Welcome to Stagnant Swamp State School

  That sport was the noble art of pickle racing.

  Now, I am not an expert at pickle racing myself and therefore do not feel sufficiently qualified to give a detailed explanation of the sport such as you will, no doubt, require.

  Luckily, having skipped ahead in this book, I have noticed that Simon Smithers will shortly be giving a very full explanation of pickle racing to some interested parties and therefore I will leave it up to Simon to fill you in on the details.

  Simon Smithers is an expert pickle racer.

  If anyone is ever unsure of just how good Simon is at pickle racing, then all they need to do is ask him.

  Fortunately, you are even saved the trouble of asking him as, upon arriving at his class room early on that first day of the school year, Simon was keen to remind everyone.

  ‘Make way for Simon Smithers, pickle racing champion of the Universe!’ yelled Simon as he charged feet first through a window, sliding into the nearest seat.

  ‘Ouch!’ cried Roger, who had already occupied the nearest seat at the time of Simon sliding into it and was forced to relocate to a seat nearby.

  Class 6B’s class room had been built on an especially slushy part of Stagnant Swamp, sinking at a much faster rate than ten centimetres per year. It was presently up to its windowsills in the swamp, so the only way to get in or out was through one of the windows – whichever happened to be closest at the time.

  This did make it quite perilous for those children with window seats, as you never quite knew when someone would be dropping onto your desk, leaving their footprints on your homework. But it was Simon Smithers’ personal opinion that this inconvenience was far outweighed by his ability to get out very quickly when the school bell rang, instead of wasting time trampling people to get out the door, as he would have had to do otherwise.

  That day, Simon had a knowing smirk on his face that could not be ignored.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ demanded Paul.

  In the class room as well as Simon were Roger (a small, sickly boy with pale green skin and a temperature); Paul (a tall, sporty boy with dark, wavy hair); Anna, a small, quick girl who was often serious and good at maths; Mara, a tubby girl with freckles who was bossy; Claire Calthorpe, a very ordinary girl who was exceptionally dull; Claudia, a pretty girl with long, blonde pigtails who was Mrs Blanching’s favourite; Anthea, who was dreamy and willowy and did ballet; and Angelo, a tall, gangly, loud show off and, because of these qualities, Simon’s best friend.

  Simon waited until he was sure everyone in the room was listening.

  ‘I’ve got a new pickle,’ he chuckled. ‘And it’s a monster.’

  The boys exchanged worried glances. A monster pickle? Simon had a monster pickle?

  Everyone knew that the larger your pickle, the better your chances in the pickle race: it was a law of physics. Indeed, it was the only thing about physics that any of the students understood or cared about.

  ‘You’re bluffing,’ challenged Paul sourly. The previous term, his pickle had been undefeated in ten matches until he’d left it unattended and it had dried out on a window sill and stuck to the glass. Of course, it was never the same again.

  Whistling merrily, Simon undid his pencil case and took out a large safety pin, a pair of tweezers, a magnifying glass, chalk and a pocket knife.

  The only things Simon’s pencil case did not contain were pencils and paper. This was perfectly acceptable, as Simon never wrote down anything during class. ‘After all,’ said Simon often, ‘if a teacher says something important, they always repeat it anyway, so you can just remember it.’

  This theory was proven a day two years earlier when their librarian, Mr Hoochley, had shouted five times in succession that the library roof was about to collapse before it actually did. This was the last important thing that Simon recalled hearing at school and he remembered it perfectly.

  While we are on the subject, after Mr Hoochley’s unfortunate accident with the library roof collapsing, he’d been trapped between the Collected Works of Shakespeare and the Encyclopedia Britannica for four days until he’d been winched to safety. As a result, Mr Hoochley had developed something of a phobia about books. Thereafter, he walked around blindfolded for much of the day so that he wasn’t being constantly reminded that he was in a library. But all someone had to do was say the word ‘book’ to him and he’d panic, often with disastrous results: sometimes he’d try to slip through the After Hours Returns Chute, or else shelve himself in accordance with the Dewey Decimal system. Once, he’d tied together all the preps’ library bags to make a rope to climb out of the window, which would have been fine, had he taken the time to look up a book which told him how to knot them securely. It was all very regrettable and proved yet another of Simon’s theories that books are dangerous to your health and should be avoided at all costs.

