Attack of the Demon Dinner Ladies

by Pamela Butchart

  And that’s when we saw that it WAS Maisie’s shoe on the ground. But her leg wasn’t in it.

  We all gasped and looked up into the air at the seagulls as they flew away.

  And we all knew that Maisie was up there with them.

  We all stood in the playground with our mouths wide open staring at the sky as the seagulls flew away.

  We couldn’t believe it. They’d TAKEN Maisie!

  But then Zach said, “LOOK!” and he pointed to something on the ground at the far end of the playground. And it looked a bit like Maisie’s other shoe.

  So we all ran over. And it WAS Maisie’s other shoe.

  Then Jodi pointed to something else a bit further away and it was one of Maisie’s socks.

  We all knew that Maisie always wore at least two pairs of socks every day because she was scared of the cold and also because her feet were so small that if she didn’t her shoes would fall off.

  So that’s when I said, “She must have only put on one pair of socks today and that’s why her shoes fell off when the seagulls took her.”

  And Zach said, “Her shoes and socks probably fell off because she was kicking and screaming when the seagulls kidnapped her. We have to find her!”

  And then we both looked at Jodi because she wasn’t saying anything and when we did we noticed that Jodi was SMILING.

  At first I thought that Jodi had maybe gone into shock and that that was why she was smiling because I couldn’t think of any other reason why she would be smiling when we were talking about the fact that Maisie had just been taken up kicking and screaming into the air by demon seagulls! But then Jodi said, “Maisie is a GENIUS! It’s just like Hansel and Gretel.”

  And I looked at Zach and Zach looked at me and we were both thinking that the shock of seeing Maisie being taken away by demon seagulls had damaged Jodi’s brain.

  So I said, “Jodi, are you OK? Do you need to lie down for a minute?”

  And that’s when Jodi said, “I’m fine. Come on! We need to follow the socks! She’s SOCKS AND SHOES so leaving us a trail of we can follow her and save her!”

  And that’s when I realised that Maisie really WAS a genius!

  We found another one of Maisie’s socks near the bike shed. And that’s when we spotted some seagulls behind the kitchen where we’d seen Amy and the dinner lady feeding them a few days ago.

  Then Jodi pointed and said, “Look! They’ve landed. That’s where Maisie must be.”

  So we all crept up slowly and stayed close to the wall because we didn’t want the seagulls to see us and fly away with Maisie again.

  But then there was

  of screaming so we peeked around the corner. And that’s when we saw LOADS of demon dinner ladies standing in a crowd and they were shouting and waving their arms everywhere.

  Zach gasped and said, “Oh no! The demon dinner ladies ARE the seagulls! They can SHAPESHIFT!”

  I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure if Zach was right about that until I spotted someone trapped right in the middle of the demon dinner lady crowd. And it was MAISIE!

  Jodi grabbed our arms and said, “LOOK!” And she pointed at Amy, who was standing with the head demon dinner lady and they were holding bags of food scraps.

  Then Zach said that they must be IN CHARGE of the other demonised dinner ladies and that the dinner ladies were shouting and waving their arms about because they were hungry and they wanted Amy and her mum to feed them scraps.

  And that’s when I knew that Zach was DEFINITELY right about the shapeshifting dinner ladies. So I said, “We need to get Maisie out of there

  And then we all screamed and CHARGED towards the demon dinner ladies as fast as we could.

  We didn’t even stop to LOOK at the demon dinner ladies. We just charged through them, grabbed Maisie and RAN. And we didn’t stop running until we reached The Den and lay Maisie down on our coats.

  Zach said that we should take Maisie to the school nurse because her bare feet looked all red and painful and she had a scratch on one leg. But then Maisie sat up and said that she was OK, and that her feet were just a little bit sore.

  None of us could stop hugging Maisie and telling her how brave she had been and how clever she was for leaving us a trail to follow when she got taken up into the sky by the demon dinner ladies.

