Pencil of Doom! Read online

  ‘But the lion’s name was Kitty!’ I said.

  ‘Listen to yourself, Henry. You’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘No I’m not. I’m being cautious,’ I said. ‘That’s why I’m putting the pencil back in the ground where it came from. And where it can stay. Forever!’

  I turned back to continue digging.

  Suddenly I felt Jack on top of me. He pulled me backwards and I fell over. I sat up to see him clutching the pencil triumphantly. Not content with the damage it had already done, the pencil had clearly taken control of Jack’s mind. His eyes glowed like the ones on the skull.

  ‘Come on, Jack,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘Give me the pencil.’

  ‘No,’ said Jack, his eyes shining. ‘It’s mine, now! All mine!’

  I took a step towards him. ‘Give it to me, Jack. Please.’

  ‘Keep back!’ he said, threatening me with the pencil as if it were a knife.

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Jack,’ I said, taking another step towards him. ‘Put the pencil down, step away, and nobody will get hurt.’

  Jack looked at the pencil. Then he looked at me. Then he looked back at the pencil.

  Then he yelled and ran straight at me, the pencil held out in front of him like a sword.

  He clearly meant business.

  But so did I.

  I stepped out of his way, stuck my leg out and tripped him up.

  He stumbled and fell headfirst onto the ground and rolled all the way to the bottom of the hill.

  I ran down after him.

  He was lying on his back, eyes closed, not moving but still clutching the pencil.

  I prised the pencil out of his hand and stashed it safely in my jacket. I figured I’d deal with it later. For the moment I had to look after Jack.

  I shook him gently. He had a graze on his forehead.

  ‘Jack!’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’

  He blinked, spluttered and looked straight at me.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said.

  ‘Henry,’ I said. ‘Your friend.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he said, nodding. ‘And who am I?’

  ‘Jack,’ I said. ‘Jack Japes.’

  ‘Never heard of him,’ he said.

  39

  Mr Grunt

  I helped Jack up and, with his arm around my still-bandaged neck, guided him across the yard towards the office.

  ‘Where are we going?’ said Jack.

  ‘I’m taking you to see Mrs Bandaid,’ I told him.

  ‘Who’s Mrs Bandaid?’

  ‘You don’t know who Mrs Bandaid is?’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘Wow, you are in a bad way!’

  Jack was clearly suffering from a serious case of amnesia. Everybody knew who Mrs Bandaid was. She was who you went to see when you were sick or hurt. And no matter what your problem was, she gave you bandaids. Cuts, bruises, headache, sore tummy: bandaids, and lots of them . . . along with a big smile. And the strange thing was that no matter whether you had a cut, a bruise, a headache, a sore tummy or any other ailment whatsoever, the bandaids always made you feel better. Or maybe it was the smile. Whatever the case, I knew that she’d be able to fix Jack’s amnesia.

  On our way to Mrs Bandaid’s room, we passed the teachers’ car park.

  Mr Grunt, our sports teacher, was standing next to his brand-new Hummer H3—an unnecessarily huge show-offy beast of a car. In fact, ‘car’ wasn’t really the right word. It was big and solid enough to pass as an army tank.

  He had an admiring group of rev-head students gathered around him. ‘You’ve got to understand,’ he was saying, ‘that the Hummer H3 is the most powerful—and heaviest—car ever made!’

  His audience burst into applause.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mr Grunt, climbing into the front seat. ‘Well, can’t stand around here all day. I’ve got some rubber to burn.’

  He started the car up.

  It gave a deep, throaty roar and blasted a thick dark cloud of smoke out behind it. Then, doing a burnout with all four tyres squealing and smoking, Mr Grunt fishtailed wildly out of the car park and tore off down the road, tooting his horn all the way to make sure as many students as possible noticed him.

  The crowd of students applauded one last time and then went back to their sad little lives, waiting for Mr Grunt to return.

