The Phantom Lollipop Man Page 4

  Lunch was almost over by the time we got back to the dining hall.

  But we rushed up to the counter anyway and asked for SECONDS and we made sure we were REALLY NICE to all the dinner ladies (even the mean one) and we kept saying stuff like, “Everything smells DELICIOUS!” and “Yes, PLEASE!” and “BRAVO!” We all made sure that we ate

  of food on our plates and said, “MMMMMMMMHHH!” really loud and rubbed our stomachs until the dinner ladies looked over at us. Then Zach picked up his plate and started licking it, just like we’d planned.

  We waited until all the other pupils left and then we went up to the serving bit and asked if we could interview one of the dinner ladies for a school project (because we knew the dinner ladies would tell us they were busy and to go away if we just started asking them about the LOLLIPOP man so we had to be SNEAKY).

  But then the MEANEST DINNER LADY came over and said, “What project?!” and I started panicking a bit.

  So that’s when Maisie said, “It’s about the history of our school. We want to know more about the history of school dinners.”

  I looked at Jodi and she raised her eyebrows because sometimes Maisie

  us and comes up with a really good COVER STORY out of NOWHERE.

  So I said, “Um, yes. Because if we didn’t have food then we wouldn’t be able to LEARN so school dinners is probably the most important part of the WHOLE SCHOOL.”

  The mean dinner lady stared at us for a minute. And then all of a sudden she actually SMILED A BIT and said, “Well. I can’t argue with THAT. Back you come.”

  The dinner lady disappeared into the kitchen and we sort of stood there SHOCKED until Zach eventually said, “Did that just happen?! Did she just say we could go into the kitchen?!” And I nodded and Zach said,

  And he was RIGHT to say WOW because pupils are NEVER allowed to go into the kitchen EVER!

  So we pushed the kitchen doors open and walked in and it was SO WEIRD to be in a bit of the school that we had never been in before and we couldn’t stop looking at EVERYTHING like the HUGE FREEZER and the MASSIVE SPOONS and the dinner ladies were all working so hard and fast at doing the washing up that they looked a bit like ROBOTS!

  The dinner lady told us to follow her into the back, so we did. And then she pointed to some upturned buckets and told us to sit down. That’s when Jodi nudged me and I realised that the interview had started and that it was UP TO ME to do this interview PROFESSIONALLY and make sure we got the information we needed.

  Jodi passed me the pad and pen, and she squeezed my hand a bit when she did it and I knew it meant GOOD LUCK.

  So I looked at the notepad and PRETENDED that there were questions about

  on there, even though there weren’t any.

  So I asked the dinner lady how long she had been a dinner lady and she told us that she had worked at the school for over

  and I was a bit surprised because that’s AGES to work in just one place and I had NO IDEA she loved being a dinner lady so much because she always looks

  Then the dinner lady started saying loads of stuff about things being better in the OLD DAYS and that now you weren’t even allowed to butter a slice of TOAST without asking someone’s permission or filling in a FORM.

  So I nodded loads and pretended to be writing everything down, but I didn’t write anything. But then the dinner lady wouldn’t stop talking about PAPER TOWELS and I wasn’t sure what to say to make her stop until I got a

  So I said, “Everyone else we’ve spoken to said that they think being a LOLLIPOP man is the MOST IMPORTANT job in the school. What do you think?”

  And THAT’S when the dinner lady’s face went BRIGHT RED. And she shouted, “WHAT?!”

  Zach gulped and moved his bucket back a bit and I wiped my face because the dinner lady had actually SPAT on it a bit.

  The dinner lady got up off her bucket and started waving her arms around and shouting, “All that man does is STAND STILL!! He should try coming back HERE for EIGHT HOURS A DAY!!” We all watched as the dinner lady kept on shouting. And then some of the OTHER dinner ladies came over and she told them what I’d said and THEY all started shouting about the LOLLIPOP man and about how all he does is “OCCASIONALLY WALK ACROSS THE ROAD” and that most of the time he’s “NOWHERE TO BE SEEN!”

