Archie's Unbelievably Freaky Week Read online

  ‘That is certainly odd,’ Mr Gunn agreed, ‘but as I told you this morning—’

  ‘And this afternoon,’ continued Mrs Hemp, ignoring the interruption, ‘I saw Archie going into the men’s cloakroom on the ground floor.’

  ‘What was he doing in there?’ asked Mr Gunn. The cloakroom on the ground floor was only supposed to be used by teachers.

  ‘That’s what I wanted to know,’ said Mrs Hemp. ‘So I waited outside for a while, but then I heard noises – animal noises – and when I went inside . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When I went inside I found this dog’ – Mrs Hemp pointed dramatically to the animal at her feet – ‘sitting on a pile of school clothes, and no sign of Archie! There is only one possible explanation. The boy turned into a dog and his clothes fell off around him.’ She looked down at the terrier. ‘That is what happened, isn’t it?’

  ‘Woof!’ said the dog.

  Mr Gunn opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, then consulted a timetable on his desk.

  ‘According to this,’ he said, ‘Archie is doing Sports at the moment with Miss Roberts, out on the field. Perhaps the first thing to do is find out if—’

  There was a knock at the door, and Cyd appeared.

  ‘Miss Roberts sent me to tell you,’ she said, ‘that Archie’s supposed to be doing Sports out on the field, but he hasn’t turned up.’

  ‘There you are!’ Mrs Hemp turned in her chair to face Cyd. ‘Don’t worry, dear! He’s safe here with us.’

  ‘Is he?’ Cyd looked quickly round the Head Teacher’s office. ‘Where?’

  ‘Here,’ Mrs Hemp pointed to the terrier beside her. ‘I’m afraid he’s turned into a dog again.’

  ‘Woof!’ said the dog.

  Cyd stared at Mrs Hemp, and then at the dog. She knew that teachers could get strange ideas sometimes, but this one was . . .

  ‘That’s not Archie,’ she said. ‘It’s a dog. He’s called Ruffles!’

  Mrs Hemp frowned, and turned to the dog. ‘Is your name Ruffles?’

  ‘Woof woof!’ said the dog.

  ‘Who’s Ruffles?’ asked Mr Gunn.

  ‘Ruffles belongs to Laura Wilde,’ said Cyd. ‘She’s only had him a couple of weeks and he’s supposed to be at home, but sometimes he escapes and comes to school to see her. Then we all have to hide him because we don’t want Laura to get into trouble.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mrs Hemp, ‘but this animal has told me quite definitely that he is Archie Coates.’ She looked at the dog. ‘Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Woof!’ said the dog.

  ‘Mrs Hemp thinks that he’s speaking in code,’ Mr Gunn explained. ‘One woof for “yes”, and two for “no”.’

  ‘He’s not speaking in code!’ said Cyd. ‘He’s barking!’

  And he wasn’t the only one, she thought.

  ‘So why did Mrs Hemp overhear Archie telling you this morning about turning into a dog last night?’ asked Mr Gunn.

  ‘What?’ Cyd looked puzzled for a moment, but then her face cleared. ‘Oh, you mean the dream!’

  ‘Dream?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cyd. ‘Archie was telling me in break this morning he had a dream last night where he turned into a dog, went down to the chip shop and then shrank to the size of a pea and vanished through a hole in the floor. It wasn’t real,’ she added, in case there was any doubt.

  Mrs Hemp looked rather confused.

  ‘But I saw him change,’ she said. ‘At lunchtime. I saw a dog go into a classroom and then, when I went in, there was no dog, just Archie.’

  ‘If Archie found the dog in school, he would have hidden him,’ said Cyd. ‘Like I told you, we don’t want Laura to get into trouble. Was he carrying a bag?’

  ‘He had his school bag, yes, but . . .’

  ‘He’ll have put the dog in the bag,’ said Cyd, confidently, ‘and then taken it to the men’s cloakroom on the ground floor. It’s safe to leave him there, you see, because no one uses it. Then he’ll tell Laura to collect him at the end of the day.’

  ‘But . . . but . . . I followed Archie into the cloakroom this afternoon!’ Mrs Hemp was visibly confused. ‘And he wasn’t there! There was just a pile of clothes on the floor and the dog in the middle of it. How do you explain that?’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Cyd. ‘But I expect Archie can.’

