Bad grammar a school for.., p.1
Bad Grammar--A School for Gentlemen, page 1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5
Level 6
Level 7
Level 8
Level 9
Level 10
Level 11
Level 12
Level 13
Level 14
Level 15
Level 16
Level 17
Level 18
Level 19
Level 20
Level 21
Level 22
Level 23
Level 24
Level 25
Level 26
Level 27
Level 28
Level 29
Level 30
Level 31
Level 32
Level 33
Also Available
Copyright
I dump my schoolbag, fly up the stairs and burrow into my messy cave of a bedroom, ready to deal with the dragon. This one’s big – we’re talking tyrannosaurus rex proportions – and it’s damn ugly. There’s fire too. I mean, it wouldn’t be much of a dragon without fire.
But it takes a lot more than fire to stop me.
My last invincibility shield is already in my hand – a good warrior never leaves home without one – and it’s time to activate it. I’m looking for the giant beast’s heart and there are only sixty seconds before the shield runs out of juice.
A WARRIOR’S GUIDE TO DRAGON SLAYING
To slay a dragon, a warrior must pierce the beast’s heart. For decades knights defeated dragons, driving them almost to extinction before a wise elder dragon suggested that they lessen their vulnerability by relocating their hearts. Some hearts were stuffed into scaly tails, others hidden within a protective ball of intestine. The trick is to examine the body with complete focus, watching carefully for any vibrations.
A flame floods over me – I feel its warmth but the shield saves me from burning. I take the opportunity to dive under the dragon’s belly and rise up on the other side.
The dragon (a female, I can now distinguish – she’s wearing nail polish) senses that I’ve moved and makes a swipe for me with her open mouth. I sidestep to safety and in that second I notice a rhythmic twitch in her left foot, which can mean only one thing.
Her heart is in her foot!
I launch an attack immediately. I have the hilt of my sword tightly gripped with both hands, blade pointing downwards for an easy plunge. However, before I can reach the target, I’m bowled over by something heavy – most probably the dragon’s tail. Hitting the ground, I roll, using the motion to propel myself back onto my feet. Now with my back to the dragon, I see for the first time the princess chained to the wall, watching me through soggy eyes.
A WARRIOR’S GUIDE TO PRINCESSES
It is a false belief that dragons imprison princesses because of their beauty. To a dragon a princess is repulsive — she is scaleless, has no claws and is warm-blooded. What many don’t know is that the royal blood of a princess is a natural mosquito repellent. Dragons collect princesses and use them much as we would use a mosquito coil. In summer, especially, a dragon will do anything to keep its princess safe.
“Fear not,” I cry out to the princess, bowing before her, “for I will save you.”
My words don’t calm her one bit. Her gaze slips over my shoulder and she gasps. I spin around to find that three slightly smaller dragons have joined the battle. The newcomers have piercings, tattoos and backwards baseball caps – I’m guessing they’re the teenage offspring of my enemy.
Bring it on.
My invincibility shield blinks a few times before disappearing. The dragons know I’m unprotected and they roar in unison, their fiery breath roasting the air.
My heart misses a beat. If I didn’t know myself better, I’d say it was fear.
But I don’t get scared.
Ever.
Plus I’m not alone. Bashir has arrived.
“What took you so long?” I ask. “I thought I was going to have to finish this on my own.”
“Sorry,” he says, running over to me. “I had homework to do.”
“To victory!” I scream as I raise my sword. Together we charge.
Everything goes black, followed by a moment of complete confusion.
Where am I?
Who am I?
What the hell is happening?
The 3-D glasses fall from my face, bringing the room into focus and revealing the two figures by the door: Mum and Dad with an unplugged power cord held between them, the end pointed in my direction like a weapon of defence.
“What have you done?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
“You didn’t leave us much choice, Marcus, buddy,” Dad replies.
“We’ve been calling out to you for the last half-hour,” Mum says. “Didn’t you hear us come in? Didn’t you feel us shaking you?”
Dad switches a light on and I see they’re both balancing on unsteady piles of clothes at the edge of my small room. The clothes form a ring around the battlefield between my bed and desk. I stand with the sensor control now lifeless in my hand and the screen on my desk is nothing but a black void.
“I thought you’d slipped into a coma!” Mum continues, taking a few steps to her left and collapsing onto my bed. “I thought you were going to become a vegetable, hooked up to a machine for the rest of your life.”
Mum is an absolute drama queen, which explains why she is shaking as she speaks, almost as if she is all dragon heart.
Doesn’t she realise I’m so close to the end of the game?
So close.
It’s the latest game in the set and I’m undefeated. I’m a certified Goblin Warrior, a Troll Warrior, a Demon Warrior and a Mad Scientist Warrior. These mortals before me have no idea whom they are talking to.
“Well, don’t you have something to say for yourself?” Dad asks.
A WARRIOR’S GUIDE TO PARENTS
Data not found.
“I was in the middle of something,” I say.
“You’ve been in the middle of something for the last four hours straight,” Dad points out.
