The Northern Frights Page 2

  “Har-har! Stop that, human girl. You tickling me!”

  Penny continued pounding him, until Lebok got annoyed and pushed her away. Penny fell backward into a pit of mud. Charles pulled her out, but her new yellow sweater was completely ruined.

  The trolls sniggered. “Har-har-har! That’s what you get for messing with trolls!”

  Penny glared at Charles. Her eyes were screaming to him, “Do something!”

  “What can I do? Monster Math won’t work on those trolls because they’re too dumb to know the difference between big numbers and small ones.”

  Penny raised her fists, urging Charles to challenge the trolls.

  “I can’t fight them. Fighting other students is against the rules.”

  Penny rolled her eyes, completely fed up. Charles tried to take her hand, but Penny pushed Charles away. He stumbled backward, falling into the mud pit himself.

  Lebok and Padlox gobbled Charles’s lunch and passed the football. “Bye-bye, puny humans!”

  Still fuming, Penny ran off, leaving Charles in the mud pit. As he sat there dumbfounded, the brief winter sunshine disappeared, dark clouds moved in, and a light snow began to fall.

  Now sitting in class the following day, Charles regretted not standing up for Penny. At the time, he blamed it on the rules, but the truth was he had been afraid. Frozen with fear, he could only watch as the mean troll had shoved Penny into the mud. What rule could he possibly have broken to deserve this?

  At eight a.m., class was about to start. Charles sat up at his desk as vampire kid Bryce McCallister and the brave Steven Kingsley kicked the golden sarcophagus in the shins. It creaked open, and King Khufu emerged with a menacing groan from his winter hibernation, filling the room with his dank five-thousand-year-old mummy breath.

  Dusting off his ancient bandages, King Khufu muttered in his gravelly, sandy voice, “I trust you all had a fun vacation. I myself had a wonderful time playing with Kitty Tut.”

  Kitty Tut was King Khufu’s mummified cat. It had not come back to life like King Khufu had. It was planted atop King Khufu’s desk with a frozen look of shock on its face.

  “Who’s a good kitty?” King Khufu cooed, scratching behind its ear, which subsequently broke off. “Aww. Did somebody lose an ear? We’ll have to get you a new one right away!”

  The students quickly covered their ears.

  That’s when Charles felt a thousand legs crawling up his arm that would change his life forever.

  3

  Ninjas Never Laugh

  “Agh!” Charles yelped. Slinking up his arm was a seven-inch-long black millipede. From Charles’s zoological studies, he knew they were highly poisonous.

  “You need not fear Millie. She bites only on my command,” said a girl seated next to him. Every inch of her was covered in a black ninja outfit known as a shinobi shozoku. I know that because (as you may remember from reading my author bio) I planned on becoming a master ninja before I turned into a ghost. Even her face was hidden. He could have sworn she wasn’t there a moment ago.

  “Is, uh, this your millipede?” Charles asked nervously as the creature crawled up his shoulder and circled his pencil-thin neck like spaghetti wrapping around a breadstick.

  “Millie is my companion.”

  Charles knew millipedes liked to eat vegetables. He took a carrot from his backpack and offered it to the millipede, which was now creeping up his chin and seemed to be considering burrowing inside his nose.

  The millipede stopped in her tracks and sniffed the tip of the carrot. Instead of taking a nibble, the millipede stretched her mouth open to the size of a tennis ball and devoured the entire carrot in one gulp.

  “Millie likes carrots,” said the girl in black.

  Millie gave Charles a kiss on the nose. Charles had never been kissed by anything with so many legs before. It tickled.

  King Khufu was calling attendance. “McCallister?”

  “My body is here, but my heart is with my true love,” said Bryce McCallister with a smoldering gaze. All the girls sighed at his vampire charm.

  “Nukid?”

  “Here,” said Charles. He turned back to the girl in black. “So, what is your name?” he asked.

  “Lat—” she began.

  Suddenly, the PA crackled, and the voice of Principal Headcrusher rang through the classroom. “Attention, everyone!”

