Monstrous Maud: Big Fright

by A. B. Saddlewick

  Maud’s parents hadn’t been able to buy the Rotwood uniform yet, so she was still wearing the navy-blue uniform of Primrose Towers. She hoped it wouldn’t look too strange to the other pupils.

  “Are you ready yet?” shouted Maud.

  Milly stormed out on to the landing. “How can I go when I can’t find my tutu? What have you done with it?”

  Maud shrugged. She had no idea where it was.

  “Well, I’ve got a big show on Friday, and I can’t practise without it, so you’re going to have to wait.” Milly stomped back into their room.

  A couple of minutes later, she emerged holding the frilly pink ballet tutu.

  “What a surprise!” she shouted. “It was under a pile of stinky clothes on your side of the room. Now it’s covered in Maud germs and I don’t have time to wash it.”

  “I didn’t touch it,” said Maud. “You must have thrown it there after your last ballet lesson.”

  “No,” said Milly. “You’re the one who leaves clothes on the floor. I fold them and put them back in my drawers.”

  Even after they’d finally said goodbye to their parents and set out for the bus stop, Milly kept chattering about her tutu. She glared at Maud from under her umbrella.

  “Admit it,” she said. “You hid my tutu on purpose. You hid it because you’re jealous that I was chosen for the ballet performance on Friday and you weren’t.”

  “How could I have been chosen?” asked Maud. “I didn’t audition.”

  The Primrose Towers bus pulled up at the stop just as they arrived. Through the spotless windows, Maud could see the rows of girls in their perfectly ironed uniforms. She was glad she didn’t have to get on the bus today, especially as it would mean listening to more of Milly’s boasting about her starring role in the ballet.

  “Smell you later,” said Milly, as she stepped on to the bus. “Have a nice time with the Rotwood rejects.” She shook out her umbrella, covering Maud in spray.

  The door closed, and the bus drove off before Maud could reply. Never mind. She wasn’t too bothered about Milly’s taunts – she was too busy wondering about her new school in the creepy forest.

  Whenever the Montague family went for a walk, their dad had always insisted they avoid the forest. He said it was dark and gloomy, with no proper paths to walk along.

  But Maud was sure it was fine. Mrs Fennel wouldn’t have transferred her to somewhere dangerous, would she?

  Maud looked down the road for the bus. It should have been here by now. She hoped she hadn’t missed it while Milly was looking for her tutu.

  While she was waiting, she took a letter out of her bag. It was from the head teacher of Rotwood. It had arrived on Saturday morning, and was entirely different from any letter they’d ever received from Primrose Towers. Whenever Mrs Fennel had written to complain about Maud’s behaviour, it had always been printed on headed A4 paper and folded neatly. But this letter was scrawled in spidery handwriting on what looked like ancient yellow parchment, and sealed with green wax. It had a funny smell, too. A cross between mouldy bread and her dad’s stinkiest trainers, Maud thought.

  Dear Mr and Mrs Montague,

  We are delighted to hear that Maud will be joining us as a new pupil on Monday. I have arranged for her to be picked up by the school bus at 8:30a.m. and she has been allocated to Class 3B. From what we’ve heard about Maud, it sounds as if she’ll be perfect for us, and I’m certain she’ll have a terrifying time.

  Yours,

  The Head

  Maud wrinkled her nose. That couldn’t be right. Surely it meant “a terrific time”. The handwriting was very unclear. If Maud had written so badly at Primrose Towers, she would have been given a detention.

  Maud heard a loud spluttering and looked up. A bus – if you could call it that – stood right in front of her. It was more of a misshapen lump of rusty metal than a vehicle, with thick black smoke pumping out of the exhaust and windows that were so dirty you couldn’t see in. It had painted on the side in black letters.

  The door creaked open on its loose hinges and Maud stepped on, wondering how safe the bus could possibly be.

  “Hello,” she said to the driver. She didn’t want to stare, but he looked so weird she couldn’t help herself. He was tall and thin, with a long pale face and dark, hollow eyes. He was crammed into the narrow driver’s seat so tightly that he had to reach around his knees to get to the wheel. It reminded Maud of watching a daddy-long-legs try to crawl into a matchbox.

