Elspeth Hart and the School for Show-offs Read online

  For Mum and Dad, of course – SF

  For Amy, Eliza and Martha x – JB

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  About the Author

  Copyright

  It was three o’clock on a Tuesday, and Miss Crabb was picking her nose. She was digging her long, pointy finger right inside her nostril and pulling out the most awful strings of green snot.

  Elspeth Hart was staring at her in horror. She didn’t want to watch, but she couldn’t help it.

  “Gah! What are you staring at, you little ratbag?” shouted Miss Crabb, when she realized Elspeth was watching. “Can’t a body pick her own nostrils in peace? Gerroff down to the cellars and sweep up the mouse droppings! I might need them as an ingredient in the stew I’m making. Get to it!”

  Elspeth hurried off. She had only lived with Miss Crabb for a year, but she already knew not to cross her. Miss Crabb was Elspeth’s aunt. She had a nasty temper and a never-ending list of disgusting chores she could make Elspeth do.

  Elspeth and Miss Crabb didn’t live in a house like most people. They lived in a boarding school. Miss Crabb was the Chief Cook at the school and she lived in a very small attic right at the top of the building. So when Elspeth moved in, there wasn’t much space for her. She had to sleep in a wardrobe.

  Yes, dear reader – a wardrobe! It doesn’t seem very fair to me, either. That was bad enough, but the school itself was even worse. It was a drama school called the Pandora Pants School for Show-offs and it was a dreadful place. You could only study there if you were really, really good at showing off, or your parents were very rich. Hundreds and hundreds of film stars, TV stars, people in adverts – they had all been to the Pandora Pants School for Show-offs, once upon a time. And some of the students were nastier than a mouthful of mouldy cabbage.

  The Pandora Pants School for Show-offs was not a place you would want to visit. Ever. Unless you, dear reader, are a show-off. Are you?

  I thought not. And nor was Elspeth Hart.

  Elspeth Hart was a bit shorter than you are, and a bit shyer than you are. She had green eyes and fuzzy dark hair that was hard to control. She had lived a normal life until she was ten, when her parents disappeared in a flood and were never seen again. That was when she had come to live with Miss Crabb.

  “More mouse droppings,” Elspeth muttered, as she stepped into the dark cellar. “I can’t believe she gets away with putting them in the food. Evil old woman.”

  She moved sideways in the dark, feeling around for the light switch, and bashed her knee hard against the wall. Tears came to her eyes, but Elspeth blinked them away.

  She switched on the light, looked around the stinky, dripping cellar and started sweeping very slowly. Elspeth could hear Miss Crabb upstairs, crashing and banging around the kitchen in a rage, and she was in no hurry to go back.

  “STUPID LITTLE VARMINTS!” Miss Crabb was shouting. “I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE TO COOK FOR THESE STUPID LITTLE VARMINTS!”

  There was the sound of smashing glass.

  Miss Crabb hated the children at the Pandora Pants School for Show-offs. She hated Elspeth, too. And if Miss Crabb met you, dear reader, I am afraid that she would hate you, no matter how friendly you are. Children were Miss Crabb’s sworn enemies, and she did everything she could to make poor Elspeth’s life a misery.

  When Elspeth came to live with her, Miss Crabb instantly put her to work in the filthiest, stickiest, darkest corner of the kitchen and gave her all sorts of other horrible jobs around the school. Elspeth never complained. As you know, she was quite a bit shyer than you are, and besides, she had been brought up to be very polite. So poor Elspeth had to scrub pots and shoo away cockroaches and watch Miss Crabb make the most disgusting school dinners in the world.

  If you’ve ever tried to keep your head down in a horrible situation, dear reader, you can imagine how poor Elspeth felt. But what Elspeth didn’t know, as she swept up hundreds of mouse droppings in a creepy dark cellar, was that things were about to change.

