Two badgers, who had arrived late, were taking it in turns to rough up the squirrel. The squirrel, however, had managed to get its hands on a can of furniture polish, and it chittered angrily as it sprayed the badgers in the face.
Denzel watched the carnage unfolding in horror. Beside him, the girl in the cloak scratched her head. “This didn’t happen to Snow White.” She sighed. “Oh well, back to the drawing board.”
She dodged a duck and ducked the deer, then turned to the boy and offered him a shaky smile. “Maybe you should do the honours, after all.”
“Oh, you think?” the boy said, reaching for his radio. “Domestic clean-up needed at this location.” He turned to Denzel. “How long until your parents get home?”
Denzel’s stomach knotted at the thought of it. “It depends on traffic and stuff, but – I don’t know – twenty minutes?” he said.
The boy muttered something below his breath then raised the radio to his mouth again. “Priority one. Get here now.”
There was a crackled confirmation from the other end of the line, and the boy returned the walkie-talkie to his belt clip. He and the girl both rounded on Denzel, just as the stag grabbed the broom in its mouth and set about trying to mash the sparrows into a feathery paste.
“This is madness,” Denzel said, gawping at the mess. “This is, I mean… This is insane. Who are you people?”
“We’re part of a top-secret organisation dedicated to protecting the human race from supernatural threats,” said the girl. She sounded almost robotic, like she’d said the same words a hundred times before. “We go by many names. The Cult of Sh’grath. The Messengers of the Allwhere. The Seventh Army of the Enlightened.”
The boy leaned in front of her. “But we prefer the Spectre Collectors.”
Denzel frowned, trying his best to ignore the squirrel that came riding past his feet on the back of a baby duck. “The Spectre Collectors? So … what? You catch ghosts?”
Both the girl and boy nodded. “Among other things,” said the boy. “But like she said, it’s top secret. Above top secret, in fact.”
“So how come you’re telling me?” asked Denzel, suddenly nervous.
The girl reached into another bag that was tied around her belt and took out a handful of something that looked like glitter. Unlike glitter, though, the air above it seemed to shimmer, like heat rising from a hot tarmac road.
“Because,” said the boy. “You’re not going to remember any of it.”
Before Denzel could reply, the girl blew on the dust. It swirled into a miniature tornado, then hit Denzel full in the face. He coughed and spluttered as he felt it flutter up his nose. It tickled his sinuses, like a sneeze that was sulking and refusing to come out.
“What did you do to me?” he demanded, then he looked down at the table in front of him.
His homework was there, open at a particularly brain-frying piece of algebra. He stared at it for a long time, before realising he’d already filled in the answer. He felt like he could almost remember writing it, but it was slipping away from him like a dream.
He got up from the table and walked to the window. The blinds were open and he could see the street outside. His dads’ car was pulling up, and Denzel felt his stomach rumble. It was Wednesday, which meant takeaway night.
“Please let it be Chinese, please let it be Chinese,” he whispered, crossing his fingers. He pushed his chair back in and made for the door leading to the hall.
Halfway there, he felt something crunch underfoot. Denzel bent and picked up a tangle of broken plastic.
“Huh,” he said, turning a tiny Blackpool Tower over in his hands. “How did that get there?”
He set the broken trinket back on its shelf, took a lingering look around the neat and tidy room, then headed through to join his parents for dinner.
Next morning, with his mouth still burning from the night before’s tasty-yet-ultimately-disappointing Indian, Denzel set off for school.
As ever, he had his morning journey planned out to the exact minute. At exactly eight thirty-eight he would leave the house, remembering to wave to old Mrs Grigor across the road. At eight thirty-nine, he’d start walking towards the bus stop up near the shops. At eight forty, the bus would roar past him as if he wasn’t there. Eight forty-one to five past nine would then be spent running frantically to school, and trying not to vomit from the effort.
It was the same routine every morning, and today was no different. His registration teacher, Mr Gavistock, barely batted an eyelid when he clattered in, puffing and wheezing and on the brink of passing out.
