Dazzling Danny

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Also by the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Hi! I’m Danny Allbright. Dazzling Danny! That’s what they call me. Dazzling Danny, or Danny the Dazzle. Sometimes just Dazzler. It really used to embarrass me when they first started doing it. That was back last term. The spring term. We’re nearly at the end of summer, now, so I guess I’ve kind of got used to it. It doesn’t bother me any more. Even my dad sometimes goes, “Hey! Dazzler!” And on my birthday my gran sent me a card that said, “To Danny the Dazzle.” Trust Gran! She always gets things wrong. She’s a really funny lady.

  Anyway, about this dazzle thing. It all began one morning when Miss Pringle, who’s our class teacher, said she wanted to talk to us.

  “About the show.”

  Year 6 always do a show at the end of the spring term. Last year it had been Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That was brilliant! I went to see it with Mum and Dad. I wished it could be Charlie and the Chocolate Factory again this year, so I could play Charlie, but Miss Pringle said that this year we were going to do something new. Something that had been written specially for us by Mr Hubbard. Mr Hubbard takes Year 5. He’s OK, I quite like him, but I didn’t think he could write anything as good as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

  I looked across at Darryl, and pulled a face. Darryl pulled one back.

  I was sitting at a table with three others. Darryl Tyson, who is my best friend; Clint Parker, who is my worst enemy; and Joseph Brodrick, who is quite boring (but otherwise not bad).

  Miss Pringle began telling us about the show. Her eyes were all shiny. She was really excited, you could tell. The show was going to be called Go For It! which I have to say is quite a good title. At any rate, it made me and Darryl sit up properly and start listening.

  “It’s a musical,” said Miss Pringle.

  Yeah! Me and Darryl kicked each other under the table. Musical was OK.

  “It’s all about getting somewhere.”

  Clint immediately yelled, “You wanna get somewhere? Try taking the bus!”

  Some of the girls groaned. Coral Cookson turned round and hissed, “Shut your mouth, Clint Parker!” Miss Pringle just acted like he’d never said anything. He’s a very annoying sort of person.

  “The message is,” said Miss Pringle, “that we can all get somewhere if we just… go for it! What is important is to have a goal… Something to aim for. You want to be a footballer? Go for it! Want to be a popstar? Go for it! Want to be a—”

  “Teacher!” said Clint, and made a rude trumpeting noise down his nose. Everybody laughed; even me. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it. Clint can be quite funny sometimes.

  Miss Pringle didn’t seem to mind. She said, “Thank you, Clint! Good suggestion. I’ll bear it in mind.”

  Lucy Flowers wanted to know what everyone else was going to do. “The ones that aren’t dreaming of being things.”

  Miss Pringle said that everyone else would be, like, a backing group. “There to give encouragement and to show that it can be done… if you just go for it. So!” She looked down at a sheet of paper she was holding. “We’d like you all to be in it, though you’ll have to get your parents’ permission, of course. Don’t worry if you can’t sing or dance, there are lots of speaking parts as well. This is what we thought… singers.”

  From her sheet of paper she read out eight names. I wasn’t one of them, but that was all right. I can’t sing! My mum always stuffs her fingers in her ears when I try to sing. Next, Miss Pringle read out the names of six dancers. I certainly wasn’t one of them! Dancing wasn’t my scene. No way! The six dancers were all girls. Clint Parker immediately objected. He shouted out, in a loud voice, “Why’s it all girls?”

  “It doesn’t have to be” said Miss Pringle. “I’d be delighted to have some boys! Do you want to volunteer?”

  That scared him! He kept quiet for the next few minutes.

  “I only chose girls because I happen to know that these six all take dancing lessons,” said Miss Pringle. “But if there are any boys…”

  She gazed hopefully about the room. Darryl stuck his elbow in my ribs: I stuck mine in his. Darryl could volunteer if he liked! I wasn’t going to.

  “No one?” Miss Pringle sounded disappointed, but not particularly surprised. ‘All right! Let’s move on to the speakers.”

  I relaxed. I didn’t mind being a speaker! Miss Pringle read out the names.

  “Lucy Flowers, Joseph Brodrick, Sheralee Johnson..!’

  She came to the end – and I wasn’t there! I was the only person in the whole class who hadn’t got a part! I knew I couldn’t sing or dance, but I could speak all right. Why hadn’t she included me?

  Darryl kicked me again under the table. He’d noticed that I’d been left out. Even Darryl was one of the speakers! He’s useless at reading out loud; far worse than I am. But even he was going to be in the show!

  And then Miss Pringle said, “Danny!” and everyone turned and looked at me, including Clint, who crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue. “There’s something special that I want Danny to do. But we’re going to have to talk about it, so I’d like you to come and see me afterwards. All right?”

  Clint went, ‘All right?” in a silly sort of voice. He was one of the speakers, too. I was suddenly glad that I wasn’t going to be a speaker. I was going to be something special!

