The rule at Scary School is that once the class bell rings, every student must be inside his or her classroom. Nobody, not even a teacher, is allowed to be wandering the hallways, or else the hall monitor, Ms. Hydra, is welcome to make a meal of you.
Rules are rules.
Mr. Acidbath’s class stood outside his classroom and peered inside. The acid rain had turned into an acid storm, and everything inside the classroom had all but disintegrated.
“That storm looks incredibly deadly,” said Frank, which is pronounced “Rachel.”
“Hey! Don’t judge the storm by its looks,” said Lindsey.
“Mr. Acidbath, can’t you get rid of the acid rain?” Petunia asked.
“Nope!” said Mr. Acidbath with a grin. “I don’t even know why it’s happening! Heh-heh-heh! Sorry to laugh. It’s all I can do when I’m scared out of my mind!”
“Well,” said Johnny the Sasquatch, “we have about thirty seconds before the bell rings and Ms. Hydra eats us all.”
Peter (the nicest kid in school) transformed into Peter the Wolf (the meanest kid in school) and growled, “Don’t be chicken, guys! We can take Ms. Hydra!”
“I don’t think so,” said Wendy Crumkin. “Ms. Hydra is a twenty-foot monitor lizard with nine heads. She’s eaten entire armies without breaking a sweat. If we get eaten, there’s no coming back.”
Jason exclaimed, “Come on, guys. We need ideas, fast!”
Mr. Grump raised his hand.
“Yes, Mr. Grump?”
“Who am I?”
“No time to explain!”
“We could eat the storm’s braaaains!” said Ramon the Zombie.
“Too ridiculous.”
“(Silence),” suggested Penny Possum.
“That’s the best idea so far,” said Johnny. “Which isn’t saying much.”
Then the class bell rang.
The classroom doors all slammed shut in unison, and after a moment of silence, the sound of hissing filled the air. It was the unmistakable sound of Ms. Hydra smelling the air with her nine tongues. Did you know monitor lizards smell with their tongues? Weird but useful! Tongues can’t get stuffy.
“I ssssmell fresh children in the hallwaysssss.” Her slithery voice echoed from around the corner.
“Yesss, and lots of them,” said a different head.
“Shouldn’t we wash our hands before we eat them?” said another head.
“No,” the other heads reminded her. “We don’t use our hands to eat!”
“Oh, yeah.”
The nine heads of Ms. Hydra peered from around the corner, one on top of the other.
“Hello, children. I take it none of you have a hall passss?”
The students shook their heads.
“What a pity. It seemssss as though you’re all breaking the rules. Ssssorry to have to eat you, but it is my job.”
Ms. Hydra rushed toward them from the end of the hallway, all nine of her lizard heads bearing their razor sharp teeth.
That’s when the idea came to Petunia.
“Rachel!” she shouted, speaking to Frank. “What was that noise that Principal Headcrusher made to summon Principal Meltington?”
“I don’t remember. It was some kind of yodel.”
“Right! I think it was . . .” Petunia stepped forward and sang: “Snowa-lowa-lay-hee-hoo!”
In an instant, a blizzard of snow streamed through the hallway. It hit Ms. Hydra right as she was about to chomp on Fritz’s head. Ms. Hydra froze in midair, enveloped in a giant block of ice as she fell to the floor.
“Quick!” shouted Petunia. “Into the classroom!”
The students rushed inside the classroom as the snowy blizzard followed after them. The drops of acid rain stung their skin, but only a few drops had hit each student before the blizzard extinguished the burning acid and turned it into a harmless green snow.
The snow then rose up into the snowman form of Principal Meltington. Once himself, Principal Meltington made a snorting sound. All of the green acid formed into a slimy ball in his mouth, and he spit it out across the room in dramatic fashion, sending it crashing through the window and landing with a splash in Scary Fountain. From that day forward, taking a dip in Scary Fountain would result in hideous mutations.
The class erupted in cheers. They all ran up and hugged Petunia, not caring if they got stung by the bees around her head.
As Principal Meltington approached Petunia, the rest of the class backed away.
“Are you the one who summoned me?” he asked, his deep voice shaking the room.
“Y-y-yes,” answered Petunia. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. That was some very quick thinking. Scream Academy–type of quick thinking,” he added with a wink of his button eye.
