Harry Moffer & the Dumbest Story Ever!

Chapter 10: The Mysterious Sand Dunes

Mr. Silch took Harry, Pun, and Hildegarde through the school. Once again, most of the students glared daggers at the trio. Not even Jill could spare him a passing glance; she and Neramill pretended that he didn't exist. Tarcey Pate and Junia Brown were of a different opinion. They threw rotten banana peels at the trio and then the rest of the student body followed suit. There were also some jeers and name-calling, some of which cannot be repeated here.

Mr. Silch would have taken the offending student to the detention room, but in this case, he bypassed the room and instead, led the trio outside to where the mysterious Sand Dunes were.

"Are those the mysterious Sand Dunes?" Pun asked when he looked up from his wheelbed and saw the dunes. They were impressively huge and some of the dunes had moss and other grasses growing on them.

Tafrin saw the group approaching his cabin, which sat at the edge of the dunes and said to Mr. Silch, "Hey, you can't bring them here. Professor Snibblepore won't like this very much."

"It matters not what that old coot thinks," said Mr. Silch. "These children are to be punished for their misdeeds."

"Whatever have they done wrong?" Tafrin cried out. "Surely they are innocent."

"Oh yeah?" said Mr. Silch. "First, they wrote that article that degraded and besmirched the Larry Dobber series..."

"Good for them," said Tafrin. "Those books weren't all that good to begin with."

"Next, they destroyed the forbidden section in the library, meaning that all the Larry Dobber books are gone and the kids there are reading *other* books," Mr. Silch continued.

"Well, one cannot read Larry Dobber all the time," said Tafrin. "They need a variety of books in order to live well-balanced lives."

"And there is the matter of them telling kids everywhere to stop watching TV and whining about toys and video games," Mr. Silch tried to add, but Tafrin interrupted him by saying, "That's enough! I've had it up to here with your cruel and bullying ways. I'm sure that Professor MacFordlepad will be hearing about this and she won't be too happy about it either. Now, return the kids to the detention room and leave me alone!"

"Never!" Mr. Silch snapped at him as he pushed Pun's wheelbed. The wheelbed rolled down the hill...backwards. "AAAIIIEEE!!!" Pun screamed as the wheelbed swooshed by various plants and some animals.

"Pun!" Harry and Hildegarde shouted as they chased after him.

"Now look at what you've done," said Tafrin. "Professor Snibblepore will not be too happy about this. Plus, what will the Lamers and Teasleys do when I tell them that you sent their children to their deaths? What will happen when the village finds out that you killed Harry Moffer? You are in so much trouble, Mr. Silch!"

"I see," said Professor MacFordlepad as she approached them, "and if that's Harry Moffer who went down the hill and into the Sand Dunes, your life is over!"

* * * * * * * *

For a long time, Harry and Hildegarde chased after Pun, whose wheelbed rolled down the dune even faster. After a while, the wheelbed came to a complete stop at the bottom of the sand dune. Pun stopped screaming and relaxed; rolling down the sand dune took a lot of energy from him.

Harry and Hildegarde soon caught up to him. Harry said, "I think we should rest now and then figure out a way to get back to the school from...here."

Hildegarde glanced all around her and said, "but I don't even know how we got here, so I don't know how to get back up the hill." She knew something was up—they were lost.

Yet, it wasn't the show about a group of plane crash survivors who ended up on an island where strange things happened and polar bears roamed the island at will.

On the other hand, the kids were lost.

Pun said, "Now how are we gonna get back to the school?"

"Who knows?" said Harry. "We're lost, my feet hurt and Hildegarde has way too much sand in her Afro puffs."

"And that's another thing I hate," said Hildegarde as she tried to shake the sand out of her hair without getting it into her eyes. "I can't stand the sight of sand in my hair. But that's nothing compared to our situation right now."

All three kids sat on the sand and tried to come up with ways to get out of the Sand Dunes before a big strong wind came and buried them to death. So far, none of the ideas they came up with were good ideas. Harry was just about to give up when he noticed a path that led away from their spot and down a dark path.

"I think we should take this path," Harry announced to Pun and Hildegarde.

They agreed and began following the path that led to a dark dank cave. Harry was wary of entering caves, seeing as he had watched way too many scary movies about monsters hiding in caves and attacking people who came to such caves, but this was better than being trapped in the Sand Dunes. He could foresee them having to wait in the caves until Tafrin came to rescue them.

Hildegarde said, "Well, what do we do until then?"

"Sit, wait, and hope for a miracle," said Harry as he sat in a corner of the cave. He was having a rotten day and he needed to get back to school as soon as he could. He couldn't let Jill find the Magician's Crystal first.

* * * * * * * *

Back in Warthogpox, Jill frowned as she waited for Harry, Pun, and Hildegarde at the bus stop. School had ended and she had invited them over her house to study, or so she did. In reality, she wanted to question them about their search for the Magician's Crystal and other things that they had done, mainly writing the anti-Larry Dobber essay that got everyone riled up and led to them getting chased out of the school.

Little did she know that when she was about a mile away from her house, Harry, Pun, and Hildegarde had been missing from Warthogpox High for over five hours...