The Day Our Teacher Went Mad and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls

by Christopher Milne

  The Day Our Teacher Went Mad

  and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls

  published in 2010 by

  Hardie Grant Egmont

  Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street,

  Richmond Victoria 3121, Australia

  www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au

  EISBN 978 1 742733 85 2

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior permission of the publishers and copyright owner.

  A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.

  Text copyright © 2010 Christopher Milne

  Illustration and design copyright © 2010 Hardie Grant Egmont

  Illustration and design by Simon Swingler

  Typesetting by Ektavo

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  The Day Our Teacher Went Mad

  A Street Kid Named Bazza

  The Girls Who Loved the Dark

  Clumsy Clive

  The Girls Who Ruled the World

  The Boy Who Flew to the Stars

  The Sleepover of the Century

  About the Author

  You know how at every school there’s always one class that seems to have heaps of bad kids? All lumped together?

  That was my class, 5B.

  The B stood for BAD.

  Some of us were shockers. ‘Evil,’ my mother said. ‘Especially that Justin Payne. He’s never to come to our house again, do you hear? Your little brother’s never been the same. Fancy telling him that spiders taste like lollies! And making him believe his ears were so big he could fly. What if he’d jumped off the high part of the roof?’

  Why so many naughty kids were all together, I don’t know. It just seemed to happen. The badder one kid became, the badder we all became. It was as if we took turns outdoing each other.

  Another reason, I guess, was the club. The Bad Club.

  Justin Payne started it. To get into the Bad Club was hard. Really hard. Which for some reason made it seem better. Being a member of the Bad Club became the most important thing in the world.

  ‘Peer-group pressure,’ my dad called it. Although sometimes I think my dad wouldn’t know his bum from his bald spot.

  As I say, joining the Bad Club wasn’t easy. Do you know what we had to do to get in? Initiations. Tests.

  First, we had to chew a live slug, and then we had to drink out of a drain — although we got to choose the drain. Then we had to piggy-back Big Butt Barton twice around the footy ground. Finally, we had to take off all our clothes, balance on one foot and hop past our teacher’s house making chook noises.

  I suppose I should have mentioned our poor teacher, Mr Glover, because he was part of the reason we were so naughty. He let us get away with things. Everything, in fact. He could have kicked us out of class any time he wanted, or out of school for that matter. But he always said we were his problem and he would deal with us.

  ‘My responsibility,’ he would say.

  So really, although we sometimes felt sorry for him, we knew we could never get into trouble. As long as our parents didn’t know, who cared? Sure, we’d get punished at school, like writing lines and stuff, but who bothered to do them? Not me.

  So our whole class used to muck around like no class has before. Always calling out, never doing our work, forever playing tricks and teasing each other.

  Until one day, Justin Payne had an even better idea — to make mucking around in class a test for the Bad Club. The biggest test of all. If you could make Mr Glover angry — and remember, Mr Glover was used to putting up with a fair bit — you were in. But, whatever you did, it had to be worse than the last kid.

  Bruno Carboni was the first. He’d been dying to get into the Bad Club but he couldn’t come at drinking from a drain. Especially after Phillip Prosser said the water he drank seemed to have lumps in it.

  ‘Why didn’t you spit the lumps out?’ asked Bruno.

  ‘I couldn’t,’ said Phillip. ‘They were all in one bit.’

  So, when Mr Glover turned to face the blackboard, Bruno quietly put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a jar containing the biggest, blackest, hairiest spider I have ever seen. Then, ever so softly, he tipped it onto Rachel Hunter’s head.

  Well, do you think that caused a stir? When Rachel felt it crawl onto her forehead she almost had a heart attack. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone scream so loudly.

  Trouble was, in flicking the spider away, Rachel accidentally hit Teresa Walters right in the ear. And when the spider landed on the floor and crawled up Kate Smith’s leg, the whole room went crazy.

  I don’t have to tell you that Mr Glover wasn’t a happy man. Not at all.

  ‘You idiot!’ he screamed at Bruno. ‘Not only have you frightened the daylights out of half the class, the whole thing could have terrible long-term effects. Some of those poor boys and girls might have nightmares for weeks. Some might be frightened of spiders for the rest of their lives. The rest of their lives! How does that make you feel?’

  ‘Who, me?’ said Bruno. ‘I feel great!’

  And sure enough, Bruno was let into the Bad Club. Straight away.

  So the other kids started doing even worse things, until one day, we thought poor Mr Glover might go mad.

  And he did.

  Daniel Clayton was trying to get into the Bad Club by throwing his lunch around the room. Suddenly, Mr Glover raced over to the rubbish bin, tipped the lot on the floor and shouted, ‘Go for it, gang! I just love a good mess!’

  None of us could believe it. We just sat there in shock. But that wasn’t all. Mr Glover ran over to his desk, pulled out a snake

  from his drawer and threw it on the floor!

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen kids move so quickly. The panic it caused made Bruno’s spider thing seem like a school picnic.

  It was a pretend snake, of course, but we weren’t to know that. It certainly looked real.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I yelled. ‘Mr Glover’s lost it! The poor guy’s lost the plot!’

