Archie's Unbelievably Freaky Week

by Andrew Norriss

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. On Monday . . .

  2. On Tuesday . . .

  3. On Wednesday . . .

  4. On Thursday . . .

  5. On Friday . . .

  6. On Saturday . . .

  7. On Sunday . . .

  About the Author

  Also by Andrew Norriss

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Odd things happen to Archie. Actually, not just odd but seriously peculiar. And they happen every day . . .

  To kick off his school week, Archie is locked in a cupboard (accidentally), mistaken for a dog (strangely), and accused of attempted murder (wrongly, of course). Could this week get any worse? Oh yes!

  Good job Archie’s best friend, Cyd, is an expert at getting him out of trouble fast.

  Action-packed fun, featuring a lovable, hapless hero, and hilarious illustrations throughout.

  This book is dedicated to all those teachers who

  cope with the Archies in their classes with endless

  patience, kindness, and only the occasional

  hissy fit . . .

  ON MONDAY, WHEN Archie got to school, he found the body of Mrs Boyd, the school cook, lying in the car park.

  ‘Har hoo hor hi?’ he asked. He was trying to say Are you all right? but he had been to the dentist that morning and the injection he had been given made it difficult to talk.

  ‘Oh, thank goodness!’ said Mrs Boyd, when she saw him. ‘I’ve been shouting for nearly an hour, but nobody heard. I’ve got my arm stuck in this drain.’

  She explained that on her way into school, she had dropped her car keys. ‘They fell through the grating,’ she said, ‘so I put my arm down to get them back, but now it’s stuck. Could you go and tell someone?’

  ‘Hess, hohorse,’ said Archie, meaning Yes, of course.

  ‘And could you take my bag to the kitchens?’ said Mrs Boyd. ‘It’s got today’s menu in it and if they don’t have it soon, nobody’ll get any lunch.’

  ‘Hohay,’ said Archie, meaning OK, and he picked up the bag and ran into school.

  ‘Morning, Archie!’ said the school secretary, as she buzzed the door to let him in. ‘How did you get on at the dentist?’

  ‘Hissis Hoy,’ said Archie. ‘His hin ha harhar.’ He was trying to say Mrs Boyd is in the car park, but that was the best he could manage.

  ‘Goodness!’ The secretary smiled. ‘You’re not going to be able to talk properly for hours, are you!’

  ‘Hissis Hoy . . .’ Archie tried again, ‘ . . . his hin ha—’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t understand a word you’re saying, but wait there. Mr Gunn wants to talk to you.’ The secretary came out from behind her desk. ‘He’s outside somewhere, but he wants to tell you about your new class teacher. I’ll see if I can find him.’

  ‘Hees,’ said Archie. ‘Hoo ha hoo hissen.’

  He meant Please, you have to listen, but the secretary had already gone.

  Archie wasn’t sure what to do. He had to tell someone about Mrs Boyd, but if no one could understand what he was saying, it wasn’t going to be easy.

  Then he had an idea.

  Taking an exercise book from his bag, he tore out a page and wrote: Mrs Boyd is in the car park, with her arm stuck down a drain.

  All he had to do now was decide who he should give the message to. He could wait for the secretary to come back with the Head Teacher, but Archie thought it might be quicker if he took it to the kitchens. Mrs Boyd had asked him to take the menu there, so he could deliver her bag and the message at the same time.

  On his way to the kitchens, however, walking past the main staircase, Archie was stopped by a loud voice.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ it said. ‘It’s you, isn’t it!’

  Archie looked up to see a woman on the stairs above him. She had huge muscles in her arms and legs, a tattoo around her neck, and an angry look on her face.

  ‘You’re the boy who mugged that woman in the car park, aren’t you?’ she said, ‘and then stole her bag!’

  ‘Ho! Ho, ho!’ said Archie. He was trying to say No! No, no! but it came out sounding a bit like Father Christmas.

  ‘Yes, you did! I saw you from my classroom window!’

  ‘Ho!’ said Archie. ‘Hi hidden hoo hennyhing.’ He held out the note he had written about Mrs Boyd. ‘Here!’ he said. ‘Heed hiss!’