  I shook my head at what a show-off Mr Grunt was. His sport classes mainly consisted of him giving the class demonstrations in how to perform a particular activity. Sometimes the demonstration went on for the whole lesson and the only exercise we would get was changing into our sports clothes at the beginning of the lesson and changing back out of them at the end. This was better than when we actually did get to do the activity, though, as Mr Grunt usually took it as an opportunity to criticise our efforts and to point out all the ways in which we couldn’t do it as well as he could.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Mr Grunt,’ I told him.

  ‘He’s a show-off,’ said Jack.

  ‘You got that right,’ I said.

  As I watched Mr Grunt’s Hummer disappear into the distance, an idea began to form.

  It was obviously going to take more than a rubbish bin or a hole in the ground to get rid of the pencil. I figured that the biggest, dumbest, heaviest car in the world might just do the trick . . . But first I had to get Jack to Mrs Bandaid.

  40

  Mrs Rosethorn

  Unfortunately, you couldn’t just go straight to Mrs Bandaid’s room.

  You had to get past Mrs Rosethorn first.

  I got Jack up the steps and into the school office.

  ‘What do you want?’ Mrs Rosethorn spat out, glaring at us.

  ‘Who are you?’ Jack asked.

  Mrs Rosethorn glared at him even harder. If his brain hadn’t already been wiped clean by the fall, her laser-like stare would have done it for him.

  Jack gazed at her blankly.

  ‘We need to see Mrs Bandaid,’ I said.

  ‘We need to see Mrs Bandaid what?’ Mrs Rosethorn snapped.

  ‘We need to see Mrs Bandaid, please. Could you let her know that we’re here?’

  ‘What do you need to see her for?’

  ‘See who?’ said Jack.

  ‘Mrs Bandaid,’ Mrs Rosethorn answered impatiently. ‘What do you need to see her for?’

  ‘Jack’s had an accident,’ I told her. ‘I think it’s serious.’

  Mrs Rosethorn looked at Jack’s forehead. ‘It’s only a scratch,’ she sniffed. ‘Don’t waste Mrs Bandaid’s time with that.’

  ‘It’s more than a scratch,’ I said.

  ‘Are you arguing with me, young man?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘but it’s definitely more than a scratch. He can’t remember anything.’

  ‘Of course he can,’ Mrs Rosethorn said dismissively. ‘He’s just wasting everybody’s time. Go outside and play. The fresh air will do you both good.’

  I waited.

  Mrs Rosethorn glared.

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ she asked finally.

  ‘For you to let Mrs Bandaid know we’re here,’ I said. ‘Or should I go and get my friend Gretel?’

  Gretel and Mrs Rosethorn had a history. I thought this might work.

  It did.

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ Mrs Rosethorn said, her voice shaking a little. ‘I’ll tell her.’ She picked up the phone. ‘Just wait there. And don’t get into any trouble . . . I’ve got my eye on you!’

  Somehow, against all odds, Jack and I managed to keep out of trouble for the two minutes it took for Mrs Bandaid to arrive.

  ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ she said the moment she saw Jack. She ushered him gently into her room.

  Then she went to town on him.

  By the time she was finished, Jack’s head was practically covered in bandaids. The only parts of his face not covered were his eyes and mouth.

  Jack said he definitely felt better, but he still wasn’t sure who Mrs Bandaid was, who I was, or even who he
was, so Mrs Bandaid called his parents to come and pick him up.

  The pencil’s victims were increasing in number.

  Mr Brainfright, me, Clive, Fred, Jenny, Gretel, Penny’s horse, Gina’s horse and now Jack.

  Who would be next?

  Well, nobody if I could help it.

  And I had a pretty good idea of what to do.

  41

  Hummer-time

  When the bell for the end of school rang, I bolted down to the car park. I had to get there before Mr Grunt’s cheer squad arrived to farewell him for the day.

  I took the pencil out of my pocket and wedged it underneath the left rear tyre. The tyre looked more suited to a tractor than a car—a fact that I was very happy about. I knew the pencil wasn’t going to give in without a fight, but judging by the size and width of the tyre, this was one fight it wasn’t going to win.

  I tried not to look at the skull eraser as I walked away, but I couldn’t help it.

  It looked angry, its little black eyes boring straight into me.

