Wednesday

This time, it was Kayleigh Collier herself who’d got Mrs Denham.  She stood to the side as the confrontation started, hungry for blood.

Mrs Denham glowered.  “Gwen Braithwaite, what on Earth do you think you’re doing?”

Gwen stood there in her purple sash (actually a dressing-gown belt borrowed from Hope’s friend Lizzie) and beamed.  “It’s like you said in the presentation this morning, miss- you’ve got to spend money to make money.”  And then she, Amber and Harry all held their breath and waited to see whether or not Mrs Denham bought it.

They’d known all along that this would be a difficult thing to explain.  Gwen had spent the last hour or so wandering around the hall with her sash and her basket of Denham Dollars, challenging Year Eights to answer three questions.  Anyone who answered the questions correctly got five free Dollars.  The trick had been to track down all the girls Tessa Collier had conned money out of yesterday and give them questions like “What is the capital of France?” while the other kids had got “What is the square root of 167?” or something.  The latter group had included Tessa herself, who’d then followed Gwen around for ages insisting that since she’d got one question right, she should get two tickets, or whatever one third of five was.  Then she’d disappeared, most likely to complain to her sister, which was probably how Mrs Denham had come to know about it.

“You’re giving away your Denham Dollars?” demanded Mrs Denham, gesturing to Gwen’s basket.

“Only a few,” said Gwen, holding up the basket so that Mrs Denham could see the ten Dollars floating around inside.  It was just as well that Mrs Denham had only come sniffing around now- they’d started out with fifty.  That would have been a lot harder to explain.  “We’re making an investment in the community.  We’re taking a risk and giving up a few of our Denham Dollars to spread goodwill and good word of mouth.  If we’re lucky, we’ll get it back about ten times over.”

Mrs Denham nodded.  She almost looked impressed (as well she might- that was most of her presentation on Monday that Gwen had just regurgitated.)

Kayleigh glanced at Mrs Denham, and let out an angry huff.  She stretched out an arm to point at Gwen.  “Ask her why she gave Denham Dollars to all the Year Eights except my sister and her friends!”

Gwen shrugged.  “They got the questions wrong.”

“You’re cheating!  You’re just bribing the Year Eights to come to your stall instead of anyone else’s!”

Mrs Denham turned to look at Kayleigh.  “Why would they bribe the Year Eights to give them back their own money?”

Kayleigh spluttered in rage.  “Listen, my little sister…”

“Kayleigh, I’ve had quite enough of this.  I defended you to Gwen and her friends on Monday, but if you’re trying to pursue some kind of vendetta, then it can stop right now.”

“But Miss!”

“Back to your stall, Kayleigh,” said Mrs Denham, her face taking on that stony look that nobody could argue with.  Defeated, Kayleigh headed back.

A few minutes later, after Mrs Denham had gone and Kayleigh and her friends had found something to distract them (going up to Fiona West’s stall, pretending they wanted to ask her something, then burping in her face), Harry whispered to Amber, “Did your cousin really offer to print out a hundred Denham Dollars at first?”

Amber nodded.  “She gets carried away sometimes.”