Extraordinary Losers 2

  VANDAL SCANDAL

  JESSICA ALEJANDRO

  ILLUSTRATED BY CHERRYN YAP

  Contents

  Dedication

  Map of Brightstar Primary

  Meet our extraordinary heroes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For my Favourite People-:

  Cheryl, Christine, Joella and Aw

  CHAPTER 1: THE GREAT WALL OF BRIGHTSTAR

  Hey, guys, pass me the ball!” Janice stamped her feet in impatience. “Please!”

  The three boys – Clandestino, Mundi and me – were ignoring her. Whoop, whoop, whoop. Clandestino spun the ball in his hand and raced to the hoop to do a slam dunk.

  “And that’s how you do it,” he said, sniffling.

  Mundi was distracted. “The ball was spinning almost at the speed of sound, no?”

  “Cool,” I muttered.

  Just two weeks ago, we had agreed to… wait… been talked into a basketball match to prove our worth to our arch enemies Justin and Leonard. Now it was just two days before the inter-class basketball match.

  This match was the biggest deal in Brightstar Primary. The match that would define you as a Real Loser or a Cool Dude. This was a match that teachers had no say in and one of the few matches in school that everyone was excited about. It was a match where children ruled and adults didn’t have any say.

  “Here, Janice!” I finally got my hands on the ball and as I got ready to pass it to her, I heard an unmistakable chomping.

  “JAAAAANNIIICE! How can you eat in the middle of a practice session?”

  Janice licked her cream-stained lips. “Don’t judge me, Darryl! Basketball is not my thing. And besides, I got bored and hungry.”

  She took one more bite of her strawberry donut and squashed the remaining bits into her pocket. Then she dusted her hands and claimed, “Okay, now I am ready. Seriously!”

  Mundi was blinking and blinking. “Do you know the basketball match is in two days? Which means it is in 48 hours. In 2,880 minutes. In 172,800 seconds.”

  “See, my good friend is faster than a calculator!” Clandestino proclaimed, panting.

  He had just run 20 laps round the court in less than 10 seconds. He was the only one with the agile hands and feet. He was the SPEED. His hands and feet were faster than the speed of light. But the rest of us, we were not athletic at all. We weren’t fast, agile or basketball material. I was way too short. Every time I looked up at the hoop, the sun was positioned just over the hoop. It would sting my eyes so much that all I saw was a blur of white.

  I looked at my three friends. None of us were ready for the match at all. Had I made a wrong decision by accepting the challenge? But we had to! It was a challenge. And challenges are meant to be taken, unless you are really a loser. In this case, we weren’t, and it was time to show the world why. Janice ran to her school bag, fished out her phone and came toddling back excitedly.

  “Okay, let’s try!” she said. “Come, everyone. Watch this!”

  She grabbed Mundi by the wrist and forced him to sit down. “Are you ready?” she asked in our form teacher Mr Sebastian Grosse’s distinctive voice. Janice never failed to crack us up with her funny impersonations. She could do anybody! Her voice was her power and she would put it to incredibly good use soon.

  Mundi nodded.

  “34 times 89!” she demanded.

  “3,026. No?”

  “Awesome!” I said. Janice was still tapping away on the screen. Her fingers were a little too fat and they kept keying in the wrong numbers.

  Clandestino, impatient as usual, snatched the phone from Janice. “Here, let me be the judge. Okay, are you ready again, Mundi?”

  Mundi nodded again, blinking like a frog in the rain.

  “4,536 over 72 equals?”

  “63!” Mundi declared, loud and clear.

  Clandestino, even with his quick fingers, had just tapped on the equal sign. The answer was really 63!

  Janice was excited. “Longer sums! Longer sums! This time I will say out the numbers while Clandestino keys them in.”

  “Okay, I’m ready!” Clandestino said.

  “Okay … let’s see … 15 times 23 times 44, divided by 33 divided by 10 times 99, equals?” Janice asked.

