Horror High 2 (2 page)

Principal Skullwater had observed the werewolf cricket team practising in the nets over the last months and been the sorry witness to their inter-class matches these last miserable weeks.

They were rubbish.

Skullwater lived and breathed cricket, but at 2305 years of age he found running between the wickets a little beyond him. Still, he followed cricket avidly and
made foolhardy, ill-advised and ridiculously ambitious bets on the outcome of certain matches.

One of these dimbulbous bets had been with Principal Nettlebottom of Death Valley High, concerning the outcome of this year's Interghouls Cricket Cup.

The two principals had argued and bickered on the subject during the annual principals' conference. Nettlebottom reckoned he had an unbeatable team of vampire cricketers at Death Valley High this year. He ranted and raved about them, never letting up for a minute. He got in Skullwater's scabrous old ear for hours, boasting and bragging long and loud on this theme, and surreptitiously filling and refilling Skullwater's glass with strong whisky.

Pretty soon the combination of whisky and braggy drove Skullwater to the point of no return, and he slurringly made a very dumb bet using the kind of snaggle-toothed language all principals use when they're completely trolleyed on strong liquors.

It wasn't until Skullwater returned pie-eyed to school and slowly recovered from the cracking aftermath that he realised just how dreadful Horror High's werewolf cricket team was, and just how very dumb his corresponding bet had been. He was in deep trouble.

Trouble? He was cactus.

Now the principal was really starting to agonise over it. Was this evidence of the gypsy curse returning? Was it a sign it was back, the relentless curse that had blighted his third life back in Roman Britain, then thoroughly soiled his eighth life in the Middle Ages? The curse that returned twice as strong in his eleventh life, forcing him to spend most of his days in the court of Vlad the Impaler, dressed in a clown suit and jumping through hoops like some retarded circus goat?

The same curse had cost him his chance at the presidency of the Oddfellows' Society in 1756 and recurred again in the 1930s when all his valuable shares in handkerchief futures crashed during
the Great Depression. You'd think during a great depression that hankies would be at an excellent price, everybody depressed and dejected and moping on down.

You'd think.

But that's where the curse bit deepest – it turned everything normal abnormal, everything downsideup to upsidedown.

It wasn't the first time Skullwater wished he had refrained from snickering and hooting out loud when that 93-year-old gypsy woman fell headlong into a stinky overflowing latrine, back in the days of the Roman occupation of ancient London. But considering the circumstances, who wouldn't laugh?

He wouldn't, that's who. Not now, knowing what he knew.

The ancient gypsy crone had cursed him five ways to Fingleton, and it was a quality curse that followed Skullwater throughout his many unhappy lives, sticking to him like a stink sticks to baboons.

They sure didn't make blights like that anymore, and now it appeared Skullwater's
long-wearing, all-weather, frequent-flier-points curse was back. He hadn't cured himself of it last time round like he'd hoped, even with a humungous dose of antibiotics.

The mere memory of that mordant and mortifying medication made Skullwater wince. The antibiotics gave him the runs like the fudge falls in Willy Wonka's factory, a wicked rash 'round the rude regions, and a head as seedy and degenerate looking as a pineapple plucked lengthways out the wrong end of a rhinoceros.

But it didn't shift the curse one inch …

Of all the foolish things to wager, Principal Skullwater and Principal Nettlebottom had bet their schools' latest acquisitions – the rare, valuable and totally essential portable classrooms each school had just received from the Department of Education After Death.

D.E.A.D. was notoriously tight with money and Horror schools were rarely granted the extra portable classrooms they
so sorely required. Both schools were bursting at the seams and these portable classrooms represented the only chance the schools had to adequately house their overflow of students.

Right now extra classes at Horror High were being conducted under trees, in stormwater drains, in the bus shelter and under a tatty white canopy constructed from two enormous pairs of Y-fronts stolen off a rock troll's clothesline and stitched together with wire. None of these solutions was anywhere near ideal, though the Y-fronts doubled up nicely as a spare movie screen for the school's ratty old film projector.

Now the parents of Horror were up in arms, and not just about the stolen undies.

Just like any normal society, the community of the undead wanted to raise their children with higher expectations and better access to education than they'd had. They paid their taxes and figured the least the government could do was provide
a decent school system for their ungrateful, delinquent kids, so they could learn their times tables and how to spell rite before they finally ended up in juvie.

That's what parents wanted and they might as well have asked for a cherry on top, too, because D.E.A.D. was not in the business of pleasing parents or schools. They figured the schools could look after themselves since there were plenty of Y-fronts hanging on plenty of clotheslines just begging to be stolen, with the added advantage that rock trolls can't chase thieves further than twenty steps.

But this was also an election year and the Horror Council had to somehow make it look like they cared about educating the young undead, and protect their phoney-baloney jobs. They had a meeting to discuss how they could successfully con the voters this time around.

