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Schwab Invaders
By AnonymousIt was another normal day in my normal life. Get up, get on the bus, endure the taunts of people trying to be as computer nerdy as me, go to the Library...But wait, what’s this? Ms. Schwab is in the Library again today! No! Oh, wait, you don’t even know who these people are! Ms. Schwab is my Math teacher. I guess a polite person would call her “eccentric” but everyone calls her a weird midget freak. Why midget? Well, let’s just say a 6th grader could probably look down at her. Nobody calls her a midget freak to her face though, because she is always happy, just floating through life writing happy faces on everything, and pity the person that turns that smile upside down. I have only seen her mad once, I think someone had gotten a problem wrong on their test, and her eyes bulged, and she stomped her feet, which had mega-huge heels, and started screaming. I mean, she must have blown an artery! So now that you know who Ms. Schwab is, you should know her chief antagonist, Mr. Ross. Mr. Ross is my Language Arts teacher. He’s tall, but bald, so it kind of balances out. I suppose his main reason for living is to torment Ms. Schwab. I’ll never forget the day Mr. Ross sawed almost all the way through her 12’’ heels so when she went to huff and puff and stomp, they snapped off and she fell...off the gym bleachers...and onto that area under the bleachers with the half foot deep layer of spilled soft drinks and candy. Boy, a good time was had by all. Now that you know who’s who around here, I guess I can continue with the story. I look through the glass with the metal wires through it, you know, just incase a riot breaks out, and peek inside. She looks at me, standing up on the stool propped up behind the bookcase. She did see me! I turn around and go to run back to the Cafeteria but I manage to run into one of those helpful, “I’ll watch you like a hawk when you need to go to the bathroom but won’t be around when you’re being beaten by a gang in the hall,” monitors who politely instruct me to return to the media center. I calmly walk through the prison-like security device and walk through the Library on tip-toes. She’s preparing another thesis on how short people are genetically superior. If I can just sneak by...
“ARE YOU JOLLEY GOOD TODAY? HAHAHAHAHAHA!” An obnoxious jock politely informs me of my last name. She looks up and smiles. “Why hello there MATT! How ARE you TODAY?!” She says.
“Heh...uh...hmmm...Hi.” I manage to stammer out. I know she was up to something. Perhaps it was the witchcraft books propping her up in her seat instead of the normal phone books. I quickly waddle back to the other end of the Library, home to 35 year old TV sets and one of the 3 remaining analog clocks in the building. I read some more out of my book and wait until 8:20. Biiiiiiing! The bell sounds, and I wait for her to strap on her stilt-legs so she can stand up to tell us to leave. 5 minutes later, I’m out in the hall, being shoved and pushed around in the vague direction of my locker. Thankfully someone shoved me extra hard and I was knocked out of the fray and right into my locker. Removing the handle from where it was embedded into my skull, I dial in my combination. I pull out my books, and drop them off in Ms. Schwab’s class. I then try to navigate down the crooked hallway, but I am knocked into the wall 3 times by 6th graders that insist on running through the hallways and then telling >ME< that >I< was the one that should have moved. Peeling the rug-burned skin off the thin carpet, I hobble to where most of my friend’s home rooms are. After looking through all the Related Arts rooms, I can’t find them at all! Odd, all my buddies that make fun of Schwab with me are missing. Oh well, I have time to hit the vending machines! Yum!
I walk up to the coke machine that was so nicely planted in the building even after we said we wanted to keep the Pepsi, and threw in my quarters. I hear a muffled click and in the background “Isn’t that the kid that Schwab wants to make pay? Sure, uh...Yeah!” and suddenly all the sold out lights blink and it shoots out the quarters. I had bent over to pick up a perfectly good cookie someone left down on the tiles, and when I stood up, I saw the quarters embedded in the wall behind me! Someone tried to KILL me with my most favorite thing in the world...the vending machines! Oh well, it’s 8:32, I better get to homeroom!
