(Josie Sayz: This is the seventh 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 a dream that I had, which I shared with “Shada.”.
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
4) The Arrival of a New Headmistress: https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2025/01/amsnd-4-arrival-of-new-headmistress.html
5) The Day Before the Last (Day of Term):
https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2025/01/amsnd-5-day-before-last-day-of-term.html
6) The Story of Crooked Burrow School: https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2025/02/amsnd-6-story-of-crooked-burrow-school.html.)
The End of the Octopus
By Shada
Woody sat glumly watching the snow fall outside the window of the second Music practice room. His best friend Caleb was dead, and he didn’t feel like talking to anyone, not even his girlfriend, Elly or his other friends, Ben and Todd. Ben was going to go on a school trip to Spain. Elly didn’t want him to go, because he had been a good friend to Woody since Caleb had died, so she tried to persuade Ben not to go on the trip. To her surprise he said yes, but instead of being over the moon, Woody was jealous. He thought that Ben must like Elly because it seemed that Ben only stayed because of her. Woody talked to Todd, to ask him to never speak to Ben. But Todd, who had been best friends with Ben ever since primary school, didn’t want to stop speaking to Ben and when he realised that he couldn’t change Woody’s mind, he talked to Ben who changed his mind again, and they both ended up going on the trip.
Meanwhile, Fred who was friends with Elly retold the sad tale of “The Story of Crooked Burrow School” to try to distract Elly from being too upset.
Ben and Todd’s leaving made Woody crosser and he wouldn’t speak to Elly. Fred was annoyed and wouldn’t speak to Woody. Ariel tried to speak to Woody with Bert but Woody ignored them. He refused to believe that Elly liked him anymore. He didn’t want to speak to anyone ever again.
One miserably cold day with snow falling down in sheets, six friends were walking to school. They were Elly, Bert, Fred, Ariel, Pete and Louis. The six friends got into school to find that there was no one else there apart from four teachers. The teachers included Mrs. Cartwheel, Miss Zadora, Mr. Pugh and Mr. Tonka. The six friends tried to go to their lockers to put their bags away but the snow had fallen too much and they couldn’t open the doors. Mr. Pugh said that it didn’t matter if they had their bags with them for once as it was physically impossible for them to put them away anyway. So the six went upstairs to a Music practice room to see if there was anyone else in. The only person they could find was Woody who wouldn’t talk to them still.
So they went down to the Hall. Miss Zadora was in there, energetically moving the chairs back so there was a space in the middle of the Hall. She asked all the friends to come in to help her. So they did. She explained that she wanted to make everyone who was in school at that precise moment play badminton. So she sent Mrs. Cartwheel upstairs to fetch Woody. He came reluctantly and everyone stood on chairs and played badminton with some racquets and shuttlecocks that Miss Zadora had just found lurking in the back of one of Mr. Pugh’s Maths cupboards. Apparently, he used to play a few decades ago when he was 60.
After about an hour Mrs. Cartwheel came bustling in, carrying something warm in her hands. “I’ve just been baking apple pie,” she said. “Would anyone care to try some?” They all had a piece and agreed that it was delicious. “Right then,” said Mrs. Cartwheel, looking at them in turn. “It’s your turn to make some.” At this everyone either burst into laughter or looked surprised. “But how do we get to D.T?” asked Mr. Tonka, looking puzzled. “The snow’s blocked the doors, so we can’t open them.” D.T. was in a separate block to the rest of the school, and by this time the snow had fallen very thickly.
“Oh yes there is!” replied Mrs. Cartwheel, looking smug. “You have to go through the Magic Doorway. This is found in the Room of the Octopus. Come on.”
“Oh, no!” shouted Woody. “I’m not going in the Room of the Octopus. Caleb said his Dad was locked in there once and only just made it out alive, and that was because the octopus was asleep!” Everyone looked surprised to hear Woody talk about Caleb. Since Caleb’s death Woody had never spoken about his best friend.
