The Crimes and Punishments of Miss Payne Read Free

of a romantic.
    So that was that. We never found out what happened to Miss Leanyer. There were rumors, naturally. Some said thatshe had given up teaching and had taken to mud wrestling down south for a living. If her attack on Kiffo was anything to go by, she would have been good at it too. Others said that she was a stripper in Kings Cross. The story I liked best was the one that had her in a lunatic asylum stabbing scissors into footballs, drooling and screaming, “Are you Jaryd Kiffing?” at all the visitors. That was my favorite, but as I made it up myself, you could say I was biased.
    Naturally, Kiffo took all the credit for getting rid of her. For a while he was the envy of the school. Even seniors looked on him with respect. As if he'd attacked a heavily fortified enemy encampment with only a rusty can opener and wiped out an entire battalion. He was a legend. He told me later that his dad tried to sue the Education Department for a million dollars. When he found out that this was going to be a little difficult, his dad offered to forget the whole matter for a case of beer and two hundred smokes. A bit difficult after that climb down to remain a credible plaintiff.
    Yeah, he had a good few weeks did Kiffo. But then Miss Payne appeared. And Jaryd Kiffing was a marked man. You see, Miss Payne was a different type of teacher entirely. If Miss Leanyer was the Snow White of the educational world, Miss Payne was the slash-'em-up homicidal maniac. And Kiffo was home alone, and the phone lines had been cut.
    Year 6, Fourth Term
    The sky is swollen, the air heavy with darkness and the promise of rain. You skip down the stairs to the toilet block. In your right hand is a note signed by your teacher. You are all thin legs and arms and gingham school uniform. You pause outside the boys’ toilets, head cocked to one side, listening. From within, there is a dull thudding, as regular as a metronome. You stand for a while, hesitant.
    “Is anyone there?” you ask, but there is no reply. The thudding continues. You enter the darkness of the toilets. Your heart is hammering in your flat chest because you know that you shouldn't be there. Not in the boys’ toilets. Not with that thudding threat. There is a thick smell of stale urine. It makes your eyes water but you move farther in. There is a urinal on your right. Empty. Farther along there is a row of cubicles. The thudding is coming from the one farthest away. The door is open. You move slowly toward it.
    “Who's there?” you ask.
    Silence, apart from the thudding. It forms a counterpoint to the beating of your heart. You want to run, but you also need to see. It seems to take an age, but you reach the corner of the door. You peer slowly round it, matchstick legs tensed for flight.

Chapter 2
So just how many friends
has John Marsden got?
    “Creeping hell!” said Vanessa. “What in the name of God is that?”
    I was bent over my exercise book, putting the final touches on a character star sign entry, when her hoarse whisper caught my attention. I looked up at her face. Her eyes were glazed with horror and her mouth turned down in an expression that seemed to indicate that something exceptionally smelly had just been thrust under her nose. Naturally, I twisted my head to follow her line of sight. And when I saw what she had seen, my jaw hit the desk….
    Whoa! Hang on a moment. Let's take a break here. To be honest, I'm a complete beginner when it comes to storytelling and I need to take a time-out. Collect my thoughts. Sorry.
    Tell me something. Have you ever read John Marsden's
Everything I Know About Writing?
Rhetorical question! Ofcourse, I could sit here until you answer, though I suspect that might take a long time. Sudden image of me sitting in the library for years waiting for the reply. I'm a skeleton in the corner, crumbling into dust, with a little sign on my rib cage saying
Still waiting for a reply.
    New students come to the school: “What's with the