There were also empty water bottles and food wrappers all over the ground. Those items must have been regularly placed on the slide to keep the kids alive. My sister thought of everything.
As it dawned on the class what was really going on, most of them slapped their heads in frustration for not figuring it out sooner. Not even the teacher, Ms. Fangs, had had any clue.
The problem at the moment was that her class was still stuck at the bottom of the pit with no way to get out. Thinking quickly, Petunia sent her bees swarming down. The kids screamed, thinking they were being attacked, when in fact the bees were grabbing hold of them and airlifting them out of the pit one by one.
Soon the whole class was out of the pit. They were so grateful to Petunia that nobody made fun of her purple complexion for a whole week. Frank hugged her best friend so hard she could barely breathe.
Ms. Fangs was looking even more pale than usual. She snatched a rat crawling along the floor and sucked out all its blood in one big gulp.
“Eeewww!” the class moaned, gawking at the disgusting display.
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” Ms. Fangs assured them.
“Tastes like rat juice.”
Wendy barfed.
As the class stepped outside into the bright sunlight, they noticed Mr. Grump lying on the ground, snoring through the side of his mouth. Petunia explained that he was their new sixth-grade teacher. The kids pulled him up off the ground. His tusks were stuck in the dirt, so it wasn’t easy.
Mr. Grump opened his eyes.
“Are you okay, Mr. Grump?” Petunia asked.
“My head hurts, but I’m feeling better. Thank you, Petunia.”
“Hey! You remembered my name!”
“I did, didn’t I? My memory must be improving. Now if only I could remember why in the world I was dragging those coconuts up that snowy mountain!”
3
The Mummy’s Curse
At the same time that Petunia was walking into an empty classroom on the first day of class, Charles Nukid was walking into a full one. There were thirty kids in the room. The only one he recognized was Cindy Chan. Together, they were the sole survivors of Dr. Dragonbreath’s class last year.
When Charles entered the room, the other kids stared at him in disbelief. As always, he was the one student wearing the school uniform. Every other kid refused to wear the gray shorts, white dress shirt, and polka-dot tie as soon as they saw they looked like a clown who sold insurance. As a result, not wearing the school uniform became the school uniform. None of the teachers even knew what the school uniform looked like.
Charles didn’t care how ridiculous he looked in this outfit. He liked obeying each rule to the letter. Ironically, many girls considered him to be a rule-breaking rebel for daring to dress the way he did, and were absolutely crazy about him. Charles didn’t care about those girls, though. Penny Possum was the only one in school he considered to be his friend.
It didn’t make the slightest bit of difference that Penny never spoke. They had never had a single conversation, but both had learned that there are other ways to communicate.
Penny had even managed to loosen him up a little before summer vacation by mussing up his hair. Usually, every strand had to be perfectly in place or it drove him crazy. Because he hadn’t seen Penny all summer, he thought he was being punished for messing up his hair. Now he was even more finicky about keeping it neat than ever.
In this ghostwriter’s humble opinion, Charles really needs to lighten up.
Several new kids were shooting spitballs across the room and chasing one another down the aisles. They had yet to learn that Scary School is no joke.
Charles took a seat next to Cindy Chan. She looked at him through her thick glasses and said, “I heard our teacher is Mr. Snakeskin. Is he mean?”
“Well,” said Charles, “Mr. Snakeskin has no problem removing his own skin, so he’d probably have no problem removing our skins if we misbehave.”
Charles noticed a kid with long hair over his face who was sitting all by himself in the back corner. He didn’t seem to have any friends, so Charles thought he would introduce himself. But before he could, the door flew open.
Everyone froze in place.
There was a squeaking of wheels from outside the door and a large stone object was wheeled in on a dolly, pushed by a hunchback wearing black robes.
The hunchback placed the stone object in front of the class.
Charles Nukid knew what it was immediately. Standing eight feet tall, composed of thick limestone, and covered in carvings and symbols, it was a sarcophagus—the coffin of choice for the ancient Egyptians. It contained the mummified remains of a king who had died thousands of years ago.
