Taken Over

by Z. Fraillon

  Stenka cleared her throat. Their principal looked around in surprise.

  ‘Oh, yes. Here you all are. Of course. Well, then. Keep an eye open for a swarm of flying goat-sized insect-monsters. That’s all. Bye for now.’ Von Strasser turned his horse around as he waved.

  ‘Wait!’ Saffy called out. ‘Why are they trying to get into the school?’

  Stenka fixed her with a stare.

  Von Strasser turned back to face them. ‘Thank you, Ms Dominguez. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed the rather beautiful plant that has recently become rather overgrown around the school? It’s screechwort. The Skrinkerscreech nest in it once every five years. They have done so for millennia.’

  ‘Screechwhat?’ Jasper whispered to Mac.

  ‘No, screechwort,’ said Von Strasser. ‘It is the Skrinkerscreech’s birth plant. All monsters need to feed on their birth plant when they first hatch. Without it, they don’t develop any monster characteristics and they can’t become monsters. For example, a Grubbergrind would simply be a spider, an Octoglug would be an octopus, et cetera, et cetera. It is something in the birth plant that causes the monster hatchling to mutate and become a monster. The Skrinkerscreech’s birth plant is screechwort. And it just so happens that we have a lot of it growing here at Monstrum House.’

  Saffy’s jaw had dropped open. ‘Hang on, so what you’re saying is, inside the school grounds there’s a plant that turns monster hatchlings into monsters?’

  Stenka turned to Saffy, looking as if death rays would shoot from her eyeballs.

  ‘Quite,’ Von Strasser nodded.

  ‘And you haven’t thought to pull the plant out?’ Saffy asked.

  ‘Ms Dominguez!’ Stenka exploded.

  ‘Thank you, Stenka,’ said Principal Von Strasser. ‘But I will explain. Screechwort can’t be killed, Ms Dominguez. It’s a plant with monster characteristics. It thrives in the cold, dark conditions here. It loves negative feelings. Pulling it out makes it come back twice as big. Spraying it with weed killer makes it grow. Besides, it’s quite useful. The leaves are a vital component of many anti-venoms when properly prepared.’

  Von Strasser smiled pleasantly. ‘There will be nineteen monsters altogether. The queen is particularly impressive. You will need to find her nest and stop her eggs from hatching. Enjoy your day.’ He waved, and trotted out of the hall.

  Mac thumped Jasper on the back. ‘Cool, huh?’ he grinned.

  ‘Yeah,’ Jasper replied, ‘great.’

  4

  Monstrum House wasn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill school. All of the subjects had just one objective: to teach the students how to hunt monsters. Some of the subjects were cool, but Rest and Relaxation wasn’t one of them. It was somewhere between a meditation class and an army boot camp.

  ‘Good morning, Class 2B,’ the Rest and Relaxation teacher boomed.

  ‘Good morning, Master Poon, sir!’ the class replied, as if they were soldiers. Saffy mumbled something else under her breath.

  Their teacher, a deranged army general called Master Poon, was sitting cross-legged in the middle of a circle of rose-scented candles. He was dressed in full camouflage gear, complete with a bush on his helmet.

  ‘Now sit,’ Master Poon ordered.

  The students quickly sat down.

  ‘I have some candles here today to help you all to relax,’ yelled Master Poon. ‘I want all of you to be very calm. I don’t want you to think about your hair catching alight or how horribly your little faces could be disfigured by hot wax. Smell the candles!’ he shouted. ‘Are you smelling them?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ the class chorused. Saffy rolled her eyes.

  ‘Dominguez! On the floor, give me twenty! No eye-rolling!’

  Saffy gritted her teeth as she finished the twenty push-ups in front of a smirking Felix.

  ‘And Brown! No smirking. Twenty from you!’ Master Poon commanded.

  Jasper found it really hard not to laugh. He and his friends always had bets about who would have to do the most push-ups in Master Poon’s class.

  ‘As well as teaching this class, I will be your homeroom teacher for the year,’ Master Poon boomed, once Felix had finished his pushups. ‘So we will be seeing quite a lot of each other. And I will not take any nonsense. Now everyone, give me twenty push-ups. That’s twenty more for you, Dominguez and Brown. ON THE DOUBLE!’

