Scary School

Mrs. T is the Scary School detention monitor and also the school librarian.

She was born in a laboratory on a faraway island where scientists were growing dinosaurs for an insane billionaire who wanted them roaming around his backyard to impress his insane billionaire friends.

Mrs. T didn’t have a brain the size of a peanut like most other T. rexes. Due to a DNA mix-up, she had an enormous brain that made her smarter than any human alive.

Because she was so smart, the last thing she wanted to be was some insane billionaire’s pet, so she hatched a dastardly plan that ended in all the backyard dinosaurs rampaging the billionaire’s mansion, eating the billionaire, and stealing his private jet. The billionaire learned a very important life lesson about not keeping man-eating dinosaurs as pets.

Mrs. T used the billionaire’s jet to travel all over the world and learn new things everywhere she went. After twenty years of traveling, she could speak every language on Earth.

Mrs. T wore the same blue dress and blue hat every day because in all her travels around the world, it was the only outfit she had ever found that was her size.

Mrs. T loved to read and learn new things more than anything else. The problem was that her tiny arms were so short, she couldn’t hold a book far enough away for her eyes to see it. So, she had to rely on others to read to her, which people usually did when she asked, because who’s going to say no to a T. rex in a blue dress?

As she entered her twilight years, she decided to settle down and enjoy the quiet life working at Scary School. She took good care of the library. It was always nice and quiet, mainly because if anyone was loud, she just walked over and ate them, and that was the end of the disturbance.

While working at Scary School, she also met the love of her life, Mr. Spider-Eyes, and they got married. She liked him because his hundreds of eyes made it impossible for him to read a book, so he never tried to impress her with his intelligence, because he didn’t have much of it.

They are a very good team. As the hall monitor, Mr. Spider-Eyes sends Mrs. T all the rule breakers he can find. When a rule breaker goes to detention, Mrs. T makes them read to her until lunchtime.

To give the kids a chance, detention never lasts past lunch, but if a kid accidentally stays too long, he is plain out of luck and Mrs. T has a very easy lunch for herself. Normally, at noon sharp, Mrs. T lets out a loud roar because she is so hungry, and then she stomps into Scary Forest to catch her lunch and also bring something back for Sue the Amazing Octo-Chef to prepare for the students.

One day, Sue asked Mrs. T to bring back a plump dodo bird from Scary Forest so she could add it to her special Thanksgiving-week menu. It made sense since dodoes are kind of like gigantic turkeys, only much more extinct.

“I want to give the kids an extra-special meal this Thanksgiving,” gurgled Sue the Amazing Octo-Chef from inside her tank. “After the Ghoul Games this spring, the students may not live to see another Thanksgiving, and I hear dodoes are the most delicious, must succulent birds there ever were.”

“I hate to break this to you, Sue,” said Mrs. T, “but dodoes went extinct over three hundred years ago.”

“Well, I hate to break this to you,” Sue replied, “but dinosaurs went extinct over sixty-five million years ago, and yet here you are standing in front of me.”

“Good point,” said Mrs. T. “I’ll see what I can find.”

And so at noon, Mrs. T let out her mighty roar and went galumphing into Scary Forest. Scary Forest has a way of helping visitors find what they need. The only problem is that once you find it, things can become very tricky. Scary Forest doesn’t like to let go of its inhabitants.

As soon as Mrs. T entered Scary Forest, the trees lifted themselves from the ground and scampered in all directions as if their roots were tiny feet. The trees began whispering to one another in the Language of the Wind, which Mrs. T spoke very well.

Mrs. T whispered to the trees that she was looking for a dodo. The trees whispered to one another then lined up in two rows, forming a pathway for Mrs. T.

“Thank you,” said Mrs. T, which sounded like a whoosh and a rustle in the Language of the Wind.

Mrs. T followed the path until she came to a clearing. There was a big sign that said:

Welcome to Dodo Country—

IQs under 200 need not enter.