  The driver grunted, which Maud took as a sign that she should find a seat. She peered down the gloomy bus, but all the seats looked occupied. Down the aisle, Maud could see pupils who were bundled up in bulky hooded coats, wrapped in thick scarves or shielded by large hats with wide brims. And the weird thing was that it wasn’t even very cold. If they dressed like this in September, they’d probably be wearing Arctic exploring gear by Christmas.

  The bus lurched and grunted into action. Rain hammered off the windows. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, Maud made her way down the aisle. She felt as if every pair of eyes was watching her.

  She spotted an empty seat near the back. Dark red stains covered the fabric, and huge chunks of stuffing had been ripped out of it, but Maud was so pleased to escape the glares of the pupils that she didn’t mind.

  Maud looked at the boy sitting next to her. Like everyone else on the bus, he was bizarrely overdressed, in a large raincoat and baseball cap. When he pulled the brim of the cap down over his eyes, Maud thought he was wearing large furry gloves. But, on closer inspection, she saw that he actually had very hairy hands.

  Maud tried to smile at him, but he turned to look out of the window. She saw he had hair all over the back of his neck too. She hoped he didn’t get teased about it too much.

  Maud looked around the bus and saw that the hairy boy wasn’t the only unusual one. A boy wearing a balaclava seemed to have green skin underneath. There was a girl with a long, hooked nose. Another girl hid behind massive sunglasses. What sort of school was this?

  Maud was glad that she had Quentin with her. She took him out of her blazer pocket and stroked his fur. Quentin glanced round at the pupils, then scuttled right back into her pocket. Maud knew how he felt.

  “Aww, he’s monstrous! Big, too!”

  Maud was surprised to see the hairy boy staring at her rat. She was even more surprised that he seemed to like Quentin so much. It was a bit odd that he’d called Quentin ‘monstrous’, but still. She’d have needed a litter of golden Labrador puppies to get a reaction like that in Primrose Towers.

  “Thanks,” said Maud. “He’s my pet.”

  “I always wanted a pet,” said the hairy boy. “But Dad said it would be too much effort not to feed on it.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘it would be too much effort to feed it’?” asked Maud.

  “Er, yeah, if you say so,” said the boy.

  A moment later, things got even darker inside the bus. Maud peered out and saw that they’d entered the forest. The trees had grown so thick that it seemed as if they were in a tunnel, and the driver had to turn his lights on. A dark shape scuttled among the trees, and Maud felt a shiver run down her spine.

  The bus let out a loud splutter and Maud prayed it wouldn’t break down. She didn’t like the idea of having to get out and wait for someone to come and fix it.

  Soon the bus emerged into a large clearing in the wood, and Maud could see a little more clearly. Up ahead, she spotted a faded sign:

  Some vandal had obviously changed ‘care’ to ‘scare’ for a joke. It almost looked as if that’s what the sign was supposed to say, though.

  The bus chugged to a stop.

  “Everybody out,” said the driver in a strange, croaky voice.

  The pupils crowded off, causing the bus to rock up and down violently. Maud followed them, eager to get her first look at Rotwood.

  The rain had eased off, leaving a thin mist in the air.

  Maud stepped off the bus and looked up at Rotwood
School. It seemed more like a ruined castle than a school. Instead of modern red bricks, it was built from ancient blocks of grey stone. Leering gargoyles peered down from the corners of the roof. Instead of large windows, it had small arched openings, some blocked by weather-beaten shutters. And rather than a swooshing glass door surrounded by noticeboards and potted trees, a heavy oak door opened into a dark entrance hall.

  Maud realised she had no idea where she was going. She checked her letter and called over to the hairy boy. “Excuse me, do you know how I get to Class 3B?”

  The boy smiled. “That’s my class! I’ll show you the way. It’s strange, Batty didn’t mention anything about a new girl.”

