At Stasio and Susie’s school, the clocks, chairs, and lessons are behaving very strangely - and none of the adults seem to notice.
From the moment Staś stepped through the school gates, he had the uneasy feeling that this day was going to misbehave.
The first thing he saw was the clock in the hall. It was hanging upside down, as if someone had decided time itself needed a turn. Staś stopped and stared. Then he looked around for a teacher, a caretaker, anyone. Nobody even blinked.
"That has to be a mistake," he muttered, though it did not look like a small one.
In the corridor he nearly bumped into Susie, who was trying very hard not to laugh.
"You saw it too?" she whispered. "Mrs. Janitor was singing to the mops this morning. Not normal singing either. Full opera."
Staś’s mouth fell open. "That’s nothing. I saw Mr. Broom talking to the fern in the hallway and apologising to it for a broken leaf. The fern looked offended."
Susie pressed a hand over her mouth. "A plant with feelings. Brilliant."
They hurried into the maths room, expecting the worst and getting something even stranger. Professor Gryzol, the class hamster, was sitting on the teacher’s desk wearing Mr. Krawiec’s hat. He was busy chewing through a notebook on which someone had written neat little rows of multiplication sums.
On the wall behind him hung a giant sheet of paper with bold, wobbly letters:
STRANGER THINGS DAY!
Staś looked at Susie. Susie looked at Staś.
Neither of them had ever heard of such a day.
When they turned to sit down, they stopped short again. Every chair in the room was on top of a table. Their textbooks were gone, replaced by cookbooks. Staś opened one at random and found a recipe for laughter soup. The next page explained how to wrap pancakes so they would not escape.
Before either of them could decide whether to be alarmed or impressed, the bell rang.
Except it was not a bell.
Somewhere in the school, a rooster crowed.
The whole class froze. Staś felt a slow grin spread across his face, the kind that comes just before something gets wildly out of hand.
Then they heard it: a soft giggle from behind the classroom door.
The door was open just a crack. Staś leaned forward and saw a purple tail flicking back and forth in the gap. A moment later, a purple cat padded into view, holding a large board in one paw.
On the board, in giant white letters, were the words:
Who can guess what will happen at school today?