The Demon Headmaster

by Cross, Gillian

  ‘Come on,’ Ingrid urged. ‘Don’t spin it out. Tell us.’

  Dinah took a deep breath.

  ‘Why,’ she said quietly, ‘didn’t anyone tell me that the school was going to be on the Eddy Hair Show next week? In the Great School Quiz?’

  12

  ‘Got You Guessing?’

  ‘Oh that?’ Lloyd shrugged. ‘Didn’t you know about that? Why should we get excited about it? It only means more glory for the Headmaster. And none of us is going to be in the team. What’s that got to do with anything?’

  Typical of a girl, he thought. She was just trying to distract them, because she’d messed up the business with the tape recorder.

  But Dinah was staring at him as if he were an idiot. ‘Can’t you see how peculiar it is?’ she said softly. ‘Think what the Eddy Hair Show’s like. Mess. Chaos. They fling things all over the place. Flour, soot, chickens—all sorts of things. Sometimes they even break windows.’

  ‘I expect they pay for them afterwards,’ Ian said.

  ‘But look.’ Dinah leaned forwards, anxious that they should see things her way. ‘Think what the school’s like. If you put your knife and fork down out of line, someone’s on to you. If you throw snow at someone, the whole place goes mad. Why should the Headmaster have invited the Eddy Hair Show to come? Because he must have done.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Mandy said slowly. ‘I never thought of it like that before. It is odd.’

  Lloyd banged the table. ‘What does it matter if it’s odd? It’s got nothing to do with what we’re talking about.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Dinah said softly. ‘You see—the Headmaster knows it was me that did those sums for Harvey.’ Harvey gasped and she smiled at him reassuringly. ‘No, it’s all right. They were a trap. I was meant to do them. But so that you don’t get into trouble for it—I’ve got to be in the quiz team for the Eddy Hair Show.’

  ‘So?’ Lloyd said disagreeably. ‘That just goes to prove what I’ve said all along. You’re one of Them, not one of Us.’

  ‘Oh, do be quiet!’ For once, Ian was roused out of his usual lethargy, positively snarling at Lloyd. ‘Can’t you see Dinah’s got more to say? And if she thinks it’s important it must be worth listening to.’

  Lloyd subsided, sulking, and Dinah went on, choosing her words carefully.

  ‘It was Mr Venables who told me about being in the team. And the really odd thing was that he kept saying, “You must see to it that the team wins. The Headmaster says that the team must win. Otherwise, there’ll be trouble for Harvey Hunter.”’

  ‘You can do it, can’t you?’ Harvey said, in a worried voice. ‘You are clever enough, Di?’

  ‘Oh, I expect so,’ Dinah said vaguely. ‘But that’s not the point. The point is—why is the Headmaster so desperate for us to win? Why should it be important to him?’

  Lloyd snorted. ‘More honour and glory for his precious school.’

  Dinah shook her head, frowning. ‘No, I don’t think that’s it. It doesn’t seem to fit, somehow. There’s something else. Something at the back of my mind that makes it all make sense. But I can’t catch hold of it.’

  ‘Look,’ Ian said suddenly. ‘It’s Friday today, isn’t it? Well, the Eddy Hair Show’s on at six o’clock. We’ll watch it and see if that helps.’

  ‘Oh, good-oh!’ Ingrid chirped. ‘I love it. Especially the Great School Quiz. The questions are so hard, I can never do any of them.’

  ‘That’s because we’re all taught parrot-fashion,’ said Dinah. ‘The questions in the Quiz are puzzles, and no one in our school’s encouraged to think. It’s quite the wrong quiz for our sort of school. So why did the Headmaster get us into it?’

  ‘It’s just the fame he wants,’ Lloyd said. ‘I told you. You know what they say about the Eddy Hair Show. Everyone in the country switches on at six o’clock on a Friday to watch it.’

  ‘But—’ began Dinah. Lloyd flung his hands up in despair, ready to argue with her.

  ‘Let’s forget it for now,’ Mandy said hastily. ‘Who’s for a game of I-Spy?’

  * * *

  The television screen exploded into action and then the picture swelled into colour. Six girls, apparently with no heads, danced across the screen, chased by a large gorilla.

