Most students were used to surprises like this and shrugged off the change in plans.
“And speaking of saving your lives,” Principal Headcrusher continued, “these are King Zog’s five most important rules. I wanted to wait to tell them to you so that they would be fresh in your heads.
“The rules are:
“Always say please and thank you.
“Always clean up after yourself if you make a mess.
“Never discriminate against a monster because of how it smells.
“Never sneeze, burp, hiccup, or cough when a monster is speaking.
“And lastly, never take anything from a monster without asking.”
Charles Nukid made a mental note of each rule. He kind of hoped he would have to sneeze at some point just so he could hold it in and follow Rule Number Four.
Principal Headcrusher continued, “Everyone find a buddy and ride two per dragon.”
A flock of girls rushed to Charles Nukid and asked to ride with him, unable to contain their giggles. Students from last year still viewed him as Scary School’s bad-boy rebel for being the only kid brave enough to wear gray shorts, a white dress shirt, and a polka-dot tie.
Charles moved through the sea of girls to find his one true friend—the only one he wanted to ride with. He didn’t care for all the attention and knew that the girls only liked him because they thought he was breaking the rules, when in truth he was the only one following the rules.
Charles found his friend, Penny Possum, lying on the grass playing dead. Penny always played dead whenever she felt threatened. The strategy had gotten her through Scary School alive thus far. She had short black hair that hung across her cheeks, and her eyes were so large, she could see in the dark.
Charles nudged Penny and said, “It’s okay. The dragons are friendly.”
With Charles’s assurance, Penny sprang up. She put on her superlarge sunglasses to cover her superlarge eyes.
“Want to ride on the dragon with me?” Charles asked.
Penny nodded.
She’d gone through three years of Scary School without ever speaking a word to anyone. Last year, Charles Nukid tried to save her life by urging her not to read Dr. Dragonbreath’s Rule Number Five. Penny gave Charles a piece of candy the next day as a thank-you. Charles didn’t understand why she was giving him the candy, so he brought her a piece of candy in return. Because Penny wouldn’t speak, they kept giving each other a piece of candy every day—neither knowing why they were doing it.
By the time Charles and Penny were ready to find their dragon, they were shocked to see that every dragon had already been taken. There was only one dragon left—the dragon everyone else was too afraid to ride.
Dr. Dragonbreath.
Charles was happy that he would get to spend time with Dr. Dragonbreath, whom he very much missed having as a teacher. He took Penny’s hand and pulled her toward Dr. Dragonbreath, but Penny started shaking her head and backing away.
“Don’t worry,” said Charles. “Dr. Dragonbreath is my friend. He won’t hurt us.”
Dr. Dragonbreath was not Charles Nukid’s friend. Charles annoyed Dr. Dragonbreath like no other because he followed every rule to the letter, so there was never any hope of making a meal out of him.
Charles and Penny took a seat on Dr. Dragonbreath’s back. Dr. Dragonbreath rolled his eyes when he saw who it was.
“Hi, Dr. Dragonbreath!” said Charles. “How’s class going so far?”
“Dreadful,” Dr. Dragonbreath replied with a snarl. “Four kids followed Rule Number Five, so I have to show up every day and teach them. I was so looking forward to a paid vacation.”
The lead dragon roared, blowing a stream of fire into the air, signaling the armada of dragons to take to the sky. The journey to the Monster King was under way.
Charles held on tight to the reins attached to Dr. Dragonbreath’s head, and Penny wrapped her arms tight around Charles’s waist. His heart skipped a beat. He had to take several deep breaths to slow it down.
As Charles soared over the ocean on the back of his favorite teacher with his best friend behind him, resting her head on his shoulder, he thought this was the happiest he could possibly be.
In this ghost’s opinion, Charles liked Penny a bit more than as a friend, but he would never admit that to me, so I won’t put words in his mouth.
As the flight continued, Penny noticed that the rushing wind was making a mess of Charles’s stiff hair. She enjoyed putting each hair back in place.
