Kids Can Fly: Goose

Goose went away with the information, promising not to spread it round, but Daniel knew what would happen. Within a few minutes, a teacher was listening to the tale, and nodding her head gravely as Goose filled in the details.

Unfortunately for Goose, by the time Kasia and Daniel were called to the staff room for 'a little talk', all trace of the injuries had completely vanished. The makeup was easy to remove - it just washed off in water.

"I can't see anything wrong with Daniel's eye?" said Mr. Grewce.

Goose stared, but tried not to stare.

"I, I thought I saw... I mean, he told me that..."

"What did he tell you?"

"He got in a fight, and his sister was stealing stuff, and...'"

"But we came in Dad's car this morning?" said Kasia with an amazingly innocent expression, "We didn't go anywhere near a shop."

Goose waddled from the room looking very sad. He didn't get a pat on his head for this little effort.

After that the tricks came thick and fast. Nicholas showed Goose a diamond ring he had found. It was in a match-box, and it looked like a real one. Nathan, speaking rather too loudly, confessed to having nothing but licorice in his lunch box. Rhiannon said she hoped the Principal didn't find out that she had broken the window in the caretaker's shed. Dion showed Goose his exercise book. It was filled from cover to cover with huge, black scribbles, and words which said rather disgusting things about the school.

One by one Goose informed on each offender, but strangely enough, no evidence was found for any of the supposed crimes. The diamond ring in Nicholas' matchbox was now a dead beetle, and Nathan's lunch box had nothing but plain old, boring sandwiches and an apple. The broken window was completely intact (now that Daniel had removed the plastic 'broken window' sheet), and Dion's exercise book - the real one - was as clean as a whistle, without a trace of graffiti.

By now of course. Goose was a shambles, or, as Nicholas said, "he was losing all his credibility". But he, Goose, was still determined to cause trouble. Like Robinson Crusoe with a boat too heavy to drag to the sea, he was keen to start again on a new round of