Taken Over Read Free Page A

out of the hall.
    Mac thumped Jasper on the back. ‘Cool, huh?’ he grinned.
    â€˜Yeah,’ Jasper replied, ‘great.’

4
    Monstrum House wasn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill school. All of the subjects had just one objective: to teach the students how to hunt monsters. Some of the subjects were cool, but Rest and Relaxation wasn’t one of them. It was somewhere between a meditation class and an army boot camp.
    â€˜Good morning, Class 2B,’ the Rest and Relaxation teacher boomed.
    â€˜Good morning, Master Poon, sir!’ the class replied, as if they were soldiers. Saffy mumbled something else under her breath.
    Their teacher, a deranged army general called Master Poon, was sitting cross-legged in the middle of a circle of rose-scented candles. He was dressed in full camouflage gear, complete with a bush on his helmet.
    â€˜Now sit,’ Master Poon ordered.
    The students quickly sat down.
    â€˜I have some candles here today to help you all to relax,’ yelled Master Poon. ‘I want all of you to be very calm. I don’t want you to think about your hair catching alight or how horribly your little faces could be disfigured by hot wax. Smell the candles!’ he shouted. ‘Are you smelling them?’
    â€˜Yes, sir!’ the class chorused. Saffy rolled her eyes.
    â€˜Dominguez! On the floor, give me twenty! No eye-rolling!’



Saffy gritted her teeth as she finished the twenty push-ups in front of a smirking Felix.
    â€˜And Brown! No smirking. Twenty from you!’ Master Poon commanded.
    Jasper found it really hard not to laugh. He and his friends always had bets about who would have to do the most push-ups in Master Poon’s class.
    â€˜As well as teaching this class, I will be your homeroom teacher for the year,’ Master Poon boomed, once Felix had finished his pushups. ‘So we will be seeing quite a lot of each other. And I will not take any nonsense. Now everyone, give me twenty push-ups. That’s twenty more for you, Dominguez and Brown. ON THE DOUBLE!’
    The whole class started their push-ups while Master Poon surveyed them. ‘We are going to have a great year. Aren’t we, McPhee?’
    Jasper looked up to see his teacher staring down at him. Master Poon’s eyes flashed spookily in the flickering candlelight.
    â€˜Er, yeah, it’ll be excellent,’ Jasper agreed.
    â€˜Now give me another twenty for lying through your teeth,’ said Master Poon, pushing Jasper back down onto the floor with his shiny black boot.
    Jasper’s arms were aching when he sat back on his mat. There couldn’t possibly be a worse teacher than Master Poon for a subject called Rest and Relaxation. And the fact that he was their homeroom teacher meant that Jasper would have to see him every day for a whole year. But they had survived Stenka for a year, and Master Poon couldn’t be worse than her. Could he?
    â€˜OK,’ said Master Poon. ‘Let’s relax! Smell those candles! Screechers can feed on your fear and grow stronger. In this class you will learn to keep your cool in the most stressful situations. You will control your fear. Are you ready to relax?’
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ the class mumbled half-heartedly.
    â€˜I SAID, ARE YOU READY TO RELAX?’
    â€˜Yes, sir!’ they shouted.
    â€˜I can tell that none of you are relaxing!’ said Master Poon. ‘Close your eyes and RELAX! Feel your muscles becoming soft. And breathe! Breathe, you maggots!’
    Jasper was trying his best to relax, but he knew that any moment, Master Poon would do something worse than just yell at him.
    Breathe , said Jasper to himself. Relax .
    Then Jasper felt something fall softly into his lap. He didn’t want to open his eyes. He could already feel the fear creeping in. He’d gone to enough Rest and Relaxation classes to know that whatever was in his lap couldn’t be good.
    â€˜Keep relaxed, keep