“Attention! Attention!” boomed the loud voice of Principal Bal over the intercom. “Due to lack of funding from the school district, we will no longer be having detention.”
There was a loud uproar from all the students, with cheers and screams of joy coming from all over the building.
“Quiet!” screamed the voice once again. “For now on, anyone who misbehaves will be sent to the kitchen to be a lunch helper for the day. That is all, thank you.”
Mrs. Scoot’s fifth grade class turned quiet with a hush of whispers.
“That doesn’t seem so bad,” whispered Joseph.
“Yeah, they will probably just make us help them cook their fake meat,” replied Mack.
“I’ll find out” Joseph snarled with a sly smile.
“Okay class, today we are going to learn about fractions,” explained Mrs. Scoot.
“Aww man,” whined most of the class in unison.
“Yay!” said one squeaky voice from the front row. “I love fractions!”
Everyone's head turned to try to discover the origin of voice. It was Taylor, the smart, small statured, curly haired girl. She took great pride of knowing the names of most of the staff members.The only ones she didn't know was the lunch lady’s (because she was too afraid to ask) and Mr. Bal (she thought it would be impolite to ask for the name of the principal).
“Now’s your chance to find out,” murmured Mack to Joseph.
Mrs. Scoot started the lesson. “Let’s start wi-”
“Teacher’s Pet!” shouted Joseph.
On that instant Taylor’s eyes erupted with tears as Mrs. Scoot interrogated the rest of the class. Braydon, the brilliant minded boy from the back row, did not like to see other people upset. Although he did not want to be teased for being a tattle-tale, he gave up Joseph’s name before Mrs. Scoot could speculate that it was anybody else. Joseph was told to go the kitchen and he walked out of the class with his head held high.

“Hey, do you guys know where Joseph is?” queried Mack.
“I heard he got sick from looking at the lunch lady,” Taylor replied jokingly.
“Come on it can’t be that bad,” chimed in Braydon as he took a huge bite from the sloppy joe lying on the shiny, red plastic tray in front of him. “This is the best sloppy joe ever! Try it!”
“Disgusting,” Taylor mumbled under her breath.
While Braydon scarfed down the rest of the sloppy joe, Taylor was pondering about the earlier events of the day. “This is strange. First the teachers were talking about how great their cup of joes were this morning and now decent cafeteria food?” She decided this was just a one time anomaly and went back to current conversation.
“Wow! This is great!” said Mack as he too, chomped down the succulent dish.
“Really Mack, we talked about this last week. You have food all over you!”
Startled, the trio scanned the grimy lunchroom for the source of the remark. They discovered it was Ms. Argler. She was a short german lady with short grey hair.
“It looks like we have today's lunch lady helper,” said Ms. Argler.
Ms. Argler practically had to drag Mack into the Kitchen.
After lunch, Braydon and Taylor went to class.
“Now class, where was the Declaration of Independence signed?”
Only two hands rose, Braydon and Taylor’s
“Braydon?” said Mrs. Scoot with a sigh.
(Chuckle Chuckle) “On the bottom! HAHAHA!”
The class exploded with laughter. Except for Taylor, for she was much too mature.
“Idiots,” she mumbled
“Attention! Attention!” boomed Mr. Bal the principal’s voice once again. “I have been informed that there will be a slight menu change for tomorrow’s lunch. Instead of meatloaf, we will be having mac and cheese.”
All of a sudden, it clicked. Braydon and Taylor sat staring at eachother for for a long few seconds. Braydon almost threw up, but instead he swallowed the sloppy joe chunks again, for he did not want to waste a good meal. Taylor and Braydon could not discuss their sudden realization in class. Instead, Braydon licked his lips as he watched the clock tick down as they waited for recess.
At recess, Braydon and Taylor exchanged awkward glances on the playground until Braydon finished processing his thoughts. He walked up to her, but, before he was able to utter a single vowel, Taylor said, “I don’t need your help,” and walked away.
When Taylor got home, she tried to tell her parents about the cannibalistic lunch lady. But all she received in response was, “Oh that’s nice honey,” and “What a good story.”
“That’s fine,” grumbled Taylor, “I don’t need their help. I don’t need help from anyone.”
Although she convinced herself that she was fine, she was still upset that her parents would not listen to her. She grabbed her jet black cat, Pluto, and let her tears run down his soft, black fur. As she cried herself to sleep, she knew the only person who could help her take down the horrendous lunch lady, was the principal, Mr. Bal.

