Curse of the Evil Custard

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Bad News

  Chapter 2: Superpowers

  Chapter 3: A Cold Welcome

  Chapter 4: Weird Sccience

  Chapter 5: A Spoonful of Evil

  Chapter 6: Second Helpings

  Chapter 7: Yellow Peril

  Chapter 8: World's Most Wanted

  Chapter 9: The Evil Lair

  Chapter 10: A Sticky End

  Chapter 11: Bubble Trouble

  Chapter 12: School Report

  Also by Alan MacDonald

  It was the first day of a new term. Stan, Miles, Minnie and Pudding the Wonderdog entered through the tall iron gates of Mighty High. During the long summer holidays little exciting or dangerous had happened, so it was good to be back together as the Invincibles, probably the greatest superhero gang in Stan’s class.

  Stan looked around the playground, recognising the old familiar faces. Over the far side a group of boys were playing aerial football, occasionally sending the ball high into the clouds. Tank, the school bully, had found some new kids to play with and was amusing himself by throwing them over a wall.

  All in all, it seemed like just another day at Mighty High … but that was about to change.

  Miss Marbles, the head teacher, walked by wearing a worried expression and two pairs of spectacles on her head.

  ‘Morning, miss,’ said Minnie brightly.

  Miss Marbles looked round, quickly stuffing a letter into her pocket.

  ‘Morning? I suppose it is,’ she said. ‘How are you, Molly?’

  ‘Minnie,’ said Minnie. ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Miss Marbles. ‘Absolutely splendid, tip-top, couldn’t be better. Well, I must be – you know, things to do.’

  They watched her cross the playground and disappear through a door, coming out a second later when she realised it was the caretaker’s shed.

  Minnie frowned. ‘You think she’s all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Mad as a sack of cats,’ said Miles.

  ‘But she seemed a bit funny,’ said Minnie. ‘She’s never called me Molly before.’

  ‘She calls me “Stanley”,’ grumbled Stan.

  ‘Well, that’s your name,’ said Miles.

  ‘Yes, but how many superheroes do you know called Stanley?’ asked Stan.

  ‘You can be the first.’ Miles grinned. ‘Super Stanley.’

  ‘I’ll stick to Dangerboy, thanks,’ said Stan, who owed his nickname to his supersensitive ears, which alerted him to danger.

  Minnie was still thinking about Miss Marbles. ‘Something’s wrong,’ she said. ‘Maybe we ought to go and check on her.’

  ‘Check on her?’ said Stan. ‘She’s a head teacher, not a baby!’

  ‘You go,’ said Miles. ‘I’m not getting into trouble.’

  Pudding barked and wagged his tail.

  ‘See? Pudding agrees with me,’ said Minnie. ‘Are you coming or not?’

  Five minutes later they were knocking on the head teacher’s door.

  ‘Come in!’ said Miss Marbles.

  They found the head sitting at her desk with her marmalade cat asleep on her lap. There was an official-looking letter spread out in front of her.

  ‘Ah, thank you for coming, have a seat,’ she said, as if she’d been expecting them. ‘I suppose your ears have been talking, Stanley?’

  Stan looked baffled. His ears always tingled when trouble was in the air, but on this occasion they weren’t even itching.

  ‘Um, not really,’ he said. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘You could say that,’ replied Miss Marbles. ‘I’ve had a letter this morning. It seems we’re to have an inspection.’

  Minnie stared. ‘A police inspection?’

  ‘If only,’ laughed Miss Marbles. ‘No, this is a school inspection. Every few years they send inspectors to look at the school to see if it’s up to scratch, meeting national standards and so on.’

  ‘Well, aren’t we? I mean, meeting national wotsits?’ asked Stan.

  Miss Marbles leaned forward, clasping her hands. The cat on her lap woke up with a jolt.

  ‘Let me ask you something,’ said the head. ‘How much do your parents know about what we do here?’