Charles looked to his left and saw Ms. Fangs flying next to him. She had turned herself into a bat and seemed to be struggling to keep up with the swift dragons. To his right he saw Fritz (who always wore swim goggles) and Tanya Tarantula riding together. Tanya had six of her eight legs wrapped around Fritz, who was shaking with fear that Tanya might bite him at any moment. There will be more about Fritz soon.
After several hours, the flying dragons reached the edge of Monster Forest in Albania. The kids’ imaginations ran wild thinking of all the different kinds of monsters lurking beneath the treetops.
Soon, they reached a hill where a great castle stood. Thousands of monsters were standing on the hill, cheering and roaring. There were balloons everywhere, bands playing, and a sign that read:
Welcome, Champions of Scary School!
Fireworks zipped past the flying dragons and exploded in the sky.
The students waved and the dragons blew fire in the exhilaration of the moment.
Unfortunately, everyone was so distracted by the deafening boom of the fireworks, they did not notice Penny Possum screaming.
One of the fireworks had clipped Dr. Dragonbreath’s wing. The impact caused him to jerk backward, sending Charles Nukid flying off his back. Penny tried to reach for him, but it was too late.
Charles Nukid was plummeting to certain death.
10
Don’t Mess with Bearodactyls
Dr. Dragonbreath landed in the great courtyard at the entrance of Monster Castle. Penny hopped off him and ran to Principal Headcrusher.
Not one for words, Penny tried pantomiming what had happened. She did spinning jumping jacks trying to illustrate the fireworks, flapped her arms to mimic Dr. Dragonbreath, and even fell backward to show Charles’s tragic fall. Principal Headcrusher had no idea what any of it meant.
“Penny, there will be plenty of time for dancing later. Now go stand with your class.”
Penny groaned and realized she had no choice but to speak.
“CHARLES NUKID FELL!” Penny spoke as softly as she could, but because she had been holding her voice inside for the last six months, it shot forth like a wrecking ball, knocking over the first several rows of monsters in the audience. The monsters thought it was part of the show and cheered.
Principal Headcrusher looked around to confirm Penny’s statement.
“Well,” said Principal Headcrusher, “there’s nothing we can do. Charles either died from the fall or, if he somehow survived that, the forest monsters will have eaten him by now.”
Hearing this, Penny started crying.
“Yes, it’s very sad,” said Principal Headcrusher, patting Penny on the head. Her giant hands hurt more than they comforted. “Just try to be happy for all the kids who survived the journey. I was expecting far more fatalities.”
That didn’t help. Penny cried even harder.
Principal Headcrusher was probably the worst person in the world at comforting sad children, but she tried. “Perhaps I was too pessimistic,” Principal Headcrusher said, trying her best to make Penny feel better. “There’s no reason to give up hope just yet.”
Penny perked up.
“I’m not saying that Charles is definitely dead. All I’m saying is that there is absolutely no chance he is still alive. Does that make you feel better?”
Penny went right back to sobbing.
Charles Nukid opened his eyes. He expected to see clouds and angels all around him since he had so diligently followe
d the rules his whole life.
Instead, he saw sharp tree branches and three very strange creatures staring him in the face.
It was then that Charles realized he was not dead. At least, not for the moment.
Luckily, when he fell through the canopy, he had landed in the plush nest of the infamous bearodactyl. Also luckily, the mama bearodactyl was not home. However, three baby bearodactyls were presently in the nest. They were looking at Charles, unsure whether they were supposed to eat him or if he was there to eat them.
As you can probably guess, bearodactyls have the strong furry body and the fierce claws of a bear but the large wings and long, toothy head of a pterodactyl. The small, baby ones in front of Charles were kind of cute. The big, grownup ones, however, are so scary-looking I have ordered the illustrator to never draw a picture of one because even looking at a cartoon version of it would make you poop your pants.
