Authors: John Marsden
Cool School
John Marsden's life recently took a new turn when he established a small alternative school just outside Melbourne.
Candlebark School, with 75 students, embodies John's commitment to education that is imaginative, lively, spirited and invigorating. He has applied the same principles to his writing, which is now read avidly around the world, but never more eagerly than in Australia, where his sales have passed two million.
Recently John became only the fifth author to receive the prestigious Lloyd O'Neil Award. He joins Ruth Park, Tom Keneally, Morris West and Peter Carey to be honoured for lifelong services to the Australian book industry.
So Much to Tell You
The Journey
The Great Gatenby
Staying Alive in Year 5
Out of Time
Letters from the Inside
Take My Word for It
Looking for Trouble
Tomorrow . . . (Ed.)
Cool School
Creep Street
Checkers
For Weddings and a Funeral (Ed.)
This I Believe (Ed.)
Dear Miffy
Prayer for the 21st Century
Everything I Know About Writing
Secret Men's Business
The
Tomorrow
Series 1999 Diary
The Rabbits
Norton's Hut
Marsden on Marsden
Winter
The Head Book
The Boy You Brought Home
The Magic Rainforest
Millie
A Roomful of Magic
The
Tomorrow
Series
Tomorrow, When the War Began
The Dead of the Night
The Third Day, the Frost
Darkness, Be My Friend
Burning for Revenge
The Night is for Hunting
The Other Side of Dawn
The Ellie Chronicles
While I Live
Incurable
Circle of Flight
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
First published 1995 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
This Pan edition published 1996 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney
Reprinted 1997 (three times), 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2010
Copyright © John Marsden 1995
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Australia
cataloguing-in-publication data:
Marsden, John, 1950â.
Cool school: you make it happen.
ISBN: 978-1-74334-631-0
I. Title.
A823.3
Â
Theis electronic edition published in 2012 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
Copyright © John Marsden 1995
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
Marsden, John.
Cool school: you make it happen.
EPUB format 978-1-74334-631-0
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To Christopher Templin
Joanna Templin
Matthew Templin
A book for you. Enjoy!
t's the day you've been thinking about for a long time. You don't know whether to be nervous or excited or sick. You decide to be all three at once. You don't eat any breakfast. Your mother gets upset: she tells you you've got to eat. She offers you porridge, Corn Flakes, toast, stewed fruit, Rice Bubbles, boiled eggs, Weet Bix, orange juice, omelettes, Coco Pops, hash browns, baked beans, muesli, bacon and eggs, but you refuse them all. Finally you have a Mars Bar. That's breakfast.
You get on the bus. There are a few kids from your old school, so you sit with them and try to be cool. The other kids look bigger, tougher, meaner than anyone you've ever seen outside a World War Two movie. The bus driver looks like he's out of a World War One movie.
You arrive at the new school. You walk through the gate. The school motto is carved on an arch above the door. It says:
DEVELOP YOUR POT
.
You wonder if there are a few letters missing. You go on down the hallway.
There's a sign saying:
NEW STUDENTS REGISTER HERE
. You start to fill in the form they give you. You spell your name wrongly and you can't remember your address, but apart from that you do OK.
They give you a locker. One door's hanging off its hinge and the locker smells of sardines, old jocks, ashtrays and dead mice. You put your books in there, as neatly as possible. As you finish the job you realise someone's standing watching. You turn around, slowly. The someone looks like a Sumo wrestler, only bigger and uglier. He says just one word: âMine.'
âI'm sorry?' you say.
âMy locker,' he replies.
âNo, I think there's some mistake. It's mine.'
He swells. Now he's the size of an adult hippopotamus, but not as pretty.
âDo I hear you right?' he asks.
âI guess so.'
âAre you saying you
won't
move?'
âUm, I think I am.'
He raises his arm and you realise you've made a big mistake. You turn and run. He comes crashing after you. You turn left into a short corridor.
There's a door on either side, and a wall straight in front. One door's pretty wrecked, but it looks like it might lead to a bathroom. You can't tell about the other one. You're trapped. The doors are your only hope. Which one will you go for?
