“Uh, yeah, but…” Denzel began, standing on his tiptoes to see over the teacher’s shoulder.
“You never fail to disappoint, do you, Denzel?”
“No, but…”
“After this morning, I thought… Look me in the eye when I’m talking to you,” Mr Gavistock barked. He jabbed his finger in Denzel’s direction. “And where do you think you’re going?” he demanded, as Denzel hurriedly began to back away. “Get back here this—”
WHAM! A scything arm made mostly of plastic bottles and Styrofoam trays smashed the teacher against the wall with a really quite surprising amount of force.
Denzel dashed down the corridor as Mr Gavistock slumped to the floor. The trash-monster finished pulling itself back together and the chase was on again. Denzel’s legs ached. His heart pounded. He desperately needed the toilet. There was no doubt about it – this was shaping up to be one of his top five worst lunch breaks ever.
He turned another corner and saw the corridor ahead was jam-packed with kids. They sat on the floor and leaned against the walls, chatting and laughing, completely unaware of the enormous monster currently hurtling in their general direction.
There was no way Denzel was getting through that lot in a hurry. He skidded left and threw himself at the fire exit. Pushing down the bar, he stumbled outside. The alarm began to wail, but was promptly drowned out by the sound of a twenty-feet-tall garbage-beast exploding through the doorway behind him.
“Oh, come on!” Denzel groaned. All around him, his schoolmates stared in wonder, then screamed in terror. Denzel hurried through the criss-crossing mass of panicking bodies, heading for… where? He had no idea, he just knew he had to put as much distance as possible between himself and the trash-thing.
The school’s side gates were dead ahead. There was a road out there, then a housing estate with a network of twisting back alleys. Maybe he could lose the monster in there.
Lowering his head, he raced for the exit, trying to block-out the thudding of the litter-thing’s footsteps closing behind him. Denzel dodged past a smaller boy who appeared to be literally frozen to the spot in fear, and suddenly the gate was looming dead ahead.
With a final frantic push he forced his legs to move faster. Keeping his head low, he threw himself towards the exit…
Then slammed hard into a patch of rock-solid thin air. Denzel stumbled backwards, clutching at his suddenly throbbing skull.
“Ow, ow, ow!” he grimaced, hopping from foot to foot. He squinted at the empty space in front of him. “What was that?”
He raised his arms in front of him and tried a more cautious jog forwards. Almost immediately, he hit an invisible wall. The outline of his handprints fizzled in the air, then vanished when he stepped back.
“What? But… I mean…” Denzel spluttered, but before he could work out what the end of that sentence was going to be, the stench of rotten fruit and chips was suddenly all around him.
Slowly, Denzel turned. He looked up.
And up.
And up.
The trash-monster loomed over him. It had given itself eyes made of ketchup-stained paper plates. It also had a Pringles tube where its nose should have been, but that could just have been a coincidence.
“Top three worst lunch breaks ever,” Denzel whispered. There was nowhere to run now. Denzel could only wait for the thing to attack, and hope it didn’t hurt too much.
But it didn’t attack. It dropped to one knee, and bent low over him until the smell of rubbish made Denzel gag. “What… What do you want?” he choked, but before he could get an answer, the creature imploded. There was no big noise or epic fanfare to accompany it – one moment it was there, the next moment all its component parts had rushed to meet each other in the middle of its body.
The litter squashed together and compacted into a lumpy sphere, no bigger than a basketball. It fell to the ground with a hefty thud, and Denzel found himself looking down the barrel of a futuristic assault rifle.
A boy, just a little older than him, stood at the less-dangerous end of the weapon, squinting down the sights. He wore a blue and silver uniform with shiny blue boots. A girl in a colourful cape and tunic stood behind him. They both raised their eyebrows in surprise.
“You!” said the boy.
“You?” said the girl.
“Uh, yeah. Me,” said Denzel. He looked at them both in turn. “I feel like I should be saying ‘you’, too, but I have no idea who you are,” he babbled. He raised his hands. “Don’t shoot, by the way.”