  ‘Yes, folks,’ said a cheerful voice from nowhere. ‘It’s what you’ve all been waiting for. Your weekly dose of craziness in a sane, sad world. The Great, the Magnificent, the only—EDDY HAIR SHOW!’

  The gorilla jumped into a dustbin. Then it reached up and pulled its head off, revealing Eddy Hair’s purple-painted face.

  ‘It’s all rubbish,’ he said severely. ‘Only idiots watch this show. Tests prove that ninety-nine point nine per cent of our viewers have no heads.’

  Bounding from the dustbin, he waggled his purple hair at the audience. ‘And just you wait till you see what a vintage load of rubbish is on the show today. If you had any sense, you’d switch off now. Got you guessing? That’s how I like it!’

  At manic speed, the show swung into its usual succession of gags, sketches, and disasters. Some of it was pre-recorded, like the piece where Eddy Hair swung from a helicopter, dropping balloons shaped like fat ladies over a Beauty Contest. But most of it was live, and one or two of the disasters were obviously completely unexpected. Whatever happened, Eddy Hair laughed his raucous laugh and all over the country people fell about, clutching their sides helplessly.

  Only in the Hunters’ sitting room was there total, grim silence. All the members of SPLAT were watching the show like detectives, trying to see why the Headmaster was interested in it. And the more they watched, the more baffled they became.

  At last, there was a fanfare of trumpets, accompanied by wild grunts from a pig.

  ‘At last!’ bellowed Eddy Hair. ‘Now you’ll see that the people round here are not only mad but stupid. It’s—the Great School Quiz.’

  Immediately, the cameras panned round the school hall where the show was taking place. Two teams, each of three children, were sitting facing each other and beside each, on a throne, sat a cheerful-looking head teacher. Eddy Hair walked across the stage with his knees knocking dramatically.

  ‘Can’t stand teachers!’ he whispered at the camera. ‘They terrify me.’

  Then, with a grin, he was squatting on top of a barrel, reaching for the first question.

  ‘Right. It’s a question for the Manor Junior School. You have thirty seconds to think, and anyone can answer—if you’re not all too thick to work it out. Here goes. “I want to buy roller skates for my chickens. Twelve per cent of them have only one leg, and half the rest refuse to wear roller skates. So how many skates do I need to buy?”’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Mandy said. ‘He hasn’t said how many chickens there are.’

  ‘It’s the same number of skates as the number of chickens,’ Dinah said calmly. ‘It works out to one leg each.’

  Almost thirty seconds later, a brainy-looking boy with glasses faltered, ‘The same as the number of chickens?’

  Eddy Hair beamed at him. ‘Watch you don’t burn your mind out, genius. Thinking’s bad for your football, remember. Now, the next question …’

  As the Quiz went on, the questions grew harder and harder, but Dinah answered them all, hardly pausing to think. And the more she answered, the crosser Lloyd grew.

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ he yelled, as the last question was asked. ‘We know you’ve got brains the size of the Eiffel Tower. No need to rub it in. I vote we turn off this stupid programme.’

  ‘Not yet,’ wailed Ingrid. ‘It’s just getting to my favourite bit. With the head teachers. Let’s watch that.’

  On the screen, Eddy Hair was waggling a finger at the headmaster of Shillingstone Street School.

  ‘Your lot,’ he said cheerfully, ‘are the Dimmest School of the Week. Prepare to receive your reward.’

  In a flash, a giant panda appeared behind the headmaster’s chair and tipped a bucketful of flour over his head. As he emerg
ed from the white cloud, brushing it from his beard, his pupils cheered wildly.

  ‘I can just see our Headmaster liking that,’ Ian said with relish. ‘Perhaps the whole thing will be fun.’

  ‘No,’ murmured Mandy. ‘We’re going to win. Remember?’

  ‘That’s even better,’ chuckled Ingrid. ‘Do listen. What’s the other headmaster going to say?’

  For Eddy Hair was now pointing at the headmaster of the winning school.

  ‘You seem to have a crowd of geniuses,’ he said sourly. ‘Suppose you tell us how you do it.’

  This headmaster was a large, cheerful man with a red face. The camera panned in on him, so that his face filled the whole screen.

