(Josie Sayz: This is the fourth story, from mine and my friends ‘AMSND’ series that we wrote when we was 13 years old. This story actually was not written by me, but by the girl in the stories who goes my “Shada”. Although this is not my story, it follows in the series of the ‘AMSND’ stories, so I felt like I should include it. This story was based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Although each story is a stand alone piece, you can find the rest of the AMSND
series here:
1) A Magic School’s New Dream: https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2025/01/ansnd-1-magic-schools-new-dream.html
2) The War of Crooked Burrow School: https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2025/01/amsnd-2-war-of-crooked-burrow-school.html
3) Six Se’enarians Go To Sea: https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2025/01/amsnd-3-six-senerians-go-to-sea.html.)
The Arrival of a New Headmistress
By Shada
Two friends sat in the Staffroom on a Monday morning, checking their email. They were Miss McBuff and Mr. Cartwheel, two teachers at Crooked Burrow School. Miss McBuff had just received an email from someone she didn’t recognise. It was from The Three Whichs.
“Delete it,” was Mr. Cartwheel’s advice. “It could contain a virus.”
“No, there are no attachments to it. It could be a child playing a joke. I don’t know how they did it, but I need to see what they’ve put so I can punish them,” said Miss McBuff.
So she opened it. It read:
To Miss McBuff,
We hope you are well. Our names are Phurst Which, Sekunt Which and Thurd Which. Sekunt Which was wondering whether we would have to try emailing you at another time, because the Internet keeps going down. But hopefully it worked this time.
Our congratulations on your return from the Curliny School. We heard that you have achieved a lot over there, and that instead of fighting back, the children that go to that school are now very well behaved.
We have something very important to tell you concerning your future here at Crooked Burrow School.
You are at the moment Head of Humanities.
You will soon become a Deputy Head Teacher.
After this you will become the Head Teacher of this school.
We wish you good luck,
The Three Whichs
P.S. Your friend, Mr. Cartwheel will also be a Head Teacher
They both looked at each other in shock. What on earth was happening? Surely these predictions weren’t going to come true?
Just at that moment, Mr. Foote, a Science teacher, burst through the door. “Congratulations, Miss McBuff!” he said. “Mr. Duncan told me to tell you that you’re now a Deputy Head Teacher!”
They continued to stare at each other in shock.
“What, didn’t you hear me?” asked Mr. Foote. “I said…”
“I heard you,” replied Miss McBuff quietly. “It just sounds impossible. Look at this.” She pointed to the screen. But the email had gone! “Where’s it gone?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I exited it, because we’d finished reading it.” Mr. Cartwheel said, trying to get it up again, with no success. “The Internet must have gone down again,” he sighed. Mr. Foote looked at them in puzzlement, and then went out.
“Well, I might as well tell Mrs. Raven. She’ll know what’s going on, I’m sure.” Mrs. Raven was the school nurse, and Miss McBuff’s sister.
Mrs. Raven was in her office when her sister exploded through the door. “Did you hear? Did you hear? I’m a Deputy Head!” she sang.
“Yes, I did, you fool! Stop singing and come here. I have a plan…”
“Uh oh. Your plans are always bad.”
“I shall take that as a compliment, because your idea of bad is my idea of power, and getting what I want!” Mrs. Raven chuckled at the thought of what she was planning. “Have you ever wanted to be in charge of a school?”
“Yes, I already have – at Curliny School, remember?” Miss McBuff sighed.
“Well with my help you’ll be in charge of this one, that one, the National School and all the schools in Birmingham, if not England, if not THE WORLD!”
“You sound a little bit crazy, Minerva. Is something wrong?”
“No, I always act like this. Seriously, don’t you want to be in charge of the school, maybe all the schools?”
“Well, I guess so. It would be…useful, to have people doing what I wanted. However, I know you too well to think that it would be me in charge. It would be you, wouldn’t it?”
Mrs. Raven chuckled again. “Quite right, Ann! You know I can’t seize power myself, because I’d be recognised.” Mrs. Raven had previously been a bank robber but unfortunately had been caught by two small children, one of which had bravely walked up to her and stuck their finger in her gun, because they had realised it was only a toy gun, like the ones they had at home. The other one had phoned the police on their mobile, and they had come too quickly for her to escape. “But if you were to gradually get more powerful, getting the support of more and more people, it would be easy, and I wouldn’t be suspected at all.”
“So, what’s the first step?” Miss McBuff asked.
“Well, you’re already Head of Humanities and now a Deputy Head Teacher, so all that’s left is Head Teacher...”
“How did you know what that email said?”
“I was checking your email for you. I only check it every day.”
The sarcasm was lost on Miss McBuff. “Yes, but you don’t know my password,” she said.