“And then, when I heard about the mac and cheese, I knew that the food was made out of people!” Taylor cried.
That morning, when she had arrived to school, she went straight to the principal’s office. She had just finished her explanation of what was going on when he said, “Well then we have to go and stop her!” The kitchen was on the other side of the building, so they talked a while in the hallway.
“So does anyone else know about this?” asked Mr. Bal casually.
“No,” she replied. She did not want him to know that Braydon also knew. She wanted to get interviewed on t.v all by herself.
Silence ensued.
With nothing else to talk about, Taylor asked, “Mr. Bal, I know the first names of almost all the teachers, except yours. So if you don’t mind…”
“Of course I don’t mind, I think we know eachother well enough. My first name is Canna,” replied Mr. Canna Bal.
Taylor took out her phone and proceeded to enter the school email. She wrote a short letter right before her and Mr. Bal pushed through the light grey doors that lead into the grimy, dust covered kitchen.
“Wait a minute,” started Taylor.
Clang! The sound of an aluminum baseball bat hitting a human skull.

While waiting for the rest of his classmates to arrive, Braydon whipped out his email. He wasn’t expecting to find anything (for he was much less popular than his other classmates) but, much to his surprise, there was an email waiting to be opened and, even more to his surprise, it was from Taylor. He opened it and read what it said.
“I’m with Mr. Bal and we are about to take down that wretched cannibal of a lunch lady. I told you I didn’t need your help!
                                    P.S did you know that Mr. Bal’s first name is Canna?”
Braydon was kind of ticked off that she was rubbing it in, but instead of sending an email back, he planned what antics he would do that day.
Mrs.Scoot started class, and Braydon immediately raised his hand.
“Shouldn’t we wait for the rest of the class? I mean, there are only five of us here,” asked Braydon.
“This is everybody that is coming today,” Mrs. Scoot replied quickly.
Then, all of a sudden, Braydon realized that Mr. Bal’s name reflected who he really was. He also realized that the whole staff must have been in on it and that they were hungry for human flesh.
With a sudden rage, Braydon flipped over his desk and ran towards Mrs. Scoot’s desk. He didn’t care that Taylor didn’t want help. She was going to get help whether she liked it or not.
Braydon wasn’t sure whether the four remaining students of his class realized the same thing he did or if they just wanted to obliterate the classroom, but it didn’t matter because they were successful in their first attack. Whilst Braydon splashed the cup of joe in her eyes, another student threw an open pair of scissors. The two blades sliced into her stomach and she doubled over in pain. At this point, he knew that they must have realized the same thing. All five of them grabbed a few pairs of scissors and ran out into the hallway.

Taylor awoke with a splitting headache.  She couldn’t see very well. But she could see enough to know that she was in a metal cage hanging from the ceiling.
“Hey, you,” whispered a student in a similar cage hanging close to hers. “Are you okay? You got a good whack on the head from the local serial killer.”
“I don’t know. Where is her partner in crime, Mr. Bal?” Taylor asked.
“He went with the lunch lady and the rest of the non-teacher staff into the adjacent room. They said they were going to make some cookies and then laughed hysterically.” he replied.
That’s when Taylor remembered the email she sent to Braydon seconds before she was knocked unconscious. She searched her pocket for her phone and surprisingly, it was there. But much to her dismay, there was no signal.
“There must be a jammer. I sure hope Braydon got my email and realized what is going on,” she whispered to herself.