  Now that they were out of the darkness inside the bus, Maud could see that the boy’s face was covered entirely in hair. His cheeks, his nose and even his forehead all sprouted thick brown fur. She wanted to ask if he’d heard of shaving foam, but then decided she’d better not upset him.

  She followed the hairy boy into the school. At first she thought there must have been some sort of power cut, because she could see nothing at all. But as her eyes adjusted, she found that she was actually in a vast entrance hall, lit by just a few candles.

  Maud loved the dark. She was always getting into trouble with her sister for leaving their bedroom curtains closed on sunny days. But she was still surprised by the murkiness of the school, and the pupils scuttling around in the half-light.

  There was a very odd smell in the entrance hall, too. Everything reeked of damp dustiness, like the garage her dad escaped to at weekends to tinker with his car parts. At Primrose Towers, Mrs Fennel had insisted the corridors were sprayed with lilac air-freshener three times a day. A whiff of this place would probably kill her.

  Twisty corridors led out of the hall in all directions, and two wide stone staircases at either side climbed up into darkness. There were no signposts or maps, and Maud was glad she had the hairy boy to show her the way.

  “We’re up here,” the boy said, pointing at a spiral staircase through a narrow doorway.

  Maud followed him up the steps, higher and higher, moving so fast she got dizzy. In some places the candles had burned right down to waxy stumps, leaving the stairwell in pitch blackness, but she pushed onwards.

  At the top, the hairy boy led her into a large classroom filled with old-fashioned wooden chairs and desks. On one side of the room, three arched windows looked out on the damp morning. On the opposite wall was a huge scroll showing a family tree, which looked far too old and valuable to be hanging up in a classroom.

  All around them, pupils were taking off their coats, scarves and hats. But instead of looking more normal without their extra layers, they looked even weirder. The boy she’d followed didn’t just have hair on his face. It was all over his neck and arms, and possibly underneath his shirt too. He looked more as if he belonged in a kennel than a classroom. She saw a girl from the bus who had a pea-sized wart right on the end of her hooked nose. Her straggly hair was dyed purple, and she was putting on a large pointed hat to go with her ragged black dress. Maud wondered why she was wearing a witch costume on a Monday morning in September. Could she be going to an early Halloween party? At school?

  The girl with the gigantic sunglasses took them off and glared at Maud. Maud looked away. Those weren’t the kind of eyes you wanted to stare back at. They were bright red.

  Next to Maud, a boy took off his baseball cap to reveal a novelty headband. There was a pair of small fake horns sticking out of it – except they didn’t look very fake at all.

  Maud wondered if she’d been wrong about the pupils. Maybe they weren’t wearing extra layers for warmth. Maybe they were wearing them for ... disguise?

  It was better not to think about it. Maud wanted to make a good impression on her new classmates. She didn’t want to stand around gawping at them, however odd they were.

  Maud found a spare locker at the back of the classroom to put her bag in. Then she scooped Quentin out of her blazer pocket and put him inside, too. “Don’t worry, you’ll be safe in here,” she whispered to the trembling rat. She found an empty chair and tried to pull it out.

  “Er, hello? This seat is taken!”

  Maud looked around to see where the voice had come from, but there was no one there.

  “Sorry,” she said, and moved to the next desk, beside the hairy boy.

  “No one ever notices me,” grumbled the voice. “I’m sick of it.”

  Maud was still trying to work out who was speaking when the teacher strode into the classroom. He was unlike any teacher Maud had ever seen. He was wearing a long black cape with blood-red lining, and his hair was slicked back perfectly. Maud couldn’t wait to tell her mum about him. Maybe he should try out for the role of Count Dracula in her musical. It would certainly save a bomb on costumes.

  Maud giggled, and the teacher glared at her.

  “A classroom is not a place for laughter,” he said. “Perhaps you’d like to tell us all what you find so amusing?”

  “Nothing,” said Maud. “I was just thinking how much you look like Dracula.”

  The teacher’s glare turned into a scowl, and the entire room fell silent. Maud wondered if she’d said the wrong thing.