  So you see, not only is Simon a champion pickle-racer, he is also a brilliant philosopher. But pickle racing was what was mostly on his mind that particular day at the start of the school year.

  To the sounds of Paul’s jealous gasp, Simon carefully extracted the monster pickle from his pencil case and pinned it to his school desk with the safety pin. He examined the ridges of the pickle closely under the magnifying glass. Taking up the pocket knife, he made his first incision. He could feel Paul and Angelo breathing heavily over his shoulder. He needed to make a perfect, flat cut to make the face of the pickle slice as smooth and slippery as possible. The pickle juices ran out over the knife and onto the desk. Simon smiled smugly while imagining Paul’s expression behind him. A juicy monster pickle was even better than a monster pickle alone. Paul would be spewing!

  ‘I wonder why the bell hasn’t rung yet?’ demanded Anna out loud.

  ‘Didn’t you notice?’ asked Claire, who noticed everything, as a direct result of being dull. ‘The bell wasn’t there this morning.’

  Simon had just finished the first perfect pickle incision, much to Paul’s disgust.

  ‘Not there?’ demanded Simon. ‘Not there?’ He thought about this very hard. ‘Is there anything in the School Rules that says we don’t have to attend class until the bell rings?’

  There was a copy of the School Rules holding up one corner of Roger’s desk. Simon leapt toward it, shoving Roger and his desk sideways and diving to the ground. He’d just put one hand on the copy of the School Rules when his nostrils were attacked by a familiar, sickly scent settling all around him. Glancing upwards in trepidation, he knew what he would find. In order of appearance were: black pointy-toed shoes with silver buckles; thick, itchy-looking stockings, covering large, beefy legs; a massive tweed skirt; a bulging cardigan; a large, red-lipped scowl and crystal-encrusted spectacles at the end of a bulbous, wart-festooned nose.

  ‘Mrs Blanchings,’ said Simon cheerfully. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Nice try, Smithers,’ glared Mrs Blanchings, placing one pointy-toed shoe on the copy of the School Rules. ‘But bell or no bell, your holidays are over, Smithers and that goes for the rest of you, too.’

  Mrs Blanchings stepped over Simon, managing to carefully crush his fingers under her foot in the process, and took her place in front of the blackboard.

  ‘And just to remind you that you are all back at school now, we’ll start with algebra.’

  Class 6B sighed loudly, as sighing was the most they dared to do. There was no point in groaning, complaining or arguing – it only encouraged Mrs Blanchings and then, before you knew it, you would have to do trigonometry or calculus or something even more dreadful than algebra, if such a thing were possible.

  ‘Arrrggghhh!’ Anna screamed as a hideous, gnarled old face appeared suddenly at the window over her desk.

  The scream was suddenly cut short.

  ‘Oh, Mr Creechley,’ said Anna, off-handedly. 'Hello. Sorry.'

  Mr Creechley often caused people to scream when he appeared unexpectedly and, having that effect on people, didn’t take offence in the slightest. Const
able Perkins was at his side.

  ‘I wonder if we might borrow your class for a moment, Mrs Blanchings?’ asked Mr Creechley.

  ‘Please, take them for the whole year!’ laughed Mrs Blanchings, then set about wiping the summer’s growth of mould from the blackboard with one of the student’s sweaters, still chuckling at her joke, which was, in fact (and sadly), the funniest joke she’d made that year.

  ‘Now children,’ said Constable Perkins nervously. ‘I am investigating some serious thefts in the area and am making enquiries. This morning, the school bell was also stolen. If anyone has any information regarding these incidents, please let me know.’

  Class 6B was silent.

  'Anything at all…?'

  Nothing was heard.

  ‘Right then!’ hollered Constable Perkins angrily, climbing with difficulty through the window. ‘If that’s the way you lot want to play it – turn out your pockets.’

  The students complied morosely, spilling out an extraordinary range of dirty hankies, rubber bands, pickles, paper clips, dead mice, string, keys, pocket fluff, etc, etc, onto their desks, but no school bell. Constable Perkins was very disappointed.