There was a savage screech from a few metres away. “Leave my friend alone!”
Smithy flew at the boy with the gun, swinging with his fists. The boy stepped aside and Smithy flailed past. He crashed into a bin, flapped his arms for a few panicky seconds, then toppled head-first inside.
“Misjudged that again,” Smithy said, his voice echoing. “Should’ve thought it through. Um… Could someone…?”
The girl caught Smithy by the belt of his trousers and pulled him free. “Thanks,” he said, dusting himself down, then he jumped in front of Denzel, hands raised in a karate-chop pose. “Now, stay back! I’m warning you.”
The boy lowered his rifle and Smithy gave a satisfied nod. “Yeah. That’s right. Back off, man. These hands are lethal in the right … hands.” He winced. “That was awkwardly phrased, but you get the idea.”
The trash-ball shuddered, making Denzel and Smithy both yelp and leap back. The girl knelt beside it. She mumbled below her breath as she tied what looked like very long twigs all the way around the densely packed rubbish.
“What is that?” Denzel asked.
“Willow branches,” said the girl. “Blessed by three embodiments of the goddess Brigantia, granting it binding power over the dark realms.”
Denzel blinked. “Uh, cool. That was nice of her,” he said. “But I meant the rubbish-thing.”
“A ghost,” said the boy.
“A ghost?” said Denzel. He and Smithy began to laugh, then realised the other two weren’t joining in. “What? You’re not serious.”
“Technically, it’s an ectoplasmic manifestation,” said the girl, standing up. The willow branches were tied tightly around the trash-ball, which now showed no interest in moving.
“Ah, right,” said Denzel. “One of them.”
The boy looked him up and down. “So … what do we do with you?”
The girl nudged him. “The bigger question is, what are we going to do with them.”
She gestured to the school. Virtually the entire roll of pupils had gathered at the windows and doors to watch what was going on.
The boy clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “The barrier’s in place, right?”
The girl reached a hand past Denzel’s head and extended a finger. A crackle of energy passed along her arm. “Yep.”
“Then gas them,” said the boy. He reached into a pocket on his belt and pulled out a piece of transparent plastic. He slipped it over his nose and mouth, then nodded at the girl to do the same. “Gas them all.”
It took a few seconds for the boy’s words to filter all the way through into Denzel’s brain. The girl was slipping on her own mask when he finally reacted.
“What? What do you mean, ‘gas them’?” he demanded, then he struggled and squirmed as the boy wrapped an arm around his chest from behind. A plastic mask was forced over the bottom half of Denzel’s face.
The girl took a pouch from the gold-coloured length of rope she had tied around her waist like a belt. She tipped a handful of glittery dust into her hand. “What about him?” she said, nodding towards Smithy, who was hopping from foot to foot and swishing his hands, karate-style.
The boy shrugged. “What about him?” he said.
“Harsh,” said the girl, then she pressed the dust against the invisible wall. The barrier shimmered, revealing itself as an enormous dome that covered the entire school.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Denzel demanded, but before anyone could
answer, everything inside the dome was lost in a choking cloud of glittering orange.
Denzel lifted a foot and brought his heel stamping down on the toe of the boy behind him. The boy didn’t flinch.
“Steel toe caps,” he growled in Denzel’s ear. “But I wouldn’t try anything like that again.”
He released his grip and Denzel almost toppled forwards into the fog. It was all around him, swirling and sparkling like a snow globe’s insides. He could just barely make out the outline of the school and imagined that he could, if he tried hard enough, just hear the screams of his classmates.
“What have you done?” he cried. “You’ve killed them! You’ve…”
A shimmering ripple passed all the way through the fog, and it instantly vanished. The gathered pupils gazed blankly back at Denzel.
“…Done absolutely nothing,” he finished. The pupils all blinked, as if waking from a dream. One by one, they wandered off, chatting and laughing, and stuffing their faces with assorted pack lunches.
Smithy wandered over, his hands in his pockets. “All right?”