  “4,554!” Mundi yelled.

  It’s reeeeaally incredible,” she said, stupefied.

  “You’re Amazing Mundi!” I said, ruffling his hair.

  “Thank you.” He bowed. It was indeed 4,554. Janice leaned over to check the answer on her handphone. The screen was foggy with fingerprints and splatters of donut cream.

  We were 11 years old. If you didn’t know by now, all four of us are special. Even though we all have special powers, a calculator never fails to intrigue us. Even Mundi, who is a genius. How does the calculator know the answer to every Math question? And why do we need to draw models in Math problem sums when there is the magical calculator? All we really need to do is learn to tap on it fast enough. If there are touch-typing courses (where people learn to tap on the keyboard without looking), there should also be calculator courses where kids learn to press numbers quickly, accurately and without looking. That would indeed be a true life skill!

  All of a sudden, a loud exclamation interrupted my thoughts. I have the ability to hear very very very well, but the calculator had distracted me so much that I didn’t hear this one coming.

  “Help! Help! Children!!”

  “Guys! Do you hear something?” I asked.

  The three of them looked at me blankly.

  “I can hear something. Someone is running towards us, and…”

  Clandestino grew impatient. “Come on, Darryl! What is it?”

  They couldn’t hear anything. But I could discern nervous, frantic footsteps and a very panicky voice.

  “Oh no! How could this have happened?” A voice accompanied the footsteps. They were coming from the direction of the main office.

  “We can’t hear anything?!” Janice waved. “Yoo hoo, Darryl, anybody home?”

  “Wait, she is coming towards us.”

  “Who’s she?” Clandestino asked.

  All of a sudden, we saw a lady running towards us. She was a skinny lady. Bespectacled with curly hair. The most timid person in the whole school. Her voice was barely audible. Her speech was a whisper, her yell was a squeak, her sneeze was a fizz, her footsteps were a… well, you get the idea.

  “Miss Teo?” Janice said. It was indeed Miss Teo, our school’s operations manager, running towards us. Arms flailing like a damsel in distress. She was panting. Panting hard.

  “Old people really don’t run fast at all!” Clandestino said with a yawn.

  Miss Teo was in her forties and had mixed feelings about being called a “Miss”. She was, however, the kindest person in school. Whenever students got a scolding from a teacher, she would rush to their aid. Just recently, I had to stay back for detention as I had arrived late for school.

  Miss Teo slid me a packet of fries and a can of Coke just so I wouldn’t go hungry. Every student in the school liked her because she wasn’t a teacher and she didn’t scold us.

  “Children! Finally, someone!” She gasped. “My favourite four!”

  The four of us stared at one another with raised eyebrows.

  “I was walking out of the office towards the staircase, when I saw… Just follow me and you’ll know what I mean.” Miss Teo beckoned us to the office, desper
ation written all over her face.

  We followed her obediently like restless Brightstars. After all, our basketball practice session wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I was walking out of the office towards the staircase when I saw … ” Janice mimicked, her arms flailing.

  “Ssh… Janice! This is serious,” I warned. Miss Teo spun around when she heard our voices, and we acted like nothing happened. As we tailed Miss Teo, the excitement was so overwhelming that Clandestino began twirling his pens.

  “Area of a parallelogram is ½ x b x h… Area of a circle is ϖr2…” Mundi muttered.

  Janice began munching on her donut and I … well, I was just distracted by their heavy breathing and their palpitating heartbeats.

  We followed her to the main office, looking around, not knowing what to expect. She stopped, sighed heavily and then pointed to the staircase next to the office.

  “So?” I asked. “What is it?”

  “Look closer, behind the staircase!” she said.

  We all went nearer and to our horror, an appalling image came to view! It was absurd!