  ‘Doughnuts,’ he said, perfectly gravely. ‘We fill them full of doughnuts every morning before school. Good for the brain. You should try some, Eddy. And if anyone refuses to eat the doughnuts, we …’

  He went on for a full minute, with the camera to himself, explaining the magical qualities of doughnuts, before the panda reappeared and jammed three doughnuts into his open mouth.

  Lloyd reached forward and switched off the set. ‘You see?’ he said contemptuously. ‘There’s nothing for us to go on. It’s just a red herring that Dinah’s dreamed up.’

  ‘Wait.’ Dinah had gone white, and she was still staring at the empty screen, with her mouth open. Then, as if she were being strangled, she said, ‘It’s always like that, isn’t it? The headmaster of the winning team gets a whole minute to talk. To say whatever rubbish comes into his head. With most of the people in the country watching.’

  Ian nodded.

  ‘Well.’ Dinah gulped. ‘Think what our Headmaster could do with that.’

  Mandy gasped.

  ‘Would a minute be enough?’ Harvey said.

  ‘Probably.’ Dinah considered. ‘I don’t think it took him nearly as long as a minute to hypnotize me the first time.’

  ‘But that’s devilish!’ spluttered Ingrid. ‘He’d have the whole country in his power. Do you think that’s really what he’s planning?’

  ‘I don’t see how he could resist it,’ Dinah said miserably. ‘Do you, Lloyd?’

  Lloyd would dearly have liked to say she was wrong. Just to show her up. But the more he thought about it, the more certain it seemed. ‘I think you’ve got it,’ he said grudgingly.

  ‘But why?’ Dinah chewed her bottom lip.

  Lloyd jumped to his feet. ‘That’s obvious! Don’t be dumb, Dinah. He’ll be able to make his fortune. All he has to do is to tell everyone to send him a hundred pounds, or go out and rob a bank, or something. He’ll be the richest man in the world.’

  ‘Of course!’ said Ian and Harvey together.

  But Dinah looked doubtful. ‘I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem quite—’

  ‘Oh, you!’ Lloyd said bitterly. ‘You want to have all the inspirations. Just because I thought of this one—’

  Mandy interrupted him, ready to make peace as always. ‘I can’t see that it matters why he’s doing it. The important thing is—what are we going to do about it?’

  ‘Couldn’t Dinah just lose the Quiz?’ Ingrid said helpfully.

  ‘No!’ Harvey went white. And Dinah shook her head as well.

  ‘That’s too dangerous. He planned all this before I came, so he must have some scheme even if the team loses. No, the only safe thing is to stop the Eddy Hair Show coming to the school at all.’

  ‘Right.’ Lloyd decided that they had all listened to her for long enough. His head was suddenly bursting with ideas, and he was determined to take charge. ‘I’m the Chairman, and I’m going to make the plans.’ Everyone looked round at him and he grew more confident. This was better. Like before Dinah came. Everyone waiting for him to tell them what to do. ‘We’ll keep quiet for a week. So that no one suspects anything. Then, on the day of the show, this is what will happen …’

  13

  SPLAT Goes into Action

  When Lloyd, Harvey, and Dinah arrived at school the next Friday morning, there was something slightly different about the atmosphere in the playground. A feeling of suppressed excitement. No one pranced about, or did imitations of Eddy Hair, or boasted about being in the Quiz team. The children were standing in their usual circles, chanting away. But the chant was a bit faster and, from time to time, people looked at each other, breathlessly. It was plain what they were thinking. At six o’clock that evening they would be sitting in the Hall and they would be on television.

  The members of SPLAT kept well away from each other. There was no need to speak. They knew what they had to do. For a whole week, they had been going over it at their meetings until the arrangements were perfect. This morning there were only five of them in the playground. Ian had hidden on the way to school, ready to carry out the first part of Lloyd’s plan, and Mandy carried a note, forged by Dinah, which said that Ian would not be at school that day because he had a cold.

  As the prefects gathered on the steps and the children started to move into line, Lloyd glanced round quickly to check that Mandy and Ingrid were there. As he glanced at them, they crossed their fingers quickly and moved off. Lloyd drew a deep breath. Nothing must go wrong. He only hoped that he had thought of everything.

