Emily and the Ghost of Mr. Mentor E-Book

George E. Kellogg

• Herausgeber: Spines
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

An Intriguing True Story? Decide for Yourself What to Believe!

Following World War I, The Happy Mentoring Vocational School, operated by one Mr. Charles Mentor, was on the cutting edge of preparing children to revolutionize the very world!
Students at this boarding school were taught the skills and self-confidence needed to achieve the highest of standards in chemistry, physics, medicine, engineering and law. Every student was being prepared to start their own businesses or pursue advanced degrees in their chosen fields. 
However, after Mr. Mentor’s untimely death, the inconceivable occurred. The new principal turned the school into something unnatural, that was never meant to be!
The Ghost of Mr. Mentor returned from the afterlife with a holy vengeance and recruited student Emily Keller to aid him in this mission: She was assigned to gather and then lead a ragtag platoon composed of the dodgiest characters imaginable into a new war, the likes of which the world had never seen.
This unlikely crew now fights for their freedom and their very souls in a desperate attempt restore the school and its faculty to their original integrity, honor and prestige…

Leseprobe

EMILY AND THE GHOST OF MR. MENTOR

PART I

GEORGE E. KELLOGG

George E. Kellogg

Emily and the Ghost of Mr. Mentor - Part One

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2024 by George E. Kellogg

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Published by Spines

ISBN: 978-965-578-833-4

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The author of this book cautions the reader that the story presented here is eye-opening, mildly disturbing, heroic, funny, and tragic. Whether the reader chooses to continue is solely at their discretion. Furthermore, this author is not the native writer of the original 100-year-old narrative and will say nothing further about the original leather-bound book, its current location, or how it fell into his hands to produce this story.

All personal and legal requirements of the original authors have been adhered to in every case.

Sincerely,

George E. Kellogg

PROLOGUE

“Mother, what was it like, in the old days?” asked little Margie.

Emily stopped what she was doing and closed her eyes for a second. She knew this day would come. She wiped her hands on her apron and looked down at her lovely daughter, Margaret, or “Little Margie”, who was named after an old family friend. She was eleven years old, already. Where had the time gone? The little girl was in her apron, cutting sugar cookies from the neatly rolled-out dough and placing them on the baking sheet. The year was nineteen thirty-two, in the third week of December. The world was being rocked in the throes of what would be later called “The Great Depression”. Nobody understood how bad things were actually going to get. The human toll was to become so great, with so much suffering.

This was such a sharp contrast to the Roaring Twenties! For her, her husband Jimmy, and their other friends, nineteen twenty was a very busy and interesting year. They were, at that time, not much older than Margie is now. Much happened in ‘the old days’, as they referred to the most defining events of their youth. It might now be time for Margie to learn about those events. This was not going to be easy, recounting those times.

Emily and Jimmy had agreed long ago to keep ‘The Struggle’, as they now called it, a secret. They and their friends made a solemn agreement. They vowed that their children would not know about The Struggle until they were old enough. They believed that their children would start to ask questions all on their own when they were ready to learn the stories. Margaret, Jimmy, and Emily were the stars of that drama.

This trio kept The Struggle a secret from everyone outside of their group. They all agreed that events throughout The Struggle would be revealed to their children, but to no one else. At the right time and in the right place, their children would learn of it, they said. Emily would now find out how much her Margie wanted to know. It would be entirely up to her.

“Well,” said Emily, “it is still early. Your father is putting in a long day at the school’s soup kitchen, feeding the less fortunate. As you know, every one of them has their story to tell, and your father collects their stories. Then, we write them down for future generations to read so no one will forget such things. The most important story we have written, though, is the one we wrote together. It is about this school, how it fell to ruin, and, after a long and terrible period, we turned it into what we have today. Let’s put these cookies aside for now. We are ahead of schedule, anyway.”

Margie took off her apron, folded it neatly, and put it in the cupboard. Her mother did the same. They adjourned to the living room of their spacious home. Emily had Margie sit on the couch. This story would take a while. Emily retrieved from the closet a handwritten book, held together in a hand-tooled leather cover. It was an autobiographical account of five close friends, first written from each one’s unique perspective, then those were combined into this single, accepted version.

All of them agreed that the story as written in this book was the most accurate version. This was the one to be copied for each of them to keep in their homes. This book is one of only five copies that exist in the entire world. Each of the five friends would keep a copy in their separate homes to reveal the story of The Struggle to their children. Those secrets, of course, would also have to be revealed to spouses, as applicable, but under the same vow. Even then, it was not to be revealed until the spouse was ready to hear it.

