The Amerusa School – Chapter Five

The Amerusa School science teachers were having milk and cookies in the teachers’ lounge. There was Steve Hawkster –  he had a very funny voice and had to get around in a special chair. Then there was an odd looking man in a bow tie named Billy Nan – every one called him the Science Man. Finally, there was Timmy Burning-Knee – no one knew why he had such an odd name but he was really smart and had discovered a way for people, in all the surrounding villages, to talk to each other using their computers.

Mr. Hawkster, Mr Nan and Mr. Burning-Knee were very concerned. For years, they had taught the children of Amerusa School important things like how all the villages had come to be and why the weather had become so strange and why that was a problem. Now, a lot of people in Amerusa didn’t want them to teach those things anymore.

Some of the other teachers – an old man called Paddy Robberman (he also had a TV show where he talked a lot about the Magic Invisible Guy), Sham Halfnitty and mean old Mr. Baner – didn’t want the children to learn anything about science. They wanted them to hear about how the Magic Invisible Guy had waved his index finger one day and all the people and villages had appeared out of thin air.

Mr. Robberman, Mr. Halfnitty and mean old Mr. Baner had talked to Mush and Shrill O’Liarly about the problem and now they were shouting angrily, about the silly old science classes, on their radio and TV shows. The people in the southern part of Amerusa thought they were nuts but the people in the nice big houses in the northern part of town nodded wisely when they heard Mush and Shrill speak. Then they held their arms up in the air and asked the Magic Invisible Guy to strike Mr. Hawkster, Mr. Nan and Mr. Burning-Knee dead before they corrupted their darling children even more.

Meanwhile, the Amerusa School security guard was talking to some of the oder boys. He explained that the sick, old man with the dirty, smelly beard was planning another raid on Amerusa and they had to stop him before he carried out his evil, horrible plan. It was going to be dangerous – they’d have to sneak into his trailer after dark and capture him. There might be big boys guarding the old man and the he might have some booby traps planted around the trailer. Nevertheless, it had to be done to protect the town and the school. All the boys said they were ready to go and, even though it would be dangerous, they knew they could stop the sick old man with the dirty, smelly beard from sending his boys to Amerusa in pick up trucks loaded with rocks.

The security guard and the oder boys made their preparations. They took off their clothes – most of them wore white clothes and that would be easy to see in the dark – and replaced them with black clothes. They were each given flashlights so they could see in the dark. Finally, they collected some sharp rocks and put them in their backpacks – they might need them if they ran into the big boys from the other village.

When they were ready, the new head teacher came to see them. He thanked them for being willing to do this dangerous job and told them how important it was to stop the sick, old man with the dirty, smelly beard before he caused more trouble. He said he would see them when they returned.

While they waited to head off to the old man’s village, a few of the boys called their moms and dads and told them how much they loved them. A few of the boys held their arms up in the air and asked the Magic Invisible  Guy to keep them safe.

Then it was time to go.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Amerusa School – Chapter Four

One day, at Amerusa School, a little girl named Violet fell down and scraped her knee. It hurt lots and blood was pouring out. Violet called out to her teacher “Help me Mr. Baner, I’ve fallen and hurt my knee. Can you fix it?”

Mr. Baner was a mean old man – he didn’t like the kids very much, especially kids like Violet who came from the Southern part of town. He asked Violet “Will your Mommy and Daddy’s bosses give the doctor money to fix your knee?” Violet was sad. She replied “My Mommy can’t find a job and my Daddy’s boss won’t give us money for doctors. Can you help me?” She started to cry.

Mr. Baner made a snorting noise and said “Well, if your Mommy and Daddy’s bosses won’t give the doctor money to fix your knee, they’ll have to give him money themselves.” Violet cried even more. “My Mommy and Daddy don’t have much money. Sometimes we don’t have enough for food and my little brother needs lots of medicine for his Asthma and we have to take care of our cousins because their Mommy and Daddy died. Can you help me?”She was still bleeding and her crying had turned to sobbing.

Mean old Mr.Baner said, as he walked away, “Your parents should have thought of all those things before they had you and  your brother. Tell them to talk to the Magic Invisible Guy – he’ll wave his index finger and your knee will be as good as new.” Then he was gone leaving Violet bleeding and sobbing in the school yard.