  The girl in black perked up in her seat, as if sensing danger. Her eyes darted and she sniffed the air. “Watch Millie,” she said to Charles. Then she leaped out of her chair, sprang off the wall, and dove through the air conditioning vent in one astonishingly swift movement.

  “Um . . . see ya,” said Charles to her empty desk.

  Principal Headcrusher continued, “After your first class, everyone is to report immediately to Petrified Pavilion for an urgent assembly. If you brought jackets or sweaters with you today, make sure to bring them. That is all.”

  King Khufu resumed taking roll. “Lattie?” There was no response. “Lattie . . . There is no last name. How odd.”

  “Um,” said Charles, “I think she was here a second ago, but she dove through the air vent.”

  “Preposterous,” said King Khufu. “I would have noticed.”

  “She did it really fast,” said Charles.

  “Not a chance. I’m marking her absent. Lastly . . . Tanya Tarantula?”

  Tanya the Giant Tarantula raised four of her eight legs from her terrarium at the back of the classroom.

  “Perfect. Now let’s get started with our lesson on ancient prophecies. Please open your textbooks to page thirty-two—the Wise Wizard’s Prophecy. This prophecy is of particular importance because it is scheduled to come true next week. It states that a human child will battle the scariest monster in the world to decide the fate of all monsterkind. Luckily for you human students, there are currently no signs that this prophecy will come true.”

  As the students began reading about the prophecy, which was written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Lattie dropped back into her seat. This time Khufu noticed.

  “Who are you?” Khufu asked the girl.

  “I am the shadow in the darkness. I am the eagle on the mountain face. I am the last vision seen by an evildoer.”

  “Ah, you must be Lattie,” said Khufu. “Where were you when I called your name?”

  “The best way to tell when a ninja is here is when she is not here.”

  King Khufu fumed, “How dare you leave my class without permission! I ought to put a curse on you right here!”

  Lattie responded calmly, “He who becomes angry boards a train to a wilderness of ignorance.”

  King Khufu was stunned that someone had dared talk back to him. The last one who did that was Eddie Bookman. As you may remember from the last book, he doesn’t exist anymore.

  King Khufu could only babble, “Hubble . . . habble . . . huffle . . . well, just don’t do it again. Since you’re new, this is your one warning.”

  Charles extended his arm, and the millipede used it like a bridge to crawl onto Lattie’s shoulder. Lattie nodded a silent thank-you. She wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something different about Charles, as if he reminded her of someone she liked, but she couldn’t think who.

  When King Khufu turned around to resume his lesson, Larry Ledfoot stood up and shouted, “Hey, Toothpick!”

  Larry held up a straw and shot a spitball right at Charles’s face. Charles closed his eyes, dreading the embarrassment before it even hit, but he never felt the wet impact.

  He opened his eyes and saw Lattie holding the spitball between the tips of two pencils, like chopsticks. She had caught it in midair just inches from his nose.

  Lattie glared at Larry, then shot the spitball back at him with a flick of her wrist. It hit him right in the forehead. Splat!

  The whole class laughed and applauded. Even King Khufu. Even Larry for that matter. It was that incredible.

  Charles said to Lattie, “Thanks. I’m Charles Nukid.”

&nb
sp; “You’re welcome, Charles Nukid. I am the unseen hand of righteousness. But you can call me Lattie.”

  Mr. Acidbath

  4

  The World’s Scariest Teacher

  Back in the other class, as soon as I saw Mr. Acidbath, I shrieked so loudly that my ghostly form became visible right next to Fritz. He got double-scared and passed out.

  Penny Possum was still lying stiff as stone on the floor, playing dead.

  Mr. Acidbath was the teacher whose experiment with Fear Gas had gone terribly wrong when I was still alive, turning me into the friendly ghost you know today.

  “I know you probably weren’t expecting me back so soon,” said Mr. Acidbath in his high-pitched voice, “but I paid a visit to the All-Knowing Monkey of Scary Mountain. He divulged to me the secret to a speedy recovery from Fear Gas burns, and wowzy-woozy did it ever work! So here I am! Heh-heh-heh!”

