Welcome to Stagnant Swamp State School

  All the teachers suddenly heard him and stopped still.

  ‘No!’ shrieked Mrs Marchbanks. ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Please, no!’ cried Miss Grindelwald.

  Simon was puzzled at their reaction. He’d thought it was what they’d wanted to hear.

  ‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t,’ he mused. ‘I started the strike and I can stop it – I’ll go and tell everyone.’

  ‘No!’ shouted the teachers in unison.

  ‘We don’t want to go back to our class rooms,’ said Mrs Blanchings.

  ‘Or students,’ said Mrs Marchbanks.

  ‘Or blackboards,’ complained Mr Hoochley.

  ‘Or books,’ wailed Miss Grindelwald.

  ‘Books! Arrgh!’ squealed Mr Hoochley.

  ‘Sorry, Hoochley,’ added Miss Grindelwald, but it was too late – Mr Hoochley’s book phobia had gotten the better of him, and he had already dived into the swamp and disappeared.

  ‘You see, we like it out here,’ explained Mrs Blanchings. ‘Talking about what we want to, enjoying each others’ company, swapping stories about how much we detest small children – in fact,’ explained Mrs Blanchings, ‘we never knew that we all had so much in common.’

  The other teachers nodded happily in agreement.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Simon firmly. ‘But there it is.’

  He spun around to leave.

  Unluckily for him, Simon didn’t realize that Mrs Blanchings had been outsmarting students a lot longer than Simon had been a student and a lot, lot longer than Simon had been in charge of a school students’ strike.

  ‘We’re just trying to save you,’ she said quietly.

  Simon turned sharply.

  ‘What do you mean, Mrs Blanchings?’ he asked suspiciously.

  Mrs Blanchings gave an evil grin that any one of the crocodiles in Stagnant Swamp would have been proud to call its own.

  ‘If you call off the strike without achieving what you set out to get, what do you think the others will think of you?’ asked Mrs Blanchings cruelly.

  Simon looked at the swirling murk at his feet.

  ‘My name will be mud,’ he realized dully.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Mrs Blanchings.

  ‘I’ll never be able to hold my head up at the school again; my reputation will be ruined.’

  ‘Precisely,’ agreed Mrs Blanchings.

  ‘I’ll be an outcast.’

  ‘Very likely,’ nodded Mrs Blanchings again.

  ‘What should I do?’ Simon wailed in despair.

  ‘There’s only one answer,’ said Mrs Blanchings knowingly.

  ‘Yes?’ asked Simon anxiously. ‘Please tell me! What is it?’

  ‘You need to satisfy the demands you made for ending the strike: you need to get back the trophy.’

  All the remaining teachers murmured their agreement.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Simon suddenly. ‘That would work.’ Once he had the trophy back, he could call off the strike without losing his reputation. Then all the preps would have to go back to class and stop making their ridiculous demands.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Blanchings,’ said Simon happily, waving goodbye as he crossed the perilous bridge connecting the school with the giant scribbly gum tree. Behind him the teachers laughed and clinked their glasses of fruit punch together.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Mrs Blanchings loudly. ‘And here’s to a long, unsuccessful hunt for the pickle trophy. Now Amelia, where were we up to?’

  Amelia Grindelwald picked up her cello and resumed the sonata where she had left off playing.

  ***

  Upon crossing the rickety bridge over the swamp, Simon was met by Claire.

  ‘Did you see Mr Hoochley over there?’ asked Claire. ‘He was supposed to tell me who had borrowed all the books on bronze. I am sure that information is an important clue.’

  ‘I saw him for a minute,’ said Simon. ‘Then he went swimming.’

  ‘Strange,’ said Claire.

  ***

  Mr Creechley was ordinarily the first person out of the school when the bell rang at the end of the day. He ordinarily took great delight, in fact, in ringing the bell, leaping through his window with no glass and running home, as fast as he could, up the gravel road. For this reason, the bell was never late. Even when Mr Creechley had introduced the Prep-powered Mobile School Bell, he was very diligent in telling Simon and Angelo the earliest possible moment when it could be rung.

  There were two reasons why the bell didn’t ring that afternoon. The first was that the prep on bell duty was on strike. The second was that Mr Creechley had disappeared.

  It was Class 6B that noticed he was missing.

  ‘Do you think someone’s stolen Mr Creechley?’ asked Angelo.