You can’t just pull someone from a game; it’s like waking a sleepwalker – it’s dangerous.
I want to yell at them, to banish them from my room, to slay them. Instead, I lower my head.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know it was so late.”
“And look at this room,” Mum says. “It’s like some sort of lair. Are these clothes even clean?”
“Don’t touch them; it’s all how I like it,” I say.
“You’re impossible, Marcus,” Mum says, getting to her feet. “Come on, let’s go heat your dinner up.”
Every cell in my body screams out for me to turn the computer back on, to patch back in. Bashir won’t be able to handle it on his own. He won’t know where the heart is. He’ll be killed for sure, and we’ll have to start back at the beginning.
It’s probably too late already.
I pick up the rock on my desk, shoving it into my pocket before I follow Mum. It was Bashir’s parting gift, a pet rock named Ross.
I’ll be back, I say silently to the dark screen.
I’m barely through the school gates when Geoff grabs my arm and escorts me to the deserted area behind the canteen. It’s only the second day back this year and already we’ve established a routine.
I hate school. I don’t understand the point of it – everything you learn at school you can find on the internet.
School is redundant.
Recess and lunch are okay, because I can play on the computer while the other kids are off in their groups doing whatever, but the rest sucks.
I don’t have a group, which is by choice. I could have one if I wanted. I could be the leader of a group if I wanted but I don’t because the other kids at my school are … ordinary.
“Hand it over,” Geoff says, pointing at my bag.
Take Geoff as a perfect example. After he takes the lunch from my bag, he’ll squash a rotten banana in there because that’s his trademark. See, he’s so ordinary it’s not even funny. If it was me, I’d steal his bag and take his lunch without him even knowing, and I wouldn’t just squash a banana, I’d sew it into the lining of his bag so he wouldn’t find it. Then it would start to rot and smell, and he’d have to get a new bag. That’s what I’d do. That is, if I wanted to waste my energy on someone ordinary like Geoff.
Who cares if I don’t have a group? Most warriors are loners.
A WARRIOR’S GUIDE TO CIVILIANS
Put simply, people cannot be trusted. Even family members can turn out to be spies or androids. Keep to yourself.
I scrub out as much banana as I can in the boys’ toilets before heading to the school library. I usually get a quick game in before classes start.
The library door is massive and heavy, and I have to put all my weight against it. I don’t see Felicity until it’s too late. She’s on the inside, balancing a pile of books and the door smashes into her – it’s a perfect knockout. I forget to breathe and my face burns red. The world pauses as I stare at her body, waiting for it to move.
I know I should say something. I should offer her my hand – she needs help. She needs me to save her. I should ask if she’s all right. I should do something. I should lift her up and carry her to the hospital.
But I don’t do anything.
Felicity gets to her feet without a word and starts picking up her books. They’re all part of this science fiction series I read awhile ago. Funny, I would have picked her as the type of girl who read books about fairies or horses.
A polite cough directs my attention to Mrs Code, the librarian. She’s standing behind a desk, watching.
“Perhaps you could offer to help?” Mrs Code suggests.
“Oh yeah, of course,” I say, able to speak at last. “I can help you.” I reach for the book closest to me.
“I don’t need your help,” Felicity says. “Just look where you’re going, stupid.”
I disappear into the library, well, as much as I can. The school library would make a useless battleground because it’s too open and brightly lit. Plus the bookshelves are all placed against the walls, rather than in rows to create useful trenches you could shelter in during an attack.
Mrs Code doesn’t have great games in the library. Mostly, I play the one I’m playing now, where you have to go around the world as a private detective, searching for a missing woman. You need good geography and history skills, which is why I’m top on the score list. But today I’m sucking at the game. The trail is getting cold, and I don’t know whether I should hop on a jet to Istanbul or Vientiane.
Mrs Code breaks the silence but doesn’t shoosh herself like she does everyone else. “Marcus,” she says, “you don’t have any brothers or sisters, do you?”
I shake my head. No, thankfully.
“I’ve got four brothers and three sisters,” she tells me. “You can probably imagine how chaotic our household was when I was growing up.”
I decide to go to Vientiane. Hopefully, I’ll find a clue in the airport. If not, the trail will be well and truly cold and I’ll have to start again.
“Still, I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Mrs Code continues. “I think big families are good.”
The airport is a dead end. I pretend to keep playing and ignore everything else Mrs Code says. I’m thinking about dragons and wishing it was home time.
I know exactly what I’ll do to finish Dragon Warrior. I close my eyes and picture how it will play out.
The first two teenage dragons are easy to kill. I take the first one, with his heart thumping away behind his brain, while Bashir takes the other, finding her heart in her tail. The third dragon is harder though – I can’t spot the heart anywhere. He’s not so snappy now that we’ve slain his brother and sister. The coward is trying to hide behind his mum. I take a guess and stick the sword straight through the dragon’s chest. There is a moment when I think I’m wrong and I’m going to be eaten, but then the dragon falls over and I pull the bloody sword out.
