PART 3

Deep in my thoughts, I didn’t hear my mum come into my room. She had walked in without knocking. I knew straight away that something wasn’t right. She was holding a piece of paper the colour of my beloved pumpkins.

– Charlie! she screamed. What have you done now?

I glanced at the letter my mum was waving under my nose, and understood what it was about. Oh bother! It was a notice from my school: I had detention on Wednesday.

I had completely forgotten that episode, or rather, I didn’t think it would go much further than the chewing out I had already got. Let me tell you what happened:

It was just before the holidays, at the end of science class. I had stayed behind and found it very funny to play with Oscar, the plastic skeleton that the teacher sometimes used for her demonstrations. I had dragged him from the back of the class all the way to the front of the teacher’s desk, and I had given him a pair of silly glasses and put an old mop on his head as hair. With these accessories, he looked exactly like Livingdead, our dear vice-principal we all feared.

It made my friends laugh. Unfortunately, Livingdead – the real one, in the flesh – walked by at that exact moment. Things did not go well…

That’s the story.

So my mum was frantically waving my detention slip under my nose:

– You think I’ll put up with this for much longer? It’s always the same problems. Always!

I paused, then understood what she meant… The year before, at around the same time, a little prank of my invention (which involved a latex accessory and a good half-litre of fake blood) made my art teacher faint: she thought I had split my hand open to the bone with one of her Stanley knives. The year before that, my first year of secondary school, I had caused a general panic in the girls’ locker room by throwing a box full of spiders through the open door (just little ones, and half of them were plastic).

– But Mum, it isn’t my fault, I heard myself answer.

– Oh it’s mine, is it? Don’t you laugh at me!

She shoved the detention slip in one of her pockets, looked around disapprovingly at the fake bats hung from the ceiling and the zombie posters, gave me a look which meant nothing good, and handed down this murderous sentence:

– This time, you won't get away with it. You are grounded until further notice. And that includes your holy Halloween night. Instead, you will come with me to Aunt Maud’s…

(Go to PART 4)