Attack of the Demon Dinner Ladies

by Pamela Butchart

  Then Zach said that the seagulls were probably the demon dinner lady’s PETS. And we all thought that might be true because there seemed to have been a LOT more seagulls hanging around since she’d got here and also because they looked a bit demony with their beady little eyes so they would probably make good pets for demons.

  When Miss Jones was doing the register and collecting the dinner orders we tried to have a secret meeting at our table, but it wasn’t easy because Gary Petrie kept trying to listen even though he said he wasn’t, but like Jodi said, if he WASN’T trying to listen to our conversation then how come he said, “No I’m not!” when I whispered, “I think Gary Petrie’s listening to us.”

  So that’s when Maisie put up her hand and asked Miss Jones if she could please go to the toilet. And Miss Jones said yes.

  And then two minutes later Jodi put up her hand and asked if SHE could go to the toilet and Miss Jones said yes because she probably thought that Maisie was on her way back. Miss Jones doesn’t like two people going to the toilet at the same time.

  But we knew that Maisie wasn’t on her way back and that she was waiting for Jodi in the girls’ toilets because when we have something

  to tell each other that can’t wait until break, this is what we do.

  So then I said, “Zach. I think I will sharpen my pencil now.”

  And Zach said, “I think I will sharpen MY pencil too, Izzy.”

  And then we got up and went over to the bin with our sharpeners and Gary Petrie gave us a LOOK because he KNEW we were going over to the bin to speak so that HE wouldn’t hear us.

  So I told Zach all about how the demon dinner lady had tried to POISON JODI TO DEATH WITH AN AVOCADO because she knew we were on to her, but that she had poisoned Jodi’s mum’s face instead.

  Zach looked SHOCKED when I told him. And then he sharpened his pencil so much there was hardly any pencil left.

  Then Maisie came back from the toilet and sat down and Jodi came back just a few seconds later and sat down too. And I could tell by the look on Maisie’s face that Jodi had told her everything.

  At break we rushed to The Den so Zach could tell us MORE about the DEMON ARMY OF DINNER LADIES that he’d started telling us about last night before we were interrupted by Jodi’s mum’s face.

  But Zach said that he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to talk about it right now because DEMONS were his most scary thing and also because one of them had tried to poison Jodi to death with an avocado.

  That’s when I remembered how weird he’d been in The Den the day before when he kept piling everything up in front of the door. And that he had been doing that because he was scared the demon dinner lady had followed us and that she was going to try to get in.

  That’s when Maisie said, “I have a question.”

  And we all listened closely.

  And she said, “What IS a demon?”

  And we all looked at Zach because we didn’t really know but we knew that he did because he had been the one to know what the

  had meant.

  So that’s when Zach took a deep breath and told us that he’d read a book in the library one time that was all about demons and monsters and that it had been the SCARIEST AND BEST book he had ever read.

  That’s when we all listened closely as Zach told us that demons were like ANCIENT EVIL GHOST THINGS that can pretend to be human. And that they have GLOWING EYES and sometimes claws and that the really, REALLY evil ones even have HORNS!

  And that’s when Maisie said, “I have another question.”

  And even though she said it in a very shaky voice, I was very proud that she hadn’t fainted yet because this was SERIOUSLY SCARY.

  And Maisie said, “Are ALL of the other dinner ladies demons now?”

  And Zach said that they WERE and that the demon dinner lady had probably DEMONISED them with baldness and goggles to make them her demon army as soon as she’d got here. Then Zach told us to sit down. So we did.

  And he said, “I think I know what she’s up to. And WHY she would need a DEMON ARMY.”

  And I heard Maisie gulp so loudly that I had to check she hadn’t accidently swallowed her tongue.

  Then Zach said, “She’s going to POISON EVERYONE and take over the school and turn it into her

  We all gasped and Jodi put her head in her hands and I knew it was because she was worried that we weren’t going to be able to stop this.