After homeroom, I walked into Ms. Schwab’s class, to find someone had gutted a fish and put it in my binder that I left in the room. Like I said, another normal day. I sit down in my wobbly chair with the bent out wire rack that rips open your legs if you brush up with it, and opened my book.
“Matt Jolley, how many times have I told you to stop talking?! Out in the hall, NOW!” Apparently Ms. Schwab has decided to play these games with me again. The restraining order didn’t change a thing!
“Whatever you say, you munchkin stubby little oompa-loompa wannabe.” I mumble as I go outside.
“What DiD YoU Say?!!” She screamed.
“I said you were SHORT!” I yelled back.
That made her mad. She stomped her little stilt shoes and brushed her Marge Simpson hair back, and even tripped over the raised platform she set up so she could see over the overhead.
While in the hallway, I noticed the other classes all had their doors shut, and there was a tarp on the floor, and a sign that said “Please don’t splatter the blood on the carpet.” Hmmm, something is up... A few minutes later, I decided Schwab wasn’t coming out, so I slowly opened up the door and snatched a hall pass off the weird black plastic thingie. I then wandered the halls, snagged a few drinks from the vending machines and made faces in the tiny windows in the doors of other classrooms. Finally, the end of the period was near. I walked back to the classroom and waited. The bell rang, and 125 students emptied into a hallway meant to hold 60. I waited for the next bell, which would announce that the kids had better get to related arts classes. Since Ms. Schwab taught math, her room was empty. I opened the door and walked in.
“Uh, Ms. Schwab, about...” I started to say, when the lights went off. Suddenly all these candles on her desk lit up and she came up behind be and jammed a stilt-shoe into my back! Panicked, I fell to the floor and passed out. I woke up tied to those little metal hooks on the tops of the chalkboards. Ms. Schwab had altered the overhead projector so that it glowed. There was a big smiley face on the side and Christmas lights on the bottom. Some things never change. She walked over, hobbled really, because she broke one of her stilt-shoes, and turned the machine on. A bright green beam shot out of the top of it and blinded me. Suddenly, the ground was a lot closer! She was shrinking me! In a few minutes I was just a little thing the height of a chalk stick, just a little shorter then Ms. Schwab! She picked me up, and said, “Now you will pay!” and opened up her desk drawer. Inside were 2 jars. One was labeled ‘Ross’ and one ‘Jolley.’
She unscrewed the lid from the one marked ‘Jolley’ and dropped me in. Darkness closed in as she shut the drawer.
Will our hero be able to escape? What will happen to STUMPY Ms. Schwab? Only Time Will Tell!
When we last left our hero, he was locked In the evil Ms. Schwab’s desk drawer.
A few hours later, I was awakened by the drawer opening. The Ross jar was picked up, and a few seconds later, placed back in the desk with someone inside. Ms. Schwab thought for a few minutes then picked up both jars and placed them on the floor. “We need a few air holes in these jars!” She said and unscrewed the 9’’ heel on one of her shoes and revealed a long silver ice pick looking thing! She quickly punched a few holes into the lids of both our jars, but then she got the ice pick stuck in the cement that lies just .02 inches below the ultra-mega-cheap all purpose indoor/outdoor super rug burn 2000 carpet.
I used this time to identify the person in the jar next to mine. It was Mr. Ross! Right down to the shiny bald head! I didn’t have time to do anything else, though, because she got the shoe unstuck and quickly dropped us back into the desk. She slammed the drawer shut too hard, though, as it popped back open. Since the jar was propped up on a copy of the book ‘Look tall by making others look bad’ I could see almost everything. Ms. Schwab shut the door and covered the tiny window above the door knob. She then used the normally useless light dimmer, and pulled down the projector screen. She took off the other stilt shoe, and pulled off the top, and twisted the heel. She then set it on top of the overhead, with the glowing green screen. Suddenly the overhead whirred and vibrated, and the projector...well... projected a image onto the screen. It was a room on a spaceship, where REALLY short people ran around in dorky striped uniforms and 10 inch heels. In the middle of the screen was the chief dwarf. “Is the takeover going well, 4 of 16?” The head of the Lollipop Guild said.
