The Great Brain Read Free Page A

Noel. He was still in shock, but his head was already ticking over with possibilities. ‘And yes, I want to make a bet. I’m especially keen to make a bet with you involving intelligence – one that I can’t lose. But how should we settle such a one-sided wager?’
    â€˜You versus me on Who Wants to Be a Horror Millionaire ,’ said Mick.
    â€˜What!’ hollered Mr Noel. ‘You couldn’t answer the first question on that show, which is “Hi viewers, how are you this evening?” You can’t be serious. You can’t honestly think you’ll beat me in an intelligence competition. You’ll be hammered. Even I’d feel sorry for you … eventually.’
    â€˜We’ll see,’ snapped Mick. ‘Or are you scared to put your money where your big ugly mouth is?’
    That rudeness galvanised Mr Noel and he instantly became all businesslike. ‘What’s at stake here, Dumbo?’
    â€˜Everything,’ replied Mick. ‘What do you want to bet?’
    â€˜Well, you mentioned money – how much do you have?’
    â€˜I work part-time flipping burgers at McHorrors and earn fifty bucks a week,’ answered Mick. ‘I’ll put up a year’s wages – $25,000.’
    â€˜I could easily use some extra pocket money,’ smirked Mr Noel. ‘So you want meto put up $25,000 – even though you only earn $2,500 a year, you thickshake?’
    â€˜No,’ said Mick, shaking his head emphatically. ‘It’s not about money. I want you to put all of us out of our misery. If you lose, you quit your job and leave this school forever.’
    Â 
    The details of the mad bet went through Horror High like a dose of recycled laxatives. Nobody could believe it. Mick Living-Dead definitely wasn’t the densest denizen in the district, but being smarter than Brent Strawman was nothing to be proud of.
    Brent was a scruffy scarecrow with a head full of straw possessed by the vile essences of twenty-three fragmented evil spirits, and – since the day he was stitched together, stuffed and had a two-metre pole jammed up his rear end – he’d never uttered a single word. Who could blame him? But being brainier than Brent was bugger all to boast, brag and big-note yourself about, bro.
    Even though they all knew Mick had zero chance of success, the students were energised about the possibilities of the bet. They dreamt of ridding the school of the much-hated Mr Noel and indulged in halcyonic visions of Horror High as a place where a kid might actually enjoy the lessons, gain useful and worthwhile knowledge in class, develop their inner selves in a positive learning environment and become happy, productive members of society.
    Someone had obviously spiked the drinking water.
    Many conspirators had plotted Mr Noel’s downfall before, but none had succeeded. Three previous attempts on Mr Noel’s life had failed miserably. The first occurred on a school excursion when an anonymous student let the bus handbrake off while Mr Noel was standing in front of it taking a photograph of some amusing roadkill. The vehicle was parked on a steep hill and the slick move would’ve flattened Mr Noel like a toad through a mangle if hehadn’t looked up from the camera to check the aperture.
    The second attempt was craftier. Someone broke into the school canteen and filled Mr Noel’s lunch roll with iron filings. The theory was that, once swallowed, the contents would gouge his intestines like sandpaper on spaghetti. It should’ve and would’ve exterminated the treacherous teacher by last period, except the illiterate canteen staff stuffed up the lunch orders and delivered the tooled-up, heavy metal roll to Principal Skullwater.
    Skullwater was a notoriously fussy eater and pecked at his food like a bird. The first prissy mouthful of the lunch roll broke his two front teeth off like they were sticks of blackboard chalk, and