  I walked across the car park to a row of bushes. I could hide in them and see the pencil crushed with my own eyes. I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

  It didn’t take long for Mr Grunt’s fan club to appear. There were about half a dozen of them. Their chief topic of conversation was what spectacular move Mr Grunt would use to leave the car park this afternoon. Would it be a burnout, a 360-degree spin, or would he lift the front wheels off the ground and drive out on the back ones?

  I wanted to yell ‘Get a life!’ at them, but I didn’t. Not only would it have given away the fact that I was hiding in the bushes, it would have suggested that I too needed to get a life, since I got my kicks by hiding in bushes, spying on other losers with no lives. Which was obviously not the case.

  I could hear Mr Grunt approaching, whistling and jangling the keys he kept on a long gold chain.

  ‘Good afternoon, boys,’ he said to the group.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Grunt,’ they said.

  Mr Grunt clicked his key lock and the doors opened with a bleep.

  He got into his car, started up the engine and pumped the accelerator a few times. The Hummer roared.

  Mr Grunt leaned out the driver’s side window.

  ‘Stand back, boys,’ he said, ‘and I’ll show you something special!’

  The boys all did as he suggested.

  Mr Grunt pumped the accelerator again, filling the car park with exhaust fumes. Then he reversed out of his parking space at high speed.

  I shut my eyes and listened as hard as I could for the crushing of the pencil above the noise of the car’s engine.

  But I couldn’t hear any crushing. All I could hear was a weird scraping noise. A weird scraping noise that was getting louder . . . and louder . . . and louder!

  I opened my eyes. To my horror, Mr Grunt’s Hummer was skidding out of control . . . straight towards the bush I was hiding in!

  42

  Grunt versus Cross

  I leaped from the bush just in time.

  The Hummer flattened not just the bush I had been hiding in, but the entire row of bushes! It took out a fire hydrant, and a flowerbed, and didn’t stop until it smashed into the side of a small green hatchback.

  Now of all the small green hatchbacks that you could smash into, this was the very one that you definitely would not want to smash into, because this small green hatchback belonged to Mrs Cross. And Mrs Cross could get very cross indeed.

  The door of the hatchback opened and Mrs Cross got out.

  Not surprisingly, she looked cross. Very cross.

  ‘Grunt!’ she said. ‘Look what you’ve done!’

  Mr Grunt’s fan club took fright at the sight of Mrs Cross being cross and ran away.

  Mr Grunt probably would have liked to run away but he couldn’t run. He seemed quite dazed and very unsteady on his feet as he climbed down from his Hummer. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Cross,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what happened!’

  ‘You were driving too fast!’ said Mrs Cross. ‘That’s what happened! You are always driving too fast! It makes me very cross! We’re not driving dodgem cars, you know!’

  ‘No, Mrs Cross,’ said Mr Grunt. ‘I know that . . . and I’m very sorry. It’s just that I completely lost control . . .’

  ‘Yes, because you were driving too fast!’ repeated Mrs Cross.

  ‘Perhaps, but that’s not why I lost control,’ said Mr Grunt. ‘One of my back wheels—I think it was the left—seemed to lose contact with the ground.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Cross, ‘when you’re driving as fast as you do that’s bound to happen, you silly man.’

  Mr Grunt bent down to examine his tyre. ‘It felt like something was stuck in it . . . a stick, or something like a stick, perhaps . . .’

  Suddenly I understood what must have happened.

  The pencil had not been crushed. It had sabotaged Mr Grunt’s tyre! And he was about to find it, and when he did find it he’d see my name on it, and then . . . well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to think about ‘and then’. I had to get that pencil before he did.

  Luckily, Mrs Cross wasn’t through with Mr Grunt yet. ‘Now listen to me, Grunt,’ she said. ‘And have the good manners to look at a person when she is speaking to you. There’s nothing wrong with your back tyre. I know that and you know that. We both know why you crashed, don’t we? Because you are an irresponsible, selfish, self-centred driver with no regard for the rights of others on the road—or anywhere else as far as I can see!’

  Mrs Cross was really letting him have it.