  Then Maisie took SIX REALLY DEEP BREATHS.

  And then she said, “So that explains the new hats then, doesn’t it?”

  And we all looked confused because we WERE confused.

  Then Maisie said, “They’re hiding their horns, aren’t they?”

  And that’s when we realised that the dinner ladies hadn’t gone bald from the shepherd’s pie fumes. And that they were the MOST EVIL demons you get because they had horns. And also that we were in

  That day we decided to RISK going to school dinners. We knew that it was SERIOUSLY DANGEROUS to be THAT CLOSE to the demon dinner ladies (and their horns!) but we knew we needed to find out more so that we could stop them.

  We sat at the packed lunch table and watched as everyone else RAN up to get school dinners.

  That’s when Zach said, “Why is everyone so keen to eat the WEIRD food? And why aren’t they all poisoned yet?!”

  Zach had a good point because every single pupil, except for us, seemed to

  school dinners and I even saw people putting their MONSTER MUNCH in the bin.

  Even the TEACHERS were gobbling down the food, and they don’t usually come to dinners. And then Miss Ross even got into a bit of an argument with the Head Teacher when he skipped the queue to get seconds!

  That’s when Jodi got

  which is when all of a sudden you realise something that you didn’t realise before and it’s such a shock that sometimes you even GASP and you’re usually really happy about it. But NO ONE was happy about THIS brain ping. And that’s because Jodi said that she thought that the demon dinner lady HADN’T tried to poison anyone yet (except for her) and that the food actually DID taste good, and that the demon dinner ladies were trying to TRICK everyone into getting poisoned by making sure they LOVED school dinners. And that one day soon the demon dinner lady would ATTACK by putting poison in the food and EVERYONE would eat it because they all LOVED school dinners now and THAT’S how she would make sure she poisoned EVERYONE in one go. And then the school would be hers.

  I thought Jodi’s brain ping made a LOT of sense because it was like the time our cat was sick and needed to take a pill to make her feel better but we couldn’t get her to eat it. So Mum gave her a piece of fancy fish that she’d never tasted before. And when she ate it her eyes went WIDE and she started getting REALLY excited and meowed loads because she wanted more.

  So Mum gave her another bit, and another bit and another bit. And then she hid the pill in a bit of the fancy fish and gave it to our cat and she ate it up because my mum had TRICKED her.

  But before we could talk about it any more, Amy came over and sat down with us at the packed lunch table again and I got a

  feeling when she looked at me.

  I wasn’t sure why I got a weird feeling. I kept thinking about the day before and how she’d seemed a bit annoyed when she left the table after the demon dinner lady had given Jodi the avocado. But I didn’t say anything.

  Zach started talking to Amy LOADS about table tennis and lots of other stuff he doesn’t usually talk about. But Amy didn’t say very much back, she just ate her lunch really fast and I noticed that she kept looking over at the demon dinner ladies, but no one else seemed to notice because they were all too busy listening to Zach who was telling Amy a story about a dog who saved everyone in the War.

  But then all of a sudden the head demon dinner lady started walking towards our table with a jug of water!

  Maisie started whimpering and Zach sort of froze and looked a bit like he was going to be sick. Jodi squeezed my hand under the table as
if to say “This is it. Get ready to run!” and I was just about to throw my chilli chicken wrap RIGHT at the head demon dinner lady when Amy yelled, “NO! We don’t want water! We’ve got milk!”

  The head demon dinner lady froze and STARED at Amy for ages. And Amy stared RIGHT back at her! And then eventually the head demon dinner lady slowly turned away and walked back to the kitchen.

  We all STARED at Amy.

  And I knew that we were all thinking the same thing.

  Amy KNEW about the head demon dinner lady!

  As soon as we finished our lunch we ran straight to The Den and as soon as the door was closed Jodi said, “AMY KNOWS!”

