Magic Bunny: Classroom Capers by Sue Bentley Page A

teacher had sorted them into teams, she had been worried that Ellie might not enjoy the trip. She usually sat on the benches at playtime, while Julia and her best friend, Lucy, played ball games and tag. Lucy was on a family holiday and hadn’t been able to come camping with the rest of their friends. Julia felt a pang of sadness as she thought about the fun they could be having together.
    Julia could see the other teams had already picked their camping sites. The Bears, Elks and Cougars all seemed to be getting on well with putting up their tents. One of the boys looked over at the Julia and the Wolverines.
    ‘The Bears rule!’ he called, punching the air.
    Julia’s eyes sparkled. ‘Not if we can help it!’
    ‘We’ll get our tent up first,’ a boy standing next to Julia said confidently. ‘I’ve been camping with my parents heaps of times.’
    Lex was one of the oldest boys in Julia’s class. Julia didn’t know him all that well as he’d only joined the school mid-term.
    ‘Great!’ she said to him, glad that someone in their team knew what they were doing. Maybe this trip would be a good time to get to know Lex better.
    ‘Let’s go!’ Lex’s blue eyes gleamed. He spread his arms like an aeroplane and zoomed down to where the field narrowed and sloped slightly towards a hedge. Off to one side, there was a stile that led to a footpath.
    Julia and the others followed.
    Lex stopped near the bottom of the field. ‘Here’s a good place for our tent. We’ll have it all to ourselves.’
    ‘This looks perfect!’ Julia was dumping her backpack on the grass when there was wail from just behind her as Ellie skidded to a messy halt.
    ‘Oh, yuck! That’s so gross!’ she complained, frantically wiping her designer pink trainers on the grass. ‘I hate smelly sheep and I hate this messy field. Why couldn’t we have stayed on a nice neat caravan site?’
    ‘Duh! Camping equals tents. Get it?’ Lex rolled his eyes. As Ellie fished a crumpled tissue out of her shorts pocket and dabbed at her pongy trainer, he started laughing. ‘Ellie Darlow, nil – sheep poo, one!’
    Ellie went bright red. ‘Oh, shut up!’ she muttered, doing a one-legged shuffle down the slope.
    ‘Why do we have to have her on our team? She’s going to be useless,’ Lex grumbled loudly.
    ‘She’ll be OK.’ Julia thought Lex was being a little hard on Ellie, who obviously wasn’t as keen on camping as she was. Although she did hope that Ellie would start enjoying being in the outdoors soon – she knew that Lucy would have loved every minute. ‘So, what do we do now?’
    ‘You lot unpack the tent and lay everything out on the ground. And I’ll stand here and tell you how to put it up,’ Lex said bossily.
    Ellie frowned. ‘Who made you team leader?’
    ‘I was joking, you muppet!’ Lex undid the tent pack and upended it, so everything fell out on to the grass.
    Julia ignored their squabbling. She picked up the page of printed instructions that lay on the grass and began to read them.
    ‘We won’t need those. I know what I’m doing.’ Lex grabbed the crumpled tent. But after a few minutes of studying it from all angles, he gave a snort of disgust. ‘I’ve never seen one like this before. The stupid thing’s faulty.’

    ‘It’s not the tent that’s faulty,’ Ellie muttered.
    ‘Hang on. I think I’ve worked it out,’ Julia said hurriedly, peering at the diagram with the instructions. ‘Look, the poles and everything are all attached to the inside. They’re jointed and folded up like an umbrella.’
    The other team members stepped forward to help Julia. With a few twists and a bit of jiggling, the jumble of fabric and tubing was transformed into a bright-blue dome shape.
    Lex quickly took over. ‘Those dangling bits of stringy stuff are the guy ropes. They keep the tent upright and stop it blowing away in bad weather.’ Lex showed the others how to fasten the ropes to the ground with tent pegs and then stood back.