He laughed, then – a high-pitched, frightening sound.
‘This kiln is the most useful equipment I’ve purchased for the school in a long, long time.’
Mr Creechley sniffed loudly. ‘Obviously someone has too much money on their hands,’ he noted sourly. But Mr Merriwether just ignored him.
‘I’m going up to the tower to align the cannon,’ Mr Merriwether told Ethel. ‘Shout if you need me.’
Ethel nodded, but couldn't resist taking advantage of Mr Merriwether's absence to do something she had been waiting to do all day.
‘I think I might try on my new Snodgrass Hill uniform,’ she decided loudly, ‘and get rid of this snot-coloured one. Don’t you go anywhere until I get back!’
Grinning, she raced from the room.
Chapter Eleven
‘Good, she’s gone!’ sighed Claire, as Ethel Ormiston raced from the art room at Snodgrass Hill Private College, where Simon, Claire and Mr Creechley were being held captive, tightly bound together by masking tape on a hook high above the floor. ‘Can anyone undo the tape?’
‘No,’ said Simon and Mr Creechley in turn. Simon looked morosely at the trophy on the conveyor belt of the kiln. The kiln was set to 3000 degrees Celsius: hot enough to melt the trophy into a puddle of bronze. Simon wasn’t sure he could bear to watch.
‘Well, how about screaming for help?’ suggested Claire.
It seemed to be worth a try.
‘HELP!’
The green light on the kiln flickered on. The cogs that moved the conveyor belt churned slowly into life and the trophy agonizingly inched its way towards the fiery heart of the kiln.
Simon gulped.
At that moment, just when all seemed lost, the art room door burst open. Standing inside it were all the new preps from Stagnant Swamp State School (except Ethel, of course, who was trying on her new uniform).
‘Preps! How wonderful to see you!’ laughed Claire delightedly. ‘How did you know where we were?’
‘Simple,’ replied Susan, holding up a pink diary with ribbons on it.
Claire immediately recognized it as the diary that Ethel had been carrying the previous day.
‘She left this on the chemistry building roof,’ Susan explained. ‘The whole plot is spelled out in here.’
‘Clever preps!’ shouted Simon Smithers, gleefully. ‘Am I glad to see you! You’re just in time. Untie me quickly.’
But the preps just stood there, exchanging meaningful glances.
‘We don’t think so,’ said Susan, who seemed to have been elected spokesperson.
‘Why?’ asked Simon in horror.
‘It’s to do with our protest,’ Andrew told him. ‘Equal rights for preps.’
Simon swallowed hard. ‘But that’s just nonsense started by Ethel Ormiston, who’s working for Mr Merriwether,’ he assured them. ‘No doubt it was Mr Merriwether who talked her into it, wrote the pamphlet and had it printed for her.’
‘Ethel may have been our leader for a while,’ Susan corrected him, ‘but preps’ rights are not nonsense.’
The other preps nodded their agreement.
‘We won’t do anything to help until you. Not until you, Smithers, and Mr Creechley agree to the demands on our pamphlet.’
Claire felt Mr Creechley start at the sound of his own name, and for a moment she wondered whether he’d been asleep. Then she heard him grinding his teeth and snorting softly, just as he did when he thought about the Department of Education. And just like with the Department of Education, Mr Creechley knew he couldn’t win.
‘It seems I have no choice,’ he sniffed finally. ‘I agree to the demands expressed by the preps for equal rights.’
‘Including the electricity generator ban?’ asked Susan suspiciously.
‘Including that,’ replied Mr Creechley morosely.
By this time, the trophy had travelled halfway along the conveyor belt and Simon was scared.
‘Please, please preps,’ he pleaded. ‘I’m sorry for everything I have ever done to you. I promise never to be cruel to any prep ever again for as long as I live and I agree to the demands on the pamphlet.’
‘Do you cross your heart and hope to die if what you’re saying is a lie?’ asked Rachel.
‘Yes,’ wailed Simon, his eyes on the trophy.
The preps conferred on this for a moment.
‘We don’t believe you,’ said Susan.
As the trophy inched toward the kiln, Claire thought she should try to help.