“Oh, it’s alright, Woody,” said Mrs. Cartwheel, who was somehow related to Caleb’s Dad, though no one knew how and they certainly didn’t want to ask. “The octopus has gone now. We don’t know where. We think it died of sleeping for too long. Anyway, we are safe to go through the Magic Doorway now. If you’ll all follow me…” She led everyone, including the teachers, through the back of the Hall, down the P.E. Corridor, up the passage to I.T. Support and only stopped when they got to the I.T. Support stairs. There was a small door underneath and Mrs. Cartwheel unlocked it with a key she took from by the hinge of the door. They stepped into the room. It was twice as big as the Hall, if not bigger. Then Mrs. Cartwheel showed them the Magic Doorway and one by one they all stepped into it. Suddenly they found themselves in Mrs. Cartwheel’s cooking room.
They all started to peel apples and to cook them in pastry that they made, with Mrs. Cartwheel making sure that they did it right. By the end of the day there was a row of apple pies on the work surface by the window. As the snow was still piled high against the see-through doors of D.T, Mrs. Cartwheel showed them the way back to the Hall, which involved going into a secret cupboard and pressing a magic button to get through the Magic Doorway back into the Room of the Octopus. Then they all went back to the Hall, and went to sleep in their coats on the blue seats at the back.
In the morning, the snow was still piled high and the doors wouldn’t open to allow them to get out. Woody still wouldn’t, Woody still wouldn’t speak to Elly or Ariel so they all went up to Music to talk and be silly and Woody went off by himself to explore the Room of the Octopus. He was still unsure of what was there, and wanted to find out. But, although Mrs. Cartwheel said that the octopus had gone, it had actually squished itself up really small and had been hiding in the cupboard (the one that Mr. Cartwheel had been shut in) because it had been frightened of strange noises that it kept hearing.
As Woody opened the door to the Room of the Octopus he heard a strange creaking sound. It wasn’t the door he had just opened, because he had stopped moving it. The noise carried on. He stepped inside to try and see what it was. Then he saw that there was a cupboard in the room, and the door was opening! He saw a tentacle curled around the cupboard door, and it was pushing it open. Woody was rooted to the ground in fear. He had a phobia of octopuses. Suddenly, the door behind him slammed shut. Someone had managed to open the window on the stairs that led up to I.T. Support, and the wind had blown around and down the stairs and banged the door shut. This made Woody snap out of his daze. He had the key in his hand, and he frantically tried to open the door, but the octopus got there first. It un-squashed itself to its original size and pushed a tentacle firmly against the door as if to say “No, you’re not going out”. Woody slowly turned to face it. His mouth opened in shock at the new size of the octopus. It was bigger than six people standing on each other’s shoulders. Then another of the octopus’ tentacles swooped down and everything went black.
“Where did Woody go?” asked Fred curiously.
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Bert. “He never tells anyone anything these days.”
“These days…you mean ever since Caleb…you know…”
“Yeah. It must have hit Woody hard, after all Caleb was his best mate. And he won’t even talk to Elly now.” Bert sighed. “I think we should go and find him, and talk to him. It might help.”
“Okay,” Fred agreed. They both walked around school, trying to find Woody. Then Fred had an idea. “Maybe he went to the Room of the Octopus. Caleb and Gertrude rescued Mr. Cartwheel from there. He might want to remember that.”
When Bert opened the door calling out softly “Woody…?” he couldn’t have been prepared for what he saw. The huge octopus stood in the middle of the room, looking scarily gruesome. Then… “Are they Woody’s shoes?” gasped Bert. Fred looked on the floor and saw them by the tentacles of the octopus. “Yep,” he affirmed. “But why would Woody have taken his shoes off, and what’s the octopus doing alive? Didn’t Mrs. Cartwheel say it was dead?”
“She said it was gone now. She said they didn’t know where. And can’t you see – that that thing has eaten Woody?”
“No way! I mean – no, I guess you’re right…” But Bert wasn’t listening to Fred.
“It killed Woody!” he yelled. “I’ll kill it!”
