Peeves. Mike Waes Van

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СКАЧАТЬ causing Mr Schwartz to SHUSH me from the front of the room, which got the noisy creature SHUSH SHUSH SHUSHING me too.

      “Is that how we got here?” asked the curious one.

      “He’s figuring it out right now,” said the tattletale.

      And it was right. I ducked down closer to my desk, mind spinning, replaying the events in my mind, piecing together what little information I had. Everything that annoys me makes me sneeze. Then I hallucinate a creature that does that annoying thing. And this didn’t happen to me until I got sprayed. “It had to be the PVZ,” I reasoned to myself. Then I said PVZ again, but this time, I sounded it out. “The … peeves.” I sat up in my desk with a grand realisation. “They’re peeves! Real-life peeves!”

      The creatures all nodded like this was news to them, but made total sense. They were furry little living embodiments of my personal peeves. Noisy Peeve – the purple one with the satellite ears and throat like a bullfrog; Asking Peeve – the blue one with massive eyes and perpetually perplexed expression; Telling Peeve – the pink fluffy one with a Muppet-like blabbermouth that spewed my actual thoughts and feelings; Snarky Peeve – the blue-horned red devil-looking thing with the bad attitude; and Sniffle Peeve – the sticky, crusty green one with the perpetually runny nose.

      “I’m sneezing peeves,” I said out loud. “I’m—”

      “Disturbing the class,” interjected Mr Schwartz, who was now looming over me as if he’d been trying to get my attention for far too long. The whole class was staring at me, snickering. And that’s when I realised I had been audibly mumbling like a madman. Mr Schwartz ended that with a definitive, “Stop it!”

      As I made my way to social studies, I was still trying to wrap my head round the big revelation. I was seeing actual peeves. I had to call Dad. I had to let him know what the PVZ did to me! I stopped outside the classroom and pulled out my phone, which I knew was not allowed while classes were in session – but kids did it all the time. No one ever got in trouble. Seriously, no one – until, of course, I did. Principal Waters came round the corner and snatched it out of my hand as if this were his brand-new mission in life. “No phones, Steven. Or was it Steve?” he asked.

      “Slim,” I corrected him. “And this is an emergency! I had an experimental anti-anxiety treatment blow up in my face and now I’m seeing …” I stopped myself because a well-worn “heard-it-all-and-doesn’t-buy-it” expression quickly crossed Principal Waters’s face. He never would have believed me if I had told him the truth. “I need to call my dad,” I said. “I’m … sick,” I added, with an unconvincing cough.

      “Looks like a case of ‘new-kid-itis’ to me,” said Principal Waters as he turned me round and opened the door to social studies for me. “The only cure for that is to go back to class,” he concluded. “You can have your phone back after school.”

      I watched him disappear down the hall and realised I’d just have to make it through the rest of the day on my own. Dad would take me back to Clarity Labs after school. They’d have a cure there. They had to, I figured. Because if they didn’t, I was pretty sure I’d really go crazy.

      In the meantime, I’d been assigned to work with genetically gifted Chance Chandler on a project exploring the chapter on “Individual Development and Identity”.

      “Do I develop? Do I have identity?” asked Asking Peeve as Ms Mayfarb walked around the room in her oversize cardigan and waist-length dreadlocks, spouting off her own questions to “help inspire” our projects.

      “How do individuals grow and change? Why do they behave the way they do? What factors in society and politics and culture influence how people develop over time?” she asked as she pushed Chance’s feet off his desk and removed his baseball cap.

      “Sorry, Ms Mayfarb. I just like having my thinking cap on,” he said with a flawless smile. And I swear half the class swooned. Even Ms Mayfarb softened and put the hat back on his head. Right before she looked at me and said, “Take notes from this one, Slim. He’s a charmer.”

      And once she had moved on, Chance pushed his work my way and said, “She’s right. You should take the notes.” Then he reclined in his seat with another self-confident grin I couldn’t relate to and added, “I can tell from your expression that you’re more of the thinker type anyway.”

      “More like an overthinker type,” snorted Snarky Peeve from below our pushed-together desks. And neither one of them were wrong. I was thinking so hard I had actually broken a sweat. How could I be expected to work with Noisy, Asking, Telling, Snarky and Sniffle Peeves on my case? And with no help from Chance, who was apparently so well liked he could get away with doing anything – and by anything, I mean he could get away with doing nothing. He might be popular, but he’s also lazy.

      “Thanks, bro,” added Chance as he tipped his baseball cap over his eyes to nap. Good thing he did, or he would have got a sneeze in the face.

      As I left social studies, I had roly-poly Lazy Peeve literally hanging off me. Three times the size of the other peeves with tiny ears and sleepy eyes, Lazy was like a gravelly-grey-coloured blob of extra-heavy deadweight. It couldn’t even be bothered to keep its own tongue in its mouth. It just lolled out of the corner from exhaustion as it forced me to drag it around. I’m not even sure how I made it to the gym with it clinging to my leg. I was just relieved to discover that we had a chilled-out student teacher sub for phys ed, who excitedly announced, “Wallyball!”

      With six peeves swarming me, bugging me and hanging off me, I was getting desperate and Wallyball gave me an idea. Just in case you’ve never played, Wallyball is kind of like volleyball, except you play with a big beach ball that you can hit off the walls before you hit it over the net. It’s totally disorganised and totally out of control. At least, that’s how it was with this student teacher sub in charge. Everyone was already freaking out in the middle of the court, chasing after and swatting the ball.

      It was exactly the opening I needed.

      Once I was changed and got out of the locker room, I joined the other kids in the spare room next to the gym. I don’t even know what that space was supposed to be, but with its high ceilings and mats everywhere, it felt custom-made for Wallyball. I was finally able to shake Lazy Peeve off my leg as I ducked under the net strung across the middle of the room. The peeve lay down right on the floor, as if it’d already had the hardest day ever. And I was so frustrated that I kicked it as hard as I could. I wanted to send it splatting against the gym wall, but it was so much heavier than the other peeves that it just sort of flopped over onto its face.

      “Why’d you do that?” asked Asking Peeve, but I was inspired. I ran around the court like a madman grabbing, throwing and kicking my peeves in any direction I could. I punted one over the net and watched it THWACK against a wall, I tossed another through the portable basketball hoop in the corner for a perfect SWOOSH and SPLAT on the floor, and then I kicked one right into a pile of mats that I was sure would bury it for ever. But no matter how hard I tried, my peeves would just peel free and reinflate themselves. Then they’d go right back to annoying me. By the end of the Wallyball game, they were all standing and I was exhausted.

      We returned to the locker room as the period wound down. The rest of the guys dressed quickly and headed off to their next class. But I couldn’t peel myself off the bench. My mind was spinning. My inner monologue was going bonkers. And I was feeling desperate and defeated.

      “This is crazy,” I said, which prompted Asking Peeve to wonder, “What is crazy?”

      And Telling СКАЧАТЬ