For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 😀

Story continues from yesterday:

The first lesson on Thursday afternoons was P.E.  Tania and Isabel were getting changed for hockey.

“Oh no!” said Isabel as she tipped out the contents of her kit bag, “I forgot my socks!”

Tania laughed.  “Oh well, you’ll just have to wear your other socks.”

“What other socks?”

“The socks you came to school in.”

“I wore tights.”

“Oh.”

Isabel slumped down on the bench.  “I’m going to have to wear my boots with bare feet.  I’m gonna get blisters! Have you got any spare socks?”

“Sorry.”

“Isabel Jessop!”  Miss Stremp’s voice preceded her.

“Ooh, ask Miss Stremp,” suggested Tania, “she’s bound to have some spare kit around.  See if she’ll lend you some socks.”

Isabel wrinkled her nose at the prospect just as Miss Stremp caught up to her voice.

“Off you go girls – three laps of the field!” she ordered the class.  “Not you Miss Jessop.”

Tania shrugged apologetically at her friend and followed the rest of the girls outside.  Isabel pulled her boots onto her bare feet.

“Get dressed please Isabel, Mr Strang wants to see you in his office,” said Miss Stremp.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I imagine you’ll find out when you get there.”

Isabel thought she’d be glad of an excuse to avoid running around a cold, wet field but she wasn’t.  When she got to his office, Mr Strang wasn’t alone.

“Miss Jessop,” he said, “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“No sir,” said Isabel apprehensively.

“I presume you know Mrs Oakley.”

“Yes.  Hello.”

Mrs Oakley’s stone cold face remained silent.

“Mrs Oakley wanted me to speak to you regarding the email you sent this morning.  Were you aware that students are not permitted to send messages to All Users?”

“er, no, I didn’t …”

“That facility is for senior staff only.  For the purpose of informing staff and pupils of rule changes, procedure changes, or snow days.  Things like that.”

“Oh, sorry, well …”

“And I have to say, aside from that infringement, you have upset a lot of people with your email.”

“How dare you be so insulting about people who dedicate their lives to helping others?” Mrs Oakley found her voice and there was a painful edge to it. “They’re good people!  Working hard to cure this horrible horrible disease!”

“Well, they …”

“Mrs King has only just died and there was nothing I could do to help her.  I had to watch … and she never complained.”  Mrs Oakley was overcome with emotion.

Mr Strang handed her a tissue and took over.

“What Mrs Oakley means is that this is not the time for political debate.  Emotions are running high at the moment, a lot of people are hurting, and you have just rubbed salt in the wound.”

“I’m sorry, I …”

“Up until now I have heard nothing but good things about you Miss Jessop.  At the end of last term all your teachers wrote glowing reports about the quality of your work, and more than a few of them noted that you were a pleasure to have in the classroom.  So I’m very surprised that you would do something so thoughtless, so inconsiderate and so offensive.  What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry I upset people,” said Isabel, “that was the last thing I wanted to do.  I’m sorry Mrs King died, I really liked her.  And I’m sorry for anyone who has cancer.  That’s why I had to tell everybody now.  So that you’d give the money to a charity that does human-relevant research.”

“How dare you?” said Mrs Oakley angrily, “this charity has been working for decades to help end cancer!  Are you an expert?  Are you a scientist?  Are you a doctor?”

Isabel shook her head.

“So how come you think you know better than people who are?”

“I’ve read …”

“Let’s not get into this now,” interrupted Mr Strang, “this issue is highly contentious and there are a lot of points of view.  My point of view is simply this: the school intranet is not your own personal soapbox.  You are not permitted to send messages to all users.  Is that understood?”

“Yes sir.”

“You may return to class.”

Isabel was in no hurry to get back to P.E. so she dawdled miserably through the empty corridors.  She walked to the top floor and looked out the window at the hockey players chasing the tiny hard ball across the muddy pitch.  It was difficult to see who was who.  They were too far away.  She swallowed hard to stop herself crying.  She knew she’d done the right thing.  So why did she feel so guilty?

She didn’t head back to the changing rooms until she saw her class leave the field.  By the time she got there, Tania was dressed and ready.

“Where have you been?” she asked with concern.  “What happened?”

“Mr Strang and Mrs Oakley had a go at me for sending the email,” Isabel told her.

“Oh no, what did they say?”

“Only teachers are allowed to send messages to all users.”

“Oh.  Is that all?”

“No, but it doesn’t matter, it’s done now,” said Isabel, putting on a smile.  The bell went. “Come on, let’s go to music!”