With the crucial election looming, and every likelihood that voters were not going to be satisfied with thunderbags-related solutions, the council bit the silver bullet
and spent some serious money for a change.

Both schools were granted portable classrooms, and they were pretty flash, too – reverse-cycle aircon, double-glazed windows, online computers, broadband streaming, the works. They even had their own toilet blocks stuck on their rear, just where you'd expect to find a toilet.

The bean counters at D.E.A.D. made it explicitly clear to each principal – this generous gift was definitely a one-off. The schools had sod all chance of getting another one of these huge-o, expenso, portable classrooms before the next Ice Age, and since the next Ice Age in Horror wasn't due until the same year Hitler's lawyers got him past the pearly gates and into Heaven, the schools had better look after them.

So you see the predicament. If Horror High lost the Interghouls Cricket Cup and Skullwater lost his whisky-inspired bet, the school lost its portable classroom.

And if that happened Horror High was severely overstocked with students, with
no room to house them. Some students would have to go, and since it was the crappy cricketing werewolves' fault, guess who was out?

Not too hard to guess, even for you …

 

Principal Skullwater summoned Jason-Jock to his office shortly after his realisation Horror High would surely and definitely lose the Interghouls Cricket Cup and his bet and the school's lovely new portable classroom.

Obviously Skullwater couldn't reveal the details of the dodgy bet, but felt duty bound to warn Jason-Jock what was in store for him and his hairy brethren should they be defeated in the high-stakes match.

Jason-Jock knocked on the heavy wooden door of the principal's office.

‘Come in,' barked Skullwater.

The nervous young werewolf pushed through the door and sniffed the air apprehensively. Something was wrong. ‘You wanted to see me, sir?'

‘Ah yes, young Mr Werewolf. Have a seat.'

Jason-Jock sat, resisting the urge to scratch at a flea outbreak in his left armpit.

Skullwater straightened his tatty black funeral tie. He had to break the news gently, subtly, with all the caring compassion that modern undead principals are renowned for. ‘Now … yes. If you werewolves don't win the Interghouls Cricket Cup, you're out on your useless furry butts. There, that wasn't so difficult.'

‘What?!' yelped Jason-Jock. ‘Why?'

‘Well, it's like this, and here's the absolute, deadset, straight truth. As principal of Horror High it's up to me to make the tough decisions – students understand that and love me for it. And it's been drawn to my attention that we're dangerously short on space at this school due to an alarming increase in monsterism. Things are tough all over, so we're going to have to lose some students. It's not my fault – honest. It's all because of the D.E.A.D.

‘They've done some market research
out in the Horror community to determine what people expect from a modern undead school. They hired a team of hack pollsters to gauge the community's attitude and the results they came back with are interesting and startling to say the least. It seems the good citizens of Horror expect to see ghosts, goblins, mummies and vampires in our schools, maybe even the odd Yeti, Yowie or foreign exchange ghoul, but nobody actually mentioned werewolves.'

Skullwater shook his head, feigning sadness. ‘Problem is, people just don't regard werewolves as an essential feature of a modern, balanced community school. Fact is, and here's the gospel truth – strike me dead if I'm lying – they consider werewolves more animal than human and more suited to the dog pound than a school. Add to this the fact that werewolves don't do anything very useful and take up valuable classroom space.'

Jason-Jock was in shock. He didn't know what to say, so Skullwater kept going.
This lie was getting easier and easier to tell the thicker the principal laid it on.

‘See, here's the skinny on our students, according to the community; ghosts are fine, they don't take up any space at all and we could cram a million into a milk jug. Goblins are useful since they double as garden gnomes. Mummies are pretty much indispensable – they're handy for extra bandages in case of accidents and extra loo paper in case of emergencies and anyway, everybody loves their mummie. And the vampires keep the sick bay's blood bank stocked up, of course. But what, I ask you, do werewolves do?'

Jason-Jock was still in shock, but he stirred in his seat enough to crank an answer out of his numb skull. ‘We keep the feral cats away,' he offered.

‘Feral cats?' drooled Skullwater. ‘I like feral cats. In fact I love feral cat, roasted with garlic and served with a spicy mint jelly. No, Mr Werewolf, you'll have to do better than that. Far as I can tell, a werewolf is just a fat kid having a bad
hair day, so you'll get no quarter from me. Here's the deal – if you werewolves can start pulling your weight and proving yourself indispensable to the school, you can stay. If your cricket team can win the Interghouls Cricket Cup and demonstrate yourselves to be useful after all, you can remain at Horror High. You win – you stay. You lose – you stray. Now get out there in the nets and practise.'

And that was that.

Jason-Jock tried explaining the situation to the pack of werewolves flocking nervously around him. They milled about in stunned silence, trying to absorb the news. Nobody spoke.