‘Please preps,’ she said. ‘Please listen. You know you can trust me.’
The preps looked doubtful, but didn’t disagree.
‘I have known Simon Smithers for a lot longer than you,’ Claire told them. ‘I know that he’s arrogant, dishonest, conceited, inconsiderate, scheming, unreliable and selfish....’ Claire trailed off at this point. She had thought of a few more words to describe Simon but from the amount of vigorous nodding from the preps, she thought she’d made her point. ‘But one thing I do know about Simon,’ Claire continued, ‘is that he takes his pickle racing very seriously. So if you ask him to swear on the National Pickle Racing Championship Trophy that he will no longer be cruel to you and will agree to your demands, then I know he’ll honour his promise. And I am here to witness it,’ she concluded.
The preps consulted about this in a huddle.
Simon’s eyes gazed longingly at the trophy that was now only seconds away from being swallowed by the kiln and liquefied.
Susan stepped forward.
‘Alright,’ she announced. ‘We agree.’
Susan scooped up the trophy from the conveyor belt just in time to prevent it disappearing into the kiln and melting into oblivion. She held it up to Simon. ‘Now, swear!’ she demanded.
Simon wriggled his fingers around until he had one hand on the trophy.
‘I, Simon Smithers, swear on the National Pickle Racing Championship Trophy that I will never be cruel to any preps at Stagnant Swamp State School for as long as I live and agree that there should be equal rights for…’ Simon almost choked on the last word ‘…preps!’
The preps nodded, satisfied.
‘We’ll cut you down now,’ Susan offered.
‘Too late,’ wailed Mr Creechley.
Silently and unnoticed, Ethel had entered the room, resplendent in her new navy blue Snodgrass Hills Private College uniform. Mr Merriwether stood behind her, holding his gun.
‘Well, well,’ snarled Mr Merriwether, eyeing the preps with satisfaction. ‘Extra ammunition for the cannon. We won’t need that old trophy melted down now after all – we’ll use ‘live’ ammunition instead of cannon balls, shall we?’
Mr Merriwether thought that was a terribly funny joke. His sense of humour was worse than that of Mrs Blanchings.
While Claire looked horrified, Simon was relieved that the trophy remained safe from the conveyor belt for the time being. He felt like things were starting to go his way again.
‘Come now,’ hissed Mr Merriwether. ‘You shall have the best possible view of your stinking cesspit of a school as I, Clement Merriwether, return it to the putrid swamp it rose from.’
Simon, Claire and Mr Creechley were hoisted down from the ceiling and untied. Led by Mr Merriwether, they followed the preps somberly out the art room door to witness the destruction of Stagnant Swamp State School once and for all.
Chapter Twelve
It was a sad and sorry procession that climbed the steps to the Snodgrass Hill Private College bell tower.
At the top, a newly-cast bronze cannon glinted evilly in the late afternoon sun. It was a perfect full-scale replica of one of Mr Merriwether’s collectible miniatures and it pointed squarely at the main building of Stagnant Swamp State School. Cannon balls were handily stacked in a pyramid in the corner next to it.
‘Now, you lot!’ bellowed Mr Merriwether to the captives. ‘Stand against the walls and keep away from the cannon.’
; This was easy to comply with: no-one wanted to stand anywhere near the cannon.
‘Simon,’ whispered Claire. ‘We must do something to save the school!’
Simon pondered this for a moment. The trophy was safe and as far as he could see, he personally wasn’t in any imminent danger. So why should he take any risks for the preservation of the school? No, he thought, the school was best to be sunk then and there, and the quicker it was, the quicker he could join the circus.
‘Simon!’ Claire whispered again.
‘You can think of something, can’t you?’ he asked, yawning. ‘Wake me when it’s time to go home.’
‘Simon!’ Claire repeated, but it was no good – he was already snoring.
Mr Merriwether bent down and squinted through a small loop of iron on the barrel of the cannon to test the cannon’s aim. He must have been satisfied, because he grunted quietly. Next, he took out some black powder and tamped it down into a round hole in the base of the cannon.
