Class Six and the Eel of Fortune Read online

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Bonus Bits!

  Chapter One

  One Monday morning, a boy who looked like a bald gerbil charged into the school playground.

  ‘School!’ he bellowed, punching the air. ‘A whole new week! Fantastic!’

  Two Class Three mums exchanged looks.

  ‘He must come from ever such a bad home,’ one said.

  ‘Oh no, Class Six are all like that,’ said her friend. ‘Look at those girls.’

  The girls had their heads busily together and were saying things like I’m going to have my magic carpet pink, to match my bedroom. Or well, you’re not catching me kissing a frog, and that’s final. Or I’m going to ask to help with the unicorns at the school fair.

  Two more Class Six boys wandered into the playground, one carrying a huge pork pie, the other carrying a briefcase. The one with the briefcase was saying oh no, it’s impossible to get lost. Seven-League Boots all come with SatNav these days.

  ‘That’s amazing,’ said the first mum. ‘Miss Broom must be such a good teacher. Still, all the teachers are good here, aren’t they? I mean, I’ve never heard of Mr Wolfe or Mr Bloodsworth having any trouble with their classes, either.’

  * * *

  Miss Broom called Class Six’s register, which was a waste of time because no one was ever absent.

  ‘What are we going to learn today, Miss Broom?’ asked Winsome, who was very studious and hard-working.

  ‘Can we do some cooking for the school fair?’ asked Slacker Punchkin.

  Miss Broom hesitated, and Class Six suddenly noticed that her hair wasn’t as bouncy as usual. Neither were her earrings or her smile. Not only that, but her eyes were somehow reflecting the sad sound of lost kittens.

  ‘Are you all right, Miss Broom?’ asked Anil, keen as always to get down to business.

  The only answer was a sloshing washing-machine noise from the second row. But that was just Slacker eating his pie.

  ‘I’m afraid something terrible has happened,’ said Miss Broom.

  A large purple moth floated down from the rafters and wiped Miss Broom’s eyes tenderly with its wings.

  Slacker Punchkin went pale.

  ‘Nothing’s gone wrong with the school dinners, has it?’ he asked, hoarsely.

  ‘Or Algernon?’ asked Emily, who was always worried about everything. Algernon the snake was the Class Six pet.

  ‘No, it’s not the dinners,’ said Miss Broom. ‘And dear Algernon is very well, Emily. No, it’s Mr Munsta. I’m afraid he’s completely lost his head.’

  Mr Munsta was Chairman of the School Governors.

  ‘Really?’ asked Jack, rather pleased, because Jack was himself known for doing silly things. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘Well, when he went to bed he left his head on the shelf, as usual, and somehow it must have fallen into the bin.’

  ‘Oh, poor Mr Munsta!’ said Emily.

  ‘Well, it could have been worse,’ said Miss Broom. ‘It’s turned up safe and sound at a recycling centre in China, but without his head Mr Munsta can’t use his passport, so he’s going to have to swim and walk all the way to get it.’

  ‘But that’ll take months,’ said Anil.

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Broom. ‘So he’s had to give up his job as Chairman of the School Governors.’

  Class Six considered this. It was fun watching Mr Munsta scare away school inspectors, but other than that they didn’t see him very often.

  Jack shrugged.

  ‘I suppose it’ll be a bit boring having everyone in the school with just the one nose,’ he said. ‘But...’

  ‘Will you really miss him, Miss Broom?’ asked Emily, sympathetically.

  ‘Oh, it’s not that,’ said Miss Broom. ‘No, the trouble is that now we need a new Chairman of the School Governors – and Mrs Knowall has started campaigning to get the job!’

  Class Six groaned. Mrs Knowall was a volunteer helper. She was bad-tempered and nosy and horrible, and she came to school every week to tell the children how bad they were at reading, or to shout at them because their knees were too knobbly.

  ‘I’m going to get shouted at all the time,’ sighed Jack.

  Anil always wore long trousers, but even so his eyes had gone wide with horror.

