Scary School

by Derek the Ghost

  A goblin stagehand turned on a gigantic electric fan, and a huge gust of wind hit the straw house of goblins. They all fell over on top of one another and crushed the poor pig goblin inside. The goblins were moaning and groaning and seemed to be in a great deal of pain.

  The kids in the audience looked around for some acknowledgment that it was part of the show, but everyone seemed equally confused.

  “Ha-ha-ha!” laughed the narrator. “The wolf feasted on the stupid pig that built his house of straw.”

  The wolf goblin started doing a dance of joy, apparently to distract the audience from looking at the injured goblins being pulled off the stage. It wasn’t working.

  “Next, the wolf went to the house that was made of twigs. The pig refused to let him in, so the wolf huffed and puffed and blew that pig’s house down!”

  The gigantic fan was turned up even higher this time, and all the goblins that formed the twig house went flying across Petrified Pavilion like they had been shot out of cannons. They hit the back wall and slid down to the floor. They moaned and groaned in their high-pitched, gravelly voices, “That hurt!” “Not good!” “Ouchie-wouchies!”

  The kids in the audience were even more horrified. Many started crying and wanted to leave, but remained seated for the sheer morbid curiosity of what would happen next.

  “Ha-ha-ha!” laughed the narrator once again. “The wolf enjoyed his second course of stupid pig even more than the first one.”

  The wolf goblin finished another silly dance while the injured goblins were quickly carried out of sight, and then he approached the house of brick.

  The narrator spoke softly to build the tension: “Finally, the wolf came to the smart pig’s house made out of bricks. No matter how hard he huffed and puffed, he couldn’t blow the house down. So . . . the wolf called his brothers, who were in the demolition business. They brought in a crane and a wrecking ball and aimed it at the brick house.”

  Suddenly, a giant wrecking ball dropped from the ceiling of Petrified Pavilion. The stagehand goblins gave the wrecking ball a big push, and it began swinging across the stage.

  “Look out!” the children in the audience shouted, but the brick-house goblins held their position and were hit by the enormous wrecking ball. They went flying all over the place. Some goblins weren’t hit at first and remained onstage, exhaling a big sigh of relief, but then the wrecking ball swung back toward them and they got clunked and went flying in the other direction, screaming, “Aaaaaaaagh!”

  The narrator finished the story by saying, “And so all the pigs were eaten by the wolf, as is the correct nature of the food chain. Even the smartest pig on Earth is no match for a hungry wolf who has connections in the demolition business. The En—”

  The narrator goblin’s final word was cut off because he too was clonked by the wrecking ball, still swinging wildly out of control. He went soaring like a discus across the pavilion. Finally, the wrecking ball smashed through the side wall of Petrified Pavilion and went rolling across the school yard, flattening the slide, the monkey bars, and the merry-go-round.

  The kids’ mouths hung open, and almost everyone was crying.

  At that point, all the goblins rushed back onto the stage and started bowing and celebrating. They clearly thought they had put on a wonderful performance.

  No one was clapping for them, but that didn’t stop the goblins from cheering for themselves. It was very creepy.

  Eventually the curtain fell so no one could see the goblins anymore, and then everyone finally started clapping.

  Principal Headcrusher took the stage and said, “Okay . . . that was . . . interesting, right?”

  All the kids booed.

  “Fine, it was awful, so let’s forget about it and get to the costume contest. The finalists for the two best costumes are . . . Fred Kroger and Charles Nukid!”

  Everyone rolled their eyes because Fred and Charles were the only two kids wearing costumes.

  Dr. Dragonbreath flew onto the stage and said, “Since the prize is a ride with me, I get to decide the winner. I say the winner is Fred.”

  All the kids cheered. Fred was back to being the school hero once again.

  “What?” exclaimed Charles Nukid. “My outfit is much more scary and creative! Fred is just wearing a Viking helmet and holding a stick that’s supposed to be some kind of spear. That’s not even close to what dragon hunters wear. I’m Rule Number Five!”

  “Listen,” said Dr. Dragonbreath, “to be honest, your incessant rule following is very annoying. I’d rather not spend another second with you than I have to.”