  I spent the rest of the class wondering what it could possibly be and why Miss Pringle wanted to talk about it. What could I do that no one else could? Nothing, as far as I knew. I was the only one in my family who wasn’t gifted. My mum and dad both run for the county. Dad runs long distance, Mum’s a sprinter. They’ve both won medals. They’ve even been given special Achievement Awards by the Mayor. My sister Carrie, who is one big pain, is brilliant at practically everything. She’s two years older than me. Her last school report said, “Carrie works hard and plays hard. A first-class student!”

  I just bet nobody would ever say that about me. Only the other day Miss Pringle had told me to stop daydreaming and pay attention. But now she wanted me to do something special!

  Miss Pringle was busy telling us how the Year 5s were going to paint the scenery and the Year 4s were going to design the programmes. Last year we had been Year 5s and had painted scenery. Clint Parker had painted two of the girls bright green. This year we were the big shots. We were the stars! And Miss Pringle wanted me for something special …

  The bell rang for break. All the rest of the class went rushing out into the playground, but Miss Pringle beckoned me over to her table.

  “Now then, Danny,” she said. “We must talk. There are two very important parts that I didn’t mention… one boy, and one girl. These are the ones who have all the dreams. We’ve already cast Coral as the girl—”

  She paused, just for a second. I waited, breathlessly. Was she really going to say what I thought she was going to say?

  “Both Mr Hubbard and I,” said Miss Pringle, “think that you would be perfect as the boy.”

  Wow! Maybe I was good at something, after all.

  “The only thing is,” said Miss Pringle, “it does mean that you would have to dance…”

  Chapter Two

  Dance???

  Miss Pringle tilted her head to one side. “How would you feel about it?”

  How I felt about it was, you’ve got to be kidding! Only you can’t say that to a teacher.

  “What do you think?” said Miss Pringle.

  “If I don’t do
it;’ I said, “does that mean I can’t be in the show?”

  “Oh, Danny, of course it doesn’t! Of course you’ll be in the show.”

  I said, “What would I be?”

  “How about one of the speakers?”

  I frowned. I didn’t want to be one of the speakers! Not if Clint was going to be. I wanted to be something special.

  “Look, don’t get all worried about it,” said Miss Pringle. “We can find someone else if we have to.”

  I didn’t want that, either! That would mean that someone else was special. Instead of me. It might even be Clint!

  “It’s just that we really do feel you’d be good at it. You’re a nice little mover! You’ve got a lot of style. Did you know that?”

  I didn’t know what to say. My mum always tells me that I’m like a tornado. She says that one of these days the roof will cave in, the way I crash around. Now Miss Pringle was saying I had style!

  “I was watching you, the other day,” said Miss Pringle, “when you were playing football.”

  I said, “Yeah, well… football.” That was different.

  “If you watch the really top players,” said Miss Pringle, “you’ll see they move very much the same way as dancers do.”

  I didn’t want to be rude or anything, so I just kept quiet.

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Miss Pringle. “Tomorrow after school we’ll go through some of the steps together, just you and me, not anyone else, and you can decide whether you want to do it or not. How about that? Would that be a good idea, do you think?”

  I nodded.

  “All right, then. Don’t forget to ask your mum if it’s OK. Tell her we’ll just be about half an hour.”

  As soon as I hit the playground, Darryl came charging over.

  “So what was it? What’s she want you to do?”

  I mumbled, “Wants me to do something special.”

  “Like what?”

  “Just something!’

  I wasn’t even going to tell Darryl, in spite of him being my best friend. Not until I’d made up my mind.

  I said to Mum that I had to stay late at school the next day. I said it was something to do with the library. Mum’s quite keen on books so she said that was fine.

  “I’ll come by half an hour later.”

  I wasn’t even going to tell Mum the real reason. She’d only go and tell Dad, and I definitely didn’t want Dad to know.

  Next day, at the end of school, I went to the hall. Miss Pringle was there waiting for me. She was wearing a T-shirt and joggers. I like it when she dresses like that! She looks cool; not like a teacher. She said, “OK, Danny! Football number. I’ll show you what we had in mind.” Then she put on some music and started to dance.

  She’s really good! Like something off the telly. I never knew Miss Pringle could dance like that. It’s a spiky kind of dancing. Zip, zap! Leap, spin. Now she’s crouched low, snapping her fingers. Now she’s up in the air, wham!

  As I stand watching her, my feet start to tap. They do it all by themselves. Miss Pringle jerks forward – and so do I. Miss Pringle does a little hop – so do I. By the time she stops, I’m jigging about like some kind of glove puppet.

  “Well!” She comes over to me. A bit out of breath, but not much. “What do you think? Do you feel like giving it a go?”

  I said, “Um…”

  It was like my mind was telling me no while my body was going yes. I didn’t want to be a dancer! But my feet were doing their own thing, twitching and tapping to the beat of the music. I couldn’t seem to stop them. Then my fingers started snapping and my legs started springing and I was following Miss Pringle, doing what she was doing. Zip, zap! Leap, spin!

  “Danny, that is so good!”