  ‘Excuse me, but what are you expecting to find?’ Claire asked politely. ‘None of the stolen items could fit in anyone’s pockets.’

  This was a very good point and possibly something important enough for inclusion in Constable Perkins’ notebook, but he didn’t want to look foolish in front of the students.

  ‘Actually,’ Constable Perkins replied indignantly, ‘I’m trying to find a clue, a link, a pattern or, if I’m really lucky,’ he admitted, ‘a list of suspects, which will please the Chief Inspector no end.’

  ‘But there’s already a pattern,’ explained Claire patiently. ‘The thief is stealing items made of bronze.’

  Constable Perkins looked at his notebook and confirmed that Claire was right: a bronze statue of Russell Stagnant, two bronze statues of lions and now a bronze school bell. It was a pattern!

  ‘You seem to know an awful lot about this,’ said Constable Perkins suspiciously.

  ‘Everyone knows the statues and bell were bronze,’ replied Claire calmly. ‘It’s common knowledge.’

  Constable Perkins scratched his ginger whiskers thoroughly. It was bold coming up with a pattern like that, especially in that it departed from his usual manner of solving crimes, which was to compile list of suspects and then play ‘eeni, meeni, myni, mo.’ (He quite enjoyed that last part.) But what would the Chief Inspector say about him identifying a pattern instead of a suspect list? Would he want a suspect list as well, or would a pattern do? It was all getting terribly complex and Constable Perkins decided that he urgently needed another cup of tea.

  ‘I’ll think about that, Miss Smartypants,’ he huffed at Claire, as he climbed back out the window, popping buttons. ‘And I’ll be watching you, so keep your nose clean.’

  Constable Perkins nodded to himself smugly. He’d heard the police on television say that last part and he realized now how useful it was. Whilst being in itself absolutely meaningless personal hygiene advice, it had given him the last say in an awkward situation.

  ‘Well, Claire,’ smiled Mrs Blanchings with one of her best fat-lipped, fear-inducing smiles. ‘As you’re feeling so smart today, you can spend your lunch hour showing the new preps around the school. That should keep you busy enough to stop you telling people how to do their jobs.’

  Simon, still occupied with slicing his pickle, snorted with laughter.

  ‘Simon Smithers!’

  Mrs Blanchings had crept up behind Simon and stabbed her red pen viciously down on the desk straight through the centre of his juicy monster pickle.

  ‘If it’s so amusing, Smithers,’ she snarled, ‘then you can go as well!’

  Chapter Four

  The preps were waiting in their class room for Simon and Claire at lunchtime. Simon had not yet had anything to eat and his stomach growled noisily. He customarily had swamp eel for lunch, unless it was not eel season. When it was not eel season, he often went yabbying with a net made from the lace curtain in the staff room window. He wondered longingly whether the eels were biting that day and if so, if he’d have time to catch one. If he could talk one of the preps into catching one for him, that would be even better.

  ‘Alright, then!’ shouted Simon. ‘Form two groups, and be quick about it. Here, I’ll show you which group you are in by shoving you into it. One group will go with me and one with Claire.’

  ‘Er, shouldn’t we go together?’ asked Claire.

  All the preps nodded vigorously. There would be safety in numbers, and provided they were fairly certain that they could run faster than just one other person in the group, they should be safe.

  ‘No, no,’ said Simon, because he knew that Claire would spoil all his fun. ‘In a big group, you won’t get that personal touch.’

  So saying, Simon shoved the largest of the preps together to form his group, on the basis that they would be better at catching eels.

  ‘Right, I’ll have you, and you, you and you and you in my group.’

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Oof!’

  ‘Ugh!’

  Although all the preps were wearing name tags, Simon felt it was only fitting for him – as a Grade Sixer – to call them nothing other than ‘you’.

  So, preps Andrew, Monica, Brendan, Corey and Christine went with Simon. Preps Rachel, Ethel, Thomas, Dylan and Susan were left for Claire.

  The two groups set off, the wary preps following each other with quaking knees.

  ***

  Claire’s first stop with her group of preps was the courtyard outside the main school building.