  “But . . . but . . .”

  Charles’s words were too little too late. Now that he was no longer the school hero from his lunchtime success, everyone forgot Charles Nukid’s name and he went back to being called “new kid,” which was fine with him because he thought everyone was still calling him by his last name.

  Principal Headcrusher raised her hands to her mouth and announced, “To conclude this very special Halloween, the Ghoul Games chairman, Franz Dietrich Wolfbark, would like to offer you a very special Halloween greeting.”

  A screen lowered from the ceiling, and the giant head of Mr. Wolfbark appeared on it. Makeup artists powdering his face quickly dashed out of the frame.

  “Greetings, children of Scary School.” Wolfbark spoke in a deep, ominous tone. “I have just been informed that your principal has allowed a gaggle of goblins to perform a Halloween play for you. Performing their awful shows is what makes goblins most happy. Unfortunately for you, goblins are considered the cockroaches of the monster world, and goblins being happy makes us monsters very unhappy. I’m afraid I have no choice but to inform the monster community of this transgression, and now it is certain that none of you stand a chance of surviving the Ghoul Games.”

  There were some groans, but most of the kids had already given up hope, and they rolled their eyes at yet another reason why the Ghoul Games would be their untimely end.

  Wolfbark concluded by proclaiming, “Have a happy Halloween, and I hope none of you eat any poison candy, because I wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity of watching any of you being eaten alive at the Ghoul Games this spring. Turn off the camera!”

  Principal Headcrusher loosened her collar and muttered, “Oh yeah, I forgot about that whole goblin thing. Sorry, kids.”

  About two hundred kids slapped their hands on their foreheads at the same time.

  After the costume contest, the rest of Ms. Fang’s class went back to the classroom to finish the hockey game. They even convinced Ms. Fang to join in, and she was having a wonderful time.

  The only snag in the day came when Ms. Fang tripped over Penny Possum and her hockey stick plunged straight into the chest of Benny Porter, the kid vampire.

  “Oopsy!” Ms. Fang said.

  Benny Porter shriveled up and died right there on the floor with a hockey stake through his heart.

  “I’m so sorry, Benny.”

  He was the first kid Ms. Fang had killed all year. Ironically, it was on the one day when everyone was the safest and no kid was supposed to die, but accidents do happen. Benny learned a very important life lesson about not playing hockey indoors, unless, of course, you happen to be playing indoor hockey.

  Ms. Fang sounded an alarm, and once again Nurse Hairymoles appeared in the room in a puff of smoke.

  “Oh great,” said Nurse Hairymoles. “Now I’m going to have to spend my Halloween night turning this kid into a zombie. And I had so many poison apples I planned on handing out.”

  After school, Fred rode on Dr. Dragonbreath’s back as he did his patrol over Goblin Hill. When they got to the top, they saw the goblin actors from the show attacking Mr. Turtlesnaps.

  They were hacking at his shell with tiny axes, yelling, “Turtle soup! Turtle soup! Turtle soup!”

  Dr. Dragonbreath swooped down and blew a stream of fire that covered the whole hill. The goblins burst into flames and ran down the hill screaming, then jumped
into Gremlin River to put themselves out.

  Mr. Turtlesnaps poked his head out and waved “thanks” to them.

  “Wow!” said Fred. “This is the best dream ever!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mrs. T Tricks a Dodo

  Mrs. T is the Scary School detention monitor and also the school librarian.

  She was born in a laboratory on a faraway island where scientists were growing dinosaurs for an insane billionaire who wanted them roaming around his backyard to impress his insane billionaire friends.

  Mrs. T didn’t have a brain the size of a peanut like most other T. rexes. Due to a DNA mix-up, she had an enormous brain that made her smarter than any human alive.

  Because she was so smart, the last thing she wanted to be was some insane billionaire’s pet, so she hatched a dastardly plan that ended in all the backyard dinosaurs rampaging the billionaire’s mansion, eating the billionaire, and stealing his private jet. The billionaire learned a very important life lesson about not keeping man-eating dinosaurs as pets.

