William Wright and the Dragon's Treasure

  Chapter 4: The Truth Potion

  Before the driver even had time to fully open the bus door, Mr Boil was at them, sticking his head through the small gap.

  “Get those students out, now!” he shouted.

  Miss Peebottom looked back at the students with a grin.

  “You heard the headmaster. Get out!”

  Looking fearfully at each other, the students quickly spilled out of the bus and lined up along the footpath.

  “OK, I’m only going to ask you this once,” started Mr Boil, taking a deep breath. “Which one of you broke into my office and STOLE MY PURPLE HEART?”

  There was complete silence, not a single soul uttered a word.

  “So, what happened then … my medal just decided to get up and walk out of the cabinet. Is that what you’re telling me?” asked Mr Boil, pacing up and down the row of students, eyeballing each of them carefully.

  “I saw that one over there twitch,” called out Miss Peebottom, pointing accusingly at William. “I bet he’s the one who stole your medal.”

  A crooked smile stretched across Mr Boil’s face as he stormed over to William.

  “Ahhh, so the pressure got to you, Mr Wright. Thought you’d get back at me for giving you kitchen duty, did you?”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with taking your medal,” protested William, “and I never twitched.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” said Trevor, sticking up his hand. “I’ve got some information that might be helpful.”

  “And what information is that?” questioned Mr Boil, withdrawing his glare from William.

  “Well, at the museum today, William told me that the headmaster was going to be in for a big surprise,” replied Trevor, lying through his teeth. “If you don’t believe me, just ask Albert here.”

  Albert stood silent, nodding his fat head.

  “I think we need to do a room search,” suggested Miss Peebottom. “You’re not going to get the truth out of William. In my experience, he’s always been a little liar.”

  “Good thinking,” agreed Mr Boil, and he quickly dismissed the rest of the students.

  Having no other option, William led Mr Boil and Miss Peebottom up to his room. Once inside, Mr Boil began ransacking it.

  “Where is it? Where’d you hide it?” he raved, ripping William’s clothes from drawers and throwing them on the ground.

  “Why don’t you check under his bed?” recommended Miss Peebottom, giving William a sly look. “He’s a cunning one, you know.”

  Mr Boil charged towards the bed and flung the mattress off, and there, lying on the wooden racks, sat his Purple Heart.

  “I found it,” he peeped, carefully picking up his medal.

  “It’s impossible. I didn’t take it,” said William, shaking his head.

  Mr Boil was deaf to William’s protests. His mind was focused on coming up with a punishment so severe that no other student would dare touch his precious medallion again.

  “Do you know what the punishment is for taking my medal?” he asked William.

  “But I didn’t take it,” replied William. “Someone put it --”

  “SHUT UP!” exploded Mr Boil. “YOU’RE DOING KITCHEN DUTY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.” He caught his breath. “THAT’S NOT ALL. YOU’LL SERVE THE TEACHERS’ TABLE EVERY SUPPER TIME, FOREVER!”

  Miss Peebottom let out a squeak of delight and looked towards Mr Boil.

  “And that punishment starts today, right?”

  “Absolutely,” answered Mr Boil, regaining his composure. “Now, about those two boys who squealed … let them know they can come and sit at the teachers’ table today for supper. They warrant a reward for their assistance.”

  “Agreed,” said Miss Peebottom. “Their reward will show the other students what happens with good behaviour.” She glared at William. “Mr Wright’s punishment, on the other hand, will show what happens to trouble makers.”

  After Mr Boil had given William one last dirty look, he and Miss Peebottom walked out, kicking William’s meagre possessions out of their path.

  It took William hours to clean up his room, but that gave him plenty of time to think about how he was going to prove his innocence. He suspected the Twins, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Pacing up down his small room, William pondered who else could’ve done it, “Maybe Mr Boil planned it all along. He did have it out for me after the fire-fighter incident. Then again, it could’ve just as well have been Miss Peebottom. She was evidently enjoying my misfortune. Now that I think of it, Mrs Dumpling was as good as any suspect, not being too pleased with my exceptional pot cleaning results.”