  The big outside-broadcast lorries trundled through the town, carrying the equipment needed to set up that evening’s Eddy Hair Show. Inside, the drivers and technicians were laughing and chatting to each other. This was the easy part of their job. Once the show started, they were tense, not knowing what was going to happen from one moment to the next. Whatever Eddy Hair sprang on them, they had to cope with, somehow. But if they got the cameras and lights and microphones set up in good time, they could cope with anything.

  At the traffic lights in the middle of the town, the first driver paused and pulled out a map. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We turn left here, and—’

  He stopped suddenly. A tall, fair-haired boy, in immaculate school uniform, was jumping up and down beside his cab, trying to attract his attention. He wound the window down and leaned out. ‘Yes, sonny?’

  Ian put on his most virtuous and reliable expression. ‘Are you the television people? Coming to do the Eddy Hair Show at our school?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. You looking for us?’

  Ian nodded. ‘The Headmaster sent me. He asked if you would take the lorries round the back way. You go left here, right up the little lane, over the bridge and—Here, would you like me to come along and show you? I’ve got to go back to school anyway.’

  ‘Sure. Hop up.’ The driver grinned at him. ‘Nice to come to a school where we get looked after so well.’

  Ian climbed up into the cab and began to direct. Behind, he heard the other lorries start up and his mouth went dry. If only it worked. If only they did not suspect anything.

  ‘Left here,’ he said, his voice completely calm. ‘Then right.’

  ‘You’re sure you’ve got it straight, sonny?’ As the man beside him swung the wheel, he glanced sideways, doubtfully. ‘I don’t see any sign of a school.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Ian said airily. ‘You can’t see it from here. Go through those gates, and I’ll hop out and tell the Headmaster you’ve come. Then you can bring the lorries up to the door one by one.’

  Still frowning, the driver turned the wheel again. Slowly the lorry crunched through a pair of tall gates into the disused quarry. In front of them, tall cliffs of chalk stretched up on every side, cutting off any view. Ian threw the door open and slipped down, out of the cab.

  ‘Wait here. Won’t be a moment,’

  As he ran back to the entrance, the other two lorries were rolling through the gates. He waved cheerfully at the drivers and waited until they were clear, then began to shove at the heavy gates. For one panicky moment, he thought they were not going to move, but they swung together suddenly, with a clang, and he pulled out of his pocket the two big padlocks that Lloyd had given him. Quickly, he clipped them shut.

  ‘Hey!’ said a voice from inside t
he quarry. ‘What’re you doing?’

  Not waiting to hear any more, Ian ran off down the road. Mission One was safely completed. Now came the tricky bit. He found the bush where he had hidden a bottle of cooking oil, pulled it out and set off towards the school. Somehow, he had to sneak in and out again, without being seen.

  Mandy and Ingrid were not feeling so cheerful. Their part of the plan was next, but they had to wait until the end of the afternoon to start it, and they were not at all sure that it would work. They sat in their separate classrooms, biting their nails, and when they met at lunchtime, Mandy whispered, ‘I’m scared. Suppose it all goes wrong?’

  Ingrid glanced round to see if anyone was watching, then thumped her crossly. ‘It had better not go wrong. You know what Lloyd said. We must get all possible enemies out of the way. Now shut up about it. I’ll see you outside the staffroom at four o’clock.’

  Mandy fretted her way through the afternoon, but at four o’clock she was standing bravely in the corridor outside the staffroom when Ingrid appeared.

  ‘There’s a terrible racket going on in the Headmaster’s office,’ Ingrid whispered. ‘He’s on the phone to the television headquarters, wanting to know why the cameras and things haven’t arrived. I could hear him right through the door.’

  Mandy grinned. ‘At least Ian’s first bit went OK. Let’s hope the second bit did too, or we might be in trouble. All the teachers are in the staffroom. I’ve been watching them go in. Give me a couple of minutes to get down to the swimming pool and then knock on the door.’

  She ran off, and a minute or two later, Ingrid rapped sharply on the staffroom door, panting as if she had been hurrying. When Mr Venables opened it, she began to speak quickly.

  ‘Please, sir, I’ve got a message from the Headmaster. Eddy Hair wants to talk to all the teachers in the swimming pool building.’

  ‘The swimming pool?’ Mr Venables raised his eyebrows.

  ‘It’s a stunt he’s got planned.’ Ingrid gave her most innocent, frightened smile. ‘He wants you all to join in, and the Headmaster’s sounding rather cross and—’