Tania chatted cheerfully as they moved through the crowded corridor to the music room.  She made Isabel laugh.

“… and she said, ‘not if I can help it’ and she picked up the ball and threw it as far as …”

“I thought you were a nice person,” Madame DuBois stepped in front of them and interrupted.  “How could you do this thing?  You care more about a little mouse than a living person?  Je suis très déçu de toi.”

Tania watched in stunned silence as the French teacher walked away.  Then she turned back to Isabel.  “What’s her prob… hey, Izzy, what’s the matter?”

Isabel rubbed her watery eyes and forced a grin.  “I’m okay.”

“What did you put in that email?”

“Only the truth.”

******

****************************************************************************************

Story continues tomorrow, but if you don’t want to wait you can read it here now 😀

******************************************************************************

vegan, vegetarian, vegan children, vegan children’s story, creative writing, juvenile fiction, vivisection, animal testing

For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 😀

Story continues from yesterday:

Isabel, meanwhile, had arrived at school a few minutes early and was making her way to the I.T. lab while it was still empty.  Entering the corridor at one end she saw a cleaner leaving the computer room at the other and disappearing into the stairwell.  There was no one else in sight.  She had timed it perfectly.  Within moments she was sitting at one of the desktop computers.  It took a worryingly long time to start up but once it was running she inserted her memory stick and opened the document she needed to copy.  She clicked Select All, and Copy, before signing in to the school intranet network.

Then she clicked Compose;
selected To All Users;
selected High Priority from the drop down menu,
and typed in the subject bar:  BOYCOTT CANCER RESEARCH UK

Just as she was about to paste in her message the screen froze.  The school bell declared the time to be half past eight and Isabel frantically moved the mouse in circles on its mat, trying to get the cursor to reappear.  But nothing happened.  She tapped Ctrl, Alt, Delete and opened a Task Manager.  She selected the only task running and clicked End Task.  She could hear footsteps out in the corridor and tried desperately to make her shaking hands behave.  She told herself to focus and began again.

Compose
To All Users
High Priority
Subject: BOYCOTT CANCER RESEARCH UK

She right clicked in the message box but there was nothing to paste.  Her text was no longer on the clipboard. Desperately she pulled out the memory stick and re-inserted it.  She double clicked on the icon, opened the document, selected all and copied.  Again she right clicked in the message box and this time was able to select Paste. With great relief she clicked Save and was rewarded with the notification Sending … at the top of the screen just as the door opened and the IT teacher walked in.  Before turning to face him, Isabel swiftly clicked Start, Shut Down and then switched off the monitor.

“Hey!  What are you doing in here?” asked Mr Frakes suspiciously.

“I left my memory stick here yesterday,” Isabel told him with a smile, “just came to collect it,” and she held it up to show him.

Mr Frakes, noticeably relieved to see that it was only Isabel, congratulated her on remembering where she’d left it and encouraged her to get to registration.  It was done.  She could breathe again.

Isabel slipped into her form room where Tania waited expectantly.  Her eyes asked the question and Isabel nodded.  So far so good.

“I answered to your name on the register,” Tania told her, “so you won’t be marked late.”

“Thanks,” said Isabel.

“So, how did it go?”

“Good I think.”

“Did you send it to all the teachers?”

“All users.”

“All users?  That’s everybody!  Staff, students, everybody!”

Isabel grinned. “Yes indeed!”

“Well done,” Tania grinned back, “very very well done.  So now what?”

“We’ll see.”

****

Mr Flanagan closed the register and told his form to head out to afternoon classes.  Luke and Joe walked against the tide and approached the teacher’s desk.

“Problem boys?” Mr Flanagan asked.

“We can’t sell these,” said Luke, putting his ten concert tickets down on the desk.  Joe did the same.

Mr Flanagan looked disappointed in them.  “Well you haven’t tried very hard, you’ve only had them a couple of days. Give it a couple of weeks before you give up.”

“No,” Luke explained, “we mean we won’t sell them, not if they’re gonna give money to CRUK.”

“Cruck?”

“Cancer Research UK.”

Mr Flanagan looked from Luke to Joe and back again.  “Why? What have they done to deserve your disapproval?”

“We think the school should give the money to a good charity that won’t waste it on animal testin’,” Luke explained.

Mr Flanagan looked at the ceiling, took a deep breath and then looked at his watch.  “I’ve got a class waiting boys and you’re supposed to be in your next lesson.  We’ll talk about this later.”