  The next morning, Elspeth woke up early and lay in her wardrobe, wishing she was anywhere else but the Pandora Pants School for Show-offs. She had a crick in her neck and she could feel an ant crawling along her foot. She closed her eyes again and tried to remember what her mum and dad looked like. It was no use. Elspeth couldn’t even remember the flood that had washed away her parents. She had gone to sleep one night and, when she woke up, Miss Crabb was standing over her, telling her that the Pandora Pants School for Show-offs was her new home.

  “I hate this place!” Elspeth whispered to herself. She flicked the ant off her foot and thought about running away.

  She dreamed of running away all the time. But the school was at the end of a deserted road, with nothing else around as far as the eye could see. Elspeth didn’t know what was out there, but she knew she was many, many miles from anyone who could help her.

  Just as Elspeth was about to get up, she heard a dreadful cracking and creaking noise.

  Elspeth peered out of her wardrobe and saw Miss Crabb doing her morning aerobics. She was wearing a moth-eaten leotard and leopard-print leggings. Her hair stood out in a frizzy halo and she hadn’t put in her false teeth yet. Elspeth looked on in horror as Miss Crabb did a series of high kicks. One of her gnarly yellow feet nearly kicked Elspeth in the face.

  And the very worst thing was the smell. Miss Crabb always let out a series of disgusting farts when she was exercising.

  Elspeth held her breath and made a run for the bathroom. She turned on the taps and filled up the massive old-fashioned bathtub. There was never enough hot water, but sometimes Elspeth would lie in there for ages, dreaming that the bathtub would fly away and she would never have to scrub another pot again. Or that her parents would magically come back and take her home. Or that Miss Crabb would start doing jigsaws instead of aerobics.

  Sadly, none of Elspeth’s dreams ever came true. No one had come to rescue Elspeth and, to make matters worse, Elspeth was NEVER ALLOWED OUTSIDE. Never ever.

  Can you imagine never being allowed outside, dear reader – even when the sun is shining and being indoors makes you feel all stuffy and wriggly?

  “Miss Crabb, why can’t I go and play outside?” Elspeth had asked in her first week at the school. The show-offs were running around the massive overgrown gardens. It all looked like great fun, but Elspeth was stuck indoors.

  “You ain’t allowed out for your own good,” said Miss Crabb, who was chopping up rats’ tails for a soup. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but you are allergic to fresh air.”

  “What?” Elspeth was suspicious. “I’m not allergic to fresh air. Nobody is allergic to fresh air.”

  Miss Crabb stabbed the knife into the chopping board so hard that it stuck there, quivering. She gave Elspeth a most terrifying glare.

  “Well, you are,” she said. She gave an angry sniff. “And unless you want to drop dead on the spot, I suggest you keep yourself inside the s
chool premises at all times.”

  “But, Miss Crabb, I’m sure I used to play outside…” Elspeth paused. Could she remember playing outside? Little memories would flash into her head from time to time, but none of them were very clear. “I mean, I think I did. I can’t quite remember…” Elspeth trailed off.

  “It’s the flood,” Miss Crabb said, turning back to her chopping board. “It affected your memory, so you’ll just have to believe me.” She started chopping again, and Elspeth stared at her in confusion.

  “Get on with your work, child!” Miss Crabb hissed.

  All in all, dear reader, it was a pretty miserable life, and there was just one person Elspeth could trust. Her only friend in the whole school. In fact, right now, her only friend in the whole world.

  He was a secret friend. His name was Rory Snitter and although he was a pupil at the Pandora Pants School for Show-offs, he wasn’t a very good show-off. In fact, Rory was a bit of a crybaby, but he was the only pupil who ever smiled at Elspeth. One day he’d shown Elspeth a secret hiding place when Miss Crabb was chasing her with a rolling pin. The pair had been friends ever since, and they used the same secret hiding place to meet every morning.