Little Margie knew a lot about her parents’ careers, naturally. She knew that her mother was the principal of the school. Emily held a master’s degree in education and worked to develop teaching methods for other school systems, modeled after the work they did at their own school. Margie’s father was known by the name “Doctor Jim” at work, but preferred to be called “Jimmy”.

Jimmy held a doctorate in engineering and was the chairman of all the vocational departments. Margie knew that her parents were very kind to everyone and she was quite happy at home. She knew that her parents had met at this school. She knew that their wonderful home was on the school’s property. They spoke often and fondly of a ‘Mr. Mentor’ and the wonderful things he taught them.

They told Margie how Mr. and Mrs. Mentor left them their home and put them in charge of the school in their Testament. She knew all this, but the little girl never knew why. Today, though, Little Margie could... perhaps... finally hear the whole story. The young lady sat properly upright across from her mother, but she could not take her eyes off the book in her mother’s lap. The cover was plain, with some modest designs, and there was no title on the book. It, for some reason, drew her gaze. Emily noticed this and was now completely confident that her daughter was ready to begin learning. They would have a family discussion about it after Jimmy came home; this could not wait.

Through misty eyes, Emily looked at her daughter. How could she state all of this as the literal truth, completely factual without omission or embellishment, when she could hardly believe it? Emily had lived one of the most amazing lives, had one of the most fantastic stories ever, and had to keep it a secret as she, Jimmy, Margaret, Cassius, and Darla agreed to do. Most of the people present during The Struggle did not remember much about it, but these five did.

There were two others with the correct memories who chose to this day not to be identified. For their privacy, the sixth and seventh parties are not named here. These seven were permitted to keep their memories. The rest of those who were involved that day simply chalked it all up to some odd dream that had embellished upon ordinary events.

Today, though, was the day that Emily’s daughter got to know of the story, as originally written. Rather than read it to Margie, Emily took the book off of her lap and placed it in Margie’s hands. The daughter looked quizzically at her mother, who motioned for her to open it. Margie picked up the book, turned to the first page, and began to read aloud:

From the Desk of

Simon J. Dozeman, Esq.

Juris Doctor, Attorney at Law:

Hello.

We the undersigned have agreed to present certain facts in this book that many will not find believable. We do not expect the world to believe these things to be true, because certainly, had we not lived these things, we would have never believed it ourselves. Our first names, in no particular order, are Cassius, Margaret, Jimmy, Emily, and Darla.

We have signed this document in the office of our attorney, and it has been notarized by an independent notary public. Mr. Simon J. Dozeman, Esq., for his own reasons, has declined the signing of this document and its attestation, but has simultaneously authorized the use of his name and pseudonym in the text of this document and the text of the following book, precisely as they appear.

We hereby present this story and in great solemnity, attest its truthfulness in all details that we, the undersigned, have agreed upon. Whether or not this story is ever uncovered by an outsider and is subsequently presented to the world in its entirety does not matter to us.

We have carefully considered this possibility as a group and have decided that, under this signed and legally binding document, the finder of this story has full rights to its publication, sale, and distribution of this document and book, but only if the story is printed precisely as written, without addition or omission.

We, the undersigned, hereby leave the matter of discovery and publication in the hands of Divine Providence. Whether or not the publisher of this story calls it truth or fiction is entirely up to his or her own best judgment.

Our message to the world is that we did indeed live through these events as they have been written, and allow the world to believe what they will.

Sincerely,

(Signatures appear here)

pl.

PS: We request, therefore, of the reader, that you simply read. If you cannot believe what you read, then just enjoy our story for the ages! And so, we begin...

Margie stopped reading the chapter one heading and looked at her mother. She had a confounded look on her face.

Emily understood completely. She said, “Now Margie, what you do is completely up to you. You may either continue to read, or you may return the book to me and I will put it away for another day.”

Little Margie thought it over. She closed the book and looked at the cover. She shook her head. Margie somehow felt it was not her time, that she was getting, well, scared. She was overwhelmed at the prospect of reading this story, this incredible book seemed to almost vibrate in her hands with intensity. No, it was not right for her to read this, not yet. But the little girl somehow knew that one day she would read this story, that it was very important for her to do so. She looked up at her mother, unsure of what to say. She was practically stunned.