  Then Jodi said, “Um. Time to go, Izzy!” but I didn’t move because even though the dinner ladies were TOTALLY FREAKING OUT, we were in the middle of a VITAL INTERVIEW.

  But then I noticed that the only reason Maisie was still sitting on her bucket was because Jodi was holding her up. And also that Maisie was starting to SLIP.

  But I just KNEW that I could squeeze in a REAL question before Maisie slid off her bucket completely.

  So I said, “Where does the LOLLIPOP man go when he’s nowhere to be seen?”

  And one of the dinner ladies looked RIGHT AT ME and said, “He sneaks off to the LIBRARY for a NAP, of course!”

  And I looked at Zach and he smiled because we’d just found out where the phantom LOLLIPOP man LURKED!

  But then Jodi said, “Izzy! We REEEEALLY need to go!!!”

  So we all said thank you to the dinner lady and dragged Maisie into the playground for some fresh air.

  And that’s when Jodi said that Maisie didn’t faint because of all the

  She said that Maisie had fainted because she had seen the phantom LOLLIPOP man again!

  And THAT’S when I noticed that Jodi’s face had gone COMPLETELY WHITE.

  And she said, “I think I saw him TOO!”

  Before I had a chance to say ANYTHING, Jodi grabbed Zach’s phone and RAN.

  I looked at Zach and he looked at me and said, “GO! I’ll stay with Maisie.”

  So I ran after Jodi, all the way along the bottom corridor, past the head teacher’s office and out into the school car park.

  But the phantom LOLLIPOP man was gone.

  Jodi pointed across the car park towards the road and said, “He was right there. I saw him through the kitchen window.”

  So that’s when I shouted, “LIBRARY! NOW!” and turned and ran back in to the school.

  But the library was LOCKED and we knew that probably meant that Mrs Bottery, the librarian, had gone to buy more Charity Chocolate from the Year 6s because Zach says that she is OBSESSED with it.

  I was just about to say we should go and get Zach and Maisie and come back in ten minutes when Jodi completely FLOPPED on to the ground.

  At first I thought she’d FAINTED because of the way she fell, but then I saw that her eyes were WIDE OPEN and I remembered that this was one of Jodi’s MOVES for when you need to duck down quickly so no one sees you.

  And that’s when I realised that there must be someone or SOMETHING inside the library!

  So I FLOPPED on to the ground too and waited for Jodi to say what to do next.

  But then we heard a voice say, “What are you DOING?”And we looked up and saw it was the librarian. And she was eating a bar of chocolate which meant that Zach was right about her being OBSESSED because she obviously couldn’t even wait until she got back to her desk to eat it.

  So I just said that we had been lying down waiting for her to come back because we were feeling tired after our lunch and the librarian just sort of shook her head at us and told us to go inside. I was

  because as much as I like the library, it’s a bit SPOOKY in there because it’s in the VERY OLDEST part of the school.

  Jodi waited until the librarian went behind her desk and then she whispered, “I think I saw someone standing behind that bookcase over there. Follow me.”

  So I took a DEEP BREATH and followed Jodi as she snuck through the bookcases to the other side of the library.

  But there was no one behind the bookcase and we couldn’t see any nebulous clouds or anything like that so Jodi said that the phantom LOLLIPOP man must have gone into

  Then all of a sudden, Jodi FROZE and said, “Can you smell that?”And that’s when I smelled a weird smell that was sort of like ora
nges and perfume.

  We both walked around, sniffing the air, trying to figure out what the smell was and that’s when Jodi said that the smell was getting STRONGER.

  Then all of a sudden Jodi said, “I think it’s coming from that chair!”

  Jodi got a

  look on her face but I wasn’t sure why. So I walked over and sat down on the chair and sniffed the armrest and the smell was REALLY STRONG there so I said, “You’re right. It’s the chair. It sort of smells a bit like Christmas. It’s weird.”

  But when I looked back up at Jodi she had Zach’s phone in her hand and she was pointing it RIGHT AT ME.

