17

The Thousand-Foot Chain

It was early December at Scary School, and the first snow had fallen overnight.

Across the street, at the very peak of Goblin Hill, stood the three best friends—Johnny the Sasquatch, Ramon the Zombie, and Peter the Wolf. Each was holding a snowboard at his side.

Since the monster attack was less than two weeks away, the three friends had decided to make the most of the short time they had left and do something nobody had ever dared to do.

They nodded to one another, then took off down the hill on their snowboards, heading straight toward the school’s front entrance.

Archie the giant squid had felt the vibrations and raised his enormous eye out of the moat to investigate. Archie knew that snowboarding into school was against the rules, so he figured he’d make a quick breakfast of the three friends.

His tentacles rose from the water and he thrashed them wildly in an attempt to catch the boys in his sticky suckers.

But Johnny, Ramon, and Peter were moving too fast. Ramon slid underneath the suckers, doing a spectacular limbo move; Peter did a twisting jump right straight through a gap in the tentacles; and Johnny deftly ollied off Archie’s head, then slid down a tentacle straight into the twisting main hallway.

Archie grumbled with frustration and sank back into the moat.

“Look out!” the three friends yelled as they found themselves speeding like bullets between the rows of lockers.

Students were diving out of the way, but it proved unnecessary as the three snowboarders had jumped over them and were now sliding along the top of the lockers.

Unfortunately, they were fast approaching the hall monitor, Ms. Hydra. She was chatting with Dr. Dragonbreath outside his classroom.

As the snowboarders zoomed past Ms. Hydra, four of her heads were furious and wanted to chase after them.

“Snowboarding in the hallway! I never!” said the first head.

“Let’s get ’em!” said the sixth head.

The ninth head noticed Dr. Dragonbreath’s sad expression and said, “No, let’s stay here and keep talking to Dr. Dragonbreath.”

“I’m thirsty,” said the second head.

“How do you keep forgetting your water bottle?” asked the eighth head.

Luckily for the snowboarders, five of the nine heads wanted to keep talking with Dr. Dragonbreath, so Ms. Hydra let the boys go. (It’s important for a multi-headed lizard to have an odd number of heads so there’s always a majority in decision making.)

The snowboarders were followed by a mob of students out into the deadly school yard.

The blanket of fresh white snow made the playground seem almost survivable in the early morning sunlight. The flowing river of lava had cooled into shiny black obsidian. The three friends pulled a switch-stance maneuver as they rode across the river of obsidian to the blazing volcano that fed the flowing lava.

The hardened lava created a vertical ramp up the face of the volcano, and Johnny, Ramon, and Peter rode up in a straight line, sending themselves skyward one hundred feet into the air!

In midair, each friend performed his best trick. Johnny pulled off a frontside double cork 1080, while Ramon managed to barely land a 720 barrel roll with a chicken salad grab! The best was saved for last, however, as Peter the Wolf landed the rare Double McTwist 1260. The crowd went crazy, clapping their hands above their heads. Even several teachers were cheering.

Peter the Wolf led his two friends to the finish line. He drooled with anticipation of the kudos for their performance. In his exuberant mood, he transformed back to regular Peter. The crowd cheered even louder because they liked regular Peter much more than Peter the Wolf. Unfortunately, he didn’t see that he was heading straight toward the Pit of Scarflakk, which was hidden by the fresh layer of snow.

Peter’s height of joy fell to the depths of despair as he plunged into the Pit of Scarflakk—a ten-foot-wide hole in the ground with countless rings of razor-sharp teeth that ensnared its victims into its dark gullet, whence there was no escape.

If Peter the Wolf had fallen into the Pit of Scarflakk, nobody would have cared because Peter the Wolf was the meanest kid in school, but since regular Peter had fallen into the pit, everyone was devastated and prayed something could be done to save the nicest kid in school.

Dr. Dragonbreath tried to calm everyone down, saying, “Fear not, young humans. Peter is not dead yet. In the Scarflakk’s belly he is merely going to experience a new definition of pain and suffering as he is slowly digested over a thousand years…wait…years? I meant seconds.”

That made the students even more upset. Dr. Dragonbreath rolled his eyes, thinking, I don’t know that I’ll ever understand human emotions.

Princess Zogette stepped forward and announced in her stentorian, royalish voice, “I had a Pit of Scarflakk in my backyard at Monster Castle. There is but one way to rescue someone who has fallen into a Pit of Scarflakk, but it will require everyone’s help to succeed. Also, you should know that Charles gave me a bouquet of flowers over Thanksgiving and they were beauuuutiful.”

Charles retorted, “I didn’t want to! My mom made me!”

Zogette went on to explain that Peter was no doubt already hundreds, if not thousands, of feet deep inside the long digestive tract of the Scarflakk. One person—a searcher—would have to go in first to locate him. It had to be someone who could see exceptionally well in the dark.

Penny Possum quickly volunteered. Her saucer-sized eyes were like night-vision goggles. Charles tried to object, but Penny spoke for the first time in months, saying “NO! I’M DOING THIS,” knocking over half the students with the force of her voice.

“Okay then,” said Zogette, “but she cannot go alone, or she would simply be digested herself. Someone must go with her—a protector—who can fend off the creepies that will try to snatch her.”

Jason volunteered for that job. With his fearsome hockey mask and ever-present chainsaw, nothing stood a chance.

