Bug Eyed Monsters (8 page)

The next lesson was English. Year 6 waited, glumly, to see who would be taking it.

Probably the Head Master, thought Harry. He pulled a face. Dr Dredge was strict and stern with absolutely no sense of
humour whatsoever. As different as could be from beautiful Miss Beam.

Year 6 braced themselves for the worst. Great was their surprise when the door opened and a totally new teacher walked in. He was young, with ginger hair and a long, forbidding beak of a nose. But he seemed friendly enough.

‘Good morning, Year 6! My name is Mr Smith and I'm your new English teacher. I'm sure you must all be missing Miss Beam, I'm aware that she was very popular, but I'm here, now, and you must make the best of me. Just as I must make the best of you! I give you my word, I will try not to disappoint. Righty-ho!'

He rubbed his hands together. ‘Let's get cracking! I've been reading some of the essays you did for Miss Beam on the subject of Unidentified Flying Objects. Most interesting! I think over the coming weeks we might explore the subject a bit further, if that's agreeable to you?'

Year 6 blinked. A teacher who actually asked if something was agreeable to them?

‘What do you think?' said Mr Smith. ‘A good idea, or not?'

‘Good!' shouted Year 6.

‘Of course, we'll have to do some curriculum work, as well. Set books, and all that. Literacy, and so forth. But that's all right! We'll fit it in. Just not too much of
it. All work and no play makes Fred a very dull boy!'

Greatly daring, Bal said, ‘Isn't it Jack, sir?'

‘Jack?' Mr Smith seemed puzzled.

‘Dull boy, sir.'

‘Oh! Yes. How silly of me! Makes
Jack
a dull boy. We wouldn't want that, would we? Never be bored, is my motto! I think we're all going to get on just fine.'

Year 6 thought so, too. With his tufty ginger hair and his big beaky nose, the new teacher might not be much to look at – unlike Miss Beam. Beautiful Miss Beam! – but he seemed pretty cool, for all that.

‘Literacy today, UFOs tomorrow. How about it?'

Year 6 took out their literacy papers without a murmur. They could live with that!

When the bell rang for the end of class, Mr Smith was the first to pack up his books.

‘Ah!' he said. ‘Lunch! I've been looking forward to this all morning. What do you
suppose will be on the menu? Any chance of chips?' He licked his lips. ‘I've been told they're really good!'

Innocently, Joe said, ‘Do you like chips, sir?'

‘Oh, I think so,' said Mr Smith. ‘From what I've heard… yes! I'm sure I like chips. They're said to be a real delicacy! Do you find them a real delicacy?'

‘When we're allowed to have ‘em,' said Joe. ‘Doesn't happen very often.'

‘Oh.' Mr Smith's face fell.

‘But you can get ‘em down in the village.'

‘Really? That's good to know. Maybe I should go down there right now. What do you think?'

Joe said, ‘I think you should, sir. Be better than school dinners. Miss Beam used to go down there all the time.'

‘In that case,' said Mr Smith, ‘say no more! What was good enough for Miss Beam is good enough for me. See you later, boys!'

They watched as Mr Smith beetled off down the corridor.

‘Guess that proves it,' said Bal. But he didn't sound as if he minded quite so much as he had before.

‘Know what I reckon?' said Joe, as they made their way to the dining hall. ‘I reckon we got it wrong about aliens. It's not them that's weird, it's all the rest of ‘em!'

They gazed round the hall. They saw Mrs Jellybaby, staggering under the weight of all her beads and bangles. Mr Bulstrode, spluttering over his macaroni cheese. Mr O'Hooligan, Mr McNutter, Monsieur Tittinbot, screaming by the serving hatch.
‘Attention, attention!
Watch out for the eye!'

‘Mad,' said Joe. ‘They're all mad!'

And
they
were the human beings. The alien was down in the village, eating chips.

‘I reckon this one's gonna be OK,' said Joe.

‘Reckon he is,' agreed Harry.

Just wait till he told Granddad!
There's this alien takes us for English…

Gran, of course, wouldn't believe a word of it.

First published 2012 by
A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

This electronic edition published in April 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

www.acblack.com
www.bloomsbury.com

Copyright © 2012 A & C Black

Text copyright © 2012 Jean Ure
Illustrations copyright © Mark Beech

The rights of Jean Ure and Mark Beech to be
identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively
have been asserted by them in accordance with the
Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN: 978 1 4081 6359 7

A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

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