“Oh yes I do! You told it me yourself last week!”
Miss McBuff frowned. She was pretty sure she hadn’t.
“As I was saying…” Mrs. Raven continued. “To become Head Teacher you’ll need to get someone out of the way.”
Miss McBuff nodded. “Mr. Duncan.”
“Exactly,” Mrs. Raven said, opening a nearby drawer and taking out a small medicine bottle with a dropper in the top. “Just put this in Mr. Duncan’s drink, tomorrow. Then on Wednesday, in two days’ time, send an email to the other two Deputy Heads telling them the bad news.” She paused to smile evilly. “Say you’re really sorry, but Mr. Duncan just collapsed, and you thought he was dead. You rang for an ambulance and they said he had had a heart attack and had passed away. Simple. Also, tell them that in his dying words he said he doesn’t want to be Head Teacher any more. He said you could be.”
“It won’t hurt him, will it?” Miss McBuff asked seriously.
“No.”
“So he’ll just collapse?”
“Yes.”
“When exactly should I give the poison to him?”
“Tomorrow morning, in his break.”
And with that Miss McBuff, soon to be Headmistress, walked out of the room with the poison. She would put this in Mr. Duncan’s coffee the very next day.
The plan went smoothly, and the next Wednesday the two Deputy Heads Mr. Malcolm Prince and Mrs. Donna Bane read their emails. They were deeply shocked. They saw in the email that Miss McBuff was to be the new Headmistress and, because it was standard practise to give the job to the Deputy Head who had been at the school the longest, which was Mr. Prince, they did not trust her. They decided to get Mr. Cartwheel to spy on her to see what she was up to. However, Mrs. Raven heard them talking and told Miss McBuff straight away that Mr. Cartwheel was spying on her, and that he also needed to be got rid of.
“But that’s not fair,” Miss McBuff argued to her sister. “He’s my friend.”
“He’s also a spy who’s going to help the opposition,” Mrs. Raven reminded her.
Miss McBuff sighed. “Okay, what’s your plan then? You’ve always got one.”
“Yes, I have a plan to get rid of Mr. Cartwheel. You must call a meeting of all the school governors, and during the meeting break, you must take him out to your car in the car park out the back, but before you get there I’ll pull him into the Room of the Octopus.”
“The Room of the Octopus? What’s that?”
“Well as you know I’ve been the nurse at this school for a good few years now, ever since I got out of jail…and I found a map in my office of the whole school, not just the classrooms, halls and corridors.”
“You mean the school has secret rooms?”
“Of course. All schools do. They may look like cleaner’s cupboards and storage rooms but there’s always more to them than that. Now, the Room of the Octopus actually holds a giant octopus, which is a really fortunate for us because I hear they like to eat humans. It seems to be true too, because I shoved Mr. Duncan’s body in the room last night and I checked this morning, and sure enough, it had disappeared. But I haven’t heard or seen the octopus yet.”
“Wow! I find this a bit difficult to grasp. You’ve killed Mr. Duncan, and you’re going to kill Mr. Cartwheel?”
“Well, the octopus will actually do the killing, and no one will ever suspect us!” And Mrs. Raven laughed evilly, as she always did when a plan was going well.
“Okay, I’ll have the governor’s meeting on Friday, because then it’s the weekend and no one will be in school so no one will find out where he is.”
“Good idea,” Mrs. Raven nodded her approval. Then Miss McBuff went to prepare an assembly that she enjoyed doing because they really annoyed all the children. She purposely made them as boring as possible and liked to enunciate all her words unnecessarily to watch them squirm.
Miss McBuff emailed Mr. Cartwheel on Friday morning, to inform him that there was to be a meeting of school governors that evening. In the afternoon he went to tell his son, Caleb that he would be late home. However he couldn’t find him. He was about to give up, thinking maybe he’d gone home (although because Caleb sometimes liked to stay in Music after school with his friend Woody Mr. Cartwheel was hoping he was still in school), when he spotted Caleb waiting outside an English classroom where his girlfriend Gertrude was doing revision. Mr. Cartwheel went over to him to tell him he’d be late home.
“Will Miss McBuff be at the meeting?” Caleb asked in concern.
“Yes of course she will be. She’s the Head now – she can boss us all about.”
“Dad, do you like her?”
Mr. Cartwheel looked at Caleb in puzzlement. “What do you mean? She’s my friend, or at least she was. Of course I like her.”
“No, I mean like-like.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Mr. Cartwheel turned around and walked away.
“I’m onto you, Dad! Mum’s not going to be too happy if you start going out with Miss McBuff!”
“Your Mum and I are getting divorced, Caleb. Leave me alone.”
