Free The New Kid at School by Kate McMullan Page B

surely these were not the deeds of a mighty hero.
    Wiglaf kept brooding. He never noticed Fergus bending down close to his ear.
    “KNOCK! KNOCK!” Fergus shouted.
    Wiglaf jumped. “Who—who’s there?”
    “Harry!” Fergus cried.
    “Harry who?” asked Wiglaf.
    “Harry up and eat your pancakes!” Fergus roared. “We go to the Pinwick Fair today!”
    “Hooray!” yelled one of Wiglaf’s little brothers. “Jugglers and lepers! Let us be off!”
    “And so we shall be,” Molwena promised, “as soon as Wiglaf does the dishes.”
    “We could be off sooner if someone dried,” Wiglaf hinted.
    “Nah,” said the eldest brother. “We’ll wait.”
    And so Wiglaf scrubbed the dishes. Then he dried them. Then he put them away.
    At last the family set off for the village.
    Just outside Pinwick, Fergus stopped beside the village message tree. He squinted at a new notice tacked to its trunk.
    “Wiglaf!” Fergus shouted. “The minstrel showed you how to make sense of these squiggles. Tell us what this sign says!”
    Wiglaf stepped up and read: “Dragon Slayers’ Academy.”
    Fergus frowned. “Acada... what ?”
    “Academy,” Wiglaf repeated. “It means school.”
    “I know that ,” his father said. “Go on.”
    “We teach our students to slay dragons,” Wiglaf read.
    Slay dragons? Wiglaf thought with growing interest. Heroes slayed dragons!
    “And,” he read on, “they bring the dragons’ hoards home to you !”
    “The dragons’ hoards?” Fergus scratched his armpit thoughtfully. “That would be... what?”
    “Gold and jewels, most likely,” Wiglaf replied.
    “Blazing King Ken’s britches!” Fergus roared. “Read it all!” Which is just what Wiglaf was dying to do:

    Is there a lazy lad hanging about your hovel? Is he eating more than his share of your good cabbage soup? Don’t you wish he could earn his keep?
    “I’ll say,” snorted Molwena.
    Dragon Slayers’ Academy is your answer! Feast your eyes on just a few of our classes:
    • How to Stalk a Fire-Breather
    • How to get Close to a Dragon
    • How to get Even Closer
    • How to get Really, Really Close
    • IOI Ways to Slay
    Best of all , we will teach your boy how to bring a dragon’s golden hoard home to you!
    Just look at what some of our fine lads have done:
     
    Baldrick the Bold
     
    Baldrick slew three dragons! With their golden hoards, he bought his lucky parents a 450-room castle!
    “That would do for us,” Molwena muttered.
    Torblad the Terrible
    Two kills . Two hoards. No w his mum and pop just lie about and watch other folk work.
    “Oh, boy!” said Fergus.
    Angus the Avenger
    Angus slew a whole nest of dragon young! His parents now dress in nothing but silk and velvet .
    “Do they, now?!” Molwena exclaimed. “I wonder how much this school costs.”
    The fee? Only 7 pennies! ( Plus a teensy part of each hoard .) Send us your sons! We turn useless lads into HEROES who go for the gold!
    Signed ,
    Mordred the Marvelous, Headmaster , DSA ( Located just off Huntsman’s Path , east of the Dark “Forest)
    Dragon slaying, thought Wiglaf. It sounded pretty gruesome. But dragons were evil. They deserved to be slain—didn’t they? And who slew them? Mighty heroes, that’s who!
    Maps tacked to the tree showed the way from Pinwick to Dragon Slayers’ Academy. Wiglaf pulled one off and stared at it. Here was a path he might follow to become a hero!
    “Father?” Wiglaf began eagerly, “I would—”
    “Quiet!” Fergus barked. He turned to his eldest son. “Do you want to go to the acad... to the school?” he asked him.
    The eldest picked at a scab on his ear. “Would I get in trouble for fighting and knocking other boys’ teeth out?” he asked.
    Fergus nodded. “You might.”
    “I wouldn’t like that,” the eldest declared.
    Wiglaf tried again. “Father, I—”
    “Shush!” Fergus turned to his second-eldest. “Do you want to go to the school?” he asked him.
    The second-eldest scratched a bedbug bite