Thursday

Later on, Harry said that they should have known how it was going to go when they saw that all their alien posters had been torn down.  Initially, they’d assumed that one of the teachers had taken them down because they were in the way of something important.  It was only after everything went wrong that they noticed a couple of them, screwed up and torn in half, in one of the bins.

For the first half-hour, though, things were fairly peaceful.   Gwen had retired her sash and her basket after yesterday, so she was able to sit around with Amber and Harry, talking about how awful the morning presentation had been.

“Marketing is everything,” said Gwen, in a state of awe.

“We know, Gwen,” said Harry, “We were there.”  About halfway through the PowerPoint presentation, Mrs Denham had got weirdly passionate.  It had been a strange thing to behold.

“But didn’t you hear, Harry?  Marketing is everything.”

“Make yourself useful and count out our earnings from yesterday.”

“Marketing is love.  Marketing is life.”

“Gwen…”

A few stalls to their right, Ben West was arranging his stock, and doing his best to ignore one of Kayleigh Collier’s friends, who was sitting on the end of his table and giving a monologue.  “Hey, Ben?  Ben?  Why do you have, like, a family of spots on your forehead?  Ben?  Why don’t you wash your face to get rid of them?  Ben?  Don’t you wash?  Why don’t you, like, throw hydrochloric acid in your face to dissolve them?  Ben?”

Harry nodded towards them.  “I wonder what that’s called?” he asked Amber and Gwen, “Scoping out the competition?”

“Aggressive sales tactics?” suggested Amber.

If they’d looked around, they might have seen the group of Year Eight boys whispering in the corner, pointing at their stall and snickering.  But even if they had, they probably wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it.  In the end, they just moved too fast.

“If you ask me,” said Gwen, “Mrs Denham wants them to…”  And then an empty Coke bottle hit her on the side if the head.

Soon they were under a barrage of rubbish.  A scrunched-up can hit Harry on the chin.  A full packet of crisps burst on Amber’s chest and went down the front of her shirt.  The Year Eights advanced, hurling food packets and screwed-up bits of paper, until they got right up to the stall and got hold of the things that Amber’s group been selling.  The ceramic figurines they just threw, laughing at the crunching sound as they bounced off their targets and shattered on the floor, but once they got to the shampoo and perfume, it went everywhere.  They opened up every bottle they could get their hands on and poured the contents all over the table and on the floor.  One of them spun in circles, a bottle of alien shampoo in each hand, as green liquid sprayed and splattered around him like a deranged fountain.

“What on Earth is going on here!” came a voice, and, in an instant, the Year Eights scattered.  It was probably the first time Amber had ever been pleased to see Mrs Denham.

She finally got up and looked at the table.  It was a mess- most of the products they were meant to be selling were gone, and the ones that were left were covered in sticky gunk and completely ruined.  And, as she looked at the corner nearest the wall, her heart sank even further.  Their box of Denham Dollars had gone.  With all their earnings from the last four days in it.

Amber glanced to the right, and saw Kayleigh Collier trying very hard not to laugh.

*

 “So what happened?” asked Cousin Hope that evening.

Amber brushed the front of her T-shirt.  She’d changed her clothes and had a shower, but she was still pretty sure she could feel the crisp crumbs itching away.  “Mrs Denham got hold of most of them.  We got the box back, but all the Denham Dollars were gone.  They said they couldn’t remember where they threw them.”  They were all getting a week’s detention, but it was hard for Amber to find that very satisfying.

“And I suppose there’s no way to prove that Kayleigh Collier put them up to it?”

“I don’t even know for sure that she did,” said Amber, but even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true.  That look on Kayleigh’s face afterwards had said it all.  “The boys all said they just did it for a laugh.”

Cousin Hope sighed.  “Well, you wanted to be honest, and Kayleigh Collier threw it right back in your face.”  She squeezed Amber’s shoulder.  “It’s not too late to go back to my original plan, you know.”

Amber thought about it, then nodded.  “Do you think you could get two hundred Denham Dollars printed off by tomorrow morning?”

“For you, honey, anything.”

(TO BE CONCLUDED.)

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.”