Free School of Meanies by Daren King Page A

as if you’ve found a lollipop and dropped it.”
    On the stairs I floated past Wither and Charlie Vapor. Charlie winked at me and took off his hat.
    “Master Bump,” Wither said, “Charlie doffed his trilby, and you didn’t so much as bid him good day.”
    “I did the polite thing to do,” Charlie said. “The least you can do, Humphrey, is do the polite thing to do too.”
    “But it isn’t a good day,” I said, bumping the banister. “It’s a rotten day, and then some.”
    “Don’t be mean,” said Wither, pursing his lips.
    “Humphrey is sulking,” Charlie said. “Today was the first day back at school. He’ll feel right as rain tomorrow.”
    At the top of the stairs I bumped through the bedroom door, then bumped it closed behind me. I had my own bedroom now that the still-alives had moved out. The grown-up ghosties shared the four-poster bed in their old room.
    I rummaged through my blazer pockets andpulled out a fluffy doughnut. I was halfway through munching it when I heard Charlie and Tabitha talking on the landing.

    “I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” Tabitha was saying. “He used to love Ghost School. Have a word with him, Charlie.”
    “You talk to him, Tabitha. You’re closer to him in age. Humphrey won’t listen to an old stooge like me.”
    “But you’re a man, Charlie. All boystogether! And you can pass through. In you float!”
    Charlie Vapor can pass through doors and walls and, well, anything—even when he’s got his hat on. I’m not telling fibs!
    I’d just taken another bite of the doughnut when Charlie’s head passed through the bedroom door.
    Charlie winked at me and doffed his hat. “Are you all right, son?” he said in his cockney accent.
    I nodded. My mouth was full.
    “Glad to hear it,” Charlie said, and he passed back.
    The door handle turned by itself—Tabitha using her powers again—and Tabitha floated into the room.
    “Humphrey, I’ve brought you a snack,” Tabitha said, and she dropped a crusty pork pie onto the bed.
    “That wouldn’t feed a mouse.”
    Tabitha smiled, sort of kind but telling me off at the same time. “If you want your dinner, you will have to float to the kitchen.”
    “I’m not hungry,” I fibbed.
    “Then there really is something wrong. Either you’re coming down with the flu, or something happened at school and you’re afraid to say what.”
    “Nothing happened at school,” I said. “I’m just doing my homework, that’s all.”
    “If that’s true, the homework must be haunted and see-through,” Tabitha said, “because all I can see are doughnut crumbs and a grumpy face.”
    I looked up at Tabitha’s big eyes and said, “Tabitha, if I tell you something, do you promise not to be cross?”
    Tabitha sat beside me on the bed. Well,floated. Ghosties can’t sit on things, they can only float above things.
    “I got expelled,” I told her. “I’ve been thrown out of Ghost School. For good.”

3
    The Ghost Headmaster
    After breakfast the next morning, Tabitha Tumbly and Charlie Vapor wisped me straight to the Ghost Headmaster’s office.
    Charlie knocked on the door with his knuckles, doffed his hat—the polite thing to do, no fibbing!—and passed through the wood.
    “Let’s leave Charlie to it,” I said, and I tried to wisp out of the window but Tabitha snapped her fingers and the window slammed shut.
    The door to the Ghost Headmaster’s office opened, and Charlie was there in the doorway. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
    “Best manners,” Charlie whispered into my ear as Tabitha and I floated into the office. “The Headmaster is in a bad mood.”
    “He’s always in a bad mood,” I said.
    “Close the door,” the Ghost Headmaster said in his vaporous voice, and the door slammed closed and Tabitha looked at me and winked. “Right,” the Ghost Headmaster said, wisping around, “what’s all this about?”

    “Um,” Charlie said, hiding behind his hat.
    “Humphrey is a pupil here at Ghost