by Sally Prue
‘Dying, I think,’ whispered Slacker, who was the colour of a bruised grape. Winsome went over and started trying to unwind the tendril from his neck.
The bean plant rustled, an oddly menacing sound, just as if there were a giant climbing down it – and then an enormous boot came through the hole in the ceiling.
Emily screamed again, and everyone got as far away from the descending giant and Mrs Knowall as they could get.
Mrs Knowall put her hands on her hips.
‘Chaos!’ she said. ‘Utter chaos! Miss Broom, I shall be reporting this to my friend Mr Ogersby, the District Chief Inspector of Schools.’
‘But... it’s... it’s educational!’ said Anil.
‘Global warming,’ said Slacker, randomly. Well, it was the answer to pretty much every thing.
‘Jack, could you pass me some scissors?’ asked Winsome.
‘Ooh yes, Slacker’s eyes are beginning to go bulgy,’ said Jack, with interest, handing over some from the scissors cupboard.
The rumbling sound came again, very close.
‘Oh dear,’ said Anil. ‘Thunder. You’d better go... um... somewhere else, Mrs Knowall, before you get soaked.’
Another rumble.
‘It’s all right,’ said Rodney, happily. ‘I can understand it.’
‘No you can’t, Rodney. You’re an idiot, remember?’ said Serise, but he took no notice.
‘It’s saying: Jack? Did someone just mention Jack? Oh, not that smelly little idiot again. I’m off!’
‘Hey,’ said Jack. ‘I’m a celebrity!’
Serise squinted up through the hole in the ceiling.
‘The giant’s climbing back up again,’ she reported. ‘Its bum only looks the size of a rhino’s, now.’
‘A giant?’ yelped Mrs Knowall, her face scrunched up like a sneezed-on tissue.
‘A giant bean,’ said Miss Broom, swiftly. ‘The class is... er... very keen on gymnastics, you see. That’s why we’ve grown our own... climbing frame.’
Mrs Knowall stepped forward into the middle of the classroom.
‘Do you suppose, Miss Broom, that I can’t see that fat boy being strangled on the floor?’ she asked, acidly. ‘Really, I’ve never –’
And then it happened. There was a new surge of rustling, and the beanstalk began to sway backwards and forwards like a belly dancer in a high wind. Serise shaded her eyes.
‘The giant’s definitely climbing upwards,’ she said. ‘His nostrils only look as big as soup bowls now. And I think he’s winding up the beanstalk as he goes.’
It was true: the tendrils of the beanstalk were unwinding themselves neatly from the pipes and rafters – and from Slacker’s throat – and they were withdrawing through the hole in the roof.
‘But how can the giant be pulling up a plant he’s standing on?’ asked Anil, blinking.
‘Mer-mer-mer-mer-mer-mer –’ said Jack. ‘Mer-mer-mer-mud baths. Oh blow it. You know how.’
There was a plop as the beanstalk’s root pulled itself out of its jam jar, and then, no one quite knew how, the root gave itself a flick and Mrs Knowall was suddenly flying backwards through the classroom doorway and right out into the corridor.
Slacker kicked the door shut as a series of loud bangs from overhead told Class Six that the giant was mending the roof.
Everyone stood up, took deep breaths, looked round... and saw to their amazement that everything was completely back to normal.
Well, Slacker was the size of an airship, but then he always had been.
‘Phew!’ said Rodney. ‘That was lucky! I suppose that big man must have fallen out of a helicopter.’
Class Six stared at him in even more amazement than usual.
‘What?’ demanded Serise. ‘Then where do you think all those leaves came from?’
‘He must have caught hold of a tree branch as he came down,’ said Rodney. ‘Then the branch bounced back and so off he went, zooming off up to the helicopter again.’
‘Oh, good grief,’ said Anil.
‘At least we’re safe,’ said Winsome.
‘Safe?’ echoed Miss Broom. ‘Oh, if only we were! What ever are we going to do about Mrs Knowall?’
Class Six looked at the closed door. There was no sound coming from the other side.
‘What if she’s dead?’ asked Emily, unhappily.
Anil looked at Emily as if she were mad.
‘What if she’s not?’ he said.
In the end Winsome tiptoed out to investigate. She found Mrs Knowall upside down in the spare PE-kit box.