  ‘I would think it’s unlikely,’ replied Claire.

  ‘Maybe he’s fallen through the gym floor?’ suggested Mara.

  ‘Or used the toilet next to his office?’ suggested Anthea.

  ‘Or maybe,’ said Claire, ‘he’s gone to try to track down the thief.’

  Claire looked around the blank faces of the remainder of Class 6B. After an entire day of doing nothing but playing pickle races and walking around the school, everyone was bored.

  ‘I think,’ suggested Claire, ‘that we should try to track down the thief on our own and see if we can get back our bell and trophy.’

  Simon shrugged. He was very depressed. He’d never thought it was possible to be bored with pickle races, but there it was. In addition, he had the whole mess of the preps' demand for equal rights to deal with just when he should have been enjoying himself.

  ‘I’m in,’ he said, ‘but where do we start?’

  ‘We start,’ replied Claire, ‘at the place my research revealed holds the last large bronze object in the vicinity.’

  ‘What’s the point in that?’ scoffed Simon.

  ‘The point,’ Claire told him patiently, ‘is to wait for the thief to steal that one, too.’

  Class 6B nodded in unison. It seemed like a sensible idea and no-one had a better one, anyway.

  ‘All the books in our library on bronze were checked out,’ continued Claire, ‘which is suspicious in itself, but the public library was able to help me. The last remaining bronze object in the whole Stagnant Swamp area is a bronze drinking fountain.’

  ‘Which is where?’ asked Mara.

  Claire’s eyes lit up with excitement and just for a moment everyone forgot how dull she was. ‘The central courtyard of Snodgrass Hill Private College.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘I can’t understand it,’ said Claire. ‘Why wasn’t this fountain stolen when all the other bronze objects were stolen?’

  Claire stood in the central courtyard of Snodgrass Hill Private College in front of the drinking fountain they had come to view. It was deep and round and – as might have been expected – full of water. In the centre was a statute of the Snodgrass Hill emblem – an eagle eating a toad.

  ‘I don't know,’ admitted Simon. ‘Maybe it was too hard to reach.’

  It had, indeed, been terribly difficult to gain access to the drinking fountain in the central courtyard of Snodgrass Hill Private College.

  Class 6B had been forced to swim through a moat, scale the battlements, run across the ramparts and shimmy down the turrets.

  Anthea and Claudia couldn’t swim, so they had turned back at the moat. Mara and Anna weren’t good at climbing, so they gave up at the battlements. Paul and Angelo couldn’t stand heights, so they called it quits at the turrets. Roger surprised everyone by being able to do all these things, but had accidentally got his uniform snagged on the spire of one of the turrets and had had to be abandoned, dangling there, several metres above the moat.

  So that left just Simon and Claire, standing in front of the fountain, wondering what to do next.

  ‘Simon,’ said Claire. ‘Could I borrow your magnifying glass please?’

  ‘Alright,’ agreed Simon rel
uctantly, pulling it from his pocket. ‘But don’t lose it.’

  Claire took the magnifying glass and surveyed the fountain.

  ‘Aha!’ she cried in triumph. ‘Look!’

  Simon looked.

  Sure enough, on one of the handles of the fountain, there was a small, muddy handprint. Leading from the fountain, there were small, muddy footprints. The prints were identical to the ones Claire had found previously at Stagnant Swamp State School.

  ‘So? Big deal,’ scoffed Simon. ‘They have small kids here at Snodgrass Hill, you know.’

  ‘Not ones with mud on their hands and feet,’ said Claire, shaking her head. ‘There’s no mud at Snodgrass Hill Private College – they don’t allow it.’

  ‘Then that’s Stagnant Swamp mud from a Stagnant Swamp State School student?’ demanded Simon.

  Claire nodded.

  ‘The traitor!’ bellowed Simon.

  Concentrating hard, Claire peered through the magnifying glass to locate the direction of the footprints and followed them down a pathway from the central courtyard. Simon followed closely behind, watching out for any sign of movement. But as school had finished for the day hours before, the buildings were still and silent.

  Adjacent to the path down which the footprints led was a pile of mouldy old sacks in a corner. As they passed it, the pile of mouldy old sacks coughed. Simon leant forward and gingerly poked it with the tip of his pocket knife.

  ‘Ouch!’