  I’d been in Miss Pringle’s class for a whole term and she’d never, ever praised me before. Not like that. The most she’d ever said was, “Well done, Danny! Top marks for trying.”

  Now it was like I didn’t have to try. My body was doing it all for me.

  “See?” Miss Pringle beamed. A great big beam that spread across her face. “I knew you could do it! And you enjoyed it, didn’t you? Don’t tell me you didn’t!”

  I grinned. I couldn’t help it. “So what shall we do?” said Miss Pringle. “Shall we put you down as the Boy?”

  I wanted to yell, “Yes!” But there was still this little bit of me that wasn’t quite sure.

  “What do you reckon?” said Miss Pringle.

  I said, “Well… yeah. OK. I guess.”

  Miss Pringle was really pleased. She told me I’d made the right choice.

  “It’s what it’s all about… going for it. Doing the things you’re good at. Because who knows where it might lead?”

  She gave me a slip of paper that either Mum or Dad had to sign. I knew at once that that slip of paper was going to be a problem. I didn’t want Mum or Dad to know what I was doing! Mum and Dad were athletes. They’d always expected me and Carrie to be athletes, too. How could I tell them I was dancing? I knew that I couldn’t. But I had to get that bit of paper signed! Miss Pringle wouldn’t let me be in the show if I didn’t get it signed. And I really wanted to be in the show. I wanted to be something special!

  All the way home in the car I was very quiet. Mum wondered if I wasn’t feeling well. I am not usually quiet. At school I am always getting told off for talking.

  “I hope you’re not sickening for something,” said Mum.

  I wasn’t sickening: I was thinking. I was thinking how to get my bit of paper signed. I’d had an idea …

  The minute I’d finished tea, I galloped upstairs to my sister’s room. I knew she was in there as she was playing music, very loud. She always plays music when she does her homework.

  “Carrie?” I knocked on the door. You have to knock on the door or she gets really mad. She got mad anyway. Her voice came bawling out at me.

  “What d’you want?”

  “Want to ask you something!’

  “What?”

  “Can I come in?”

  “No!”

  “Please?”

  She let me in the end, though she grumbled about it.

  “I’m busy;’ she said. “What is it?”

  I showed her my slip of paper. “Could you sign Mum’s name on here for me?”

  Carrie said, “Why?”

  “‘Cos it’s for the end of term show and I want it to be a secret, and if you sign it,” I said, “I’ll give you something!’

  “What?”

  I said, “I’ll give you… 20p!”

  “20p?” said Carrie. “You have to be joking!”

  “50p?”

  “Joking!”

  In desperation, I said, “I’ll do your turn at cleaning the car!”

  ‘And I get to keep the money?” said Carrie.

  I had to say yes, or she wouldn’t have signed. She’s a very grasping sort of person. But she’s ace at doing Mum’s signature! I think she’ll probably be a forger when she grows up.

  Next day, I gave the slip of paper to Miss Pringle.

  “Wonderful!” said Miss Pringle.

  I still wasn’t sure.

  Chapter Three

  I remember it was on a Friday we had our first rehearsal. The reason I remember is that while Miss Pringle was telling us where to go, Clint Parker flipped a rubber across the room and hit Lucy Flowers on the head. Lucy shrieked, and Clint was sent out. As he went he shouted, “See if I care! It’s Saturday tomorrow. No more school, yeeee–eah!”

  Miss Pringle just carried on like nothing had happened. She told us that the dancers were to go to the Big Hall, the singers to the Small Hall, and the speakers should stay in the classroom. I got up to leave, and Darryl said, “Where you off to?”

  “Going to rehearsal,” I said.

  “Speakers are in here,” said Darryl.

  “Yeah,’ I said, “I know.”

  “So where’re you going?”

  There are times when Darryl can be so nosy. But w
e usually tell each other everything, so I suppose I couldn’t really blame him.

  “You’re not going with the girls?” he said.

  He knew I couldn’t be going with the singers. I said that I would tell him later and ran off before he could ask any more questions.

  Miss Pringle took the dance rehearsal. We started off doing the steps she’d shown me just the other day. I could remember them quite clearly, and even the order they came in. The girls were well impressed! They didn’t know I’d already learnt them, and Miss Pringle didn’t let on. Some of the girls were really slow. Leanne Walters, for instance, and Saru Sathay. They had to go over and over the same steps, and still couldn’t get them right.

  The only one who picked them up as quickly as I had was Coral. She was good! Coral was playing the other lead part. She was the Girl, I was the Boy. Miss Pringle said that she was going to give us some special numbers to do on our own.

  “Just the two of you… I’ll work out something exciting!”

  I’d been a bit anxious in case any of the girls might laugh, me being the only boy, but none of them did. They didn’t seem to think there was anything peculiar about it. It’s funny, with girls. There are times they can be just so–o–o superior, like when they gang up on you and giggle. It’s very off–putting, when they do that. But then at other times they can be quite nice. I am not really sure that I understand them properly. Mum says that one day I will. (Dad says you never do!)

  Darryl was waiting for me as we came out of the hall. He gave me this odd look.