  But I didn’t have time to wonder for much longer, because Mr Glover started firing lumps of cow poo at us with a massive sling-shot. SPLAT, right on my forehead! It was still warm, too.

  And so it went, one thing after another — until suddenly, he stopped. As if nothing had happened, Mr Glover quietly cleaned up the mess, packed his bag and left the room.

  Well, I thought, I have seen it all.

  Whether Mr Glover really went mad, we’ll never know. But one thing is certain. Our class went from being the worst-behaved to the best. Not because we were scared of Mr Glover. It was just that he’d beaten us at our own game.

  He’d been so crazy that day that every naughty idea we had from then on somehow seemed weak. Wussy. The fun of being naughty is shocking people. And how could we shock Mr Glover now?

  So we’re still 5B, but the rest of the school calls us something else now. B for boring.

  Kids can be so cruel.

  My oldies have always cared about people who aren’t as lucky as themselves. Battlers who’ve got no money, old fogies who are lonely, kids living on the streets.

  And instead of just thinking about them, my oldies do stuff. Like having some poor street kid home for the weekend. And telling him he’s welcome to come back any time.

  Any time? What about me?!

  The street kid idea came from a program wh
ere boys and girls who’ve been kicked out of home, or who’ve left and feel they can’t go back, come to stay with a normal family.

  Normal? My younger sister’s an idiot. My mum’s so fussy she wants to keep our new lounge chairs clean by leaving them in their plastic wrapping. My dad thinks he’s funny but he’s not. My brother collects insects, hits them with a hammer, and then watches to see if they die or not. And my older sister’s into star signs and tarot cards, so she reckons she can predict the future. I can tell you her future right now. Total loser.

  So it was to this ‘normal’ family that poor Barry ‘Bazza’ Marshall was introduced one cold Saturday morning. And I’ve got to say, he sent a shiver up my spine. He looked tough, acted tough and, I’m quite certain, was tough.

  ‘So, what’s the go?’ asked Bazza. ‘What’s the action?’

  ‘Well,’ said my mum, ‘we want to welcome you into our family, so I thought —’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I know all that rubbish,’ said Bazza. ‘What’s first? Are you lot off to the pub or the footy for a couple of cans?’

  ‘On a Saturday morning, I hardly think so,’ said my father. ‘Now, why don’t you have a kick of the football with young Nick here?’

  ‘Kick his butt, more likely,’ replied Bazza.

  Mum had warned me that Bazza might be a bit aggro. Apparently his father used to hit poor Bazza. All the time.

  ‘So he’ll be like a puppy that was beaten,’ said Mum. ‘He won’t trust anyone and he’ll probably snap if you go near him. If he has a go at you, try not to take any notice.’

  How could you not notice that you’re about to die?

  Somehow, we managed to make it through the morning. But then to my horror, Mum suggested we go and play in my room. Play what? Rip my head off and see if it hurts?

  ‘This is all a load of bull,’ said Bazza, slumped back on my bed. ‘I’d do a runner from here, nick off, except they’d throw me back in the slammer.’

  Bazza explained that the slammer was a place where kids who’d been in heaps of trouble were locked up and looked after at the same time. I can’t see how that would work too well.

  ‘All right, so what do you want to do?’ asked Bazza.

  ‘Not sure,’ I said, shaking.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Bazza. ‘I’m not going to hit you. Not unless you annoy me.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks,’ I replied. ‘Do you feel like playing PlayStation?’

  ‘Rather stick pins in my eyes,’ said Bazza. ‘Got any money?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Still got forty bucks from my birthday.’ Then I thought, Why did I say that?

  ‘Give it to me,’ said Bazza.

  ‘What if I say no?’ I replied.

  ‘You don’t want to know. Anyway, I’ll give it back to you. One day,’ said Bazza. ‘I’m no rip-off artist.’

  So I did.

  The day dragged on, with Bazza bored stupid and me scared witless. At last, it was night. But that brought with it new fears.

  ‘I thought Barry could sleep on a mattress in your room, Nick,’ said Mum.

  This is it, I thought. I was meant to die young.

  But as I lay there, waiting to be bashed as soon as I fell asleep, I thought I heard a crying noise.

  It was Bazza!

  How could a tough guy like Bazza be crying?

  ‘You OK?’ I whispered.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ he sobbed.

  There was no way I was going to ask again, but then it seemed Bazza wanted to talk.

  ‘It’s all right for you!’ he said. ‘You’ve got oldies who love you. And a house.’

  ‘But Mum and Dad said you’re welcome here any time,’ I replied.

  ‘Oh yeah, that’d be right,’ said Bazza. ‘I’m a stinking street kid remember? No-one ever means it. Just makes them feel good.’

  ‘What if I wanted you to come back?’ I said.

  Bazza didn’t reply. He tried to muffle it into the sheets, but I could tell he was crying again. I felt so sorry for Bazza.

  ‘Why do some kids have such terrible luck?’ I asked my dad quietly the next morning.

