The Golden Whisper, Page 2

  “Ah” quivered Franzipants. “Um, I think there’s a dog in the, ah, room,” she managed to say sheepishly, feeling like a giant magnifying glass was right over her face. She spoke to the floor in order to get the words out, but as she looked up into the face of Brum, she was faced with two bulging eyes, a hot snort of breath, and a large vein that ran up the side of his head, pulsating to the same rhythm as the ticking of the office clock. She diverted her eyes to the nearest person, who happened to be Dan. His face was dark and dangerous. His jaw was tightly shut, his black eyes firmly on hers in a narrow, threatening squint. She looked back and forth: bulging eyes, narrow eyes, bulging, narrow. “Ah,” she said in resignation.

  “So Miss …..” Brum looked at the secretary for the sub’s name. “Franzipants sir,” answered Miss Marmouth. “So Miss Pranzinfrants, you think you can come into this office, and talk a lot of nonsense to the man who runs the whole school, when he’s straining to keep the entire place from crumbling?” He thrust his arms out at either side, as if he were being pulled in both directions by invisible, wild horses. “Does no one understand,” he said, emphasizing “no one”, “that it’s my head that’s on the chopping block for anything that goes wrong in this school?” He made one hard chop with his right hand, into the palm of his left. “It’s my neck that’s in the noose when the staff mess up,” he flashed a look at Dan who still looked thundery. “And subs, who know nothing about anything, feel free to talk to me about dogs and cats and sheep and goats?” Franzipants didn’t say a word; neither did anyone else. You could have heard a Styrofoam cup drop to the floor. “Well,” breathed Brum, backing towards his room, his wide eyes stuck in place, “it’s war as usual is it?” he hissed, nodding his head at each person, as if one by one they had betrayed him. He stepped into his office, stepped back out and straightened the photo of himself golfing with the Superintendent, stepped back inside, and slammed the door. The photo fell off the wall and landed in the recycling bin. The office was silent again; Franzipants took a breath and headed back to the third graders.

  Chapter Five: Arts and Crafts.

  Back in Miss Primrose’s room, Franzipants helped the students set up the tables with all of the supplies for the arts and crafts. There were boxes of felt, glue, colored paper and sequins on each table, and a huge stash of extra pretty things on the shelves that filled two closets. See-through bags of brightly colored fluffy balls of different sizes, sat next to boxes of smooth pebbles, feathers, tubes of glitter, fruity cereal loops, and plastic scissors that made different zigzag patterns. The kids were in their element, creative, happy, and noisy. They moved around the room freely, getting this and that, some getting on with their projects, while others just messed about. They were a sweet distraction for Franzipants, who had a lot on her mind. She was still recovering from the Principal’s eruption in the office. And Dan? What was he up to? The sub never liked to believe that anyone would lie, but she knew that the secret room was not jammed shut. She had seen him come out of it with her own eyes. She had smelled a dog with her own nose, and had heard multiple noises with her own ears. Franzipants had keen senses, much sharper than the average person’s. Dan must know exactly what was going on, and why merchandise was going missing. But if Dan had something to say, he certainly wouldn’t tell Brum the volcano anything; he was too busy exploding and making people feel terrible. “Someone has been stealing, and Dan is involved,” said Franzipants to herself. The thought of it made her shiver. Why would no one listen and investigate?

  She thought about these things as she moved around the classroom, patting the children on the head, and admiring their work. “Samuel sweetheart, your picture is very nice, but it’s upside down,” she said to Samuel Bunkit whose gluey, sloppy photo of himself with a big grin was peering out of an upside down heart.

  “Oh, ok Miss,” he said cheerfully, reaching over to the colored markers to choose brown. He proceeded to color all over the frame.

  “Samuel, what are you doing?” asked Franzipants.“You said it should be brown,” he said nodding his head like a little know-it-all.

  “Darling, I said it’s upside down, not ‘it should be brown,’” replied the sub. “Oh, ho-ho-ho,” shrugged Samuel. “Oh yeh! It is upside down!” he realized finally. Franzipants moved over to the wind charm table. There were five children working away quietly, chewing cherry licorice. In the middle of the table was a huge pile of multi-colored fluffy balls, which, one by one, they were poking with a knitting needle to make a hole in the middle, and then threading onto the wind chimes. Franzipants looked around the table wondering what kind of wind chimes these could possibly be. “ Are your wind chimes going to make a nice noise?” she asked.

  “No miss, they shouldn’t,” replied Stevie Schpelt from under a mop of bright orange hair.

  “But, aren’t they supposed to?” asked Franzipants.