Denzel gasped with relief and threw his arms around his friend, hugging him tightly. “You’re OK!”
“Get off,” said Smithy, blushing slightly. “Of course I’m OK. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“He won’t remember anything,” said the girl, joining them.
“Yes, I do,” said Smithy.
“That gas you saw is actually an airborne variant of an enchanted powder we use to induce a form of amnesia. No one in the school will remember anything of what just happened.”
“I remember,” said Smithy.
“We’ve wiped it completely from their minds,” said the girl. “Their psyches will fill in the blanks and come up with an explanation as to what they’ve been doing for the past ten minutes.”
“But as for what really happened,” added the boy. “No one but us three will know.”
“Us four,” said Smithy.
“What are you talking about?” said the girl, twitching slightly with irritation. “Your short-term memory has been wiped clean. You don’t remember a thing.”
“Yes, I do.” Smithy pointed to the bound ball of trash. “That was a big rubbish-monster. I fell in the bin. Twice. You pulled me out, then I nearly went kung fu on you both, but, luckily for you, I chose not to.”
The boy and the girl glanced at each other, neither one able to hide their shock. “What?” the girl spluttered. “But… How? How do you remember?”
Smithy tapped the side of his head. “You know what they say. An elephant never forgets.”
There was a moment of silence. Denzel gently cleared his throat. “Yeah. But you’re not an elephant, though, are you?”
Smithy frowned. “So?”
“So the saying doesn’t apply.”
It took Smithy a few moments to process this. “Wait, that saying doesn’t literally refer to elephants, does it?”
Denzel nodded. “Yeah.”
“It literally means literal elephants?”
“Of course it does,” said Denzel. “What did you think it meant?”
“Just that, you know, no one ever forgets,” said Smithy.
Denzel shook his head. “It doesn’t mean that. It means elephants.”
The girl pushed between them. “Look, can we not worry about elephants right now?” She spun to face Smithy. “How were you not affected? How can you still remember?”
“Dunno.” Smithy shrugged. “At a guess,” he said, drawing the words out, “it’s my sinuses. I have these like, what I can only describe as mucus plugs in my nose. These thick sort of chunky mucusy blobs that—”
“OK, OK, I get it,” said the girl, looking somewhat queasy.
“They’re like sort of snot corks, if you can imagine such a thing, that mean I can’t breathe through my nose or smell anything at all. Look.”
He lifted his arm and had a deep sniff of his armpit. “See? Can’t smell a thing,” he said. His nostrils flared. “Well, I can smell something, but it’s very faint.”
He tapped himself on the nose and grinned. “Mucus plugs. Don’t leave home without them!”
“Great,” said the girl, throwing up her arms. “He remembers. So, what do we do now?”
“We bring them in,” said the boy.
“What, both of them?”
The boy looked from Denzel to Smithy and back again. He narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on his assault rifle. “Yeah,” he said. “Both of them.”
Denzel and Smithy sat huddled together in the back of a white Transit van, which had now been clattering along for several minutes. They were sitting on a stainless steel box that ran down one whole side of the van’s storage area and was about as far from comfortable as it was possible to get. A wooden chest had been pushed against the wall opposite. Images of demons and cryptic symbols were carved into the dark wood.
As the van rounded a corner, Smithy put his feet on the chest and leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head.
“This is the life, eh?”
Denzel stared at him. “What are you talking about?” he said, whispering so the boy and girl up front wouldn’t hear. “We’ve been kidnapped.”
Smithy’s face went pale. “What? When?”
“Now!” Denzel said. He gestured frantically around the van. “What do you think this is?”
Smithy glanced around, his eyes widening. “Oh, great. Now you tell me.”
Denzel had to struggle to keep his voice down. “He had a gun on us. He shoved us in here and said, ‘No funny stuff or I’ll shoot you.’ Remember? Any of that ringing a bell?”
Smithy gulped. “I thought that was just, like, a phrase. Like ‘elephants never forget’.”
