Free Cool School by John Marsden Page A

concentrate on schoolwork and at the first chance you sneak off and rush to the hospital.
    When you get there, you see Sam’s mum. ‘Sam got out of intensive care a couple of hours ago,’ she tells you, ‘and yes, visitors are fine.’
    You go on up to the ward. Sam’s lying there in the bed, looking pale but OK.
    â€˜What happened?’ you ask.
    â€˜It was terrible. I got this sudden viral infection, and collapsed. I nearly died. But you know, a crazy thing happened. Somewhere round midnight I thought I had died. I felt myself start to fly away. But then I saw you looking at me kind of weird and I thought, ‘Wait a minute, what am I doing? I don’t want to die,’ and as soon as I thought that I came back to earth. Don’t you think that was funny?’
    â€˜Sure do,’ you answer, with a little secret smile.
    â€˜Well,’ you think, as you leave the hospital an hour later, ‘that was the strangest thing that’ll ever happen in my life.’

o your relief the fire seems to have gone out at last. The lockers have been reduced to ashes and there’s still some smoke hanging around, but the danger is over.
    Well, one danger is over. There’s another that simply won’t go away.
    Coming in the door at the end of the corridor is the caveman himself, looking as mean and ugly as ever. He looks at the remains of the lockers and gives a satisfied smile.
    â€˜Lighting fires in your locker,’ he grunts. ‘You’re going to be in a lot of trouble.’
    You almost have to agree with him. There seems to be no way out of this. You stand there looking at the smoking ruins. A moment later a teacher appears at the other end of the corridor. She’s a tall woman with glasses and she gazes at the wreck of the lockers with no expression on her face. You try hard to think of something to say that’ll get you out of trouble, without dobbing in the big thug standing next to you. You know if you dob him in he’ll kill you. But the teacher speaks first.
    â€˜Who has done this thing?’ she asks.
    You try to speak but the words stick in your throat. Then you realise that the walking gargoyle next to you has his finger firmly pointed at you. Seems like he doesn’t mind dobbing people in.
    Before you can get your finger pointing back at him the teacher has pounced on you.
    â€˜Oh you poor poor thing,’ she says. ‘How unhappy and disturbed you must be to commit such an act. You must have had a terrible childhood. Tell me, how often did your parents beat you?’
    â€˜Every day,’ you say, thinking fast. ‘And twice on Sundays.’
    â€˜And there must be so many other unhappy experiences,’ she says sympathetically.
    â€˜Um,’ you say, desperately scanning your mind. ‘My goldfish died when I was three.’
    You don’t mention the fact that it died because you cleaned it with Mr Sheen.
    The lady gives a cry of triumph. ‘Come with me,’ she says, ‘to my office. I’m the school psychologist. I’ll give you some chocolate biscuits and you can tell me all about it.’ She leads you away, muttering about a man called Fraud or Freud or something.
    You smile sweetly back at your defeated enemy. Already you can taste those chocolate biscuits.

ou wrestle Alex off, shouting, ‘No, no, the team needs me!’ Alex walks slowly away. But you don’t care. Well you do a bit, but you’re the complete football fan: nothing means more to you than Norths winning this match. There’s a huge roar from the crowd and you leap back up onto the seat, stepping on your meat pie and knocking over your can of soft drink. For a moment you can’t work out what happened. The players are shaking hands; half the crowd is cheering and the other half have their heads in their hands. And you realise the sad truth.
    During your brief moment with Alex, the player had his kick and scored the