Bottom and the Bandits

By Melody Wong

Chapter 1

Once upon a time, there was a mysterious place called Weirdo Land. Weirdo Land was a very weird place, where everything was strange. The school in this land was named Addams Academy, as it looked like the home of the Addams Family, which made sense because the Head Teacher was Morticia Addams herself. Although it had the shape and color of the Addams' house, it was also inspired by the story of Hansel and Gretel, so the walls were covered in candy, and the windows were made of sugar glass.
This decoration was very much enjoyed by the schools' students who could lick the windows and walls and snap off chocolate from the chairs. They didn't even need snacks for break time as they could take them from the building. So the school needed to be repaired a lot.

Although the school had modern technology, the machines were powered using cables made of licorice, and the light switches were made of marshmallows. Weirdo Land was a place with no time: no clocks, not even day or night. This was very unlucky for the students of the school who were in detention, which could never end. However, at least they had the candy to keep snacking on!

Chapter 2

Bottom had been in detention for roughly a couple of days, but it felt like forever. Bottom was usually a very well behaved, nerdy kid, but the other kids in his class had been very naughty. They had told the teachers that all the things they had been up to were because of him, and so he was put into detention! He had been accused of making them steal things!

For example, one time, in the middle of school, they went on a field trip to the museum and tried to steal an exhibit. When they were caught, they said Bottom had made them do it. They also said he had tried to make them steal candy from another kid's lunchbox. This was like when they blamed him for bullying. They told the teachers that Bottom had said mean things to another student, so he wouldn't get into trouble himself. The other kids were there too.

The other people in the room were Ms Tooteeta, Mr Grumpbottom and Mr Protecto. These were the teachers that always supervised detention.

When the day began, it seemed like any other. The kids were licking windows, eating candy, and cracking off digestive biscuits from the desks and the walls. They were supposed to be writing an essay on how good the candy from the house was, but the teachers were enjoying the candy too. However, halfway through the class, the teachers started to feel quite unwell. Quickly, one after the other, they ran for their lives towards the bathroom. It seemed that because the kids had a better sweet tooth than their teachers, they didn't get sick. However, the kids had set this trick up on purpose. They had made teacher-poison, which would give the adults diarrhea, and not them! Their sickness meant that the students in class were left all alone.

Bored, and looking around, Bottom noticed some big, brown footprints heading from the classroom to the bathroom. At first, he thought they were the teachers', but then he realised they were too big. Although Bottom was still feeling annoyed at the others in detention, he wanted to work out what was going on, so he told them what he had seen. Feeling particularly nosey, Titania, another girl in detention, went along to the science classrooms and came back with all the equipment to work out who these footprints belonged to. As they used their brushes and science to study the footprints, they realised they belonged to a stranger! Just as they started to look confused, they began to hear footsteps behind them.

Chapter 3

Bottom and Titania felt very scared. They never expected strangers to appear in their classroom!

But then they looked a bit harder at the strangers...

The bandits were very stubby, but they were in black cloaks and wearing water shoes. They had Covid-19 masks with their own faces on them, and for some weird reason they were wearing swimming caps. Although the students had been scared to see what had made the noise, once they saw the bandits they started laughing.

The bandits were mad at the laughter, so started shaking their bums at the students. Then they ran around the classroom, trying to grab the hand sanitizer bottles! Unexpectedly for the bandits, many of the students in detention happened to be on the basketball team, and were good at grabbing the bottles before the bandits got them. Although they got hold of a few, they didn't know most were kept in the janitors office. As the bandits picked up the bottles, Bottom realized that this was why they were here!

Quickly, Bottom signalled the students decided to try and stop the bandits through pranks. They all came up with their own ideas, and went to their own stations in the school to stop them. In the meantime, the bandits went hunting for sanitizer to steal, but had little luck.

Bottom decided on the silliest prank in the world. He put hundreds of pieces of Lego around the classroom and tricked the bandits into taking off their shoes. As they were very stupid they did so, and stepped on the Lego!

“AH! It hurts!” the bandits shouted.

Meanwhile, Titania ran around to get all the tape in the school, and she made a giant seal over the bathroom door, so as the bandits tried to get the hand sanitizer from there - they got stuck on the tape!

Another student ate hundreds of bananas as fast as they could, and put the peels on the ground.

“Woahhhhh!” the bandits cried as they fell.

Chapter 4

For the last prank, all the students worked together. Whilst Titania had been in the science building, she had picked up some Walkie-Talkies, and handed them out to the other kids.

Great minds think alike, and they had all decided to head to the bathrooms at the same time. By using the Walkie Talkies, the bandits couldn't hear them planning. They swapped the girls and boys bathroom signs to cause chaos! The bandits had worked out that the hand sanitizer would be in the janitor's closet and were looking for the boys toilets as they thought that's where it would be.

However, not being very clever, the bandits got confused and went to the girls' bathroom by accident, so they couldn't complete their task! The students locked them into the girls bathroom whilst they were looking for their stuff.

That gave them time to call the police. It only took the police about three minutes to arrive, as there was a police station literally right next to school! They asked all the students where their criminals were, so they could go to the girls' bathroom and find them.

In Weirdoland, they don't have handcuffs, so they use duct tape instead. They duct taped their hands, duct taped their feet, and even duct taped their mouths. The police then carried the bandits out. The students stood there, belly bumping each other, to celebrate!

Chapter 5

The following day, the Principal called Bottom into his office. The Principal felt very upset with the students' pranks! Bottom needed to explain himself.

He began, 'Since Mr Protecto and Mr Tooteto left...,' but the Principal quickly cut him off.

“I don't believe you!” he said, and revealed he had already seen CCTV footage of them performing the pranks himself. But that was when he was talking to Morticia, the head teacher, about firing some teachers.

Then Bottom realised he hadn't been looking for the bandits!

“Please, check again!” requested Bottom, “and look at the window.”

As the Principal checked once more, he saw that Bottom had been telling the truth.

“Well... at least you caught the bandits,” the Principal said.

Bottom felt so relieved! The Principal decided to free Bottom from detention.

The next morning, Bottom got a good citizen badge from the police because he and his classmates were able to stop the bandits. They all lived happily ever after.