‘Now all I have to do,’ he chuckled to the frightened children, ‘is to light a match and strike at this wick. The wick will burn down and light the gunpowder and then the cannon will fire.’ He clapped his hands in delight. ‘First we’ll use up all the cannon balls and next we’ll use the live ammunition,’ plotted Mr Merriwether cheerfully, pointing at the students.
‘You can decide amongst yourselves who should go first, but personally,’ he added nastily, ‘I’d vote for Simon Smithers, that trouble maker.’
Simon’s eyelids shot open like roller-blinds that have been pulled downwards too hard.
‘Excuse me,’ he asked. ‘Did you just suggest that I would be shot through a cannon, or did I dream that last part?’
Mr Merriwether giggled again. ‘Dream or nightmare, Smithers,’ he said, ‘you are going into that cannon.’
Simon frowned. This altered things. Now he was in imminent danger, it called for a bit of a think; a bit of a strategy.
‘Ethel!’ shouted Mr Merriwether. ‘Do you have the matches?’
Ethel did. She fished a box from her pocket, lit one and handed it to Mr Merriwether.
Mr Merriwether obviously felt the need to make an occasion of it. He cleared his throat.
‘Today is a very important day in the history of Stagnant Swamp State School,’ he announced. ‘Because today is the last day in the history of Stagnant Swamp State School.’
Ethel applauded. Mr Merriwether took a big breath to continue, but at that moment, felt the need to stop talking and start screaming instead, as the match had burnt down to his fingertips.
As far as speeches go, Mr Creechley thought, it hadn’t been a bad one – brief and to the point, with an entertaining ending.
As Mr Merriwether hopped violently around the top of the bell tower trying to put out his fingers, Claire saw Simon inch cautiously over to the cannon. He fumbled with something, then retreated. She wondered what he was doing.
‘With no further ado,’ announced Mr Merriwether, grimacing with pain. He took another lit match from Ethel and placed it against the wick in the cannon with a theatrical flourish. There was a ‘fizzle’, after which Mr Merriwether rushed back to squat – with his fingers in his ears – on the far side of the tower.
The wick burnt down.
Nothing happened.
The Stagnant Swamp State School students looked at each other in bewilderment.
Still nothing happened.
‘Drat!’ spat Mr Merriwether. ‘There must be a blockage. Ethel, please climb down the snout of this cannon and tell me what’s blocking it.’
Ethel groaned. ‘But I’ve got my new Snodgrass Hill Private College uniform on, Mr Merriwether. Can't you send someone else?’
‘Ethel!’ Mr Merriwether had turned red with anger. He hated it when nothing went to plan. Even more, he hated looking foolish in front of anyone from Stagnant Swamp State School.
‘Oh, alright,’ Ethel whined, rolling her eyes.
Mr Merriwether lowered Ethel’s scrawny body down the barrel of the cannon until she was sitting in the dark on top of the cannon ball.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ demanded Mr Merriwether.
Ethel felt around behind the cannon ball.
‘Yuk,’ she said. ‘There’s something in here that’s squashy. It’s blocking the gunpowder.’
Mr Merriwether scowled.
‘It feels like…’ began Ethel.
‘Yes?’
‘A pickle!’ she exclaimed.
‘A pickle?’ repeated Mr Merriwether, perplexed.
‘A monster pickle,’ confirmed Ethel.
Simon Smithers put his hands in his pockets and started whistling.
Ethel tossed the pickle backwards and it flew up and out of the barrel and landed with a ‘splat’ on the stone floor of the bell tower.
‘Smithers!’ shouted Mr Merriwether. ‘You tried to sabotage my cannon! I’d recognise that pickle anywhere.’
Mr Merriwether took a step forward to strangle Simon Smithers, his hands outstretched and fingers grasping wildly. But just as he reached his target, his foot came to rest upon the monster pickle that Ethel had just thrown out of the cannon. Subjected to the pressure of his foot, the juices in that super juicy monster pickle gushed outwards and Mr Merriwether’s foot slipped clear across the floor of the bell tower, with his body following shortly afterwards. His head was the last part of him to arrive, landing with a dull, heavy ‘thud’ on the stone, then all was silent.
