Supercharged!

by Jeremy Strong

  That’s the noise Mr Butternut makes when he’s got a cold. It’s like a mega-major explosion, I can tell you. The classroom walls shake! The windows fall out! The roof takes off !

  That teacher of ours can certainly sneeze. If there was a sneezing competition in the Olympic Games, I bet Mr Butternut would win by miles. You could use Mr Butternut’s sneezes to send a rocket into space.

  Mr Butternut sneezed the WHOLE DAY on Monday. And on Tuesday – HE WASN’T THERE!

  ‘He’s probably blown himself up,’ Pete said.

  ‘He shouldn’t sneeze like that,’ muttered Noella Niblet, who is the biggest sulkpot in history. ‘He’ll spread germs everywhere. He’s probably given us all colds.’

  Tyson’s eyes boggled. ‘We could all die!’ he whispered in alarm. But then Tyson is scared of everything – even his own shoelaces.

  Hartley Tartly-Green pushed his nose into the air. ‘My mum says, “Sneeze on Monday and it will snow. Sneeze on Tuesday – the snow will go. Sneeze on Wednesday, it will be fine; sneeze on Thursday and the sun will shine. Sneeze on Friday – it’ll be windy; sneeze on Sat–” ’

  ‘STOP!’ yelled Pete. ‘Sneezing has nothing to do with the weather. If you sneeze all that much – you know what? YOU’VE GOT A COLD, MR STUPIDO!’

  ‘Well, my mum –’ began Hartley.

  ‘– is Mrs Stupido,’ Pete slapped in.

  Hartley sniffed and shut up. Hooray.

  We were standing on the classroom steps, waiting for Miss Scratchitt, our headteacher, to come and open up, but she didn’t. Instead, after a while, we saw a large figure approaching – a VERY large figure. It looked like a gigantic, swollen potato with a tiny head perched on top. It was definitely heading our way.

  ‘That’s not Miss Scratchitt,’ said Hartley Tartly-Green, as if we couldn’t see that for ourselves.

  ‘You should be a detective, Hartley,’ murmured Sarah Sitterbout. He smiled back at her proudly and nodded.

  By this time we could see that the figure wasn’t a gigantic potato after all. It was a woman as big as Mount Everest.

  The mountain heaved itself up the steps, shoved a key in the classroom door and flung it open.

  ‘Inside!’ she boomed.

  She stomped in after us, threw her bulging bag down to the floor and overflowed into Mr Butternut’s chair. She opened her bag, put a pile of chocolate bars on the desk, stripped the foil off two and shoved them into her mouth.

  She glared at us, one by one. I swear I could see little red dots pinging out of her eyes and striking us. We sat there, frozen with fear, like scared rabbits.

  ‘My name,’ the mountain declared, ‘is Mrs Cloddle. Mr Butternut is ill. He won’t be back. I’m in charge now. Mrs Cloddle.’

  Phew! Pete kicked me under the table. We exchanged pained looks with each other. A living nightmare had just taken over our class!

  ‘You boys!’ Mrs Cloddle roared. ‘What are you pulling those stupid faces for!’

  Pete and I had both turned round to see who she was talking to before we realized, that she was speaking to US!

  ‘Yes – you two! Stand up when I talk to you! Pulling stupid faces – what was that about?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I murmured.

  ‘Nothing? Do you mean you pull silly faces for no reason at all?’

  Mrs Cloddle’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits. The red dots came streaming out like tiny machine-gun bullets. She was melting my brain.

  ‘I said NO ARGUING,’ she spluttered, spraying bits of chocolate in all directions. Poor Noella Niblet and Hartley Tartly on the front table got splattered.

  Mrs Cloddle gunned me and Pete with her dotty eyes. ‘You two will stay behind at playtime and write out one hundred times: I must not argue with Mrs Cloddle because she is always right. Understood?’

  GULP! We sat down. That Mrs Cloddle was a MONSTER. In fact all the time I’d been watching her I’d been drawing and when I looked down, guess what I’d drawn?

  I passed it to Pete. He gave a loud snort of laughter, clapped a hand to his mouth and hastily looked up to see if Mrs Cloddle had noticed. She had.

  ‘You again!’ roared Mrs Cloddle. ‘Bring that piece of paper here.’

