Charlie B. Dinkle's Delightful Adventure

Ch. 11 ~ A Hero

Chapter 11

   Charlie felt like a hero. A captured hero at that, but a hero all the same. She had sacrificed herself for her friend, and that made her feel a kind of happy that was different from any other happy she’d felt before.

   The Educator dragged her back inside the building, which now only had one child in it.

   “There goes thirty children out the window,” muttered The Educator. She looked down Charlie. “Now, you’re going to have to learn to make up for thirty children, do you hear? You’re going to learn and be educated thirty times harder.”

   Uh-oh, thought Charlie.

   The Educator didn’t take Charlie to class immediately. First, they went to the old lady’s office. She took out from a drawer that was next to her desk a grey bundle of clothes. “Don’t think I forgot about the school dress code,” she sneered.

   Poor Charlie didn’t have a choice. She took off her pretty purple dress and wore the dull uniform. The Educator snatched the dress from Charlie’s tiny hands.

   “You won’t be seeing this for a long time,” she cackled, stuffing the dress into the closet. Charlie’s heart sank.

   Afterwards, Charlie B. Dinkle returned to her empty class. The teacher, who was still standing at the whiteboard, sent a disapproving look to Charlie as she sat in her seat in the front row, all alone. The teacher began explaining how to draw the roundness of a circle.

   Geez, thought Charlie, even art managed to be a complete bore.

   As the teacher somehow got onto the subject of the radius of a circle, Charlie’s thoughts were in another world. How would she get out of here?

   “OMIGOSH – AAAAAH!” The teacher screamed with all her life as the left wall of the classroom exploded into bits.

   “What the…” Charlie watched as the teacher cowered behind her desk. Someone had smashed into the wall. When the dust cleared, Charlie saw it was none other than Quentin Simmercake the unicorn.

   “Hey, Charlie!” Leila shouted, waving her hand at Charlie. Leila was riding on the back of the unicorn, holding onto his trimmed mane with her other hand. She wasn’t wearing grey anymore, instead a neon pink tank top and trousers. “C’mon, let’s go!”

   Quentin said, “Hop on my back, Charlie! We’ve come to rescue you.” Then he primly wrinkled his muzzle. “Whatever are you wearing?”

   “School uniform,” replied Leila and Charlie at the same time. They smiled at each other.

   “I need to go get my dress,” said Charlie. “Quick, it’s in The Educator’s office!”

   Charlie hopped onto Quentin’s back behind Leila and, together, they galloped out of the classroom and into the hallway.

   “School is over, old lady!” Quentin declared as he burst into the office. The Educator, who had been smugly sat in her seat, was so surprised that she fell off and hit the floor flat on her face.

   “In the drawer!” Charlie urgently got off Quentin and quickly took her dress before getting on Quentin again. “Go, go, and GO!”

   Charlie felt like an even more exciting hero when she, Quentin, and Leila, burst out of the doors of the school and Quentin gracefully jumped over the metal fence.

   The trio looked back at the school. It had four walls, and since Quentin had broken into one of them, the other three walls collapsed over themselves, making the entire building bury itself in dust.

   “Goodbye, Munchopia Elementary!” Charlie was gleeful. Freedom had never seemed so sweet.

   “YI-PPEE!”