Scram! Read online

  Copyright

  First published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2022

  Published in this ebook edition in 2022

  HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

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  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  HarperCollinsPublishers

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  Dublin 4, Ireland

  Text and illustrations copyright © Lauren Child 2022

  Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2022

  All rights reserved.

  Lauren Child asserts the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.

  Designed by Goldy Broad

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Thanks to Hachette Children’s Books for use of the Clarice Bean series lettering

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008541477

  Ebook Edition © April 2022 ISBN: 9780008541484

  Version: 2022-05-17

  For Trisha, of course

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Nothing ever happens except for sometimes . . .

  More Exceptionordinarily Good Books by Lauren Child

  Acknowledgements

  About the Publisher

  Nothing ever happens

  except for sometimes . . .

  And only on rare-ish occasions, which is hardly ever.

  I mainly always find something to do even if there is nothing going on, which might be cutting things up and turning them into something else. I can do this for ages unless my younger brother comes into my room, which is also his.

  I don’t like sharing a room because it means someone has the permission to disturb you even when you are minding your own business and are alone-ly happy.

  If I read, then it will be in the airing cupboard.

  Not everyone has an airing cupboard but we do.

  It’s warm in there with all the vests and pants and it’s dark unless you have a torch, which I do.

  Although it doesn’t always light up, because my sister Marcie usually unscrews the end and steals the batteries out.

  If there is absolutely nothing else to do, then I am very good at staring out of the window. It is a way of noticing things by accident, which is nearly always more interesting than noticing them on purpose.

  And it is how for example i.e. you one day watch a camel walking down the road when it really shouldn’t,

  because camels don’t exist

  in Navarino Street.

  Navarino Street is our street and the houses are all joined together at the sides and they slope downwards in a curve. Seven of us live in our house and one of us is Grandad, who has a room on the flat, because he can be wobbly on the stairs. I have an older brother called Kurt and a younger brother called Minal Cricket and an older sister called Marcie, who steals batteries out of other people’s torches. Other than that my family is my mum and my dad and me, Clarice Bean. We have a cat sometimes but he spends a lot of the day eating food at other people’s houses and cannot be relied on to be a pet when you need him.

  Luckily our cat Fuzzy does not eat birds or he would have to move out for always because you see Grandad is very attached to birds and does not like them being eaten by cats.

  Grandad has his own bird who is a canary called Chirp. Chirp is one of Grandad’s best friends.

  He lets her fly around his room and sing on his shoulder.

  Chirp is Grandad’s always-there companion.

  Grandad likes company but he says he doesn’t always need to talk.

  He says, ‘Sometimes I just want to sit with somebody and be understood without words.’

  Chirp is good for this because she doesn’t know any words – she only does tunes – and Grandad says, ‘You can float away on a good tune, and floating away is sometimes just the ticket.’

  I am in agreement with Grandad, except for the bit about not needing to talk.

  I always need to talk, but I often wish there was more listening and less talking back.

  So it seems very unfair that I have to share a room with Minal Cricket.

  He does nothing but not listening.

  Someone who is a good listener is my granny.

  She is also a good talker.

  She knows everything and when she doesn’t she comes up with something. She says she’s good at figuring things out. That’s her talent.

  I am often wondering what mine is.

  Granny lives in New York and we have long conversations on the telephone.

  She says I am one of those people who is good at finding the interesting. She says, ‘People who find the interesting are interesting.’

  She says,

  ‘You are a very resourceful person, Clarice Bean.’ She means I am good at coming up with ideas when there aren’t any.

  So maybe that is my talent.

  But there are some times when even I can’t turn the nothing into more than it is.

  I hate the nothing days.

  When the day feels nothingy, I tend to lie on the floor and wish I wasn’t lying on the floor.

  It’s very hard to get up when you feel like this.

  But there’s nothing

  you can do about it.

  When things start nothingy, they always get more and more nothing until someone throws someone else’s duvet out of the window or pinches someone else on the arm and the someone else tells Mum.

  Pinching is not allowed.

  Everyone gets cross and fed up on the nothing days but it just can’t be helped.

  It’s no one’s fault and in the end the only thing to do is go to bed at bedtime and cross your toes that you will wake up differently.

  But there was one day in the summer that began as a nothing day

  and then everything happened.

  Absolutely

  nearly

  everything.

  It started like this . . .

  I am sitting on the draining board and Mum is trying to edge a wasp out of the window, which she can’t get open because it got painted into stuck.