  But then Maisie looked a bit confused and she said that she HADN’T left a trail but we didn’t have time to ask what she meant because that’s when the door to The Den BURST OPEN and AMY came barging in.

  Zach got such a fright he fell off his bucket and on to the floor.

  Jodi stood up and she had THAT LOOK in her eye and I didn’t know WHAT was going to happen next.

  Amy walked right up to us and said, “My mum’s the new head dinner lady. I didn’t want to tell you before because I KNEW that you’d been talking about her and saying bad stuff about her food. But then my mum saw me sitting with you at dinners and Mr Carlos told her that I’d hit you with the table-tennis ball and then stormed out without apologising. So she FORCED me to invite you to my party.”

  Then Amy gave us a bit of a cheeky look and said, “SOME people have a problem with dinner ladies even though they SHOULDN’T. It happened to me at my last school. So I just don’t tell anyone any more.”

  We all stood there and waited for Amy to say the next bit (the bit about her mum being a DEMON who wanted to poison everyone and turn our school into her DEMON HEADQUARTERS). But she didn’t say anything about that.

  And then she shouted, “My mum is going to get sacked! There’s a rumour going around that she made a pie out of seagulls.”

  We all looked at each other when Amy said that and then eventually Jodi said, “But she DID put seagulls in the pie. And YOU helped her. Didn’t you?”

  And I could tell by the way that Jodi asked that she wasn’t a hundred per cent sure any more. And neither was I because of how cross Amy was with us.

  And then that’s when Amy told us

  She said that every time her mum gets a new job as the head dinner lady everyone ends up getting angry at her because she tries to change everything.

  Amy said that her mum thinks that school dinners are TERRIBLE and that every pupil deserves BETTER so she always makes really good healthy and delicious food and that she makes the other dinner ladies dress smartly and be nice and give out nice menus and fancy napkins and puts fresh fruit in the water jugs because that’s what she thinks pupils deserve.

  And that made me remember the water jugs with the little beady eyes and so I asked Amy about it and she said that those had probably been frozen pomegranate seeds or mini blueberries and that they make the water taste nice and keep it cold too, like ice cubes.

  Amy said that her mum was so good at cooking that she’d been on a course with loads of FAMOUS CHEFS like Jamie Oliver and the lady who gets really excited in her kitchen about all of her food and acts like she wants to marry it. And that her mum could probably run a top London restaurant if she wanted but that she didn’t because she was very PASSIONATE about pupils getting GOOD FOOD at school.

  And then Amy said, “But something ALWAYS goes wrong because either the other dinner ladies don’t like it when my mum comes in and changes everything and they moan and complain, or the council tells Mum that the new, healthy food that tastes good is TOO EXPENSIVE even though she’s only trying to make school dinners BETTER.”

  And then Amy stood up and crossed her arms and said, “And now this time my mum is going to get sacked because NO ONE is EVER going to go to school dinners ever again because YOU LOT started a stupid rumour about SEAGULL PIE. And I know for a fact that it was you because I SAW you telling everyone. And I’ve heard you being rude about my mum BEFORE.”

  And that’s when I realised why Amy had been a bit weird with us sometimes. It was because she’d overheard us talking about her mum and the new dinners before we knew her mum was the new head dinner lady. And that had obviously made her really annoyed with us.

  We all felt T
ERRIBLE after Amy said that, especially Jodi because it had been her idea to tell everyone about the seagull pie. So we all said sorry LOADS and Jodi looked a bit like she was going to cry.

  Zach got up and made Amy a cup of cold tea because we still had tea bags in The Den. But then Amy couldn’t drink it because she has very serious allergies and she is allergic to LOADS of food and drinks.

  Then Jodi said, “That’s why you don’t go to school dinners even though your mum’s the head dinner lady. You can’t eat it because you’re allergic to everything.”

  And Amy nodded.

  And that’s when Maisie told us that it was the DINNER LADIES who saved her from the flock of seagulls.