  ‘Which brings us back to the real problem,’ said Mr Gunn. ‘Where exactly is Archie?’ He looked hopefully at Cyd.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Cyd, ‘but if he was last seen going into the staff cloakroom, and then someone else went in and took away his bag and all his clothes, I should imagine he’s probably still there.’

  The Head Teacher stood up. ‘Let’s go and find out, shall we?’

  The three of them strode out of the Head’s office and along the corridor to the cloakroom. The dog followed them.

  When Mr Gunn pushed open the door, the cloakroom seemed to be empty.

  ‘Archie?’ said Cyd. ‘Are you in here?’

  ‘Thank goodness!’ said a voice. ‘I’ve been stuck in here for—’

  Archie’s head appeared round the side of the shower stall, but he stopped in mid-sentence when he saw the Head and Mrs Hemp.

  ‘Someone’s taken all my clothes,’ he said. ‘Does anyone know where they are?’

  ‘Woof!’ said the dog.

  ‘It was a nightmare,’ Archie told Cyd as the two of them walked home. ‘I’m telling you, the whole thing was a complete nightmare.’

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ said Cyd. ‘What happened after you found Ruffles and put him in the men’s cloakroom? I mean, why did you go back later? And why did you take all your clothes off?’

  ‘I went back to check he was OK,’ Archie explained. ‘You know how he can start howling if he’s left on his own for too long. So I thought I’d call in before getting changed for Sports and give him a biscuit. Then, when I got to the cloakroom, he was really pleased to see me. He jumped on my lap and he had his paws on my shoulders, and he was licking my face. He was very excited . . . like, very excited . . .’

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Cyd. ‘He didn’t!’

  ‘He did,’ said Archie. ‘He weed all down the front of my shirt and down my trousers. I was soaking . . .’

  ‘And that’s why you took everything off?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t go anywhere like that, could I?’ said Archie. ‘So I thought I’d get changed into my games kit. And then I thought, as there was a shower in there, it might be a good idea to have a wash first . . .’

  ‘And when you got out of the shower, all your clothes had gone,’ Cyd finished, sympathetically.

  ‘My clothes, my bag with the games kit, the dog, everything!’ Archie shook his head. ‘I couldn’t believe it! I had nothing to wear. There weren’t even any paper towels!’

  ‘Mrs Hemp did say how sorry she was,’ said Cyd.

  ‘I know,’ Archie agreed, ‘but it was still a nightmare. The whole thing.’ He walked a few paces in silence before adding, ‘Did you know Mr Gunn laughed when I told him? He thought it was funny! I mean . . . what is funny about being stuck in a room with no clothes, wondering if you’ll have to walk through the school, naked, to tell someone what happened?’

  ‘Well,’ said Cyd, ‘it is a bit funny. If you think about it.’

  Archie thought about it and, slowly, a smile replaced the frown on his face.

  ‘I suppose it is a bit,’ he said. He turned to his friend. ‘Mrs Hemp didn’t really think I’d turned into a dog, did she?’

  ‘She was positive you had,’ said Cyd. ‘And I think she almost convinced Mr Gunn.’

  They both laughed.

  Archie’s mother, however, was definitely not laughing when she saw him. She wanted to know why he had come home in his games kit, and what had happened to his school clothes.

  ‘And what’s this stain down the front of your shirt?’ she demanded, as she took it out of his bag. ‘It’s all down your trousers as
well, and what . . . what’s that smell?’ Her nose wrinkled in disgust. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

  She held the clothes at arm’s length.

  ‘Honestly! I don’t believe it, Archie!’

  ON FRIDAY, WHEN Archie arrived at school, the Head Teacher called him into his office.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said, closing the door behind them, ‘if you’d mind not going into class today?’

  ‘You want me to miss all my lessons?’ asked Archie.

  ‘Yes.’ Mr Gunn sat down behind his desk. ‘You see, Mrs Hemp will not be coming back after what happened yesterday, which means we have lost four teachers so far this week and, although I’ve managed to get another replacement, this is the last one. They don’t have any more.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Archie.

