My Head Teacher is a Vampire Rat

by Pamela Butchart

  And then Maisie asked if Jodi could please make three because she likes garlic and thought they sounded lovely, and so Jodi said OK.

  But then we heard Miss Ross through the classroom curtain telling 6B that the new Head Teacher was on his way up to the classroom! And all of a sudden Maisie’s body went really weird. And she went really straight, like a stick. And her eyes went even wider than I thought human eyes could go before your eyeballs fall out! And then she started making this weird low sound that I’ve never heard her do before, and it kind of sounded like when my cats start fighting each other. And then she went completely silent.

  So I said, “Maisie, are you OK?” But she didn’t reply. And she was doing that weird staring thing that people do, when your eyes go wide, and you stare, but you don’t really stare AT anything. So I waved my hand in front of her face, but she didn’t blink. And then Jodi waved her hand in front of Maisie’s face too. Nothing.

  And that’s when I realised that hearing about Mr Graves coming up to our classroom must have been TOO MUCH for Maisie. And that Maisie’s brain was TRAUMATISED.

  And then Zach said, “What do we do?”

  And Jodi said that maybe we should get Miss Jones. But I said no, and that we should try to fix Maisie’s brain ourselves, because I had an idea.

  So I flicked to the back of my notebook, and I wrote something in big letters, and then I held it up to Maisie’s face. And it said,

  And we all waited to see what Maisie would do. And then she blinked once. So we knew that she was still with us. But then she started lifting her hand up into the air REALLY slowly, and we all got really freaked out because we didn’t know what she was doing.

  And then Zach said, “Oh NO! Vampire mind control!”

  And we all STARED at Maisie, and moved our seats away from her a bit.

  And then Maisie’s arm went even higher into the air. And then it went really straight, and her finger started to point slowly.

  And then Zach said, “Mr Graves is making her do that!”

  Then I realised what Maisie was doing. So I said, “Look! She’s pointing at something.” So we looked at where we thought Maisie was pointing, but all we could see was the bookshelf.

  And then Jodi said, “Maisie, are you having your mind controlled right now?”

  And Maisie blinked twice, for no.

  But then Zach said that Maisie might not be telling the truth if she was under the mind control of a vampire.

  So then I said, “Maisie, are you just pointing at something?”

  And Maisie blinked once.

  So we looked again to see if we could see what she was pointing at. And that’s when Zach screamed the loudest scream I have EVER heard! And then he tried to stand up, but his body just went all wobbly, and he fell back down into his chair and started mumbling something and pointing to where Maisie was still pointing. And then he fainted on the desk.

  And I had absolutely NO IDEA why Zach had just fainted on the desk, because he doesn’t usually faint unless it has to do with peas, because he’s terrified of peas.

  And then Jodi started shouting, “MISS JONES! MISS JONES!”

  And I thought she was shouting because of Zach fainting, but then I saw that Jodi was pointing now too!

  And Jodi must have been much better at pointing than Maisie and Zach were, because this time I saw EXACTLY what everyone was looking at, and so did the rest of the class. And everyone started screaming. Even Miss Jones! Because there was a huge RAT in our classroom!

  Once we had been EVACUATED from the classroom, we were all sent to the gym hall with 6B.

  And then all the other classes started coming into the gym hall too, and loads of the year ones were crying, and some of the year six girls were hugging each other, and it was basically just like a nightmare.

  And then Mr Graves came on to the stage, and everyone went silent and stared at him. And I was panicking a bit because we were sat

  because we had been the first ones to be evacuated.

  And then Mr Graves said, “Good afternoon, boys and girls. As you may have already heard, we appear to have had an incident with a poor little mouse in one of the classrooms.”

  And that’s when Jodi whispered, “That definitely wasn’t a mouse. It was huge!”

  And she was right. And I knew that Mr Graves was probably just pretending that it had been a mouse, because he didn’t want everyone to know about the vampire rats. And that the only reason he was calling the rat a “poor little mouse” was because it was probably one of his vampire friends, and he didn’t want anyone to squish it.

