Hi Buzz Worders, DC Green
here. To celebrate the publication of my new novel, Monster School,
I’ll be touring some wonderful author and writing blogs – starting from right
now with a Buzz Words exclusive preview!
There will be tonnes of
insights into the writing process with topics ranging from world building to
creating monstrous characters. I’ll happily answer any posted questions (such
as, ‘What’s it like sitting at the desk next to a giant spider called Bruce?’).
And yes, there will be laughter – and giveaways!
Monster Blog Tour Dates
Tuesday, October 1. DC Green
Yarns. Welcome to the Monster Blog Tour!
Monday, October 7. Pass It
On. Groovy reviews.
Other Monstrous Links
A World-wide
Exclusive Buzz Words Preview
MONSTER SCHOOL
By DC Green
Part 2: Swamp Boy
Chapter 3: Frictions
‘Um . . . Is this Class 10A?’ I
squeaked at the trio of sunglassed bodyguards.
The ogres
ignored me.
I gawked at
the entranceway. A chest-high door was embedded inside an oversized door which
was in turn embedded inside a door that towered several times above my height.
Beneath the shadow of the giant door knob, I gulped and pushed open the
‘normal’ option.
A blast of
voices slapped me. So many monsters, talking and shouting at the same time!
Bizarre smells muscled down my sinus passages. My eyes watered. I itched to
turn and flee!
‘Ah, the new
student.’ The stumpy Franken teacher waved his tentacles in my direction.
‘Don’t stand there like a dump of troll dung. Ha, ha. Come in, come in.’
The classroom
was a flattened sphere built by giant ants: fifty times larger than any space
I’d ever seen. The combination of overhead fluorescent bulbs and randomly
floating jack-o’-lanterns cast thousands of creepy, shifting shadows.
I shuffled
in, trailing slime and peering with growing dread around the semi-circular
amphitheatre of monsters squatting behind various-sized desks. Olive-skinned goblins
clustered on either side of the room, with rarer species clumped in the middle.
The Franken
teacher flicked through his notes. ‘Well done finding this classroom. The layout of Lower Castle
Mount can be most confusing. For your first decade! Ha, ha.’ Before I could
answer, the teacher continued, ‘Let’s see – you obviously aren’t Greta the forest
goblin. Ha, ha.’ He wrinkled his noses. ‘Judging by your fishy breath, which
could well be smelt on Fire Mountain – ha, ha – I’d say you must be the swamp
creature, Prg . . . yll Tl . . . xz . . . pkl . . . yp . . . nrg. Did I
pronounce your name correctly?’
‘Close
enough,’ I muttered through my reedy lips. ‘You can call me PT if that’s
easier.’
‘Infinitely
easier. And you can call me Doctor Combo. That’s my name. Ha, ha. Welcome to
Biology! Take a seat.’
I nodded,
jiggling my seaweed dreadlocks, and slouched towards the nearest empty desk. A
goblin male student (they were all
males!) kicked a seat into my scaly legs. I stumbled. Other students sniggered.
Up the back
smirked the largest goblin, a flex-muscled orc. ‘Don’t even try sittin’
on this side o’ the classroom, Stink Lad,’ he sneered. ‘Not unless ya wanna end
up Swamp Sushi.’ More sniggering. ‘These seats’re reserved for members o’ the Viethe
clan. Grasp? And in case yer as thick as ya look, which is giant-bum thick, I’m Friendly Viethe – the mayor’s nephew. And I
rule this school!’
From the far
side of the classroom, an answering snort echoed. I glanced up as a goblin stood,
his metallic teeth flashing. ‘Ya can’t even rule a straight line, Viethe!’
‘Says who?’
Friendly Viethe fired back.
‘Says me.’ The steel-fanged goblin’s eyeballs
rotated my way. ‘C’mere, Swamp-ball.’
I gulped,
peered around and obediently shuffled forward in what felt like a death march.
‘Name’s Gort Klusk,’
the second goblin continued. ‘I’m the Deputy
Mayor’s son.’ With a leap I’d have reckoned was impossible, over several rows
of chairs, Gort landed at my feet. The exposed parts of his body glistened with
bionic enhancements. In a blur of movement, Gort pressed the razor sharp bone
protruding from the back of his hand against my throat. His breath burnt with
hatred and putrid parmesan cheese. ‘If ya ever come near the Klusk side o’ this class again, I’ll saw off yer head and
mail it ta a kraken BBQ! Grasp it?’
‘It’s . . .
grasped,’ I squeaked, too nervous about puncturing my windpipe to nod.
Gort elbowed
me to the floor and stalked back to his seat. I glanced pleadingly at Doctor
Combo, but the teacher’s back remained turned. He seemed more concerned with
scrawling across his whiteboard than preventing my near-murder.
‘Yo, Swampy
Grom!’ a shrill voice echoed from the middle of the classroom. ‘Plant your
planty butt with us!’
I stared
despairingly at the giant spider beckoning me, his triple-sectioned legs tucked
awkwardly around, under and over his desk. Beside him sat a girl wrapped in
bandages, a ragged corpse and a mohawked vampire!