Gertrude came out of her classroom at last. “What was that all about?” she asked.
“Dad’s being dumb again. I’m pretty sure he fancies Miss McBuff, but he won’t admit it.”
“Miss McBuff? She’s evil. I remember having her for Humanities when I was a Se’enarian, before she went off to Curliny School. She was really mean.”
“Yeah, well now she’s Headmistress…” Caleb mused. “Maybe…no, that’s too harsh.”
“What? Tell me,” begged Gertrude, as they walked down the stairs to go home.
“I think Dad just wants power, you know, to be in charge, and now Miss McBuff’s the Head he can tag along with her and seem important. I’m going to spy on them tonight. D’you wanna come?”
“Yeah, okay. It’ll be fun. What’s on tonight? Is it a meeting?”
“Yep. A school governor’s meeting. How boring.” Caleb sighed.
“No, it would be fascinating. We’ll get to see which teachers flirt the most, and what the school might be doing, all before anyone else.”
Caleb smiled. Gertrude always liked to spy on people. “Okay then. Dad said the meeting would start at five o’ clock. I don’t know where it will be though.”
“We could follow people – do you know who the other governors are?”
“I know some. Let’s go round to the other car park, we’ll be able to watch them all go in, and follow them from there.”
They waited behind cars in the other car park for almost half an hour – moving from one to another when people came and went. Eventually they saw Mr. Buttons (who was a D.T. teacher, a parent governor (his daughter was Bonnie Buttons, an Itarian) and Caleb’s Head of Year) walk around from D.T. with Mr. Tonka who was also a D.T. teacher and a teacher governor.
“Okay, here’s our chance,” Caleb said to Gertrude. They got up and followed the teachers quietly into school, and then around and up the stairs that led to I.T. support, and around to the room that meetings were often held in. Once Mr. Buttons and Mr. Tonka were inside, Caleb and Gertrude peered in through the window. They saw that Miss McBuff was already there. However, Mr. Cartwheel wasn’t. Then they heard some people coming up the stairs. One of the people sounded like Mr. Cartwheel.
“Quick!” hissed Caleb. “Behind these doors!” There were two doors that led to other rooms and offices, right next to the room for meetings. Caleb quickly opened them and they hid behind them, closing the doors just before Mr. Cartwheel and the other people, one of which was a parent governor who was also a policeman who they all knew well.
Eventually everyone arrived and the meeting began. Caleb and Gertrude could hear Miss McBuff’s voice talking about the school, and her plans for its future. Some of the things she said they could tell she was just saying them to get the interest of the governors. But overall they thought she sounded like she was trying to do the right thing. She mentioned the unfortunate death of Mr. Duncan – “Oh no!” gasped Gertrude.
Then it was time for a break. Some people came out of the room to go and buy something from the Greenwood Restaurant (because it was about half past five and people had begun to get hungry) and Mr. Cartwheel and Miss McBuff soon came out together, talking. Caleb and Gertrude decided to follow them. The teachers went down the stairs, but didn’t go into the Greenwood. Instead, they went towards the doors that led outside to the car park. But before they got there, someone came out of a nearby door and pulled Mr. Cartwheel back into the room. Miss McBuff looked a bit scared, but turned around and went into the Greenwood. Caleb and Gertrude had seen the whole thing. They looked at each other in shock. “That evil woman!” exclaimed Gertrude.
“She knew – she’s trying to get rid of Dad! So we’ll have to get him back,” Caleb said grimly, about to go into the room.
“No! Wait! We don’t know who it is who dragged him inside. There might be more of them. They might come out again. Then we’ll get caught too!” Gertrude said.
“You have a point there,” Caleb sulked. So they stayed sitting on the stairs at the bottom. After about two minutes they heard the door quietly open and someone sneaked out and went outside through the door that led to the car park. “Did you see who that was?” Caleb asked Gertrude anxiously, trying to peer around her.
“No, not really. It looked like either that Science teacher, you know, the fat one, or the school nurse.”
“I bet it was the school nurse. She’s Miss McBuff’s sister!”
“Really?”
“Yep. Come on, let’s go find Dad.”
Mr. Cartwheel had got the shock of his life when someone had snatched him inside the room. Then they had shoved him across the room, and into this room before he could even protest. Then they had spun him round and round to make him dizzy and then legged it, he presumed. There was no one else left in the room that he was in. Well, he couldn’t really tell, because it was very dark and there appeared to be no windows. When he eventually found the door, it was shut. That was to be expected, so he tried opening the door, not expecting it to be unlocked, but to his surprise it opened. There wasn’t anyone on the other side of the door. He walked quietly outside and turned around. The room from which he had come was just a cupboard. The room he was now in was enormous. It was more like a hall. As he turned back around he got a big shock. There, right in front of him, was an octopus! It was gigantic, bigger than three elephants standing on each other’s heads. But it seemed to be asleep. It was snoring quite peacefully. Mr. Cartwheel crept past, careful not to touch any of its tentacles which were trailing all over the floor. He saw a pair of shoes right by one of the octopus’ tentacles. They looked suspiciously like the ones Mr. Duncan was last seen wearing. Then he saw the door and walked very cautiously towards it, only to see Caleb and Gertrude come bursting through it!