“When?” asked Luke.

“I don’t know.  Tomorrow,” he suggested brusquely.

“Tomorrow’s too late.  We need you to tell ’em before Mufti Day to give the money to a different charity.”

“I’m not going to do that,” said Mr Flanagan firmly.  “Cancer Research UK is a very worthwhile cause.  They do a lot of good work.  They help a lot of people.”

“Maybe they do,” Luke conceded, “but they also do a lot of bad, cruel work and you never know what your money’s gonna go on.”

Mr Flanagan shook his head despairingly, as if he’d heard it all before.  “They’re not cruel Luke, they’re doing vital research.  It’s not a happy fact but they have to use animal models to see how the disease grows and spreads in a living body.”

“But it’s not the same in animals as humans,” argued Luke, “so it’s pointless.  They’re killin’ ’em for nothing.”

“You’re talking about highly qualified scientists.  Why would they do it if it didn’t work?”

Joe read aloud from one of the leaflets.  “’There are, in fact, only two categories of doctors and scientists who are not opposed to vivisection: those who don’t know enough about it, and those who make money out of it.’  Dr Werner Hartinger wrote that, in 1989.  He was a German surgeon.”

“What have you got there?” asked Mr Flanagan, taking the leaflet out of Joe’s hand.  “An animal rights leaflet. Surprise surprise.  Don’t you think this might be a little bit biased?” he asked condescendingly.  Immediately regretting his irritated response, he took a breath and tried to be patient.  “Look, boys, I really don’t have time for this now.  Let me lend you one of my biology textbooks.”  He picked through the pile on his desk.  “Here you go,” he offered them a copy of Animal Models For The Study Of Human Disease.  “Take this home with you and read the first chapter.  I think it’ll help you understand the issue better and if it doesn’t we can set aside some time to talk more.”

Joe shook his head.  “No thank you,” he said.

“We don’t need to read that,” said Luke.  “We already understand the issue.  We already know for a fact it’s wrong to poison animals, and give ’em diseases, and cut ’em up and kill ’em.  Even if it did help humans that wun’t make it right.  But it don’t help humans coz animals are different to humans and different animals give different results in the experiments so why would they think humans would give the same results?  And how would they know which animal results would be the same as humans?”

“Ibuprofen causes kidney failure in dogs,” said Joe, “and Aspirin causes birth defects in mice and rats.”

Mr Flanagan put the textbook back down on his desk.  “Time to go boys,” he said flatly.

“Adverse drug reactions to medicines that were proved safe in animal tests, kill a hundred thousand people every year in America,” recited Luke.

“Leave!”

Luke tentatively stretched out his hand to retrieve the leaflet from his tutor’s grasp, before both boys did as they were told.

****

****************************************************************************************

Story continues tomorrow, but if you don’t want to wait you can read it here now 😀

******************************************************************************

vegan, vegetarian, vegan children, vegan children’s story, creative writing, juvenile fiction, vivisection, animal testing

For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 😀

Story continues from yesterday:

“Mum, can I use the computer?”  Luke asked when he got home.

“Jared’s using it at the moment,” she told him, “his laptop’s playing up.”

“That’s not fair,” Luke complained, “Jared’s got his own computer, he should ‘ave looked after it prop’ly.”

“He said you broke it.”

Luke was momentarily stumped.  He didn’t remember breaking it.  He was fairly sure he hadn’t.

“I didn’t,” he said eventually.

Mum recoiled from the blast of heat when she opened the oven door and reminded herself not to lean in when she did that.  “What do you need it for?  Homework?”  Before Luke could answer she turned away from him and transferred twelve chocolate chip cookies to the cooling tray.  “Is it for something important?” she added.

Thankful he could answer truthfully he told her that yes it was absolutely very important.

“Okay,” she said, “ask Jared not to be too long.”

Luke tutted and went into the living room to do that.  “How long are you gonna be?”

“As long as it takes,” said Jared unhelpfully.

“How long d’you think that’ll be?”

“Well the more you bother me, the longer it’ll take.”

“Mum said you’ve got to hurry up because I’ve got some important work to do.”

“I don’t think so,” said Jared, “you don’t do anything important in Year Seven.”

“Well what’re you doin’ that’s so important?” said Luke as he leaned in to look at the screen.  “You’re playin’ cards!” He pulled at Jared’s shoulder.  “You can play cards with actual cards!  Let me use the computer!”

“Get off!”  Jared elbowed Luke without taking his eyes off the screen, “I was here first!”

