At the same time Petunia’s class was screaming at the sight of Mr. Acidbath, Charles Nukid was sitting in King Khufu’s classroom with his head buried in his arms, wiping away tears with his polka-dot tie. As usual, he was the only student wearing the uniform of gray shorts, a white dress shirt, and that ridiculous tie.
Ever since he and Penny Possum had begun their friendship by giving each other a piece of candy every day, they had met each morning at the front entrance of the school to throw a crab into the moat for Archie the Giant Squid.
Today, Charles had waited for Penny as long as he could, but she never showed. Charles thought she might be out sick, but then he saw her slipping into her classroom before the morning bell. She must have taken one of the secret entrances to avoid him.
He couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened the day before, which was undoubtedly the worst day of his life.
Yesterday morning, he called Penny on the phone and said, “Hey, Penny, if you’re free today, do you want to go sledding?”
Penny didn’t answer him and Charles smiled. That, of course, meant yes. Penny hardly ever spoke, but when she needed to say no, she said no.
“Okay, then,” Charles responded. “I’ll meet you at noon.”
“(Silence),” Penny replied.
“Oh, okay, one o’clock at Goblin Hill?”
“(Silence).”
“I’m looking forward to it, too. Good-bye!”
Charles had gotten very good at interpreting Penny’s silences. He was so excited that when he hung up the phone, he started jumping for joy on his bed. Then he remembered that jumping on his bed was against the rules. He hopped off, fixed the bedding, and gave himself a five-minute time-out.
The sun was shining brightly in the sky. Charles’s amazing luck seemed to be continuing. After miraculously leading the students of Scary School to victory over ten thousand monsters the day before winter break, he had become the school hero. And now he was going to celebrate the New Year with his best friend, Penny. If he was lucky, maybe he’d even get a hug at the end of the day.
Penny reached the peak of Goblin Hill at precisely one o’clock. Charles was already waiting for her, holding two cups of hot cocoa and a picnic basket full of goodies. She was wearing a brand-new yellow sweater that she had just gotten for Christmas. Charles thought she looked like a sunrise coming over the hill.
A band of goblins was standing behind Charles. Each one was holding a different instrument—there was a flautist goblin, a guitarist goblin, a drummer goblin, and a triangle goblin.
When the band saw Penny, they quickly broke into song on Charles’s cue, but, as usual, they had not bothered to rehearse and were playing all the wrong notes. Goblins are terrible musicians, but that never seems to stop them.
Charles and Penny sat on their sleds atop the hill, sipping the hot cocoa and admiring the breathtaking view. They could see all of Scary School, which looked not-quite-as-deadly in its peaceful state during winter break. They could see the rustling trees of Scary Forest, the murky depths of Scary Pool, and the screaming face of Petrified Pavilion.
After finishing the cocoa, Penny pulled a box out of her jacket. On the label it read POSSUM’S HOT PEPPERS. She poured a bunch of green, red, and orange peppers into Charles’s hands. A fly landed on one of the orange peppers and exploded. Charles gulped.
Penny took a green pepper and popped it in her mouth. She encouraged Charles to do the same. Charles had never tasted a hot pepper before, and he was kind of scared. But since Penny’s family grew the peppers, he didn’t want to insult her.
They bit down on the green peppers together. It felt like fireworks were going off inside Charles’s mouth. But after a few moments the heat went away, and it actually tasted pretty good.
“I like it!” said Charles, his eyes watering from the heat. Penny looked impressed.
Next, Charles reached for one of the orange peppers. Penny quickly grabbed his hand and shook her head. Charles didn’t like Penny thinking he wasn’t tough enough to eat a tiny little pepper.
“Don’t worry,” said Charles. “I can totally handle it.”
Penny gave him one last look that seemed to say, “Are you sure about this?”
Penny let go of his hand. Charles reached for the orange pepper. The skin of the pepper was sweating. Steam rose from the stem. If it could talk, it would be screaming, “Don’t eat me!”
Charles slowly put the pepper between his teeth and bit down.
He put on a brave face and tried to smile through the blazing inferno that had just exploded in his mouth. His tongue felt like he had licked a pool of lava. Tears were streaming down his face like rain on a windowpane.
Penny saw that he was not a happy camper, but she was amazed he was holding himself together.
Thinking the worst was over, Charles swallowed it down in one gulp, but without the saliva to keep his mouth cool, the heat suddenly intensified fifty times. The world became blurry, and Charles couldn’t hold back any longer. He screamed, “AAAAIIIIEEEEE!” and he ran around in circles hoping the wind might cool his mouth. It didn’t.
Penny was cracking up.
“Water!” Charles begged.
Penny pointed to a patch of snow nearby.
Charles scooped up the snow and shoveled it into his mouth. But instead of helping, the snow spread the heat all over his insides. Penny fell over in silent laughter. Charles then remembered that there’s just one thing that cools down spicy food.
“Milk!” screamed Charles, jumping up and down and spinning in circles.
Penny shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t have any.
Charles realized he had only one option to extinguish the blaze.
He reached into his picnic basket and pulled out a banana whipped cream pie. The white foam resting on top of the creamy filling looked like an oasis.
Penny’s jaw dropped when she realized what Charles was about to do. Charles didn’t waste another moment. He smashed the pie straight into his own face.
Charles inhaled the creamy foam, and the cooling relief was immediate. He kept the pie on his face for almost a minute, basking in the frosty frosting until he had to come out for air.
His face was covered in the white foam, but he could still hear Penny’s muffled giggles. He realized how silly he must look and started laughing along with her.
But then Penny’s laugh changed from a girlish “hee-hee-hee” to a monstrous “har-har-har!”
Charles wiped the pie off his face and noticed with horror that a seventh-grade troll—the captain of the Scary School football team—was holding Penny over his head.
“Come get your girlfriend!” mocked the troll.
“She’s not my girlfriend, Lebok,” said Charles, “but put her down anyway!”
“Or else what?” laughed Lebok. “What you gonna do?”
Another seventh-grade troll named Padlox stomped up behind Charles and barked, “Me and Lebok need hill to throw football. You two go bye-byes.”
“No,” said Charles. “I reserved the hill for today. Ask the goblins.”
Padlox retorted, “Goblins? What they do? Sing me to death?”
“Hey!” shouted the goblins, a little insulted.
Charles sighed and lowered his head. There was nothing he could do. The trolls were as big as gorillas and twice as strong. If they wanted the hill, it was theirs.
“Fine,” said Charles. “We’ll leave. Just put her down.”
“Wise choice, human.”
Lebok put Penny down on the blanket, but she was not ready to give up. Fuming mad, she shouted “No!” at the trolls, thinking her booming voice could knock them out. But the trolls were like trees and hardly budged. Then she charged at Lebok and started pounding him with her fists. It was like hitting a brick wall.
“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.