“What’s with all the almonds?” asked Mr. Bal.
“I already told you, barnacle brain,” started the lunch lady. “We need them to extract the cyanide. When it kills them it preserves the bodies so I could make my delicious treats for a very long time,” she crackled.
“Just hurry up and bake the cookies. I want this done before one of the remaining students figure out what is going on,” he verbalized.
“Don’t worry, after this batch of kiddies we will poison them too and them turn them into stew! HAHAHA!”

The heroic five students went classroom to classroom and conveyed their message. One by one, every teacher expired and the five gained more followers until they reached the kitchen.
Although he did not have much experience as a motivational speaker, Braydon started his heroic speech, “Students! Now is the time to act! They tricked us into eating our own and now they must pay! Ready your scissors because now we ATTACK!”
The crowd roared with excitement.
“See I told you this would happen! They must be ready to storm in any second now, judging by the sound.”
“Just give me enough time to ready the special device,” the lunch lady muttered.

They filed through the doors right as the lunch lady was trying to force her poisonous treats down the students throats. In came the custodial force. They attempted to block the incoming projectiles with their mops and brooms with very little success, as there were just too many to deflect. As they fell, the rest of the staff tried to protect the lunch lady as she literally shoved more cookies down the kids’ throats. The valiant heroes used the rest of their scissors on the staff and fled to go search for more projectiles. Braydon stayed behind to be the hero for once.
He ran up to the lunch lady and pushed her as hard as he could. She went flying across the room towards large slabs of meat hanging on hooks. As she got closer, she noticed one hook with no meat. She started screaming as the hook slid through her skin, sliding past her jaw and into her mouth. Braydon approached to make sure she was really dead (he had seen too many movies where the villain was not actually dead). He noticed that there appeared to be some kind of rubbery material over her skin. It was a mask.
“Lookout!” screamed Taylor.
Braydon then did a series of epic dodges to avoid what appeared to be cookies flying at him. The students in cages cheered wildly for him with extreme excitement. He then hid behind a massive pot of boiling water. When he peaked his head out he saw the real lunch lady with some kind of cookie gun. Braydon quickly climbed up a set of stairs leading to the top of the pot to lure the lunch lady up there.
“Hey wart face!” he yelled.
She turned around and charged up the stairs. She proceeded to corner him at the rim of the pot. Braydon looked at the boiling beef broth below and gulped.
“I guess I didn't think this through, wart face,” said Braydon.
“I got you cornered boy,” she started. “You lost. Your a loser,  no friends, no life,  and nowhere to go. I won.”
“ Most of that was absolutely true, except for one thing.”
“And what's that?”
“I do have friends. FIRE!”
Braydon crouched down as two pairs of scissors launched towards her eyes. The scissors sliced through them with ease and the lunch lady stumbled backwards and tripped over Braydon, falling into the pot.
“Aaaahhh!” she screamed.
Splash! She fell, sank into the broth, and her skin began to boil off her bones.
Braydon went back down the stairs. Taylor was down there unmasking the fake lunch lady.
“Is it Mr. Bal?” asked Braydon.
“Of course,” Taylor answered.
After an awkward pause, Braydon said, “So how did you get out of the cage?”
“I used my hairpin,” she responded.
“Thanks by the way,” said Braydon sheepishly.
“No, thank you. Without your little uprising we would have never have been able to defeat all of them in the first place.”
“Well then I guess we’re even,” said Braydon.
Just then, the rest of the students came back charging. When they saw Braydon and Taylor standing there they figured that the war had been won and cheered.
“Next order of business,” Braydon started. “We free everyone else. Those who had eaten the cookies must regurgitate immediately or death will ensue.”
The students were freed and went home later that day scarred for life. They told their parents whom told the government. Not wanting the whole incident to go public, the government turned the school into a mental hospital for all the kids involved, and it was like the whole thing never happened.
The End