  Stan shrugged. ‘Not much,’ he said. ‘They just think I go to a school for gifted children. If I told them the truth they’d never believe me.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Miss Marbles nodded. ‘And that’s the way I’d like to keep it. The fact is, our work at Mighty High is a carefully kept secret. No one knows we are teaching you to develop superpowers. If they did, there’d probably be an almighty row. All kinds of questions would be asked.’

  ‘You mean like why don’t we wear blazers?’ suggested Miles.

  ‘Unfortunately, it goes deeper than that,’ said Miss Marbles. ‘When the school inspectors arrive they’ll expect to see a normal school timetable – you know reading, writing and, um ... that other one ...’

  ‘Maths?’ said Miles.

  ‘Precisely. The sort of subjects you find in any school,’ said the head teacher.

  Stan thought he began to see the problem. None of the subjects they learned at Mighty High could remotely be described as ‘normal’. Professor Bird taught flying while other lessons included mind control, unarmed combat and ‘inside the criminal mind’.

  ‘But surely they’ll see how important it is,’ argued Minnie. ‘There aren’t any other schools for children like us.’

  ‘I agree with you, Milly,’ said Miss Marbles. ‘But I doubt if the inspectors will see it that way. If we fail this inspection we could be in trouble. It’s possible they could even close the school.’

  ‘Close it?’ cried Stan. ‘They can’t do that!’

  ‘I’m afraid they can,’ sighed Miss Marbles. ‘So I have thought it over and there’s only one way we can pass this inspection. We have to convince the inspectors that we are a plain, ordinary school teaching normal children.’

  Stan, Minnie and Miles looked at each other. This was going to be a tall order. Mighty High wasn’t a large school, but every one of the pupils possessed some weird or amazing power – from changing colour to hurricane-force burping.

  ‘You mean we can’t use our superpowers?’ asked Minnie.

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ said Miss Marbles. ‘I want you all to behave as normally as possible. Read your books, recite your times tables and try not to set off any explosions. Can you do that?’

  ‘We can,’ said Stan. ‘But what about the others?’

  ‘I will talk to them in assembly,’ said Miss Marbles. ‘The future of the school depends on this.’

  She got up, dumping the cat on the floor, and walked them to the door.

  ‘One last thing,’ she said. ‘I’ll need some volunteers to show the inspectors round the school. I thought you three could do it.’

  ‘Seriously?’ said Stan. ‘Why choose us?’

  Miss Marbles folded her arms. ‘Well, your superpowers are ... how can I put it ... ?’

  ‘Rubbish?’ said Miles.

  ‘Less obvious,’ said Miss Marbles. ‘Besides, I need sensible children.’

  Stan raised his eyebrows. It was the first time anyone had ever accused him of being sensible.

  2

  SUPERPOWERS

  THE TOP TEN

  Whenever a bunch of superheroes get together – say at a bus stop or a costume party – sooner or later the talk will turn to the age-old question: which super power is the best?

  Everyone has their own opinion, but here is my personal top ten.

  1. FLYING

  Flying is brilliant. Ask anyone, it’s the power that’s number one on their list. A word of warning though from per
sonal experience – remember the golden rule. Flying is an OUTDOOR ACTIVITY, not to be confused with Scrabble or Snakes and Ladders.

  2. SUPER-STRENGTH

  In any superhero gang there’s always the muscle-bound hunk who shows off by lifting trucks or boulders above his head. I have just one word to say about this superpower: tickling!

  3. SHAPESHIFTING

  Wouldn’t it be useful if, in the blink of an eye, you could turn into a wolf, a bat or even a complete idiot? Some of your friends may have mastered the last one.

  4. SUPER-SPEED

  If you can’t fly, then running like the wind is the next best thing – especially when faced by an angry three-headed monster or a teacher (or worse, an angry three-headed teacher).

  5. ELASTICITY

  Legs of rubber, arms as bendy as a drinking straw – never challenge these guys to a game of basketball.

  6. INVISIBILITY

  Useful for those tricky moments when you’ve broken the TV/window/toaster.