  The pile of mouldy old sacks slowly righted itself to reveal a hideous old man covered in thick mud and crusty slime.

  ‘Mr Creechley!’ exclaimed Claire. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Mr Creechley rubbed the rib where Simon had poked him and gazed around vaguely.

  ‘I’m waiting for the doors to open,’ he replied, sadly.

  ‘And you’re wearing your best suit,’ said Claire who, as we said before, noticed everything.

  Mr Creechley nodded. ‘Mr Angus, the School Superintendent, said that if I don’t break the students’ strike by tomorrow then he’s going to sack me,’ explained Mr Creechley. ‘So I’ve come to ask Mr Merriwether for a job.’

  ‘What sort of job?’ asked Claire. ‘I mean, he obviously doesn’t need another Principal.’

  ‘I’m very good at making lists,’ replied Mr Creechley, after a pause. ‘Nice long lists – I don’t scrimp,’ he insisted. ‘Or tea, I make very good tea.’ Mr Creechley nodded. ‘Yes, a job making lists or tea would be just what I would be good at.’

  Mr Creechley didn’t seem very interested in knowing why Claire and Simon were at Snodgrass Hill Private College, but Claire thought she should tell him anyway.

  ‘We’re on the trail of the trophy,’ she told him. ‘We found a clue.’

  Mr Creechley moaned at the mention of the trophy that had caused the strike and led to the threat issued by Mr Angus.

  ‘Well I suppose I could help you,’ he volunteered half-heartedly, having nothing better to do anyway until the following morning and thinking that ‘solving crimes’ might look good on his job application.

  So Claire, Simon and Mr Creechley followed the footsteps up the path, over a drawbridge and up to a long, low building which was belching the thick, black smoke that had been hanging over Stagnant Swamp. A plaque on the door said ‘Art Room’.

  Simon stood on Claire’s shoulders to see over the top of the high window sill.

  ‘What can you see?’ asked Claire in an urgent whisper.

  ‘A big oven,’ said Simon.

  ‘That will be the new pottery kiln,’ Claire concluded, remembering what she had written in her notebook.

  ‘Also, I can see Mr Merriwether,’ continued Simon. ‘And someone in a Stagnant Swamp State School uniform.’

  ‘Who?’ demanded Claire.

  ‘It looks like – it is – Ethel Ormiston!’ exclaimed Simon.

  ‘Of course!’ exclaimed Claire in exasperation. ‘Why didn’t I think of it before? Ethel has small hands and feet and she was left alone in the corridor at lunch time yesterday when she asked to go to the toilet!’ Claire smiled as all the clues fell into place. ‘Ethel even interrupted Mr Hoochley when he was telling me who had checked out all the books on bronze,’ added Claire. ‘I bet it was her!’

  ‘The traitor!’ shouted Simon.

  ‘Sssh!’ scolded Claire. ‘What else can you see?’

  ‘The pickle trophy,’ said Simon, relieved. ‘And the head of a bronze lion.’

  ‘So Ethel’s in this with Mr Merriwether!’ gasped Claire. ‘I might have guessed. It certainly explains why the Snodgrass Hill drinking fountain was the only bronze object that wasn’t stolen: they are only taking other people's belongings, not their own. But I wonder what they are doing with all that bronze?’

  ‘What else can you see?’ asked Mr Creechley.

  ‘A big, angry face,’ said Simon.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the other side of the glass.’

  ‘What’s it doing?’

  ‘Staring at me,’ said Simon. ‘It belongs to Mr Merriwether. I think we’re in trouble.’

  Simon tried to leap from Claire’s shoulders to make a quick get-away, but only succeeded in tangling his shoe laces around her neck. Together, they fell in a heap on Mr Creechley and were found that way, seconds later, by Mr Merriwether and Ethel Ormiston.

  Mr Merriwether was livid. ‘Trespassing, eh? I’ll show you what we do with tresspassers around here.’ He was holding a gun, levelled at their heads. ‘Now, stand still while I tie you up.’

  It did not take long for Mr Merriwether to bind together Simon, Claire and Mr Creechley with masking tape and force them into the art room.

  Ethel Ormiston chuckled cruelly, remembering a slimy, swamp-filled water bomb.

  ‘That will teach you, Simon Smithers,’ she snarled.