  With so many potential suspects, William would have to come up with one simple plan to get the truth out of all of them. Obviously, the true perpetrator wouldn’t own up voluntarily.

  “I’ve got it!” shouted William, and he ran over to his bag and pulled out the book of spells. “Mr Boil said I’ve got to serve the teachers’ table today. That’ll give me the opportunity to add something special to their meals.”

  William quickly flipped through the pages of the book.

  “Ahhh, here it is. Potions,” he said darkly.

  After a quick scan down the page, William found exactly what he was looking for, a truth potion. Once someone had taken the most minuscule amount of the potion and a few minutes had elapsed, they would begin telling anybody around them their deepest and darkest secrets. This was just what William wanted. Whoever placed the medal under his bed would be forced to babble about it.

  The plan seemed simple enough. William needed to mix up the potion and add it the teachers’ supper, but there was one little hitch, the potion required him to collect some unusual ingredients and supper was only twenty minutes away!

  “Where on earth am I going to find four cockroach eggs, six rat droppings and a pinch of salt in time?” muttered William, writing down the list of items he would have to gather. “Hang on, I’ve seen rat droppings and cockroach eggs in the dining hall, and I bet there’s salt in the kitchen, too.”

  Quickly, William stuffed a small jar into his bag and made off for the dining hall.

  “Got to hurry,” he panted. “I haven’t got much time.”

  After dashing down one last hallway, he had arrived. Swiftly, William looked up at the dining hall’s old clock and saw there was only ten minutes left before supper time. Without a second to lose, William began crawling under the tables looking for the cockroach eggs and rat droppings.

  “Finally,” exclaimed William, seeing a neat little pile of eggs under the teachers’ table.

  Using the paper he had written the list of ingredients on, William quickly started scooping up the cockroach eggs into his glass jar.

  “That’s one ingredient down,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Just two more to go, and that’s it.”

  Looking for the rat droppings, William continued to crawl under the teachers’ table, but time had got the better of him. The bell rang for the supper. Having no other option, William rolled out from underneath the table and hurried off to the kitchen.

  “I see you’ve arrived on time to serve the teachers’ table,” said Mrs Dumpling, upon William’s entrance into the kitchen.

  “Errr, yes, I thought I’d better get here on time and save myself from further punishments,” he replied, watching Mrs Dumpling stir a vat of gruel.

  “Hmm, I think this broth needs more lard,” remarked Mrs Dumpling, tasting the gruel. “I’ll have to have a look in the back and see if I’ve got any left.” She glared at William. “Stir the pot while I’m out.”

  She then waddled into an adjoining room to look for the lard.

  “Now’s my perfect chance to have a look around,” realised William, pulling his glass jar from his bag. “There’s got to be some rat droppings around here somewhere.” He looked down towards the corner of the room. “Ahhh, there they are. I knew Mrs Dumpling’s sloppy cleaning habits wouldn’t let me down.”

  Not willing to waste time pi
cking the rat droppings out individually, William plunged his glass jar into the filthy pile, scooping up who knows how many.

  “Eh, I’m sure more can’t hurt,” he murmured, tightening the lid down on his jar and stuffing it away into his bag. “It might even make their meal taste better.”

  Just as William was getting back to his feet, Mrs Dumpling lumbered in, carrying a huge roast chicken on a platter.

  “I couldn’t find any lard -- hey, I told you to stir the pot,” shouted Mrs Dumpling.

  “Sorry, my shoelace came undone. I had to tie it up,” answered William.

  “Well, here, take this to the teachers’ table,” she said, handing William the platter, “and don’t even think about having a taste of it.”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” replied William, noticing sizable chunks of the chicken strangely missing.

  Carrying the huge chicken, William hurried out of the kitchen and over to the teachers’ table.

  “Hurry up and put that chicken down,” shouted Mr Boil, already holding his knife and fork.

  As soon as William had placed the platter down, Mr Boil sliced a large chuck of meat for himself and began ravenously eating it. He was like an animal.

  “Mmmm, good,” he grunted, tearing the meat from a drumstick.