My heart
froze.
‘Aye, join
the other minority freaks!’ Gort Klusk sneered. ‘Where ya belong!’
I gulped and
forced my legs to work, wondering if I was about to break the death threat
world record. Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle.
‘Come on,
come on,’ Doctor Combo called. ‘I’d like to do some actual teaching today. Ha,
ha. I– oh, not again.’ He sighed as a pretty, grass-green girl entered the
classroom via the smallest door, mercifully removing the spotlight from my
seaweed-covered backside. ‘Come in, come in. You must be . . .’ Combo flicked
through his notes. ‘Greta Farbranch?’
‘Indeed,’ the
diminutive goblin answered icily.
‘Ooh, a bush
goblin,’ mocked a Viethe.
‘Worse, she’s
a floozy!” roared Gort Klusk. ‘No
self-respectin’ Klusk floozy would ever
vamoose the kitchen ta grasp an edyacation!’
Friendly Viethe
countered, ‘Neither’d any Viethe chicky worthy o’ the name!’
‘Sexist
thugs,’ the bandaged girl droned.
I entered the
shadow zone of a seat so massive it surely had to be a joke, and slid into a
seat five along from the giant spider.
Uncoiling a
leg, he jabbed a hairy pincer into my ribs. ‘Yo, Swampy. I’m your friendly
neighbourhood eight-legged killing machine! But you can call me Bruce.’
‘PT,’ I
croaked, shaking the spider’s pincer. It reeked of acid and something like rat
poison. I dug my notepad and inkwell from my backpack. ‘Whoa!’ My hands flew to
my face.
A
jack-o’-lantern loomed up beside my desk, its demonic pumpkin face leering
light upon my blank page.
‘Awww, cute,’ cooed Bruce. ‘The dead floating
veggie must sense a kindred spirit with your vegetative ass.’
Was the giant
spider serious or joking? His face was a terrifying wall of eyeballs. Were they
glinting with amusement or homicidal hunger? He was kinda smiling, but his
saliva-dribbling fangs conveyed a scarier message. ‘I guess,’ I squeaked at
last, wrenching my eyes away.
Meanwhile, the
forest goblin had settled into a seat at the middle of the front section. Empty
desks encircled her. A cyborg Klusk lobbed a book at her head. She swayed clear
and shot back a glare that could have snap-frozen mercury.
‘Should we
perhaps invite the new lass?’ The vampire’s hollow voice prickled my skin.
‘No way,
two-legs,’ scoffed Bruce. ‘You dig our gang rules. Zilch humes and zilch gobs!’
Words ground
from the dead teen’s lipless mouth. ‘Zorg iz hating gobbinz.’ His breath reeked
of decay and blackened blood.
Doctor Combo
coughed. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt the day’s entertainment, but this is
technically a classroom and we do have work to do. Ha, ha. Today, we’ll be
continuing our comparative monster studies.’ Ignoring the groans, Combo slapped
his whiteboard. ‘In the dark human era, strength was measured in horsepower or
HP. Today, HP refers to a different type of obsolete creature: the human. Ha,
ha.’
A few students
sniggered.
Doctor Combo
continued, ‘Given that one HP equals the feeble wrestling strength of a grown
human male, which monster has the highest HP in Monstro City?’
Gort Klusk’s
fist fired up. ‘Ogres! My dad’s got a weapons-enhanced ogre bodyguard so brawny
he can kick ta the gutter any monster
in Monstro City.’
‘Good, Gort,’
said the teacher. ‘Yes, the average ogre has an HP of six. With enhancements,
this figure can reach up to thirty! Though is that the strongest rating?’
One of
Bruce’s legs jabbed up, trailing web. ‘My old lady’s gnarly strong. Every dude
in our neighbourhood’s wussed by her. And our mummy gal pal here,’ he indicated
the bandaged girl with another leg, ‘owns a killer handshake.’
Goblins
grumbled. Was the mummy blushing through her bandages?
‘Hold your
webs. There’s more!’ Bruce fired a sticky rope substance to the edge of the
massive seat above our heads. He swung up and stood tall on the seat with six
of his legs raised triumphantly. ‘Ain’t zilch dudes out-webbing the most mega monster
in class: our top-notch buddy, who’s away again, but will totally be back –
Tessa the bad-ass troll! Yo!’
Saliva
shrivelled in my mouth. The giant seat belonged to a troll!
‘Very good,
Bruce. Please climb down now.’ Doctor Combo nodded. ‘Yes, the mightiest
recorded troll has an HP of 150. With enhancements, that figure may reach as
high as six hundred.’
A metallic
goblin fist fired up. ‘Trolls’re big, aye, but they own no guts. Whatta ’bout
Cerberus, the brawny hell-dog on Holly Hill? I grasp he’s got a raw HP o’ two
hundred!’
A huge goblin
on the opposite side yelled, ‘My dad argues the heaviest monster’s Godzilla. He
weighed 450 tonnes, least before he lost a leg.’