  Mr. Acidbath’s cackle confirmed that he was completely out of his mind. His long white hair stretched upward, outward, and sideward above his thick goggles. His goggles protected his bulging eyeballs. His eyeballs danced in different directions.

  Back when Mr. Acidbath was teaching, Petunia could hear explosions echoing from his classroom every five minutes like clockwork. She was muttering in her chair, “Please don’t do an experiment. Please don’t do an experiment.”

  “For our first experiment,” said Mr. Acidbath, “I thought I would pick up where I left off and show you how to make some . . . Fear Gas!”

  “Noooo!” the class hollered in unison.

  “Heh-heh-heh! No need to be afraid. Well, not yet anyway. The Fear Gas will take care of that.”

  The class turned to Fred. He wasn’t looking like his cool relaxed self at all. His eyes were glazed. His forehead was sweating. He looked . . . scared?

  Mr. Acidbath walked up to the pile of chemicals on the desk. They were still wobbling precariously as he rolled up his sleeves and reached into the pile, swiftly pulling out two beakers of liquids. The class held their breath as the rest of the chemicals slipped and tumbled on top of one another, shifting positions, clanking and clattering, molding into a new shape, yet somehow maintaining their structural integrity.

  The class exhaled in unison.

  “Everyone, open your chemistry textbooks and take careful notes, or you might make a mistake and kill us all.”

  The students put their pencils to their notebooks, prepared to write down every word.

  In one hand, Mr. Acidbath held up a jar of bubbling blue liquid. In the other hand, he held up a beaker of oozing red slime.

  “This blue substance is the boiling tears of a bearodactyl. In this hand I hold griffin grease, mixed with some hot lava from the school’s playground. Watch carefully as we make . . . Fear Gas!”

  Mr. Acidbath began to pour the red slime into the jar of blue bearodactyl tears. It oozed painfully slowly. The class braced themselves as the slime inched closer to the blue tears. Even Mr. Grump covered his elephant eyes with his trunk. But as long as fearless Fred was in the room, the class knew he would save them if it went wrong.

  Then Fred cried out: “Oh my gosh! This isn’t a dream, is it? This is all real! Aaaaagh!”

  Uh oh, everyone thought to themselves. We’re in deeeeep trouble.

  Fred picked the worst possible moment to have that shocking realization. Now who would save them if Mr. Acidbath’s experiment went terribly wrong (as his experiments always did)?

  Stunned by Fred’s scream, Mr. Acidbath hollered back, “Silence! This takes perfect concentration! Exactly one drop of lava with griffin grease has to fall into the tears for this to work properly. If two drops fall in, we’re all doomed! Heh-heh-heh!”

  Everyone covered their mouths so not a peep would escape.

  The red slime reached the tip of the beaker and began its slow descent into the bearodactyl tears, like super-thick maple syrup oozing out of a bottle. Hanging by a thin thread, it was about to break off as one drop, when suddenly the PA crackled, and the voice of Principal Headcrusher rang through the classroom. “Attention, everyone!”

  The noise startled Mr. Acidbath, and a giant glob of the grease plopped out of the jar. If just two drops caused the last Fear Gas explosion, this would be enough to blow up the entire school.

  Everyone, including Fred, dove under their desks and covered their heads.

  “I repeat! Attention all students and faculty of Scary School,” Principal Headcrusher continued. “This is Principal Headcrusher.”

  There was silence in the classroom. When no explosion happened, the class raised their heads over their desks.

  “Wowzy-woozy! That was close! Looks like we have a new class hero,” Mr. Acidbath announced.

  Mr. Acidbath pointed upward where Lattie—the girl in black—was hanging from the rafters by her feet, clutching the jar of bubbling blue tears. He exclaimed, “That girl appeared out of nowhere and pulled the jar away at the last moment!”

  The red slime had burned a basketball-sized hole through the teacher’s desk and was sizzling on the floor. “Let’s all give her a big thank-you.”

  Before anyone could say thank you, the girl in black, still hanging upside down on the rafters, stated, “One who receives kindness should never forget it. One who performs kindness should never remember it.”

  The students looked at one another and scratched their heads, trying to figure out what that meant.

