Free The Day the Ear Fell Off by T.M. Alexander

on hips now. ‘But we’re dealing with girls, not sheep, cows or wildebeest, and there are no predators.’
    I butted in. ‘Apes and humans are ninety-eight per cent the same.’
    ‘So what you’re saying is that we’re all sheep?’ said Fifty.
    ‘Yes. Most people are sheep because they like following, not leading,’ said Jonno. He was quite excited by his idea – but he was the only one.
    ‘What’s this biology lesson got to do with the alley?’ snapped Copper Pie, who was chucking a scrumpled up pork pie wrapper against my window and trying to catch it.
    ‘Well, if we could get two of the girls to run off, then the others should follow and we could take their place,’ said Jonno.
    ‘If we could work out how to get two of them to run, we could get all of them to run,’ said Bee. ‘Forget it.’
    ‘So we’re back to weapons,’ said you-know-who.
    ‘No,’ said Bee. ‘You can’t walk down an alley and take potshots at strangers – even if you’re only firing spuds. We’d be arrested.’
    ‘Well, what’s your big idea then, bossy?’ said Copper Pie.
    ‘Ooooooh!’ said Fifty. ‘She won’t like that.’
    ‘Well, she can lump it because she hasn’t got an idea.’
    ‘Have so.’ Bee obviously hadn’t got an idea, but was desperately trying to think of one.
    We waited. Copper Pie folded his arms and stared at her.
    ‘Cakes,’ she said.
    ‘Is it word association?’ said Fifty. ‘Icing.’
    ‘Frostbite,’ said Jonno.
    She did the fringe flick – a sign that she was serious and we were all numbskulls.
    ‘I’ll make some cupcakes and we can take them up the alley and give them to the Alley Cats. Everyone loves cupcakes.’
    It was so bonkers no one said anything.
    ‘I assume that’s agreed then?’ She looked around like an auctioneer doing that ‘going once, going twice’ thing before banging his hammer and shouting
‘Sold’. Our time was nearly up.
    ‘No, it’s not. We should vote,’ said Copper Pie. He pointed his pointing finger at Bee and pretended to pull the trigger. It was getting a bit out of hand. I prefer it when
C.P. and Bee are on the same side.
    ‘Fine,’ said Fifty. ‘Friends, nobles, countrymen —’
    ‘And countrywomen,’ added Bee.
    ‘Yes and countrywomen. You have one vote only to choose between baking and warmongering —’
    ‘What about my idea?’ said Jonno. No one said anything.
    ‘Actually, all this talking has given me an idea,’ said Fifty. ‘Let’s talk to them. Let’s go down the alley together and introduce ourselves to the Cats.
It’s much harder to be rude to someone who’s nice to you.’
    ‘I’m bored with this,’ said Bee. ‘We’ve got four ideas. Let’s vote.’
    ‘Hang on. What about you, Keener? What’s your idea?’ said Fifty.
    Great! Put me on the spot, why don’t you?
    ‘Errr . . . we could do what Copper Pie said.’
    ‘Way to go!’ shouted C.P. and slapped me on the back.
    Quite why I said that I can’t tell you. I think it was because Bee called me a wuss. I was fed up with being the one who has to be persuaded into everything. I wanted to be daring for a
change. And opting for cupcakes was hardly daring.
    ‘Are you sure, Keener?’ asked Bee.
    See, she didn’t believe me. I shrugged my shoulders.
    Copper Pie thumped me again. It would have been less painful if he’d just said, ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Two votes for warmongering then.’
    What had I done? If everyone else voted for their own idea we would win.
    Bee stared hard at Jonno. She moved her lips but his mouth spoke.
    ‘Cakes,’ it said.
    How did she do that?
    ‘Two votes for cakes. Two for war.’ Bee grinned.
    ‘Come on, Fifty. Vote for me and I’ll look after you. You can have the cap gun.’ Copper Pie put his arm round Fifty and ruffled his hair. Fifty loves his black curly hair
almost as much as he hates people messing with it. He growled and Copper Pie jumped away pretending to be scared. They like fooling around.
    ‘Nope. I’m voting