Mrs. T could hardly believe her eyes. There were hundreds of dodoes walking around. Each of them was between three and four feet tall and wearing professors’ gowns and glasses. They held books between the feathers of their wings. Some of them were in groups discussing and debating the books they were holding.

Wow, thought Mrs. T. These are some smart dodoes.

Mrs. T walked out of the shadows into the clearing, looking for the plumpest dodo she could find.

The dodoes gasped when they saw the giant T. rex wearing a blue dress, but they didn’t run. Instead they shouted, “It’s her! It’s her!” And they all ran up to her and knelt at her feet.

A dodo wearing thick glasses proclaimed, “We are very excited to see you. My name is Plato. Just as the prophecy foretold, the Great Ancestor has returned!”

“Great Ancestor? What are you talking about?” Mrs. T asked.

“Follow us!” said Plato the dodo.

Mrs. T followed the dodoes into a big building with a sign that said DODO HISTORY MUSEUM.

Painted on the inside wall was a gigantic diagram of the dodo family tree. It traced dodo lineage all the way back to the beginning, and at the very top was a picture of . . . Mrs. T?

“Hey, what’s that picture of me doing on the wall?” Mrs. T inquired.

“You see,” said Plato, “over sixty-five million years ago, you were the first dinosaur born with a giant brain. You invented writing and reading! All of your offspring were born with giant brains as well, and then over millions of years, your dinosaur descendants evolved into us dodoes, the smartest creatures on Earth. We lived happily on the paradise island of Mauritius just east of Madagascar for thousands of years, until humans discovered us. The humans realized that aside from being smart, we were even more delicious. It’s not our fault we’re so succulent! The humans hunted us to near extinction, so we left Mauritius and settled in Scary Forest, where no one could ever find us again. Here, we are free to read and write and philosophize to our heart’s content.”

“Wow, this place sounds like heaven,” said Mrs. T. “But I thought the scientists who found my DNA and brought me back to life gave me my big brain.”

“That’s just what they thought happened because they couldn’t explain it. The truth is, you were already smart and lived an incredible life. It’s too bad you don’t keep any of your memories when they regrow you from your DNA, or you’d remember all the amazing things you did. Luckily, you wrote it all down in your autobiography and even foretold that you would return to teach us all a very important lesson. We’ve been waiting millions of years for your return and are very eager to learn our lesson.”

“Hmm. I have no clue what that lesson could possibly be,” said Mrs. T. “You seem to know even more than I do about the world.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all my life!” said Plato. “We don’t need any lesson from some ancient dinosaur. We already know everything!”

“That settles that then,” said Mrs. T, “but I still need to take one of you back with me for the school’s lunch.”

“No! You can’t!” exclaimed Plato. “If humans find out we still exist, they’ll start hunting us again and we really will go extinct!”

“Not if scientists find your DNA and bring you back, like they did with me.”

“But . . . but . . . we’re family! You wouldn’t eat your own family, would you?”

“It’s not me who would eat you; the kids would eat you. And family is a very loose term. If you go back far enough, everyone is family.”

“I can’t argue with that logic,” said Plato. “If you have to take one of us, take Elbert—he’s only written three literary masterpieces and solved two dilemmas of particle physics. He’s a real slacker.”

“Hey!” clucked Elbert.

Mrs. T didn’t like Plato’s attitude so she took him in her jaws, galumphed out of the forest, and brought him to Sue the Amazing Octo-Chef to cook for lunch.

As it turned out, Plato did learn his lesson, only it was too late.

Sue brought Plato out on a big plate, and when the students tasted the roast dodo, they immediately spat it out in disgust.

“Blech! That’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted!” said Ramon. “It tastes like a sweaty sock wrapped in snail goo.” His opinion was seconded, thirded, and fourthed by each student who tried it.

“How strange,” said Sue. “Legend says they went extinct because they were so delicious.”

“I have a new theory on that,” said Mrs. T. “I’m fairly certain they were hunted to extinction because they were such insufferable know-it-alls.”