Pencil of Doom! by Andy Griffiths Page B

I felt Jack on top of me. He pulled me backwards and I fell over. I sat up to see him clutching the pencil triumphantly. Not content with the damage it had already done, the pencil had clearly taken control of Jack’s mind. His eyes glowed like the ones on the skull.
    â€˜Come on, Jack,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘Give me the pencil.’
    â€˜No,’ said Jack, his eyes shining. ‘It’s mine, now! All mine!’
    I took a step towards him. ‘Give it to me, Jack. Please.’
    â€˜Keep back!’ he said, threatening me with the pencil as if it were a knife.
    â€˜Don’t do anything stupid, Jack,’ I said, taking another step towards him. ‘Put the pencil down, step away, and nobody will get hurt.’
    Jack looked at the pencil. Then he looked at me. Then he looked back at the pencil.
    Then he yelled and ran straight at me, the pencil held out in front of him like a sword.
    He clearly meant business.
    But so did I.
    I stepped out of his way, stuck my leg out and tripped him up.
    He stumbled and fell headfirst onto the ground and rolled all the way to the bottom of the hill.
    I ran down after him.
    He was lying on his back, eyes closed, not moving but still clutching the pencil.
    I prised the pencil out of his hand and stashed it safely in my jacket. I figured I’d deal with it later. For the moment I had to look after Jack.
    I shook him gently. He had a graze on his forehead.
    â€˜Jack!’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’
    He blinked, spluttered and looked straight at me.
    â€˜Who are you?’ he said.
    â€˜Henry,’ I said. ‘Your friend.’
    â€˜Uh-huh,’ he said, nodding. ‘And who am I?’
    â€˜Jack,’ I said. ‘Jack Japes.’
    â€˜Never heard of him,’ he said.

39
Mr Grunt

    I helped Jack up and, with his arm around my still-bandaged neck, guided him across the yard towards the office.
    â€˜Where are we going?’ said Jack.
    â€˜I’m taking you to see Mrs Bandaid,’ I told him.
    â€˜Who’s Mrs Bandaid?’
    â€˜You don’t know who Mrs Bandaid is?’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘Wow, you
are
in a bad way!’
    Jack was clearly suffering from a serious case of amnesia.
Everybody
knew who Mrs Bandaid was. She was who you went to see when you were sick or hurt. And no matter what your problem was, she gave you bandaids. Cuts, bruises, headache, sore tummy: bandaids, and lots of them . . . along with a big smile. And the strange thing was that no matter whether you had a cut, a bruise, a headache, a sore tummyor any other ailment whatsoever, the bandaids
always
made you feel better. Or maybe it was the smile. Whatever the case, I knew that she’d be able to fix Jack’s amnesia.
    On our way to Mrs Bandaid’s room, we passed the teachers’ car park.
    Mr Grunt, our sports teacher, was standing next to his brand-new Hummer H3—an unnecessarily huge show-offy beast of a car. In fact, ‘car’ wasn’t really the right word. It was big and solid enough to pass as an army tank.
    He had an admiring group of rev-head students gathered around him. ‘You’ve got to understand,’ he was saying, ‘that the Hummer H3 is the most powerful—and heaviest—car ever made!’
    His audience burst into applause.
    â€˜Thank you,’ said Mr Grunt, climbing into the front seat. ‘Well, can’t stand around here all day. I’ve got some rubber to burn.’
    He started the car up.
    It gave a deep, throaty roar and blasted a thick dark cloud of smoke out behind it. Then, doing a burnout with all four tyres squealing and smoking, Mr Grunt fishtailed wildly out of the car park and tore off down the road, tooting his horn all the way to make sure as many students as possible noticed him.
    The crowd of students applauded one last timeand then went back to their sad little lives, waiting for Mr Grunt to return.
    I shook my