  ‘Mrs Knowall?’ he exclaimed. ‘But if she gets the job of Chairman of the School Governors, she’ll be able to come to school every day, and she’ll be able to go anywhere she likes. And she will want everything to be normal and boring. If she’s around no one will be able to do any mer-mer-mer-marble cake!’

  No one in Class Six could say the word magic because of a spell, but everyone knew what he meant.

  ‘Oh no!’ said Jack. ‘What’s the point of having a wer-wer-wer-winkle – I mean a war dance – I mean a wer-wer-wer-weasel wearing winter underpants – oh blow it! – a you-know-what as a teacher if she can’t do mar-mar-mar-marzipan?’

  No one in Class Six could say witch, either.

  Miss Broom wrung her hands.

  ‘And I was planning for us to have such fun!’ she said tearfully. ‘I was going to turn us all into seagulls so we could swoop down and frighten television presenters... and I thought it would be nice if you could all play a musical instrument...’

  ‘I’d love to be able to play the clarinet,’ said Winsome.

  ‘Or the triangle,’ said Jack, wistfully.

  ‘... but Mrs Knowall will be everywhere,’ went on Miss Broom. ‘It’ll be bad enough while she’s running her campaign: she’ll be constantly visiting the school to find out all she can about us. But once she’s installed as Chairman of the School Governors she’ll be into absolutely everything. She’ll leave no stone unturned. And you know what you can find under stones in this school.’

  Class Six knew: luminous toads; very angry potatoes; even the occasional gnome.

  Winsome took in a deep breath.

  ‘Perhaps Mrs Knowall won’t get the job,’ she said, bravely.

  ‘Oh, but she will,’ Miss Broom said, distraught. ‘She’s always telling everybody how she’s best friends with Mr Obadiah Ogersby, the District Chief Inspector of Schools. She’s bound to get the job. And I’m bound to get the sack if Mrs Knowall notices anything magical going on!’

  ‘So that really does mean...’ began Slacker Punchkin, but it was too awful to say out loud.

  Miss Broom nodded so violently that the spider holding back her hair nearly fell into her mug of coffee.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, almost in a wail. ‘It means that from now on, this is going to have to be a magic-free school!’

  * * *

  Class Six were no longer sparkling with joy and enthusiasm when they went out for break. They had all the bounce and zip of damp zombies.

  ‘No mer-mer-mer-meerkats,’ said Anil, heavily.

  Rodney blinked round at his classmates. He was so slow that he was always a couple of conversations behind the others.

  ‘But there have never been any meerkats,’ he pointed out.

  ‘I didn’t mean meerkats, Rodney,’ snapped Anil, irritated, ‘I meant mer-mer-mer-mushy peas!’

  ‘Mop heads!’ said Slacker.

  ‘Mangers!’ said Winsome.

  ‘Hairnets!’ said Jack.

  Everyone glared at him.

  ‘Hairnets doesn’t even begin with an m,’ said Serise, crushingly.

/>   Serise never had much patience with anyone, and Jack needed mountains of the stuff.

  Jack glared back.

  ‘I can’t help it if I’m extra sensitive to mer-mer-mer-merrily merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream! Oh drat!’

  Winsome, who was very responsible, spoke to Rodney slowly and calmly.

  ‘We’re upset because Miss Broom won’t be able to use her... her special powers... to make school such fun,’ she explained. ‘So no more flying.’

  Rodney breathed through his mouth for a while.

  ‘But people can’t fly,’ he pointed out.

  Winsome stayed very calm.

  ‘Not usually,’ she agreed. ‘But we’ve flown, haven’t we? You remember. In the hall.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Rodney. ‘In the hall.’

  Everyone gave a sigh of relief. Getting anything into Rodney’s head was hard work, and often impossible, but it looked as if Winsome had done it.

  ‘Yes,’ they all said. ‘In the hall.’

  Rodney gave a big fat grin.

  ‘Oh, that was just an optical illumination,’ he said.

  Anil opened his mouth to say do you think it was an optical illusion when Robin Hood came in and gave us that archery lesson? But in the end he couldn’t be bothered.

  ‘How will we survive without mer-mer-mer-matchsticks?’ Jack asked, hollowly.

  They all shook their heads.