Luke took hold of the office chair and tried to wheel it away from the computer but Jared held tight to the desk with his hands and feet.  Jared grinned when his brother gave up and let go, but when the chair jolted back against the desk, his can of lemonade toppled and splashed its contents all over the keyboard.  Both boys instantly forgot their squabble and were silent.  The playing card images stretched and distorted on the screen before being replaced by a mass of fuzzy lines.

“You’re not supposed to have drinks by the computer!” Luke pointed out.

“It’s your fault it fell over,” said Jared angrily, “if you hadn’t pulled the chair …”

****

Confined to his room Luke had no idea how he was going to get the research done by tomorrow.  It really wasn’t fair.  It was Jared’s fault for having a drink on the desk which he knows he’s not supposed to do.  It was Jared’s fault for playing games on the computer and refusing to let him do his important work.  It was all Jared’s fault so it wasn’t fair that they both got punished.  He laid back on his bed and stared at the ceiling.  It wouldn’t be so bad if he could at least phone Isabel and tell her he didn’t have access to a computer.  Then at least she’d know it was all down to her.  He hoped she was getting somewhere with it.  He wished he’d picked up some leaflets from Kris’s stall when he had the chance.  There might have been some useful information there that could have helped with this research.  He continued to stare at the ceiling with these pointless regrets going round and round in his head until, finally, a useful thought emerged.  A month earlier Dad had given him his old mobile phone.  It had £5 credit on it but he was only permitted to use it for emergencies.

“Well if this isn’t an emergency I don’t know what is!” thought Luke aloud.

He took out his phone and sent a carefully worded text to Kris.

****

Early Thursday morning Dad put the car in reverse and looked over his shoulder before backing out of the drive. Before he’d changed into first gear, an old brown Talbot Sunbeam pulled up in front of him.  A woman with short green hair and rather too many piercings for his liking, got out and began to walk up the path to his house.  Dad rolled down the passenger side window and leaned across the seat.

“Can I help you?” he called.

The woman turned back.  “Is this Luke Walker’s house?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I’m a friend of his,” she said, smiling, “he asked me to bring him something.”

Luke’s dad turned off the engine and got out of the car.  “Really?” he asked, walking towards her “and what might that be?”

Kris didn’t want to put Luke in a difficult position with his parents by saying too much.  “Is Luke here?” she asked.

“My son is eleven years old,” said Mr Walker, who was turned a little frosty by her evasiveness, “so I like to know who his friends are and what they get up to.”

“Yes, of course,” said Kris apologetically, “he needed some information for school.”  She handed him the envelope she was carrying.

Luke drew back his bedroom curtains in time to witness the scene.  He pulled on his trousers in record time, rushed downstairs and flung open the front door just as Kris’s car rattled out of view.  His dad handed him the envelope.

“This is from a friend of yours,” he said, “where do you know her from?”

“Thanks,” said Luke, “oh, she’s jus’ one o’ the leaders at youth club.”

Dad raised his eyebrows, “is that right?” he said, “because she seems to think you met at the health food shop where she works.”

Luke froze almost imperceptibly before saying, “oh, yeah, health food shop, I forgot,” and he hurried back inside.

****

“Read these,” said Luke to Joe on the bus, “Kris got ’em for us an’ we need to learn ’em so we can tell Mr Flanagan.”

Joe flicked through several pages of information, “I can’t learn all this by registration,” he said anxiously.

“After lunch then,” said Luke, “we’ll learn it at lunch time and tell him at afternoon registration.”

“Okay,” said Joe, and began to read.

****************************************************************************************

Story continues tomorrow, but if you don’t want to wait you can read it here now 😀

******************************************************************************

vegan, vegetarian, vegan children, vegan children’s story, creative writing, juvenile fiction, vivisection, animal testing

For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 😀

Story continues from Friday:

“Ooh, a hot date!” said Simon Butler who had unfortunately been standing within earshot.  His friends laughed.  Luke and Joe, who had learned from experience that Butler was best ignored, got onto the bus.  They ascended to the top deck and managed to get the seat in front of the stairs where no one could sit behind them.  Luke took the concert tickets out of his bag.

“They got these printed pretty quick considerin’ she on’y died this mornin’,” he observed.

“They’d already organised the concert,” said Joe, “Janet’s in the Swing Band and they’ve been practising for weeks.”

“But the tickets say ‘in aid of Cancer Research UK’.”

“Yeah, I know, they’d already planned to do it for them, before she died.”