The Mummy was one of Charles Nukid’s favorite movies. It had led him to read many books about ancient Egypt. He could only hope all that reading would pay off now.
The hunchback pulled away the outer slab of stone, revealing the inner sarcophagus—a shining, golden encasement in the shape of a man adorned with a headdress. The statue had a long chin-beard painted black. His arms were folded across his chest. His hands were clutching a snake and a scepter.
The hunchback grumbled, “Sixth grade, Mr. Snakeskin will not be your teacher this year. He is only teaching gym from now on. This is your new teacher. I’ve been told to tell you not to ask how we got him. Good luck surviving your first class.”
The hunchback waddled out the door, leaving the statue staring stone-faced at the class.
For several minutes nothing happened. The kids just sat in their seats waiting for the teacher to emerge from the upright coffin. But the statue just stood there, towering above them, its eyes blank and cold.
Finally, a boy with black hair named Steven Kingsley said, “Hello? Are you there, teacher?”
Then a girl sitting next to him said, “Are you alive?”
Nothing.
Eventually, Bryce McCallister, the lonely-looking boy with long hair over his face, got up to investigate the golden sarcophagus. He wore baggy clothes. His hair made it impossible to tell what he looked like.
Bryce whipped the hair away from his eyes and examined the golden body.
“Hey, there are carvings on here,” he announced. “Help me clear this dust away.”
A bunch of kids bounced up and started blowing the dust off the sarcophagus to reveal hidden words and hieroglyphs—the writing of the ancient Egyptians. Charles Nukid and Cindy Chan stayed in their seats, not wanting to upset their teacher—or whatever it was.
Nobody could decipher the strange symbols, but then Bryce found something written in English on a slab next to the toe. It said:
Death shall come on swift wings to he who disturbs the peace of the king.
The kids who were dusting off the sarcophagus quickly ran back to their seats. Bryce was the only kid who didn’t rush back.
“You guys are a bunch of scaredy-cats,” he said to the class reproachfully. “It’s just an old hunk of metal. There’s nothing it can do. Watch.”
Bryce started hitting and slapping the sarcophagus.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Charles Nukid warned Bryce.
“Be quiet, Toothpick,” said Bryce harshly. “I’ll do what I want.”
Charles hated being called Toothpick. Kids seemed to naturally give him that name because he was so skinny.
Bryce proceeded to kick the shin of the sarcophagus. It hurt him much more than it hurt the metal. Grabbing his foot, he screeched, “Ow! Ow! Ow!”
The class laughed at him.
“Stop it!” he yelled. “At least I’m not chicken like the rest of you.”
All of a sudden, there was a rumbling. Bryce saw his classmates’ eyes widen and he turned his head slowly. The sarcophagus was shaking. The walls of the classroom shook with it. Several kids dived under their desks. The rest were frozen, their eyes glued to the coffin.
Then, the front of the sarcophagus began to open. A deep moaning filled the room. The dank smell of thous
and-year-old death filled the air.
A decrepit hand slipped through the crack. The sound of labored breathing from inside the coffin made everyone shake with fear. With one last push, the golden sarcophagus swung open. The children gazed upon a hideous mummy. It was wrapped in tattered white bandages and reeked of decay.
“Aughghghh,” the mummy moaned in despair.
The mummy reached down, rubbing his shin where Bryce had kicked him. Then, he limped out of the sarcophagus and glared at the terrified students.
“All right,” said the mummy. His voice sounded like his lungs were filled with gravel and his tongue was made of sandpaper. “Who has dared to kick me in my left shin?”
None of the class pointed, but everyone looked down at Bryce, still sitting on the floor in front.
“So, it was you, was it?” The mummy’s voice rose accusingly.
“I…I’m sorry,” said Bryce.
“Sorry? My left shin is my bad shin! I hurt it in a game of undead soccer five hundred years ago, and it’s never been the same. You’ve reaggravated a very, very old injury.”