“Yes commander. Soon the Schwabbites will have all the tall bodies they need!” Ms. Schwab said. I gasped. These people are invading Earth to steal the bodies of tall people?! Ms. Schwab continued to talk. “I have rounded up the non-believers. The little fat kid was close to discovering. I have the body transformer ready, it’s installed in my Volkswagen Beetle.” I couldn’t believe it! These people, err, I mean Schwabbites, are REALLY short! Shorter then Ms. Schwab...How could she be so tall? “One other thing, commander, the leg implants are working well. I am still far shorter then an average 6th grader, but not shorter then the little fat kid.” WHAT? What’s with the fat people jokes? And was she saying SHE was taller then ME? I jumped up and down and started yelling. “HEY! Who are you calling short, you stumpy little 5th grader! You couldn’t even pass for a midget, you’d have to say you were a child elf midget!” Oops. Up until then she had not known I was there. “Looks like I have a little eaves dropper. End Transmission.” The projector shut off and Ms. Schwab stalked over. Her Marge Simpson beehive was swaying dangerously, it could topple at any moment. All she did, though, was pick up the jar, and then go to set it down on her desk. She was just about to drop it, when...
SNAP! The support straps on the beehive pulled loose, and the 12 inches of golden cement and steel reinforced ‘do fell towards the desk. Slowly the hair peace toppled the staggering 4 feet 5 inches from the top of her head and struck the top of the jar I was in. The top of the jar imploded, sending shards of mason jar glass down into the container, which smelled like bad mayonnaise. The jar then fell over and rolled onto her chair, stacked 2 feet higher then it should have been by many phone books, along with “Math For Dummies” and “Math made EXTREAMLY Simple.” I guess when they recruited her on the planet Schwab, she didn’t know how to teach a Math class. Panicked, Ms. Schwab rammed into the chair which sent it flying. It whirred right past the overhead stand, so I jumped on. I ran over and jumped on the big black switch, moving it from “Talk” to “Deep Fry” to “Rotisserie Fry” to “Broil” to “Spin Cycle” to “Shrink” and finally to “Make Really Big.” I jumped onto the glass screen of the projector, and waited as the screen started glowing that nasty 70’s puke green. Ms. Schwab was still panicked, with a screwdriver re-fastening the support beams of the hairdo to her skull. Suddenly, with a screech like cats in a blender, I started growing back to my normal size, and then a little bit more. Wow, now I REALLY was taller then Ms. Schwab! My increased weight (All those Big Macs don’t just disappear) made the projector and stand collapse into a giant sparking heap. “Tee Hee Hee, ummmm, gotta go to the vending machine!” I yelled and ran out the door. There was a tussle in the room as she had to brace her stilt shoes and leg implants, but she was out in the hall just a few seconds later. My mind was racing, what could I do? I was running hard, and my heart was protesting. Come to think of it, my whole body was on strike. I wound up in the cafeteria. What could I use to defeat the evil Schwabby army? Ah, yes! Suddenly, I was attacked from behind! All I had to do was stand up straight though, and I had lifted her off the ground and she fell off. I ran into the kitchen where the “Soup” of the day was busy fermenting under the radiator. It’s a well known fact that the “soup” was really acid with paint thinner and some ammonia, so I was ready. I ran and slid under the TV table. Schwabby tried to duck but the leg implants weren’t flexible. With a thunderous crash, the pot fell right on her. “NOOOOOOOOOO! I’m melting! Melting! What a world, What a World! Melted by cream of anti-freeze soup!” And with that, she was gone, leaving a pool of stilt shoes and a half melted Marge Simpson hairdo. I ran out of the kitchen, since the fumes from the soup alone were toxic, let alone what Schwabby could do, I walked back into the classroom. Mr. Ross was jumping up and down in the jar, and flailing his hands. I picked up the jar, and was about to open it when a thought struck me. “Mr. Ross,” I said. “About my grade...”
March 1, 1999 All original text is copyrighted by the author. All Inserted Text (You Know Who You Are) Is (C)1999 By Matt Jolley
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