  And then all of a sudden Mr Graves looked right at us and froze. And his eyes went really wide. And that’s when Maisie gasped and flopped on to my lap. But Mr Graves didn’t even notice, so I knew it wasn’t me or Maisie that he was staring at. So I turned and looked at Zach, and that’s when I found out EXACTLY what Mr Graves was starting at. And I couldn’t believe it. Zach’s nose was bleeding!

  So I screamed at the top of my lungs, “ZACH! RUN!” because I knew that Mr Graves was about to leap off the stage and drink Zach’s nose blood!

  But Zach didn’t know that his nose was bleeding, so he didn’t know what was going on, so he just sat there staring at me with his mouth wide open and blood all over his face.

  And then Jodi grabbed Zach and covered his nose with her hand so Mr Graves couldn’t see the blood.

  And when we looked back at the stage, Mr Graves had gone really pale, and he was licking his lips! And then he started stumbling backwards, and he WOULDN’T take his eyes off Zach’s nose, until he eventually turned and disappeared behind the curtain!

  Once Mrs Seith had finished telling me off and giving me a detention for screaming during an assembly, she went on stage and quickly told everyone to collect a letter, and that we were to give it to our parents, and that we were definitely “NOT TO OPEN IT.” And then she told us to go outside for an extended afternoon interval until the end of the day, because of the mice that were really rats.

  She didn’t say ANYTHING about why Mr Graves had disappeared and I knew it was because she didn’t know and that she was probably shocked, because all the other teachers had got in a group together at the bottom of the stage and they looked confused, and scared too, and they kept whispering to each other about it.

  So as soon as Mrs Seith stopped talking I grabbed four letters and then we all ran out of the hall as fast as we could. And Jodi was in front, and she didn’t stop running until she got to the very end of the playground, which is the furthest you can get from the Head Teacher’s office. And then we all hid behind the recycling bins.

  And then Jodi said, “I can’t believe it. He almost got you!” And Zach looked like he was in shock.

  And then I said that we had to get rid of all the nose blood so that Mr Graves wouldn’t smell it and follow us. So I got my water bottle out and squeezed it all over Zach’s face. But there was still loads of blood, and Jodi had it on her hands too from when she’d tried to cover Zach’s face. And that’s when Maisie opened her bag and she had LOADS of stuff, like antibacterial wipes, and plasters, and cotton wool, and she even had a big bandage.

  So we used the antibacterial wipes on Jodi’s hands and Zach’s face so that Mr Graves DEFINITELY wouldn’t be able to smell the blood and find us behind the recycling bins.

  Then Zach said that his nose was really stinging now. And Maisie said that he must have hurt it when he fainted on the desk.

  And then she said, “Izzy, you saved him.” But I said that I didn’t think I had because I’d told Zach to run but he’d just sat there.

  But then Maisie said that Mr Graves had backed away because he knew that I had found out about him being a vampire because I’d screamed, “RUN!”

  And then Zach said, “Do you think he’s left for good?” And we all said that he might have, because he’d been found out.

  And then I remembered about the letters, so I took mine out of my bag and opened it. And it said that t
here was a

  and that certain areas of the school would be closed off until the situation was “FULLY RESOLVED”. And that the school would remain open and that “LEARNING WOULD NOT BE AFFECTED”.

  And Maisie said that that wasn’t really true, because she hadn’t learned anything this week because all she could think about was rats and vampires.

  And then Jodi said, “So should I still make garlic muffins tonight?”

  And Zach said, “Um. Definitely!” And then he pointed up to the top corridor that was strictly “OUT OF BOUNDS”. And that’s where we saw Mr Graves looking out of a window RIGHT AT US.

  The next day when me and Zach got to school, there was a sign up that said that all parts of the school were open again, except for the top corridor. But our classroom is on the top corridor, so that meant we were still sharing with 6B.

