Monkey Bars and Rubber Ducks Read Online Free Page A

on and on. Eventually, after what seemed like ten minutes, Callum spoke to Jamie who then disappeared back through the door.
    ‘Jamie’s gone to find Copper Pie, I reckon,’ I said to Bee.
    ‘What shall we do?’ That was strange coming from Bee. She’s the one who always tells us what to do.
    ‘Nothing?’ I said.
    ‘We can’t do nothing, idiot. If Jamie goes wandering round the school looking for Copper Pie he might spot Jonno coming back. We need to keep them focused on the playground.’ She was almost shouting at me.
    I put my head in my hands. He was going to be caught. I knew it.
    ‘Thank goodness.’
    I took my head out of my hands to see why Bee was thanking goodness. Jamie was back. Good! But there was still no Copper Pie.
    I looked over to the netball court where Fifty was standing all on his own under the trees, the only Triber on the Tribe patch. He made ‘come here’ movements with his hands. It looked like he was rolling pastry, but luckily I know him well enough to decipher his mimes.
    ‘Let’s go and see what Fifty thinks,’ I said to Bee.
    ‘You go,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking.’
    I looked at my watch on the way across the playground – seven minutes until the bell. All I wanted was for my four friends to be hanging about on our patch with me, doing nothing more interesting than watching the tree stump for signs of Jonno’s friend, the stag beetle who lives there. Why we were always about to get in trouble, in trouble already, or trying to get out of trouble, I didn’t know. Before Tribe, I was never in a scrape, ever.

You Wait for a Bus,
Then Two Come at Once
    Have you ever heard the saying, ‘You wait for a bus and then two come at once’? Well that’s what happened next. A red double-decker came careering into the playground, followed by a green double-decker. Only joking. This is what really happened.
    Jonno strolled out of the door, smiled at Callum and Jamie and carried on over to where Fifty and I were waiting, both grinning our heads off that he was back. Jamie and Callum didn’t seem to take much notice which showed they hadn’t realised he was missing. They were still on the hunt for Copper Pie, for definite. And two seconds later, that’s who came out of the door – Copper Pie, heading straight for us. As soon as Bee saw him she legged it over. At last, we were all where we should be, on the Tribe patch, with three minutes to go before the bell and a whole bunch of questions.
    ‘Did it go OK?’ I asked Jonno.
    ‘Really good,’ he said. ‘Big Jim is really interesting to talk to. I’d like to go there every day.’
    ‘Did he call you names?’ asked Copper Pie.
    ‘No, of course not.’ Jonno gave Copper Pie a why-would-he? look.
    ‘And no one saw you?’ said Bee.
    ‘No. Actually I had a good idea on my way out. I grabbed a football from a Year 3 and kicked it on to the road so I had an excuse for being there. Then I picked it up and dashed round the corner to the alley. I hid it in a bush at the other end (where the Alley Cats hang out) and did the same on the way back, kicked the ball into the road in case someone was about.’
    ‘We should all do that,’ said Bee. ‘The ball would be a sort of alibi.’
    I knew what she meant, but the ball couldn’t actually give evidence to a judge and jury. Although a talking ball defending Tribe would be cool.
    ‘What about you?’ said Jonno.’ Did you keep Callum busy?’
    ‘We did,’ said Bee. ‘But not exactly the way we planned.’ She put her hands on her hips and faced Copper Pie. ‘So where did you disappear to?’
    Copper Pie held his hands out as if to say,’ I’ve done nothing wrong.’
    a‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We saw you go to the loos, and when you came out we were all going to swap places, but you never came back out.’
    ‘Did you go and check out the gates?’ asked Fifty, suspiciously.
    ‘Please don’t say you went outside the gates looking for Jonno,’ said Bee, accusingly.’ Plans