  ‘We’ll be all right when Miss Jensen gets back,’ said the Head. ‘She knows how to cope with all the odd things that happen to you but, until then, I’d like you to stay in here with me.’ He pointed to a chair and table in the corner. ‘I’ve set up somewhere for you to work.’

  Archie didn’t really like the idea of being on his own all day, but it was not quite as bad as he had expected. He had often wondered what Head Teachers did during the day and now, sitting in the corner of Mr Gunn’s office, he was able to find out.

  The Head Teacher seemed to spend most of his time sorting out problems for people who came to see him. He sorted out the plumber who wanted to know if he could fit a new toilet in the girls’ lavatory. He sorted out the builders who wanted to know where they could put their skip. And he sorted out teachers like Miss Roberts, who wanted to know how to make hydrogen gas for a science experiment. And through it all, Archie was able to watch and listen.

  At least he was until the middle of the morning, when Mr Gunn looked at his diary and told Archie he would have to leave him on his own for the next hour or two.

  ‘We’ve got a visit from the Health and Safety Inspector,’ he said, and a slightly worried look crossed his face. ‘He’s a new man – I’ve not met him before – but I’ll have to show him round the school. It’s important that he gives us a good report.’

  The Inspector’s name was Mr Halibut, and his visit did not get off to a good start.

  ‘I must warn you,’ he said, when the secretary showed him into Mr Gunn’s office, ‘that I am not impressed by what I’ve seen so far.’

  ‘But you haven’t seen anything yet,’ protested Mr Gunn. ‘All you’ve done is walk in from the car park!’

  ‘And in that short walk,’ said Mr Halibut, severely, ‘I saw children playing outside, in the sunshine, without sunhats. I saw the outside door to a classroom left open, so that any passing axe murderer could walk straight in.’ He sniffed. ‘And coming into this office I see that you openly encourage the consumption of sugary sweets.’ He pointed to a glass bowl of lollipops on Mr Gunn’s desk.

  The Head Teacher stared at him. ‘What happened to Mr Stevens?’ he asked. ‘He’s the one who normally does our Health and Safety inspection.’

  ‘Mr Stevens is busy,’ said Mr Halibut, stiffly. ‘If you would be so good as to show me round the school?’

  Mr Gunn did not answer immediately. For several seconds he drummed his fingers on the desk before saying, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t show you round myself. I have another appointment. But Archie here can take you.’

  Archie blinked. The Head Teacher was usually very careful not to let him get too close to visitors, in case something ‘odd’ happened.

  ‘Mr Gunn,’ he said, ‘are you sure that—’

  ‘Quite sure, thank you!’ Mr Gunn interrupted. ‘I’d like you to take Mr Halibut round the school. Show him everything. Take as long as you need, all right?’

  ‘All right,’ said Archie.

  He began his tour by taking Mr Halibut outside and showing him the Thinking Garden. It was a little fenced area where children could go when they wanted somewhere to sit quietly and think.

  ‘What is that?’ demanded Mr Halibut, pointing to a large stone with a hollow in it, containing the remains of two candles.

  Archie explained that, if there was someone you cared about who might be in trouble, you could light a candle for them in the garden.

  ‘My friend Cyd lights a candle here sometimes for her dad,’ he said. ‘He’s in the army, and she hasn’t seen him for—’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ said Mr Halibut. ‘You mean your Head Teacher actually hands out matches and candles to his students?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Archie. ‘Is that bad?’

  ‘Of course it’s bad!’ said Mr Halibut. He gestured round the Thinking Garden. ‘This place is an Accident Waiting to Happen!’

  In the next half hour, the Inspector saw a lot of things that he thought were Accidents Waiting to Happen. He was horrified to hear that children were allowed to play under the trees at the edge of the field – where branches might fall off at any moment and kill them. He was appalled to discover that the school kept two goats. There are, he told Archie, at least nineteen diseases you can catch from goats, three of which are fatal. And he was deeply shocked when, on the path that led round the back of the school, Archie picked up a toy gun.

  ‘I think it’s Harry’s,’ said Archie. ‘We had to come to school dressed as characters from a book last week, and he came as James Bond.’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ said Mr Halibut. ‘Doesn’t your Head Teacher know that playing with toy guns encourages violence? And from what I’ve heard, you have quite enough violence in this school already.’

