A Bump on the Head by Caroline Tailby (most popular novels of all time TXT) 📕

Entry 1

Knocked Out

Have you ever had a dream that you can be sure really happened? I have. I had it when I got bashed on the back of my head after my school’s spring production. I had no idea it had happened, until I woke up with a really bad headache.
My name’s Liana. Liana Perry, and I’m eleven years old. I have long blonde hair and VERY blue eyes and my blood type is AB (whatever that means. The doctor just pricked me with a needle when I was a baby and I think he ran some sort of test, because on my birth certificate it says Blood Type: AB. Weird, huh?). I’m kind of small for my age, but I’m OK with that. It comes in handy sometimes. I can pass for under ten and get discounts on things like restaurant bills (don’t worry, it’s not cheating. Well, maybe it is…oh, never mind) and get into small places that my friends can’t. I’m also a fast runner. That came in handy too, when I was running away from a gang that was trying to kill me.
Oh yeah, I was telling you about getting bashed on the head and that dream. It’s too hard to put into speech, so I’m going to write it down. That’s what I’m doing right now. So let’s get on with it. It all started on a March evening at St. Edwin’s Church of England Primary School. That’s my school. We were putting on our spring production and this year it was Bugsy Malone, one of my favourite films. I wonder if you’ve seen it? It’s all about these rival gangsters, Fat Sam and Dandy Dan, and Dan’s got this really dangerous weapon called the splurge gun that shoots custard pies! Meanwhile Bugsy Malone, our hero, falls for Blousey Brown, a singer at Fat Sam’s speakeasy, but this other girl called Tallulah who’s Fat Sam’s girlfriend is trying to stir up trouble between them because she fancies Bugsy. So after the show I was in a Bugsy Malone kind of mood, singing songs like You give a little love and it all comes back to you…

“La, la, la, la, la, la, la!” Man, after the show that could be heard all through the dressing rooms, girls AND boys. We were all so excited because we were doing the same show again the next night, but I couldn’t take part in the second performance. Yeah, you guessed it. Because of the bump on my head. I was literally just chatting to Sophie and Eleanor, my best friends, when it happened.
“Did you see that?! When Jenna fell over?!” laughed Sophie. She’s always doing that. Laughing at other people’s mishaps.
“Yeah, I did,” I said, “but do you have to make a laugh out of it? That’s kind of mean.”
“I don’t care, that’s the whole point!” replied Sophie. Eleanor was looking a bit worried. She worries a lot. So she changed the subject.
“The show went brilliant, didn’t it? Well done with your solo, Liana.” Yeah, I had a solo to sing at the end. I didn’t think it was that good, and I said so.
“What are you talking about?!” Sophie exclaimed. “You’re one of the best singers in the whole school!”
No I’m not.
“Yeah, I suppose,” I said, “but that solo wasn’t easy.”
“It might not have been but you nailed it.” Eleanor reassured me. She’s nice like that.
We continued chatting, but unknown to us Joe Littlewood, the most brainless boy in the whole class, was walking behind us. Man, if there was a prize for stupidity he’d probably win it. He was carrying a ladder on his shoulder. Joe Littlewood? More like Joe Littlebrain. Eleanor noticed the ladder before I did. “Erm…Liana?” she said, going slightly pale.
“What?”
“I think you should…”
But before I could move…
CRASH!!!! Right on my head, then everything went black.