  ‘One thing you may notice is that the electricity supply is very unreliable,’ said Claire. ‘Owing to the location of the school in the swamp, ordinary electricity tends to surge, which is how we lost our computer room…’ (here Claire pointed to the charred rubble of a building across the courtyard) ‘…or it stops altogether. So we have this alternative power supply.’

  She opened a large door in the main building marked ‘Power Room’. Inside was an enormous wheel, exactly like a wheel that a pet mouse runs in, only a thousand times larger.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Rachel.

  ‘This is the wheel that powers the electricity generator,’ Claire said happily, pleased at the interest the preps were showing.

  ‘How does it work?’ they wanted to know.

  ‘Prep power!’ Claire exclaimed. ‘Each day, two preps are rostered to run in the wheel for four hours, which stores up enough power to run the school for an entire day.’

  The preps looked at her, aghast.

  ‘You get a twenty minute break for lunch,’ Claire reassured them.

  ***

  As his group walked past Claire, Simon sniggered. It was typical of boring old Claire to just show the preps around the school and tell them useful things. She just didn’t realize what a great opportunity it was to have some fun with them, or, better yet, get them to do some chores. Simon planned to do both.

  ‘This is the gymnasium,’ Simon announced, pushing open the glass doors of the building, bounding through and then stopping so abruptly on the basketball court that all the preps banged into one another behind him like dominoes. There was a gaping hole in the floor centimetres from his feet.

  ‘Wh…what caused that hole?’ asked Christine.

  ‘Termites,’ replied Simon.

  ‘Why doesn't someone fix it?’ asked Andrew.

  ‘Because underneath is where the crocodiles hibernate for the winter,’ Simon responded.

  ‘Is it safe to walk on?’ Christine wanted to know.

  ‘Well, we thought so,’ replied Simon wistfully, ‘until we lost an entire team of basketballers down there.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ said Andrew, horrified.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Simon. ‘We lost the ball at the same time and can’t afford another one
. Would anyone like me to dangle them by the ankles down the hole, to see if they can see it?’

  Oddly, there were no volunteers.

  ‘Come on,’ Simon said, disappointed. ‘Plenty more to see.’ And the terrified preps followed him out.

  ***

  Meanwhile, back in the courtyard, Claire was issuing a warning about Stagnant Swamp State School’s insect population.

  ‘The mosquitoes tend to circle in a swarm,’ she said. ‘They often fly clockwise in the morning, then anti-clockwise in the afternoon. It’s best to watch out both ways, though, if you can, just in case.’

  Claire took a few steps back towards the main building before she realized it would be nice to say something a bit more positive. ‘There is medication you can take for malaria now,’ she noted with a reassuring smile.

  ***

  At the same time, Simon was discussing more important things.

  ‘This,’ he said, gesturing to the large window in front of the art room, ‘is the best place in the school for pickle racing.’

  On the window, splotches of a green substance baked hard in the sun.

  ‘But what is pickle racing?’ asked Andrew.

  Simon Smithers smiled the smile of a boy who’d just been invited to talk about one of his two best subjects. His first best subject was himself, but surprisingly few people ever asked him to talk about himself. His second best subject was, of course, pickle racing.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said to the preps. ‘And I’ll tell you all about it.’

  Although he’d never admit to being happy at keeping company with a pack of preps, Simon Smithers was secretly feeling quite pleased with himself. It wasn’t often that he was given such a good chance to be in charge and to demonstrate how much he knew about practically everything, should anyone care to ask. He was pretty much anticipating that he was going to be the preps’ hero before the day was over and he vowed to act with dignity, should they ask for his autograph.

  Simon drew one horizontal line with chalk on the window, stepped two paces from the windowsill and then drew another line on the ground.

  ‘The idea of Pickle Racing is that you stand behind this line on the ground and toss your pickle so that it lands stuck to the window above that horizontal line. This maneuver is called the ‘pickle fling’. The trick is to fling your pickle hard enough to get it to stick, because if it falls off the window instead of sliding down, you’re disqualified. But you shouldn’t fling it so hard that it sticks there permanently. Then,’ said Simon with relish, ‘you let gravity do the rest. The first pickle to slide down to the line is the winning pickle.’