  Maisie said that she’d been trying to take a shortcut to The Den so no one saw her and that she’d been eating a banana and that the seagulls had spotted the banana and had started chasing her all over the playground. And that her socks and shoes had fallen off when she was trying to get away.

  So then I said, “But what about when we found you behind the kitchen? All of the dinner ladies had you TRAPPED, Maisie! And they were shouting and waving their arms about like mad!”

  But then Maisie said, “They were protecting me. They were trying to scare the seagulls away.”

  Then Amy said, “It was my fault the seagulls attacked you. Mum’s been letting me feed scraps to the seagulls because I love birds. But we stopped feeding them yesterday because Mum said there were too many hanging around and that we probably shouldn’t have started feeding them in the first place. But then I asked her if we could just feed two little ones that were hiding under the bins because I was scared they were babies and that they were going to starve to death if no one fed them. But then LOADS came and we couldn’t stop them and then they went after Maisie.”

  So that’s when we told Amy everything. We told her about the water jugs with the weird things and the glowing eyes and what the lollipop man had said about her mum being INFAMOUS and about how we thought her mum had SUMMONED the seagulls here to make a poisonous pie so that she could take over the school and make it her DEMON HEADQUARTERS!

  I thought Amy might start crying or something but she didn’t. She actually BURST OUT LAUGHING!

  Then she said, “That is the CRAZIEST thing I’ve ever heard in my life. You guys are HILARIOUS!”

  And then we all looked at each other and burst out laughing because it DID sound pretty hilarious and we were obviously completely wrong.

  Amy said that she definitely WASN’T a demon dinner lady and that her mum wasn’t one either. And then she said that the GLOWING EYES thing was probably just the lights reflecting off the goggles her mum wears for HEALTH AND SAFETY reasons in case hot soup or chilli splashes into her eyes when it’s bubbling hot.

  That’s when I figured out that the reason Amy had refused the water jug and STARED at her mum like that in the dinner hall that day was because she didn’t want her mum to come over to our table because then we might have found out that she was Amy’s mum and she knew that we didn’t like her. And that made me feel really bad.

  Then Jodi said, “But what about the hats?” And then she giggled a bit before she said, “The dinner ladies weren’t wearing them to hide their horns, were they?”

  Amy looked at all of us for a second and then she started laughing HYSTERICALLY and using her fingers to pretend she had horns!

  But then we all stopped laughing because we heard SHOUTING coming from outside.

  And that’s when Amy looked at us and said, “It’s started. I’ll have to hide in here until my mum comes to get me.”

  That’s when we found out the SEAGULL PIE rumour had spread around the WHOLE SCHOOL and that no one was going to class and that there was a PROTEST going on in the playground and we couldn’t BELIEVE it because this was serious and it was all our fault.

  So that’s when Jodi said, “Come on. We’re going to fix this.”

  But Amy said that she was too scared to go outside in case everyone knew that her mum was the one who had made the pie.

  So that’s when I said that we would protect her because she was OUR friend now and that made her smile a bit and we all followed Jodi into the playground.

  When we got outside we couldn’t BELIEVE what we saw. EVERYONE was in the playground and some people had made posters that said things like, “BE GOOD TO GULLS” and “NO SEAGULL SANDWICHES” and “SEAGULL MEAT IS NOT A TREAT”. And one of the Year 6s was standing on a chair and she had the megaphone that the head teacher uses when it’s a fire alarm and she was shouting, “SAVE OUR SEAGULLS! SAVE OUR SEAGULLS!”

  And all the teachers were trying to get everyone to come back inside and the PE teacher was blowing his whistle and the Head Teacher was trying to get past everyone to stop the Year 6 girl and the dinner ladies were all standing with their arms crossed shaking their heads and shouting at the Head to do something and loads of pupils were crying about SEAGULL MEAT and it was

  I turned to Jodi and she was watching everything with her mouth wide open. And so were Zach and Amy.