  The woman with the tattoo took the note, read it, and her eyes narrowed.

  ‘Are you mad?’ she demanded.

  It wasn’t quite the response Archie had been expecting.

  The woman obviously didn’t believe what he had written about Mrs Boyd, so he held up the bag the cook had given him.

  ‘He haive he her hag,’ he said. He was trying to say She gave me her bag and, as a way of showing why he had been given it, he reached inside the bag for the menu. It was underneath a large kitchen knife so he took that out first . . .

  . . . And the next thing he knew, the woman with the tattoo had leaped down the last few stairs, grabbed his arm with one hand, his shirt collar with the other, and sent him somersaulting through the air. He landed with a thud on the hall floor, and found the woman with the tattoo was sitting on his chest.

  Archie was used to odd things happening to him – they happened to him every day – but all this was odder than usual, even for him.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ said a voice. ‘Miss Hurrell? What are you doing?’

  To Archie’s relief, Mr Gunn, the Head Teacher, was running down the corridor towards them, the secretary hurrying along behind him.

  ‘He came at me with a knife,’ said the woman with the tattoo. ‘I had no choice.’

  ‘Oh, please!’ said Mr Gunn. ‘This is Archie, the boy I told you about! For goodness sake get up and let him breathe.’

  The woman with the tattoo did as she was told, and Mr Gunn asked Archie if he was all right.

  ‘Ho,’ said Archie.

  ‘He came at me with a knife,’ the woman with the tattoo repeated. ‘He said he wanted to kill me!’

  ‘Kill you?’ said Mr Gunn. ‘What are you talking about? Why would Archie want to kill you?’

  ‘He seems to think,’ said the woman with the tattoo, ‘that I murdered his father.’

  The Head Teacher stared at her.

  So did Archie.

  ‘I saw him stealing a handbag,’ said the woman with the tattoo, ‘from someone he’d mugged in the car park, and I was coming down to tell the office to call the police, when I found him in the hallway and he gave me this note.’ She held it out. ‘Here. You can read it yourself.’

  The Head Teacher took the note. ‘You murdered my father . . .’ he said, reading it aloud, ‘ . . . and for this you must die.’ He looked at Archie, puzzled. ‘You really think Miss Hurrell murdered your father?’

  ‘Ho!’ said Archie. ‘Ha horse hot!’

  ‘So why did you write this?’ asked Mr Gunn. ‘I don’t understand how . . .’ He stopped, and let out a sigh of relief. ‘Ah, Cyd! Thank goodness you’re here!’

  Archie was as relieved as the Head Teacher to see Cyd. She was his best friend and, more importantly, Cyd was the one who seemed to sort everything out when odd things happened to him.

  ‘Miss Hurrell says Archie mugged someone in the car park, stole their bag, then came into school and tried to murder her,’ said Mr Gunn. ‘You don’t know what really happened, do you?’

  ‘I’ve already told you what happened!’ said the woman with the tattoo. ‘He came at me with a knife—’

  ‘Please!’ The Head Teacher held up his han
d and turned back to Cyd. ‘Can you explain any of this?’

  ‘Well, I can explain about the note,’ said Cyd, who had been studying it. ‘I think you were reading the wrong side. The You murdered my father bit is the first line of a story we have to write for Miss Jensen. On the other side it says Mrs Boyd is in the car park with her arm stuck down a drain. I expect that’s what Archie was trying to tell you. He probably found her, and she asked him to go and get help.’

  ‘Hess!’ said Archie. ‘Hat’s hite!’

  ‘I expect she asked him to take her bag to the kitchens as well,’ Cyd continued, thoughtfully, ‘so that they had the menu and could make a start on lunch.’

  ‘And what about the knife?’ asked the Head Teacher.

  ‘Well,’ said Cyd, ‘I’m only guessing, but Archie may have wanted to show Miss Hurrell the menu, to explain why he had the bag, and had to take out the knife to get it.’ She looked at Archie. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Hess,’ said Archie, looking very relieved. ‘Hess! Hat’s hite!’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘I . . . I don’t believe it!’ said Miss Hurrell.