‘What’s going on out there?’ shouted Ethel, still inside the cannon. ‘Mr Merriwether?’
But Mr Merriwether was not in a fit state to answer her.
‘I don’t think there’s any more pickle in here, Mr Merriwether. I’m pretty sure there’s not,’ Ethel added. ‘Hang on a minute and I’ll just light a match so I can double check.’
Struggling to tie up the unconscious Mr Merriwether with his own impeccably-pressed paisley tie, it took several seconds for Claire to appreciate what Ethel had said. Dimly, in the back of Claire’s mind, some part of it had registered as being important. Something about pickles? No. Mr Merriwether? No. Light a match?
Light a match?
‘No, wait!’ shouted Claire, but it was too late. The match was struck, the gunpowder was lit and with a deafening ‘WHOMP’, Ethel Ormiston left the top of the tower much more quickly than she had arrived, and sailed off into the sunset.
The cannon ball she was travelling with – being heavier – only made it as far as the roof of Mr Creechley’s office, but given that he had so many holes in the roof already, one more went largely unnoticed, except by the pigeons, who later filed a complaint.
Mr Creechley felt it was his duty to say something. He searched for something appropriate, something that would assert his authority and demonstrate – despite all evidence to the contrary – that he was in charge of the situation.
‘Ethel Ormiston!’ he called into the sunset. ‘You’re expelled.’
Postscript
It was never conclusively determined whether Ethel Ormiston was:
1). drowned in Stagnant Swamp;
2). eaten by a crocodile; or
3). blasted so high that she went into orbit and is still, to this day, circling the Earth like a satellite.
Whichever explanation is correct, it is clear that it was no more than she deserved, so there should be no snivelling over her.
Indeed, it’s a pity that a similar fate did not befall Mr Merriwether for his part in this disgraceful episode. He pleaded guilty to a charge of extremely foolish behaviour with a loaded cannon and several breaches of the Misuse of Kilns Ordinance and is now serving out his sentence at the Stagnant Swamp Sanitarium for the Criminally Insane and Morally Bankrupt.
During all the excitement the National Pickle Championship Trophy was accidentally dropped by Simon Smithers into Stagnant Swamp while he was on his way home. Luckily, it was instantaneously retrieved by Mr Hoochle
y, who was still swimming in Stagnant Swamp after being terrified by the word ‘book’ the day before and upon whose head the trophy happened to land. I am reliably informed that Mr Hoochley’s head injuries will heal very soon, but now not only should you avoid the word ‘book’ in his presence, but that ‘trophy’ and ‘Simon Smithers’ are also particularly unwelcome.
As for Simon Smithers, his monster pickle was entirely unsuitable for racing purposes once recovered from the bottom of Mr Merriwether’s shoe. Its remains were later eaten by Constable Perkins who became peckish while dredging the swamp for Ethel Ormiston.
The library books on bronze borrowed by Ethel were never returned to the school library and the library fine continues to accrue at the rate of five cents per day.
Eventually, someone remembered that Roger was still dangling from the turret of Snodgrass Hill Private College and he was retrieved, looking much better for his week of exposure to sun and fresh air, although significantly thinner and with a terrible cold.
The only good news in this entire, sorry tale was that the Department of Education agreed to pay for a new school bell for Stagnant Swamp State School, but only after Mr Angus confiscated the big pots from home economics, so that Mr Creechley was never able to patent his Prep-powered Mobile School Bell and therefore didn’t make his fortune.
Luckily, the miserable happenings at the start of the school year which have been described to you here were soon forgotten by all concerned, when overshadowed shortly after by extremely disturbing events arising from Class 6B’s summer camping trip…
But that is another story.
The End.
More about Stagnant Swamp State School
To find out more about the Stagnant Swamp series, please visit:
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Did you enjoy this book?
If so, please consider purchasing the other books in the Stagnant Swamp series:
Stagnant Swamp State School's Camping Trip (Book 2)
Much Ado About the Stagnant Swamp State School Play (Book 3)
Stagnant Swamp State School Strikes it Rich (Book 4)
20,000 Leagues Under Stagnant Swamp State School (Book 5)
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