When somebody did speak it'd have to be Fleabag O'Brian, the least qualified among them to have even a half-baked opinion. Nevertheless Fleabag opened his elongated jaw first. He looked like he was about to cry.

‘Cripes. We'll all end up living back at the pound. I hate the pound. All those stinky kids patting puppies, all those vets administering rabies shots, all those overflowing litter trays. All those nasty kittens …'

Jason-Jock shook his hairy head. ‘No way. We're not going to the pound. We've got to win the Cup.'

Howls of derision and helplessness rose from the pack.

‘Win?' yelped Howler Binks. ‘We'll never win.' Howler was a fourth-rate batsman, very silly mid-on fielder and general hubbub spokesman of the conference. ‘We're useless – and I'm the optimist of the team.'

Jason-Jock wasn't to be discouraged. ‘Okay, I admit we're not much good – yet. But we haven't got a choice. If we give up now, we're kicked out of school. If we lose the Cup, we're kicked out. Either way it's the same result. Or we could try like we've never tried before.'

The others agreed with the noble sentiment, but what were they to do?

‘Okay,' said JJ, ‘here's the plan.
Fleabag, go borrow all the cricket DVDs you can find at the video store – we're going to study all the famous games of the past. Howler, you hit the library, same deal – get all the cricket books you can find, anything you think might be useful.

‘Chomper, go through the sports shed for cricket equipment – we need to get our hands on some decent gear for a change; “borrow” some. Grubby, you take the video camera and secretly get some footage of the opposition teams so we've some idea of what we're up against.'

‘Okay,' replied Grubby. ‘But what are you going to do?'

Jason-Jock smiled mysteriously. ‘I'm going to consult my secret weapon …'

 

Jason-Jock's secret weapon was a book. A book? Phooey. You were hoping it'd be a light sabre or a set of magic boxing gloves or at least an Uzi with the serial number filed off. Get real – where would a teenage werewolf get his paws on an Uzi? You need a licence for one of those.

No, it was only a book, but a very special book, or so JJ thought. He believed every little thing that was written in it, the dense fool. It had been sold to him by an out-of-work bookseller posing as an out-of-work magician who was actually an out-of-work scientist.

Scientists are not to be trusted – fact. It's got nothing to do with their goofy appearance, though that thing your mother said about always judging a book by its cover is certainly true in this case.

The fact that scientists have Coke bottle glasses, ears like the sails of a blue-water racing yacht and a flipped-out afro like Hair Bear has got to tell you something's not right. They hide behind their nerd screen but can't resist using their big brains for evil rather than good.

In this case, the scientist who duped Jason-Jock had a great need of money. His mobile phone had been cancelled for non-payment of bills, and he owed his mum for accidental overpayment of pocket money.
Not even the fried chicken place would take his cheques anymore.

Cash was what he needed and he didn't mind how he got it. The villain sat down and wrote the biggest pile of spuriously spoony hogwash possible, published it and sold it to Jason-Jock from his dodgy bookstore, claiming it was a magic book.

The book,
Everyday Magik By a Magician Who Knows
, was supposed to be a deeply powerful magic source, when it was actually just a deeply powerful hoax. The scientist was a common fraudster, like they all are.

How do I know so much about scientists? Let me tell you, I've been through the wringer with those charlatans. I was once approached by scientists to take part in a paid experiment, living in a share apartment for a month with a tame chimpanzee. The scientists wanted to observe the interaction between a civilised being and a backward primate.

I behaved brilliantly and was fully blameless but the whole ordeal was disastrous and embarrassing.

The chimp had obviously been brought up in a bad neighbourhood and its sense of values was whack. It wouldn't do its share of the cooking or cleaning, hogged the remote control, made long-distance phone calls to the deep jungle that it had no intention of ever paying for, took hours in the bathroom, used my special medicated dandruff shampoo and mocked me mercilessly whenever I wet the bed.

After a month of this nonsense I was happy to be rid of the troublesome ape and collect my fee. Then I found out I wasn't the one being paid – the chimp was!

To add insult to injury it turns up on
Oprah
and fully bags me out to the hooting audience, laying it on so thick about me wetting the bed that Oprah nearly wet herself. In order to not get laughed at by complete strangers, I had to wear a fake moustache and curly red wig for the next three years.

Don't talk to me about scientists.

But Jason-Jock was gullible enough to think the crap magic book was real magic
truth and followed its directions, instructions and hoaxy spells to the letter. He didn't know about scientists, or maybe he was just soft in the head.

He ran his clawed paws down the contents page and found the chapter titled ‘Winning at Cricket'. He read the instructions and smiled to himself wolfishly, as werewolves often do.

Now they'd be okay. Now he knew how to win the Cup. Now their future at Horror High was assured. Now he'd be a hero …

Hero. Zero. Dero. All pretty similarly spelt. Guess which term best describes this bozo …