  “Nope,” said little Sai Chopra, flicking her enormous, black braid behind her. “ Miss Primrose told us to absolutely make no noise because she couldn’t stand it anymore,” she continued matter-of-factly. The sub chuckled to herself. “Yeh,” added Stevie, “and I asked my mom what kind of noise she wanted from the wind chime, and she said, ”The only good noise is no noise.” Franzipants giggled, and wiped a tear from her eye, “The little dears,” she thought to herself as she stood up. There was a commotion going on at the fridge magnet table, so Franzipants headed over there. Suddenly she felt a pair of arms around her waist in a little hug, and heard the words, “I love you Miss Franzipants!” She looked down and saw Nancy Velazquez beaming up at her, with three gluey, pink stars stuck on her cheeks, and a wonky, purple, heart drawn with a marker, on the end of her nose. Her face was lit with happiness. “Oh, bless you!” said the sub touching the heart on Nancy’s nose. “I love you too,” she said with a warm smile, and an even warmer heart. She looked around the room at all the children; they were like young puppies engrossed in playing.

  The noise from the fridge magnet makers got louder. “What’s the problem, children?” Franzipants asked the two girls who were standing on the table, fighting over a very large bottle of white glue. “It’s my turn!” shouted one of the girls, pulling the bottle. “It’s mine, Jessica!” said the other girl, pulling the other way. As they struggled, they slid and slipped, and Franzipants realized that the table was covered in glue, so were their shoes, their magnets, and their workmates. “Oh, sugar and spice!” said Franzipants looking at all the mess. She reached to pick up one of the girls, to take her to the sink, when, suddenly the other girl who was still holding on to the bottle, gave a huge tug, and sent herself and Jessica flying off the table, and Franzipants flying onto the table, face first. “Ka-boom! Crack!” went the table, as Franzipants slammed down into it. Magnets flew, kids gasped and threw themselves out of the way, and Franzipants ended up sandwiched between the two halves of the table; she was the ham, and the glue was the mayonnaise. The sub lay there motionless, stunned. “You’ve killed her!” cried Rapunzella Toth as the children crowded around.

  Chapter Six: The Golden Whisper.

  For about a minute, Franzipants was off in another world. She dreamed that she was swimming in a white lake, surrounded by unicorns and giant butterflies. The sun was shining and the clouds were white and fluffy. Everything was peaceful. As she swam in the lake, little giggling green fish popped their heads up and circled around her. Then they started jumping at her face. One slapped against her cheek, then another, then another, “Miss Franzipants, wake up!” echoed in her ears, as her eyes opened, and she realized that she was back with the 3rd graders in Miss Primrose’s room. She slowly sat up and looked around groggily through the glue white lenses of her glasses. “She’s alive everybody! We did it!” yelled Connor Evans, and all the kids cheered. “Miss, you were dead, so we gave you PCR and then rubbed leaves in your face. My dad’s a doctor. He does it all the time,” beamed Sai Chopra as four children pulled Franzipants to her feet. “Oh children,” said the sub. �€
œLet’s get the place cleaned up. Can you help me?” she said weakly as she limped over to the sink and looked in the mirror.

  She was a sight seen only once in a thousand years. She looked like a grandma who had been dipped in melted marshmallow, and then pulled through a hedge. Her hair was completely slapped back into a gluey mohawk at the back of her head. The leaves stuck to her face looked suspiciously like the ones from Henry the stick insect’s cage. In fact, leaves, glue, and what looked like one of Henry’s relatives, had been mashed into her left ear. Her sweater was now more twisted than ever, and no longer brown. And in her fall, her substitute teacher’s nametag had swung up and stuck to the side of her head, with only ‘pants’ legible through the glue. What a disaster! How would she ever get cleaned up? While she and the children washed and scrubbed, it became clear that the fight over the glue had been because of a misunderstanding. The previous day, Jessica had heard Miss Primrose tell them to get “more glue”, whereas Rapunzella had heard “pour the glue”. And that was it. That was the problem with the whole school, from the Principal, to the staff, to the children; no one really listened. It was as if they had invisible glue in their ears, all of them! They couldn’t even hear a noisy robbery that was going on right under their noses!

  Franzipants had powerful eyes, and an extra special sense of smell. But what was even greater was her hearing. She thought back to her childhood, when she would sit in her great grandmother’s kitchen and watch her bake. Great granny Franzipants would command the kitchen like a magician. With barely a touch of her hand, the ingredients would get blended and baked. “You must listen, child, to the cakes. Your nose will tell you that they smell good. Your eyes will tell you that they’re golden brown. But it’s your ears that know when they are truly ready. Listen dear,” she would say with her ear close to the oven. “We have two ears and only one mouth. We must learn to listen twice as much as we speak. And good ears will always tell a mouth what to say.” Franzipants knew what she must do. She stepped away from her ghastly reflection, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Her toes started to tingle, and her knees began to twitch. Her bottom jiggled, her tummy rumbled, and the hairs on her shoulders stood up. She raised her hands slowly, flared her nostrils, and whispered up into the air, “Blampa-shoody-foxby-zing, kratta-plopsies-harlo-ning.” It was like a soft, silver prayer, sprayed up as a fine mist. All the children stopped and looked up, completely silent. They saw a cloud of tiny, golden squiggles that flew in all directions. They grew larger by the second, and twinkled and sparkled. There were thousands of them, millions, and trillions, filling the air, flying up to the ceiling and swooping back down, like a massive school of golden fish. They tickled the children’s ears, and rushed in circles around their heads. Soon this swarm of golden sparks grew so thick that it burst out of the door, rushing down the halls, and slipping through the cracks and keyholes into all the rooms. And then it happened.