Great, thought Petunia. Now I’m sure to get picked for the exchange.
When the lunch bell rang that afternoon, King Khufu went back into his sarcophagus, and his students quickly packed up their things for lunch. But when they opened the classroom door, they were met with a big surprise.
They were snowed in.
It looked like there had been an avalanche in the hallway during class. There was no way out. The desperate students tried digging and clawing at the snow, but their small hands made little progress.
They looked out the window. It was a fifty-foot drop to the ground below. If King Khufu were still there, perhaps they could have used his mummy bandages to rappel down the side of the building, but once he locked himself inside his sarcophagus for lunch, there was no getting him out.
Today was a special lunch day. Sue the Amazing Octo-Chef was preparing a celebratory feast in honor of Principal Meltington’s arrival. It was called “The Feast of the Four Towers.” One tower was to be a twenty-foot mountain of pizza. There was also going to be a tower of garlic bread, a tower of corn on the cob, and the last tower was to be a twenty-foot castle of chocolate cake. Each tower would be molded to look like one of the great towers of Scream Academy.
Nobody wanted to miss this lunch.
“We have to get out of here,” Steven Kingsley screamed. “My claustrophobia is coming back! And my snowophobia!”
Larry Ledfoot tried kicking the avalanche with his stone feet, but that just packed it in worse.
Bryce McCallister tried melting the snow with his searing vampire gaze, but that didn’t work either.
Charles sat at his desk, racking his brain as his classmates screamed for help and pounded on the snow wall. The only other student not freaking out was Lattie. She was sitting on top of her desk, quietly meditating. Her millipede sat on her shoulder curled in a ball, meditating with her.
“Any ideas?” Charles asked her.
Lattie spoke, “Calmness overcomes panic as a gentle breeze tames a churning ocean.”
I guess not, thought Charles.
Then Lattie added in a voice that sounded like it was channeled from far away, “When deciding your future, look to the good deeds of your past.”
Those words struck Charles immediately. Perhaps something he did in the past was the key to escaping the room. But what good deeds had he done? He had saved Princess Zogette in Monster Forest. He had faced down the monster army. But something told him the answer wasn’t in one of these epic events. It had to be simpler.
He searched his thoughts. What was the last good deed I performed? I guess it was feeding Millie the piece of carrot.
“Oh my gosh. That’s it!” Charles shouted. “Lattie, may I borrow Millie?”
“Ask her yourself.”
Charles extended his hand to Millie. She uncurled from her ball and crawled up Charles’s arm, tickling him like crazy. He had to bite his lip not to laugh.
Charles looked around and found some string in his desk. He brought Millie to the avalanche, tied a carrot from his lunch bag to the end of the piece of string, and hung the carrot in front of Millie. The millipede lunged toward it with a violent chomp. Charles pulled the carrot away at the last second. The millipede got a mouthful of snow and spit it out. Aggravated, the millipede continued chomping away as Charles dangled the carrot in front of her.
Within minutes, a tunnel had formed through the snow. Being the skinniest kid in school, Charles was just able to fit through the tunnel. Millie continued gnashing away at the snow until they reached the other end.
Lattie followed behind Charles, widening the tunnel with motorlike ninja chops for the rest of the class to follow after her.
When they popped out the other side, Charles and Lattie fell to the floor. Crazed with hunger, Millie devoured the carrot in one gulp and released a loud belch. Charles laughed, but Lattie didn’t make a sound because ninjas never laugh.
When the pair looked up, they saw Principal Meltington standing before them.
“Very impressive,” he said to both of them, making a note in his snow book. “Scream Academy impressive.”
Charles smacked his head. Now I’m going to get picked to go to Scream Academy for sure, he thought. Rumor had it that Scream Academy had no rules whatsoever, and he wanted nothing to do with a place like that.
King Khufu’s class ran to the lunch and made it just in time for the four-tower feast. Charles and Lattie had a wonderful time trying to see who could eat more of the chocolate walls before the end of lunch. Pretty soon, the walls got so thin that the whole fluffy castle collapsed on top of them, and they had an even better time eating their way out.
Principal Meltington thought, I suppose I made those first tests far too easy. But tomorrow they’ll be lucky to make it through their classes in one piece.