  The whole class started their push-ups while Master Poon surveyed them. ‘We are going to have a great year. Aren’t we, McPhee?’

  Jasper looked up to see his teacher staring down at him. Master Poon’s eyes flashed spookily in the flickering candlelight.

  ‘Er, yeah, it’ll be excellent,’ Jasper agreed.

  ‘Now give me another twenty for lying through your teeth,’ said Master Poon, pushing Jasper back down onto the floor with his shiny black boot.

  Jasper’s arms were aching when he sat back on his mat. There couldn’t possibly be a worse teacher than Master Poon for a subject called Rest and Relaxation. And the fact that he was their homeroom teacher meant that Jasper would have to see him every day for a whole year. But they had survived Stenka for a year, and Master Poon couldn’t be worse than her. Could he?

  ‘OK,’ said Master Poon. ‘Let’s relax! Smell those candles! Screechers can feed on your fear and grow stronger. In this class you will learn to keep your cool in the most stressful situations. You will control your fear. Are you ready to relax?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the class mumbled half-heartedly.

  ‘I SAID, ARE YOU READY TO RELAX?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ they shouted.

  ‘I can tell that none of you are relaxing!’ said Master Poon. ‘Close your eyes and RELAX! Feel your muscles becoming soft. And breathe! Breathe, you maggots!’

  Jasper was trying his best to relax, but he knew that any moment, Master Poon would do something worse than just yell at him.

  Breathe, said Jasper to himself. Relax.

  Then Jasper felt something fall softly into his lap. He didn’t want to open his eyes. He could already feel the fear creeping in. He’d gone to enough Rest and Relaxation classes to know that whatever was in his lap couldn’t be good.

  ‘Keep relaxed, keep calm, control your fear,’ said Master Poon sternly. ‘And as an added incentive, anyone who doesn’t scream when they open their eyes gets a cancel card. You can use it to cancel out two penalty points from your record.’

  Jasper felt his spirits lift. He could really do with one of those. How bad can it be? he thought, almost willing to open his eyes.

  But then, the thing in his lap moved. In fact, it scuttled.

  ‘Right! Open your eyes,’ Master Poon said. ‘Now!’

  Jasper clenched his teeth together, opened his eyes, and screamed.

  5

  The hugest, hairiest, most hideous tarantula Jasper had ever seen was perched on top of his knee.

  Everyone in the class was screaming.

  ‘RELAX, you bunch of pansies!’ yelled Master Poon.

  Every student had something they found horrific in their laps. Jasper leapt to his feet. The spider fell from his knee and scurried under a cupboard.

  Master Poon smiled triumphantly and put the cancel cards back into his pocket as the gong rang for the end of class.

  Jasper looked over and saw Felix screaming at a brussels sprout. He shook his head. He grabbed Felix and wrenched him to his feet. They didn’t speak as they ran out into the hallway. None of the other kids in the class followed.

  ‘He hadn’t dismissed us,’ groaned Felix.

  ‘I don’t care. My skin was crawling. I had to get out of there,’ said Jasper.

  Saffy arrived a few minutes later. ‘Barbie doll,’ she shuddered. ‘I didn’t like dolls much when I was little.’

  Jasper couldn’t help laughing. ‘You’re as bad as Felix. No card then?’ he asked. Saffy didn’t respond.

  A bunch of prefects came clomping down the hallway towards them.

  ‘Hey, losers,’ one of them sna
rled. ‘All you pieces of dog drool had better get to class before you make me make you ... make ... yeah.’

  ‘How do you get a piece of drool?’ Saffy asked.

  The prefect looked confused for a moment, then handed Saffy a penalty card. ‘Make that two penalty points, drool-head.’

  Saffy flashed him a pretty smile. ‘Afraid not,’ she replied and reached into the pocket of her hoodie. ‘Suck on this.’ She shoved a cancel card into the prefect’s hand and turned on her heel.

  Jasper and Felix charged after Saffy. They knew from past experience that the prefects weren’t choosy about who they punished. Jasper pitied the poor student who ran into that prefect next.

  ‘You got a card? How did you get a card?’ Felix asked as they caught up to Saffy.

  Saffy ignored Felix and kept on walking. ‘Hurry up. I don’t want to be late. We’ve got private tutorials now.’

