Eighth Grade Bites Read Online Free PDF Page B

his bag again and withdrew a stack of papers. He divided the stack into fifths and dropped them on the desks in the front of the classroom. Familiar with the routine, the students took one paper and passed the rest back. “But no worries. I’ve already come up with a lesson plan that I’m sure you’ll find both informative and entertaining.”
    Chelsea Whitaker didn’t bother to turn around in her seat; she merely flung the last paper in the stack over her shoulder at Vlad. The paper flipped in the air and fluttered to the floor. Vlad picked it up and gave the bottom of Chelsea’s seat a light kick before scanning the page, which was a list of assignments and something called “special classroom goals.” There were dates typed neatly beside each assignment. Vlad wrinkled his forehead. The dates went all the way to the end of the school year. How long did this guy think he was staying?
    Kara apparently had the same thought, as her hand shot into the air again. “How long will you be teaching us?”
    Mr. Otis scanned the class, his eyes serious. He didn’t speak.
    Chelsea hissed in Kara’s direction, “Don’t be stupid. He’ll be here until Mr. Craig comes back.”
    â€œYou mean if he comes back.” The entire class fell silent at Meredith’s words. It wasn’t disbelief that held their tongues, but amazement that someone had the guts to say aloud what they all feared. Meredith’s cheeks flushed and she brushed a tear from the corner of her eye. Kara reached out and patted her hand after flashing Chelsea a glare.
    Mr. Otis cleared his throat again, drawing everyone’s attention. “Chelsea is quite right.”
    Of course she was. Chelsea was captain of the Cheer Squad. She was right about everything . . . or thought she was, anyway. Vlad was pretty sure Chelsea wasn’t bright enough to even find her way to school each day without the assistance of her pom-pom-carrying friends and the promise of being drooled over by every thickheaded jock in the school.
    Mr. Otis glanced in Vlad’s general direction, plucked his watch from his vest, and flipped it open. He closed it with a snap and returned it to his pocket. “I will teach here for as long as I am needed and only as long as your teacher, Mr. Craig, remains missing. If that matter is settled, we can move on to our lesson plan.” He turned to the chalkboard and drew a series of unrecognizable squiggles that were supposed to be, Vlad surmised, key points about the assignments they’d be working on. “As your teacher normally assigns you essays to test your composition skills, I will do the same. However, as I’ve already explained to Principal Snelgrove, I will be combining this task with my area of expertise—mythology. Each week we will study a different mythological creature, and at the end of the year, should you still be blessed with my presence, there will be a test on composition, grammar, punctuation—and mythology.”
    Vlad squinted at the board. One of the words looked something like dimagom, but that couldn’t be right. The next looked a bit like weneranlvs . Vlad squinted harder and then looked at the paper in his hands. At the bottom was a list of mythological creatures. The first was dragons. He looked back at the board: dimagom . That could be dragons, he supposed. And weneranlvs looked suspiciously like the next word on the list: werewolves. Forgoing Mr. Otis’s atrocious handwriting, Vlad read down the list.
    Unicorns, griffins, centaurs, faeries, gnomes, trolls, mermaids, nymphs, banshees, zombies, witches, vampires . . .
    Vlad stopped at the word vampires and smirked. It ought to be interesting to hear what the rest of the class thought of him. Well, most of them, anyway. There were a few whose opinions he couldn’t care less about.
    In front of him, Chelsea was snickering at a note Sylvia Snert had passed her. Across the top