School of Meanies (6 page)
Crime and Punishment
I found Amelia in the corridor, outside the Still-Alive Headmaster’s office.
“Humphrey,” Amelia said, “something terrible has happened.”
“What?”
“The headmaster heard the bullies calling me names. He’s given them lines. One million each, in their best handwriting.”
I shrugged.
“It’s wrong,” Amelia said. “The punishment should fit the crime, don’t you think?”
We peered into the office. The Still-Alive Headmaster was standing between the two boys and the open door.
“We can’t write a million lines,” one of the bullies said.
The Still-Alive Headmaster folded his arms. “You’re not leaving my office until you do.”
“We’ve got to get them out of there,” I whispered.
“Bump him,” Amelia whispered back.
“I don’t think I can,” I groaned, holding my tummy. “I’ve just eaten twelve jelly doughnuts.”
“If you don’t bump him,” Amelia whispered, “I will.”
“You’ll get expelled, and you won’t be able to go to college.” I reached out to stop her but
my hand passed right through her. When I feel queasy, I tend to fade a bit.
Amelia took a deep breath and bumped the headmaster’s bottom.
The two boys exchanged looks. “It’s Fatty-Fatty Pigtails,” one of them said as they slipped past the Still-Alive Headmaster.
“Um, I don’t think we should call her that,” the other boy said. “That girl just saved our bacon.”
“You are both expelled!” the headmaster yelled, but the boys ran up the corridor and out into the playground.
We followed the Still-Alive Headmaster as he strode through the school grounds, pointing at still-alive children with a long, mean finger.
“Expelled!” he yelled. “Expelled, expelled, expelled!”
Amelia gasped.
“That’s right,” he said, fixing his eyes on Amelia. “I am expelling every pupil in this school.”
The Headmaster’s Wife
On Friday morning a crowd of still-alive children gathered at the school gates. I didn’t want them to see me, so I flitted around to the back of the school and wisped over the fence.
“I’m glad you’re here, Humphrey,” Amelia said when we met in the back playground. “Something big is happening, and I need your help.”
“I didn’t think anyone would be here,” I said. “I thought you’d all been expelled.”
“Not yet. The headmaster has to fill out forms and write to the parents.”
“That headmaster is so mean,” I said, “he’ll do it, even if it takes him all night.”
Amelia smiled. “He’ll have to get into his office first.”
I followed Amelia to the main entrance. Two boys blocked our path.
“Friend or foe?” one of the boys barked.
The boys wore scout caps pulled down over their eyes. Each had a badge taped to his blazer, just below the left shoulder.
SECURITY
, the badges read.
“It’s me—Amelia. If you pulled your caps up you’d be able to see properly.”
The boys lifted their caps, and I recognized them as the bullies. “Oh, hello,” they both said together.
“They’ve been good as gold since I rescued them from the headmaster,” Amelia told me. “I’ve put them in charge of security.”
One of the boys opened the door and gestured for us to step inside.
“Amelia,” I said as I followed her down the corridor, “what’s happening?”
“We’ve taken over the school. The headmaster can’t expel us if he’s not in charge.”
I opened a can of cola.
“And it’s not just here,” Amelia went on. “Every school in the country has put down their pencils, kicked back their chairs, and made a stand.”
“That’s not a good idea,” I said. “When the headmaster hears of this—”
“He won’t be able to do a thing. Look.”
The door to the headmaster’s office had been sealed shut with pink stuff.
“Bubble gum,” Amelia said. She took my haunted hand and said, “Come on.”
“Where are we going now?”
Amelia led me out into the front playground.
The air buzzed with cheers and jeers. “This has gotten out of hand,” I said.
“What choice is there?” Amelia said. “After all, if we let the headmaster into his office, we’ll all be expelled.”
“Where is the headmaster now?”
We heard the screech of car brakes, and Amelia ran across the playground to the railings. I floated up into the air for a better view.
The Still-Alive Headmaster had parked his car right outside the gates. He opened the driver’s door and stepped onto the sidewalk.
“Headmaster, headmaster, you’re so mean!” the children chanted. “The meanest headmaster we’ve ever seen!”
“Children,” the Still-Alive Headmaster said, “go home, or you will be arrested by the police.” I flitted down and floated at Amelia’s side.
“The police would sooner arrest him than all of you,” I told her.
“I’m not so sure. The police chief is the headmaster’s wife.”
The Still-Alive Headmaster tried to walk through the gates, but the still-alive pupils linked arms and jostled around.