Emily understood entirely. Someday, yes, but not today. She immediately and lovingly collected the book from her daughter and put it away. Margie will one day read the book, certainly, and she would know her parents so much the better for it. For today, she had started to learn, and Emily would report this to Jimmy. Nothing else was to be done for the time being. Little Margaret’s learning had begun!

For the moment, then, reader, we will leave Emily and her family to attend to the poor, the sick, and the needy. Margaret made the best decision she could for herself. As for the more daring, you may choose to continue.

CHAPTER1

MEETING MISS WHIPSHOT

“Class! Come to attention!” the teacher bellowed, although this was completely unnecessary.

The class maintained quiet as always, none daring to peep or even to hardly breathe. The students were sitting at their desks, feet flat on the floor, backs straight, hands clasped together in front of them. Boys and girls, all in the approximate range of 11-16 years old, were stoic and silent. All of the students were poorly dressed; on some of them their clothes did not match and most were not sized properly.

There were no holes in the clothing since holes were not permitted by the school’s dress code. In place of holes was evidence of stitching and makeshift patches, all sewn with less-experienced hands. Many of the students sat stiffly, their eyes slightly widened with fear. A lip or two trembled. This is how things were when Miss Whipshot was in one of her moods, and that was almost all the time.

Whipshot was a grotesquely obese woman who always wore flowered dresses because the pattern was so “slimming,” according to her, anyway. She had short, dark hair that wanted to go gray, but it probably did not dare. It was suggested in very quiet and remote corners that she was somehow coloring those messy, oily locks... with shoe polish, maybe? She wore too much eye makeup and her lipstick was very, very red. She even tried fake eyelashes once, but it did not work out, one of them falling off during class, inconveniently sticking to her chin. She had thick, cat’s-eye-rimmed glasses that she seldom wore on her face. They usually lived around her neck, dangling from a tangled chain, looking broken and sad.

Even many of the faculty and staff of the Happy Valley Vocational School (HVVS) were afraid of Miss Whipshot. Most of the faculty wisely avoided her, the best and easiest thing to do. It was also the most preferable thing on a personal hygiene level. Her only acquaintances, and not even really friends, seemed to be a few of the support staff members. They were Miss Ladlepot, the cafeteria lady, Mr. Castlethorn, the creepy school janitor, and Goliath, the cafeteria lady’s overgrown sidekick and resident butcher. Most of the faculty and staff were afraid of old Castlethorn. But not Miss Whipshot, no, she was not scared of anybody!

Once the teacher assured herself that order was achieved this morning, as it always was with the students (read victims) scared out of their wits, she began to make her daily announcements. She had this odd habit of moving her chair out from behind her desk and placing it squarely front and center on the chalkboard, exactly center. Her daily placement of the chair in the same spot over the years left marks on the legs of the chair etched into the floor. Once it was properly placed, she sat down on it. This was not much of a chair for a woman her size. It seemed to groan in protest under her weight.

She shot a glance at the empty chair of Tommy-Whipshot, the latest target of her ire. She nodded approvingly to herself when she noted that his chair was neatly pushed into the desk and that Tommy was in the ‘punishment room’. This room was a former supply closet, with the shelves removed. Tommy was being punished for giggling at her once during class. That was over a month ago.

Tommy was still forced to spend his class time in the closet until Whipshot said otherwise. Not that he minded so much. Other than being a little warm and humid from his breath, it smelled better than she did. To Tommy, the darkness of the closet was preferable to the darkness of her countenance. It was a little quieter, too, with the door muffling out some of the shouts.

Students wondered quietly among themselves on their rare occasions outdoors, away from staff’s ears, whether or not that old chair would one day collapse under her weight. For now, Miss Whipshot addressed the class from her centered chair. She was raising her voice to tell them yet again how stupid they were at their age, how youth is wasted on the young, and how lucky they were to be in that school. She told the class that they were fortunate to have great, civilized minds, like her own, working to turn them, lumps of garbage that they were, into beings fit to live with civilized humanity. Students used to cry at her words, much to her delight, but many of them now learned to tune her out. Others were simply numb, or sadly accepted her beratements as the truth. Such is the nature of repetition; the more one hears a phrase or idea, positive or negative, the more likely one is to begin accepting it as a fact.

But this was not true for Emily. She would not accept negatives. She knew better!

Emily was a lean girl, tall for her age and pretty, but sturdy. She wore her honey-brown hair held in place with a simple celluloid band over the top of her head; her hair was not parted and she did not wear bangs. Standing five feet plus a few inches tall, she preferred dressing in a blouse, skirt, and sweater whenever they were available, appropriate of course, to the weather. She preferred low-cut shoes and knee-long socks. Her large green eyes were not hidden by glasses, ever. She had perfect vision and did not require them.