“What are you doing here?” he asked them.
“We’ve come to rescue you, Dad,” Caleb told him. “Gertrude picked the lock with her hair grip and we thought you’d be tied up or something.”
“No, instead there’s an octopus – look!” They looked.
“Wow!” gasped Gertrude.
“Come on, let’s go,” was all Caleb said, anxious to be out of there.
“Now what would an octopus be doing in a storage room?” asked Gertrude, puzzled.
“And the fact that it seems to have eaten Mr. Duncan, now that’s interesting,” Mr. Cartwheel said.
“What?” asked Caleb.
“I saw Mr. Duncan’s shoes by one of the octopus’ tentacles. And it certainly explains the fact that no one can find him or contact him. So Miss McBuff was lying about the hospital,” Mr. Cartwheel mused out loud to himself as they slowly walked up the stairs.
“It all seems like an ingenious plan for power,” Gertrude remarked.
“But whose?” asked Mr. Cartwheel.
“Well, isn’t it obvious? Miss McBuff’s of course!”
“No, I don’t think so. From what she said, I’m almost convinced someone else was in on it too.”
“We know! We saw that school nurse, her sister or something, you know – Mrs. Raven, sneak out after taking you into that room,” Gertrude said.
“That makes sense. Mrs. Raven indeed. Yes, that certainly explains a lot.” Mr. Cartwheel muttered. Then he looked at Caleb and Gertrude and said “Did you two know that Mrs. Raven once robbed banks, and was caught and was put in jail?”
“No!” They both gasped and looked at each other in shock.
“Well it’s true. Come on; let’s go back to the meeting. See what Miss McBuff says when we confront all the governors with the truth.”
They reached the room for the meeting, and Mr. Cartwheel looked through the window into the room, and saw Miss McBuff standing up, talking to the governors who were all facing her. He tried to wave at her, but she didn’t see him. Then he knocked on the door, and she let out a scream like she’d seen a mouse. “No!” she moaned. “No, you can’t have come back from the dead to haunt me!”
“The dead?” asked the policeman governor.
“Yes, I killed him! Well, I didn’t, but Mrs. Raven did, or said she would, and now he’s come back to haunt me for forever and eternity!”
“Who is it that you said you’ve killed?” asked the policeman.
“Mr. Cartwheel!” Miss McBuff sobbed.
“Right, you’re coming with me!” the policeman said, after jotting something down in his notebook. “I am arresting you on suspicion of murder, even if he’s not dead.”
Miss McBuff couldn’t say anything; just let herself be dragged away. But when she passed Mr. Cartwheel, she said, “It’s all your fault. I’m not your best friend any more.”
She was jailed, along with her sister, for a very long time. A week passed, and Mr. Cartwheel, after being Acting Head, gave the actual job to Mr. Prince.
It was a shame that Mr. Duncan had died. But like everyone said, he was old and was almost getting past it.
It was also strange that everything in the email from The Three Whichs had come true. It was found out that Mrs. Raven was the one who had emailed Miss McBuff, having had the idea for it from an English lesson about Macbeth that she heard. She decided to write an email to her sister, to tempt her to want to be Head Teacher quickly. Mrs. Raven knew her sister was coming up for promotion to a Deputy Head Teacher, and wanted her to think further. She also knew that Mr. Cartwheel would be an influence on her sister, so decided to get rid of him in a way that Miss McBuff wouldn’t mind. But this plan didn’t work, all due to two spying children.
However, Miss McBuff did not remain in custody for long. She told the police the truth (except for the death of Mr. Duncan which she blamed on Mrs. Raven when she realised the police knew he had been poisoned) but they did not completely believe her as she had obviously known about Mrs. Raven’s plans for a long time and not told them immediately. So they put her on community service with the job of litter-picking every Saturday but let her go, back to Crooked Burrow School and her last job of Headmistress. Mr. Prince and Mrs. Bane had by now got used to Miss McBuff and her ways and agreed with her on most things, despite having first been suspicious about Mr. Duncan’s death and her being chosen as the new Headteacher although she was so much younger than them. They recognised that she had a lot of modern ideas and pledged to work together to make the lives of their students a misery.
The End