The new head teacher saw what was happening from his office window. He was sad and said to another teacher “Why are the mean old teachers, like Mr. Baner, making it so hard for me to bring a doctor to school who will fix scraped knees and bad tummies for free? Why do they think that will be a bad thing. Kanuckton School has a free doctor and the students and teachers there say it’s really good. But Mr. Baner and his friends say we don’t want to have bad doctors like they have in Kanuckton. What can we do to change Mr. Baner’s mind?”

Just then, the Amerusa School security guard knocked on the new head teacher’s door. He told the new head teacher that he had heard that the sick, old man with the dirty, smelly beard was planning another raid. One of the security guard’s friends had gone to the neighbouring village, where the sick, old man with the dirty, smelly beard lived in his trailer at the edge of town, and pretended to be friends with some of the boys from the village. They told him about the stolen pick up trucks and the piles of rocks and the plan to drive through Amerusa throwing the rocks through shop windows and ripping up the flowers from the town square and, maybe, running over more people trying to cross the street. This was terrible!

The new head teacher called a secret meeting with some of the teachers and the boss of the Parent Teacher Association and the boss of the town and the security guard. They talked about how they could stop this terrible thing from happening. After they talked and talked and talked, they decided that they would have to sneak into the neighbouring village, when it was dark, and catch the sick, old man with the dirty, smelly beard before he could put his evil plan into action.

Meanwhile, Violet limped home with her bleeding scraped knee and, when she got there, her Mommy did her best to stop the bleeding and make Violet feel better. She did her best but Violet still walked with a limp and couldn’t understand why Mr. Baner didn’t want to help her.

While Violet was sobbing herself to sleep, mean Mr. Baner was in his big house in the Northern part of town, with his beautiful family, eating a yummy meal and watching Shrill O’Liarly shout from their enormous television (the television covered almost the whole wall in their living room). Mr. Baner turned to Mrs. Baner and said “The Magic Invisible Guy has truly blessed us. We have a wonderful life. I have to make sure that the horrible new head teacher with the black clothes doesn’t spoil things.” She nodded wisely. And Shrill continued to shout.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Amerusa School – Chapter Three

While the new head teacher was thinking about the old, sick man with the dirty, smelly beard, something new was happening in Amerusa – and the people from the northern part of town weren’t happy about it.

All over town, people with brown clothes were appearing. There hadn’t been people in brown clothes in Amerusa before – they all lived in a faraway town called Mecksyville. What were they doing here? How did they get here?

The fat, angry man on the radio – Mush – said the people in brown clothes would break into homes at night and murder everyone in their sleep. And worse still, they would steal all the beans and rice from supermarkets to make their strange meals.

Soon, the people in brown clothes, from Mecksyville, wanted their children to attend Amerusa School. Some students and parents thought it was a good idea but other students and parents – mostly the ones from the big houses in the northern part of town that went to the special clubhouse on the weekend and learned about the Magic Invisible Guy – hated the idea.

A special meeting was called by the Parent Teacher Association. All the townspeople met at the school and the new head teacher lead the meeting. Everyone got to say what they thought – half the people wanted to welcome the new people and half the people wanted to throw them into jail until they could be loaded into trucks and driven back to Mecksyville. Half the people thought the kids from the famiies with brown clothes should be allowed to attend Amerusa School, and half thought that all the policemen should stand guard at the front door of the school and make sure none of the Mecksyville kids got in. They wanted to send the people in brown clothes straight back to Mecksyville where they belonged. Mush said it was the new head teacher’s fault and he should be sent back to Kenrica where HE belonged. People were not happy.

The next day, the new head teacher met with some of the other teachers – but not the old ones who had been appointed by the old head teacher –  to talk about the problem. They decided that it would be good to let the kids in brown clothes, who were already in Amerusa, attend the school but other people would have to ask for permission before they left Mecksyville to come to Amerusa. The head teacher wrote everything down, made lots of copies and put them up all over town.

Next day, Mush was especially angry. He shouted even more than usual about how stupid and evil the head teacher was and how he wan’t even from Amerusa and how, if the people in brown clothes from Mecksyville were allowed to stay, the world would probably come to an end.

Another angry, shouting man called Shrill O’Liarly said the same kind of things on his TV show. He said the world was spinning around and he would make it stop.All the people from the northern part of town nodded wisely when they heard Mush and Shrill shout.