Emily Victoria Keller, known by school administration simply as “Emily-Whipshot” was one of the older and most emotionally mature students in the school. She was also one of the few students who knew her actual last name. Assigning hyphenated names and never allowing students to use their surname of birth was one of the tools the school used to control the students. Since all of the children were either orphaned or otherwise abandoned to the school at a very young age, many did not know their last names.

Even if the student knew his or her surname, which did appear on official school records and legal documents, they were still recognized in class and during all school activities under the school’s renaming system. The system was a complete secret. It was never spoken of outside of the school and was kept secret when dealing with the authorities and education officials.

The system of renaming students was kept simple. The school would simply add the last name of the student’s teacher to the student’s own given first name. The new name was the student’s identity for the entire time they lived there. For instance, Tommy-Whipshot knew his actual name was Thomas Littleton. He was known at the student dormitory by his peers as “Little Tom.” Little Tom was shorter than his classmates, pale but clear of complexion, and had crooked teeth in the front. He liked to sport a dark sweater vest over a light-colored shirt. He wore dark trousers and dress shoes. He was a bright boy, but his gray eyes were constantly worried. Which certainly fit his disposition. Eyes, they say are the window to the soul. Sometimes, though, the discerning eye would detect unusual courage in Little Tom.

Emily came to the school after her parents were killed in an automobile accident, something common to this era when she was four or five. She knew that she had lived at the school for about ten or so years. That meant she must have been about fifteen, give or take, years old. Unbeknownst to Emily, she was one of the first students to have been introduced to the new system of doing things. She was brought to the school by unknown officers of the court and dropped off. She barely remembered the day, but she did remember being greeted by a kind, blonde woman: the school’s principal. Emily remembered how Miss Coffenayle turned immediately vicious the very second the authorities were off the school grounds.

That was how Principal Coffenayle ran things.

“Everyone,” said Miss Whipshot, “we are going practice our writing skills. Take out your pencils and paper.”

The class members lifted the top of their respective desks and pulled out their pencils and paper. The teacher began writing on the board. When finished, she had three sentences, in cursive, on the board. She ordered the students to write them. She faced the classroom as they were writing, and she wondered at some of the odd expressions of surprise and perplexity on the students’ faces. They were used to seeing degrading things on the board, so why should they be surprised or perplexed? When she got enough of the students making their odd faces, she asked a student to read what he wrote.

“Miss Whipshot, I am afraid to read it,” the student said nervously.

“You little cur, how dare you defy me! Read it!”

The nervous student swallowed hard. He read, “Miss Whipshot is a leprous toad of poor breeding.”

“What?!” the teacher screamed. “How dare you!” She reared back with her hand like she was about to hit him.

“But... please, Miss Whipshot... look at the board,” protested the student.

She looked back at the board and it indeed read:

‘Miss Whipshot is a leprous toad of poor breeding.’

She could not believe her eyes! Even she could not strike a student for obeying her. She thudded her rotund, floral-wrapped frame to the front of the classroom.

“All right... Margaret... since you like that comfortably padded chair, and nobody likes you anyway since you’re the class snitch and my favorite student... Tell me, who changed the sentence on the board?”

“Miss Whipshot... I did not see anyone change the sentence on the board,” said a confused Margaret.

The teacher narrowed her eyes and replied, “I distinctly remember the first sentence on the board read: ‘(Your Name) is a leprous toad of poor breeding’. As every one of you little fools should remember, you are supposed to fill in your own name. Only now, some joker has changed that sentence and added my honorable name... Bah! Never mind that one... Let’s use the next...”

The teacher was about to read aloud but stopped short. The sentence she wrote on the board herself now read:

‘Miss Whipshot deserves all punishments that the students may inflict upon her.’

And the third sentence read that,

‘Miss Whipshot is a dog that has not been whipped enough, and certainly deserves more beatings’.

This was not possible! Margaret would have told her if someone had slipped up to the board, past her, and altered those sentences. Such was impossible, at any rate, because Whipshot was standing there the whole time! Besides, how could a student have possibly done all that writing without getting caught? The teacher then noticed the time and, regrettably, she had to excuse the students for lunch.

“All right, you bunch of uncultured, savage hyenas! Go engorge yourselves in your pig troughs!”

