Chapter Three: Surprise or No Surprise? (Hannah and Ammaarah)

“Ding-a-ling-ling, ding-a-ling-a-ling”

The bell rang for the first lesson while Charlotte stood talking to Annie.
“I can’t believe what happened to Mary this morning. It was so scary!”
“Maybe the rumours about the dorm under the stairs are true after all,” added Jade.
“Let’s rather not think about it. I don’t want to be late for Science, you know it’s my second favourite subject. I wonder what we’re starting with?” said Annie enthusiastically.
“Oh come on Annie, why are you always so excited about school?” muttered Roxanne as she dragged her heels to the Science block for a double lesson with Miss Jiggleweed.

***

“Roxanne, are you awake?” whispered Chelsea.
“What do you want?” asked Roxanne as she leaned over to look at her alarm clock. “It’s only five o’clock in the morning. I’ve hardly slept and I was exhausted last night after trying to use my brain again!” moaned Roxanne while yawning. “I do remember another strange dream though,” she added.
“Me too!” exclaimed Chelsea. “Charlotte, Annie, Jade, are you guys awake?” she whispered.
The three of them had been listening to Chelsea and Roxanne and they had all sat up at once. “I also had another weird dream,” they said in unison.
“I dreamt about a teacher. He was tall and skinny with grey hair and a neat little grey beard. He was wearing a bright pink tie and for some reason we were calling him ‘The Nut’!” giggled Jade.
“A teacher was handing out a surprise test in my dream but I couldn’t see his face,” squeaked Annie, the thought of a surprise test enough to make her faint.
“Well, all I dreamt about were boring nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, adverbs, similes and metaphors!” added Chelsea.
Roxanne sat up and frowned. “I dreamt about an English test paper full of difficult questions. The dream was so vivid that I actually wrote down the questions and answers when I woke up. Here they are.”
“Well, I also dreamt of test papers, but they had our names at the top and a big red 0% scribbled at the top of each one!” moaned Charlotte.
“Jade, your ‘Mr. Nut’ must be our new English teacher, Mr. Walnut. I saw that name on the staff list in the newsletter. He must be planning to give us a surprise test today. That’s why you were dreaming about all those parts of speech Chelsea,” Roxanne thought aloud.
“And we all fail the test because we don’t know about it!” gasped Charlotte.
“Well, imagine if what we dreamt about is actually going to happen! We need to do something to change it so let’s get studying! Roxy, where are those questions you wrote down?” demanded Annie, determined not to fail the test. Annie had never failed a test before and she was going to do everything she could to keep it that way!

***
“That test was so easy, I am so glad that we all got full marks. These dreams must really be true, a kind of sneak peek into the future!” said Charlotte excitedly as they rounded the corner back to Oak House. There, standing on the verandah in the front of the boarding house, was a stranger with a suitcase in her hand.
“Hello. Are you the Grade Tens?” the stranger asked in an even stranger accent. The Fab Five looked at each other and then at the foreigner and nodded.
“My name is Calipso. I have just been assigned to Dorm Six, with all of you I presume. I am your new ‘dormie’!” she said with a smile from ear to ear!