  Mrs. T used the billionaire’s jet to travel all over the world and learn new things everywhere she went. After twenty years of traveling, she could speak every language on Earth.

  Mrs. T wore the same blue dress and blue hat every day because in all her travels around the world, it was the only outfit she had ever found that was her size.

  Mrs. T loved to read and learn new things more than anything else. The problem was that her tiny arms were so short, she couldn’t hold a book far enough away for her eyes to see it. So, she had to rely on others to read to her, which people usually did when she asked, because who’s going to say no to a T. rex in a blue dress?

  As she entered her twilight years, she decided to settle down and enjoy the quiet life working at Scary School. She took good care of the library. It was always nice and quiet, mainly because if anyone was loud, she just walked over and ate them, and that was the end of the disturbance.

  While working at Scary School, she also met the love of her life, Mr. Spider-Eyes, and they got married. She liked him because his hundreds of eyes made it impossible for him to read a book, so he never tried to impress her with his intelligence, because he didn’t have much of it.

  They are a very good team. As the hall monitor, Mr. Spider-Eyes sends Mrs. T all the rule breakers he can find. When a rule breaker goes to detention, Mrs. T makes them read to her until lunchtime.

  To give the kids a chance, detention never lasts past lunch, but if a kid accidentally stays too long, he is plain out of luck and Mrs. T has a very easy lunch for herself. Normally, at noon sharp, Mrs. T lets out a loud roar because she is so hungry, and then she stomps into Scary Forest to catch her lunch and also bring something back for Sue the Amazing Octo-Chef to prepare for the students.

  One day, Sue asked Mrs. T to bring back a plump dodo bird from Scary Forest so she could add it to her special Thanksgiving-week menu. It made sense since dodoes are kind of like gigantic turkeys, only much more extinct.

  “I want to give the kids an extra-special meal this Thanksgiving,” gurgled Sue the Amazing Octo-Chef from inside her tank. “After the Ghoul Games this spring, the students may not live to see another Thanksgiving, and I hear dodoes are the most delicious, must succulent birds there ever were.”

  “I hate to break this to you, Sue,” said Mrs. T, “but dodoes went extinct over three hundred years ago.”

  “Well, I hate to break this to you,” Sue replied, “but dinosaurs went extinct over sixty-five million years ago, and yet here you are standing in front of me.”

  “Good point,” said Mrs. T. “I’ll see what I can find.”

  And so at noon, Mrs. T let out her mighty roar and went galumphing into Scary Forest. Scary Forest has a way of helping visitors find what they need. The only problem is that once you find it, things can become very tricky. Scary Forest doesn’t like to let go of its inhabitants.

  As soon as Mrs. T entered Scary Forest, the trees lifted themselves from the ground and scampered in all directions as if their roots were tiny feet. The trees began whispering to one another in the Language of the Wind, which Mrs. T spoke very well.

  Mrs. T whispered to the trees that she was looking for a dodo. The trees whispered to one another then lined up in two rows, forming a pathway for Mrs. T.

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. T, which sounded like a whoosh and a rustle in the Language of the Wind.

  Mrs. T followed the path until she came to a clearing. There was a big sign that said:

  Welcome to Dodo Country—

  IQs under 200 need not enter.

  Mrs. T could hardly believe her eyes. There were hundreds of dodoes walking around. Each of them was between three and four feet tall and wearing professors’ gowns and glasses. They held books between the feathers of their wings. Some of them were in groups discussing and debating the books they were holding.

  Wow, thought Mrs. T. These are some smart dodoes.

  Mrs. T walked out of the shadows into the clearing, looking for the plumpest dodo she could find.

  The dodoes gasped when they saw the giant T. rex wearing a blue dress, but they didn’t run. Instead they shouted, “It’s her! It’s her!” And they all ran up to her and knelt at her feet.

  A dodo wearing thick glasses proclaimed, “We are very excited to see you. My name is Plato. Just as the prophecy foretold, the Great Ancestor has returned!”

  “Great Ancestor? What are you talking about?” Mrs. T asked.