  I looked around for Maisie but I couldn’t see her anywhere and I worried that we’d lost her in the crowd but then all of a sudden we heard the Year 6 with the megaphone say, “Hold on everyone. We have an EYE WITNESS here who says she saw the new dinner lady making the seagull pie.”

  And everyone gasped and Amy grabbed my hand.

  But then the Year 6 girl stepped down from the chair and we all watched as loads of people helped someone else up on to the chair. Someone who was a LOT smaller.

  And then Jodi said, “Wait. Is that

  And it WAS Maisie!

  Maisie held the megaphone up to her face with both hands and then she said, “IT’S NOT TRUE. THERE IS NO SEAGULL PIE.”

  I looked at Amy and she looked stunned.

  But then the Year 6 girl looked annoyed and she pulled the megaphone away from Maisie and said, “HOW WOULD YOU KNOW? WHY SHOULD WE BELIEVE YOU?”

  And that’s when Maisie grabbed the megaphone back and said,

  And the whole crowd gasped.

  We all watched as the Head Teacher came and took Maisie away.

  That’s when Amy said, “She saved us.”

  And we knew that Amy was right and Maisie had stopped EVERYTHING by pretending that she’d made the whole thing up.

  And then Zach said, “Do you think she’ll get expelled?”

  And Jodi didn’t say anything and I knew it was because she was terrified that Maisie WOULD be expelled from school.

  Then when we were walking back to class, Miss Jones came up to us and said, “I don’t know WHAT’S going on but I think the three of you better get down to the Head Teacher’s office NOW. Because something tells me you’ve got something to do with this. GO!”

  So we said goodbye Amy and the three of us ran all the way to the Head Teacher’s office before he could expel Maisie for life from our school because we had to save our BEST FRIEND!

  When we got there Maisie was sitting outside.

  We all ran up and gave her a big hug and told her how brave she’d been and how proud we were of her and she smiled and said thanks.

  She told us that Mr Graves was sending her home so that’s when Jodi walked RIGHT into Mr Graves’ office with her hands on her hips and said that it was COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE that Maisie was being sent home for BAD BEHAVIOUR and that she had only been trying to STOP the protest and that she should be given a MEDAL instead of a punishment.

  And that’s when Mr Graves came out of his office and said that he agreed that it was completely unacceptable for Maisie to be sent home for bad behaviour and that Maisie was actually going home because she had sore feet because she’d been walking around without shoes on.

  And that’s when Jodi said, “Oh.”

  And then Mr Graves said that Jodi shouldn’t ever barge into his office and shout at him again and Jodi said that she definitely wouldn’t and that she had just been really worried about Maisie and that she was sorry. And Mr Graves smil
ed and said that he understood and we all had permission to sit with Maisie until her mum came to collect her.

  And then he said, “That goes for you too, Ms Demin.”

  And that’s when Amy came out from where she’d been hiding behind the Big Plant and we were surprised because we didn’t know that she’d followed us.

  Amy thanked Maisie over and over again for stopping the rumour and Maisie just kept smiling loads and saying that it was OK. And I was really happy for Maisie because usually people are always asking her if she is OK because she’s scared or because she’s fainted but today everyone was thanking her because she’d been brave.

  That Friday we all met at the dinner hall for the special “SCHOOL PIE DAY”.

  The day had been cancelled once because of the protest but by Friday everything was back to normal.

  I was REALLY excited about “SCHOOL PIE DAY” because Amy said there was a SURPRISE that we were all going to love and that it was going to be HILARIOUS and that her mum had wanted to do it for YEARS!

  So we all sat at the table and that’s when Amy’s mum came out and said, “Many years ago I was sat where YOU are now. I was one of the first pupils at this school.”

  And everyone gasped because we hadn’t known that.

  Then she said, “I must tell you. School dinners weren’t very nice in my day. AND there was ONE school dinner that was

  And that’s when I looked at Jodi and Maisie and Zach and they were all smiling as much as I was because we just KNEW what Amy’s mum was about to say next.