Zogette explained that once they found Peter deep down in the gullet, Penny and Jason would not be able to escape without help. The students would have to form a human chain in order to pull them to safety.

Everyone came to a quick agreement that the risk was worth it to save the life of their friend Peter. I tried not to take offense that no one had cared as much about saving my life a couple years ago, but whatever.

Penny Possum took the lead and made her way into the Pit of Scarflakk. Jason and his chainsaw followed close behind. After them, every student at Scary School began forming a human chain, holding on to one another by the ankles. It soon extended a thousand feet, keeping Penny and Jason connected to the surface.

The pit was pitch-dark, and every kid on the thousand-foot chain nearly barfed at the smell of thousand-year-old rotting meat, but Penny and Jason did their best to ignore the odor.

Monstrous little glow-in-the-dark creatures that looked like tiny devils kept popping up. They tried to grab hold of Penny and detach her from the chain, but Jason was swift with his chainsaw and made quick work of them.

After a long trek down the tube, where the smell grew even worse, Penny eventually found Peter. He had transformed into Peter the Wolf and was struggling for his life against an array of tentacles trying to pull him into a vat of bubbling acid—the Scarflakk’s stomach!

Penny reached out her hand and took hold of Peter the Wolf’s arm. Peter the Wolf could not see in the dark like Penny could and thought she was another tentacle. Peter thrashed at Penny’s arm. Penny lost her grip and the tentacle pulled Peter closer to acid. He was barely out of Penny’s reach.

Charles Nukid was holding onto Jason’s ankles and yelled, “Jason! Take my tie!”

Jason nodded and sliced off Charlie’s tie and handed it to Penny. Penny flung Charles’s tie and it wrapped around Peter’s wrist. She whispered to Jason that she had him.

News traveled like a game of telephone up the chain to the surface. There the strongest teachers, anchored by the mighty jaws of Ms. T (who was clasped on to the tail of Dr. Dragonbreath), began pulling the chain of students out of the pit like a magician pulling a never-ending handkerchief out of his pocket.

After the chain of kids had wrapped around the entire school yard, Jason, Penny, and Peter the Wolf finally popped out of the hole to safety.

When the students noticed that they had gone through all that just to rescue Peter the Wolf, they groaned with disappointment. But when he changed back to regular Peter, they cheered with glee.

When Peter realized it was Charles’s tie that had saved him, he handed it back and said, “That’s the first time I was glad to wear a tie. Thanks, New Kid.”

The reveling came to a quick end, however, when the sky rumbled and a great roar was heard. The students looked up and saw a fearsome winged creature flying toward them, ridden by what looked to be something pink and fuzzy.

The students in King Khufu’s class quickly formed a circle around Bryce McCallister, hiding him from view. They were certain that death was about to arrive upon swift wings for him.

As it came closer, they realized it was Ms. Stingbottom riding atop a griffin—a lion with the head and wings of an eagle. The students let out a sigh of relief, thinking she was there to pay a friendly visit. When the griffin landed, they saw she looked frazzled and full of worry.

“Awoo-Aloo, my helpless humans!” Ms. Stingbottom bellowed, snapping her lobster claws and wiping tears off her furry pink face. “I bear terrible news. I have just flown past the one thousand pirate ships filled with monsters, and they are but a week away. That, I’m afraid, is the good news. The bad is that I have overheard their plans, and they are so furious at spending these last months at sea that when they arrive to do battle, they plan not only to retrieve Princess Zogette, but to eat anyone who dares resist them. That means there will be no coming back as a zombie, or a vampire, or a ghost, or a skeleton, for once you are eaten by a monster, that is simply the end of you. While before I encouraged you to fight for the love of Charles and Zogette—”

“Seriously. I don’t like her,” came a voice from the distance.

“—now, I have changed my mind and encourage all of you to surrender to the monsters. There is no hope of survival. Farewell.”

In a blink, Ms. Stingbottom was flying back through the clouds on the griffin.

The students stood in stunned silence. They turned and looked at Charles Nukid and Princess Zogette.

“Welp, I guess that settles it,” said Bryce McCallister. “You’re a good dude, Charles, but you’re going to have to give up your lady.”

The princess cried out, “Noooo! You mustn’t take me away from my Charles. I would rather die!”

The kids threw their arms up in exasperation.

That’s when Petunia had the idea of a lifetime.

“Wait a minute,” Petunia proclaimed, speaking louder than she ever had before. “We can’t give up. The monsters have no right to invade our school. Zogette’s father has no right to force her to marry someone she hates. Look at everything we have around us. The monsters won’t know what to expect when they get here, but we know everything there is to know about the environment and all the traps that can be sprung. Divided, we stand no chance; but united, we form a chain that cannot be broken. Together we can teach those monsters an important life lesson about never messing with Scary School again!”

Johnny was so riled up by the speech, his feet grew two sizes. He felt like a real bigfoot for the first time. He released a roar, and all the students roared along with him.

If Petunia, an eleven-year-old purple girl, wasn’t afraid of the monsters, then every kid figured there was no reason for them to be. Steven Kingsley felt no fear, Penny Possum felt no fear, Fritz felt no fear, and, of course, Fred, the boy without fear, still felt no fear.

Zogette gave Charles a big hug, and Charles nearly retched from her stench, but the moment was so overwhelming, something inside him began to feel differently. He reached out his arms and hugged Zogette back.

But only for a few seconds.