  ‘No,’ said Mr Gunn. ‘Nobody ever does.’

  The Head Teacher sorted everything out very efficiently. He sent Archie and Cyd to the kitchens with Mrs Boyd’s bag, he sent Miss Hurrell, the woman with the tattoo, back to her classroom, and then went out to the car park to look after Mrs Boyd.

  On the way back from the kitchens, Cyd told Archie about their new teacher.

  ‘She’s quite interesting, really,’ said Cyd. ‘Mr Gunn told us she used to be a professional wrestler.’

  ‘Hot hahenned,’ said Archie, ‘hoo Hiss Hensen?’ He was trying to say What happened to Miss Jensen, their old teacher.

  ‘She’s in hospital,’ Cyd explained. ‘Miss Hurrell’s looking after our class until she comes back.’

  ‘How hong hill hat he?’ asked Archie.

  ‘Mr Gunn said maybe a few days. Perhaps a week.’

  ‘Ha heek?’ Archie sighed. He liked Miss Jensen, because when odd things happened to him, she never got upset or angry, and she had never thrown him onto the ground and sat on him.

  ‘Miss Hurrell’s not that bad,’ said Cyd, ‘when you get to know her. I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt you.’

  And indeed Miss Hurrell was most apologetic to Archie when he got back to the classroom.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Mr Gunn told me about the odd things that happen to you, but when you gave me that message and then took a knife out of the bag I . . . I still can’t believe it!’ She lowered her voice. ‘Is it true that something odd like that happens to you every day?’

  ‘Hess,’ said Archie.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I hone ho,’ said Archie.

  ‘Archie’s father has a theory,’ said Cyd, ‘that it’s the Laws of Chance. He says that odd things happen to most people at some time in their lives, but not in an even number. Some people have a few odd things happen to them, some people don’t have anything odd happen at all, and some people have odd things happen to them every day.’

  ‘Like Archie?’ said Miss Hurrell.

  ‘Hess,’ said Archie.

  ‘The trick is not to get too upset about it,’ said Cyd, ‘and just keep smiling.’

  And for the rest of the day that was what everyone tried to do.

  Though Archie’s mother was definitely not smiling when he got home and she saw the state of his clothes.

  ‘That was a new shirt this morning,’ she said, pointing to the torn collar. ‘And now look! Anyone would think you’d been in a wrestling match!’

  She went off to find a needle and thread.

  ‘Honestly! I don’t believe it, Archie!’

  ON TUESDAY, WHEN Archie and Cyd got to school, Mr Gunn told them that Miss Hurrell would not be coming back as their class teacher. After what happened on Monday, she had decided that life would be less stressful if she went back to being a professional wrestler.

  ‘So you have another new teacher today,’ said Mr Gunn. ‘Her name is Miss Humber, and I’ve warned her about the odd things that happen to you.’ He smiled encouragingly at Archie. ‘I think you’ll like her.’

  Archie did like Miss Humber. She was a round, jolly woman, almost as wide as she was tall, and the first thing she did when she saw Archie was tell him that, if anything odd happened, he was not to worry, but to come straight to her.

  In the morning, nothing odd did happen, but in the afternoon Miss Humber told her class she would show them how to make a fruit salad.

  ‘A fresh fruit salad,’ she said, ‘is much better for you than cakes, and biscuits, and sweets, and ice cream, and doughnuts, and chocolate croissants and buns covered in thick white icing and . . .’ She paused, and then added. ‘A fruit salad keeps us all healthy and happy!’

  Everyone in the class was given a different task. Some children had to peel the fruit and chop it up. Some were sent down to the kitchens to boil up the skins into a syrup, and some were given cameras to take pictures of the whole process so they could make a display afterwards.

  Archie’s job was peeling the bananas.

  Miss Humber gave him a bag with the bananas in it, which he carried over to his table. He was about to reach inside, when he saw something moving.

  It was a spider.

  A big one.

  ‘Miss Humber,’ said Archie. ‘There’s a spider in here.’