  ‘Well, this means our trip to the moon’s off,’ said Slacker, through a bun. ‘I was really looking forward to trying green cheese, too.’

  ‘I did think the teachers were a bit quiet,’ said Winsome, thoughtfully. ‘Usually you can’t stop Mr Wolfe chasing after balls, but today he slunk past Class Four’s footie game with hardly a twitch of his ears.’

  ‘Miss Elwig’s songs were really sad this morning, too,’ said Emily. Miss Elwig was the head teacher. She went around in a wheelchair with a blanket over her lower half, spent ages looking in her mirror, and always smelled strongly of fish.

  ‘They’re always sad,’ pointed out Serise, irritably. ‘They’re all about dead sailors.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anil, ‘but she doesn’t usually sound quite so much as if Mr Bloodsworth’s just bitten her in the neck.’

  Everyone sighed.

  ‘What on earth are we going to do?’ asked Slacker, blowing crumbs all over everybody.

  But none of them had any answer to that.

  Chapter Two

  When Class Six got back to the classroom they found Miss Broom cutting up sheets of blotting paper.

  ‘We’re going to do a project about plants,’ Miss Broom told them, apologetically.

  Class Six considered this.

  ‘Is there a plant that turns old ladies into beetles?’ asked Jack.

  Miss Broom looked gloriously happy for a moment – but then she looked glum again.

  ‘Yes, there is,’ she admitted. ‘But we couldn’t possibly...’

  Anil tutted.

  ‘Why are the useful things never allowed?’ he demanded.

  ‘Because they get found out,’ said Miss Broom. ‘Still, we are going to do something quite magical.’

  ‘Really?’ said Slacker. ‘Like flying to Bouncy Beach to pick some Springy Strawberries to make some Jumping Jam for the school fair?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Miss Broom smiled a brave smile. ‘I found this old packet of seeds in the cupboard, so I thought we’d grow some runner beans.’

  So Class Six put some blotting paper in jam jars, wedged a bean between the paper and the glass, and then watered the pots. It was quite interesting, but it wasn’t magic.

  ‘Now what?’ asked Serise, when they’d arranged the jam jars on the windowsill.

  ‘Now we wait until they begin to grow,’ said Miss Broom.

  Jack squatted down and peered closely at his bean.

  ‘I don’t think my bean likes water much,’ he said. ‘Shall I try it with some orange squash?’

  ‘I’m afraid nothing is going to happen for at least a week, Jack,’ explained Miss Broom.

  ‘A week?’ echoed Slacker Punchkin. ‘But I’m hungry!’

  ‘Good grief. How long do the walker beans take?’ asked Serise.

  ‘Can’t you make it harvest time straight away?’ asked Anil.

  Miss Broom looked completely woebegone.

  ‘I could,’ she said, ‘but I just don’t dare. I can’t risk it. I’m so sorry, my dears, but the wheel of fortune has turned against us. Just think, Mrs Knowall might be in the school on her campaign trail at this very minute. She might be right outside the door – and Mrs Knowall has ears like satellite dishes and a nose like a vacuum cleaner. Every hair on her chin is as sensitive as a bat’s whisker. Her eyes are as sharp as ogres’ tusks and her fingers are so skinny they can winkle the secrets out of people’s mouths without them even noticing. The smallest sign of magic –’

  – but before she could say any more, something behind the children began to rustle.

  Class Six spun round. Most of the jam jars were still sitting on the windowsill being boring, but from one of the jars – the children’s eyes opened as wide as fried eggs – a huge shoot was growing. As they watched, a tendril as thick as Algernon’s waist curled upwards and took hold of one of the central-heating pipes.

  Several people screamed, but they were all pleased, really. Magic, this was magic! They’d thought school was going to be dull and ordinary, but here was magic, lovely magic, after all.

  Only Anil looked terrified and appalled.

  ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ he said, palely.

  The shoot was growing so fast it had already reached the ceiling. The tip nosed its way this way and that for a moment, and then it drew back a little before punching its way cleanly right through the roof.

  ‘That a mer-mer-mer I mean an enchanted bean somehow got in among the packet of ordinary ones?’ asked Jack, brushing plaster dust out of his hair.