  Jasper looked questioningly at Felix. ‘Huh?’

  Saffy stopped at a large noticeboard. It was covered in papers, pinned on with some weird-looking drawing pins. Jasper leant in closely and saw the pinheads looked a lot like tiny human heads.

  ‘If you two hadn’t run off so quickly, you would’ve heard Master Psycho back there explain,’ Saffy replied. She pointed to the board. ‘He had two announcements. The first is that we have a test next class.’

  Felix and Jasper both groaned.

  ‘Not the Trail of Terror, please not the Trail of Terror,’ Felix begged.

  Saffy nodded. ‘Yep. He’s already set it up with our fears.’

  The Trail of Terror was the test all the students dreaded. Jasper, Saffy and Felix hadn’t done one yet, but the older kids had warned them about it. It took place in a room that was a bit like a maze. The path through the room was narrow and full of twists and turns. And around every corner waited the worst fear of each student in the class. The students had to make it through the room to the door at the other end. As a test of teamwork, every single student in the class had to make it through. If just one kid failed, the whole class had to do it again. Jasper just hoped that the rest of his class were frightened of brussels sprouts, like Felix. That he could handle.

  ‘Saffy,’ said Felix, ‘you still haven’t told us how you got that cancel card.’

  Saffy ignored Felix again and turned to the noticeboard. ‘The second announcement was that now we’re in second year, we’ve all been put in individual tutorials depending on our strengths,’ she said. ‘They’re twice a week, after our Rest and Relaxation class.’ Saffy pointed to the noticeboard. ‘Better find out where we’re supposed to be.’

  Jasper searched the notices for his name. He found it, held with a drawing pin that looked as though it was crying out in pain. Jasper hoped that didn’t say anything about how painful his tutorial would be. Next to his name, he read: Memory Modification – Room 13.

  Jasper frowned. Memory Modification. He thought he’d heard Von Strasser mention it before, but he had no idea what it was. He felt a bit let down – he’d been hoping for Mental Manipulation with Mr Golag. That was his best subject. He wondered if he could switch.

  ‘Cool! Functional Fixedness!’ exclaimed Saffy. ‘Just wait, I’m going to invent the coolest gadgets ever. James Bond, eat your heart out. Once the secret service sees what I come up with, they’ll be begging me to work for them.’

  Jasper could see the plans already forming in Saffy’s head. If anyone could invent a cool spy gadget using only old bits of rubbish, it was Saffy.

  Felix found his name and groaned. ‘Please let this be a mistake,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’ Saffy asked.

  ‘Species Studies.’ Felix shook his head in despair.

  Jasper laughed. ‘Lucky you!’ he teased. ‘You get extra one-on-one classes twice a week with Stenka!’

  Felix looked pained. ‘But we’ve all got Species Studies later. I’ll have double Stenka! Why me?’

  ‘Because it’s what you’re good at,’ said Saffy. ‘Hey, without you, we never would’ve passed the Task last year,’ she reminded him. ‘What about you, what are you supposedly good at, Jasp?’

  Jasper shrugged his shoulders as Saffy found his name on the board.

  ‘What’s Memory Modification?’ she asked. ‘Is that like some sort of Mental Manipulation stream? Sounds cool.’

  Jasper shrugged again. He’d started private classes with Señor Hermes last year to help control his monster side. All the Whispered kids at the school did them. The classes were secret,so Jasper wondered if Memory Modification was just a code name. Maybe he just had a class with Señor Hermes.

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Jasper. ‘But whatever it is – I guess I’m about to find out.’

  6

  Jasper knocked on the door to Room 13.

  ‘No knocking, dude,’ a strange voice called from inside. ‘It kills my karma, man.’

  Jasper paused. This was weird. He was sure he knew all the teachers at Monstrum House. Even the ones who hadn’t taught him yet. But this voice was definitely not familiar.

  Jasper nudged the door open with his foot. He still wasn’t convinced that Memory Modification was a real class. Maybe Señor Hermes was playing some evil kind of trick to keep him on his toes.

  Jasper peered inside the room, and felt his jaw drop open. A guy in sunglasses, a tie-dyed T-shirt and loose cotton trousers was lounging on a beach chair in the middle of the room.