  7. TELEKINETIC POWERS

  Use your mind power to make lifeless objects move. Warning: generally doesn’t work on older brothers.

  8. MAGNETISM

  Amaze your friends when you make metal spoons, forks or coins stick to your body. Come to think of it, the usefulness of this one escapes me.

  9. TIME TRAVEL

  Ever made a bad mistake or messed up an exam? With time travel you can go back in time and mess up as many times as you want.

  10. INVINCIBILITY

  Probably the daddy of all superpowers, but this one should be handled with care. Many a superhero has claimed to be invincible, but not all of them lived to tell the tale.

  The following week Stan and his friends stood by the main doors, waiting for the inspectors to arrive. They had ditched their capes and Invincibles costumes in favour of ordinary school uniforms. Unfortunately the only uniforms they owned belonged to their previous schools, which meant that they were dressed in three different colours.

  Stan fiddled with his tie, uncomfortably. ‘How are we going to recognise them?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re inspectors – they probably look like teachers,’ said Minnie.

  ‘Most of our teachers look bonkers,’ Miles pointed out.

  This was true enough, but then most of the staff at Mighty High taught bonkers subjects. Stan looked up and down the road. He wished Miss Marbles had picked someone else to show the inspectors around. It was a big responsibility. What if they made a bad impression or one of them let something slip about the school? It was all very well for Miss Marbles to say they should act normally, but that meant not doing the things they normally did. Just thinking about it tied Stan’s brain in knots.

  ‘What do we say to them?’ Stan worried.

  ‘Relax. Just smile and be polite,’ said Minnie. ‘Once they arrive we can take them to see Miss Marbles.’

  Stan nodded. He hoped Pudding didn’t start sniffing round the inspectors’ trousers. How did they explain what a dog was doing in school anyway?

  Stan had suggested hiding him in a store cupboard but Minnie said that would be cruel. She claimed that Pudding was practically invisible to teachers anyway – they never seemed to notice him.

  Just then, a dark blue car drove slowly past the gates.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, leave your ears alone,’ sighed Minnie.

  ‘I can’t help it, they just started itching,’ said Stan.

  Meanwhile, around the corner, two shadowy figures had emerged from behind a lamp post.

  They made a curious pair – one of them was a giant, while his companion could almost fit inside his pocket. The small man had a pointed beard, cold eyes and padded insoles in his shoes to make him look taller.

  ‘This is the school,’ said Dr Sinister. ‘Mighty High.’

  ‘Yesh, master,’ said Otto, his large pea-brained bodyguard. He lifted his master up so that Dr Sinister could see over the railings.

  ‘The question is, how do we get in?’ asked Dr Sinister.

  ‘Er ... frough the door?’ suggested Otto.

  ‘It’s a school, you idiot,’ snapped Dr Sinister. ‘You can’t just walk in and say, “Please may we borrow one of your kiddiewinks to conduct an evil experiment?”’

  ‘Yesh, master,’ said Otto.

  ‘And stop saying “Yesh master”, you sound like a parrot!’

  Dr Sinister rolled his eyes. Otto was loyal and strong as an ox but you might as well talk to a brick. Sometimes Dr Sinister longed for the company of other geniuses like himself. Since his disgrace at the Scientist of the Year awards, his fellow scientists had turned their backs on him – but not for long.

  Once they were under the spell of Evil Custard, they would all become his willing slaves. Nobody would ever call him ‘Dr Whatsitsname’ again.

  A dark blue car pulled up and a man and woman got out.

  ‘Excuse me, is this school Mighty High?’ asked the annoyingly tall woman.

  Otto opened his mouth.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said Dr Sinister. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘No, just checking.’ The woman smiled. ‘I’m Miss Miller and this is Mr Long – we’re school inspectors. Can’t have us turning up at the wrong school, can we?’

  Inspectors? Dr Sinister narrowed his eyes. But this was ideal, the perfect opportunity! The two inspectors would be expected at the school. They’d have complete freedom to nose around and speak to any of the children. If one or two kiddies happened to go missing, then who was going to notice? He reached up, offering his hand to the woman.