She helped Mrs Knowall out and took her gently to the secretary’s room. Miss Jeanie the school secretary was very calm and kind, even when Mrs Knowall started talking about giants and beanstalks.
‘I think we’d better get you to A&E,’ said Miss Jeanie. ‘Knocks on the head can be nasty.’
Mrs Knowall batted Miss Jeanie’s thermometer away.
‘I know what I saw,’ she said, scowling, ‘and I tell you I shall be keeping a very sharp eye on Class Six and Miss Broom. Giants in the classroom? Beanstalks running amok? I give you warning, Miss Jeanie: by the time I’ve finished here this will be a respectable school!’
* * *
‘Respectable?’ said Anil, in horror, when Winsome told them all about it. ‘But that means boring!’
The teachers shook their heads when they heard the news, and Miss Elwig started singing a very sad song about a winkle with bad breath.
‘It’s the school fair that’s the worst problem,’ said Mr Bloodsworth. ‘We need every penny the fair can make to buy our... um... ingredients. But how can we hold an extra-special money-raising fair, with unicorn rides and magic cakes and sea-serpent rides, if Mrs Knowall’s nosing around?’
‘Oh, oh, why did this have to happen nooooooooooooowwww?!’ asked Mr Wolfe.
Miss Elwig shook her head, causing a sea anemone in her hair to wave its tentacles crossly.
‘I really can’t see how the school is going to survive. Whatever can we do?’ she groaned.
‘Only one thing,’ said Miss Jeanie, seriously. ‘Some really clever magic to bamboozle even the nosiest of noses. Miss Broom: saving the school is down to you.’
Miss Broom nodded, but she thought about Mrs Knowall’s beady eyes and super-sensitive nostrils, and she felt very worried indeed.
Chapter Four
Mrs Knowall was held in hospital for a few days (she kept saying odd things about giant beanstalks) and by the time she was allowed home Miss Jeanie had worked out a Mrs Knowall alarm system. Whenever the old busybody came stomping sourly down the drive Miss Jeanie or Miss Elwig, whose offices were by the entrance porch, would alert the classroom pets, who would make alarm calls (Algernon hissed his) and then everything interesting would stop at once and the children would start chanting spellings.
‘B – U – S – Y – B – O – D – Y: BUSYBODY!’ Class Six would chorus, while Mrs Knowall glared at them, full of suspicion and loathing.
Soon Class Six and Miss Broom even began to feel safe enough to do a little magic. Miss Broom was of course very busy with arrangements for the school fair, but she took Class Six down a meerkat burrow (which was very dark and surprisingly smelly, but the babies were cute). The children also designed an anti-bullying campaign aimed at goblins, and got their noses upgraded with Micro-Magic GPS, which meant it was impossible for them to get lost.
But then one terrible day everything went wrong.
It was hard to say whose fault it was (‘Just a turn of the wheel of fortune,’ said the headmistress Miss Elwig, sadly, afterwards, between verses of a sorrowful song about a prawn with no friends), but you could hardly blame Emily for having the screaming abdabs and throwing the key to the carpet store into the wildlife pond when a purple frog jumped on to her head from the middle of the magic carpet she was carrying across the playground (magic carpet lessons took place outside because of the danger of low ceilings).
Anyway, losing the keys didn’t matter because Mi
ss Elwig loved spending time underwater. Rodney pushed her across the playground in her wheelchair and she slithered into the green water as easily as a fish.
‘Now, Rodney,’ Serise said. ‘Did you see Miss Elwig’s tail, or are you a complete idiot?’
A slow smile spread across Rodney’s face.
‘A tail? That’s silly,’ he said. ‘Those were flippers.’
‘But there was only one of them!’ squawked Anil. ‘And it was all scaly! And it smelled of fish!’
‘Yes. It’s funny what people wear, isn’t it,’ said Rodney, happily. ‘My Auntie Vera’s got a string vest.’
Anyway, none of this would have mattered if the dragons’ claw clippings had been delivered. Now why they were late, whether the claw-clippings delivery man had been eaten by a troll, or whether the dragons had been out fighting knights in armour when the claw-clippings man called, no one knew; but the fact was that the school was down to its last packet of claw clippings – and of course you can’t turn yourself into a porcupine without those. So Miss Jeanie the school secretary, not knowing that Miss Elwig was at the bottom of the pond cooing over some sweet little tadpoles, nipped neatly into her brass lamp and went off to find some dragons.