  While Miss Peebottom cut a slice of the chicken for herself, Trevor glanced up at William and grinned.

  “So, how do you like your new job?” he asked. “It must be very rewarding.”

  Albert laughed. “Yeah, you must really love it.”

  “Oh, the work isn’t too bad,” replied William. “It’s just like a day at the farm, feeding pigs.”

  Trevor’s face instantly turned sour. Albert, however, was still giggling. It seemed he didn’t get William’s sly answer.

  “This chicken needs more salt,” snapped Miss Peebottom, glaring at William. “Hurry up and sprinkle some on my slice.”

  “But the saltshaker’s right in front of you,” retorted William.

  “Maybe you miss heard me, Mr Wright … I didn’t ask. I ordered!”

  Grudgingly, William bent over the table, picked up the saltshaker and sprinkled some salt on Miss Peebottom’s slice of chicken. Unbeknown to Miss Peebottom, William made sure to sprinkle a small amount of salt into his hand after remembering it was the last ingredient for the truth potion.

  “No more chicken?” sputtered Mr Boil. “Go fetch another platter from the kitchen, Mr Wright.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied William, and he quickly left.

  On his return to the kitchen, William waited till Mrs Dumpling left the room to stuff her face with cream tarts. Once she had gone, he secretly added the salt to his jar and gave it a quick shake.

  “That’s the potion finished,” he said, stuffing the jar away into his bag. “I just have to add it to one of their meals and that’s it.”

  William tried again and again to add the potion into the teachers’ meal, but whenever he did so, Mrs Dumpling would come back from gorging in a side room and usher him out. Finally, it was time for William to serve dessert.

  “This is my last opportunity,” fretted William, waiting for Mrs Dumpling to return with the dessert from another room. “If I don’t add the potion this time, I’ve missed my last opportunity.”

  Mrs Dumpling came back into the kitchen, carrying a large bowl of rice pudding. It would be the perfect meal to add his potion into, but William couldn’t exactly start tipping rat poo and cockroach eggs into it with Mrs Dumpling watching. He needed her out of the room.

  “Take this to the teachers’ table,” demanded Mrs Dumpling, placing the pudding down onto a table.

  “My shoes laces are a bit loose. I’ll just retie them,” replied William. “I wouldn’t want to trip and drop the pudding.”

  “Just be quick about it,” barked Mrs Dumpling in reply.

  Being quick, however, wasn’t what William intended to do. He planned to take his time. If he was lucky, Mrs Dumpling would walk out of the room to attend to her stomach. She hadn’t been out for a cream tart for at least two minutes.

  “How long does it take for you to retie a shoe lace?”

  “Not much longer, I’ve just one more loop to go,” answered William.

  William made sure to do his shoe laces up loosely.

  “Fiddlesticks, it came undone. Looks like I’ll have to start all over.”

  Finally, Mrs Dumpling’s stomach got the better of her, and she waddled out of the room to attend to it. This left William alone in the kitchen.

  “Perfect, my plan worked,” he said excitedly.

  William quickly fetched the potion from his bag and tipped it into the pudding. After stirring the potion through, William carried the pudding out to the teachers’ table.

  “You took your time, didn’t you?” snapped Miss Peebottom.

  “Umm, yeah, Mrs Dumpling decided to add some sultanas at the last minute,” he answered, looking at the rat poo speckled throughout the pudding.

  Once William had placed the bowl of pudding down onto the table, Mr Boil greedily scooped out a large portion and promptly began devouring it. He was soon followed by the Twins and Miss Peebottom.

  “I can see why Mrs Dumpling added the sultanas to the pudding. They taste fantastic!” commented Mr Boil, taking a mouthful of the pudding.

  After the pudding had been gobbled down, William was ordered to take the empty bowl back to the kitchen. On his entrance, William discovered Mrs Dumpling huddled over the sink, eating a roasted chicken with her bare hands.

  “Put that bowl on the sink next to me and then go back out to ask them if they would like seconds,” she ordered, pointing with a drumstick.