“Hey, calm down Bert!” shouted Fred. The noise that the boys made was scaring the octopus. It was happy to see them, because people meant food, and it was rather hungry. But it was scared by their shouting, and decided to move backwards, away from them, until they stopped shouting and moving about, so it could pick them up and eat them.
Bert, however, took this as a sign of defeat. “Come back here and fight,” he called. Then he conjured up a net and threw it over the octopus using the help of the cold wind that was blowing through the door that in all the action they hadn’t shut. Then he made a long shining sword appear in his hands. He raised it high over his head (with some effort, as it was very heavy) and was about to plunge it into the centre of the octopus when Fred said “Stop.”
“Huh?” asked Bert.
“Just stop, I wanna ask you something.” Bert put the sword down and took a deep breath.
“What is it?”
“Well, why should you kill the octopus? It hasn’t done anything to you.”
“Not to me exactly, but it ate Woody! And Woody was our friend. From what I heard, it also ate Mr. Duncan…”
“Mr. who?” interrupted Fred.
“Oh, never mind,” said Bert. “Anyway, am I going to kill it or aren’t I?”
“I don’t know. But you should really think about it.”
“Well,” Bert decided. “It ate Woody, and it was going to eat us too, so yes I am going to kill it.” He raised the sword over his head again and then forced it down into the octopus. There was a loud cracking sound and a really bright flash of light. Bert was flung in the opposite direction and the net and the sword vanished. The octopus remained intact. “Help, Fred!” screamed Bert as he landed on the floor with a bang.
“How?” panicked Fred. The octopus squelched slowly towards him. He didn’t know much magic, just what Bert had taught him every now and again. One spell came to mind. That was the shrinking spell. He did as Bert had taught him, even managing to do the staring at the octopus without blinking, and after a few seconds of scared waiting, the octopus gradually began to shrink, until it became the size of a smartcard. Fred carefully walked over to Bert, making sure he didn’t take his eyes off the small octopus. “Bert…are you okay?” he asked in concern. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bert slowly sit up.
“Yep, I’m fine. I think. What have you done to the octopus?”
“I’ve shrunk it. It’s over there,” Fred explained.
Bert began to chuckle. “Bring it here, then,” he said.
“But…isn’t it poisonous or something?”
“I don’t think so,” Bert looked puzzled. “Look, I’ll show you.” He got up and walked over to it. He picked it up and showed Fred. It wriggled in his palm. “Ooh, it tickles.”
“Ewww. Rather you than me,” commented Fred. They walked towards the door, then through it. Fred closed it behind them and locked it. Then they went up to Music to find the others and tell them the sad news of Woody. And to show them the octopus of course.
When they found them all sitting in the second Music practice room, they told them the whole story. Elly began to cry when she realised Woody was dead, and was disappointed that the boys hadn’t thought to bring back Woody’s shoes. Fred told her that they could go and get them later. Then Ariel asked them something that had been puzzling her.
“Why didn’t it work when Bert tried to kill the octopus?”
“I don’t know,” Bert admitted. “I guess because someone, or something, that was powerfully magical didn’t want me to kill the octopus.”
“Do you think the octopus was magical itself?”
“No, because it wouldn’t have let Fred shrink it if it was. No, I think that it was someone in this school.”
“But who could it be?” asked Fred.
“It could be you,” Bert replied.
“Me? But I helped you get rid of it!”
“No, you didn’t want me to kill it, instead you shrunk it. See,” and he took the octopus out of his pocket where he had put it to keep it safe.
“Aaah, it’s cute,” cooed Elly.
“Are you going to keep it?” asked Ariel.
Louis had been quietly playing his guitar while everyone had been talking but he looked up to see the octopus and suddenly had a brainwave. “Hey, everyone! I’ve had an idea!” he announced. They all looked at him in surprise. He reached into his bag and pulled out a small plastic container that was about the size of a potato. “Will it fit in here?” he asked. Bert brought the octopus over and Louis took the lid off. Bert dropped the octopus in upside down and then Louis put the lid on and turned it upside down. It fitted fine, but the octopus looked a bit limp.
“It looks like it needs some water,” Elly noticed.