  Zach said that the top corridor must be where all the rats had gathered, and that when we’d seen Mr Graves up there yesterday, he was probably feeding them all, and keeping them safe, and telling them all about how he nearly got to drink Zach’s nose blood, and that all the rats would have been drooling because they wanted some.

  And then I had an EPIPHANY. Which is when you realise something all of a sudden and it makes perfect sense. So I said, “Mr Murphy! They’ve got him!”

  And Zach gasped, so I knew that he understood. So we ran to the new classroom, and when we saw Jodi and Maisie waiting outside for us, we just shouted, “DEN!” and kept on running, and Jodi and Maisie ran after us.

  Once we were in The Den, I told everyone about how I thought that Mr Graves had kidnapped Mr Murphy so that he could be the new Head Teacher and take over the school with his vampire-rat army. And about how poor Mr Murphy must be trapped up in the top corridor, and that he probably had hundreds of rat poos all over his face, and that he was probably really thirsty by now.

  And then Zach said, “We need to save him for Miss Jones! She must be upset because she probably thinks that Mr Murphy just ran away and left her! She doesn’t know about him being kidnapped and trapped by vampire rats!”

  And then Jodi said, “Don’t worry. We’ll save him.” And then she went into her bag and brought out an old ice-cream box.

  And then she said, “Look.” And she opened the lid, and showed us the garlic muffifins. And I was surprised, because I thought that they would stink, but they didn’t. And then Jodi told us that she had chopped up the garlic and mixed it in with peanut butter, and put it right in the middle of the muffin, so that Mr Graves wouldn’t smell it and get suspicious.

  And then she said, “He’ll just bite into the middle, and then it’ll be too late.”

  And I thought that Jodi was probably a real-life genius, because this was the sneakiest and best plan

  At break time, we were getting ready to take the garlic muffin to Mr Graves when we realised that we had NO IDEA how we were going to actually get him to eat it.

  Zach said that he thought we should just leave it outside his door, with a note. But then I said that I didn’t think Mr Graves would just eat something that was left outside his door even if it did have a note on it. And that I didn’t think ANYONE would just eat something they found sitting on the ground like that. But then Zach said that he would.

  So I said, “But what if a dog had done his business on it? You wouldn’t know, would you?” And then Zach said that he’d changed his mind. And that he wouldn’t eat a muffin off the ground. So we needed another plan.

  So that’s when Jodi said that there was only one way to make sure Mr Graves ate the muffin. And that it was for one of us to actually go up and knock on his door and give it to him. And everyone just kind of looked down at the ground, because none of us wanted to be the one to do it, and we were all just hoping that Jodi would say that she would do it.

  But then Jodi said, “I’m not doing it. I made the muffin. It’s someone else’s turn.” And we all knew that she was right.

  But then I remembered about yesterday, and how Maisie had said that Mr Graves had run away because he knew that I had found out about him being a vampire.

  So I said, “I can’t do it. He knows that I know about him!”

  And then Zach said, “I’ll do it.” And we were all a bit shocked, because usually we have to force Zach into being brave and doing stuff. But then Zach looked at Maisie and smiled, and I knew that he had said that he would do it so that Maisie didn’t have to.

  So we watched from behind the big pot plant in reception, as Zach went up to the new Head Teacher’s door and knocked on it.

  And then Jodi said, “Oh no. We didn’t tell him what to say!”

  And then she started panicking, and waving her arms about through the pot plant to try to get his attention, because we both knew that there was NO WAY Zach was going to be able to make up a story-lie about why he was giving the Head Teacher a muffin. And that he’d probably say something stupid like, “Have you been to another funeral today?” or “Do vampires eat muffins?!”

  But then just as Zach noticed us, Mr Graves opened his door.

  So I whispered, “Freeze!” And we did. But then I realised that that was a stupid plan, because our arms were still sticking out.