“Here, sir,” Denzel offered, flopping down in his chair. The moment his bottom touched the plastic, the bell rang. Everyone else got to their feet and bustled out of the classroom.
“Ooh. Sorry, Denzel,” said Mr Gavistock. He sucked on his grey moustache, his pen hovering just millimetres above the register. “The bell went before I could mark you as present. You’ll have to pick up a late slip from the office.”
Denzel glanced at the register. “Can’t you mark me here now?”
Mr Gavistock slowly set his pen down and leaned forwards, his hands clasped in front of him. “No, Denzel. Because that would be against the rules.”
“Yeah, but it’s only a few seconds. And I made it before the bell went.”
Mr Gavistock drew in a long breath. “But I hadn’t marked you present when it rang, Denzel,” he said. “My hands are tied.”
“But—”
“My hands are tied, Denzel,” said the teacher. “You understand what I mean by that phrase? My hands are tied.”
Denzel stood up and hoisted his bag on to his shoulder. “Yeah, but, I mean… They aren’t, are they?” he said. “You could just mark me down. No one would really care.”
Mr Gavistock arched an eyebrow. “I could,” he admitted. Then he flicked his tongue across his ’tache and smirked. “But where would be the fun in that?”
As a result of having to go to the office to pick up a late slip, Denzel was fifteen minutes late for maths. Mr Gavistock, who was also Denzel’s maths teacher, looked disappointed at him when he stumbled in.
“Twice in one day, Denzel,” the teacher said, shaking his head. “And I’m guessing you haven’t done your homework, either.”
“I have, actually,” Denzel said. He fished around in his schoolbag, then pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper. Smoothing it against his chest, he handed the sheet to the teacher.
Mr Gavistock waved Denzel over to his seat and scanned the page. “Amazingly, this all looks to be right,” he said. “How did you manage that?”
Denzel sat down at his desk and rummaged in his bag for his pencil case. “Um… Just thought about it.”
Mr Gavistock raised a bushy eyebrow. “You ‘just thought about it’?”
Denzel nodded. The truth was, he couldn’t really remember how he’d managed to solve the homework equations. He had absolutely no recollection of doing them.
“So what you really mean is you copied it from the Internet,” Mr Gavistock said. He raised a long, bony finger and tick-tocked it from side to side. “Tut-tut. Disappointing, Denzel.” He slowly tore the sheet in half. “Very disappointing.”
Denzel knew there was no point in protesting. Algebra wasn’t his strong point – he hadn’t yet figured out what his strong point actually was, but it definitely wasn’t that – and as he had no memory of doing the equations, he couldn’t offer much of a counter-argument.
Besides, the worksheet was already in at least eight pieces, so there was no coming back for it. He decided to keep his mouth shut and just get on with the day.
The rest of the morning passed in much the same way as every school day did – slowly, and with an overwhelming sense of disappointment.
At lunchtime, Denzel sat on his usual spot on the usual wall, waiting for his best friend, Smithy, to turn up. As usual.
Smithy wasn’t in any of Denzel’s classes, but they’d been friends since the first day of
secondary school, and met up at lunchtime every day so they could hang out and avoid having to talk to anyone else.
“What you got today, then?” asked Smithy. He spoke in a high-pitched nasal whine, thanks to some sinus problem he never grew tired of talking about in stomach-churning detail. He hopped up and sat on the wall beside Denzel.
Denzel opened his lunch box and peeled back the top layer of his sandwich. “Pastrami, dill pickle and Emmental,” he said. “On wholegrain. What about you?”
Smithy pulled a crumpled, slightly soggy brown paper bag from somewhere deep in his schoolbag. He opened it and gave it an experimental sniff. “Scrambled egg.” He looked hopefully at Denzel’s sandwich. “Wanna swap?”
“Not really,” said Denzel.
“Nah, nor me,” agreed Smithy.
Denzel gestured to his sandwich. “Want a bit?”
“Go on, then,” Smithy nodded. He reached into Denzel’s lunchbox and lifted out one half of the sandwich. Setting it on top of his lumpy paper bag, he proceeded to carefully remove the pickle and pastrami, then tossed them both away.
