Loudmouth Louis

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Loudmouth Louis

  Anne Fine was born and educated in the Midlands, and now lives in County Durham. She has written numerous highly acclaimed and prize-winning books for children and adults. Her novel The Tulip Touch won the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year Award; Goggle-Eyes won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the Carnegie Medal, and was adapted for television by the BBC; Flour Babies won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year Award; Bill’s New Frock won a Smarties Prize, and Madame Doubtfire has become a major feature film.

  www.annefine.co.uk

  Some other books by Anne Fine

  Books for Younger Readers

  Care of Henry

  Countdown

  Design-a-Pra m

  The Diary of a Killer Cat

  The Haunting of Pip Parker

  Jennifer’s Diary

  Notso Hotso

  Only a Show

  Press Play

  Roll Over Roly

  The Same Old Story Every Year

  Scaredy-Cat

  Stranger Danger?

  The Worst Child I Ever Had

  Books for Middle-range Readers

  The Angel of Nitshill Road

  Anneli The Art Hater

  Bill’s New Frock

  The Chicken Gave It To Me

  The Country Pancake

  Crummy Mummy and Me

  How To Write Really Badly

  A Pack of Liars

  A Sudden Glow of Gold

  A Sudden Puff of Glittering Smoke

  A Sudden Swirl of Icy Wind

  ANNE FINE

  Loudmouth Louis

  Illustrated by Kate Aldous

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 1998

  19

  Text copyright © Anne Fine, 1998

  Illustrations copyright © Kate Aldous, 1998

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,

  by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the

  publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published

  and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

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

  ISBN: 978-0-14-193637-6

  Contents

  1 Silence is Golden

  2 Fifty Different Ways to be Told to be Quiet

  3 Worry on My Mind

  4 Don’t Mind My Dad

  5 In Training

  6 A New Manager

  7 Sponsorship

  8 Fresh Start, Fresh Colours

  9 Interesting …

  10 Fly on the Wall

  1 Silence is Golden

  IT WAS MY own fault, I admit.

  I could have been in the group that chose to organize the Raffle. But I was too busy chatting to Melanie to bother to put up my hand.

  And I could have joined the group Miss Sparkes said could run the Bring-And-Buy Stall. But I was leaning across to whisper something to George, so I missed that chance too.

  And then Steve and Arif and Arianne finally persuaded Miss Sparkes to let them run a Who-Can-Have-Wet-Sponges-Thrown-At-Them-Longest Competition. And I’d have joined up with them, but she was still mad at me for chattering in class, so she wouldn’t put my name down.

  She just set her timer as usual.

  “Silence is golden, Louis Todd,” she said. “If you can button your loud mouth for five whole minutes, I’ll write your name down. And if you can’t, I won’t.”

  I couldn’t. So she didn’t.

  So I was still sulking when she wrote down the names of people who wanted to do the Biscuit-Making. And the Guess-The-Number-Of-Lollipops-In-The-Jar. And the Great-Big-Used-Book Sale.

  The trouble is, I was still sulking when she asked if I wanted to join the very last group, who were going to set up the Fast-Cheapo-Car-Wash.

  “No, thanks,” I told her. “I have a brilliant idea of my own to make some money. And it’s private”

  “That’s nice,” she said. (You could tell she was pleased that I wouldn’t have to discuss it with anyone.) “And now it’s time for Maths.”

  So, as I told you, it was all my own fault.

  2 Fifty Different Ways to be Told to be Quiet

  I AM THE world’s expert in being told to be quiet. Everyone has their own way of doing it. I know, because I get it all day.

  In the morning, Mum stares at me blearily over her cornflakes. “There’s no point in talking to me yet, Louis,” she says. “Can’t you see that I’m still asleep?”

  When we’re leaving the house, Dad claps his hand over my mouth. “Hush up, Louis. Just give me a moment to think if there’s anything I’ve forgotten.”

  At the lollipop crossing, Mrs Frier says, “Louis Todd, you rattle on like a stone in a tin can.”

  The big boys in the playground say, “Stuff it!” or “Shut your cakehole!” or “Belt up!” or “Stow it!” (In case you’re tempted, I should warn you that my mother says if she ever, ever hears me say any one of those again, all I’ll get for Christmas is a freshly spanked bottom.)

  In Assembly, Mrs Heap says, “Is that Louis Todd I hear talking?” Or, sometimes, “I take it that what you’re saying, Louis Todd, is a whole lot more important than what I’m saying. So why don’t you come up here and tell it to everyone?”

  (That shuts me up pretty sharpish.)

  Back in the classroom, Miss Sparkes says, one by one, through the long morning:

  “Stop talking, Louis.”

  “Be quiet, please.”

  “That’s enough, Mr Loudmouth.”