  ‘Mainly because of our greed,’ he said. ‘There’s enough money and food and love and support to look after every one of us, if we wanted it that way, but we prefer to be selfish. And then we complain about violence and rising crime. It’s a joke!’

  I didn’t get the joke but I thought I might leave it at that.

  And so Bazza left that afternoon, with us all saying he must come back sometime. But I could tell in his eyes he didn’t believe we meant it.

  As Bazza walked off slowly with his head down, carrying his little bag of clothes, I felt sick. Sick and angry and guilty. But what could I do? Nothing right now, I supposed.

  Later, I decided, when I got older, I was going to help kids like Bazza.

  Or is that what we all say? ‘Later.’

  About two weeks had passed when I suddenly saw Bazza hanging around the train station with some really tough-looking guys.

  He pretended not to see me. But strangely, although I was scared to the back teeth, I found myself walking over and saying, ‘Hi Bazza, how’s it going?’

  ‘How’s what going?’ sneered Bazza.

  ‘This guy bugging you?’ asked one of his mates. ‘I’ll punch his face in.’

  ‘Nah, nah, cool it,’ said Bazza. ‘Just a loser I ripped a few bucks off one time.’

  ‘You said it was a lend,’ I said. ‘Like friends.’

  ‘Friends?’ they all shouted, laughing. ‘A lend? Ha ha ha.’ And off they went.

  It was another three years before I saw or heard of Bazza again.

  I received a letter. With thirty-eight dollars inside. This is what it said:

  Nick,

  Just got out of the slammer. Again. It’s taken a while for me to realise, but it took a lot of guts for you to come over that day at the train station. Sorry I had to act like such an idiot. You know how it is.

  I’ve learnt to read and write in the last few years and I’ve learnt something else, too. There are some good people in this world. Like you. You’ll never see me again, Nick. We’re too different. But I’ll never forget.

  Bazza.

  P.S. Spend it wisely (it’s all I had).

  There was absolutely nothing Allison Lang and her sister Kerry liked better than playing in the dark. Late at night when they should have been asleep, early in the morning before Mum and Dad woke up — any time they could get away with it.

  Playing in the dark could mean lots of things. Sometimes they would start by making secret cubby houses out of blankets and chairs. They always promised to clean up so the room was spotless — but they never did, of course.

  Other times, they’d just sit in the dark and imagine stuff. Or maybe tell each other fantastic stories. If that got boring, they’d have pillow fights and belt the daylights out of each other. One night, a pillow exploded and ten million feathers went everywhere. If both girls hadn’t been so sure that feathers would give them a rash, they’d have helped clean up. It took their parents the whole weekend.

  The dark excited Allison and Kerry. It took them to another world, where adventures were there for the taking. Trouble was, one adventure turned out to be real. And dangerous.

  One night, their mum and dad said they were going next door for a drink. Since Alison and Kerry were growing up, their mum had said, they could be trusted to stay home by themselves for the first time ever.

  If the girls were worried about anything, anything at all, they should immediately ring or run next door. Did they think they could do that?

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Allison and Kerry. ‘Cool.’

  The moment their parents were gone, the girls ripped into the chocolate biscuits Mum always kept for guests, polished off the lemonade in the fridge, and had a good sticky-beak in their mum and dad’s drawers for grown-up things. Then they pinched some money from their dad’s loose change bowl — not too much — and turned out the lights.

>   But Allison and Kerry had only been playing for a short time when they heard a strange noise.

  ‘Not funny,’ said Kerry, thinking it was Allison trying to scare her.

  ‘I thought it was you!’ replied Allison.

  Then another noise. Like footsteps. Then the sound of someone trying to open a window.

  ‘Oh no,’ whispered Allison. ‘Not a burglar!’

  By now, Kerry was too frightened to speak. Coming from the lounge room, there was the unmistakeable shine of a torch.

  Allison, who had always been the toughest, hissed, ‘Don’t move!’ There was no way Kerry was going anywhere.

  The footsteps moved into their mum and dad’s bedroom. Then came the sound of the drawers opening.

  Lucky we’ve already pinched the gold coins, thought Allison. As for Mum’s jewellery, I hope he takes it. Especially those earrings that look like a car accident.

  ‘We’ve got two choices,’ whispered Allison. ‘We can just hope he, or maybe she, doesn’t come in here — and I reckon he will when he sees Mum’s crappy jewellery — or we can do something about it.’

  ‘Do something? You’ve got to be joking!’ replied Kerry.

  ‘Listen to me,’ said Allison. ‘You know how we play in the dark all the time? Well, that’s where we’ve got him. It’s as if we can see and he can’t. If we can somehow break his torch…’

  But Allison had to stop there because the footsteps were coming towards them. The torch shone in, and from behind their beds, the girls could make out the shape of a huge man!

  Then, BANG!

  Suddenly, the torch was lying on the floor in a thousand bits. In two quick seconds, Allison had used her softball bat to make the room as black as the ace of spades.

  The burglar jumped back in surprise, but Allison followed him and went WHACK

  again, right on his big toe.

  As he yelped in pain, Allison turned on her hot hair-straightener. Then, as the burglar hopped around on one foot, trying to find the light switch, guess what he found instead?