  “Do not mention the name of that ridiculous show-off in this classroom,” he said. “You’re here to learn, not to talk about silly attention-seekers who give the rest of us a bad name.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I certainly hope you are. My name is Mr Von Bat. I take it you’re the new pupil?”

  “Yes, Sir. I’m Maud Montague.”

  There were titters from the other pupils, as if that was funny.

  “Maud Montague. How odd. Well, Maud, you’re lucky we had a spare place at Rotwood. What happened to Bertie was unfortunate.”

  Maud was about to ask the hairy boy what this meant, but he shook his head.

  “You don’t want to know,” he whispered.

  Mr Von Bat opened his desk drawer and brought out a folder, a feather quill and an inkpot. He dipped the quill. “Let’s see who’s here. Poisonous Penelope?”

  “Here,” said the girl with the pointed hat.

  “Invisible Isabel?”

  And they thought Maud’s name was funny!

  “Here,” came a voice from the empty chair next to Maud.

  “Wilf?” continued the teacher.

  The hairy boy let out a howl that made the rest of the class giggle.

  “Save it for the full moon,” said Mr Von Bat. “You don’t have long to wait.” He looked back at the page. “Vladimir Paprika Wellington Counterweight Von Bat?”

  There was no reply. Mr Von Bat sighed, looking at an empty chair by the window. “That boy’s always—”

  Something smacked right into the glass of the window outside and slid down the pane. Maud couldn’t be sure, but it looked suspiciously like a bat.

  Wilf leapt up and opened the window. A huge puff of smoke billowed into the room and a small, pale boy fell out of it and collapsed on the floor.

  He stood up and dusted himself down. Like Mr Von Bat, he was wearing a black cape with red lining.

  “Sorry, Dad,” he said.

  Mr Von Bat frowned.

  “I mean ... Sir.” The boy’s hair flopped down over his forehead, and he tried to smooth it back.

  “Sit down at once, Vladimir,” said Mr Von Bat. “And next time you feel like shape-shifting in front of everyone, at least try to land a little more gracefully.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Maud looked at Vladimir with astonishment. A minute ago he’d been a bat. Now he was a boy. A rather small and timid boy, perhaps, but a boy nonetheless.

  It was impossible. But she’d seen it happen.

  Maud looked around the room as the truth sank in. Wilf didn’t just have unruly facial hair. Isabel wasn’t just throwing her voice. And Penelope wasn’t just wearing a witch costume.

  A werewolf, an invisible girl and a witch ... Rotwood wasn’t a school for pup
ils who behaved like monsters. It was a school for pupils who were monsters!

  No wonder Mrs Fennel had smiled when she’d said Maud would fit in! She must have known all about this place.

  Maud looked around at the pupils. She had thought the boy at the back of the room was just very skinny. But, on closer inspection, it turned out he was a skeleton. She’d thought the boy next to him just had very bad skin. But looking again, she saw that he was a zombie with rotting grey flesh.

  In front of the skeleton and zombie was a boy who looked like he was in costume for a Shakespeare play, complete with ruff, doublet and hose. Well, at least there was one normal kid – even if he was dressed a little strangely.

  “Achoo!” the boy sneezed, and his head dropped off his shoulders and rolled along the floor.

  “Sorry,” said his disembodied head, as his body stooped to pick it up.

  Maud gasped, but nobody else seemed to think anything was out of the ordinary, so she tried to hide her surprise.

  As the young vampire Vladimir fumbled into his seat, Mr Von Bat said, “I’m making a note of your lateness. That’s the fifth time in two weeks.”

  Maud thought Mr Von Bat was being very stern with his own son. Maybe he just didn’t want to look like he was treating him differently.

  “If it happens again,” said Mr Von Bat. “I shall be sending you to see the Head.”

  There was an intake of breath at the mention of the Head. Maud thought the Head must be very frightening indeed to scare this lot.

  “If you get sent to the Head, you’re in real trouble,” whispered Wilf. “And you have to be careful, because the Head’s always watching.” He shuddered and looked over his shoulder.