Pencil of Doom! (10 page)

‘If that's what it takes,' I said. ‘Though I'm really hoping that won't be necessary.'

‘Give me one good reason why you have to get rid of it,' said Jack.

‘One?' I said. ‘I can give you more than that! A lot of people have been hurt, Jack. And that's not even counting Penny and Gina's horses, which are both in the hospital in a very serious condition!'

‘Have you gone completely mad?' said Jack. ‘Those horses are imaginary! And everything else you're talking about is pure coincidence! The pencil didn't make Mr Brainfright fall out the window: he's perfectly capable of doing that himself, and he's proved it many times. Fred and Clive fell off that roof because of their own stupidity—it wasn't the pencil's fault. I was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and I got hit by a bag of money. You were standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and you got hit by a giant cardboard cheque. Gretel's too strong for her own good, and Jenny was attacked by a lion, not the kitten that she drew. You can't blame the pencil for any of that!'

‘But the lion's name was Kitty!' I said.

‘Listen to yourself, Henry. You're being ridiculous.'

‘No I'm not. I'm being cautious,' I said. ‘That's why I'm putting the pencil back in the ground where it came from. And where it can stay. Forever!'

I turned back to continue digging.

Suddenly I felt Jack on top of me. He pulled me backwards and I fell over. I sat up to see him clutching the pencil triumphantly. Not content with the damage it had already done, the pencil had clearly taken control of Jack's mind. His eyes glowed like the ones on the skull.

‘Come on, Jack,' I said, getting to my feet. ‘Give me the pencil.'

‘No,' said Jack, his eyes shining. ‘It's mine, now! All mine!'

I took a step towards him. ‘Give it to me, Jack. Please.'

‘Keep back!' he said, threatening me with the pencil as if it were a knife.

‘Don't do anything stupid, Jack,' I said, taking another step towards him. ‘Put the pencil down, step away, and nobody will get hurt.'

Jack looked at the pencil. Then he looked at me. Then he looked back at the pencil.

Then he yelled and ran straight at me, the pencil held out in front of him like a sword.

He clearly meant business.

But so did I.

I stepped out of his way, stuck my leg out and tripped him up.

He stumbled and fell headfirst onto the ground and rolled all the way to the bottom of the hill.

I ran down after him.

He was lying on his back, eyes closed, not moving but still clutching the pencil.

I prised the pencil out of his hand and stashed it safely in my jacket. I figured I'd deal with it later. For the moment I had to look after Jack.

I shook him gently. He had a graze on his forehead.

‘Jack!' I said. ‘Are you okay?'

He blinked, spluttered and looked straight at me.

‘Who are you?' he said.

‘Henry,' I said. ‘Your friend.'

‘Uh-huh,' he said, nodding. ‘And who am I?'

‘Jack,' I said. ‘Jack Japes.'

‘Never heard of him,' he said.

I helped Jack up and, with his arm around my still-bandaged neck, guided him across the yard towards the office.

‘Where are we going?' said Jack.

‘I'm taking you to see Mrs Bandaid,' I told him.

‘Who's Mrs Bandaid?'

‘You don't know who Mrs Bandaid is?' I couldn't believe it. ‘Wow, you
are
in a bad way!'

Jack was clearly suffering from a serious case of amnesia.
Everybody
knew who Mrs Bandaid was. She was who you went to see when you were sick or hurt. And no matter what your problem was, she gave you bandaids. Cuts, bruises, headache, sore tummy: bandaids, and lots of them . . . along with a big smile. And the strange thing was that no matter whether you had a cut, a bruise, a headache, a sore tummy
or any other ailment whatsoever, the bandaids
always
made you feel better. Or maybe it was the smile. Whatever the case, I knew that she'd be able to fix Jack's amnesia.

On our way to Mrs Bandaid's room, we passed the teachers' car park.

Mr Grunt, our sports teacher, was standing next to his brand-new Hummer H3—an unnecessarily huge show-offy beast of a car. In fact, ‘car' wasn't really the right word. It was big and solid enough to pass as an army tank.

He had an admiring group of rev-head students gathered around him. ‘You've got to understand,' he was saying, ‘that the Hummer H3 is the most powerful—and heaviest—car ever made!'

His audience burst into applause.

‘Thank you,' said Mr Grunt, climbing into the front seat. ‘Well, can't stand around here all day. I've got some rubber to burn.'

He started the car up.

It gave a deep, throaty roar and blasted a thick dark cloud of smoke out behind it. Then, doing a burnout with all four tyres squealing and smoking, Mr Grunt fishtailed wildly out of the car park and tore off down the road, tooting his horn all the way to make sure as many students as possible noticed him.

The crowd of students applauded one last time
and then went back to their sad little lives, waiting for Mr Grunt to return.