Not for long though. It seemed like I’d just been knocked over and had to close my eyes. Next thing I knew I was on my hands and knees as if Sophie had pushed me over. She does that sometimes. But she and Eleanor had turned pale, and I mean PALE. It looked as if their skin had just been coated with white flour, believe me!
“Oh, no!” cried Sophie. “Are you OK?”
“I think so,” I replied. “What happened?”
They didn’t tell me. Eleanor just called over Miss Raymond. She’s our teacher. We all just call her Miss. Eleanor did then. “Miss, Liana’s banged her head!” Miss Raymond approached us as the rest of the cast for the play gathered around me. I started to feel a little bit self-conscious and embarrassed. I’d only been knocked over…hadn’t I?
Miss Raymond came to my rescue. She waved everyone off. “There’s no need to crowd around! Give Liana some air.” Since then I don’t think I’ve ever looked at a teacher in the same way I did at Miss Raymond. “Are you all right, Liana?”
“Just about,” I said, getting up and rubbing my head.
“Do you have a headache?”
“No, it just feels like something smacked my head and knocked me over.”
“That’s exactly what happened, Miss,” Sophie cut in. She pointed to Joe, who still had the ladder on his shoulder. “It was Joe Littlewood. He turned with that ladder on his shoulder and it hit Liana.” Ah. So that’s what happened.
“Right.” said Miss Raymond. “I’ll talk to him.” So she went and told Joe off. Serves him right. That kind of hurt! Wait, not kind of…it did hurt! But it wore off quickly. You know, like when you’re hiding under the table, you try and get out but you don’t crawl far enough forward, you stand up and you bump your head but it doesn’t hurt for long. After she’d told Joe off, Miss Raymond came back to us holding him by the shoulder.
“I already said, Miss, I’m really sorry!”
“It isn’t me you should be saying sorry to, is it, Joseph? I think it’s LIANA you should apologise to.”
Joe looked taken aback. I guess the thought of saying sorry to me never occurred to him! “Right,” he said, turning to me. “Sorry, Liana.”
“That’s all right, Joe,” I said. “I know it was an accident.” I like forgiving. It makes me feel good. It seemed to make Joe feel good as well, because he just smiled and bounded off. Miss Raymond sighed.
“Well then,” she said. “I suppose that’s sorted. Do you three walk home together?”
“Some of the way, Miss,” answered Eleanor.
“Both of you make sure Liana gets home safe.”
I got a little bit annoyed when she said that, so I said “I’m fine, Miss. Really.” I don’t think she listened, as she was already trying to calm down a bunch of Year 3s who were wreaking havoc with our plastic splurge guns. “Do you think she even heard me?” I asked Eleanor and Sophie.
“I doubt it.” Sophie said with a sniff. “Teachers never listen. They just say ‘that’s that’ and off they go.”
“It’s annoying, ain’t it?” added Eleanor. “Just when you really need them they disappear somewhere else.”
“Well, who needs teachers?” I asked. “I know for a fact I don’t, not when a minor accident happened.”
“But it looked major.” Eleanor responded. I got even more annoyed at that. Why was everyone making such a fuss about just a light bash on the back of my head? Well, it seemed like that. But oh boy, was I in for a shock that evening. Something that nobody could ever imagine was about to happen. Something totally out-of-the-ordinary. Something extraordinary. Something weird beyond the mind of any psychologist, philosopher, or scientist…
Whoa, whoa. Sorry about that. I often over-phrase things a bit. But what I’m trying to say is that what was about to happen hardly ever happens in reality. But it did, just that one night.
Sophie was looking a bit tired, which is so not like her. She’s normally up and running, like she hasn’t got a care in the world. I asked her if she was all right.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. Tired and shocked. At what happened to you.”
“Come off it,” I said.
“Should we just go home?” asked Eleanor. She was looking a bit tired herself. “I think we’ve had a bit of a heck of a night.”
“Yeah, let’s.” Sophie agreed. I agreed with them both and we walked out of the school together, arms linked, how we always walk as a threesome. So that’s how it started. And what happened next was equally weird.


Entry 2

Bugsy

We walked chatting for a few minutes. It was mainly about the show, how well it had gone, stuff like that. Nobody said a word about my getting bumped until we came to the T-junction where I go off one way and Sophie and Eleanor continue the other way.
“I hope you’ll be OK, Liana,” said Eleanor. “That looked like it hurt.”
“Oh, just leave it!” I argued. “I’ll be fine. It didn’t hurt, honest.”
“I hope you’ll be OK too,” added Sophie. I was stunned. That is so not like my mate Sophie. I seriously thought she’d be joking about it all the way home. It might have helped us all if she had.
“That isn’t like you, Soph,” I said.
“Well, I won’t take the mick. It looked really serious.”
“See you tomorrow, Liana.” Eleanor said with a smile.
“See ya.” I smiled back, trying to act casual, as they turned away and walked off. As soon as they were out of sight, I began to be deeply puzzled. That is REALLY not like Sophie. I mean, once she made a joke out of Eleanor breaking her arm. And it wasn’t a mean joke, like it sometimes is. Even Eleanor was laughing by the time she’d been through hospital and got a cast. That’s when it began to dawn on me that something weird was going on. But I didn’t know what it was, not yet.
I began to walk the rest of the way home. There are quite a few roads to cross, and I was looking and listening like you’re supposed to at one when I heard some American voices. I didn’t realise they were talking about me.
“Hey, look. A little boy, out on his own.”
See why?
“You sure that’s a boy?”
“Well, he’s got trousers on.”
“But no boy I know has hair that long.”
“He looks rich. Perhaps we could nab a few bucks?”
“I dunno. But we could try, I guess.”
“We need all the money we can get, after all.”
“So are we gonna get him?”
“I don’t see why not. Let’s do it.”
Silence followed. I was still looking to cross, when suddenly…
THUMP! Something hit my back! Next thing I knew I had fallen into the road and had five men attacking me, pulling me onto the pavement, trying to get into my pockets. I didn’t get a chance to look at their faces, not even when a really strange voice sounded and they stopped attacking me. The voice was another American, undoubtedly a male, but it was not adult and it was not child. It wasn’t even teenager, and for some odd reason to me it sounded vaguely familiar. “Hey! HEY! Hey, ya dumb bums! Quit beatin’ up that kid, will ya?!” I heard one of my assailants shouting “Damn it! It’s Malone!” and they left me alone. I was just lying on the ground, a little bit stunned and slightly winded. I heard the strange voice again. It was