  “Yes, Mrs Dumpling,” replied William, and he walked out.

  As William made his way back to the teachers’ table, he noticed Mr Boil had his hand over his mouth like he was trying to stop something coming out.

  “What do you want?” questioned Miss Peebottom sharply.

  “I’m here to ask if any of you would like seconds,” said William.

  “Well, I’ve had enough,” she replied. “What about you, Mr Boil?”

  Mr Boil sat motionless. His hand still clenched firmly over his mouth.

  “Did you hear me, Mr Boil? Do you want --”

  Suddenly, Mr Boil jumped up from his chair and cried out, “Every single one of those medals in my office is a fake, including the Purple Heart. I-I-I was never a war hero. I’m really a coward. That’s why I was so angry when my Purple Heat went missing. I was scared someone would find out it was a fake.” He tore his toupee of his head. “I’m completely bald, too!”

  After Mr Boil had told everyone his secrets, he sat back down and quietly whimpered to himself, the whole dining hall now dead silent.

  “I guess that’s a no to seconds, then,” commented William.

  “I’m really a big wimp,” yelled Trevor, jumping from his seat. “I pick on William because he’s smart and I’m dumb. I cheat in every test, steal food from the kitchen and clogged the toilets at the art museum.” He tried hard to stop talking, but he couldn’t. “M-my middle name’s Piggy and I only wash once a month.”

  With Trevor finished his confession, it was Albert’s turn. He stood up and called out, “I’m dumb.”

  He then sat promptly back down.

  It was apparent to William that Albert was so dumb he didn’t know what a secret actually was, not that it mattered. Trevor was clean of stealing the medal, so Albert would be, too.

  Finally, it was time for Miss Peebottom to let everyone know her secrets.

  “I took the medal from Mr Boil’s office this morning,” screamed Miss Peebottom, tearing herself away from her chair. “I did it while you all waited on the bus.” She looked wickedly at William. “I’ve always hated smart students like you. After you outwitted me during that maths quiz, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I wanted revenge.”

  After Miss Peebottom had collapsed back into her chair, Mr Boil humbly looked up at William.
r />   “I think I owe you an apology for what happened today with my Purple Heart and all. Please, feel free to grab some leftover supper from the kitchen.” He rose up from his chair and addressed the students. “It’s probably best if everyone leaves supper early today. Don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you all tomorrow by getting Mrs Dumpling to serve a nice cake for supper.” He glared at the Twins and Miss Peebottom. “You three are to stay behind. We have much to discuss.”

  The students looked happy with Mr Boil’s offer and filed out of the hall, excitedly discussing the cake. William, on the other hand, made his way to the kitchen. He hoped some roasted chicken had escaped Mrs Dumpling’s bottomless stomach.

  Just as William opened the kitchen door, Mrs Dumpling charged out and yelled, “I chewed on the chicken served today. I licked the empty pudding bowl. I eat all the leftovers after meal time, and I never wash my hands after using the toilet!”

  “I think I just lost my appetite,” muttered William.

  After collecting his bag from the kitchen, William left the dining hall for his room, the sound of Mr Boil handing down harsh punishments to the Twins disappearing behind him.

  William felt quite good about how well his plan had worked.

  “I didn’t expect to catch Mrs Dumpling out, too,” he thought, walking up the stairwell to his room. “I suppose it was to be expected. She couldn’t resist licking that potion laced pudding bowl.”

  Once William had arrived back inside his room, he took his bag off and rested on his bed.

  “What a day,” he said to himself, staring up at the mould covered ceiling. “If it wasn’t for that potion -- hang on, the book, I haven’t read it through and seen what happens after answering the last quiz.”

  Quickly, William jumped from his bed and fetched the book from his bag.

  “Better lock the door,” he muttered. “I don’t want anyone bursting in here when I’m casting spells.”

  With the door locked, William lay back down on his bed and began reading. He read the rest of chapter two and answered the questions at the end. William was fortunate with this chapter as the quiz didn’t ask for spells. Instead, it had questions relating to what types of herbs are used to cure different poisons. William continued reading the book for hours. Finally, he had arrived at the very last chapter.