  ‘Splendid, we’ve been expecting you,’ said Dr Sinister.

  ‘You have?’ said Miss Miller.

  ‘Yes, I’m the head teacher, Mr … Whackem. I’ve been looking out for you.’

  The inspector frowned and took out a letter from her briefcase.

  ‘But I thought the head was … a Miss Marbles?’ she said.

  ‘Ah, that’s right, she is.’ Dr Sinister thought quickly. ‘But she was suddenly taken ill. Yesterday, in fact – with, erm ... zebrapox.’

  ‘Zebrapox?’ repeated Mr Long.

  ‘Yes, it’s like chickenpox only you come out in stripes,’ said Dr Sinister.

  ‘But never mind, I’m here to welcome you and this is our, er … our school secretary, Mr Otto.’

  The inspectors stared at the man mountain, who smiled back, revealing a mouthful of gold teeth. He looked more like an Olympic weightlifter than a school secretary.

  Miss Miller frowned. ‘I don’t know, this is all very odd,’ she said.

  Dr Sinister’s eyes opened wide and he suddenly changed his voice. ‘Follow me,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do exactly what I say. Follow me.’

  The inspectors nodded, falling under the spell of his staring eyes and hypnotic voice.

  Dr Sinister took them round to the back of the school, where they climbed in through a gap in the fence. Hurrying across the playground, he opened a couple of doors, one of which turned out to be a shed. Finally he found a way into the school and clicked his fingers. The inspectors came out of their trance. Dr Sinister descended some stairs into a damp, dimly lit basement, where a smell of boiled cabbage and potato hit them immediately.

  ‘Are you sure this is right?’ asked Miss Miller, uncertain how she’d got there.

  ‘Where are the children?’ asked Mr Long.

  ‘Oh, they’re about somewhere,’ replied Dr Sinister. ‘First we’ll stop by at my office. By the way, may I see your badges?’

  Both inspectors handed them over and Dr Sinister quickly pocketed them. He opened a metal door and stood aside for them to go in.

  ‘Please, make yourselves comfortable,’ he insisted.

  Miss Miller peered into the head’s office. ‘It’s pitch dark,’ she objected.

  ‘And freezing cold,’ said Mr Long, going in. ‘Are you sure this ... ?’

  ‘Fools!’ laughed Dr Sinister as he turned the key, locking them in. ‘A few hours in th
e freezer will cool them down. Heh heh heh!’

  ‘HA! HA! HA!’ chortled Otto. ‘Who was they again?’

  ‘School inspectors, dummy,’ answered Dr Sinister. ‘But you and I are going to take their places. Here’s your badge, Otto. Pin it on your jacket. You can be Miss Miller.’

  ‘Fank you, master,’ said Otto, who’d never had a badge before.

  ‘Now, we are going to take a look around the school,’ said Dr Sinister. ‘While we’re here, try not to talk, and I don’t want you eating anything.’

  Otto’s face fell. ‘Not even a lickle caterpillar?’

  ‘Especially not a lickle caterpillar,’ said Dr Sinister. ‘And remember, we are school inspectors, so don’t call me master.’

  Otto nodded gravely. ‘Yesh, master.’

  Stan checked his watch. Something was wrong – the inspectors should have arrived half an hour ago.

  ‘Maybe they’re not coming,’ he said hopefully.

  ‘You don’t think we could have missed them?’ asked Minnie.

  ‘I don’t see how, but someone ought to tell Miss Marbles,’ said Stan.

  His ears were still bothering him.

  Sometimes they itched and prickled for no reason at all. Looking around, Stan almost jumped out of his skin. Behind him stood two strange men who had appeared from nowhere. One was tiny and bearded, while his companion was as big as a wardrobe and very interested in a fly on the wall.

  ‘Leave it,’ ordered the little man. ‘Good morning, we are the school inspectors. I’m Mr Long and this is er ... Miss Miller.’