Several police cars and police vans pulled up, their lights flashing, their sirens wailing. The police officers leapt out, buttoning their tunics and fastening the straps on their helmets.
“That must be the headmaster’s wife,” Amelia said, pointing at a fierce-looking woman in a peaked cap.
“Children,” the woman yelled through a bullhorn, “place your hands on your heads. You are all under arrest.”
“You can’t arrest us!” the children cried. “We’re children!”
“I’ll get my dad after you,” one boy shouted.
Nothing the still-alive boys and girls said did any good. The police chief blew her whistle, and the police officers grabbed the children by the arms and led them back to the police vehicles.
“We have to do something,” I said, but Amelia just shrugged.
“There’s nothing we can do, Humphrey. We can’t resist the entire police force.”
“Perhaps I can frighten them,” I said, and I wisped across the road, poked out my tongue, and blew a raspberry.
The police officers and the children screamed, but the Still-Alive Headmaster just laughed. “That,” he yelled, pointing at me with his mean finger, “is nothing but a trick of the light.”
Amelia stepped out through the gates with her hands on her head. “It’s no use,” she told
me. “We might as well give ourselves up.”
“Never,” I said, and I bumped the Still-Alive Headmaster into his wife.
“There,” I said, winking at Amelia. “That should shut them up.”
“I doubt it, Humphrey. It’s like I said. There are some bullies you just can’t bump.”
The Still-Alive Headmaster helped the police chief to her feet. “Spectral child,” he said, “you can bump my wife and me until the cows come home. We’re not going to believe in you, and that’s that.”
Then something odd happened.
The color drained from his wife’s face, and her eyes bulged like globes.
“Mildred, my dear,” the Still-Alive Headmaster said, “what’s is the matter? You look like you’ve seen a—”
“Jonathan,” his wife said, “look!”
The Still-Alive Headmaster turned, following
his wife’s gaze. When he saw the sight of a blue summer sky swarming with ghostly schoolchildren, he almost jumped out of his skin. “What in heaven’s name—”
The policewoman who’d been holding Amelia by the wrist let go and dove into a hedge.
“Humphrey,” Amelia gasped, “who are they? What’s going on?”
“Oh, just some friends of mine,” I said, and I smiled.
Phantom children from all of history had come to join the fight against bullying. Ghostly girls in Victorian pinafores skipped across the rooftops with spooky skipping ropes, or played hopscotch in the clouds. Ghostly boys in short pants, blazers, and caps kicked phantom footballs or skidded through the sky on transparent bikes.
“Wonderful!” Amelia cried, clapping her hands.
“I asked the children at Ghost School to
help us,” I said, “and, um, here they are, um, helping!”
The two of us watched as the ghost children wisped around the vans and cars, pressing their frightening faces against the windows. “Let the children go!” they wailed. “Set the children free!”
The police officers did what they were told, and the still-alive children laughed and cheered as they stepped back onto the sidewalk.
As for the schoolteachers and cafeteria ladies, the meaner ones fled, and the kind ones stayed to greet their new supernatural friends.
“It’s time we had a word with the headmaster,” I said. “Um, Amelia?”
“That,” Amelia said, “is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.”
“Amelia, we have to talk to the headmaster
before he decides the whole thing was a dream.”
The air was so thick with ghosties we couldn’t see him at first, but then Amelia spotted him trying to climb over the wall of a nearby garden.
“Not so fast,” I said. “Amelia has something to say, and you’d better listen, or we’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”
The Still-Alive Headmaster lowered himself to the sidewalk, and stood with his back to the garden wall.
“You’re nothing but an overgrown bully,” I said, and I opened another can of cola. “This school,” Amelia said, pointing at the red-brick building, “deserves a headmaster who cares about the pupils. We demand that you resign and promise us that you will never work in education again.”
“No!” the Still-Alive Headmaster cried, and he pulled his hairpiece down over his eyes. “This cannot be!”
The Still-Alive Headmaster stumbled away from the wall and into the arms of his wife, and the ghost children wisped around them in a circle, faster and faster, flitting this way and that as they called the headmaster’s name. “Jonathan!” they called. “Jonathan! Quit your job or stop being mean!”
“Let me go!” the Still-Alive Headmaster cried. “I’ll do anything. Just leave me in peace.”
“If we let you go,” I said, “do you promise to do all you can to ensure that this school gets the headmaster it deserves?”
“I promise!” the Still-Alive Headmaster bawled, and he sprinted down the street, his wife following close behind.