Read Online Horror High 2 by Paul Stafford - Free Book Online

‘I’m warning you, all of you! This absenteeism will cease or I promise you a slow, ugly death by dot-to-dot disembowelment, followed by some really serious consequences.’
    The Rollcall Master was addressing the back wall where the dried, curled-up scalps of a dozen former pupils were nailed randomly like a collection of used Odor-Eaters, but the class knew he waswatching them through evil eyes in the back of his head.
    Mr Grimsweather was fully cranked in his rant at the class, snarling in top gear, virtually sweating blood. ‘Dire consequences! Hell to pay! I’ll go straight to the School Execution Committee; see if I won’t. Absentees from rollcall better have an exceedingly good excuse or it’s the long drop for them – double death, slow and hideous, then fast and horrible. Am I making myself crystal clear?’
    The class sat statue still, completely silent. The dusty human skeleton hanging lifeless on the wall next to the classroom door looked ready to nod its scaly skull in solemn assent. Since its skull had a metre-long sharpened steel spike hammered right through one ear and out the other, it’d be a pretty cool trick if it could pull it off.
    â€˜I’m making myself crystal clear, right?’ persisted Grimsweather. ‘Right. Now, one final time – Jason-Jock Werewolf, are you here?’
    There was a long, long pause before Geoff Dandyline opened his mouth. He just couldn’t help himself.
    Grimsweather instantly shot him a malevolent glare. ‘Yes, Dandyline?’
    â€˜Nothing, sir.’
    â€˜You opened your mouth to say something fabulously stupid, Dandyline. What were you going to say?’
    Dandyline adamantly shook his head, self-consciously rubbing his latest shocking fatal neck wound. ‘Nothing, sir. Honest, sir. Just drying my teeth, sir.’
    â€˜And?’ said Grimsweather.
    â€˜And now they’re dry, sir – very nice. Only, I was wondering, like, since you mentioned exceedingly good excuses, I was wondering, like, well, what’s an exceedingly good excuse exactly? Sir.’
    â€˜Why, Dandyline?’ snapped Grimsweather. ‘Have you got one for that brainless head of yours?’
    â€˜Oh no, sir. I mean yes, sir. I mean …’
    â€˜No, Dandyline, I’m mean – mean as marmoset measles, especially when youget me started, so don’t. An exceedingly good excuse for being absent might be a funeral, a reincarnation or a dead-raising. I’d accept coma, car wreck, exorcism, bomb blast, gas explosion, multiple homicide and nasty-painful-death-at-the-hands-of-a-mean-evil-deadly-serious-how’s-your-father?-my-dad’s-great-I-will-KILL-YOU-serial killer. And maybe flu, if you’ve got a doctor’s certificate. Nothing else. Why do you ask, Dandyline?’
    Dandyline shifted in his seat and crossed his legs and dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands and concentrated and really tried, but just couldn’t quite prevent his trademark dumb grin straddling his face like a ferret riding a bush buffalo. His buckteeth danced out of his mouth like a conga line of chalky skeletons.
    â€˜Well, Dandyline?’ pressed Grimsweather.
    â€˜Quite well, thank you, sir,’ replied Dandyline brightly. ‘Apart from this neck wound which is kinda itchy and festy, but thanks for asking, sir.’
    â€˜I wasn’t asking, curse you! Last chance, Dandyline. Where is Jason-Jock Werewolf and why are you grinning?’
    â€˜I’m not grinning, sir,’ Dandyline shrugged, grinning. Then he grinned again, only more inanely than usual. ‘I’m just wondering if cricket practice is an exceedingly good excuse, sir?’
    â€˜Cricket practice? Cricket practice …’ Grimsweather repeated the word as though tasting it on the tip of his decrepit, black tongue. ‘Cricket practice. Hmm … yes, I think I’d accept that one. Why,