  Elspeth tiptoed through the Great Grand Hall. The hall had a sweeping staircase and a magnificent log fire. At one end was a massive portrait of Pandora Pants, the woman who had started the school. She was pouting in the picture and wearing a hideous green ballgown. Elspeth shuddered when she went past it. She shuddered again when she had to walk over the huge tiger-skin rug. Professor Bombast, the headmaster, claimed he liked to shoot things (when he wasn’t busy teaching in a very LOUD VOICE). This meant there were also stuffed owls and deer antlers hanging on the walls.

  Elspeth crept towards the theatre at the back of the building, where the show-offs staged their impressive school shows. Under the stage was the perfect place to meet Rory in secret.

  “So Crabb was doing her aerobics again? Yuck!” Rory said when Elspeth crawled into their hiding place, looking green.

  Rory could tell immediately that Miss Crabb’s farts had been extra bad that morning.

  “She is so disgusting,” Elspeth hissed. “I can’t stand it! It’s OK for you, at least your parents are coming to get you at the end of term.”

  “I suppose.” Rory wrinkled up his nose. “Won’t exactly be exciting, though. They just go off on holidays all the time and leave me with the butler. He’s no fun.”

  “Well, it sounds a lot better than being stuck here,” said Elspeth.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Rory sighed. “I just found out I’ve been put in Remedial Tap Dancing this term. I hate it. Just because I’m not as good as Tim Fitzgibbons. He’s won awards for it and everything!”

  Elspeth looked at her friend in his smart shoes and blazer, and felt sorry for him. Rory’s hair was neatly combed, and he had a pen clipped to his shirt pocket as usual.

  Elspeth knew he worked hard at school, but he could never compete with the other show-offs.

  Instead of learning how to spell and do maths, the show-offs were taught things like Showing Off in Public, Attention Seeking in General, Creating a Scene, Getting Your Own Way and Extreme Boasting. If you can think of the most annoying person in your class, dear reader, and then multiply them by a million, that will give you an idea of what the show-offs were like.

  Elspeth and Rory were quiet for a moment while Rory’s pet lizard, Lazlo, crawled up and down his arm. Apart from Elspeth, Lazlo the lizard was Rory’s best friend. Lazlo looked cute, but he had a vicious bite and a nasty temper, too.

  Last year, one of the show-offs had stuffed Lazlo down the back of Professor Bombast’s trousers as part of a magic trick in the school show. Professor Bombast had leaped and bounced and shrieked, and everyone agreed it was the best thing they’d seen in ages.

  Elspeth put out a hand to pat Lazlo, then hesitated. She’d seen how sharp his pointy little teeth were.

  “What was your house like?” Rory asked suddenly. “When you lived with your mum and dad?”

  Elspeth paused. She screwed up her eyes and tried to remember.

  “I know we lived in a flat above my parents’ sweet shop in a place called Skipping Hopton,” she said. “I can’t remember it very clearly, but I think they made their own sweets. Oh, wait – I remember one thing! There was an enormous candyfloss machine with a glass cover, almost as tall as me!”

  Elspeth tried, but she couldn’t remember anything else. It made her sad. She couldn’t picture her parents’ faces, but she remembered how it felt to hug her mum. It was a very fuzzy memory, but when Elspeth thought of her, she remembered the smell of sugar and cinammon. She didn’t tell Rory that, though. She didn’t want to get upset.

  “It sounds like a cool place to live! I’d LOVE to live above a sweet shop,” Rory said. “Do you have any photos?” Then he stopped and looked serious. “Sorry, Elspeth,” he said. “Stupid question. I know you don’t have any of your things with you.”

  All Elspeth Hart had in the world were the clothes she had been wearing when she was rescued from the flood. Just her threadbare purple dress and purple trainers. Elspeth often wished she had new clothes, but she would never part with her trainers. Her dad had helped her decorate them with swirly designs and stars using a marker pen. No matter how often the show-offs laughed at them, Elspeth still loved them.

  “That’s OK, don’t feel bad,” Elspeth said, fiddling with the laces on her trainers. They were starting to pinch her feet.

  Just then the bell shrilled.

  “We’d better go,” Elspeth said, jumping up. She made a face. “I hope I can avoid Tatiana Firensky today.”