  Everyone agreed that Amy knew about the new head dinner lady being a demon but we couldn’t decide what to do next because this had never happened to us before. Usually WE were the only ones who knew what was going on when weird stuff happened at our school. And we never EVER told anyone else because Jodi says you have to keep a

  when you’re doing an investigation and that means you don’t involve a lot of people in case of INFORMATION LEAKS that let the bad guys know you’re on to them.

  That’s when Jodi kept pacing backwards and forwards saying loads of stuff like “But there’s strength in numbers” and “If it comes to an attack we might need her” and “She’ll need to have a full background check first”.

  And we just sort of watched as Jodi walked around The Den having a conversation with herself because that’s all you can do when Jodi is in one of these moods.

  Then Jodi stopped suddenly and said, “OK. Let’s vote.”

  So Jodi got the white board so she could record the results and then she said, “Raise your hand if you think we should bring Amy into our INNER CIRCLE.”

  And that’s when everyone raised their hand except for me.

  Then Jodi said, “That’s three to one. It has been decided. We’ll speak to Amy right away.”

  But then Maisie said, “Wait! Why didn’t you put your hand up, Izzy?”

  And I said that I wasn’t sure, really. And that I just had a bit of a

  about Amy, but that I couldn’t really explain it.

  Then Maisie’s eyes went wide and she said, “Can we vote again?” And Jodi said that we could.

  And when we voted again Maisie didn’t put her hand up this time.

  So then Jodi said, “We’re split. It’s fifty-fifty.”

  And that’s when I suggested that we should maybe try to find out a little bit more about Amy before we brought her into the INNER CIRCLE, so we could be a hundred percent sure we could trust her, and everyone agreed.

  We searched everywhere for Amy during afternoon break but we couldn’t find her.

  She wasn’t playing football in the playing field, she wasn’t standing with any of the other year 4s in the playground, she wasn’t at the tuck shop, she wasn’t in the girls’ toilets and she wasn’t in the classroom. It was as though she’d completely disappeared!

  And that’s when Zach started to get a bit fidgety and weird and then he said, “I know where we have to go. Follow me.” So we did. And that’s when we realised he was heading RIGHT for the back entrance of the dinner hall where the kitchen is.

  When we got there the doors were open and there was a big box of scraps sitting on the steps just outside.

  That’s when Zach said, “I’m going in.”

  And we all said, “WHAT??!”

  Because we had NO idea why Zach was about to walk right into the demon dinner lady’s kitchen especially since HE was probably even MORE scared of demons than MAISIE was!

  But then Zach said, “I think they’ve got Amy.”

  And that’s when I realised Zach was maybe right because I remembered about how Amy had told the head demon dinner lady that she didn’t want the water and then STARED at her for ages and how the demon dinner lady had stared back. And now we couldn’t find Amy anywhere.

  Then Zach said, “They know that Amy’s on to them. They’ve probably got her trapped in there so she doesn’t run off and tell everyone that they’re demons. They’re going to

  her! We’ve got to save her!”

  But then I heard voices, so I grabbed everyone and pulled them behind the bins and put my finger over my lips and they all went silent.

  Someone was coming.

  I held Maisie’s mouth with one hand and covered her eyes with my other hand because we all knew it was going to be one of the demon dinner ladies that came out of the kitchen door.

  But it wasn’t. It was Amy!

  Zach moved forward and began to wave her over, but then I got that funny feeling again so I let go of Maisie’s eyes and covered Zach’s mouth before he could make a noise.

  And that’s when everyone was VERY glad that I had.

  Because that’s when Amy kneeled down and picked up the box of food scraps and handed them to the HEAD DEMON DINNER LADY.

  And then they both started feeding the seagulls!

  After school, we ran and hid in The Den even though we were all supposed to be at after-school table tennis club.

  But we couldn’t go because Amy would be there and we didn’t know WHAT was going on with her after what we saw.

  That’s when Zach said, “They’ve got her, haven’t they?”