  While she did, I managed to crawl under the car, grab my pencil and then get out of there without either of them seeing me. As I ran I could still hear Mrs Cross.

  ‘And another thing, Grunt . . .’ she was saying.

  I almost felt sorry for Mr Grunt. I had plenty of problems of my own, including a killer pencil that had it in for me and my friends, but I sure wouldn’t have traded places with Mr Grunt at that moment for anything!

  43

  Welcome back, Mr Spade

  That night I had another bad dream. This time it was about Hummers with pencil teeth and spiky pencil wheels chasing me around the schoolyard.

  I awoke on the floor again, dripping with sweat and shaking.

  I had to get rid of that pencil . . . but how?

  The next day, Principal Greenbeard called a special school assembly.

  We all gathered in the school hall, the teachers arranged at strategic points around the room.

  Everyone was there.

  The grade teachers: Mr Naughtychair, Miss Sweet, Mr Highfive, Mrs Spectacles, Mr Brainfright and Mrs Cross.

  All the specialist teachers: Mrs Rainbow the art teacher, Mr Shush the librarian and Mr Grunt the show-off . . . I mean, sports teacher. (Mr Grunt appeared to have recovered from Mrs Cross’s dressing-down yesterday afternoon, although she still shot him the occasional cross glance across the stage.)

  And speaking of cross glances, Mrs Rosethorn was there as well, glowering at the audience. I don’t think she approved of assemblies. She probably thought they were a waste of time. And I’d have to agree that, in this instance, she was right.

  Mrs Bandaid was there, clutching a handful of bandaids. Although the risk of physical injury during school assemblies was fairly low, I guess there was always the danger of a student—or teacher—passing out during one of Principal Greenbeard’s longer speeches and hitting their head on the floor.

  Even Mr Spade, the school gardener, was there, looking much more relaxed than the last time I’d seen him. He’d been very upset about all the hole-digging that went on when practically every student in the school was looking for Greenbeard’s treasure. He became so upset, in fact, that he’d had to go on stress leave. Which—as it eventually turned out—was the main reason for the assembly.

  Principal Greenbeard, resplendent in a brilliant white naval uniform, was droning on and on about how the school was like a bi
g ship and how he saw himself as the captain of that ship and how it was his responsibility to guide us all safely through the unpredictable and sometimes very dangerous sea of life and how it was our responsibility to all pull together, to hoist the sails and man the paddles and plug the leaks and all hands on deck and yo ho ho three bottles of rum on a dead man’s chest . . . Well, I may have drifted off a little bit there, though as far as I could make out, that was the general gist of it. But before it got to the point where I passed out and hit my head on the floor, he got to the ‘main item on the agenda’, which was to welcome Mr Spade back aboard after his ‘shore leave’.

  ‘And just to show you how much we appreciate your work aboard the good ship Northwest Southeast Central, we’re delighted that the school’s recent “build your own boat” fund-raising effort has allowed us to buy the new Mighty Boy Garbage Compactor you always wanted!’

  Principal Greenbeard motioned for Mr Spade to come up on stage.

  There was a round of applause as Mr Spade walked up to the podium. He was clearly overwhelmed by Principal Greenbeard’s thoughtfulness and was wiping away tears as he and Principal Greenbeard warmly saluted one another.

  ‘On behalf of the whole crew of the good ship Northwest Southeast Central,’ said Principal Greenbeard, ‘I hereby welcome you back and officially present you with the instruction manual for the Mighty Boy Garbage Compactor!’ He put a book the size of a telephone directory into Mr Spade’s hand.

  Jack, who was sitting beside me, tapped my arm. He was back at school, even though he was still suffering from amnesia. The doctors thought that the best chance for him to recover his memory was to be in familiar surroundings with familiar people.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he whispered.

  ‘Mr Spade,’ I said. ‘He’s the gardener.’

  Mr Spade shuffled to the microphone. ‘I’d like to thank you all for your very kind gesture,’ he said. ‘It’s great to be back and the Mighty Boy’s five hundred thousand kilos of brute garbage-compacting force will help me to get the school grounds into tip-top shape as fast as possible!’