  “Follow us!” said Plato the dodo.

  Mrs. T followed the dodoes into a big building with a sign that said DODO HISTORY MUSEUM.

  Painted on the inside wall was a gigantic diagram of the dodo family tree. It traced dodo lineage all the way back to the beginning, and at the very top was a picture of . . . Mrs. T?

  “Hey, what’s that picture of me doing on the wall?” Mrs. T inquired.

  “You see,” said Plato, “over sixty-five million years ago, you were the first dinosaur born with a giant brain. You invented writing and reading! All of your offspring were born with giant brains as well, and then over millions of years, your dinosaur descendants evolved into us dodoes, the smartest creatures on Earth. We lived happily on the paradise island of Mauritius just east of Madagascar for thousands of years, until humans discovered us. The humans realized that aside from being smart, we were even more delicious. It’s not our fault we’re so succulent! The humans hunted us to near extinction, so we left Mauritius and settled in Scary Forest, where no one could ever find us again. Here, we are free to read and write and philosophize to our heart’s content.”

  “Wow, this place sounds like heaven,” said Mrs. T. “But I thought the scientists who found my DNA and brought me back to life gave me my big brain.”

  “That’s just what they thought happened because they couldn’t explain it. The truth is, you were already smart and lived an incredible life. It’s too bad you don’t keep any of your memories when they regrow you from your DNA, or you’d remember all the amazing things you did. Luckily, you wrote it all down in your autobiography and even foretold that you would return to teach us all a very important lesson. We’ve been waiting millions of years for your return and are very eager to learn our lesson.”

  “Hmm. I have no clue what that lesson could possibly be,” said Mrs. T. “You seem to know even more than I do about the world.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying all my life!” said Plato. “We don’t need any lesson from some ancient dinosaur. We already know everything!”

  “That settles that then,” said Mrs. T, “but I still need to take one of you back with me for the school’s lunch.”

  “No! You can’t!” exclaimed Plato. “If humans find out we still exist, they’ll start hunting us again and we really will go extinct!”

  “Not if scientists find your DNA and bring you back, like they did with me.”

  “But . . . but . . . we’re family! You wouldn’t eat your own family, would you?”

/>   “It’s not me who would eat you; the kids would eat you. And family is a very loose term. If you go back far enough, everyone is family.”

  “I can’t argue with that logic,” said Plato. “If you have to take one of us, take Elbert—he’s only written three literary masterpieces and solved two dilemmas of particle physics. He’s a real slacker.”

  “Hey!” clucked Elbert.

  Mrs. T didn’t like Plato’s attitude so she took him in her jaws, galumphed out of the forest, and brought him to Sue the Amazing Octo-Chef to cook for lunch.

  As it turned out, Plato did learn his lesson, only it was too late.

  Sue brought Plato out on a big plate, and when the students tasted the roast dodo, they immediately spat it out in disgust.

  “Blech! That’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted!” said Ramon. “It tastes like a sweaty sock wrapped in snail goo.” His opinion was seconded, thirded, and fourthed by each student who tried it.

  “How strange,” said Sue. “Legend says they went extinct because they were so delicious.”

  “I have a new theory on that,” said Mrs. T. “I’m fairly certain they were hunted to extinction because they were such insufferable know-it-alls.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Three Rs

  At your school, “the three Rs” probably stands for Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic, but at Scary School, “the three Rs” stands for Rachael, Raychel, and FRank (which is pronounced “Rachel”).

  While we’re on the subject, why in the world do they call reading, writing, and arithmetic “the three Rs?” I would understand if each word actually started with the letter R, but each word just happens to have an R in it. Isn’t that ridiculous? You might as well just call it “the three Is” for readIng, wrIting, and arIthmetic, right?

  Also, why isn’t it reading, writing, and arithmeticking . . . or mathing? Why can you read, but you can’t math? When you think about it, this is a very bizarre language we speak, and the stupid people who speak it make it even worse by coming up with things like “the three Rs” that confuse things even further. When you’re a ghost, you have a lot of time to think about this stuff, and it drives you crazy.