  Pete took my drawing, pushed back his chair and walked up to Mrs Cloddle’s desk. She stretched out a fat, sweaty, choccy-fingered hand.

  ‘Give it to me.’

  Pete lifted his hand, my drawing grasped firmly between his fingers and thumb. His hand went towards Mrs Cloddle’s. She reached out for it and –

  For a few seconds Mrs Cloddle was gobsmacked. Her eyes boggled. Her mouth fell open. (She looked a bit like a frog!) Meanwhile Pete chewed and chewed on the drawing and finally swallowed it. He had turned very white. (That was because of Mrs Cloddle, not because he’d eaten my picture.)

  A smile came to Mrs Cloddle’s face. It was like the smile you get from a crocodile before they bite your legs off.

  ‘I suppose you think that’s clever,’ Mrs Cloddle snarled. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what was on that paper, because I do.’

  OH YES? DURRRR! WE’RE NOT STUPID, MRS CLODDLE! YOU COULDN’T POSSIBLY KNOW!

  Everyone in class knew Mrs Cloddle didn’t know, even Hartley Tartly-Green. Mrs Cloddle went on.

  ‘Well, you are not the least bit clever. Not only do I know what was on that paper, but I am going to tell the head teacher. And after school I am going to tell your parents and everyone in your house, EVEN YOUR PET!

  Also, you will miss lunch because you’ve just had something to eat and certainly don’t need anything more.’

  Mrs Cloddle’s blazing eyes swept over Pete. She grabbed two more chocolate bars, stuffed them in her mouth and sniffed.

  Pete came back and slumped into his seat. I patted his back comfortingly.

  ‘Sorry,’ I whispered.

  ‘Good picture,’ he murmured back. ‘It tasted lovely.’

  The rest of the morning passed in a long, boring silence. Mrs Cloddle was the complete opposite of Mr Butternut. He was funny and cheerful and made us laugh. He talked about anything and everything. He showed us things and told us stories. He made us feel good. We even got to like his beard. AND he told us we were all superheroes. But that Mrs Cloddle was like an iceberg.

  When lunchtime came we had to leave Pete stuck in the classroom all on his own.

  ‘I can see this class from the staffroom,’ warned Mrs Cloddle.

  ‘So don’t think you can sneak out!’

  Mia and I managed to beg a few unwanted sandwiches from some of our mates, and some lettuce and tomatoes. I stuffed them in my pocket. I reckoned that Mrs Cloddle couldn’t see into the class from the staffroom. And she certainly couldn’t see the other side of the class.

  I went right round the back of the school until finally I reached our classroom, where Mrs Cloddle couldn’t see me. I tapped on the window and Pete came scurrying over.

  ‘Here’s some food for you.’

  Anyway, we somehow managed to get through the afternoon and then we were allowed to go home.

  ‘We’ve got to get Mr Butternut back before we get killed by Clodzilla,’ I told Pete.

  ‘Horrible Hairy Face is ill,’ Pete said gloomily.

  ‘Then we’ll have to make sure he gets better very quickly. I’m going to look up cures for colds on the computer when I get home.’

  Of course, when I got in, big sis Abbie was already hogging the computer.

  ‘No, I’m not!’ she squawked far too loudly, which meant she definitely was. ‘I’ve already got a boyfriend, so there, and don’t ask who he is because I shan’t tell.’

  ‘That’s because he doesn’t have a name because he DOESN’T EXIST,’ I said. ‘Anyhow, I have homework to do and I need the computer.’

  ‘Tough,’ said Abbie.

  See? That’s what my big sis is like. She’s a big pain in the you-know-what.

  Luckily Abbie got a call on her mobile from one of her friends and she was off and away, whispering and sniggering
for HOURS. You know how it is.

  I got down to it on the computer and was busy making lots of notes when Pete turned up. As usual.

  ‘It says here that a hot bath can help cure a cold,’ I told him.

  ‘Great. Let’s go to Mr Butternut’s house and give him a hot bath,’ Pete said stonily.

  I didn’t think Pete was being very helpful.I showed him the list I’d made so far.

  ‘See?’ I said. ‘There are loads of things you can do to get better. Pass the phone.’

  I dialled directory enquiries, got connected and a woman answered. It must have been his wife. I put on my deepest, growliest voice.

  I slammed down the phone. Pete gave me an icy stare.