  She says, ‘Clarice Bean, why don’t you go and do something?’

  And I say, ‘I’m trying to think what to do but there’s nothing.’

  Mum says, ‘NOTHING? Really? Nothing?’

  I say, ‘Exactly. Nothing.’

  Mum says, ‘How can there be nothing to do? There’s always something to do.’

  I say, ‘Because today is the same as yesterday.’

  And she says, ‘But you didn’t complain about having nothing to do then.’

  And I say, ‘No, that’s because it was different but today it’s the same.’

  She says, ‘It is the very first week of the summer holidays. Are you really going to be like this until you go back to school?’

  I say, ‘It’s just the weather. It’s weighing me down with hotness.’

  She says, ‘If it was raining, you would be complaining about that.’

  I say, ‘Yes, but the hotness is worse because it is interfering with
my brain so I can’t think of ideas, which means there’s nothing to do.’

  And she says, ‘Well, I can give you something to do, if you’re so stuck for ideas: you can pack up the rest of the larder – all the food has to go into boxes.’

  And I say, ‘Why?’

  And she says, ‘Because I am putting up new shelves.’

  And I say, ‘Why?’

  And she says, ‘Because we need more space for food.’

  And I say, ‘Why?’

  And she says, ‘Because I have four children who never stop eating.’

  And I say, ‘Can I have a biscuit?’

  And she says, ‘Your brother ate them all.’

  And I say, ‘That’s so unfair.’

  And she says, ‘If you actually did something, it would take your mind off the unfairness.’

  I say, ‘But that’s the problem. I can’t think of what.’

  Mum says, ‘For goodness’ sake, Clarice Bean,

  you are sending me cuckoo with all your nothing-to-do!’

  I say, ‘It’s not my fault.’

  And she says, ‘Will you just go outside!’

  And I say, ‘I can’t be bothered.’

  And she says,

  ‘Scram!’

  It’s times like this that I would normally phone Betty Moody.

  Betty Moody is my best friend and I am hers, so we mainly like doing everything together. But she has typically gone off on holiday the minute school ended. Her family will be away for the whole entire summer because they are lucky.

  And I am stuck with being on my own outside in the garden.

  Of course Robert Granger is sitting on the wall pretending to be an orang-utan.

  He is always pretending to be something.

  If you could see him, you would know what I mean.

  He has on a very fluffy orang-utan-coloured jumper – even though it is squelching hot – and he is pretending to eat bugs off it like you would do if you were

  an actual orang-utan

  but he is just a pretend one.

  As soon as he sees me, he says,

  ‘Guess what,’ in a loud voice.

  He only talks in loud.

  I don’t bother to guess because he’s going to tell me anyway.

  He says,

  ‘I’ve got a rabbit.’

  I say, ‘You have got a rabbit?’

  He says,

  ‘It’s borrowed off my cousin.’

  I say, ‘So it’s not your rabbit.’

  He says, ‘It is . . .

  until September.’

  I am speechless with envy.

  He says, ‘Do you want to see it?’

  The thing is, I do actually want to see the borrowed rabbit but it’s also a trap – that’s what Ruby Redfort would say. Ruby Redfort is a girl in a book who is an expert in everything and a secret agent and she knows how to avoid tricky situations that can lead into danger.

  In this case the danger is boredom because you can bet yourself that as soon as you get over the wall Robert Granger won’t let you even hold his borrowed rabbit but he will keep on talking and talking until you actually are feeling so dreary that you can’t climb back into safety.

  So I say, ‘I haven’t got time to see your borrowed rabbit because

  I’m very busy doing things.’

  He says, ‘What things are you doing?’

  And I say, ‘Stuff.’

  And he says, ‘What stuff?’

  And I say, ‘Stuff stuff.’

  And he says,

  ‘If you were doing stuff,

  you’d tell me what it was.’

  This is actually not true because I try never to tell Robert Granger ever what I am up to.

  But this time I do because I am cross that he has a borrowed rabbit and I don’t, so I say,

  ‘We are also getting a pet.

  Maybe an actual rabbit,

  or a tortoise, or . . .’

  I am trying to think of what else we might pretend to get and I nearly say horse, but then I remember the pet Marcie is desperate for, and I say,

  ‘Or a dog.’

  He is speechless.

  Which I am not surprised about.

  He says, ‘Really?’

  And I say,

  ‘Completely actually.

  But we won’t have to give it back

  in September because it

  won’t be borrowed.’

  And he says,

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Which is typical of Robert Granger.