The class filed out for lunch. Whipshot had her food on her desk, so she sat on her chair and mulled over the possibilities of what could have happened. She could not think of anything, so she went to erase and wash the slate chalkboard. She thought and thought over what could have possibly happened.

After the board was clean, she dug into her food drawer full of pastries, cakes, chocolates, and such. She wolfed down the junk food and considered how her writing could have possibly changed. The students soon came back into the classroom, never caring to eat much, and a couple of them were holding their stomachs. Everything, then, was perfectly normal. Some adverse gastric symptoms were always expected. Excellent! Maybe now, thought the teacher, they could get back to some teaching and learning! Or maybe some degrading, mind-bending torture. Either one.

She had the class stand by their desks. They were not to sit just yet. She had something to say. She thundered back and forth on the floor, a normal person would have been “pacing”, but she was just too heavy for that. She had her arms out to her sides, leaving them hanging after a couple of attempts at wrapping her arms behind her back failed. She thought as she paced for a couple of moments then said, “All right, class, something has happened here that I do not fully understand. I know that none of you could have possibly changed that writing. But I also know that someone had to. Margaret says she saw nothing. I believe her... for now. So, everyone sit down and I will put fresh sentences on the board.”

She turned back to the freshly cleaned board and... What? The board was no longer blank. There was a sketch of an obese pig with a caricature of Whipshot’s face on it. The pig was blowing air from under its tail with the sound effect of phoooooooozzzzz! The students froze. They had gone to and returned from lunch as a student body. No one was left behind. They were all together. That was school policy. None of them was able to break free and approach the chalkboard. Whipshot was between them and the board the whole time. She even made sure of that. It could not have been any student; every person in that classroom was dumbfounded.

Whipshot stood there, herself also dumbfounded... and speechless! She could not believe her eyes! She had just cleaned that very board herself! Not only was she alone in the room for the entire time the students were slopped at their troughs, but the picture could not have possibly been drawn within the timeframe between now and her washing the board. The slate was still damp from the cleaning.

The students just stared, eyes wide and disbelieving. The room was aghast. How did this happen? None of them noticed the cartoon between the time it took to come into the room and then reach their seats. That picture must have been drawn, then, by an invisible hand in under a minute! The detail was far too great for someone to just quickly slap it up there. The picture was of an artist’s quality and no one in the room had such a talent. Not only that but the picture was done in the color pink... and there was no pink chalk in the whole classroom!

Miss Whipshot faced the class. She knew it was impossible to blame them, but someone had to do this and the kids were the only other people in the room. She did not draw it. There were no staff or faculty around, so it had to be a clever trick by the students. Probably several of them. She began to pace back and forth again.

She pointed at them and screamed, “So help me if any of you dare to do anything like that again, and I catch you I will... Aaaaack!”

The teacher suddenly stopped pacing. Something had fallen upon her from directly overhead. It was wet and sticky, pasty and disgusting. It was cake! A wet cake! Everyone was looking at each other, wondering not only who threw the cake, but where did they get it? Who would dare waste cake like that? Whoever stole it should have saved it for the whole dorm to have a secret bite after they retired for the evening. Certainly, the students would get to the bottom of this!

There was definitely a pillowcase party coming for the offending party. A pillowcase over the head and shoulders, pinning the arms, accompanied by a reasonable, but not dangerously hard group pummeling was the agreed upon punishment to keep order in the dorms. This went for both the boy’s and girl’s dorms. That was a student secret, one of the very few, and it was ignored by the faculty and the staff’s overnight security team. The more the students policed each other, the better. Just so no one was seriously injured; no one ever was.

Whipshot froze in place, mortified. It was not a piece of cake or a cupcake, it was an entire cake! It had landed on her head and ran down her face. It tasted like the one she kept in her drawer. She looked up to see where it came from, and there was some residue on one of the overhead light shades. The class simply froze. They could not believe what they were seeing and they dared not laugh, no matter how badly they wanted to enjoy the moment. The teacher grabbed cake out of her hair and gobbled the handfuls of the sweet mush that she could reasonably salvage. She brushed the rest from her person the best she could.

She walked over to her desk, leaving a trail of sticky frosting, cake fragments, and drops of milk. She was already humiliated, so there was no hiding this mess from the kids. She wanted to check her special cake drawer and when she opened it... her cake was gone! And her bottle of milk was empty and lying on its side! So how did the cake and milk get from the drawer to the lampshade, and just happen to fall on her with such perfect timing?