  And then Mr Graves said, “Oh … erm … hello! Zachery, isn’t it?”

  And we heard Zach say, “Yes.”

  And then Mr Graves said, “Do those arms belong to you?”

  And me and Jodi both pulled our arms back in right away!

  And then Zach said, “Erm … yeah. That’s my friends. They’re shy.”

  And Mr Graves said, “Oh. I see.”

  I was impressed that Zach had thought to say that instead of saying something stupid like, “No, those are not my friends. That’s just a plant with human arms.”

  And then Jodi whispered, “Izzy, open your eyes.” And I didn’t even realise that I’d had my eyes shut.

  And that’s when I saw Zach holding the garlic muffin up to Mr Graves.

  And then he said, “We made this for you … to say welcome to our school.”

  It was hard to see what was going on because the pot plant was shaking like mad because Maisie was freaking out. But then I heard Mr Graves say thank you, and I moved a bit so I could see. And that’s when I saw Mr Graves eat THE WHOLE THING.

  And then he said, “That was delicious, Zachery. Thank you. And your friends.” And then he looked right at the pot plant and smiled a really, really creepy smile!

  When we got back to class, Jodi said that we needed to have an emergency meeting RIGHT NOW to discuss the MUFFIN INCIDENT. So we just pretended to be discussing our poems about nature and had a secret meeting instead.

  Jodi said that she didn’t understand why it hadn’t worked, and that he’d eaten the WHOLE MUFFIN, and that she’d put at least SIX whole garlic cloves in it.

  And then Zach said that something was wrong. And that there was NO WAY a vampire could eat that much garlic without exploding.

  But then Miss Jones came over, and she just stood there, which is what she always does when she thinks we’re chatting about things that are not our work. And then she said that we were just to carry on sharing our poems, and to pretend that she wasn’t there.

  And I didn’t know WHAT to do, because none of us had written our poems, because we’d been having a secret meeting.

  So I just said, “I like trees, but I don’t like bees.” And then I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I just STARED at Jodi, and tried to kick her a bit under the table. And then Jodi said, “Grass is green, and so is a bean.”

  And then we both stared at Zach, and he started saying all this stuff about how nature was beautiful and special and that nature was all around us, and then he started talking about baby animals, and even though it wasn’t really a poem, and it didn’t rhyme or anything, Miss Jones seemed really happy about what Zach had said, and that made her go away.

  Then Maisie said something, but we couldn’t really hear what it was because she had both of her p
igtails in her mouth, because she sometimes eats her hair when she’s scared. So we asked her to take them out, and she did.

  And then she said, “I think Mr Graves knew that we’d put garlic in the muffin.” And then she said that the way he had eaten ALL of it RIGHT IN FRONT OF US and then smiled RIGHT AT US afterwards made her think that he KNEW what we were up to. And that he knew that nothing was going to happen to him.

  And then Miss Jones came back over to our table and separated us for not doing our work.

  At lunch, we went to The Den to finish the secret meeting.

  We were all still really confused about how Mr Graves could have known about our plan, because we’d made it in secret, in The Den. And we hadn’t told anyone else about it.

  So I said, “But how did he find out? Who told him?”

  And that’s when Jodi paused, and her eyes went a bit wide.

  And then she whispered, “We did.” And we were all shocked that she’d said that.

  And I said, “What?! No we never!”

  Then Jodi whispered, “DON’T freak out. I want everyone to stay very, very calm.”

  And that’s when Maisie started shaking VIOLENTLY.

  And Zach started saying, “What? WHAT?!” And NOBODY was being calm, because we all knew that something was SERIOUSLY WRONG because people ALWAYS tell you to STAY CALM when things are SERIOUSLY WRONG. I don’t know why they even bother saying it because it just makes everyone PANIC!

  Then Jodi started acting REALLY weird, and smiling loads.

  And then she said, “I think I’ll draw a picture of the four of us for the moth. We can put it up there beside its jar.”