Sometimes the heart is exactly where it should be.
That leaves Mummy Dragon, and she is not happy. I don’t even give her a chance to roar. This time I throw the sword at her foot. It’s a good throw, right on target with a lot of weight behind it. She sees it coming but is too heavy to move fast and the sword strikes exactly where it should. She falls and I’m victorious! Bashir congratulates me with a pat on my back.
I fetch the sword and use the wet blade to cut through the princess’s chains. She throws her arms around my neck and kisses me on the cheek.
“Oh, thank you ever so much,” she says, crying big sparkling tears of joy. “Thank you, thank you, my saviour.”
“No need to thank me,” I say as I put my sword away. “It’s all in a day’s work.”
I open my eyes and realise I’m still in the library, only now I’m standing in the middle of the room and brandishing a ruler. Mrs Code is crouching down behind her desk, staring at me with alarm.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
In the afternoon, one of the cranky office ladies pops her head into our classroom and tells me to go to the principal’s office. She doesn’t say why.
I enter to find Mum and Mrs Thorn, the principal, sitting opposite each other on couches. Mrs Code is here too, in the shadows. I think perhaps something happened to Felicity after I smashed her with the door and now they’re going to blame me. She looked fine though, back in the classroom. Unless that was a ghost.
“Marcus, have a seat,” Mrs Thorn says, indicating the space next to Mum.
Mrs Thorn doesn’t live up to her name. She has a soft round face, is always smiling, and talks in low and soothing tones. Likewise, her office is a combination of soft edges and warm colours. The whole package, I think, is a trick to disarm people – the same way mermaids sing to lure sailors, before drowning them.
Mum is already under her spell, but I’m not as easy a target.
I sit down like I’m told, and Mrs Thorn winks at me.
“How are things going with you?” she asks.
“Good,” I say.
“It’s almost a year since Bashir left, isn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“Made any new friends lately?”
Is this about Felicity? And what has Bashir got to do with anything?
I shrug.
“Marcus,” Mrs Code says, stepping forwards from her position against the wall, “I’ve told Mrs Thorn about … well, your solitary habits.”
“We’re not suggesting you replace Bashir,” Mrs Thorn says. “He was a lovely boy and I’m sure you’ll always remember him fondly, but he lives in India now. It might be time to make a new friend.”
“What are we going to do?” Mum asks, breaking into tears. “He’ll to end up as one of those weird people living alone with a house full of dogs and cats, and one day he’ll die and no one will know until the smell–”
“Mrs Grady, please,” Mrs Thorn says, reaching over to her desk and plucking a tissue from a box. “Let’s not be too dramatic.”
Mum takes the tissue and crumples it in her hand. “That’s easy for you to say! Every day he sits in his room, playing games, and you can be in the room talking to him and he doesn’t answer. He’s not there.”
A WARRIOR’S GUIDE TO AMBUSHES
Many villains will lie in wait, attempting to catch a warrior with his or her guard down. If one does find oneself in an ambush, smokebombs are the most effective way of creating a diversion.
“Marcus, you’re not the first twelve year old to have trouble fitting in at school,” Mrs Thorn says, “and you won’t be the last. Mrs Bell, our school counsellor, is in one day a week and would be happy to meet with you, as a way of keeping track of things.”
Mum’s crying increases in volume. “We knew things were … bad at home, but we had no idea it had come to this.”
“Marcus is going to be okay. I promise you both.” Mrs Thorn tries once again to stun me with her smile.
Before Mum can leave the front office, Mrs Code takes her aside and they have a long whispered conversation. The cranky office lady shoos me away, and even though a gut feeling tells me it’s not safe to leave Mum and Mrs Code together, I have no choice.
I kick the wall on my way back to class, bruising my big toe. Stupid Mrs Code should have kept her big mouth shut. Now Mum will be insufferable to live with, I just know it.
I don’t log on to my computer when I get home. I dump my bag in my room, say hello to Ross the pet rock and then get ready. I know when Dad gets home Mum will re-enact the meeting in exaggerated detail and they’ll discuss their own solution to my “problem”. The worst thing will be if they decide to take my computer away. If that’s the case, I’ll need warning so I can try to hide it.
A WARRIOR’S GUIDE TO SPYING
A spy must practise stealth above everything else. The best spies make no movement or sound. They can reduce their breathing to a bare minimum and can blend in to their environment like a chameleon.
I’m wearing my cricket outfit because it’s all white, like the walls. I haven’t worn it since I quit our local cricket team, which was just after Bashir quit my life. I’m glad I didn’t throw it away.
My chosen spying spot is a stretch of wall near the kitchen, in the fancy dining room we never use. I can peer through the crack of the open door without being seen.
I make it there uncaptured.
I wait.
And I wait.
At 6.07 the garage door is activated and Dad drives in. I hear fifteen steps from Dad’s squeaky shoes before the door to the house opens and Dad is inside. Mum pounces immediately, as expected.
