Stagnant Swamp State School Strikes it Rich

By Professor Nigel Peasbody, esq

In this book, the fourth in the series, poor Stagnant Swamp State School and wealthy Snodgrass Hill Private College experience a reversal in fortunes, all thanks to Simon Smithers. Stagnant Swamp State School is unexpectedly rolling in money after Simon strikes oil whilst out ice eel fishing on the swamp. Join Mr Creechley and Simon as they set about the exhausting task of trying to spend two hundred million dollars on useful and important things. Should they buy a Formula 1 racing circuit, the Mona Lisa, a submarine, a jet plane or a fleet of gold-plated limousines? Why not all of the above? And let's throw in a belly-button fluff consultant and a cola-spewing toad-shaped drinking fountain for good measure. But who is plotting against Mr Creechley, and will they manage to kill him off before all the cash is spent? Includes cartoon illustrations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: popkulcha pty ltd
• Release date: Aug 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311836069

Professor Nigel Peasbody, esq

Professor Professor Nigel Peasbody, Esq, BVSc, BEng, Master of Origami, is the celebrated author of the Stagnant Swamp State School histories. He has just returned from a season touring with the Australian Symphony Orchestra. Unfortunately, he wasn’t one of the performers: he accidentally became locked inside a cello case and was carried around four continents as excess baggage. When he isn't locked inside a cello case, then he likes to write, and to knit pieces of string into useful objects such as telephone cosies and ornamental teapots.

Book preview

Stagnant Swamp State School Strikes it Rich

Book 4 in the Stagnant Swamp Series

Words by Professor Nigel Peasbody, Esq

Illustrations by Sharon Rowe

Copyright 2008-2015 popkulcha pty ltd

This digital edition published in 2015 by popkulcha pty ltd ACN603846608 at Smashwords

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be sold or given away to other people or re-published. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for them or send them a link to it and make them buy their own copy. After all, they can't expect you to be made of money. If you are reading this ebook and did not purchase it, please purchase a copy from your favourite ebook retailer. (Professor Peasbody needs to eat.) If you enjoy this ebook, please visit your favourite ebook retailer to discover the other books in the Stagnant Swamp series. Thank you for your support.

Table of Contents

Dedication

About the Author

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Postscript

More About Stagnant Swamp State School

Sample of 20,000 Leagues Under Stagnant Swamp State School

Dedication

Dedicated to dear, departed Athol Ormiston who would still be alive today if he had avoided Chapter Twelve.

About the Author

Professor Nigel Peasbody, esq, PhD, ABc, LoL, Graduate Diploma in Advanced Phrenology, is an eminent historian who recently received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

This came as a terrible shock to the person who had actually won it, and the Post Office continues to investigate how the mix-up occurred.

This is Professor Peasbody’s fourth book in the Stagnant Swamp State School series.

Introduction

Dear Reader,

Stagnant Swamp State School has a great many things in abundance. Slime, for example. And mud. Crocodiles and mosquitoes. Bad tempers, poor manners and selfishness. None of these things are in short supply there.

The one thing that Stagnant Swamp State School possesses very little of is money.

Money is not at all important, as any rich person will tell you. That is, of course, unless it happens that you don’t have enough of it, in which case there is nothing more important. Nothing more important at all.

This history recounts the ‘Oil Escapade’: one of the most interesting chapters in the entire history of Stagnant Swamp State School, and one in which money features prominently.

This history provides a cautionary tale to anyone who may be foolish enough to think that money will solve all their problems. Whilst 9 out of 10 scientists agree that money makes the world go around, that is not to say that it makes it go around easily, nor that you will enjoy the ride, nor arrive safely on the other side.

Indeed, it is highly likely that you will discover that money creates just as many problems as it solves. This was the lesson which Mr Creechley learned only after much pain and suffering (which, co-incidentally, are two more things that Stagnant Swamp State School has in abundance).

Yours fictionally,

Professor Nigel Peasbody, Esq

Professor Nigel Peasbody, Esq

Chapter One

It was a bitterly cold and rainy Tuesday in the dead of winter at Stagnant Swamp State School. Icy swamp waters lapped at the sides of the chemistry building. Icicles clung to the powerlines and to the drooping leaves of the giant scribbly gum in which the vultures nested. The rats huddled together in the walls in their nests made from Mr Creechley’s best hairpiece. Underneath the termite-infested gymnasium, the crocodiles – hibernating for the winter – gnashed their teeth silently in their sleep and dreamt of juicy, visiting basketball teams. The only sounds disturbing the frosty air were the sploshes and gurgles from the pestilent swamp, the snores of the students asleep at their desks and the clink, clink, clink of metal on metal.

That last sound was coming from the office of Mr Creechley, Principal, which was located at the end of the darkest, mouldiest, smelliest corridor in Stagnant Swamp State School. Mr Creechley was huddled over his desk, shivvering in his overcoat and scarf against the freezing wind that blew straight across Stagnant Swamp and through the glassless window of his office. With frost-bitten fingers, Mr Creechley was counting Stagnant Swamp State School’s savings to work out how many candles they could afford to buy to heat the school that winter.

‘Twenty, thirty, forty.’ Mr Creechley pulled the tea cosy that he wore as a hat lower down over his frost-laden eyebrows.

‘Fifty, sixty.’ Mr Creechley’s runny nose was forming little frozen stalactites.

‘Seventy, eighty.’

Ker-choo!

Propelled by a momentous sneeze, the stalactites shot downwards, embedding themselves in the desk, just as Mr Creechley finished counting the year’s surplus funds: eighty-five cents.

Eighty-five cents!

That meant almost one candle per class room.

Mr Creechley frowned. It would never do.

The luxury of having a whole candle per class room was unheard-of in the entire history of Stagnant Swamp State School. If he gave the students a whole candle this year then it would just be expected again next year, and what would happen then? Or worse, thought Mr Creechley: the students might even expect electric heaters.

The only electricity at Stagnant Swamp State School was produced by two greyhounds that were trained to run around and around in a big wheel each day, driving a generator. Mr Creechley had once used preps, instead of greyhounds, to drive the generator, until the preps had complained. Now Mr Creechley had discovered that greyhounds were far more reliable than preps, and also slightly less likely to have fleas. But as hard-working as the greyhounds were, there was certainly not enough electricity for such luxuries as heating. No, heating had to be achieved solely by candles.

Mr Creechley scooped