15

Skeletons in the Closet

As Marvin the ogre wheeled his mop bucket down the hallway, he kept hearing strange noises behind him.

Kids were shouting, “Whoa!”, “Yah!”, and “Whoops!”

He turned around and noticed a trail of red-tinted mop water that led straight to his bucket. The kids walking down the hallway didn’t see the water and were slipping and sliding down the hallway.

Marvin was the Scary School janitor. As such, his mop bucket was usually filled with blood from mopping up the daily carnage.

Marvin was not very smart, even for an ogre. His bottom jaw stuck way out, his teeth seemed to jut in all directions, his nose was flat and twisted, his brow hung over his eyes, and he had lumpy greenish skin on his bald head.

Marvin inspected the bucket and said to himself, “Uh-oh. There’s a hole in my bucket.”

Marvin scratched his lumpy head for several minutes trying to think of what to do about it.

With what shall I fix it? thought Marvin. I could get some straw, but the straw is too long. I would have to cut it. But with what would I cut it? I know. A blade. But the blade is too dry.

Marvin realized this line of thinking could possibly go on forever, so he just decided, Ah, the heck with it. I’ll get a new bucket.

Marvin went to the supply closet where he kept all his spare buckets. Despite being the Scary School janitor for over ten years, this was the first time he had needed a new bucket. Thus, this was his first time entering the spare-bucket supply closet.

Marvin took out a big ring of keys. He had trouble remembering which key opened the door. Eventually, he opened it, and his big ogre jaw dropped to his chest in fright. He quickly shut the door and relocked it.

Marvin lumbered into Principal Headcrusher’s office. She was busy doing paperwork.

“Boss,” said Marvin in his slow voice, “skeletons in the closet.”

Without looking up, Principal Headcrusher replied, “Yes, Marvin, we all have skeletons in our closets.”

“But boss…uh…skeletons in the closet. Real skeletons. Bones. Buckets. Uhhh…bones.”

Principal Headcrusher exhaled, realizing Marvin was not going to leave her alone until she saw what the problem was. She followed him to the supply closet, and Marvin opened the door again.

This time, as soon as the door opened, three skeletons, each no bigger than an eleven-year-old kid, leaped out of the closet into the hallway shouting, “We’re free! We’re free!” They danced a frenetic skeleton dance. It looked like they were being controlled by bad puppeteers. Their teeth clanked and their bones rattled as they hopped about.

“Who are you three?” inquired Principal Headcrusher.

“I’m Skeletony!”

“I’m Skeletammy!”

“And I’m Skeletommy!”

“Wait a second,” said Principal Headcrusher. “Tony Malto, Tammy Gerber, and Tommy Stubbs? You three went missing over five years ago.”

“I know,” said Skeletony. “We were being chased by the gargoyles and hid in the closet for safety. But it was locked from the outside and nobody heard us banging and calling for help.”

“That makes sense,” said Principal Headcrusher. “All the doors are soundproof, otherwise it would be very hard to hear your teachers over the screaming.”

Skeletammy continued, “Eventually we died and turned into skeletons.”

“We learned a very important life lesson about not hiding in strange closets,” said Skeletommy.

“Once we became skeletons, we renamed ourselves Skeletony, Skeletammy, and Skeletommy,” said Skeletony.

“Coming up with those names kept us busy for the last three years,” said Skeletommy.

“We didn’t always get along, though,” said Skeletammy.

“Yeah, we always had a bone to pick with one another,” said Skeletony.

The three skeletons cackled at the joke they were far too proud of.

“Well,” said Principal Headcrusher, “you’re free to go off into the world and live your skeletal lives now. I’m sure you’ll be able to find jobs hanging in high school biology classrooms.”

“No!” Skeletammy chattered. “We decided that if we ever got out, we would stay at Scary School and finish our education. Since we’re Scary kids now, we get to attend for free, right?”

“Um…,” said Principal Headcrusher awkwardly. “That would be possible. If you were actually Scary kids.”

“What?” exclaimed Skeletony. “We’re skeletons! What’s scarier than that?”

“Everything?” replied Principal Headcrusher.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Skeletommy. “We’ll prove to you right now that we’re scary. Come on, guys, let’s go scare some kids.”

The skeletons went to a classroom, accompanied by Principal Headcrusher.

Oh, and by the way, after Marvin got his new mop bucket from the supply closet, he happily went back to his mopping, and that’s where his part in this story comes to an end.

The first classroom the skeletons went to was King Khufu’s. The skeletons burst into the room right in the middle of King Khufu’s lecture on why cats should be worshipped as gods. They cackled their skeleton laugh and rattled their skeleton bones.

King Khufu and his students stared at them blankly. Not even Steven Kingsley was afraid.

“King Khufu, is this part of the cwass?” asked Cindy Chan.

“No, it isn’t,” answered Khufu. “I’ll handle this.” He turned to the three skeletons and hissed, “Who dares disturb the peace of my class?”

Still cackling and rattling their bones, the three skeletons replied, “We’re the scary skeletons! Kneel before us in fear!”

Nobody knelt.

“Come on!” the skeletons urged. “We’re the living dead!”

“And how long have you been dead for?” asked King Khufu.

“About five years,” they replied.

“Five years? Ha! That’s hardly dead at all. I’ve been dead over four thousand, five hundred years. Now, that’s dead. Begone from here.”

The three skeletons hung their bony heads and clopped out of the room, but they weren’t ready to give up. Next they burst into Ms. Fangs’s fifth-grade class.

It went about the same.

“You’ve only been dead for five years?” Ms. Fangs laughed. “I’ve been dead over eight hundred and fifty years. I may not be as dead as King Khufu, but I’m much more dead than you.”

They decided to try one last classroom, Mr. Grump’s. At least he was still alive. They ran up and down the aisles, but because they no longer had any muscles, they ended up tripping every few strides. The class was laughing at them.

“Stop laughing!” pleaded Skeletammy. “We’re not funny. We’re scary.”

The three skeletons collapsed in a heap, utterly confused and exhausted.

“Sorry, but there’s nothing scary about you,” said Wendy Crumkin.

“Yeah. You don’t have big strong muscles, like me,” said Johnny the Sasquatch. Johnny flexed his muscles and roared. Everyone jumped back in fright.

“And you don’t have sharp teeth like me,” said Peter the Wolf, baring his teeth and snarling, making everyone jump again.

“And I bet your bones don’t even come off like mine do,” said Ramon the Zombie, ripping off his left arm, causing several students to pass out in shock.

“I don’t understand. Haven’t skeletons always been considered scary?” asked Skeletommy.

Petunia replied, “Skeletons are only scary when you find them someplace they’re not supposed to be. We expect to see skeletons at Scary School, so you’re not scary here.”

The skeletons realized Petunia was right. They left the room with their skulls hanging low.

“You see?” said Principal Headcrusher. “You’re just not as scary as the thought of the ten thousand monsters that will attack the school next month.”

The skeletons decided there was no use hanging around somewhere where they weren’t appreciated. They ventured off in search of a place that didn’t have any zombies, vampires, or mummies.

Eventually they came to a quaint-looking town and peered over a fence to where a young lady was planting flowers in her backyard garden.

When the lady went inside for a drink of water, the skeletons dived into the soil. When the lady resumed her shoveling, she hit Skeletony in the head with her shovel. When she uncovered the three skeletons grinning at her, she screamed in fright and ran back into the house.

The three skeletons high-fived and exclaimed, “All right! We still got it!”