“Cheers,” he said, taking a bite of the now cheese-only sandwich.
They sat in silence for a while, munching on their lunch. Denzel’s feet were on the ground, while Smithy’s dangled several centimetres above it.
“What would you rather fight, right?” Smithy began.
“Go on,” said Denzel.
“A zombie with the brain of an evil genius, or an evil genius with the brain of a zombie?”
Denzel chewed thoughtfully. “An evil genius with the brain of a zombie,” he decided.
“How come?”
“Because he’s not really an evil genius any more, is he?”
“Yes he is. He’s an evil genius with the brain of a zombie,” said Smithy.
“That’s exactly my point,” Denzel said. “A zombie with the brain of an evil genius is a super-intelligent unkillable monster who wants to rule the world. An evil genius with the brain of a zombie is just a normal zombie. He’ll just shuffle about a bit moaning and trying to eat people.”
Smithy nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. He reached into his paper bag and scooped out a handful of cold scrambled egg. “Want some?” he offered.
Denzel screwed up his sandwich wrapper. “Nah, you’re all right,” he said. He nodded at a bin near the wall six or seven metres along from them. “How much will you give me if I get this in?”
“A million pounds,” Smithy said, cramming the sloppy egg into his mouth.
Denzel shook his head. “That’s too much. That’s mad.”
“Oh, OK.” Smithy said. He shrugged. “One pound?”
“That’s better,” Denzel said, shutting one eye. He held the rolled up ball of cellophane between finger and thumb and moved it back and forth like a darts player taking aim.
“And Denzel Edgar lines up the shot,” Smithy said in a hushed whisper. “All eyes are on him now. Just one throw stands between him and a victory that’s sure to go down in history as one of the all-time pinnacles of human achievement. Edgar holds his breath. He aims. He throws…”
The ball of plastic wrap curved through the air, bounced once on the rim of the bin, then dropped inside.
Smithy jumped down and thrust his arms into the air. “He makes the shot! The crowd goes wild! Truly, they may as well all drop dead now, safe in the knowledge that they’ve witnessed the single greatest moment in all of human history, as young Denzel Edgar takes—”
The ball of plastic landed beside Smithy with a soft paff. He stopped cheering and looked down at it. “Oh, I take that back,” he said. “You missed.”
Denzel hopped down and picked up the cling film wad. “It came back out,” he said, frowning. “That’s weird.” Taking a step closer, he tossed it underarm into the bin. He held up a hand to stop Smithy launching into another celebration.
They both watched the bin for what felt like quite a long time. “What are we waiting for?” Smithy whispered.
Denzel relaxed. “Nothing. I don’t know. I just thought—”
The ball leapt out again and rolled to a stop in front of Denzel. He and Smithy both looked down at it, then at each other, before finally turning their attention to the bin.
“Hello?” Denzel called. “Is there someone in there?”
A flattened Coke can spun up from inside the bin, then clattered on the ground. “Great. We’ve got a bin weirdo,” Smithy muttered.
“What’s a bin weirdo?”
“It’s a receptacle for holding rubbish, freak,” Smithy said. He grinned. “See what I did there? I deliberately misunderstood your initial question so— Wah!”
Smithy ducked as a torrent of litter exploded upwards out of the bin like lava from an erupting volcano. Cans and plastic bottles shot several metres into the air, then clattered to the ground around them. Crisp bags swirled on the breeze and floated down like autumn leaves.
Once all the rubbish had come to rest on the ground, Smithy turned to Denzel. “I think you broke the bin.”
Down at their feet, the litter began to tremble. It vibrated across the tarmac, gathering in a spot just a few paces ahead of the boys. They both took a step back as the rubbish assembled itself into two piles, which both quickly grew upwards until they formed pillars just a little taller than Smithy and a little shorter than Denzel.
The pillars joined together and continued to grow upwards, forming one garbage-filled mass. As he stared, Denzel began to recognise the shape.
It was a person. Or a figure, at least. A ten-feet tall figure made of drinks cans, chocolate wrappers and halfeaten bits of fruit.