The baby bearodactyls started nipping at Charles’s legs to test his reaction. Their teeth hurt, so Charles said “Bad Monster,” and bopped each one on the beak to teach them a lesson. The babies became nervous that Charles was not friendly and started crowing an alarm.
They were answered by a much louder, deeper crow. The mama bearodactyl was responding to their distress call!
Charles knew he was in big trouble if he didn’t get out of there fast. He climbed out of the nest onto an adjacent branch. Looking at what must have been a hundred-foot drop to the forest floor made him dizzy. He tried to map out a course down the branches in his head, but then the bearodactyl mama came streaming toward him.
Charles leaped as the bearodactyl took a bite out of the branch where his head had been just a split second before.
Like a gymnast on the uneven bars, Charles swung his way down from one branch to the next. The bearodactyl continued to chase after him, making desperate chomps, but he remained one step ahead of the angry beast. Eventually, Charles was able to grab hold of a vine hanging off a thick branch. He slid down to the forest floor like a fireman sliding down a pole.
The bearodactyl shrieked one last time, but didn’t want to follow him to the ground to finish him off.
If the ten-foot bearodactyl was scared of the forest floor, Charles could only imagine what horrors awaited him.
The Scary School students had taken their seats on bleachers set up in the courtyard facing the crowd of monsters. Tanya Tarantula searched the crowd for her parents, but saw no giant tarantulas. She guessed they must still be creatures of solitude and would hate being among a large crowd.
The Monster King was about to make his grand entrance. Horns widened, drums blasted, and eyes rolled. No wait, I mixed those up. Horns blasted, drums rolled, and eyes widened. Yes, that’s much better.
The front doors of the castle swung open, and King Zog the Monster King entered the courtyard to waves of applause. Every student stood and cheered when they saw King Zog. It was a sight that few humans had seen.
The Monster King walked proudly to the podium. He had grown much larger since becoming king. His toadlike head had almost tripled in size. His walrus body had become fatter, his scorpion tail was frighteningly long, and his horse legs weren’t even visible. That was because he was wearing a long robe, sewn out of several terrifying creatures, that draped to the ground and trailed behind him.
His crown was made out of fanged animal skulls.
A gust of wind blew past King Zog, and the Scary School students picked up his pleasant scent of fresh mint leaves in a shady pine forest.
He spoke to the crowd: “Greetings, monsters and guests. It is a pleasure to have you all here. I am King Zog, bringer of order, manners, and, above all, tolerance to Monster Kingdom. Yes, these days we monsters can tolerate just about anything. The only things we cannot tolerate are disorder, bad manners, and intolerance. Scary School proved a worthy opponent to all other Scary schools, and it is my honor to hand out several awards to the most outstanding performers. First is Larry Ledfoot, who I am pleased to award with the Most Valuable Kickball Player trophy.”
The Scary School students cheered as Larry Ledfoot stood up and plodded his way over to the Monster King. Larry was a sixth grader in King Khufu’s class whose feet were made of heavy stone after an unfortunate incident with Ms. Medusa.
Larry had great difficulty taking just one step with his heavy stone feet, much less walking across a long courtyard. It took about ten minutes for Larry to walk just twenty steps to the Monster King to accept his trophy.
“Congratulations, Larry,” the Monster King exclaimed, handing him a kickball trophy. “You have brought honor to your puny species.”
“Darn right I did!” Larry proclaimed. “I am the greatest! I stand like a statue and kick like a mule!”
“Young man,” Zog growled, drooling with anger, “your manners are an abomination. That was the ideal time to say a simple thank-you, and you failed. When you are in my kingdom, you must obey my rules. Guards! Punish him!”
Three very scary-looking monster guards with the heads of hyenas and the claws of raptors surged toward Larry at top speed.
