Masterminders Read online

  “Children, I think it’s particularly mature of Tony and George to give their supporters a chance to speak, though of course it’ll also be wonderful to hear directly from Margaret, a party leader. We’ll start with Margaret, who’ll be speaking for the Decaffeinated Party, then Terry will tell us about the Manchester’s policies and finally Bobby will tell us all about the Spin Party.” The real names of the parties, Decapitated, Monster and Spawn, were something we kids kept to ourselves.

  “Voters, ask yourself this simple question: do you want to find yourself suddenly and permanently decaffeinated? Or do you want to be safe from all forms of decaffeination? There is only one right way to avoid decaffeination. Vote Decaffeinated.” With that short but easily understood message Madge got down off the chair that allowed her to see over the lectern, folded her bulging arms in that menacing way only Madge could, and waited. On cue the Decapitated horde burst into thunderous cheering, stopping only when Madge raised an eyebrow to indicate they should.

  My mouth was stuffed with dry cereal, the sharp, moisture-sucking kind. I looked over at George and tried a friendly smile. George scowled back. Only the pleasant sight of Madge’s screwed-up frown gave me any encouragement at all. Bobby was still furiously writing notes for his speech, completely ignoring me.

  “Hello, voters. Why should you vote Manchester? And of course we all know why.” (No one wanted George to sit on their head was the obvious, unspoken answer.) “But is that enough, just to know? Shouldn’t you also be sure? We Manchurians think it’s essential that you are sure.” Frighteningly, George had stopped mid-chew and was giving me a look that could have been a puzzled expression or the harbinger of impending violence. I quickly continued, “No need to worry, when it comes to the great voting moment just say to yourself, yes, I’m sure, and vote Manchester.”

  George took a few seconds to process my words and then slowly raised his arms and brought his hands together in a single thunderous clap, setting his enormous breasts wobbling in sympathy. The rest of the Monster voters followed up with a vigorous bout of proper clapping and cheers of, “Yes, I’m sure”, which made Bobby put down his notes, reach for his belt and smile slyly as he stepped up to speak.

  “We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can withstand the power of hyperactive children screaming for some loose change. We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the days to come. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the children of this school false hope. But in the unlikely story that is the Small Island, there has never been anything false about hope, just the reality. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we’ve been told that we’re not ready, or that we shouldn’t try, or that we can’t, generations of little islanders have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people. Yes, we probably can and now I think about it, yes, I’m sure. It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a school. Yes, I’m sure. It was whispered by the downtrodden and those doing the treading as they blazed a trail towards the weekend through the darkest of school homework nights. Yes, I’m sure. It was sung by Big Island immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westwards against an unforgiving swamp-bog. Yes, I’m sure. It was the call of workers who left early on Friday; women who reached for the lipstick; a Mother Superior who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to Graceland. Yes, I’m sure we can to justice and equality, just not at the same time. Yes, I’m sure we can create opportunity and prosperity, for the people who can afford them. Yes, I’m sure we can heal bits of this school. Yes, I’m sure we can repair this world. Yes, I’m sure. And so tomorrow, as we take this campaign to the south and west of the playground, as we learn that the struggles of the little girl with her algebra homework and the struggling child labourer with a paper round and a flat tyre are not so different than the plight of the banker in Edinburgh, that the hopes of the little boy who had pudding made from tree bark for lunch are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns about life behind the bicycle sheds, we will remember that there is something happening in this school, that we are not as divided as our bruises suggest, that we are one oppressed people united with our oppressors, we are the one and only proud state school after the Great Cuts; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in this school’s story with three words that will ring from swamp-bog to beach-dump, from sea to green and slimy sea – Yes. I’m. Sure. Thank you, and may God bless our school and every one of my fellow pupils.”

  With that Bobby stepped back and smiled his special hee-hee smile as he surveyed his audience imperiously. They, Madge and I stared back, quite unable to understand a single word Bobby had said but feeling it was probably the most important thing we’d ever been told. Wow, politics; it was turning me into a Doug.