This meant that no one knew Mrs Knowall was on the premises until she came face to face with the cave man. Class Six was having a history class by then, and Miss Broom had taken the classroom back in time so they could meet a Neanderthal man. He had just finished going through Health and Safety (‘Right then, you lot, a mammoth’s trunk can’t half give you a nasty swipe, so be sure to stand well back.’), when there was a noise as if someone had trodden on a woolly rhinoceros’s foot and a fierce-eyed creature appeared through the swirling snow and charged straight for them.
Everyone screamed and got out of its way, and it was only at the very last moment, with the Neanderthal about to throw his spear, that they realised the approaching creature wasn’t a sabre-toothed tiger after all, but Mrs Knowall – and they only realised that when she screeched this is an utter disgrace!
It was perfectly clear who was to blame for saving Mrs Knowall from being speared by the Neanderthal: it was partly Winsome, who shouted watch out! at the top of her voice, and partly Miss Broom, who began shouting something beginning abracadabra...
... and in a moment the Neanderthal, and the snowy hillside they were all standing on, had swirled itself round into a tornado that spun swiftly through the whiteboard and disappeared.
There was a moment of complete silence apart from the sound of Mrs Knowall going tcha!
‘Ah, Mrs Knowall,’ said Miss Broom, as brightly as she could. ‘Um... you arrived just in time to see our... our new...’
‘... virtual-reality program,’ said Anil, cleverly.
‘Yeah,’ said Serise. ‘It’s, like, technology... stuff.’
‘Computers,’ said Jack.
‘Coding,’ said Winsome, earnestly.
Mrs Knowall did her tcha! thing again, and bent down creakily to pick something up off the floor.
She held it out triumphantly. It was steaming.
‘Virtual?’ she demanded. ‘New technology? New? Because what I’d call this, Miss Broom, is a very real and very definite lump of mammoth poo!’
And it was, too.
Chapter Five
The next morning, when Class Six arrived for registration, they found Miss Elwig sitting in Miss Broom’s place.
‘I’m afraid Miss Broom won’t be able to come to school for a while,’ said Miss Elwig, very seriously.
Class Six gasped in dismay.
‘But what about our trip to the end of the rainbow?’ asked Serise. ‘I was going to buy some hair clips with my share of the pot of gold!’
‘And who’s going to make Slacker see-through so we can watch what happens to his dinner after he’s eaten it?’ asked Jack.
Miss Elwig sang a few lines of a gloomy song about a pirate whose parrot had gone bald.
‘I’m afraid we’ll have to cancel those activities,’ she said.
‘But where’s Miss Broom?’ asked Winsome.
‘At training college,’ answered Miss Elwig, shaking her head regretfully. Three shrimps and a sardine fell out of her hair. She picked them up and ate them, absently.
‘But Miss Broom is the best teacher we’ve ever had,’ said Anil.
‘Easily the best,’ said Jack. ‘I mean, even Rodney remembers to use the pointy end of his pencil now. Usually.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Miss Elwig. ‘But the wheel of fortune has turned against us and the school is in terrible danger.’
‘From Mrs Knowall?’ whispered Emily.
‘That’s right. If Mrs Knowall sees one more thing that looks at all... unusual... then she’ll tell her friend Mr Ogersby, and he’s in charge of all the teachers in the area. He’d be bound to have me sacked, and Miss Broom as well. There’ll be a new head teacher brought in, someone quite normal, and then you can be sure it won’t be long before Mr Wolfe and Mr Bloodsworth and Miss Jeanie are dismissed, too.’
It was too awful to think about.
There was an odd gulping noise from Miss Broom’s desk. Miss Elwig opened the drawer and lifted out a large snake with crosses all the way down his back. Miss Elwig stroked him comfortingly.
‘There there, Algernon,’ she said. ‘We hope Miss Broom will be back soon.’
‘But she will be back soon,’ said Jack. ‘Won’t she?’
Miss Elwig hesitated.