  Nope, definitely not Hermes. The guy’s hair was waist-length and tied in a plait. He took off his sunnies and smiled as Jasper entered.

  ‘Hey, like, welcome, little dude,’ the guy said. He sipped at some kind of tropical drink in a tall glass with a flower poking out the top.

  ‘Um, h-hi,’ Jasper stammered.

  ‘Call me Mr Z.’ The guy waved and patted the empty beach chair next to him.

  ‘What’s the Z stand for?’ Jasper asked.

  ‘Just Mr Z is cool, dig?’

  Jasper wasn’t entirely sure what the guy had just said, but he nodded. ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘Anyway, just ease back, let hang, loosen up your mind, man.’ Mr Z put his sunglasses back on and picked up a guitar. ‘We’re going to try and find your tune,’ he said.

  ‘My what?’ This guy seemed way too chilled out to be a teacher at Monstrum House. Jasper wondered if it was some sort of trap. ‘What is Memory Modification anyway? And who are you? I’ve never seen you before.’

  Mr Z looked at Jasper over his sunnies. ‘Not that you remember,’ he said.

  Jasper stared at him.

  ‘The Golagster told me you were well set with your Mental Manipulations stuff. So I said we should see if you could handle some Memory Modification. This class is, like, super-duper Mental Manip. Plus, ’cos you were done by a Scrambler, you should be right on the money, ’cos Scramblers get into people’s heads, yeah? You in?’

  So Saffy was right. Cool. Jasper found himself grinning. ‘All right!’

  ‘Right on, man.’ Mr Z nodded his approval.

  He plucked a few notes on his guitar. ‘Try whistling me a tune.’

  Jasper tried to think of a tune but his mind was blank. ‘I can’t think of anything,’ said Jasper.

  Mr Z peered at Jasper over the top of his sunglasses. He played a little ditty on his guitar.

  While Mr Z played, the theme from Sesame Street popped into Jasper’s head. He shrugged and started whistling.

  Mr Z lay back in his beach chair and grinned. ‘That’s it, man!’ he cheered. ‘That’s your tune!’

  ‘What’s that mean?’ asked Jasper. ‘How does it work?’ He was a bit worried that ‘his tune’ was from a little kids’ TV show. Why couldn’t I have thought of something cool, like ... like ...

  But even now, nothing was coming to him except Sesame Street.

  ‘Dude,’ said Mr Z. ‘It’s like, you can use Memory Modification to help people forget the bad vibes. If you get your tune right, you can, like, cover over the bad with the good. So fears just vanish away. They
float off into the sunset. It’s deep.’

  That sounded awesome. But Jasper had another question. ‘Why are you so different from all the other teachers here?’ he asked. ‘I mean, have you been bitten, like the rest of them? ’Cos you don’t seem to have much of a monster side.’

  Mr Z laughed. ‘Hey, dude. I was done by a Scrambler like you. I’ve got a monster side, but it’s all about making peace with it, yeah? My monster side loves getting into people’s heads, and I can use that in my job. I’m in control of the whispering. I can twist it around so that instead of driving people crazy, I’m like, helping them forget their fears. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, yeah?’

  Jasper was starting to agree. He licked his lips and started whistling again, with Mr Z joining in on the guitar. Jasper hadn’t felt this good in ages. They worked on Jasper’s tune until the gong went for the end of class, interrupting them mid-chorus.

  ‘Oh, man,’ Mr Z shook his head sadly. ‘That gong is such a downer.’

  ‘But – I feel like I only just got here!’ said Jasper.

  ‘As far as you can remember,’ said Mr Z with a wink. ‘Good going, Jasperlator. Till next time. Yo.’

  7

  Jasper stepped out of Room 13 on a high. But as soon as he checked his timetable, his heart sank. Species Studies with Stenka. He didn’t want to be late. He ran towards the Species Studies classroom, turned a corner and crashed head-first into someone rushing from the other direction. He was knocked to the ground. The ceiling swirled, then everything went black.

  ‘Jasper? Can you hear me? Are you OK?’ The voice sounded as though it were coming from a long way away.

  Jasper’s head pounded. He groaned and opened his eyes. Boris was peering anxiously down at him.

  ‘Yeah, couldn’t be better,’ Jasper managed to gasp. He felt as though he’d just walked into a bus.