Smithy puffed out his cheeks. “There’s something you don’t see every day,” he said.
“We should probably run,” Denzel began. “I don’t think—”
“DIE, RUBBISH-MONSTER!” Smithy hollered, swinging with his schoolbag as he launched himself at the towering figure’s legs. The litter parted and he stumbled right through, hit the bin, then fell head-first inside.
“Should’ve run,” Smithy called, his voice sounding echoey and muffled. “Totally misjudged that.”
A hand, made largely of banana skins and Wotsits, grabbed for Denzel. He staggered back, swinging at it with his schoolbag. “Get off,” he yelped.
The hand slammed down and Denzel dodged, barely avoiding being splattered against the ground. The mulchy stench of rot wafted up his nostrils, making him gag.
Smithy was still in the bin. The litter-thing didn’t seem to have any interest in him, and was focusing all its attention on Denzel instead.
Denzel’s heart crashed. The monster stepped closer on its teetering legs, and Denzel felt a tingle at the back of his mind, like the stirring of a long-forgotten memory.
“There is something awfully familiar about this,” he whispered.
And then, he ran.
Denzel hightailed it past the bike sheds, across the visitors’ car park, and round the outside of the dining hall.
He was tearing across the little rectangle of concrete between the dining hall and the school’s main entrance when the screaming started. His schoolmates scattered as the rubbish-thing skidded around the corner and chased Denzel down, its long litter legs bounding easily across the yard.
“Out of the way, watch out, coming through!” Denzel yelped, hopping and jigging through the throng of older girls who sat on the school’s front steps. The girls tutted their annoyance at first, before launching into a chorus of panicky squeals when they spotted the towering trash-figure approaching.
Denzel clattered through the front door and stumbled into the reception area. The inner security doors were shut tight. He rattled on the handles, instantly incurring the wrath of the school secretary on the other side.
“Oi!” she said, rapping her knuckles on the glass. “Cut that out. Ring the buzzer like everyone else.”
“Just open the flippin’ doors!” Denzel yelped, glancing back over his shoulder. “Hurry up!”
&n
bsp; The secretary crossed her arms. “Ring the buzzer,” she said.
“Aaargh! OK!” Denzel cried. He fumbled with the button and a loud BZZZZT rang out. “There! Happy?”
The secretary touched the button that unlocked the door. “Yes,” she said. “Wasn’t so difficult, was—”
She screamed and staggered backwards as the outer doors were ripped from their hinges and the trash-creature ducked to fill the doorframe. Denzel yanked open the glass doors and scrambled through, just as the cheesy-corn-based-snack hand grabbed for him once again.
Hurtling along the corridor, Denzel dodged and shoved his way through throngs of pupils. Squeals and scuffles of panic started somewhere behind, and Denzel knew the monster was still coming for him. The panic quickly erupted into screaming hysteria, as everyone who was currently in the corridor decided they’d really rather not be.
Pupils ducked into doorways and dived through windows, desperately trying to get out of the path of the rampaging trash-beast. Denzel puffed and panted, tasting the thing’s pungent scent with every rasping breath.
He skidded around the corner at the end of the corridor, and glanced back just long enough to see the monster bounding along on all fours, getting closer and closer and—
THWACK! It failed to turn in time and slammed into the wall at full speed. Denzel kept his distance as the creature collapsed in on itself, becoming once again just an unmoving mound of crisp bags and Coke cans.
Denzel watched the rubbish-heap closely, searching for any sign of movement. He was studying it so hard that he failed to notice a door open right beside it. Denzel jumped as Mr Gavistock exploded out of the room.
“What is the meaning of all this noise?” he demanded. He yelped as he slid on a half-eaten cheese and pickle sandwich, only just managing to stay upright.
The teacher gaped in horror at the rubbish heap, then rounded on Denzel, his bony finger wagging. “How dare you, Denzel? How dare you? Look at this mess! I am beside myself with rage. Do you understand what I mean by that phrase? Beside myself with rage!”
Too Ghoul For School Page 2