This was truly a puzzle. The cake was there this morning; she had some for breakfast, while they ate at the cafeteria. She had her eyes on the brats for the whole time, during their coming and going. Later, they went to lunch and came back. They were all accounted for. None of them of them had lingered or distracted her. She never left the room. This could not be happening, and yet it was. It was truly happening. What was she to do now? Without a word, she grabbed a cloth from the chalk tray and wiped herself off. She did not take her eyes off of the class the whole time she did it. Then she got a wonderfully sadistic idea. Still dripping, she addressed the class.

“All right, you loathsome bilge rats! Obviously... something just happened. Now... I am going to get to the bottom of which one of you little cockroaches did this to me! How dare you humiliate an educator, a teacher, one who has sacrificed so much for all of you! Well, someone has to know something! So, since at least one of you is so very fond of games, we will play one right now! The game we will play is “When Do We Get to Sit?” The rules are simple. I get to sit immediately. You get to sit only after I get a confession! You stand there at formal attention until someone finally talks.”

She sat her round form on her chair. It was so small, but always managed to hold her weight. She sat in complete silence. Everyone was at attention and it was exhausting. After about half an hour, Whipshot got bored and decided to berate the class. Their knees were beginning to shake and she was delighted. So she started haranguing them, hoping that someone’s spirit would finally break. It was terrible because no one in the class knew anything. To confess, just to end the torture, would require an explanation of how they did it... and they had none!

For some reason, Emily’s eyes were drawn to Whipshot’s precarious perch. She noticed something strange. She thought she saw a nut loosening itself from the bottom of the chair. She blinked and looked again, not daring to rub her eyes or even move her head too much, lest Whipshot pounce upon her and pound on her with that screeching sledgehammer voice of hers. Or she may even use that terrible, terrible steel ruler that was rumored to have chopped off a student’s fingers once. Emily may have doubted that story, but she understood why such a rumor could get started. That ruler was dangerous!

Emily glanced at the chair again, and this time, knew it was not her imagination. Another nut silently backed off its bolt, then slowly and softly landed on the floor, as if to avoid making the slightest sound. One could have heard a pin drop in that classroom... Though this disassembling of the chair was indeed happening before her very eyes, Emily could scarcely believe what she was seeing!

One by one, the liberated bolts were now being removed from the chair. Emily was so firmly conditioned by Miss Whipshot’s calls to attention that she would not break discipline; not even for something as critical as this. Besides, Whipshot would not believe her and probably would punish her for making up lies and for breaking the chair! How could she then explain what she saw? She couldn’t. Rather than open that can of deadly centipedes, she remained silently awed and at perfect attention.

Whipshot was yelling at the brats, reminding them, yet again, how lucky they were to have an education from herself and Miss Coffenayle, their principal elite. They two were the finest educators that the state had to offer in any of the schools. Were it not for them, all of the worthless toads in this class would be on the street or in jail.

Frankly, Emily thought she would rather take her chances on the street. Such thinking, though, would break her mother’s heart, if she were alive. If only Emily had some way of telling some authority the truth about how this school was operating… Surely, her parents would know what to do and how to make things right. Alas, she could not, because her parents were gone now, instantly killed in that horrible car crash. Having no other known family, she was sent here by the state, to live.

Once a student was enrolled in Happy Valley Vocational School, they were lost to the world. No one missed the students, because they would only be taken if they had no other family. Once under their roof, they were now part of the system, which was exceptionally cruel, but no one could report it. The school made certain that every student was cut off from communicating with anyone outside of the school. This place was their world. This was now their life. Authorities who might visit were either corrupt and bribed into making good reports, or they were blocked by endless continuances filed by the school’s general counsel. If the general counsel was unable to block the authorities then the last resort was a judge, one who always ruled in the school’s favor, even in questionable cases. Some of the rulings were very strange, indeed.

Emily and her classmates lived in the 1920s. Most of the kids had barely heard of the radio and the few existing telephones in the school were under lock and key in strongboxes in the administration office. Mailboxes were also under lock and key; the outgoing mail was monitored. Not that the children had anyone to write to, anyway. There truly was no way for the kids to communicate with anyone on the outside.

The truth about the Happy Valley Vocational School was simply just not known to the world. This was because everything that got presented in court was labeled by the judge as ‘conjecture and hearsay’. The authorities who believed something bad was happening could not use investigators or monitors to gather evidence. The court would block their efforts each time, stating they had no justifiable cause to start an investigation. Whatever the case, it seemed that there was already a prejudicial attitude in Judge Parschall’s mind. It seemed that the Happy Valley Vocational School was never going to be investigated.