  On the other side of the room, Miss Humber was showing someone how to cut up a pineapple.

  ‘Just pick it up and put it out the window,’ she called back. ‘There’s no need to be frightened of spiders!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Archie, ‘all right,’ and he was reaching into the bag, when Cyd appeared beside him.

  ‘I think you should leave it alone,’ she said, ‘until I’ve looked up what it is.’

  Cyd went to the class laptop, tapped at the computer for a moment, then pointed to the screen.

  ‘Hmmm,’ she said. ‘That’s the one, isn’t it?’

  The picture she had found did indeed look exactly like the spider sitting on top of the bananas in Archie’s bag. The writing beneath said that it was a Brazilian Wandering Spider.

  ‘It’s wandered quite a long way from Brazil,’ said Archie.

  ‘It’s sometimes known as the banana spider . . .’ Cyd was reading the information from the screen, ‘ . . . because that’s where it likes to hide.’

  ‘What are the red pouches on the front?’ asked Archie.

  ‘Those are the poison sacs,’ said Cyd. ‘It says here that it’s the most venomous spider in the world.’ She looked up. ‘I think you’d better tell Miss Humber.’

  Miss Humber took the news quite well, considering. She went a bit pale when Cyd explained that the spider’s bite could paralyse and even kill small children, but then she pulled back her shoulders, walked over to the bag and carefully peered inside.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ she said.

  Archie looked as well, and found the spider had gone.

  ‘Perhaps it’s burrowed back down into the bananas,’ he said.

  ‘Or it could have climbed out while we were talking to you,’ suggested Cyd.

  ‘Well, we can’t afford to take any risks,’ said Miss Humber, and she strode to the front of the classroom. ‘Listen carefully, everyone! It’s possible we have a poisonous spider in the room and, as we don’t know where it might be hiding—’

  ‘It said on the computer . . .’ interrupted Cyd ‘ . . . that it likes to hide in places that are dark and warm. Like people’s clothing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Miss Humber. ‘Anyway, as I said, we don’t know where it might be, so I want you all to put down whatever you’re doing, and go downstairs to—What? What is it?’

  There were twenty-three children in the classroom and they were all staring in silence at Miss Humber. Or, more precisely, at her trousers.

  Miss Humber was wearing a pair of bright pin
k trousers and there was a bulge partway up one of the legs that seemed to be moving. Miss Humber stared down as the bulge travelled further and further up. At first she seemed frozen to the spot, but when she did move, it was with an impressive speed.

  She reached for the waistband of her trousers, and had pulled them down and thrown them to one side quicker than you could blink.

  ‘Is it still on me?’ she asked, peering down at her legs.

  Reassuringly, the only thing to be seen on Miss Humber was a large pair of underpants, decorated with pictures of assorted sweets.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Cyd. ‘It’s over there.’ She pointed to where Miss Humber’s trousers had landed, just in front of the door. The spider was sitting on top of them.

  ‘Keep back, everyone!’ said Miss Humber. ‘Keep well back!’ And twenty-three children moved hurriedly to the opposite corner of the room.

  ‘How are we going to get out, Miss?’ asked one boy, nervously. ‘We’re trapped, aren’t we!’

  And he was right. The only way out of the classroom was through the door and the spider was now sitting directly beneath the door handle. Someone would have to get very close to the spider to open the door, then push it to one side . . .

  ‘We could shout for help,’ suggested someone.

  ‘It said on the computer,’ said Cyd, ‘that loud noises make a Brazilian Wandering Spider more aggressive.’

  Someone else suggested they all climb out of the window and down a drainpipe, but Miss Humber thought that wasn’t safe. They were still debating what to do when the door swung open, pushing the spider and the trousers towards the wall, and Mr Gunn came in.

  ‘I thought I’d see how things were going,’ he said, ‘in case . . .’ His voice trailed off. ‘Miss Humber? You’re not wearing any trousers!’

  ‘No,’ said Miss Humber. ‘I’m afraid we have a situation here, Mr Gunn. Archie has found a spider.’

  The Head Teacher frowned. ‘A spider?’