  So I said, “What are you doing?”

  And Jodi said, “Stay PERFECTLY STILL.”

  And that’s when I remembered about the STRANGE UNEXPLAINED SMELLS.

  And I realised what was going on. Jodi was trying to get

  I was sitting on top of a PHANTOM!

  Before I knew what was happening I was in The Den.

  Zach and Maisie were there too and they were saying something to me but I couldn’t really hear what they were saying because my head was SPINNING and I had NO IDEA how I even got there! Then all of a sudden, Jodi

  into The Den and she looked PURE WHITE. And THAT’S when I remembered what had happened in the library and how I had SAT ON A PHANTOM!!

  Jodi STARED into my eyes and asked if I was OK and if my bottom or legs or anything felt weird because of sitting on top of a ghost.

  And Zach said, “What HAPPENED?!”

  So Jodi explained about the STRANGE UNEXPLAINED SMELL and the old library chair in the far corner of the library and how I had accidentally sat right on top of the PHANTOM LOLLIPOP MAN.

  Jodi said that I had looked a bit like I’d fainted but that I’d still managed to get up and run all the way to The Den before we had a chance to try to communicate with him.

  I told Jodi that I didn’t remember doing ANY of that and Jodi nodded and held my hand and said that I was in

  and the body can do STRANGE THINGS when it’s in SHOCK.

  Then Zach asked me if I had been BURNED by the ghost and I said, “WHAT?!” Because we had

  that you could get a GHOST BURN!!

  And that’s when Maisie said, “We found out something.”

  And then she asked to see my legs so I showed her. But Maisie said that she was going to have to CUT A HOLE IN MY TIGHTS to be sure. So I just sort of nodded and Maisie took her pencil case out of her bag and started cutting LOADS of holes in my tights so she could see my legs and Jodi held my hand while she did it because she knew I was scared about the whole GHOST BURN THING.

  But Maisie said that my legs looked

  except for the fact that I now had loads of holes in my tights.

  And that’s when Zach told us that he and Maisie had bumped into Karly-with-a-K on the way to The Den and that she had been CRYING because she’d just seen a PHANTOM run through the playground and that it bumped into her a bit and made her arm go ICE COLD.

  Jodi rolled her eyes and said that Karly was obviously just making it up.

  But then Maisie said, “She had evidence.”

  That’s when Maisie told us that Karly had made both Maisie and Zach touch her arm and that it HAD been cold. In fact, it had been ICE COLD. And that Karly had said that it hurt to be touched and that she thought it was an ICE BURN.

  And I know all about ice burns, because one time I found an ice lolly at the very back of our freezer, and it had been there for so long that its wrapper had fallen off or disintegrated or something, and it was SO COLD that the minute I put it in my mouth it STUCK right to my tongue and I started screaming because I couldn’t get it off and it was REALLY PAINFUL. And when my dad eventually managed to get it off he said that I had an ICE BURN on my tongue! And I didn’t even know that you could get an ice burn until that happened.

  So anyway, I didn’t have any burns on my legs and Jodi said that I should go to the toilet and check that I didn’t have any on my bottom. But I said that I wasn’t doing that and that my bottom felt fine and that I didn’t feel cold or burned at ALL.

  Maisie said that it was probably because I was wearing thick tights and a skirt that I’d managed to avoid a GHOST BURN and that Karly had only been wearing a short-sleeved shirt when the phantom LOLLIPOP man had bumped into her. That’s when Zach said that we all had to come to school wearing

  from now on and Maisie nodded LOADS.

  Then Jodi said, “Um. I think there’s something wrong with your phone, Zach. It’s DOING SOMETHING!”

  And we all turned and looked at Jodi and she was holding out Zach’s phone and it was making a weird SCREECHY sound.

  Zach said, “Why is it doing that? What did you do to it?!”

  But Jodi said that she didn’t do ANYTHING and that she’d only tried to take a photo of me sitting on top of the phantom LOLLIPOP man in the library.