“Oh,” said Luke, and he put the tickets back in his bag.  “It’s a shame about Mrs King.  I wonder why Isabel and Tania don’t want us to sell the tickets.”

“I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” said Joe.

“Yeah,” agreed Luke.  “D’you wanna come with me to check on Curly an’ Squirt?”

****

Tania and Isabel were in the top set for just about everything.  Luke and Joe were not.  For that reason, though they went to the same school, they rarely bumped into each other unless they made a point of doing so.  On Wednesday lunchtime they met, as agreed, on the old tennis courts.  No one played tennis on the old tennis courts.  There were no nets; the tarmac was cracked and most of the court lines had worn away.  A rusty ride-on lawn mower, awaiting repair, was parked at one end, and two wooden benches, damaged by vandals, laid on their backs at the other.  There were rumours that the courts were going to be renovated but, until they were, they made an ideal meeting place.

“We can’t sell the tickets and we can’t do the mufti day,” said Isabel.

“Why not?” Luke asked again.

“Look at this,” she said, passing him a small piece of paper, concertina folded to the size of a library card.

“What is it?” he asked as he opened it.

“Look at it,” she told him.

One side had a red border and was titled

PLEASE BOYCOTT THESE CHARITIES UNTIL THEY STOP FUNDING ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS:

The other side was bordered in green and titled

THESE CHARITIES DON’T CONDUCT OR FUND ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS:

Under both headings were long lists of medical charities in tiny writing.  Cancer Research UK was on the red list.

“Where did you get this?” asked Luke.

“From your friend Kris, with the stall, who we met in Belton.”

“She gave you this?”

“They had loads of them on the stall, I just took one.”

“Did you get us all one?”

“No, sorry, I …”

“Anyway,” Tania interrupted, “what are we going to do about it?”

Luke frowned.  “What are they doin’ to the animals?  Testin’ drugs on ’em?”

“Sometimes,” said Isabel, “but first they give them a disease so that they can try to cure them of it.”

“And sometimes,” added Tania, “they make them eat or inhale things that cause cancer and then cut them up to see what it did to their bodies.”

The boys were sickened.

“Cancer Research UK does that?” asked Joe.

“Well these are the kind of things that happen all the time with cancer research.  We’re not sure exactly what CRUK itself does,” Tania admitted.

“But it does do these kind of things,” said Isabel, “because they’re on the list of charities that do.”

Luke’s jaw tensed and his eyes narrowed.  “If we’re gonna stop the school givin’ ’em money we need to know exactly what CRUK does, so we can tell everybody.”

“Agreed,” said Isabel.  “You should all come to my house after school so we can do some research.”

“Oh, I can’t tonight,” said Tania regretfully, “it’s my grandma’s birthday and we’re doing a party for her.  What about tomorrow night?”

“No, it’s got to be tonight.  We’ve got to get this info out tomorrow ’cause Mufti Day’s the day after.”

“Aren’t we already too late?” asked Joe, “they’ve put ‘in aid of CRUK’ on the concert tickets.”

“Well, there can’t be that many sold yet, and the concert’s not for another month so they’ll have time to re-print them.  Or if they won’t do that they could send a note home telling everyone the money’s going to help cancer research in the UK, not Cancer Research UK.  They should be able to sort something out if we tell them about it early enough,” Isabel explained.

“Well I can’t come tonight either, I’m busy,” said Joe without elaborating.

“Just you and me then Luke?” said Isabel hopefully.

“I can’t come to yours after school,” said Luke, “coz I’ve got to check on Curly an’ Squirt.  But I can do some research at my own house.”

“Okay,” said Isabel, “we’ll find out as much as we can about CRUK tonight and then I’ll email the teachers first thing in the morning.  I’ll use my Society email address to keep it anonymous.”

“Who are you going to email?” asked Tania.

“I’ll write to the school email address,” said Isabel, “and put FAO THE TEACHERS in the subject bar.”

“That’ll just go to the school secretary,” said Joe, “and if she doesn’t forward it to the teachers they won’t see it.”

“D’you know any of the teachers’ email addresses?” asked Tania.

Isabel detected a flaw in her plan.  “Blast. No I don’t.”

“Oh well,” said Tania, “you’ll just have to use the intranet.”

****

**********************************************************************************

Story continues tomorrow, but if you don’t want to wait you can read it here now 😀

******************************************************************************

vegan, vegetarian, vegan children, vegan children’s story, creative writing, juvenile fiction, vivisection, animal testing