NEXT UP! 1 36 But no. He swept forward right to the middle, almost next to Mrs Blaizely, turned to face us all and did a sort of smart military bow from the waist. Then he straightened up, threw his arms out wide, and said in the loudest, clearest Russian: ‘Greetings to all you lowly shivering worms.’ I was still staring when Mrs Blaizely beckoned. She wanted me up the steps and standing next to Ivan. I didn’t have a choice. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Boris is going to tell us, in English, exactly what Ivan just said to us in Russian.’ She turned to me. ‘Well, go on.’ I tell you frankly, this was my big mistake. If I’d just done it, just gone ahead and told her straight off: ‘He said, “Greetings to all you lowly shivering worms”,’ I could have saved myself a heap of trouble. But I couldn’t do it. Look at it this way. There he was, on his first day in a new school. For all I knew, it could have been his very first week in a new country, his first day in his new house, almost his first words in his brand-new life (apart from arguing with his mother about whether or not to come through the school gates in the first place). And he’d been called up to stand on stage with everyone staring. I thought he must have panicked, and said something silly as a sort of joke, not realising that in our civilized school where everyone’s supposed to have good manners and a positive attitude, it wasn’t going to work, and everyone was going to end up staring at him even more. Lowly shivering worms? It’s pretty rude. I couldn’t let him get himself into everyone’s bad books so quickly. So I just told them: ‘Ivan said, “Good morning, everyone”.’ I thought we’d get away then. I thought Mrs Blaizely would nod at us, and we’d troop off the stage. I’d tick him off (in Russian) and we’d start the day again. But no such luck, because Ivan hadn’t finished. He stepped forward again. ‘No doubt you’ll all be half-witted enough to welcome me amongst you,’ he said (in Russian). ‘Your tiny, dim-bulb to sweep forward – þjóta fram lowly – ómerkilegur a heap of trouble – heilmikil vandræði to argue (with somebody) – að rífast (við einhvern) whether or not – hvort to stare – stara rude – dónalegur to troop off – marsera af stað to tick someone off – pirra half-witted – heimskur tiny – pínulítill dim-bulb – hér: tregur
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