  Tony leaped to his feet, whistling and clapping, accompanied by his wildly cheering supporters. George and Madge looked less than pleased but would probably not squish Bobby if Tony was happy. The nuns looked strangely puzzled.

  With nothing left to do till the voting on Thursday, everyone dispersed, leaving Tony and Madge to join George in celebratory sherbets. Democracy in action.

  “Now we shall strike,” Bobby whispered.

  And so we did. For the next two days, pockets loaded down with gum and Smarties, we set out to woo our electorate. Bobby’s plan was to trawl the playground looking for potentially rebellious voters who might be inclined to use the anonymity of the voting booth, in our case a teepee, to cheat. It seemed obvious they would make excellent recruits for our still mysterious party.

  “No, no, no. It would be far too obvious to ask them to vote for us and potentially dangerous. We shall adopt a different approach: identify the swing-voter and then corral them back into the herd,” Bobby explained without clarifying anything.

  “Ice-cream for lunch every day with chocolate sauce followed by beans on toast and unlimited cola?” our representative wavering voter asked, helping himself to another Smartie.

  “Yes, relative to those virtual lunches served in the land of Oz, and no more homework, maths or tests of any kind for seventy-seven per cent of the school week when measured incorrectly,” Bobby added.

  “Great, no tests, what do I have to do?” he cheerfully asked and Bobby told him.

  Not all our would-be supporters, who didn’t know anything about our candidacy, were quite so easy to convince.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. How can you promise that school holidays will last all year, and anyway, I like school,” the miserable little bookworm replied. Inwardly, I groaned while maintaining a fixed grin of enormous proportions, an essential part of politics perhaps but I feared my face would be indelibly branded with that stupid smile if we kept this up for much longer.

  Bobby took a deep breath, showed more teeth and tried a different tack: “How would you like to be Deputy Head of Vice in the new government, answerable only to the President, with an annual salary of thirty-five pounds?”

  Bobby had gone too far; where were we going to get thirty-five pounds from? And then I mentally slapped myself for being so stupid. I was President of Vice, probably earning three hundred and fifty pounds a year, more than enough to buy off this horrible little Deputy Vice swot.

  “Where do I sign?” the swot immediately answered.

  Campaigning was hard work and I had lost all track of what we had promised. Bobby later enlightened me. Apparently, it was the solemn duty of all leaders to ignore any promises made before the election. As Bobby put it, the burden of leadership was hard enough without carrying the extra weight of commitments made during a campaign. That would make no sense at all. I did recall that we’d promised Peter we would kill his older sister and her boyfriend after the election. I wasn’t sure whether that was entirely ethical;
his sister was horrible beyond any bounds of reasonableness and she almost certainly deserved to die, but her boyfriend? Wasn’t he suffering enough already? I was amazed he hadn’t committed Hurry Curry before now.

  I had to be honest, the whole political thing was a complete mystery to me.

  At the end of every voter encounter Bobby would say the same thing, “You’ll vote exactly as your party leader has instructed?”

  Followed by, “You’re absolutely sure?”

  Until they said “Yes, I’m sure.” Bobby was dogged.

  Bobby always ended with, “When George is crowned President all your wishes will be fulfilled.”

  The next day Bobby conducted his own unofficial poll of pupil voting intentions.

  “The results have exceeded all expectations, Madge, thirty-three per cent, Tony, thirty-three per cent and George thirty-four per cent,” Bobby joyously announced.

  “Doesn’t that mean we couldn’t find anyone who plans to vote for us, including us, and it’s already Wednesday?” I questioned, rather disheartened by the results of the poll and still suffering from a terrible face ache from all that grinning.

  “Exactly, isn’t it great? They’ll all vote like the lemmings they are. We have succeeded – no one knows about our party or our candidacy. It’s going to work!” Bobby happily whispered.

  Thursday dully dawned, the day of the election.

  “Shortly, we’ll need to join the other Monsters, Decapitateds and Spawns and vote as instructed. I’ve submitted our last minute party details and nominations to the nuns,” Bobby told me.

