Uncanny! by Paul Jennings

Author:Paul Jennings
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781742286884
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
Published: 2009-10-22T04:00:00+00:00

5

I held out the sweet corn in the margarine container. Snapper’s nose started to twitch. ‘What’s that?’ he croaked.

‘It’s your plant,’ I said weakly. My stomach was heaving around like a basketball. I felt sick.

Snapper’s face resembled a wall that had just been dynamited. One second it was normal. The next it had a million cracks running across it. The wrinkles even ran up under his phoney-looking wig.

‘What?’ he shrieked. ‘Where’s my pot?’

‘Broken,’ I mumbled. ‘The ghost broke it. It tickled me in bed.’

‘Ghost,’ he cried. ‘Tickled.’ He was spitting and spluttering. He was about to erupt.

I pointed at Sad Samuel. ‘Him. He did it.’

Everyone looked at the empty seat. I was the only one who could see the sorrowful spectre. Sad Samuel looked at me gloomily. Then he got out of his seat and came towards me with outstretched hands. ‘No,’ I yelled. ‘No. Not that. Not now.’

Snapper looked down at me with his boiling red face.

Sad Samuel’s little fingers began to tickle under my armpits.

I bit my tongue. I did everything I could not to laugh. A little snort burst out. Only a little one but to me it sounded like a thousand bulls bellowing. No one knew why I was laughing.

Snapper grabbed me by my shirt front and sent me spinning across the room. ‘You think it’s funny do you? You, you …’ He didn’t finish the sentence. A large fish net hung beneath the classroom ceiling. It had shells and things inside it. A short length of fishing line with a hook on it hung down from one edge. I had never noticed the hook before.

The enraged teacher jumped up and down. The hook grabbed his wig and sent it swinging in the air as if it was on a piece of elastic. Snapper’s bald head shone nakedly like a cracked duck’s egg.

There was dead silence. Snapper glared. His icicle eyes swept the room. Anyone who so much as hinted at a smile was dead. Gone. History. Every eye looked down. Every knee trembled.

The feathery fingers of Sad Sam went to work. I choked a chuckle. I smothered a smile. I grappled with a grin. ‘No,’ I screamed. Then I began to laugh. Great shuddering, gasping laughs. ‘Oh, ooh. Ha. Haaa. Har Har. HaaaaaaHaaaaaaa. Ahhhhhh.’

Snapper snapped. He came towards me with outstretched hands. A madman. A monster.

The laughter spread like measles. The whole grade broke up. They hooted and howled. Lucy Watkins was the only one who didn’t laugh. She jumped up and grabbed at the wig. The hook caught on her sleeve. She pulled and pulled. The whole net came crashing down and buried everyone. A squirming, cackling catch of kids.

I crawled out from under the net and nicked off. I raced out of that school as fast as I could go. The laughter followed me all the way up the street.

I couldn’t believe it. I was running off from school. I had never wagged it before. I was alone (if you don’t count the dejected ghost who tagged behind).

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