St Grizzle's School for Girls, Goats and Random Boys

by Karen McCombie

  I dashed outside in time to hear a screech of tyres and spot Arch’s dad making a quick getaway in their Ford Focus with Arch in the passenger seat. I think the hardest thing for Arch was saying goodbye to me … at least I’m guessing that’s why he ducked out of sight when he saw me.

  “Look, Dani! It’s Arch’s backpack!” Mum had gasped, even though it was totally obvious that’s what the something-on-the-doorstep was. I didn’t say it, though, cos I had this funny, scratchy, sore sort of feeling in my throat and couldn’t speak.

  Instead I just read the note taped to the top of the bag. But it was tricky to do, since the funny, scratchy, sore sort of feeling was in my eyes, too, making them water.

  And now, Arch’s note is tucked in my pocket, all scrunched up. It says…

  OK, so I have our joint collection of random ex-toys with me, but forty-six random ex-toys don’t make up for the fact that I can’t mooch around with Arch, hang out with Granny Viv or goof about with Downboy for a whole TERM.

  “Ooh! Look, Dani!” says Mum, taking one hand off the steering wheel and wiggling a finger at a stern navy and grey sign by the side of the narrow country road.

  My heart sinks into a pit of gloom as soon as I read ‘St Grizelda’s School for Girls’.

  “Doesn’t the entrance look grand?” Mum tries to sound perky and positive as she turns the car off the main road and drives through a pair of fancy ornate gates.

  I don’t answer her – I’m too cross and sad. I just stare at the tangle of trees and shrubs on either side of the lane, with my arms crossed grumpily over my stripy T-shirt.

  The only tiny good thing right now is that Mum hasn’t been able to get hold of the horrible grey-skirt-and-silly-hat uniform online, so at least I can wear my normal(ish) clothes till someone at the school sorts the problem out.

  “Please don’t be grouchy, Dani!” Mum tries again. “It’s only for three months. And I’m sure there’ll be lots of lovely girls to make friends with!”

  The thing is, I don’t care about making new friends.

  I don’t need new friends.

  I was fine with just one (boy) friend, thank you very much.

  And a furry, fuzzy (doggy) buddy, of course.

  Not forgetting an OAP (Old Age Pal).

  But it doesn’t matter how much I sulk.

  It didn’t matter how much Granny Viv sulked either.

  Today I’m being dumped like a bin bag of unwanted bric-a-brac at a charity shop. And in a week’s time – after an intensive Antarctica Survival/Penguin Stalking course – Mum sets off on her expedition.

  Which leaves the score at:

  Ding-a-ling-a-ling! goes my text alert.

  “Who’s that?” asks Mum, glancing sideways at me as I scrabble my phone out of my pocket.

  “Just Granny Viv…” I mumble, checking the screen.

  “Does she want to know what time I’ll be back?” Mum frets. “I did say I’d drop Downboy at hers in plenty of time…”

  Mum sounds edgy – Granny Viv’s still in a huff and not really talking to her. In fact, it came as a surprise this morning when Granny Viv sniffily announced that since she’s “not needed” at home, she’s off to look after a poorly friend who lives somewhere unpronounceable in Wales. I’m sure her poorly friend will appreciate that, though I’m not sure that someone who’s poorly will appreciate Downboy “ARF! ARF! ARF!”ing all over the place…

  “She’s just wishing me luck,” I lie.

  My heart is suddenly racing as I read Granny Viv’s words.

  Ploof!

  My phone battery chooses THAT exact moment to die. Great. Guess I should’ve charged it before I left home, like I was supposed to.

  “Ooh, Dani, look. Just LOOK at this place!” Mum says. I glance up from the irritatingly blank screen. “Isn’t it amazing?”

  The car crunches on to gravel and a big crumbly old building comes into view.

  Amazing? Is Mum crazy?

  The building is completely covered in ivy and looks like the sort of place ghosts or murderers live.

  Except I don’t suppose ghosts or murderers would paint rainbows and bluebirds on their windows.

  And hold on. The statue we saw on the website looks as if it’s had a makeover. In that photo, snooty St Grizelda wasn’t wearing a pair of pink polka-dot sunglasses and dangling an Elsa-from-Frozen lunch box from her hand…

  Mum clearly hasn’t noticed and is busy figuring out where’s best to park. There’re no signs telling visitors to go anywhere in particular so she just aims for the front of the building and pulls up in front of the impressively-huge-but-tatty double front doors.