  “What? Not even vote for ourselves?” I asked in bemusement.

  “Absolutely not; just think nipple and grate,” Bobby ordered.

  Things only got worse. Inside the voting teepee that had been erected in one of the classrooms I found the ballot paper only had the names of the Power Three parties; ours, whatever it was, was missing. Almost in tears, I ticked the Decapitated box and ran out into the playground.

  I found Bobby already there, anxiously bobbing about as though he desperately needed to go for a pee.

  “Isn’t this exciting,” he exclaimed.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. After the loss of Doug and the setback with Madge I was really looking forward to something going right for our Masterminder duo and maybe, just maybe, if I was President of Vice, Madge might fancy me again. I’d notice straight away, even though her way of fancying me before had been incredibly sophisticated and low key, nothing ostentatious. The girl had class.

  Then it was Friday and a joyless morning assembly to hear the results.

  “Well, children, I hope you all enjoyed and learned something from the democracy week exercise. It gives me great pleasure to announce the results and invite the two successful candidates for School President and Vice President, to join me on stage. As you know we used the proportional representation system so you could vote for up to two parties and I’m pleased to see that many of you took that option very seriously. In reverse order, the Decaffeinated and Spin party are joint third; well done, Madge and Tony. The Manchester party is in second place; good effort, George. But runaway winners are the Yes-I’m-Sure party; excellent, absolutely excellent work, Bobby and Terry. Quite amazing result, given you weren’t even on the ballot paper and the pupils had to write your party name in and vote for it. Quite astonishingly, you two along with the other party leaders were the only ones who didn’t vote for the Yes-I’m-Sure party. Come up here and receive your well-deserved prizes.”

  Sitting in the basement later that evening Bobby and I basked in the warmth of our glorious achievement and the school boiler. When the results were announced Madge’s eyes popped in admiration and her mouth flopped open in astonishment. Actually, when we were up on the stage it was as if everyone in assembly had turned into drowning goldfish. There was almost complete silence, apart from the sound of Madge furiously polishing her grater, as we went up to accept our prizes: another set of rosaries; we already had enough to start our own sect. Even the disappointment of finding out that our titles were honorary, carried no powers to order detentions or executions and were only for the day didn’t really knock our ecstatic sense of triumph.

  “When I did that final poll,” Bobby explained between fits of bubbling belly laughter, “I told them that George insisted they write ‘Yes, I’m sure’ at the bottom of the ballot paper and add a cross so there would be no doubt who they’d voted for,”

  It was nearly six p.m. Only the beautiful and pathological Madge would still be hanging around the gates waiting for us; another hour and she would give up. Thankfully, it was Friday. By Monday the Power Three would have forgotten all about democracy and probably beat us up for a completely new reason.

  President of Vice, Terry, now that’s something. Even if I did get a little pummelled, trampled and grated on Monday it had been worth it, and I’d learned everything there was to know about politics.

  And, to add a melted Mars bar to the ice-cream, I was sure Madge was struggling to keep up the pretence that she didn’t like me.

  Chapter Four – Economics

  The Doug, Gordon and gerbil sacrifices finally paid off when Global Warming arrived at last and feebly crawled into our playground.

  Bobby dragged the bobble hat off his head and held his pimpled face up to the weak sun. “Another intellectual triumph, you should be proud Terry. What are you waiting for, get that scarf off before you get heat stroke.”

  It was certainly brighter but my fingers didn’t feel any warmer. Reluctantly I slowly unwound my trusty scarf to be rewarded by an icy blast of wind that withered my Adam’s apple.

  “Let’s celebrate, how about some ice-cream?” Bobby proposed.

  Now that was an attractive idea, a warm shop. We furtively squeezed through the child impaling railings and sneaked around the corner to Mr Singh’s Post Office, Chips and Sweets Emporium. It was a place of applied torture, the smell of warm chips, the sounds of frying, the rainbow coloured mountains of pop, gum and chocolate, and the magazines that were always just out of reach.