  Chapter Seven: Rumble Tumble.

  The teachers and children left their rooms and walked into the hall, lead by noises that they had never heard before. They lined the hallway, looking around and listening. Principal Brum, followed by the secretaries, appeared, jogging up the hallway to the secret room. The volcano was not erupting, rather his ears were telling him for the first time of the filthy crime going on in his school. He was determined and swift, “This confounded noise of digging and thievery has burst into my head, by Jupiter I’ll get to the bottom of this!” he cried, rolling up his sleeves and throwing his shoulder at the door. There was a thunderous “Ka-pow, boom!” as the door fell into the secret room, and Brum went stumbling in afterwards. And there exploded a commotion of noise and flying objects, that all eyes were wide and straining to see inside. There were smashings and yellings, cracks of punches on chins and cheeks, groans and loud barking, the tearing of trouser legs, and the crashing of merchandise onto the floor. “Oh!” screamed Miss Marmouth. “Help! Help! Call the police!” she yelled as she threw her iPhone to the nearest student, and ran down the hall.

  The students and teachers stood fixed to the floor, gasping in excitement and shock, when suddenly, in a poof of soil, all the contents of the secret room came tumbling out in a giant, earthy lump. Vinnie, Smokes, and Dan fell into the hall like big hairy meatballs rolling off of a plate of spaghetti. There were bodies and shovels, a frantic dirty-white dog, iPods and squashed yellow hats. Brum, the volcano, had now fully erupted, but there were three men brawling with him. Franzipants could see that he was outnumbered, and getting pummeled left and right. Without a thought, she threw herself at the nearest enemy, landing on the back of Vinnie, who staggered forwards under her weight. She wrapped both of her gluey hands over his face, covering his eyes and smooshing his nose. Try as he might, Vinnie couldn’t throw the sub off. So he started to spin. Round and round he went, his head down like a wild bull, but still Franzipants hung on, her big legs flying in all directions. “Ice!” he commanded. “Get this old bag off of me!” The dog leapt through the air and grabbed the sub by her left galosh. His jaws locked down into the rubber in perfect obedience. And there they were, the three of them spinning down the hallway, like a grotesque carnival ride, with clods of earth and splats of glue flying at the onlookers.

  “Go on Miss Franzipants; get ‘im!” yelled Samuel Bunkit, and all the kids joined in, chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Vinnie, soon exhausted, approached the secret room in a wobbly spin. Franzipants was still on his back, “How could you, you bad man! Surrender you coward! You wait ’til the police get hold of you, then you’ll regret your ways…” and on and on and on she went, wearing the man down with her nagging which was heavier than she was. Ice, the white missile hung on to the boot as he flew through the air, letting out a loud, ”Grrrrrr!” at the sub. And then in a desperate effort to escape, Vinnie threw himself, Franzipants, and the dog, into the secret room and down into the mouth of the tunnel. There was a horrendous “Crash! Clang! Argh!” ending in a final thud.

  Two of the teachers and a large group of children rushed into the room to see what had happened to their poor sub. There, inside, they found a gaping hole in the floor on top of which had been a large filing cabinet. “Mercy me!” cried Miss Pomley, one of the fourth grade teachers. “They’ve been hiding a tunnel under the cabinet all this time!” Three sets of legs were sticking up out of the hole in the ground, like candles on a birthday cake. Everyone gathered around the galoshes, and heaved and pulled until disheveled Miss Franzipants emerged. Ice scrambled to get himself upright, and then whined and limped over to the children, “Oh! Poor puppy!” said Rapunzella Toth, kneeling down and scooping him up into her arms. All the kids petted and hugged him, and he rewarded them with licks and cutes looks. Meanwhile, in the hallway, Dan, his jacket bulging with merchandise, realized that he and his two cousins were doomed, and went tripping down the hall, falling over boxes of puzzles, and plastic ponies.

  Police sirens could be heard as Brum threw his last punches. Smokes was no match for the 1980 boxing champion of Pocahontas High. “Yay!” cheered one and all, so proud of their brave Principal and sub. The criminals had been squashed, and Pocahontas Primary School was safe. With a snap of handcuffs, Vinnie and Smokes were lead away. Dan was caught a few hours later, after a high-speed chase in his Doggy Grooming van. So Brum and Franzipants made the headlines as heroes. The well-engineered Brutticuli tunnel was closed, and their empire dismantled. A generous donation of merchandise was made to the school, and the festival was a splendid success. There were more yellow hat champions than ever before, and Ice, the side-changing dog, became the school pet.

  Miss Franzipants continued to sub, but her days in Miss Primrose’s room were so different. Everybody’s ears were free of glue. Math and Social Studies became a breeze. Spelling and Science were as smooth as espresso. Brum changed from a volcano to a bat; his hearing resembled echolocation. If there was even a whiff of a misdeed, he was there in a flash. There were no misunderstandings, mishearings,
or miscommunications. The golden whisper had done its job, and remained always in the walls and halls and ears of Pocahontas Primary School of Pickering.

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