  “This is it, time to see what’s at the end of this book,” said William tensely, as he opened the last chapter. “What the?”

  Without warning, the book slid from William’s hands and magically flew to the far side of his bed. Once there, it propped itself up … and spoke.

  “So, ye be the one keeping me stuffed away in that grubby bag, eh?”

  William looked at the book with amazement. It was just like in the kitchen with the talking bin.

  “I -- err, guess so,” he answered.

  “Good, at least I be knowing to be speaking to the right person,” the book replied, sounding very relieved. “So, me lad, what be ye name?”

  “Umm, William … William Wright, and, err, what’s yours?”

  “Oh, that be very kind of ye to ask. Ye can call me Foddle, but that not be important. Are ye ready for the last question?”

  “How am I supposed to answer the last question without reading the last chapter?” asked William curiously.

  “Oh, ye not be needing to read anything to answer old Foddle’s question.”

  “OK, what’s the question?”

  Excitedly, Foddle began bouncing around William’s bed. It looked like he had been waiting for this moment all along.

  “He be wanting to ask the question, he be wanting to ask the question,” repeated Foddle happily. “This be a great day for old Foddle. Now for the question … what be the question again? Oh yes, how would ye like to become Merlin the Wizard’s apprentice?”

  “I -- did you just ask me if I wanted to become Merlin the Wizard’s apprentice?” questioned William, in disbelief.

  “It be true that what I ask,” replied Foddle. “Ye would have to leave all family and friends behind, and once ye choose, there be no coming back.”

  “Well, I don’t have much in the way of friends,” replied William, a little sad, “and as for my parents, they’re not even worth mentioning. One thing I don’t understand … what do you mean no coming back? No coming back from where?”

  “Old Merlin be living in a place going by the name of Camelot,” answered Foddle. “There be only one way to travel to Camelot, and that be through casting the spell in the last chapter. Foddle must tell ye. There not be a spell in the last chapter to bring ye back.” He paused for a moment. “I must also tell ye. Camelot be a dangerous place and there be many wicked creatures that wish for Merlin’s demise. An apprentice of Merlin surely be in life threatening danger, especially in times of late.”

  “Life threatening danger!” William replied, jumping from his bed. “You’re j-joking, right?”

  “Old Foddle never jokes about such things.”

  William sat back down.

  “Well, I don’t know … Harsly’s pretty bad, but it isn’t that --”

  KNOCK! KNOCK!

  “We know you’re in there, bookworm,” called out Trevor, peeping through the keyhole of William’s bedroom door. “We’ve come to give you some payback after what happened in the museum.” He began bashing the door. “If you don’t come out, we’ll bust in and give you the most painful wedgie of your life. Not only that, we’ll take you down to the toilets for a head flushing, too.”

  William dived off his bed and frantically attempted to barricade the door with anything he could find, but it was futile. The door couldn’t hold up against the combined weight of the Twins. It was starting to go at the hinges.

  Trevor laughed. “We’re almost in, bookworm, better start crying for your mommy.”

  “Yeah, start crying,” giggled Albert, ramming the door with his head. “Brains aren’t going to get you out of this one.”

  There was no other option, William would have to accept Foddle’s proposal. It was the only way out.

  “I’ve decided to take up your offer,” announced William, running over to Foddle. “I want to become Merlin’s apprentice.”

  “I knew ye looked like the adventuring type,” replied Foddle, unaware of William’s predicament.

  “Yes -- yes, I love adventure,” said William quickly, looking back at the door. “Hurry up!”

  “Keep yer pants on, lad, it’ll only take a tick. Old Foddle doesn’t see what all the fuss is about, anyhow.”

  Before William could say another word, Foddle fell flat on the bed, opened at the last chapter.

  CRASH!

  The door collapsed and the Twins exploded in. They looked ready to tear William apart. With his arms outstretched, Trevor led the charge. It was only a matter of seconds before he’d have William by the neck. Suddenly, a blinding light burst from the pages of the book … William had cast the spell.