At the front of the classroom, Miss Whipshot turned herself around and adjusted her skirt as she tried to sit. It was quite a chore for her to move around the room on those elephantine legs and keep her dress in order. Emily almost felt sorry for her. Those thoughts, though, were changed quickly as she thought of how dangerous Whipshot would be as a slim, trim, and athletic woman. Emily’s mom was such a woman in the photograph she had of her parents, of that canoe trip. The one where they died on the way home.

Whipshot’s chair seemed as normal as ever; it did not seem to be falling apart. Emily’s eyes were still riveted on those bolts and nuts that now lay scattered under the chair. They had been carefully and silently removed one by one. Had Miss Whipshot noticed them? Emily doubted it but did not dare peep a word of warning. When Whipshot finally lowered herself onto the chair, it began to groan again. Only this time, the chair did not merely protest. It rebelled entirely, as though it finally decided that enough was enough: The chair collapsed, and not just any ordinary collapse, either. It seemed to nearly explode under Miss Whipshot’s weight. Her huge, fat feet shot up in the air, and her fully extended elephantine legs showed the whole room what was under her skirt. Emily could not believe that they made underwear that large, much less in a bloomer style! The entire room roared with the hysterical laughter that only the young can muster up. The students all knew they would pay for it when she struggled to her feet but did not care. The comedy of the scene made it quite worth whatever Whipshot could do to them.

Little Tom opened the door just a crack and began laughing into his shirtsleeve. Emily noticed and was not going to draw attention to him. The poor boy had already suffered enough. He seemed to be the teacher’s favorite target, for some reason. Maybe it was the fact that he came from a poor family whose father died in a Speakeasy, and whose mother then worked herself to death trying to support her poor little Tommy. Emily personally felt sorry for him but could not, in the interest of self-preservation, show him any of that pity where Whipshot could see. Sometimes Emily thought she would like to whip and shoot Whipshot, but she was immediately ashamed of such thoughts. She would not become a cruel person, not ever.

Then out of the corner of her eye, Emily noticed that a piece of round chair leg seemed to float in the air. It was just for an instant, just long enough to catch her attention. As soon as she turned her head enough to see the leg, it clattered to the floor. She tried to tell herself that it was her imagination, but somehow deep inside she knew that she was not imagining things.

Ever have that happen to you? Something suddenly flits by the corner of your eye, just out of sight, and when you turn to see it is nothing. Yet, you are certain that something was actually there. Then, try as you might to believe you imagined it, you could not. Well, that was how Emily felt right now. She knew that she saw that chair leg hover, just for an instant, and then fall... as though it noticed that Emily was about to see it. But a chair leg can’t think, see, or move... can it?

This event was just the beginning of an incredible adventure.

CHAPTER2

THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURE BEGINS

Whipshot struggled on the floor, her skirt pulled all the way up and her bloomer intimate apparel looking perfectly ridiculous. She rocked back and forth like a beached whale, hollering unintelligible phrases in some strange, sputtering foreign tongue. This was the idiom people used when they were so shocked and speechless that they couldn’t find the words to say. She was trying to say everything at once! The laughter continued as the bloated teacher rocked further and further to one side then the other. She finally managed to roll to the left enough to get on her knees and straighten her skirt somewhat. She crawled on all fours, in a circle, to face the students. She continued fixing her skirt, gasped and wheezed like a pneumonic hippo, and finally caught her breath. Then she found that blazing boom cannon she used for a voice.

“Silence! All of you! Or you will suffer!” Her words echoed off the walls.

The room fell dead silent. The teacher’s indignant position did nothing to humble her, it seemed. She was not embarrassed in the least. Oh, no. She was far too angry and prideful for that. She managed to drag her bread dough form into a sitting upright position, to catch her breath. Then by some miracle of angry determination, she came again to a kneeling position, her sun-starved calves shining pale and white in the overhead lights of the classroom. She stopped for a moment, her head bowed, again wheezing and gasping for breath.

It seemed for a moment like she was praying, but she would pray only for the strength to beat some hapless student. All the kids in the class held their breath while she found hers. The class had their fun already and Emily wondered if they would live long enough to regret it. Whipshot was capable of punishing them five times over for the fun they had at her expense. She could be quite inventive, too.

