School's Out...Forever! Read Online Free PDF Page B

DSA!”
    â€œHooray!” cheered the Class III lads and lasses. “We’re outta here!”
    â€œNot just you,” said Mordred. “It’s Graduation Day for one and all!”
    â€œUncle!” cried Angus. “What can you mean?”
    â€œI mean you’re all graduating! Every last oneof you!” Mordred smiled, and his gold front tooth glimmered in the torchlight.
    Wiglaf felt sure that the headmaster meant they would graduate to the next class. That he and his friends would move up to Class III.
    â€œI sent Yorick out to invite your families to the ceremony,” Mordred went on.
    â€œHow kind of you, sir!” cried Torblad.
    â€œGraduation tickets cost ten pennies each!” Mordred rubbed his chubby hands together. “By tomorrow, I’ll be rich! And DSA will be no more.”
    Cries of “What?” and “Why?” and “About time!” filled the dining hall.
    Wiglaf was stunned. DSA would be no more? Mordred couldn’t mean it!
    â€œBrother Dave?” called Mordred. “Where are you?”
    â€œHereth!” answered the little monk from a table in the back.
    â€œI need diplomas!” thundered Mordred. “Make one for every lad and lass. Don’t bother with fine penmanship. We need speed here!”
    â€œI shalt doeth it,” said Brother Dave. “But please, telleth us—why?”
    â€œMy partners”—Mordred grinned over at his three visitors—“and I are turning this money-losing dump—I mean school—into a casino. Gambling! Betting! Games of chance! That’s how fortunes are made! Not by trying to educate a slew of hapless nitwits!”
    â€œAre you talking about
us
?” cried Baldrick.
    â€œYou bet I am!” boomed Mordred. He looked around. “Lobelia? Make yourself known to me!”
    â€œSitting next to you, Mordie,” said Lobelia.
    â€œAh!” said Mordred. “You’re in charge of caps and gowns, sister. Don’t spend any money on ’em. All right! Questions?”
    Dozens of hands went up.
    â€œNo questions. Good!” Mordred smiled. “Diners dismissed!”
    â€œBut we haven’t finished our supper, sir!” cried Baldrick.
    â€œTake it with you!” cried Mordred. “Empty the room! I’ve got painters waiting to get in here. Out, you little blighters. Scat!”

    That night, Erica built a campfire in the castle yard. Many lads and lasses sat around it.
    â€œWhat do you plan to do after graduation, Wiggie?” Angus asked.
    â€œKeep on questing until I find Worm,” said Wiglaf.
    â€œYou can’t,” said Dudwin. “Once Father learns that school is closing, we’ll have to go back home and pick cabbages.”
    Wiglaf sighed. “Back to my eleven brothers who punch me every chance they get.”
    â€œThey won’t punch you now that you’re a dragon slayer, Wiggie,” said Dudwin.
    â€œYes, they will,” said Wiglaf. “They punch me because I’m not big nor beefy nor yellow-haired like they are, Dud. They do not like me.”
    â€œI’m big and beefy and yellow-haired, and I like you,” Dudwin insisted.
    â€œAfter graduation, I shall become a wandering knight,” Erica put in. “I shall slay wicked dragons—the gigantic ones that flame villages and eat toasted villagers.”
    Wiglaf shuddered at the thought of such dragons.
    â€œI shall go to the Knights’ Noble Conservatory,” said Janice. “I heard that they have real horses for their jousting team.”
    â€œI,” said Torblad, “shall transfer to Toenail Junior High.”
    â€œDo you need good grades to go there?” asked Baldrick, wiping his nose on the hem of his tunic.
    â€œI hope not,” said Torblad.
    When the talking ended, Wiglaf wrapped himself in his blanket and watched the campfire burn down. He’d been at DSA for nearly two years. In that