  “I’m not selling you two individual wine gums anymore, buy a bag like everybody else,” was Mr Singh’s warm welcome.

  “My good man, that’s no way to speak to your best customers. Anymore of that and we shall take our trade elsewhere,” Bobby declared.

  “Bye,” came Mr Singh’s almost instantaneous response.

  “Ha ha, very funny, now stop your banter and load up a monster scoop of vanilla in your largest cornet,” Bobby laughingly ordered.

  “One scoop is 20p, you boys got 20p?” Singh accusingly queried.

  “Terry, give this man 20p and let us be gone from this distasteful place,” Bobby haughtily commanded me.

  “Can I speak to you outside?” I whispered.

  “What do you mean you have no money?”

  “Power Three,” I tried to remind Bobby but he just kept going.

  “Have you been drinking, gambling, womanising?”

  “Monday’s protection payments,” I added still trying to get Bobby to listen.

  “Terry, have you started saving for your pension?”

  “For two, for the week,” I squeezed into the one sided conversation.

  “How can you not have money, your dad is in to rags on his way to riches, he has a job,” Bobby ranted on despite my attempts at interrupting his stream of consciousness about my not having any money.

  “So, I’m more broke than my cat who doesn’t even know what money is,” I concluded hoping that Bobby would finally understand my predicament. My unseen dad might be on his way to wealth but mum still had three jobs and made me practical birthday presents out of recycled wool from the charity shop.

  “Ah Terry, economics, the implacable laws of supply and demand. The Power Three demand and we supply,” Bobby said as he finally acknowledged my contribution to the conversation.

  I didn’t say anything but I was pretty much on my own on the supply side. Not tha
t I minded. Bobby’s dad had been sick and off work for nearly two months. Things were tight at Bobby’s house; even the annual Discovery DVD upgrade had been sacrificed to save money.

  “Well Terry, no more, we’ll bring an end to poverty starting with you and me. We will free ourselves from the onerous yoke of capitalism and establish a bank. Banks always make lots of money. Indeed people literally throw money at you, barrow loads of the stuff are wheeled up to your front door and tipped in,” Bobby mused as he hatched his plans.

  I liked the idea of being a banker and getting those lovely bonuses that let you buy bits of London. Obviously we’d buy something closer to home, like our school, the whole town, the entire island and best of all Mr Singh’s shop, and a stepladder.

  The next day we convened the first board meeting of Banks R Us. Bobby reluctantly accepted his own nomination and was appointed chairman for life. My job was very special: I would be responsible for liabilities, all of them.

  “Running a bank is easy. We buy low and sell high. Interest is key and we must be liquid at all times,” Bobby explained.

  “How low? And you do remember that I’m not good with heights? Anyway, I’m definitely interested, particularly in the bonuses, when do we get those? How exactly do we stay liquid without getting wet?” I questioned.

  “Our bank will focus on the power market, namely the Power Three. I shall approach them casually, remark on the lovely weather and then amaze them with our financial mechanics,” Bobby announced, ignoring my questions.

  The next morning, when George, Madge and Tony got tired and stopped pummelling Bobby for a moment, he seized his chance, did a quick weather report then announced the Banks R Us once in a lifetime special offer.

  “A hedge of bush funds in Mr Singh’s premium chip spread bets is guaranteed to deliver outstanding results, it will at least double your money every 24 hours. We’re tapping into the global demand for chips and sky-rocketing prices triggered by exploding Chinese demand for luxury foodstuffs. The northern branch of Singh Chip Manufacturing has just started exporting Curry & Chips in a Chapatti to India and the response has been unprecedented. Independent analysts, Banks R Us Research, project that 4 trillion portions of chips will be consumed every hour by next term, compared to 337 an hour today. Our Hedge Chip fund is objectively rated as quintuple A+ by the Banks R Us Rating Agency. It also has four AA stars, an RAC rosette and a Michelin Gold Frog.” Bobby finally managed to squeeze out while the Power Three took a well-earned beating break.