Fortunately, Larry had experience defending himself from monsters and knew just what to do. He fell on his back with his stone feet raised into the air. The first monster guard leaped upon him and was about to tear him to shreds, but Larry kicked out with his stony feet and hit the guard square in the chest. The guard flew across the courtyard, squealing in shock. It hit the wall of the castle and slid down onto a spire.
The second and third guards attacked from opposite sides. Thinking fast, Larry kicked out in a dramatic splits position, sending one of the guards flying into the monster crowd. The other flew so far in the other direction, it landed deep in Monster Forest.
The monsters were so enthralled, they cheered their hearts out as Larry sprang up and bowed to them.
“Thank you! Thank you very much!” Larry exalted, bowing to each part of the crowd.
“Well, better late than never, I suppose,” said King Zog, shrugging his walrus shoulders. “You finally said thank you, so you are pardoned. Well done.”
Back in Monster Forest, Charles Nukid stealthily…
Actually, I think this is a good place to end the chapter. It will give you a chance to grab a spare pair of underwear. You may need them—things can get pretty scary in Monster Forest.
11
The Monster Princess
Back in Monster Forest, Charles Nukid stealthily made his way through the trees, moving from one hiding spot to the next, kneeling behind rocks, ducking behind bushes, and diving into leaf piles.
As he was falling through the air, he had seen Monster Castle and made a mental note of where it was. He proceeded in that general direction. If he could get back to his classmates with only a couple limbs missing, he’d call the journey a resounding success.
There were many scary noises echoing and many scary smells drifting through the air. He found a mud puddle and covered himself in cool mud in case any of the monsters were heat-sensing. He even put some mud in his hair. It acted as a natural gel that kept all his hairs in place. He was glad he didn’t have to worry about that.
That was when he heard the scariest noise and smelled the scariest smell so far.
It was as if a garbage truck filled with rotten eggs was headed straight toward him. He heard a chorus of howls, grunts, and roars over the unmistakable sound of screaming.
Charles quickly dived into an old log as the source of the noise made its way into the clearing. It was a gang of hideous creatures unlike any Charles had seen.
These were monster-pirates—monsters of all shapes and sizes wearing colorful, old-time costumes, flamboyant hats, earrings, nose rings, snout rings, horn rings, and tusk rings. Several had the heads of wild hogs. Some had the heads of serpents. Others were unrecognizable mixtures of jaws, fur, and snouts. They all carried swords and they were dragging some sort of cage on four wheels.
Inside it was a monster with the head of a toad. Its teeth we
re stumpy and misshapen and it was wearing a lavish red-and-pink gown. Luxurious golden hair hung down to its waist. On top of its head it wore a tiara. “Help! Help!” shouted the caged creature. The monster-pirates just laughed and continued on their way.
Charles knew the smart thing to do would be to let them roll past and not make a peep. He knew that showing himself would most likely spell certain death. He knew he had no claws or fangs to defend himself and had barely enough muscles to carry a thick textbook, but he also knew there was no way he was going to let those monster-pirates kidnap that helpless girl monster without trying to do something to stop them.
He put his hands against the inside walls of the log and began rolling it toward the moving caravan. The log settled directly in front of the monster-pirates’ path. They came to a grinding halt.
A pig-faced monster yelled, “Horace, move the log. We have to make it to the ship by sundown.”
Charles crawled out of the log, still covered in mud. Standing tall, he said as authoritatively as he could, “Don’t you move another inch.”
The monster-pirates stared at Charles in confusion. One of them said, “What is that?”
“I think it’s a pile of mud that learned to talk,” another answered.
“Don’t be stupid! Mud can’t talk!”
“But it smells like mud.”
Charles shouted, “I’m not mud!” wiping the mud off his face.
The monster-pirates gasped.
In a voice that sounded like a bad imitation of a British queen, the girl monster in the cage proclaimed, “Aha! I told you a dashing hero would come to my rescue! Please, save me quickly, young hero! Ohhhh, it is so dreadful in this vile cage. This is no way for a princess to be treated!”
Monsters on the March Page 5