‘This has come at a terrible time,’ she explained. ‘The school fair is only four days away, and everyone comes to our fair –’
‘Of course they do!’ said Slacker. ‘It’s brilliant. The cakes... they’re so light!’
‘My brother Morris got blown right up into a tree last year after he scoffed three,’ added Serise.
‘I like the worm-charming,’ said Jack. ‘It’s amazing. I’d never have thought worms could tap-dance.’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Elwig, ‘it’s very special, and that’s why people come and spend so much money. But how can we be special if Mrs Knowall is around? And if the school fair is dull and ordinary, people won’t spend nearly so much – and how will we afford all the barrels of toad slime, the newt bogeys, and the tins of the burps of a tiger that has only ever eaten pork chops with mushroom ketchup, then?’
Slacker licked his lips.
‘I like ketchup,’ he said.
Miss Elwig sighed. ‘If only Miss Broom could be at the fair she could cast Mrs Knowall into an enchanted sleep –’
‘– and then I could throw rotten tomatoes at the old bat,’ said Jack, with feeling.
‘And I, Jack, would join you,’ said Miss Elwig with another sigh. ‘But what can we do? The stalls that make most of the money are run by the... less ordinary of us.’
‘Like the flying ladies who sell the make-you-beautiful blusher,’ said Serise.
‘Like the green men who do the firework rides,’ said Jack.
‘Like the brownies who make the brownies,’ said Slacker.
‘Exactly,’ said Miss Elwig. ‘It’s going to be bad enough not having Miss Broom to make the cakes and order the sea serpent. Those are two of the most important attractions, and our profits are going to be seriously down without them. But it will be hopeless without the other special stalls.’
Slacker squared his shoulders.
‘Don’t worry about the cakes, Miss Elwig,’ he said. ‘I’ve done lots of baking with Miss Broom. Class Six can organise the cake stall.’
‘And why does it have to be Miss Broom who orders the sea serpent?’ asked Anil, puzzled.
‘Because none of the other teachers has a postal address,’ Miss Elwig explained. ‘My home is at the bottom of the reservoir, Mr Bloodsworth lives in the graveyard, and Mr Wolfe lives under a picnic bench in the middle of the woods. I’m afraid the credit card people don’t like it at all.’
‘Algernon looks after Miss Broom’s credit card,’ said Jack. ‘I’m sure he’ll let
us borrow it, as it’s a good cause.’
Anil began walking thoughtfully up and down.
‘Class Six can make the cakes and order the sea serpent,’ he said, ‘and Class Six will also have to stop Mrs Knowall seeing things at the fair. You grown-ups won’t be any good at it because you’re all so... special... to start with.’
‘Wonderful,’ said Winsome, earnestly. ‘But... different.’
‘Weird,’ said Jack.
‘Gross,’ suggested Serise.
‘In a good way,’ said Slacker Punchkin.
‘But the thing is, we’re all quite normal,’ went on Anil.
‘Normal?’ said Serise, raising an eyebrow. ‘Rodney?’
‘Well, at least he doesn’t keep turning into a wolf, or getting urges to bite people in the neck!’
‘But how on earth can we stop Mrs Knowall from noticing that the person holding up the helter-skelter is a giant?’ asked Jack.
Miss Elwig opened her mouth to start another sad song, probably about a shark with toothache, but Anil didn’t give her a chance.
‘We’ll tell Mrs Knowall that the person holding up the helter-skelter is a pyramid of parents from the PTA dressed up as a giant,’ he said.
They all stared at him.
‘My dear Anil!’ exclaimed Miss Elwig. ‘I didn’t know you were so devious. Or so cunning. Or dishonest. My dear boy, you’re an absolute genius!’
And she suddenly burst into a little chorus about Myrtle the purple turtle.
It was actually quite jolly, for one of Miss Elwig’s songs.
Chapter Six
There was a supply teacher sitting in Miss Broom’s chair when Class Six got back to the classroom after break. He was a small, whiskery man with huge eyes, a tiny nose, a mustard waistcoat, and oddly baggy trousers.
He blinked round at the class.
‘I understand you have a school fair to arrange,’ he said, yawning.
‘Um. Yes,’ said Winsome, politely.
‘Good. I’ll leave you to get on with it, then,’ he said, as he wriggled his large bottom into a more comfortable position on the chair and closed his eyes.
