Free Pig Latin--Not Just for Pigs! by Kate McMullan

Chapter 1
    W iglaf lifted the bun on his sandwich. There was a pile of stringy brown glop underneath.
    “ Ikes-yay !” he cried, speaking Pig Latin.
    “Yikes is right,” muttered Angus. “What is it?”
    “‘Tis a moatweed sloppy joe,” Erica answered. “Frypot’s newest dish.” She bit eagerly into her sandwich. Erica loved everything about DSA. Even the food.
    “Uck-yay,” Wiglaf muttered. “Yuck.”
    He had learned Pig Latin from his pet pig, Daisy. He now spoke it with ease.
    A wizard had put a Speech Spell on Daisy. It was supposed to make her speak English. But when Daisy opened her mouth, out came Pig Latin! And no wonder. The wizard was Zelnoc. He couldn’t do even the most basic Wart-Be-Gone Spell or Sneeze-No-More Spell without messing it up. A Speech Spell was far beyond his powers.
    “Ugh!” Angus pushed away his plate. “‘Tis a good thing my mother sent me a giant goodie box this month.”
    Wiglaf watched longingly as Angus drew a Medieval Marshmallow Bar from his tunic pocket and took a bite. If only Angus liked to share! But alas—he did not.
    “We had barley bran burgers for lunch at my old school,” said Janice. “They tasted like dirt. But moatweed sloppy joes are worse.”
    “At Princess Prep,” said Gwen, “we had princess-and-the-pea soup every day.” She sighed. “I didn’t like it much, but I’d trade my emerald tiara for a bowl of it right now!”
    “Atten tion !” called Headmaster Mordred as he strode into the DSA dining hall. His red velvet cape streamed out behind him. Thick dark hair sprang from his head. He wore shiny gold rings on all his fingers. And on both thumbs, too.
    Wiglaf and the other students jumped up.
    “At ease!” barked Mordred. “I have news!”
    The dining hall grew so quiet that Wiglaf could hear the rats fighting over crumbs under the Class I table.
    Mordred’s violet eyes glowed with excitement. “I do not believe in wasting time with school vacations.”
    “That’s not news, Uncle Mordred,” said Angus. “We all know we’ve never had a single day off from school.”
    “At Dragon Whackers,” said Janice, “we got a whole week off in the summer.”
    “Silence!” snapped the headmaster. “I have a treat for all you lads—and lasses!” Mordred smiled at the new girls. His gold tooth sparkled in the noonday light.
    “Tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday,” he went on, “some very important people are coming to a meeting here at DSA.”
    “Is Sir Lancelot coming?” Erica asked eagerly. The famous knight was her hero. A tapestry of Sir Lancelot slaying a dragon hung on the wall above her cot in the Temporary Lasses’ Dorm.
    “No, the people who are coming are a—uh—teachers,” Mordred said quickly. “Yes, that’s it. Teachers. They are coming here so I can teach them how to be better teachers. So you lads and lasses get a three-day vacation. You get to go home.”
    “YAY! HOORAY!” cried the students.
    They stomped and cheered. The noise sent the rats under the Class I table, dashing for their hole in the wall.
    Home! Wiglaf had not been home in ever so long. He would see his mother, Molwena. And his father, Fergus. And his twelve brothers. After eating Frypot’s cooking at DSA, he was even looking forward to a big bowl of Molwena’s cabbage soup.
    “There is something fishy about this,” Angus muttered as the cheering died down. “Uncle Mordred doesn’t give a fig about better teachers.”
    “Go to your dorms and pack your bags,” Mordred was saying. “Make your cots. Leave the dorm clean as a whistle.” He reached for his hourglass and turned it upside down. “I want everyone out of here within the hour. Go on. Buh-bye!”
    Wiglaf and the others raced from the dining hall, shouting, “Holiday! Holiday!”
    The lads ran to their bunks. The lasses disappeared behind the burlap curtain that divided the Lads’ Dorm from the Temporary Lasses’ Dorm.
    Erica reached under her cot and pulled out the largest piece of