  That’s when Zach gasped and put his hand on his head and said, “OH NO! Maybe that’s why people FAKE ghost photos all the time. Maybe something goes

  if you ever catch a REAL ghost on camera. Maybe the camera can’t handle all the PHANTOM ENERGY or something and it explodes. DON’T MOVE!”

  So Jodi FROZE.

  Zach said that we needed to stay PERFECTLY STILL and that meant Maisie couldn’t faint.

  So I told Maisie to think about all the stuff that DIDN’T make her want to faint and Maisie nodded and said that she would think of MARSHMALLOWS and CAKES and HUMPBACK WHALES because she likes all those things.

  Then Zach started walking towards Jodi reeeeeeeeeeally sloooooooooowly because he said that he needed to try to STOP the phone from exploding. And then he said that he might be able to stop the whole thing by pressing the OFF BUTTON.

  Maisie shut her eyes tight and began chewing on nothing with her mouth wide open and I knew that she had gone to her HAPPY PLACE in her head and that she was probably pretending that she was at home in her kitchen with her mum eating loads of cakes.

  I held my breath as Zach got closer and closer to the phone and I could see that Jodi was actually SWEATING.

  Then when Zach was almost there he reached out his shaky finger and pressed the OFF button.

  And that’s when The Den went completely BLACK.

  At first there was just silence.

  Then I heard something and I realised that it was Maisie and that she was still doing the chewing thing and that she must not have even REALISED that it had gone PITCH BLACK in The Den.

  So I said, “Jodi?”

  And Jodi said, “Izzy?”

  And Zach said, “Is everyone OK? Why isn’t Maisie screaming?”

  And Jodi said, “BAD mistake, Zach.”

  And that’s when Maisie must have opened her eyes because she started screaming, “I can’t open my eyes… I CAN’T OPEN MY EYES!!!”

  So I used my most SOOTHING VOICE to tell Maisie that she COULD open her eyes and the reason she couldn’t see was because the lights had gone out in The Den.

  Then all of a sudden the lights came back on and Zach started yelling, “I DID IT! LOOK! I DID IT!”

  And we saw that Zach’s phone was still there and that it hadn’t exploded.

  Zach said that taking a picture of a REAL ghost must have caused the phone to FREAK OUT and caused a BLACK OUT and that it had probably affected the WHOLE SCHOOL and maybe even the whole country!

  Maisie said that we should never EVER turn the phone on EVER again because she was TERRIFIED of the dark.

  But Jodi said that we needed to find a way to get the phone working without exploding so she could print the PHANTOM PHOTO at home and give it to the police because it was

  And that’s when Maisie said, “FORGET about the picture. We’ve got more important things to focus on. We need to go back to the library and find out what the phantom LOLLIPOP man’s unfinished business is NOW before he floats away!”

  So we ran.

  On the way to the library we heard someone shout, “STOP RUNNIN
G THIS INSTANT!” And we all stopped and turned around and saw that it was Mrs Seith the scary deputy head.

  Jodi whispered that we should all just keep running. But none of us did. Not even Jodi because Mrs Seith is SERIOUSLY SCARY. And we heard that one time she made every single parent cry at Parents’ Evening. That’s how scary she is.

  So we all just started walking towards the library really slowly so that Mrs Seith would go away. But then we heard her

  and I thought that maybe she’d just seen the PHANTOM. But then she said, “ISABELLA! What ON EARTH have you done to your TIGHTS!”

  And that’s when I remembered about all the holes that Maisie had cut in my tights and also that pupils are NOT ALLOWED to cut holes in their tights OR draw on their legs after all the Year 6s did it last year and there was an assembly about it. Then the bell went and Mrs Seith told the others to go to class and that I was to STAY EXACTLY WHERE I WAS.

  I had to wait there for AGES while Mrs Seith went outside to shout at everyone for not standing in line properly. And then when she came back into the school she went into one of the classrooms for ages and my legs were starting to get sore from standing in the same place for so long so I was just about to sit down when I noticed HOW COLD my legs were. I touched them with my hand to make sure and they were