was acting out of character . . .
Exactly, I wanted to say.
Surely new me was better than old me. I realised I hadn’t held my breath for days. I hadn’t had any bad dreams either. I felt like a snake, who’d shed its skin and started
again as . . .
Keener of Tribe – full of good ideas, not wet blanket.
Keener of Tribe – trailblazer (of the route to school and back).
Keener of Tribe – warrior, not worrier.
Could it get any better?
Bribes, Beetles, Bark and Bobotie
being a Triber
It’s funny how quickly exciting things become normal. When I first got my phone I was always changing ringtone and texting and playing the games but now . . . I’m
still glad I’ve got one, but it’s not like when it was new. It’s the same with walking home. I felt so grown up the first few times but now it’s just part of a regular
school day.
Being a Triber is normal too. We meet once a week (Wednesdays) at my house because:
Fifty’s mum’s too nosy so we can’t go there.
Jonno says his dad doesn’t like other people’s kids.
Bee likes everyone else’s house better than hers, and everyone’s scared of Copper Pie’s mum. (She shouts.)
We’d like somewhere else to meet, like a proper hut, but no one’s got one. We might build one. Fifty’s garden is huge and messy. He’s done a deal with his mum: if we
clear the bottom of it, which is a jungle of nasty pointy bushes and junk and smelly stuff, then we can have a go. Copper Pie wanted to do it right away but it’s not really a
couple-of-nights-after-school type of job. My dad said ‘Maybe we could do it one weekend,’ but he needs to talk to Fifty’s mum first. So . . . headquarters is still my room and
when we’re ‘in the field’ we use our patch under the trees at school.
I keep everything to do with Tribe in my safe. It’s quite full already. There’s the file with loads of fact sheets about us, a bit like Tribe Top Trumps. We’re always adding
new sheets. Some of them are funny, like things we did in Reception, and some of them aren’t.
FUNNY THINGS TRIBERS DID IN RECEPTION
BEE: The Head told her off for talking in assembly. She shouted, ‘I wasn’t talking to you’ – she was only
four.
COPPER PIE: Walked home on his own after lunch because he didn’t like the pudding.
FIFTY: Came to school with his Thomas the Tank pyjamas under his school uniform (the ones that still fit him).
KEENER: Missed the whole of PE washing his hands in the loos because he’d got glue on them.
JONNO: Held the silky label in the back of his shorts all the time because he liked the feel of it.
There’s my notebook where we keep a record of everything we do – not eating and sleeping and going to the park, but important things, like when we mended the statue that Copper Pie
destroyed with his catapult.
There’s a paint tin to keep Tribe funds in. We all get different pocket money so everyone gives what they’ve got spare. We’re saving up to buy things for the hut. And if we
don’t get the hut, we’re going to have a Tribe Christmas party instead. And if we can’t wait that long, we’ll have a summer holiday one. Or we might just buy chocolate.
At the back, rolled up and tied with an orange and brown ribbon (Bee said it looked tribal), is a list of our rules and our manifesto. Bee wrote it. We argued about it for a while because it
made us sound like we were going to change the world, and then we gave in, rolled it up and it’s been there ever since.
The safe needs a five-digit code to open it. It used to be 77777 but I’ve changed it to 87423 – the numbers you’d press if you tried to spell TRIBE on a phone. Clever.
We do the fist of friendship whenever we meet – we make a fist and punch each other’s knuckles. It means respect. And when we leave (or when something good happens) we do the Tribe
handshake. We agreed that you have to know the opening and closing actions to be part of Tribe – it’s a rule. And no one knows
Exactly, I wanted to say.
Surely new me was better than old me. I realised I hadn’t held my breath for days. I hadn’t had any bad dreams either. I felt like a snake, who’d shed its skin and started
again as . . .
Keener of Tribe – full of good ideas, not wet blanket.
Keener of Tribe – trailblazer (of the route to school and back).
Keener of Tribe – warrior, not worrier.
Could it get any better?
Bribes, Beetles, Bark and Bobotie
being a Triber
It’s funny how quickly exciting things become normal. When I first got my phone I was always changing ringtone and texting and playing the games but now . . . I’m
still glad I’ve got one, but it’s not like when it was new. It’s the same with walking home. I felt so grown up the first few times but now it’s just part of a regular
school day.
Being a Triber is normal too. We meet once a week (Wednesdays) at my house because:
Fifty’s mum’s too nosy so we can’t go there.
Jonno says his dad doesn’t like other people’s kids.
Bee likes everyone else’s house better than hers, and everyone’s scared of Copper Pie’s mum. (She shouts.)
We’d like somewhere else to meet, like a proper hut, but no one’s got one. We might build one. Fifty’s garden is huge and messy. He’s done a deal with his mum: if we
clear the bottom of it, which is a jungle of nasty pointy bushes and junk and smelly stuff, then we can have a go. Copper Pie wanted to do it right away but it’s not really a
couple-of-nights-after-school type of job. My dad said ‘Maybe we could do it one weekend,’ but he needs to talk to Fifty’s mum first. So . . . headquarters is still my room and
when we’re ‘in the field’ we use our patch under the trees at school.
I keep everything to do with Tribe in my safe. It’s quite full already. There’s the file with loads of fact sheets about us, a bit like Tribe Top Trumps. We’re always adding
new sheets. Some of them are funny, like things we did in Reception, and some of them aren’t.
FUNNY THINGS TRIBERS DID IN RECEPTION
BEE: The Head told her off for talking in assembly. She shouted, ‘I wasn’t talking to you’ – she was only
four.
COPPER PIE: Walked home on his own after lunch because he didn’t like the pudding.
FIFTY: Came to school with his Thomas the Tank pyjamas under his school uniform (the ones that still fit him).
KEENER: Missed the whole of PE washing his hands in the loos because he’d got glue on them.
JONNO: Held the silky label in the back of his shorts all the time because he liked the feel of it.
There’s my notebook where we keep a record of everything we do – not eating and sleeping and going to the park, but important things, like when we mended the statue that Copper Pie
destroyed with his catapult.
There’s a paint tin to keep Tribe funds in. We all get different pocket money so everyone gives what they’ve got spare. We’re saving up to buy things for the hut. And if we
don’t get the hut, we’re going to have a Tribe Christmas party instead. And if we can’t wait that long, we’ll have a summer holiday one. Or we might just buy chocolate.
At the back, rolled up and tied with an orange and brown ribbon (Bee said it looked tribal), is a list of our rules and our manifesto. Bee wrote it. We argued about it for a while because it
made us sound like we were going to change the world, and then we gave in, rolled it up and it’s been there ever since.
The safe needs a five-digit code to open it. It used to be 77777 but I’ve changed it to 87423 – the numbers you’d press if you tried to spell TRIBE on a phone. Clever.
We do the fist of friendship whenever we meet – we make a fist and punch each other’s knuckles. It means respect. And when we leave (or when something good happens) we do the Tribe
handshake. We agreed that you have to know the opening and closing actions to be part of Tribe – it’s a rule. And no one knows
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