  Tatiana Firensky was the very worst of the show-offs. Her father owned the Firensky Glue Company, and Tatiana was spoiled rotten. She had long shiny blonde hair, sharp fingernails and a mean temper, and she was very good at getting her own way. Tatiana had been horrible to Elspeth ever since she had arrived at the school.

  Rory nodded. “Good luck!” he hissed over his shoulder, as he tucked Lazlo into his pocket and hurried off to his first class.

  Elspeth moved quickly and quietly towards the stairs. She was an expert at making herself invisible – flattening herself against the corridor wall when Tatiana was coming towards her, or walking behind Tim Fitzgibbons, who was the tallest boy in the school.

  Elspeth had learned that being almost invisible was the best way to survive in the Pandora Pants School for Show-offs.

  Cleaning the school took Elspeth ages, because there were so many floors in the Pandora Pants School for Show-offs. At the very top of the school, as you know, were Miss Crabb’s living quarters. On the floors below were the classrooms and dormitories. Elspeth always ended up with spiders in her hair when she had to do the cleaning. No matter how hard she tried to clean, the rooms always seemed musty and cobwebby. But delicious sounds could be heard floating up from where Madame Stringy, the music teacher, was teaching violin to the finest students.

  “Gotcha,” Elspeth muttered, as she plucked a large spider from her messy hair and placed it in a little box she carried in her pocket. Tatiana Firensky hated spiders.

  Elspeth had worked out that if Tatiana caused her any trouble, releasing a big spider would send her into instant hysterics, giving Elspeth a chance to escape. She smiled at the thought of it. But as she got on with her cleaning, Elspeth heard a sharp tapping sound coming from the dance studio next door.

  Elspeth froze. She was sure the school was haunted. Could it be a ghost? She moved slowly towards the door and stepped into the corridor.

  Please don’t be a ghost, please don’t be a ghost, Elspeth thought.

  She held her breath and tiptoed along the corridor, then she peeked around the door and sighed in relief. It was only Tim Fitzgibbons practising his tap dancing.

  Tim Fitzgibbons was not only the tallest boy in the school, he was also the best looking. He was an expert in ballet, tap, Irish dancing, kickboxing, break-dancing and the hokey-cokey.
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  “Hello!” Tim said in a loud-but-friendly voice. “Come to learn a few skills, have you?” He did a very fancy move as he said this, tapping so quickly his feet were a blur. “Professor Bombast said I could spend the morning rehearsing in here. Hey, do you think my hair looks OK?”

  Tim Fitzgibbons ran a hand through his perfect hair. He looked worried. “I can’t work out if I’m more handsome with it swept to the left side –” he moved his hair over to one side – “or the right…”

  Elspeth tried not to laugh. She couldn’t believe how much the show-offs worried about their hair. Especially the boys.

  “I think your hair looks absolutely perfect,” Elspeth replied.

  “Wow, thanks!” Tim Fitzgibbons took a closer look in the mirror on the wall. “You’re right, it is perfect! I look AMAZING!”

  “It’s so much better than anyone else’s hair,” Elspeth said. She tried to sound impressed. Could Tim Fitzgibbons be her friend? Having a popular show-off as a friend in the school might make things much easier. Then she felt like a bit of a fake. Pretending to be someone’s friend is never a good idea, she thought.

  “I’d better go,” she said, picking up her broom and cleaning bucket.

  “Bye, then!” shouted Tim cheerfully. He was still rearranging his hair when Elspeth left.

  She went down to the next floor to start on the classrooms (which looked a bit like your classroom, dear reader, except the chairs were fancy gold ones with soft velvet seats).

  She swept up a load of chocolate-bar wrappers. Professor Bombast often liked a snack in the middle of lessons. As usual, there was a half-eaten Chump bar sitting on the desk. Elspeth grabbed it and munched it down quickly. She was always hungry because she hardly ever managed to eat the disgusting food Miss Crabb cooked – she knew what went into it, and it was vile.