  ‘Do we?’ said Archie.

  Mr Halibut lowered his voice before replying. ‘I heard a story,’ he said, ‘that earlier this week, a boy at this school threatened his teacher with a knife!’

  ‘Oh, that!’ said Archie. ‘No, that was just a misunderstanding! I wasn’t really threatening her.’

  Mr Halibut stopped in his tracks.

  ‘You . . . You were the one with the knife?’

  ‘The trouble was,’ said Archie, ‘that Miss Hurrell thought that I thought that she’d murdered my father. I didn’t, of course, it was just a misunderstanding, but then she saw me with the knife, and after she’d seen me with the other body in the car park . . .’

  Archie stopped, because he could see that Mr Halibut was not listening. He was backing away. Backing away quite fast and, Archie noticed, not looking where he was going. Behind him was a row of cones and a warning sign saying: BUILDERS AT WORK. KEEP AWAY! Mr Halibut, however, did not see it.

  Archie tried to warn him. ‘Stop, Mr Halibut!’ he said. ‘Please! Stop now!’

  But Mr Halibut did not stop. Looking thoroughly frightened, he backed through the barrier of cones and continued moving backwards until he was up against the side of a skip.

  ‘You need to come away from there, Mr Halibut!’ Archie called. ‘You need to come back towards me.’

  He had quite forgotten, as he later told Cyd, that he was still holding the toy gun as he said this, and it was unfortunate that, at just that moment, Miss Roberts, in the classroom behind him, was doing her demonstration of how hydrogen gas, when ignited, makes a very loud bang. It was even more unfortunate that, at exactly the same time, one of the builders tossed a bit of concrete into the skip, which bounced up and grazed the side of Mr Halibut’s head.

  To understand why all these things together led to the accident that followed, you have to imagine how they looked from Mr Halibut’s point of view.

  Horrified at discovering that the boy who was taking him round the school was the same child who had, apparently, threatened a teacher with a knife earlier in the week, he now found this same boy was pointing a gun at him. He had thought the gun was a toy but, as Mr Halibut stood with his back to the skip, there was a loud bang and something hit the side of his head.

  Putting his hand up to his temple, he found blood on his fingers and, perhaps understandably, came to the conclusion that he had been shot.

  Before Archie could shoot him aga
in he turned and, in blind panic, raced into the car park where Mr James, the plumber, was carrying in the new toilet for the girls’ lavatory. Head down and sprinting for dear life, Mr Halibut ran straight into it with enough force to jam his head halfway down the bowl.

  He sank to the ground, still with the toilet bowl on his head, and lay there, not moving. ‘They’ve taken him off in the ambulance,’ said Mr Gunn, when he got back to his office. ‘There was quite a crowd in the end, watching.’

  ‘Did they get the toilet bowl off his head?’ asked Archie.

  ‘They’re going to do that at the hospital,’ said the Head, ‘but you needn’t worry. I’m sure he’s going to be fine, even if he did lose quite a lot of blood.’ He looked at Archie. ‘Are you all right yourself?’

  Some of the blood Mr Halibut had lost had wound up down the front of Archie’s shirt. The cut on the Inspector’s head had been bleeding heavily when Archie ran over to try and help.

  ‘I’m OK,’ said Archie, ‘but . . . but I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Nothing for you to be sorry about,’ said Mr Gunn. ‘None of it was your fault, was it?’

  ‘But Mr Halibut’s going to be so angry, isn’t he?’ said Archie. ‘Which means he’ll give the school a really bad report and—’

  ‘As it happens, Mr Halibut won’t be giving any reports in the near future,’ said Mr Gunn. ‘He’ll be in hospital for some time, so I’ve arranged for our inspection to be done by Mr Stevens. He’s a good man. Very sensible.’

  Archie was relieved to hear it, but he still felt bad about Mr Halibut. ‘I can’t help thinking,’ he said, ‘that if I hadn’t been there, probably nothing would have happened.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Mr Gunn, ‘but I don’t think we should worry too much about it.’

  Certainly, Mr Gunn did not seem to be too worried. He sat at his desk, leaned back in his chair and there was even the trace of a smile on his face as gazed out of the window.