The teacher’s
mouths smiled. ‘Yes, Cerberus has an impressive HP, not to mention three heads.
And Godzilla remains the heaviest known land monster. Though are they the
strongest?’
‘Blessed Nile, no,’ said the mummy. ‘The strongest monster must
surely be the dragon.’
A hush
settled across the room.
My skin
tingled.
The teacher
clapped. ‘Very good, Scarab. Even though Kalthazari weighs only 320 tonnes – ha, ha – she has formidable shielding and a range
of powers that defy definition. Experts estimate the dragon’s HP at a
staggering fifty thousand!’
Friendly
Viethe rose, smirking, until the room fell silent. ‘Yer all wrong. The
brawniest monster in all o’ Monstro
City is – the plains goblin!’
Bruce, now
seated far too close to me, slapped his sixteen kneecaps. ‘Spin off! Gobs own
HPs of only 0.7! My zombie bud’s BO is more kick-buttly than that!’
Zorg sniffed
his scabrous armpits.
Friendly Viethe
snarled, ‘Idiot spider. If ya didn’t sit with yer nose beside corpse-breath all
day, ya’d grasp my new orc body’s got a much brawnier HP. Though even if yer
0.7 average was fact, grasp this: there are 1.6 million goblins in Monstro City – almost half o’ all monsters. And
we’re the fastest growin’ species. Multiply 1.6 million by 0.7 and ya get . . .
a lot brawnier number than any stinky-breathed dragon!’
The teacher
clapped and bowed. ‘Excellent, Friendly. That makes a total HP of 1.12
million!’
Friendly
high-fived his neighbours and climbed onto his desk. Mimicking Bruce, he raised
his fists into the air. ‘Goblins rule – again!’
On both sides
of the class, goblins clambered onto their desks to stand with fists held high.
‘GOBLINS
RULE!’
A Klusk
stomped his desk. A Viethe stomped back. Before I could blink, twin goblin
armies marched upon their desks. Tromp!
Tromp! Tromp! The classroom reverberated with metal-heeled boots.
Bruce jabbed
pincers into what I guessed were his earholes.
A cyborg
goblin shouted, ‘Klusks are the brawniest stompers!’
A Viethe
shouted back, ‘Ya Klusks couldn’t stomp a dead elf!’
A Klusk
lobbed a stapler. Viethes hurled two inkwells. Seven books flew in retaliation.
Fifteen desks spun. I slunk low in my seat. Above my noggin, scores of
stationery missiles arced back and forth across the classroom. Goblins crashed
from their desks, foreheads and cheeks split wide, cackling with delight.
‘Ahem. Ahem!’ Doctor Combo clapped and
struggled to restore some sort of order. Finally, after the injured were
carried to the sick bay for stitching, and the blood and ink mopped up, the
sweating teacher asked, ‘Any final, non-physical
contributions to the HP debate?’ Spotting my slightly raised hand, he sighed.
‘Yes, er, PT?’
‘What about
humans?’ I asked in a quivery voice. ‘Surely they have power too. Um, political
power? Haven’t human kings and queens ruled Monstro City
for over five hundred years?’
Friendly
Viethe bared his pointy teeth. ‘Eyeball the ignorant hume-lover! Everyone grasps
the real brawn in Monstro City
lies with the mayor’s office. There’re only twenty thousand humes left,
graspin’ just a shrinkin’ fraction o’ Castle Mount. The days when those
round-eared freaks mattered are centuries done!’ The goblin leader scowled my
way. ‘Why ya stickin’ up for humes, anyways?’
I reddened.
‘I’m just trying to . . . get the picture.’
Friendly
Viethe, as poorly named as his more-famous uncle, snarled. ‘All ya gotta grasp
is this: ya breathe now in the Age o’ Goblins!’
Ignoring the
congratulatory goblin murmurs, the vampire stood, slicking his mohawk. ‘Perhaps.
Yet as this class amply demonstrates, goblins are a house divided. They have
also featured in more wars than any other monster species. And whom do goblins
invariably fight? Other goblins. One never observes a dragon biting her own
tail.’
‘Yo.’ Bruce
nodded. ‘Gobs are the new humes.’
A hush
descended.
Friendly’s
reply was pure scorn. ‘Ya Dead Gang freaks just crossed the line o’ no return.
With that insult, yer all the enemies
o’ the brawniest mafia clan: the Viethes!’
Gort Klusk
bellowed, ‘That goes doubly for us Klusks. Ya Deads better feast together and
pee together and bunk together every sec o’ every day. When we catch one o’ ya
alone, ya’ll grasp what goblin brawn means, my oath!’
‘Busting out
bad boy band imitations?’ Bruce guffawed, until the vampire elbowed him so hard
the air rushed from his thorax.
Several dozen
goblins muttered murderously.
‘Friend
Bruce,’ said Scarab. ‘You may have done more this day to unify the goblins than
a dozen murdered ambassadors.’
‘And I ain’t even carked.’ The spider
grinned. ‘Wait. What you just said was a fine
thing, yo?’
Wow, I
thought. And this is just Period One!