“I…I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know?” The mummy whipped around and pointed to the symbols on his sarcophagus. “It says right here in plain hieroglyphics that in order to wake me peacefully, all you have to do is kick my right shin. Don’t tell me you’ve never learned left from right!”
“I couldn’t read the symbols,” Bryce answered.
“Oh no. Don’t tell me none of you can read. Can you read?” hissed the mummy, pointing at Cindy Chan.
“I can w-w-wead Engwish when I’m wearing my g-gwasses.” Cindy always stammered when she was nervous.
“English? Feh! That’s been spoken for barely a thousand years. My language dates back ten thousand years! Now that’s a language.”
The mummy flicked its hand at Bryce. “Take your seat, boy.”
Bryce scurried back to his seat.
The mummy walked to the chalkboard and drew several pictures. He drew a circle, a bird, a snake, then another bird.
“This is my name, class.”
A blond-haired girl sitting in the front row said, “Your name is Circle Bird Snake Bird?”
“No!” howled the mummy. “This is how you spell King Khufu in hieroglyphs. Don’t any of you know who I am?”
Charles got very excited, and his hand shot up.
“Yes, you. The one out of uniform.”
Charles stood up and said, “You were the pharaoh of Egypt over 4,500 years ago in the twenty-sixth century BCE. You built the Great Pyramid, which is one of the Seven Wonders of the World.”
“Very good,” said King Khufu. “Since you’re the expert, perhaps you can tell us about the curse of the mummies?”
Charles gulped. What have I gotten myself into? he thought.
“Well,” said Charles aloud, “Lord Carnarvon was one of the archaeologists who first opened the tomb of King Tut.”
“Correct,” said King Khufu. “King Tut is a good buddy of mine. What happened to that archaeologist?”
“Soon after he opened the tomb, Lord Carnarvon was bitten by a mosquito. The bite became infected and he died.”
“Correct! Death always comes on swift wings to those who disturb the peace of a king. You could say that death came to Lord Carnarvon on the swift wings of a mosquito, could you not?”
Charles nodded.
Khufu continued, “Today, the slumber of a mummy has been disturbed once again…by him.”
Khufu pointed a rotting finger at Bryce. “A curse has been placed upon you, boy. I fear that death shall soon come upon swift wings for you. I would be shocked if you survived until the end of the school year.”
Bryce shook in his seat. A fly flew in front of his face, and he screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Aha!” Khufu exclaimed. “Look who’s the scaredy-cat now!”
The mummy laughed, and a few brave kids laughed with him. Charles was not one of them.
For the rest of the morning, whenever someone saw a bug flying close to Bryce, they swatted it away for him. Several cute girls gave him hugs and told him to be brave. Getting cursed seemed to make him the most popular kid in school.
Up until lunch, King Khufu taught the class how to translate hieroglyphs. It wasn’t nearly as difficult as the students thought it would be. They had a lot of fun learning to spell their own names in hieroglyphic. Mine is Hand-Feather-Eyeball-Feather-Cup. I’m kind of glad we use a different alphabet these days.
At the end of the day, Khufu stepped back into his sarcophagus and said, “Wake me up when it’s time for class tomorrow.” And he closed the stone slab over himself.
As the class was leaving, Charles Nukid stayed behind and read the hieroglyphs on the sarcophagus. He immediately burst into laughter.
“Hey, Bryce!” Charles shouted.
Bryce jumped back, startled. “What? Is there a beetle flying near me?”
“No, Bryce. It says here: ‘In order to wake the pharaoh peacefully, kick him in his right or left shin.’ I think King Khufu was just messing with you to teach you a lesson.”
“Oh,” said Bryce, the weight of the world dropping off his shoulders. “Tell you what, I’ll owe you a big favor if you don’t tell anyone. Since they heard I’m going to die, everyone’s being super nice to me!”
4
The Big Announcement
By the third day of school, the new students had settled into a daily routine of learning, horror, and mayhem. Satisfied, Principal Headcrusher thought it was a good time to make the big announcement.
