Special Shoes.

Special Shoes


Once upon a time there was a little girl called Special Shoes.
None of the other children at school would ever play with Special Shoes.
That’s because she had...
Special shoes.

“Eurgh look at her shoes, dee-scust-ing” all the other children would cry in hoity toity high pitched voices.

Special Shoeses, special shoes where made of metal and went all the way up her legs, they helped her to walk straight instead of all bendy.
Because she had no friends, Special Shoes pretended that her special shoes could talk, and every day her and her shoes would play games.

“Today shoes let’s play at singing songs”, Said Special Shoes.

“Uh huh huh”

Incredible! Special Shoes was gob smacked. I don’t mean she was smacked in the gob.
Kapow whack sock!
I mean she was shocked. In surprise. Wowee excited. Her special shoes really, really, really could talk, and they’d been listening to everything that she been saying all this time.

“You can talk?” Asked Special Shoes,

“Yes we can” Replied her shoes.

“And you’ve been listening to me the whole time?”

“We’ve been listening to everything.”

It was true Special Shoeses special shoes had been listening to everything.

They knew where she had hidden her most precious things. That she happened to think Mr Potts was dreamy dreamy and that she was very sad because all the other children made fun of her.
Special Shoeses shoes, knew that Mr Looms the head of I.T had spent the last week sleeping in the school mini van. They knew that during the previous week Mr Looms had made a pass at Miss Cakes the pretty Art teacher. They knew that Mr Looms wife, Mrs Looms happened to be very angry over the whole Miss Cakes incident.

As a result, they knew that Mr Looms was scared of popping his head round the door of his home 123 Albert Drive, for fear of it being taken off by a well placed saucepan hurled from the furious arm of his wife Mrs Looms.
This is why for the time being he happened to be bunkering down in the relative safety but general discomfort of the schools van.
They also knew that Mr Twicks the mini-van driver was getting less puzzled and more and more fed up every time he found another discarded sock or another pair of boxer shorts recklessly left scattered and forgotten to lie about his van.
"Where are all these dirty clothes coming from?" Mr Twicks grumbled out loud.
These odd socks or boxer shorts strewn about the van if you hadn't already guessed belonged in fact to Mr Looms. Clothes he was completely unaware that he was absent mindedly depositing every day. Ping! Off one of his old socks would fly to land on Mr Twicks steering wheel. During his rush to get up and dressed for school each morning before anyone saw him. Did Mr Looms take any notice of where his discarded clothes happened to land? Not on your Nelly.

Special Shoeses Special Shoes knew all this.
They knew that Kristie Watts fancied Ryan Dean, that Harry Turbot’s hamster had just died, that Shane Thomas never did his homework, they knew that Steven Jones and his gang would be skipping French next Tuesday and that Alexandria Froggat wanted to be a gardener when she grew up. Just like a conjurer making flowers glow.
And they knew. Yes they knew. Out of all the children that were mean and horrible to Special Shoes. Jacqueline Percy was the most, meanest, baddest, worstest, horrible, nasty, despicable, spitefull, monster of them all.

Jacqueline Percy made it her mission to make other kids cry.
It made her feel big. She never picked on kids larger than herself only those that were smaller. If a small kid was ever in front of Jacqueline Percy blocking her path, she would just shove them to one side right into the wall, splat!

“Get out my way” she’d shout.

Anyone that looked a bit different or did anything a bit different was a target for Jacqueline Percy’s bullying. What a meanie.

“Oi freckle face”
“Who ate all the pies”
“Four eyes”
“Cissy cissy billy”
“Sammy Jelly”
“Smelly the Elephant”

Jacqueline Percy pulled hair, burnt arms, pushed, pinched, punched, and called her class mates names.
She was the one that invented the name Special Shoes in the first place. Oh and boy did Jacqueline love to torment Special Shoes.

One year Jacqueline had taken Special Shoes and locked her in the lost property cupboard.
No one could hear Special Shoes crying out for help. Jacqueline planned her operations to well for that. Jacqueline had decided to wait until sports day before locking Special Shoes in the cupboard. Which meant everyone was outside in the sunshine. Terrific. Whilst Special Shoes was trapped all alone in a spooky dark cupboard, full of cobwebs, old brooms and strange musty smells. Peeyoo. What’s more Special Shoes was really terribly afraid of spiders. In the pitch black of the cupboard with floaty cobwebs billowing and wafting around all Special Shoes could think about was gianormous spiders with horrible eyes crawling up and down her back. Special Shoes was terrified. Even worse because everyone was outside in the sunshine Special Shoes was trapped in the dark of the lost property cupboard, for nearly the whole entire day. Imagine that. Scary.
When eventually a teacher found her, Special Shoes face had turned ghostly white and she was clutching onto her shoes for dear life.

Another time Special Shoes really needed to go to the loo, but every-time she put her hand up to ask the teacher if she could go, Jacqueline would grab Special Shoes hand and pull it back down again.
“Stop it stop it” Special Shoes cried but Jacqueline wouldn’t stop.
It got so bad and Special Shoes was so bursting that she had to go for a wee in a bowl behind the cupboard where all the maths equipment was kept.