  “Hey, and they’ve got a dog, Dani!” says Mum, pointing somewhere over to the left of the garden.

  At the word ‘dog’, Downboy wakes up with a sudden “Humph?” while I crane my neck to see what kind it is. But any view of the dog is suddenly obstructed by a bundle of little kids, all mud-streaked and filthy, who’ve just come shrieking around the corner of the big building and—

  THUNK!

  Help! Something VERY SCARY has just jumped out of nowhere on to the car bonnet and is growling at us through the windscreen.

  “AARGH!” I yell, dropping my mobile on to the floor.

  “EEK!” cries Mum, and accidentally presses the horn.

  HONKKKKKKKKKK!

  “ARF! ARF! ARF!” barks Downboy

  clambering over the back seat and up on to my shoulder to get nearer to the Very Scary Thing on the bonnet.

  “RAAAAGHHHHHHH!” roars the Very Scary Thing.

  Is it a ghost? Or a murderer? It looks more like a mutant goblin, with those wild, starey eyes…

  I don’t know what this weird place is, and I don’t know what Granny Viv was going to tell me about in her text. But all I DO know is I have a very BAD funny feeling and want to go home right now – if not sooner… PLEASE!

  A bright, laughing sort of voice cuts through the roaring.

  “Off! Get OFF, Blossom!”

  Wait a sec – the growling, wild-eyed mutant goblin is called “Blossom”?

  Whatever it is and whatever it’s called, it doesn’t get off the bonnet.

  I’m just about to tell Mum to start the car and reverse FAST, when we hear the laughing person talking again.

  “Blossom! I said, OFF!”

  With a sudden whoosh, Blossom the mutant goblin is lifted into the air by a tanned-looking pair of arms and set down on the ground, where it scrambles to its feet and disappears into the bushes.

  “Mum…” I mumble, a tiny bit dazed and confused.

  “It’s fine, Dani,” Mum mumbles back, not sounding at all sure that everything is fine.

  Cos in front of the car stands a grinning woman with two matching mud stripes on each of her cheeks, wearing a Marge Simpson T-shirt, worn jeans and what looks like a crown made of twigs and white plastic spoons.

  “Grrr…” grumbles Downboy and I completely agree with him.

  Mum must’ve taken a wrong turn. This isn’t a school – it’s a madhouse. Or a nightmare, maybe?

  Quickly I dig my T rex’s teeth into my hand to check I’m not asleep and in the middle of some bonkers dream.

  Ouch!

  OK, so this is real. Really, strangely REAL. (Gulp.)

  “Welcome!” the GRINNING woman booms, beckoning us out of the car.

  No way.

  For a moment no one moves, then the woman steps forwards, opens the driver’s side door and ushers Mum to join her.

  “Er, hello…” Mum says politely as she climbs out of the car. “Are we in the right place? I’m looking for Ms Murphy, the head teacher of St Grizelda’s School?”

  “That’s me!” beams the woman. “But please call me Lulu. We like to keep things informal here, Mrs Dexter. And this must be Dani!”

  Lulu… I repeat in my head, as the scruffy lady with bird’s-nest hair smiles in my direction. On the school website Mum bookmarked there was a welcome message from someone wearing a navy jacket
with a stiff dark bob. The name underneath was Ms Louisa Murphy.

  I guess if I scrunch up my eyes till everything goes fuzzy, I can see a teeny resemblance.

  Yep, it looks like the woman in the plastic-spoon crown is MY NEW HEAD TEACHER.

  “Dani!” Mum hisses, motioning me to hurry up.

  I warily leave the car, all the time wondering how come Mum disapproves of Granny Viv cos of the way she dresses but is happy for me to be taught by someone wearing plastic cutlery on her head.

  But Mum didn’t expect this, did she?

  What is going on?

  Was this what Granny Viv was trying to tell me in her text? That my new school is TOTALLY INSANE?

  “Oof!” I grunt as Downboy muscles his way out of the car, too, bashing me aside before he lopes off in search of the other dog to chase.