  Why can’t he ever believe you?

  And I say,

  ‘Well, you might as well because it’s true.’

  And he says,

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t

  have time to talk

  to you because I need

  to check on an

  actual existing rabbit.’

  And then he slides down from the wall and buzzes away.

  I just can’t believe that even Robert Granger is luckier than me. He might have only a borrowed rabbit but I don’t even have a made-up one.

  Marcie’s football is lying about in the flowerbed, so I kick it very hard at the fence and I must be a good kicker because it goes straight through the wood into Mrs Stampney’s.

  There is no way I am going to ask for it back because Mrs Stampney is a crab apple and does not take sorry for an answer even with a box of Jelly Fruits.

  One thing I have learned is the best thing to do in this situation is pretend it never happened.

  So I cover up the hole in the fence by pulling the creeping plant down over it.

  I hope it won’t be found.

  There is nothing to do indoors either

  and I can’t even sit in the airing cupboard because it is too hot.

  And I can’t even sit in my bedroom cupboard because the lightbulb has stopped lighting up.

  And my emergency torch is not working because my sister Marcie has stolen the batteries again. She uses them in her radio, which is never not on, and so I am always usually left with a torch that doesn’t light up.

  Not lighting up is pointless when it comes to torches.

  I am thinking of saving up for one of those wind-up ones that doesn’t require any extra powering. They don’t cost too much compared to some things, but they cost a lot to someone who is already saving up £5 for something much more rarer than a winding-up torch.

  I tiptoe about in socks to see if I can find any other batteries without going into the kitchen, which is when I remember that the television remote controller takes two,

  and two is exactly how many I need.

  I fish them out and go back to my room to find my comics.

  I keep them under my bed with a china pig standing on them. But the pig is standing on nothing. And the comics are not there. And I know it must be my sister who took them.

  I storm into Marcie’s room, which is absolutely not allowed but luckily she is at Casey’s, so she will never know.

  I have to be careful because if I get on Marcie’s bad side then saving up the £5 will all be for nothing.

  You see, the thing I most want in the whole entire world is Marcie’s rainbow roller skates, which she has grown out of.

  I have wanted these skates ever since Marcie got them for her birthday millions of years ago.

  They have loopy laces and rainbows swooping on the sides and I have been waiting to grow into them since I first saw them.

  Every time I nearly reach £5 in my toadstool, something happens and I have to spend some of it on i.e. the school Lucky Dip or an emergency packet of crisps.

  At the moment I only have £3.79.

  I am hoping my sister won’t sell them to someone else before I have saved up the whole amount.

  So you can see why I have to be unnoticed.

  In this type of situation, Ruby Redfort would say,

  ‘Whatever you do, you must

  cover your tracks.’ r />
  Ruby is good at covering her tracks because she has to be undercover and if anyone ever finds out what she is up to then she won’t be undercover any more.

  I search around but it turns out my comics aren’t in Marcie’s room. They aren’t anywhere.

  And that’s when I remember.

  I took them all to Betty Moody’s because we wanted to read them on her beanbags.

  But of course Betty is away for the holidays.

  This means I will not have my comics for at least ages.

  Since I am already in Marcie’s room, I decide I might as well check to see if she has any interesting other things to read. But all her magazines are about hairstyles and eyelashes and I am not interested in those subjects.

  I am about to tiptoe out when I notice a very shiny magazine sticking out from under her bed.

  It’s brand new and it’s called

  There’s Nothing Like a . . . Dog.

  There is a dog in a beret and the words:

  Is your dog speaking

  your language?

  A free pull-out guide to how to speak Dog.

  There’s also a free gift attached, which is flip-flops with a dog-bone design on the underneath. I peel them off the cover and try them on.

  They are quite large.

  It doesn’t surprise me that my sister has this magazine because she is desperate for a dog and most of her posters are of dogs, and if they aren’t they are of smiling boys with odd hairstyles.

  The magazine looks interesting,

  so I flump down and start reading.

  It turns out that it’s true:

  there is nothing like a dog

  except for some sorts of cats and also pigs who have the same loyalness and who you can train to be exactly almost like a dog. It is fascinating and at the same time very interesting and also very hot in Marcie’s room.

  It’s hard

  to keep

  my eyes

  open.

  I fall asleep

  with my face

  crumpled

  on to a picture

  of a

  beagle.

  I am disturbed into being awake by a cross sound from downstairs.

  Which is a voice saying,

  ‘COULD YOU