went over to where Bee and Lily were. Copper Pie went to the loo, which meant he had to go through the door Callum was guarding. Fifty stayed on our patch. The idea was that if we kept moving, and disappearing indoors, Callum and Jamie would be so busy keeping tabs on us they wouldn’t think to check the school gates, which are over the other side of the school, and they wouldn’t realise Jonno was missing.
    So far so good. The next change of location was planned for when Copper Pie came out of the door. We waited. And waited. Callum was waiting too. You could tell by the way he was fidgeting. He kept pushing the arms of his sweatshirt up and then rolling them down again. I was trying not to stare, but my eyes kept being drawn to the spot. Where was Copper Pie?
    ‘What do you think Copper Pie’s doing?’ I asked Bee.
    ‘No idea.’
    The waiting went