Casper Candlewacks in Attack of the Brainiacs!. Ivan Brett

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СКАЧАТЬ Snivel stuck out his pale little hand. “N-name’s S-s-snivel. S-snivel B-brewster. I’ve n-never shaken h-hands before.”

      

      “They’re your brothers?” Casper shook his head. “But you’re so…”

      “S-small?”

      “Well, no. But I mean, compared to them.”

      “I know. I’m the r-runt.”

      The door burst open and everyone screamed, which made the skinny woman standing in the doorway scream even higher and cower behind her register. After a few tense moments she peeked out, saw no monsters and squeaked with relief. She had long brown hair and a mousy face that squeezed to a tip at her chin.

      “Sorry. Hello, class; sorry.” The woman tiptoed to the teacher’s desk and sat low in the spinny chair, hiding as much of herself as she could behind a small stack of books.

      “There you are, Lady!” shouted Lamp, bouncing up and down and pointing at the shivering stack of books. “I found you. Is it my turn to hide now?”

      Casper grabbed Lamp just as he made for the nearest loose floorboard. “Come on, Lamp, time to sit down.” They found their way to some desks at the front.

      The woman spoke quietly, to the floor rather than the class. “Sorry… erm… my name’s Miss Valenteen. I’m your geography teacher. If that’s OK. Sorry.” She opened the register with shaking fingers and called the first few names. “Daryl Ablebody?”

      “Yes, miss.”

      “Margarine Bannister?”

      “Yes, miss.”

      “Anemonie Blight?”

      “Hmph.”

      Casper glanced around for Anemonie, confused as to why she wasn’t terrorising Miss Valenteen already. This was the sort of teacher she’d usually eat for breakfast. (Not literally, of course. Anemonie’s breakfast was a bowl of Sickly-Pops with pink food colouring in the milk.) There she was, sitting at the back of the class with crossed arms and the sulkiest face since the village shop ran out of pink food colouring.

      Miss Valenteen had stopped at the next name, her mouth too scared even to say the words. “Snivel,” – her teeth chattered – “Snivel B-brewster?”

      “Y-yes, miss.”

      Her eyes darted to Snivel. She frowned. “You’re the new Brewster boy?”

      “Y-yes.”

      “Oh, thank goodness for that.” Miss Valenteen’s shoulders sagged, her head dropped back, her mouth broke into a broad grin. “Well, that’s OK, then. I thought you were another of those ghastly Brewster brothers. But look at you! You couldn’t hurt a fly! Right, then.” She stood up, swept aside her book barrier and carried on as relieved as the fly currently buzzing round Snivel Brewster’s head. “Casper Candlewacks?”

      “Yes, miss.”

      Without the threat of a Brewster, Miss Valenteen continued the lesson a new woman. She sang the rest of the register and then tangoed round the classroom handing out textbooks.

      As Casper watched poor Snivel set out his hand-me-down pencils next to his hand-me-down pencil sharpener, he felt a pang of pity. Imagine having to follow in the footsteps of the Brewster brothers. Your legs would get achy just trying to keep up, for starters.

      Miss Valenteen clapped her hands. “OK, class, we’ll start with a geography test.”

      “Oh no,” moaned Lamp, “I don’t even know where geography is.”

      “Question one: what’s the capital of Mongolia?”

      Lamp’s hand shot up.

      “Yes?”

      “Ulaanbaatar, miss. Population of just over a million, lying one thousand, three hundred and ten metres above sea level.”

      “Well… yes!” said Miss Valenteen. “One point to you.”

      There was a long pause, broken by a donk noise as Casper’s jaw hit the ground.

      Lamp looked shocked, and quite rightly. He touched his lips with a doubting finger. Had those words really just come out of his mouth?

      Miss Valenteen continued. “Question two: where is Brazil, and why?”

      Lamp’s hand was the first up again. “The eastern side of South America, miss. It’s there because of continental drift caused by plate tectonics.”

      “Right again! Two points to you.”

      Lamp gazed at Casper in open-mouthed glee. “Did you see me do that?” he gasped. Lamp had never got more than one point on a test before (and that was in art when the task was ‘Draw your best impression of an ink splodge’).

      The lesson went on, Lamp’s hand carried on shooting up and up, collecting points like a reckless driver in a speed-camera factory. The rest of the class didn’t stand a chance. Soon Casper’s mind drifted to the evening that lay ahead – opening night at The Battered Cod, two hundred demanding diners and a whole heap of washing-up. What if his dad blew up another oven? What if Cuddles threw another tantrum? What if Mayor Rattsbulge ate another table? The possibilities were too horrifying to consider.

      Just as Lamp secured his forty-third point by solving the famine problem in Africa, the door slammed open and four burly young men, muscles stacked up to their chins, stomped through.

      “LUNCH MUNNY!” shouted the biggest one.

      The Brewster brothers had arrived.

      All round Casper the terrified children hid behind their hands. Miss Valenteen dived under her desk with a squeal.

      “S-stay calm,” whispered Snivel. “If you don’t m-move, they c-can’t see you.”

      The Brewsters tromped round the classroom, collecting loose change in a bucket. Lamp proudly presented his Brewster an egg and found it stuffed into his mouth (which was fine by him).

      “The b-biggest one’s Bash,” whispered Snivel. “Then there’s Spit, Clobber and P-pinchnurse.”

      Casper frowned. “Pinchnurse?”

      “W-we’re named after the first fing we do after we’re born. I s-snivelled. P-pinchnurse pinched a nurse.”

      A Brewster, with one fat caterpillar of an eyebrow, stopped at Snivel’s table. “Lunch munny.”

      “Clobber, it’s m-me.”

      “You СКАЧАТЬ