I shook my head at what a show-off Mr Grunt was. His sport classes mainly consisted of him giving the class demonstrations in how to perform a particular activity. Sometimes the demonstration went on for the whole lesson and the only exercise we would get was changing into our sports clothes at the beginning of the lesson and changing back out of them at the end. This was better than when we actually
did
get to do the activity, though, as Mr Grunt usually took it as an opportunity to criticise our efforts and to point out all the ways in which we couldn't do it as well as he could.

‘Who was that?' asked Jack.

‘Mr Grunt,' I told him.

‘He's a show-off,' said Jack.

‘You got that right,' I said.

As I watched Mr Grunt's Hummer disappear into the distance, an idea began to form.

It was obviously going to take more than a rubbish bin or a hole in the ground to get rid of the pencil. I figured that the biggest, dumbest, heaviest car in the world might just do the trick . . . But first I had to get Jack to Mrs Bandaid.

Unfortunately, you couldn't just go straight to Mrs Bandaid's room.

You had to get past Mrs Rosethorn first.

I got Jack up the steps and into the school office.

‘What do you want?' Mrs Rosethorn spat out, glaring at us.

‘Who are you?' Jack asked.

Mrs Rosethorn glared at him even harder. If his brain hadn't already been wiped clean by the fall, her laser-like stare would have done it for him.

Jack gazed at her blankly.

‘We need to see Mrs Bandaid,' I said.

‘We need to see Mrs Bandaid
what
?' Mrs Rosethorn snapped.

‘We need to see Mrs Bandaid,
please
. Could you let her know that we're here?'

‘What do you need to see her for?'

‘See who?' said Jack.

‘Mrs Bandaid,' Mrs Rosethorn answered impatiently. ‘What do you need to see her for?'

‘Jack's had an accident,' I told her. ‘I think it's serious.'

Mrs Rosethorn looked at Jack's forehead. ‘It's only a scratch,' she sniffed. ‘Don't waste Mrs Bandaid's time with that.'

‘It's more than a scratch,' I said.

‘Are you arguing with me, young man?'

‘No,' I said, ‘but it's definitely more than a scratch. He can't remember
anything
.'

‘Of course he can,' Mrs Rosethorn said dismissively. ‘He's just wasting everybody's time. Go outside and play. The fresh air will do you both good.'

I waited.

Mrs Rosethorn glared.

‘Well, what are you waiting for?' she asked finally.

‘For you to let Mrs Bandaid know we're here,' I said. ‘Or should I go and get my friend Gretel?'

Gretel and Mrs Rosethorn had a history. I thought this might work.

It did.

‘No, it's all right,' Mrs Rosethorn said, her voice shaking a little. ‘I'll tell her.' She picked up
the phone. ‘Just wait there. And don't get into any trouble . . . I've got my eye on you!'

Somehow, against all odds, Jack and I managed to keep out of trouble for the two minutes it took for Mrs Bandaid to arrive.

‘Oh, you poor thing,' she said the moment she saw Jack. She ushered him gently into her room.

Then she went to town on him.

By the time she was finished, Jack's head was practically covered in bandaids. The only parts of his face not covered were his eyes and mouth.

Jack said he definitely felt better, but he still wasn't sure who Mrs Bandaid was, who I was, or even who he was, so Mrs Bandaid called his parents to come and pick him up.

The pencil's victims were increasing in number.

Mr Brainfright, me, Clive, Fred, Jenny, Gretel, Penny's horse, Gina's horse and now Jack.

Who would be next?

Well,
nobody
if I could help it.

And I had a pretty good idea of what to do.

When the bell for the end of school rang, I bolted down to the car park. I had to get there before Mr Grunt's cheer squad arrived to farewell him for the day.

I took the pencil out of my pocket and wedged it underneath the left rear tyre. The tyre looked more suited to a tractor than a car—a fact that I was very happy about. I knew the pencil wasn't going to give in without a fight, but judging by the size and width of the tyre, this was one fight it wasn't going to win.

I tried not to look at the skull eraser as I walked away, but I couldn't help it.

It looked angry, its little black eyes boring straight into me.

I walked across the car park to a row of bushes. I could hide in them and see the pencil crushed with my own eyes. I didn't want to leave anything to chance.

It didn't take long for Mr Grunt's fan club to appear. There were about half a dozen of them. Their chief topic of conversation was what spectacular move Mr Grunt would use to leave the car park this afternoon. Would it be a burnout, a 360-degree spin, or would he lift the front wheels off the ground and drive out on the back ones?

I wanted to yell ‘Get a life!' at them, but I didn't. Not only would it have given away the fact that I was hiding in the bushes, it would have suggested that I too needed to get a life, since I got my kicks by hiding in bushes, spying on other losers with no lives. Which was
obviously
not the case.

I could hear Mr Grunt approaching, whistling and jangling the keys he kept on a long gold chain.

‘Good afternoon, boys,' he said to the group.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Grunt,' they said.

Mr Grunt clicked his key lock and the doors opened with a bleep.

He got into his car, started up the engine and pumped the accelerator a few times. The Hummer roared.