  “Downboy! No – come back here!” Mum calls out as he gallops off round the building, “ARF! ARF! ARF!”ing his head off.

  “Oh, don’t worry. Let him go and explore. I’m sure Twinkle will enjoy a bit of a play,” says the head teacher.

  Twinkle? Is that the name of the dog Mum saw, or one of the students here? After ‘Blossom’ the goblin, I wouldn’t be surprised…

  “Anyway, it’s good to meet you, Dani!” booms Lulu, turning to me and holding one hand up.

  Uh-oh … she wants me to high-five her?

  If I tried to do that to Mr Robinson, my old head teacher, I’d’ve been in detention every breaktime for a week.

  Feeling embarrassed, I give her hand a floppy flap instead of a snappy slap.

  “Great,” says Lulu, with a grin and a nod like we’re now buddies (as if). “And sorry if the Newts startled you.”

  I have NO idea what she’s talking about. And Mum’s completely bewildered, too – I can tell by the way her smile has gone all wibbly-wobbly around the edges.

  “Blossom and the rest of Newts Class?” Lulu tries to explain, pointing to the rustling shrubs that the mutant goblin – and various ‘Newts’ – vanished into. “They’re our youngest and have huge energy and huge imaginations!”

  “Oh, right…” says Mum, glancing sideways at the muddy bare footprints splattered on our car bonnet. “The thing is, there seems to be some kind of a mistake. I thought—”

  “You’ll meet the Otters and Conkers later,” Lulu carries on over Mum’s confused mutterings.

  Mum and me do synchronized blinking.

  “The Otters and Conkers are our Year Four and Five classes,” Lulu explains, realizing we’re both completely lost.

  On the clearly wrong website, I remember noticing that the classes were all named after famous old dead poet blokes, not things from a nature documentary.

  “Dani’s a Fungus.”

  “Huh?” I splutter. I’m a what?

  “I mean, you’re in Fungi Class, Dani,” Lulu explains brightly. “Tell you what, while your mum sorts out some boring paperwork, how about you get to know a fellow Fungus?”

  Lulu nods over towards a tyre swing I hadn’t noticed before, hanging from an old oak tree. Dangling on it, swaying slowly, is a girl who looks like she might be about eleven-ish, same as me.

  She has long glossy black hair, hanging straight down to her waist. She is staring at me with narrowed eyes. Lulu might be as bouncy as the Easter bunny, but this girl looks as friendly as a vampire in a really bad mood.

  I have a funny feeling we won’t be incredibly good friends.

  “Wheeeeeeeeep!”

  Lulu puts her fingers in her mouth and whistles at the girl loudly, then waves her over.

  The girl slowly gets one long leg out from the tyre swing, followed by the other, and ambles towards me. She’s not wearing what I’d’ve expected – instead of a stiff grey skirt and dumb posh hat, she’s in beat-up old flip-flops and dungaree shorts.

  “Great stuff! Come on inside, Mrs Dexter,” says Lulu. “Swan will keep Dani entertained…”

  As Mum follows the head teacher, she gives me a wary look over her shoulder.

  I give her a HELP! DON’T LEAVE ME! look back, but she still disappears through the creaking front doors, as if shock has put her into a state of hypnosis.

  So, with nervy rumblings in my tummy, I turn round to face my new classmate and mutter a shy “hi”.

  She doesn’t look like she wants to entertain me. In fact, she looks like she might want to sink her fangs into my neck.

  “You’re Dani Dexter,” she says without bothering to give a friendly ‘hi’ back. She blows a huge pink bubble of gum.

  I shrug a yes.

  POP! goes the pink bubble, making me jump.

  “I’m Swan,” she says, sucking the pink back in her mouth with an expert twirl of her tongue.

  Swan?! I’m stuck at a school with a goblin called Blossom and a girl called Swan who looks more like Dracula’s pretty but equally gloomy daughter?

  Then I spot that Swan is staring down at my T rex, whose head I’ve been twisting without realizing. Aargh! She’ll probably think it’s just something dumb that I play with.

  Quickly I hide my star actor behind my back.

  Blow, blow, POP!, sluuurppp, goes the pink gum.

  “Welcome to St Grizzle’s,” she says flatly.

  “St Grizzle’s?” I repeat.