“Let’s take it down to Art,” suggested Pete. So they all took their bags and coats and went downstairs. Mr. Tonka was in Art, because he still couldn’t get into his part of D.T. because it was a different block to Mrs. Cartwheel’s cooking room. And the snow still hadn’t stopped.
“And what do you lot want?” he asked.
“We want to put some water in here,” Ariel explained.
“What is that?” demanded Mr. Tonka.
“Oh, just an octopus that we’re rescuing,” giggled Elly.
“Yes, and I’m the man in the moon,” Mr. Tonka retorted.
“Really?” Louis looked astonished. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Man from the Moon.”
“Okay, okay, come in and get some water. But you’re not staying long,” warned Mr. Tonka. “I have important work to do.”
“Yes,” nodded Louis seriously. “You need to adjust to gravity on Earth, and also you need to learn how to breathe properly.”
They all tried not to laugh at Louis, and went over to the sink to fill up the container. On the way, Pete spotted a pot of glitter. He picked it up, wondering whether to ask the others if they wanted a glitter fight. Once the container had been filled with water Bert was about to put the lid back on when Louis suddenly tapped Pete on the arm to ask what he was carrying, and made Pete tip the glitter pot. Some of the glitter fell into the container with the octopus and the water in.
“You idiot, Louis,” Pete exclaimed. “Look what you made me do!”
“No, it’s okay,” grinned Bert. “The octopus looks like it’s inside one of those snow- or glitter-globe things. You know, the things you shake that have models of stuff inside, and the snow or glitter goes round and round.”
“So, Louis,” Fred said conversationally. “Where did you get that container from?”
“Oh, um,” muttered Louis, looking embarrassed. “I stole it from in Mrs. Cartwheel’s classroom. I thought it might come in useful for storing plectrums, and stuff.”
“Well it did come in useful,” cheered Bert, holding up the octopus in its prison. “Now, where shall we keep it?” he asked everyone. “It needs to be somewhere where everyone can go, so we can all see it and keep an eye on it. We wouldn’t want the octopus to escape.” Everyone agreed.
“Well, why don’t we keep it in the Room of the Octopus, after all it is, like, its home,” said Ariel.
“That’s a good idea,” Bert said smiling at her. “Come on, everyone; let’s go to the Room of the Octopus.”
They left Mr. Tonka in peace in Art and made their way down the EF corridor, and then the P.E. corridor. “Ooh, look, the snow’s easing off,” said Elly who was happier now because they were going to go back to get Woody’s shoes, so she could always remember him.
When they got there Bert unlocked the door and they all went in, staring about again like they had done yesterday. They couldn’t believe that the octopus had been almost as big as the whole room. Bert went over to the cupboard, and opened it. It creaked open. Inside it was completely empty, apart from a pair of black shoes. Inside of each shoe was written ‘G. Duncan’. “These once belonged to Mr. Duncan,” Bert told everyone. “But the octopus ate him.” Not everyone remembered Mr. Duncan, so Bert had to explain that he had been the Head Teacher of Crooked Burrow School a year ago. Then he placed the octopus in its container in the cupboard next to the shoes, and shut the door. “I think it’s had enough adventures,” he remarked. “Come on everyone, let’s get out of here.”
“Not without Woody’s shoes,” Elly said determinedly. She picked them up and put them in her bag. “I’ve been thinking…Caleb was Woody’s best ever friend and they’d been through a lot together. Woody would never have got over losing Caleb, so I guess he’s better off now.” Tears were in her eyes as she said that, but she brushed them away. Ariel put her arm around her.
“Well said, Elly,” Bert stated. “I also have something to say. I don’t really believe that you were the magically powerful one that stopped me from killing the octopus, Fred. But I do believe that it was someone, or something, in this school. So we’d better keep our eyes and ears open, okay everyone? One day we may find out who or what it actually is.”
By this time the snow had eased off and eventually they were all able to open the doors wide enough to get out and go home. But no one forgot this strange day, and what had happened in the large secret room at the back of Crooked Burrow School.
The End