Little Tom still had the door open just a tiny crack, but enough to be noticed by Miss Whipshot. Suddenly, the teacher’s fury had found a new target. She was no longer interested in the whole room’s laughter. She was on her feet in a flash, her strength coming from pure rage. She was going after the boy in the closet! She deftly plucked that strange, metal ruler of hers from her desk with a lightning-fast motion of her hand. She quickly thudded and thumped her way to the closet. The room shook with every step.

Something drew Emily’s attention again to the chair leg, which was surprising. Here, she thought the boy in the closet was about to die, but she was looking at the chair leg. It was normal for students to simply keep their eyes on the front while someone was being screamed at and threatened. But this time, the whole room was afraid for Little Tom as they watched the teacher dart for the closet. They knew that somehow, this situation was different and that they needed to keep their eyes on their teacher.

The only exception was Margaret, the teacher’s pet, who kept her eyes forward, smiling. Red-haired, freckle-faced Margaret wore spectacles with her hair in neat braids. She was always wearing nicer clothes than her classmates. She stood about average height for her age and had a couple of pounds more than her classmates, but she was not fat. She was well-fed on the teacher’s treats. She was a whole different kind of person in Whipshot’s demented world. Margaret was a snitch!

The little redhead would tell everything that she heard in the classroom, in the dormitory, and even in the hallway. She watched and waited for someone to say the wrong thing and turned them in. She was not concerned about the boy in the closet. She was, after all, the one who ratted on him. She signaled Whipshot with a flip of the finger. Her fellow students never noticed. She was hoping for a cupcake.

Emily remembered reading about people being treated this way under dictators who used spies and snitches. Right now, though, her attention was not currently on history or the boy in the closet. It was on that chair leg. She thought she saw it roll… it definitely rolled… right into the path of the teacher. It stopped perfectly in her path, just like it had eyes. Emily was not only terrified at what Whipshot was doing, she was shocked at the chair coming part doubly shocked at that chair leg moving across the floor! How could that be?

Whipshot the Terrible was plodding to the closet in full fury, pudgy face reddened, cheeks puffing and billowing like a slobbering hog’s jowls, moving faster than seemed possible with her weight. She struck a boy’s desk on her way to the closet with that thick steel ruler of hers. The ruler knocked a corner off the desk, a chunk of wood zinging to the floor and ricocheting to the wall with a loud bang, bits of wood fiber splattering the students in the vicinity. None dared move or even twitch a hand, not even to brush splinters off their faces. They were frozen in horror, all eyes on the teacher and that wondrous, terrible ruler. Only Emily’s eyes would occasionally stray to that chair leg.

Just as Whipshot raised her ruler and began reaching for the closet door, her meaty, round foot, covered in those awful-looking shoes, landed squarely on top of the chair leg and zoo-oom! Miss Whipshot went feet-first up into the air. She seemed to freeze in mid-air, then come crashing down, her feet and bloomers once more exposed, pointing to the sky! What a sight! The skirt nearly covered her head.

Her legs landed on the wooden floor first with a heavy, dull, splattering twin thud sound and there was a crackling crash that would not soon be forgotten. Then she laid still and unconscious, dust billowing around her, mouth gaping open, snoring sounds issuing forth. Her fetid breath brought tears to the eyes of the students nearest her. Whipshot’s eyes were closed and her black horn-rimmed cat’s eyeglasses lay askew across her chest. She now lay inside the floor, her upper half ridiculously sprawled with her arms to the side, bridging the gaping hole in the floor. Little Tom opened the closet door and looked around. Emily called to him softly, saying it was safe to come out. Everyone was frozen in disbelief. A thick, stunned silence hung over the classroom.

A few students rose from their chairs and surrounded, in wide-eyed wonder, the unconscious form of their teacher. Only Margaret cried out in terror. The rest were just plain stunned. Most of the class had never seen anyone knocked out before, especially not like this. Only the upper half of the teacher’s body was visible; the rest of her had smashed through the floor. She was stuck, stubby arms out to her sides, her flowered skirt spread out all around her. Floorboards, sharply spiked, pointed upward, surrounding her. It was like she was now in some kind of a wood picket prison.

The class hardly knew what to do. Some were even crying; others stared in shock, some muttered quietly among themselves, wondering if she was dead. Tommy from the closet crept carefully toward the bloated, whale-like form, now helpless and jammed in place. She could not hurt him, now! He knelt down and picked up the teacher’s ruler, an excessively bold move. He held it, looked at it, and looked at the teacher, his head turning back and forth as though he were wondering what to do next. Suddenly, Little Tom bolted out the door. He was gone for a moment and came back winded, without the ruler. A fellow student, Jimmy, asked what he had done.