  I looked at Jodi and then at Maisie, because we all knew that the demon dinner lady had decided to turn Amy into

  rather than poisoning her, and that Amy would probably be one of the dinner ladies serving everyone TEMPURA from now on.

  But then Maisie said, “Zach. You remember you read that book about scary monsters and it was brilliant?”

  And we all listened closely because Maisie didn’t say it in her scared voice that she has most of the time. She said it in her WISE voice which she uses when she has a

  about something.

  Zach said yes, he’d found it in the library and it WAS brilliant.

  Maisie said, “We need that book. We’re going to find an antidote and get Amy back from the dinner ladies.”

  Maisie explained that an ANTIDOTE was like a CURE for something. And as soon as she said that I got excited and said, “I got a chemistry set for my birthday, could we use that?!”

  And Maisie’s eyes went even wider than they normally are and she said, “DEFINITELY!”

  Then Maisie said that we’d still need the scary library book too. But the library was locked because Mrs Bottery ALWAYS locks the door when she’s not there, even if she’s just nipping to the loo.

  Like the time I got locked in when I was trying to find “WAR AND PEACE” because someone had made a joke on TV about how hard it was to read, but I am very good at reading so I thought that I would maybe try it and tell everyone that I’d read it.

  But when I found it, it really WAS hard to read so I decided to sit down and just read the last page and try to memorise some of the last sentence so that I could pretend I’d read it.

  But then I heard the big library doors slam shut and the old lock turn and I just KNEW that I’d been locked in the library and I started to panic and make a “HELP ME!” sign to push up against the glass to get someone’s attention. But then all of a sudden Mrs Bottery came back and that’s when I realised she’d just nipped to the loo.

  So anyway, that’s when Jodi said, “Let’s go. We’re going to get that book NOW!”

  I explained to Jodi that she was forgetting about the library being locked after school.

  And Jodi said, “No I’m not.” And then she smiled one of her big Jodi smiles that usually means she has a SERIOUSLY DANGEROUS PLAN and that we might all get EXPELLED from school

  So it turned out I was right about Jodi’s plan being DANGEROUS.

  Jodi said that she knew where ALL the keys for ALL the classrooms, including the library, were kept. Jodi said that she’d seen them all on pegs one time when Mrs Jones had asked her to help her carry some boxes. And that they were kept in the STAFF ROOM.

  That’s when Maisie started pulling at Jodi’s cardigan and
saying, “Too much. Too much. Too far. Too far.” And then she mumbled something about prison and Australia.

  But Jodi wasn’t listening and she had THAT LOOK in her eye. So we all knew there was no point in trying to stop her.

  Jodi told us to wait in The Den while she ran to the staff room to steal the library key.

  None of us said a WORD while Jodi was gone because we were all TERRIFIED that she was going to get caught.

  After only two minutes Jodi burst into The Den and said, “Let’s go!”

  We all ran along the corridor, as quietly as we could, until we got to the library. Then when Jodi showed us the stolen library key Maisie squealed so loudly that we all jumped out of our skins!

  Zach said that he would wait outside with Maisie and that me and Jodi could go get the book and we said that that was a VERY good idea because we needed a look-out and also because Maisie wasn’t doing very well at ALL because of the THEFT.

  So Zach stood at one end of the corridor and Maisie stood at the other and we all agreed that if either of them spotted someone coming that they would do the

  and that the secret signal would be someone COUGHING really loudly THREE TIMES IN A ROW.

  Jodi put the key in lock and turned it. It made a REALLY loud noise. And my heart jumped because I wasn’t expecting it to be as loud as it was and also because I was scared we were going to get caught.

  Then Zach suddenly came running back and I started panicking but then he said, “I forgot to tell you the name of the book. It’s called SCARY MONSTERS AND SUPER CREEPS.” And then he ran back to his lookout spot and my heart calmed down a bit.