  ‘And now,’ said Mr Merriwether delightedly, ‘you three will have the privilege of witnessing the destruction of that festering eyesore, Stagnant Swamp State School, once and for all!’ He rubbed his hands together with glee. ‘What a pity you won’t live to tell the tale.’

  Claire swallowed hard, wondering what was in store for them.

  ‘You’ll never get away with this, Merriwether!’ declared Mr Creechley defiantly.

  ‘Why not?’ replied Mr Merriwether, perturbed.

  Mr Creechley thought very hard for a moment, but couldn’t think of a single reason.

  ‘It’s just a figure of speech,’ he said finally, then sulked.

  Chapter Ten

  Simon, Claire and Mr Creechley, bound together with masking tape, dangled from a hook high up on the ceiling of the Snodgrass Hill Private College art room. They had been hoisted there by Mr Merriwether on a pulley. Their pockets had been turned out and Simon’s pin, pocket knife and magnifying glass removed and placed on a table below. Mr Merriwether had taken a long look at the large pickle in Simon’s pocket, but as it had seemed harmless enough, he had given it back to Simon.

  ‘Mr Merriwether,’ said Claire. ‘Could you please explain to us what you are doing?’

  Mr Merriwether frowned and looked at his watch.

  ‘I’m not sure I can spare the time,’ he replied doubtfully. ‘I’m on a strict timetable. I’ve scheduled the bombing to start at dusk.’

  ‘Please, what bombing?’ asked Claire politely.

  Mr Merriwether shrugged. He supposed that there was no harm in divulging his bold scheme at this stage.

  ‘Very well,’ he conceded. ‘You might as well know that Ethel and I have been collecting bronze objects to be melted down in my new kiln and made into a cannon and cannon balls.’

  ‘A cannon!’ gasped Claire. ‘Of course!’

  ‘I’m an expert in military miniatures, and making a large version of a small cannon was relatively easy.’

  ‘That’s right!’ snarled Ethel. ‘And our new cannon is pointing straight at stinky Stagnant Swamp State School as we speak.’


  ‘By five minutes past dusk,’ giggled Mr Merriwether, ‘the whole of Stagnant Swamp State School will have been bombed into oblivion and sunk into the swamp!’ He giggled again.

  ‘But the police will soon find out and come looking for the culprit,’ Claire objected. ‘An entire school can't disappear for no reason.’

  ‘Aha!' giggled Mr Merriwether again. ‘The best thing is that the destruction of the school will be attributed to an explosion caused by the gas leak in the second oven from the left in the home economics room! They won't suspect me at all!’

  Claire gasped again. It was a brilliant but evil plot and one which could only have been devised with the knowledge and assistance of someone inside Stagnant Swamp State School.

  ‘But why are you helping Mr Merriwether, Ethel?’ asked Claire in despair.

  ‘Simple,’ replied Ethel. ‘Mr Merriwether agreed to give me a scholarship to Snodgrass Hill Private College if I helped him.’

  Claire gasped yet again. ‘You betrayed your school just for a scholarship?’

  ‘And a uniform,’ confessed Ethel, ‘but I would have betrayed it for a lot less. It would have been worth it just to see the look on Simon Smithers’ face when he found the pickle trophy stolen!’

  ‘Ethel, you are deceitful, wicked and greedy,’ giggled Mr Merriwether. ‘You will fit into Snodgrass Hill Private College just fine.’

  Ethel blushed pink with pride. The same colour, in fact, as her ribbon-covered diary, which was, for once, nowhere to be seen.

  ‘The remaining task,’ continued Mr Merriwether, ‘is to melt down this ridiculous trophy in the kiln to form one last cannon ball.’

  Mr Merriwether's face contorted hideously and it took a while for Simon to realize that he was actually trying to smile.

  Mr Merriwether placed the trophy triumphantly on a conveyor belt.

  ‘I think you may be able to more fully appreciate the situation,’ smirked Mr Merriwether, ‘if I explain the process. First, I press this button here.’ He pressed a small, red button on the machine and a red light came on. ‘This means,’ he said, ‘that the kiln is heating up to 3000 degrees Celsius, the perfect temperature for melting bronze. Once it has reached that temperature, the green light will come on and the conveyor belt will begin to turn.’ He patted the machine tenderly. ‘The conveyor belt will transport the trophy into the kiln where it will melt into liquid and fall through a grate into a mould which is coincidentally the size and shape of a cannon ball!’