  “It’s just what everyone round here calls it.” Swan shrugs, ignoring the dinosaur, I’m relieved to see. “So, I bet you think this place is totally nuts, don’t you?”

  “Er, well, it doesn’t look much like on the website,” I answer her.

  “Hasn’t she deleted the old website yet?” Swan sighs, rolling her eyes and chew-chew-chewing her gum. “I TOLD her she needed to do that as soon as the new one went live.”

  “The head teacher, you mean?” I check with Swan, wondering what’s with the ‘old’ and ‘new’ websites. It must’ve been what Granny Viv was trying to tell me about before my phone went dead…

  “Mmm,” mutters Swan. “Lulu’s so totally useless sometimes.”

  I find myself grinning and snort at Swan’s cheeky remark.

  Swan glowers at me in return and I stop smiling.

  “She’s my mum,” says Swan, blowing another pink bubble straight at me.

  What? Oh, no! This girl is Ms… I mean, Lulu’s daughter?

  What have I (not quite) said?

  Y’know, I think Swan might like me just a LITTLE bit less than stepping in dog-doo. Maybe I should just run and lock myself in the car and refuse to come out.

  POP!

  I jump again, then wish I could shrivel like Swan’s bubblegum in the following awkward silence.

  “Hey, you’re being watched,” Swan says finally. I notice her eyes gazing off into the wooded area to the left of the building.

  Spinning round, I scan the trees for something fearsome.

  “It’s just Zed,” Swan says casually. “He’s in our class, too.”

  Ah, I see who she’s talking about. This dark-haired, freckly-faced Zed person is hiding behind a silver birch tree. Only he isn’t hiding too well. To be fair, it’s very hard to hide behind a skinny tree when you’re in quite a wide wheelchair.

  “He’s a BOY,” I mumble stupidly, wondering how that works at an all-girls school.

  “Well spotted,” says Swan, giving me a slow handclap. “Still, he gets to be here, cos he’s my twin brother and Lulu’s the head.”

  OK, so I have been at St Grizzle’s School for Girls, Goblins and Random Boys for about three-and-a-half minutes now and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to stay here any longer.

  It is completely freaky.

  The pupils are stranger than strange.

  The head teacher is bananas and I’m not going to—

  WHACK!

  I’m slammed in the back of the knees with what feels like a plank of wood and I land splat on the gravel. Stars swirl in front of my eyes.

  Swan bursts out laughing so hard she nearly chokes on her gum.

  From somewhere close by I hear the squeak and thud
of a window being opened.

  “Everything OK?” Lulu yells. “Oh – I see you’ve met our school mascot, Dani!”

  I lift my head a few centimetres off the gravel.

  A hairy face is staring down at me.

  When Mum first turned into the driveway, she’d seen a dog, hadn’t she? And for a second – just before Newts Class went crazy – I’d wondered what sort it was.

  And now I can see quite clearly what kind of dog it is.

  It’s the goat kind.

  OK, it’s JUST A GOAT.

  “Meh,” it bleats bad-breathed in my face.

  “Hey, Dani Dexter,” giggles Swan, leering down at me, along with the goat and its new, drooling friend Downboy. “Meet Twinkle!”

  Do I have to…?

  “Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her!” Lulu calls out cheerfully from the front steps of the school.

  I feel the opposite of cheerful and I’m pretty sure Mum does, too.

  As we stand by the car, saying our goodbyes, her hands grip me so tight that I’m worried I’ll end up with a fanned pattern of fingerprints on each shoulder.

  Meanwhile, I can’t help glancing over Mum’s shoulder at the thing staring at me from the branches of the nearest tree. It’s a grinning goblin, crouched on a branch, all knobbly knees and bared teeth. I don’t care if it’s really just an eight-year-old girl called Blossom, I’m still scared it’s going to eat me.

  “I am so, so sorry,” Mum says to me, as if there’s nothing she can do. But of course there’s something she can do. She can put me, my bags and my dinosaur back in the car.

  Right now.

  “Hey, Mum – if you grab my suitcase and I grab the backpacks then we can escape before anyone stops us!” I whisper to her.

  My heart is heaving with homesickness as I glance from Mum’s pretty-but-perplexed face to Downboy’s butt (he’s licking it right now in the boot of the car).