Denzel rammed his fist in his mouth to stop himself shouting. “A phrase?” he squeaked. “You thought ‘no funny stuff or I’ll shoot you’ was a phrase?”
“What I want to know is, how is he allowed to drive?” Smithy asked. “He looks about nine!”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“OK, no, obviously he doesn’t look nine, he’s massive. But he doesn’t look old enough to have a driving licence.”
“He doesn’t look old enough to have a gun licence, either,” Denzel pointed out. “But that’s not stopping him.”
“Everything all right back there?” asked the girl, turning to lean over the back of her seat.
“Fine,” said Denzel, but it came out squeaky, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Fine,” he said, much lower this time. Too low, if anything.
The girl smiled. It was, Denzel couldn’t help but notice, quite a nice smile. “You’ve probably got loads of questions.”
Smithy pointed at the boy. “Is he going to shoot us?”
“No,” said the girl.
“Yes,” said the boy.
“Maybe,” the girl admitted. “He does enjoy shooting things, but as long as you don’t give him any reason to shoot you, he won’t.”
The boy angled the rear-view mirror so Denzel and Smithy could see his eyes. “But I might,” he added, glaring at them.
Denzel and Smithy exchanged a worried glance. “Maybe you should just keep quiet for a while,” Denzel whispered. Smithy nodded, gave a thumbs-up, then mimed buttoning his mouth shut.
“Who are you?” Denzel asked.
“Actually, we’ve already met,” said the girl. “At your house, yesterday.”
Denzel frowned. “No, we haven’t, I’d… Wait. The glittery gas stuff?”
The girl nodded. “Well, in powder form, but yes. Sorry.” She held out a hand and Denzel shook it. “Samara. This is Boyle.”
“Lance Corporal Boyle,” he said, and even his voice seemed to snap to attention.
Smithy let out a sharp laugh. “Lance. Boyle,” he said, grinning. “There’s got to be a joke there somewhere. You know, about lancing boils.”
“There is,” said Boyle. “But if you make it, I swear I will shoot you in the face.”
Smithy buttoned his mouth shut again, then nodded his understanding.
“I’m Denzel,” said Denzel. “This is Smithy.”
“Pleased to meet you properly,” said Samara, flashing the smile that was definitely starting to grow on Denzel now.
He pushed the thought away. “Um… OK. But who actually are you?” He looked down at the carefully bound ball of litter that was wedged between the wooden chest and the back of the van’s seats. “And what was that thing?”
“We’re part of a top-secret organisation dedicated to protecting the human race from supernatural threats,” said the girl. “We go by many names. The Cult of Sh’grath. The Messengers of the Allwhere. The Seventh Army of the Enlightened. Personally, though, we prefer the Spectre Collectors.”
Denzel’s frown deepened to the point he could see his own eyebrows. “The Spectre Collectors? So… What? You—”
“Catch ghosts. Yes,” said Boyle. “The clue’s right there in the name.”
There was a thud as Smithy fell over. He immediately sat upright, his eyes wide open in shock. “You catch ghosts?”
“That’s right,” said Samara.
“You catch ghosts?” said Smithy again. “I mean… Since when? How long has this been going on?”
“Centuries,” said Samara.
Smithy tick-tocked his head left to right, studying Samara and Boyle. “How old are you, exactly?”
“Well, obviously we haven’t been doing it for centuries,” Boyle snapped. “The organisation has existed for centuries.”
Smithy’s mouth flapped open and closed like a fish. “Well… I mean… Why have I never been informed about this?”
Denzel frowned. “Why would you have been?”
Smithy raised a finger and took a breath, as if about to speak, then changed his mind. “No, fair point. Well made,” he said.
He was just getting to his feet when Boyle braked sharply. “Wah!” Smithy yelped, as he was thrown against the back of the seats. He bounced off and hit the floor again.
“We’re here,” said Boyle. He gestured to Denzel and Smithy. “We should blindfold them, so they can’t identify our location.”
Samara gave a quick shake of her head. “I don’t think we need to. It’s not like they’ll recognise the place.”
Too Ghoul For School Page 3