She gently gripped a microphone in her salad-bowl-sized hands, and her voice sounded on a PA system in every classroom.
“Attention, students and faculty. After lunch, everyone is to report to Petrified Pavilion for a big surprise.”
All the veteran students groaned because they hated surprises. At Scary School a surprise often meant that you would be turned into a mouse or lose an essential body part.
During the Italian-themed lunch, Sue the Amazing Octo-Chef’s delicious spaghetti and eyeballs had Jason and Fred going back for seconds. The side of garlic toast sent several vampire kids to Nurse Hairymoles’s office. I enjoyed a gourmet ghost-cheese pizza.
Once lunch was finished, the students gathered on the enormous wooden hands of Petrified Pavilion. They were raised into its screaming mouth, which was the entrance to the magnificent auditorium.
Charles sat next to Petunia, Raychel sat next to Rachael, and Bryce sat next to six girls from his class. They were shielding him from mosquitoes.
Lindsey sat next to her friends Stephanie and Maria. She still wore blond pigtails, but was now considered the nicest girl in school after being the meanest girl last year.
Once all were seated, Principal Headcrusher walked across the stage. She was wearing a very fashionable salmon-pink pantsuit. Her frizzy black hair looked like she had just been electrocuted.
She stepped up to a podium and grasped the microphone with her massive hands. The microphone exploded into dust.
“Whoops,” she said. “Oh well, this will work better anyway.”
Principal Headcrusher raised her hands to her mouth, which amplified her voice more than any microphone could. Experienced students stuck their fingers in their ears. New students heard ringing for the next three weeks.
“Good afternoon, vampires, zombies, werewolves, and you less fortunate human students,” Principal Headcrusher announced. “Who here remembers what the grand prize was for winning the Ghoul Games last spring?”
Wendy Crumkin, a smart girl with freckles, glasses, and braided red hair, raised her hand.
“Yes, Wendy?”
Wendy stood up and answered confidently, “The grand prize was a trip to Albania to meet the Monster King.”
“That is correct!” Principal Headcrusher declared.
The students erupted in cheers.
“Except for one thing.”
The students became silen
t.
“It’s not a trip to Albania. But you’re close. It’s a trip to Albany.”
“But last year you said Albania.”
“I did? Well, I meant Albany.”
The students looked at one another in confusion.
“Where’s Albany?” Bryce McCallister asked aloud.
“Good question. It’s a town in upstate New York.”
“So we’re going to New York!” Lindsey exclaimed with excitement. “I’ve always wanted to see Broadway!”
“No, no, no,” said Principal Headcrusher. “Albany is very far from New York City. But don’t worry, it is very similar to New York City, just without all the attractions and fun things to do. You’ll love it.”
The students groaned.
Later that day, each teacher handed out permission slips. The students had to have their parents sign off on their “fantastic” trip to Albany. The plan was to leave a week from Monday and return that Friday. The parents were only too happy to sign off on the trip to a harmless place like Albany and almost all of them were secretly thrilled to have a whole week to themselves.
Just kidding. Not almost all the parents. Absolutely all the parents were thrilled.
On Thursday morning, the new hall monitor, Ms. Hydra, wheeled all the signed permission slips into Principal Headcrusher’s office in a big red wagon.
Principal Headcrusher was very proud of the new Scary School hall monitor. Who better to be a hall monitor than Ms. Hydra—a giant monitor lizard with nine fearsome heads? Each head was attached to a twenty-foot scaly neck that could twist and bend around corners. The nine necks were attached to a stout lizard body.
“Thank you, Ms. Hydra,” said Principal Headcrusher, taking the permission slips. “Anything to report?”
The fifth of Ms. Hydra’s nine heads slithered forward and said with a serpentine hiss, “Thisss morning I ssssaw a boy out of uniform. He was wearing gray shorts, a white dress shirt, and a polka-dot tie! Nobody ever wears that! The nerve of him!”
Monsters on the March Page 2