Meanwhile, in his trailer, at the edge of a neighbouring town, the old, sick man with the dirty, smelly beard was planning ways to get even with Amerusa. He laughed an evil laugh while he thought evil thoughts and planned evil plans. And he smiled as he looked out the trailer window. There, in his dusty front yard, were 20 pick up trucks that he’d got the boys in his town to steal from other villages. Next to the pick up trucks were piles of large rocks. Soon the buys would be loading the rocks into the backs of the trucks – ready for the next trip to Amerusa. He would make them sorry they’d ever picked fights with Rackville and that other town where Alf’s Grandpa Stan lives. He would make them sorry if it was the last thing he ever did.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Amerusa School – Chapter Two

Next Monday, the new head teacher arrived at Amerusa School to start his new job. Some students and teachers were very happy to see him – they thought he might have some great new ideas and could help them get along better with the people in Racktown and that other town that Alf’s Grandpa Stan lives in. Other students and teachers weren’t so happy. They weren’t too keen about some of his ideas – spending more time in science classes, learning about the surrounding towns and villages and hiring a school doctor so all the kids could get fixed up when they were sick or hurt themselves. Mostly, they just didn’t like his black suit.

Over the next few weeks, the new head teacher told all the other teachers about his ideas. Some of them wanted to help him but most of them had been hired by the old head teacher (the really old ones had been hired by the old head teacher’s dad) and they didn’t want to change anything – except for those stupid science classes, they were just silly. They thought the time would be much better spent explaining to the boys and girls about how the Magic Invisible Guy had waved his index finger in the air one day and – poof – Amerusa had appeared out of thin air. Every right thinking person knew that! And a school doctor? That was the dumbest idea ever – how could a kid get fixed up properly for free?

Soon, a fat, angry man who liked to shout at people from his radio show – I think his name is Mush, or something like that – started saying that he’d seen proof that the new head teacher wasn’t really from Amerusa at all. His mother was, but she had married  a man in black clothes and they gone off to a far away village called Kenrica – where everyone wore black clothes and a lot of people didn’t believe the story about the Magic Invisible Guy. The people of Amerusa spent a lot of time arguing and fighting about whether the fat, angry man was right.

Meanwhile, in one of those towns that kids in Amerusa School had been picking fights with on Friday nights, an old, sick man with a dirty, smelly beard was hatching a plan to get even with the whole town of Amerusa. Years before, he had got some of the kids from all of the neighbouring villages to drive through Amerusa in pick up trucks throwing rocks through shop windows, spray painting nasty words on all the street signs, ripping up all the flowers in the town square and – worst of all – running over some people who were trying to cross the street (they got killed). Story was, he was VERY upset with the head teacher and the head teacher’s dad for encouraging the students to pick fights with Racktown all those years ago – he was so upset that he’d quit his high paying job, left his family in their big house and gone to live in a trailer on the outskirts of his village so he could spend ALL of his time thinking of ways to get even. He’d never got arrested for killing those people because his cousins and uncles were the bosses of his village and all the surrounding towns and villages and they were just as mad at Amerusa as the old, sick man was.

The new head teacher knew about the old, sick man with the dirty, smelly beard. He was worried that he might send more boys back to Amerusa in pick up trucks. He thought to himself “We have to stop that old man before he causes more trouble. But sending our students to pick fights with their students doesn’t sound like a very good idea. What can we do?”. He thought and thought and thought. He asked some of the other teachers what they thought.

The people in Amerusa who didn’t like him started saying he was useless and some even said that he secretly liked the old, sick man and the boys with the pick up trucks. But mostly, they still didn’t like his black clothes. The man called Mush kept shouting from his radio show and everyone was getting upset.

Soon it was clear that all the people who lived in the nice big houses in the northern part of town and went to a special clubhouse every weekend where they told stories about the Magic Invisible Guy and didn’t want the school to waste time on those silly science classes and didn’t think that students could ever get their bad tummies or scraped knees fixed properly by a school doctor who didn’t charge any money, didn’t like the new head teacher. All the people who lived in small houses in the southern part of town and liked the science classes and the new school doctor and didn’t believe so much in the Magic Invisible Guy and thought the students should stop picking fights in Racktown and the other town where Alf’s Grandpa Stan lives, liked the new head teacher.

Before long the two groups of people would cross the street if they saw someone from the other group coming and they called each other names whenever they got a chance. Amerusa wasn’t a very nice place to live any more. Amerusa School wasn’t a very nice place to go to school any more. The new head teacher cried and cried. What could he do to fix things?

TO BE CONTINUED