  On the wall, a shocking image greeted us. There was a caricature of the principal, Mrs Priya, riding on a scooter. She wore a wicked grin and the mole on her chin was blown out of proportion. Her features were so distorted that we all stifled a laugh. The caricature of Mrs Priya was hideous! What’s worse, children in our school uniform wearing clown hats were gathered all around her on the bike. The school flag was wrapped around her head like a bandana. A party horn was sticking out of her mouth. Beside the image, the words “Brightstar School For Fools” had been sprayed on.

  We stood there, perplexed.

  CHAPTER 2: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

  The next morning, the whole school assembled under the early morning sun. All of us belted out the school song and national anthem like we really meant it.

  Just the previous week, all of us had sung begrudgingly. Our music teacher was promptly summoned up on stage to lead us in the singing of our school song. An opera singer wannabe, she sang in such a high pitch that some kids developed an instant headache. A few, thanks to the lack of breakfast and the extended time under the hot sun, even fainted.

  No one wanted that experience again, so from then on, we gave the school song our all! Mrs Priya stood on stage, smiling at us approvingly.

  After the singing session, Mrs Priya scanned the sea of Brightstar students and sighed deeply into the microphone. The microphone screeched and I covered my ears. “Bright… Brightstar… pupils… Today is a very sad day.”

  There was a tremor in her voice. We thought she was about to weep, when all of a sudden, her sadness turned into anger. She eyeballed each of us, her eyes wide, before continuing her speech.

  “Brightstars, do you know what happened yesterday?” She sighed again. “The most distressing remark ever made, and on our school walls! Someone or some people sprayed the remark ‘Brightstar School For Fools’ on the wall outside the office. What’s worse, there was a caricature of me on it!”

  Unconsciously, she fiddled with the mole on her chin. The children (especially the lower primary kids) began to chuckle, thinking that it was quite funny. The upper primary students knew better.

  “Silence!” Mrs Priya yelled, her arms akimbo. The microphone vibrated a little. “This is very serious! How dare you children laugh?”

  Mundi shook his head, protesting.

  “If you are the culprit, come forward now,” she urged. “Better to confess now before we catch you! Be very sure that we will get to the bottom of this! I don’t care if it takes weeks or even months! We will get the culprit.”

  All the teachers, including Mr Grosse, Miss Jacobs and Madam Siti, had worried looks on their faces. I saw Mr Grosse lean over to Madam Siti. Quickly, I scraped out any ear wax as fast as I could and strained to eavesdrop.

  “ … bad. This is not the end. Mark my words, there will be more to come.”

  Madam Siti turned to him and nodded. Something really serious was brewing in Brightstar Primary School. Was there really more to come? What was the motive of the vandalism? And was our school in grave danger?

  I turned to Mundi, Clandestino and Janice. We looked at one another, the same thought going through our minds. Was it time to be extraordinary again?

  From a distance, I could hear people muttering. Justin and Leonard turned to each other.

  “What a cool piece of artwork,” they said, sniggering.

  Could it have been them? Did they do it to take revenge for what happened to them one week ago in school? When they had been punished?

  We didn’t want to be seen chatting about the vandalised wall, for fear teachers might misconstrue our actions and think that we were the culprits. So I mouthed “notice board” and rushed to the Guitar Club notice board to pin up my message to my friends. There was definitely time for a poem, even at such a time.

  Then I raced off, hoping my three friends would be able to solve the riddle in the poem.

  During the first few periods of class, no one could concentrate.

  Our Math teacher, the lovely Miss Jacobs, sashayed in as usual. “Good morning Class 5B,” she chirped. She was still quite sprightly despite the frightful assembly. Our classmates seemed to have forgotten about the whole incident. They went about their business as usual, panicking over homework while trying to settle down.

  Janice, Mundi and Clandestino were at the edges of their seats, perhaps because of the note I had left them.

  “Class, if you know anyone who could have done what Mrs Priya had talked about, do come forward to let me know. Okay? Your names will be kept confidential,” Miss Jacobs appealed sweetly.

  “Yes, Miss Jacobs,” came the reply.

  Leonard raised his hand. “Err, Miss Jacobs. I notice that the message rhymed. Like a poem.”