  ‘That went well, Doctor Deathbreath. And I’m Doctor Doctor, am I? That was very imaginative of you.’

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘We had to do something. At least I tried. We are not going to survive Clodzilla more than another day.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Pete grunted. ‘Maybe we should all have colds tomorrow and stay off school.’

  But of course the next day there wasn’t a sneeze between us. At school Pete and I found the others waiting for us on the classroom steps. You’ve never seen such a miserable lot, and school hadn’t even started.

  ‘Mithter Butternut is still off thick,’ Lucy declared. ‘I thaw Mithuth Cloddle arrive thith morning.’

  Lucy always speaks like that. She’s got the biggest teeth brace in history and it makes her lisp. (We call her The Mighty Munch!) But you should see her in gym. She can climb ropes faster than Tarzan and she’s brilliant at cartwheels. The last time I tried a cartwheel I almost knocked out Mr Butternut. He was trying to help me and my foot caught him right on the chin.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked Sarah. ‘I don’t think I can survive another day with Clodzilla.’

  But nobody could think of ANYTHING. Mrs Cloddle came heaving across the playground with her bag of choccy bars while we were still hammering away at our brains.

  ‘Inside,’ Mrs Cloddle ordered and we all trooped in. Another miserable day was about to begin.

  AND THEN IT HAPPENED …

  CLODZILLA SNEEZED.

  For two seconds Mrs Cloddle looked totally startled, as if a bomb had gone off up her nose. (Which it had, sort of.) Then she gave a ginormous sniff and wiped her nose with her sleeve.

  That Mrs Cloddle was more disgusting than a squashed slug. (Which is what her sleeve now looked like.)

  Hartley Tartly-Green was waving his arm in the air.

  ‘What?’ snapped Mrs Cloddle.

  ‘My mum says, “Sneeze on Monday and it will snow. Sneeze on Tuesday – the snow will go. Sneeze on Wednesday, it will be fine; sneeze on Thurs–’

  ‘ENOUGH!’ roared Mrs Cloddle.

  Poor Hartley. You could almost see his heart sticking to the ceiling where it had leaped out of his body.

  Pete nudged me and stuck his arm up.

  ‘What now?’ sniffed Mrs Cloddle.

  ‘My dad says that if you pinch your nose when you sneeze, your eyeballs out of their sockets and just dangle from your face.’

  I grinned and shoved my hand in the air. ‘And my aunt says that when you sneeze, a billion germs come shooting out of your nostrils at a gazillion trillion miles an hour.’

  Mrs Cloddle was just opening her mouth to speak when Mia waved her arm.

  ‘My granny says that if you keep a large lettuce leaf stuck up each nostril, it stops you from sneezing at all.’

  ‘And if you stick your head underwater,’ Pete added, ‘you definitely won’t sneeze EVER.’

  It seemed as if Mrs Cloddle had swollen to twice her normal size. And considering she had started as big as Mount Everest, she was now

  ‘You will all stay in at lunchtime and not have ANY lunch,’ she bellowed. ‘And you will ALL write out FIFTY BILLION TIMES – I must not talk twaddle in class. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?’

  Mrs Cloddle glared at us, daring any one of us to argue.

  Well! How unfair was that? We were too shocked to argue. How dare she keep us in at lunchtime? How dare she make us miss our lunch? There was only one thing to do. It was time for –

  In fact, just as Mrs Cloddle finished telling us we had fifty billion lines to write out, the door opened and guess who walked in?

  MR HORRIBLE HAIRY FACE!

  Except that he didn’t look horrible to us at all. He looked like a REAL SUPERHERO!

  Mrs Cloddle seethed like a snake in a sack. ‘You are welcome to your class. I have never met such awful children.’

  Mr Butternut looked shocked and surprised. He gazed at every one of us, searching our faces. Then he turned to Mrs Cloddle.

  ‘I think you are mistaken,’ he said. ‘It’s the other way round. They have never met such an awful teacher. Please leave immediately.’

  Mrs Cloddle’s jaw just about fell off her face. She turned a deep red, which then changed to white anger. She packed her bag furiously and steamed out of the classroom, knocking things flying as she went. She slammed the door behind her. She had hardly taken two steps outside when we heard the most gigantic explosion.

  Even the windows rattled. Poor Clodzilla!

  Mr Butternut went to his desk and sat down. We grinned back at him.