  Principal Headcrusher’s announcement continued: “After class, everyone is to report immediately to Petrified Pavilion for an urgent assembly. If you brought jackets or sweaters with you today, make sure to bring them. That is all.”

  By the way, you read about Principal Headcrusher’s announcement twice because I was floating between the walls of each classroom the moment it happened. That’s how I know what was happening in two places at once. If you ever notice weird things that don’t make sense, just remember, I’m a ghost. I can do lots of crazy stuff.

  “Looks like our experiment will have to wait until after the assembly,” said Mr. Acidbath with a disappointed look. “Hopefully there won’t be any more slipups, but I can’t make any promises. Heh-heh-heh!”

  Then one of the beakers of chemicals fell through the hole in the desk. The wobbling tower swayed to the right. Gasp! Then it swayed to the left. Gasp! Then it came crashing down to a cacophony of breaking glass.

  “Holy cannoli! Get out of here quick!” Mr. Acidbath ordered.

  The class immediately bolted out of the door as a rainbow of gases started snaking around the room, causing kids to cough, burp, and sneeze violently. Luckily, the last kid dove out of the room safely as Mr. Acidbath slammed the door shut.

  Through the window in the doorway, the class watched as the gases interacted, causing booming colorful explosions. A thick cloud formed on the ceiling. Then it started to rain a sparkling green substance that burned tiny holes in everyone’s desks, turning each one into Swiss cheese.

  Mr. Acidbath cackled, “Wowzy-woozy! I hope you all brought your acid-proof umbrellas today. Heh-heh-heh! I love science!”

  5

  The Snowman Cometh

  The students of Scary School commenced the usual procedure for assembly. They gathered upon the vast wooden hands of Petrified Pavilion and were fed into its eternally screaming mouth—the only permissible means of entry into its grand hall.

  The first thing the students noticed when they entered the pavilion was that it felt like a freezer. Usually it’s much warmer inside than outside on a winter day, but today it was like walking into a meat locker. In the bleachers, everyone was shivering and huddling together for warmth. Their combined breath formed a fine mist that hung above their heads. The kids prayed they wouldn’t end up frozen.

  Charles Nukid searched the crowd for Penny in hopes that they might get to sit together, but Penny was with her class at the opposite side of the pavilion. She didn’t seem to be looking for him. Charles grimaced and huddled next to his friend Bryce McCallister, whos
e cold vampire body wasn’t any help.

  Principal Headcrusher, with her frizzy black hair and hands the size of Hula-Hoops, stepped up to the podium and raised her palms to her mouth. All the students quickly stuck their fingers in their ears so that their eardrums wouldn’t explode.

  “Good morning, students. I’m happy to say that I have a wonderful surprise for all of you.”

  The students said a silent good-bye to their vital appendages.

  “For the first time, Scary School has been invited to participate in a student exchange program with another school in the Scary community. Six students will be chosen to spend a week at Scream Academy, my proud alma mater, widely regarded as the scariest school in the world. The students chosen will be those who not only have the best chance at survival but who also best represent the human race.”

  Every kid hoped they would not be the ones chosen to go.

  “I have been assured that this exchange has absolutely nothing to do with the Wise Wizard’s Prophecy that a human child will have to battle the scariest monster in the world to decide the fate of all monsterkind. So no need to worry about that.”

  Everyone looked around at one another, clearly worried about that.

  “The selector of those lucky six students is none other than the principal of Scream Academy, who will be staying with us for the week and observing all of you very closely. Would you like to meet him?”

  All the students shook their heads no.

  “Too bad! Please give a very cold round of applause for the abominable snowman himself, Principal Rolf Meltington!” Principal Headcrusher turned to the side and yodeled, “Snowa-lowa-lay-hee-hoo!”

  The side door flung open, and a blizzard of snow flew into the pavilion. The frost whipped through the hall like a flying avalanche. Zombie kid Benny Porter had forgotten his beanie and keeled over from zombie brain freeze. Nurse Hairymoles had to quickly turn him into an ice monster to save him. Benny learned a very valuable life lesson about not forgetting to bring his beanie to school. Of course it was too late to apply that lesson, but it was learned nonetheless.