  “You mean ‘Brightstar School For Fools’?”

  “Yes, ‘School’ and ‘Fool’ rhyme.”

  “Okay?”

  “So… the vandal might have been a silly poet like Darryl. He loves to rhyme!”

  The class broke out in laughter. Everyone pointed at me.

  “I love to rhyme, but I am definitely not a vandal,” I said.

  “Well, only you know…” Leonard said with an evil wink.

  “Loser!” added Adam, the new basketballer in class.

  Miss Jacobs noticed the harassment and raised her voice. “Boys, if you do not have evidence, do not blame anyone. Clear?”

  Leonard, Justin and Adam sniggered.

  “Good. Now let’s get on with our lesson. Do all of you have your Math textbook? Can you turn to page 34 on ratio and percentage?”

  My mind could hardly concentrate on Math. It was the last thing on my mind right now. The clock ticked so slowly, like it was running out of battery.

  “Darryl! Are you paying attention?” Miss Jacobs asked.

  “Yes, Miss Jacobs. I am. I am looking at the board.”

  “He is thinking about the graffiti on the wall!” Justin cried out.

  “Yes, you are looking at the board, but your eyes have been on the same spot for the past 10 minutes. I am already at this corner of the whiteboard. But you are still there.” She pointed to the spot where she was drawing models just minutes ago.

  Wow, teachers do know if we are really paying attention. All this time, I thought pretending to look at the board was enough. You mean they actually follow our gaze? Amazing. I should really go to Teachers Training College one day.

  “Oh yes, erm… Sorry?” I said sheepishly.

  “A hundred per cent bona fide loser,” Leonard remarked. “Miss Jacobs, he can’t hear well because his ears are all blocked up with ear wax!”

  “No…the-the-there-there-there’s a-a-a reason.” Mundi gulped.

  There was silence. The whole class turned to Mundi. He had never spoken up before in the presence of any teacher, but here he was standing up for me!

  “There-there-there’s,” Justin repeated. “The mut
e boy speaks!”

  “Hee hee,” the class tittered.

  Clandestino was about to interfere when the clock struck 10 am. Recess. The four of us waited for everyone to file out of class.

  “Hey, thanks, Mundi,” I said. “For trying to stand up for me just now. I was afraid you would reveal my secret.”

  “No. I would never do that, no? But y-you-you…s-s-s-sure you think it is a g-g-goo-good idea? No? To volunteer?” Mundi hesitated when he thought of the note I had left on the notice board.

  “Yes, why not?” I said. “The only way we can study the vandalised wall and gain clues is if we volunteer to clean it. We can’t be staring at it all day.”

  “Yes, we will definitely be too obvious if we keep staring at it,” Janice added.

  “They might think we’re the ones who did it if we hang around that area too often,” Clandestino concluded. He was often mistaken for a bad kid since he was quite unkempt and untidy.

  “I will end up cleaning it in the end, so you guys might as well just help me. Right?” I said.

  The three of them raised their eyebrows.

  “Why you?” Janice asked.

  “Hello, Janice. I am the notice board rep, remember? We do nothing. That’s why ALL the notice board reps usually get called up for stuff like this. Remember, one night when there was a thunderstorm and all the dead leaves got blown into the compound? The next day, who got called up to clean the premises?”

  “The P5’s and P6’s notice board reps. No?” Mundi remembered.

  “Spot on, Mundi,” I said. “Remember that time when the principal felt that the books in the library were too dusty because nobody had read them, and she needed a group of kids to clean the books. Who did she call?”

  “Oh yeah, that’s funny. She called the notice board reps from P4 and P5 for an ‘after-school assignment’,” Clandestino said, laughing. “I remember you had to wipe them one by one.”

  “Yes, that’s right! You see, I will always get called upon to do stuff like this so we might as well volunteer anyway.”

  “Okay, Darryl,” Clandestino said. “You can count on us!”