  “Louis, I’m speaking”

  “Do stop distracting other people.”

  “I don’t recall saying you could work in pairs.”

  At lunch-time, the dinner ladies stand right over me, and say things like, “Give over prattling, Louis Todd, and finish your sponge pudding.” Or “Stop rabbiting on and eat. Can’t you see that we’re waiting to get on and wipe this table?”

  After lunch, back in the classroom, Miss Sparkes starts up again.

  “Don’t start nattering.”

  “I’m sick and tired of hearing your voice, Louis.”

  “I think Ben was talking.”

  “I’ll put on my timer, and see how long Loudmouth Louis can keep his beak buttoned.”

  “Don’t interrupt me. Zip your lip, please, Louis.”

  “On your own, please.”

  When we’re learning about other countries, she sometimes says it in other languages.

  “Tais-toif” (That’s French.)

  “¡Cállater (Spanish.) />
  “” (Gujarati.)

  By the end of the day, she’s usually digging in her bag for her aspirins. “Louis, you realize that you’ve given me another splitting headache.”

  Once, she was so fed up, she even said, as I was going out of the door, “I shall know when you’re dead, shan’t I, Louis Todd? It’ll go nice and quiet.”

  After all that, it’s lovely to get home to Gran.

  3 Worry on My Mind

  GRAN NEVER TELLS me off for talking. Well, she can’t. She’s just as bad herself.

  Gran never stops. When we’re together in the house, it’s her voice stirring up the air, not mine.

  Gran even talks when no one’s there to listen. I can walk home from school, push open the door, and hear her at it.

  “… so I’ll just wash these dishes to get them out of the way, and then sort out that peg basket. Yes, here’s a couple of broken ones I can throw straight in the bin. And now I’ll have a look at this tea towel and see if it’s due for a wash yet …”

  Mum calls it “chuntering”, and says that toddlers do it. Ask a small child to get dressed, says Mum, and suddenly there in front of you is a strangely bulging heap that’s trying to tell you things.

  “… now I’m putting on my woolly and, whoops, got stuck, and it’s all gone dark, and I can’t find the hole, and now all the rest of me’s stuck too, and I can’t find my way out, and …”

  Mum says that chuntering is useful practice if you’re learning to talk. But you ought to grow out of it. Obviously, Gran’s grown back into it again, because I’ve heard most of the things she’s said eight million times before.

  “There! Now the kitchen’s looking fresh and tidy. And when your mum and dad get home after a hard day’s work, I think it’s nice for them not to have to walk into a bomb-site.”

  But sometimes what she says is news to me.

  “See that bald man on the front of the telly guide, Louis? Well, when he was young, he had lovely thick curls and he looked like an upside-down floor mop.”

  But I wasn’t interested in bald men, or fresh and tidy kitchens. I had a worry on my mind.

  “Gran,” I said. “Today I did something really stupid. I didn’t sign on to help with washing cars or making biscuits.”

  “Sounds smart to me,” said Gran. “Sit with your feet up and let other people do the work.”

  “The trouble is,” I said, “that I told Miss Sparkes I had my own brilliant idea to make some money.”

  “That’s good,” said Gran. “My Dance Club needs some money. I hope you won’t mind sharing your idea with me.”

  “I would,” I said, “except I haven’t had it yet.”

  “Pity,” said Gran. “Because all of us in the Dance Club want to go to Blackpool and stay in the Alhambra, and walk along the sea front, and go to the Tower Ballroom every night, and –”

  So it was too late. I had missed my chance.

  4 Don’t Mind My Dad

  I tried talking to her again later. Dad wasn’t listening. He was slumped on the sofa watching Leighton Buzzard Wanderers’ Greatest Goals. Dad watches football videos for half an hour after he gets home. Gran tells him off. But Dad says if she’d had forty little savages yelling at her all day, she’d sit and watch Leighton Buzzard Wanderers’ Greatest Goals with him.

  (My dad’s a teacher. Did I mention that?)

  “Gran,” I said. “About this brilliant idea I need for making money …”

  She had a think.

  “You could put lots of lollipops in a jar,” she said. “And make people pay to guess how many there are.”

  “Someone’s already doing that,” I told her.

  “Sssh!” Dad’s voice came up from the sofa. “Here comes the first of Lenny Potter’s unforgettable match-savers.”

  “Well, then,” Gran said to me. “How about setting up a Great-Big-Used-Book Sale?”

  “That’s been picked too,” I said.

  On the television, Lenny Potter took a penalty back in the stone age when Leighton Buzzard Wanderers wore those old yellow shirts with purple stripes.

  “A pity about that nasty rash of his,” Gran fretted.

  “Sssh!” Dad said.

  I said, “He doesn’t look as if he has a rash to me.”