  ‘Things did get in a muddle that time the cockroaches held their party in the magic cupboard,’ Miss Broom admitted.

  ‘Yes, but it’s worse than that,’ said Anil.

  ‘You mean Mrs Knowall might catch us being... not ordinary?’ asked Winsome.

  ‘It’s worse than that,’ said Anil.

  ‘Because we’re going to be eating beans for school dinners every day until the summer holidays?’ asked Slacker, as the bean plant burst into long streamers of scarlet flowers.

  ‘Worse than that!’ said Anil.

  Jack blinked at him.

  ‘I don’t think there is anything worse than that,’ he said. ‘Have you been in the same room as Rodney when he’s been eating beans?’

  A long boooom sounded from somewhere above them and sent all the jam jars rattling.

  ‘Thunder!’ said Emily, who was frightened of everything.

  ‘That did sound like thunder,’ agreed Winsome, ‘except... it’s funny, but there seemed to be words in it, somehow.’

  ‘Something about a fee,’ said Rodney, surprising everybody by knowing what was going on.

  ‘I knew it,’ whispered Anil, who’d gone the colour of terrified toffee.

  ‘A fee?’ echoed Miss Broom, puzzled. ‘Well, I’m sure I’ve paid my magic bill.’

  The rumbling came again. It echoed so much it was hard to hear, but again, amazingly, it was Rodney who worked out what it was saying. One reason his brains didn’t work very well was because his ears took up so much of his head space.

  ‘It’s saying    fee fie fo fum,’ Rodney said importantly.

  There was a moment’s complete silence, and then someone screamed incoming giant! and everyone started panicking. Jack began running round in circles shouting an axe! Someone get an axe! and Winsome and Anil fell over each other running for the scissors cupboard.

  Serise dived under the nearest table.

  ‘I hate to tell you this, but that’s definitely a giant’s bum,’ she said, peering up through the hole in the roof.

/>   Emily freaked.

  ‘A giant!’ she shrieked. ‘A huge giant! It’s coming, it’s coming! It’s going to eat us all up! Aaaarrrggghhhh!’

  Her scream was drowned out by more thunder.

  ‘That time it said I smell the blood of an Englishman,’ reported Rodney, happily.

  ‘What if you’re not an Englishman?’ asked Anil, desperately.

  ‘But you are,’ said Slacker.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Anil, ‘but –’

  ‘Yeah, even your parents come from Watford,’ said Jack. ‘Like your grandparents.’

  Slacker suddenly bellowed weed killer! and lunged for the door, but before he could get there a tendril as strong as a skipping rope looped itself neatly round his neck.

  Slacker clutched helplessly at the tightening vine.

  Through the hole in the roof the giant’s enormous feet and ragged socks could now be seen quite clearly through the bright green leaves of the beanstalk.

  ‘Be he alive or be he dead –’ and then, with the whole class about to be strangled or eaten, things got even worse.

  ‘What’s all this?’ demanded a scratchy voice from the doorway: and Class Six turned round to see an old lady wearing a brown suit and an expression like someone who’s trodden in something nasty.

  ‘Mrs Knowall!’ gasped Winsome.

  The whole class froze with horror.

  There was a giant coming down to munch them all up – and now Miss Broom wouldn’t be able to do any magic to stop it.

  Chapter Three

  Anil was the first to speak.

  ‘Um... were you born in England, Mrs Knowall?’ he asked, politely. ‘Because if you were then perhaps you’d like to stand over there. So you can be... er... seen clearly.’

  Mrs Knowall took no notice. She scowled round the room.

  ‘What are all those untidy leaves doing blocking off the light?’ she snapped. ‘And why is there a hole in the ceiling?’

  Everyone said the first thing that came to mind. Winsome blurted out something about rainforests, Jack mentioned harvest festival (‘It’s the middle of summer, dimbo,’ muttered Serise) and Anil started jabbering about a grow-your-own-lunch business. Unfortunately all of them spoke at the same time, and Mrs Knowall ignored them anyway.

  ‘What’s that fat boy doing on the floor?’ she demanded.