Special Shoes never told her Mum and Dad anything about her bullying at school.
“How was your day Darling” her Mum would ask,
“Oh it was horrible, I was bursting for the loo, but every time I went to ask the teacher if I could go Jacqueline Percy grabbed my arm put her hand over my mouth and stopped me and in the end I had to wee in a bowl behind the maths cupboard which was really embarrassing” is not the sort of thing Special Shoes would ever dream of saying to her parents so she just lied and mouthed three quiet words
“It was fine”, before traipsing upstairs to her room.
Her room where she was all alone with her special shoes.


Instead of keeping a diary Special Shoes whispered everything to her shoes.
Her shoes which could now talk.
“We can sing” The shoes cried out before bursting into a bold confident rich golden sounding harmony.

Do you know what they really could sing, holler holler yeah! We’re talking really snazzy finger snapping singing. Lively world maker crooning. Sharp? It was Bee-oot-eee-full. Special Shoes started to march round and round the playground to the beat of her shoes song.

We are special shoes
We’ve been to outer space
Flown across the stars
We’ve landed on the moon
No one can stop us
We are special shoes

It appeared unbeknown to Special Shoes, or anyone else for that matter, that her shoes were in fact made from bits of metal from an old NASA space rocket and that not only had they been in outer space but they had landed on the moon.
When Special Shoes finally found this out she thought,

“well no wonder they can sing and talk.”

Marching around the playground with her shoes singing filled Special Shoes with confidence. Today was the first day in her life she wasn’t scared of running into Jacqueline Percy. Special Shoes was in fact quite looking forward to seeing her.
Sure enough.
There was Jacqueline Percy . A giant figure in the middle of the playground. Robbing a small boy of his dinner money.
Jacqueline held the boy. With one hand round the scruff of the collar on his neck she had lifted him off the ground. The boys feet dangled in the air. The tips of his trailing untied laces were the only part of the him that touched the dusty concrete playground floor. All the while Jacqueline’s other hand went rooting through the boy’s pockets searching for his dinner money.

“STOP THAT!” Shouted out Special Shoes.
“What!” Boomed Jacqueline,


“did you say” and she dropped the boy in a heap onto the floor.


“I said stop”, answered Special Shoes in a quiet mouse like voice.


“Oh you did did you Special Shoes”, replied Jacqueline sneering.
“I think it’s a dunk in the swimming pool for you with all your clothes on.”

At this point all the children in the playground had gathered together to watch the spectacle unfold. Luckily there were no teachers to be seen otherwise what happened next might never have happened.

“We don’t think so” Cried out Special Shoeses special shoes.

“Whir” The playground went silent all the children were stunned.

“Special Shoes shoes can talk!”
“Did you hear that? Her shoes can talk”
“They can really talk,”

“We can sing” Sang out the shoes and they burst into song

We are special shoes
We’ve been to outer space
Flown across the stars
We’ve landed on the moon
No one can stop us
We are special shoes

“Heya Daphne is it alright if we take over your legs and feet for a little bit please?” The shoes asked Special Shoes very, very courteously. Do you know If they could have bowed I very much think they would have. They did.

Special Shoes name was really Daphne, and because it had been a very long time since anyone had called Daphne by her real name at school she blushed a little. Before replying to her shoes,
“Be my guest.”
Without further ado Daphne’s Special Shoes took over.


First thing they did was make Daphne jump and do a heel click celebration in the air, and then they began to march Daphne towards Jacqueline Percy. The special shoes marched to a furious pace. Sending Daphne's knees higher and higher. Quicker and quicker. Straight towards Jacqueline who had never experienced an onslaught like this before.
A girl with metal shoes. Metal up to the knees, tearing at breakneck speed straight for her. A girl with shoes that could not only talk but sing.
Jacqueline started turning red. She was beginning to panic.
Then the Special Shoes began talking.
Spilling all of Jacqueline’s secrets to the children that had gathered in the playground,
“Jacqueline Percy wets the bed, Jacqueline Percy is scared of dogs, Jacqueline Percy wished she had friends; Jacqueline Percy is covered in spots”

“Please stop, stop it,” Jacqueline started crying, her big blubbery watery tears splashed in drops onto the playground. All the children that had gathered round begun laughing and pointing at Jacqueline.

“Jacqueline Percy wets the bed.”
“Jacqueline Percy is covered in spots.”

“STOP!” It was Special Shoes; I mean Daphne that silenced the mocking voices of the children.
“Don’t can’t you see Jacqueline's upset?”

“What’s going on here?”, finally a teacher had noticed a bit of fuss on the playground and had come to sort it out.

“Oh nothing”, said Daphne, “Jacqueline got a bit sad because everyone was calling her names but they’ve all stopped now”.

“Oh really and what made them stop”

“Me and my special shoes”
“Come on Jacqueline let’s play” Said Daphne contrarily and to the teachers amazement Daphne took Jacqueline by the hand and off they went waltzing together like two little fireflies.

It’s funny because you see Daphne and Jacqueline who once didn't get on at all became the best of friends. This meant neither Jacqueline nor Daphne was lonely anymore and also that nobody at the school was being bullied. Well not by Jacqueline anyway.
As the years went by nearly all the children forgot that there used to be a girl at school called Special Shoes because, well because she had such special shoes.

Of course there was one girl that remembered. She also remembered that her special shoes could talk.

“We can sing” They burst out in a bold confident rich golden sounding harmony,
“And we've been listening to everything.”