The Feral Peril (7 page)

Paul Stafford is a literacy consultant working in schools across Australia, and the author of more than eleven books of teenage fiction. He grew up in Kurrajong Heights and now lives outside Bathurst, NSW. He studied print journalism at Mitchell CAE, graduating in 1989, but renounced the make-believe world of journalism for the hard and gritty reality of teenage fiction. Although a career in writing has meant abandoning his childhood dreams of wealth and respectability, he now gets to sleep late, dress scruffy and gnaw on the skulls of his enemies. It's a trade-off he's learnt to live with.

 

Find out more about Paul and the world of Horror High at
www.horrorhighbooks.com

Special thanks to Helen Sykes and Bev Pennell for their guidance and advice, and to web-wizard and Horror Uni student Ben Lynch for all his hard work and lunatic notions. And finally thanks to Judy Parker of Mitchell CAE circa 1988, who first lit the fuse …

When Principal Skullwater bets on the Interghouls' Cricket Cup, the pressure is on the werewolf cricket team. Their team are rubbish, their opponents are pros, and if they lose the match they're expelled from school. Desperate, team captain Jason-Jock Werewolf trawls through his ‘magic' book, a publication so shonky I could've written it. It advises they dig up the skeleton of a professional cricketer, grind the bones, and imbibe the slop – and they actually do it. I never claimed they were gifted. Place your bets …

Available at all good retailers.

Nathan's father, the Grim Reaper, doesn't trust him with a scythe. And for good reason, because this kid's dangerous. He gives Nathan the next best thing – the ancestral book of curses,
The 101 Damnations
– but only after Nathan promises faithfully never to use it. Like that's going to happen …

Now there's an assassin coming to whack the principal, the deputy is a nanny-goat, the family heirloom is torn to shreds, and suddenly Mother Grim-Reaper wises up and demands
The 101 Damnations
be returned, now.

Available at all good retailers.

When zombie zilch-brain Mick Living-Dead makes an IQ-based bet, he couldn't have picked a worse opponent. Mick has no chance in Hell of winning a trivia contest against Mr Noel, Horror High's universally hated science teacher. He must resort to the only honourable option left – cheating.

But Mick's too dense to hatch such a diabolically deluded plan by himself. It's his uber-brainy sister, Kim, who comes up with the goods. Who's the smartest person ever? Albert Einstein. Where's his brain kept? Horror Museum.

If he wins, Mr Know-All resigns. If he loses, Mick forks out one year's burger-flipping money. Can he pull it off? Unlikely…

Available at all good retailers.