  “That was back then,” said Gran. “When he was young and fit. I saw him last night on A Question of Sport and he’d come up in pink lumps.”

  Dad raised his head over the rim of the sofa.

  “Instead of joining the two of you to grieve over the poor man’s skin problems,” he said, “might I just be permitted to watch his famous left-footed volley from the halfway line in peace and quiet?”

  (Don’t mind my dad. Like Mrs Heap, he can be very sarcastic.)

  “Sad, too, about his poor wife …” persisted Gran.

  “Sssh!” Dad said. “This is the corner kick that flew in above the great, late Juan Da Silva like a bird.”

  “Her big mistake, of course,” said Gran, “was leaving a fine man like him to marry that bear.”

  “She married a bear?”’

  Gran gave me a very pitying look and turned back to Dad.

  “What was his name, Brian? Giant great lump of a fellow who wore floppy bow ties and knew a lot about furniture. Always on Antiques Roadshow. You remember!”

  Dad huddled closer to the television as Lenny Potter, now in a purple shirt with yellow stripes, booted the ball all the way from the hot-dog stand to the entrance to the Ladies. He had his fingers in his ears. (Dad. Not Lenny Potter.)

  “Gran!” I reminded her. “About this brilliant idea I need for making money for school…”

  Dad’s head came back over the sofa. “What does your school need money for now?”

  “For the new library.”

  He sank back down. “That’s all right then,” he told me. “Someone like you needn’t feel bad about not raising any. They’d never let you in anyway. Libraries are quiet places.”

  “I can be quiet when I want.”

  “And pigs can fly.”

  He went back to watching his video. Gran could see that my feelings were hurt.

  “You could always run a Raffle,” she suggested. “Or even a Bring-And-Buy Stall.” Her eyes lit up. “I could give you those nice socks with dancing Santas to take in, since your father won’t –”

  “Sssh!” Dad said. “You’re talking through that great direct free-kick that sailed in on a perfect curve.”

  “The Raffle and the Bring-And-Buy Stall are both being done already,” I told Gran. “And so is the Who-Can-Have- Wet-Sponges-Thrown-At-Them-Longest Competition.”

  “People don’t want wet sponges thrown at them, Louis,” Gran said. “What people want is useful things, like having their cars cleaned cheaply. Or nice things, like home-made biscuits.”

  She leaned over the sofa.

  “You wouldn’t pay to have wet sponges thrown at you, would you, Brian?”

  “No,” Dad said. “But I’d give quite a lot of money to be able to sit and watch my video in peace and quiet.”

  Gran didn’t even hear him. But I did.

  5 In Training

  SO THAT’S HOW the brilliant idea was born. Louis Todd’s Great Sponsored Silence.

  First, I had to get in training. On Monday, I tried to keep quiet all the way back from Assembly to the classroom. I got as far as the turn in the corridor. Then Lucy said, “Louis –” And I said, “What?”

  So that was thirteen seconds.

  I had another go back in the classroom.

  “I want everyone to be quiet while I give out the measuring kits,” said Miss Sparkes. “And that includes you, Louis.

  So I was quiet.

  Ten seconds.

  Twenty.

  Thirty.

  And then, “I don’t want that one,” I told her. “That one’s got bits missing.”

  Thirty-one seconds. If you’re generous

  Not very good.

  I tried again during Percussion Band. I
reckoned that there’d be so much noise going on around me that I could probably give my own voice a rest a bit more easily.

  How wrong I was.

  First, Mr Hambleton gave me the cowbells to hand out. I gave the first to Melanie (in perfect silence).

  Ten seconds. Looking good!

  I gave the second to Marisa (in silence too).

  Fifteen seconds.

  And then I gave the last one to Alfie. “There you go,” I said. “Cowbell. It suits you.”

  I hadn’t kept counting, but it wasn’t a record. It would have been eighteen seconds at most.

  I gave up for the rest of the class. I like Percussion Band, and keeping quiet when you can hardly be heard over the bongos and chime bars and woodblocks and triangles is pretty much a waste of time. So I only tried again when it was time to collect up the tambourines.

  I didn’t speak as I walked round the circle, taking them. But, as I passed George, I couldn’t help giving all four a jolly good rattle, and saying, “iOlé!”

  So that was pretty much a waste of effort. (Back to ten seconds at most.) On the way home, I walked by myself as far as the lollipop crossing. Forty-two seconds.

  Then Mrs Frier said, “Why are you staring at your watch, Louis? Are you late for something?”

  “No,” I said.

  Forty-six seconds. Not an impressive record. I was so fed up, I walked home with Emma and talked to her non-stop about Leighton Buzzard Wanderers.

  Give up on training for today, I thought, as I walked through the door. No point in trying in the same house as Gran. But I was wrong. As soon as I explained what I was doing, she started rooting through one of the kitchen drawers.