Hello again, Story Club members.

I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most and keeper of the strangest, spookiest tales on earth.

Today is another Ivy's chilling tale.

This beaming tale, story club members, might make you wonder what's behind all the endless

grinning. It's one I call smile. Lulu did not want to attend the new elementary school in

Happydale. In fact, she didn't want to be in Happydale at all. She wished she could return to her

gloomy town of rain junction in the Pacific Northwest. I mean, sure, it was wet and overcast there, but at least rain junction had felt normal to Lulu.

Down here in Happydale, Utah, everyone was nice, but maybe just a little too nice. They were always smiling. It kind of freaked Lulu out. She enjoyed being around nice and friendly people, but there's a limit to how much she could grin and giggle, all right? And it never rained or got cold and Happy Dale either. It was always 80 degrees with the sun shining. It wasn't that Lulu was unhappy, but she didn't exactly feel like she had anything to be happy about,

particularly on her first day of the fifth grade in this new school.

She'd only moved down here a few days ago with her parents, so she didn't really know anyone.

And just like in the town itself, all of the fifth graders in her class were smiling constantly.

The teachers say they have extra homework and these kids smile? The cooks in the cafeteria serve liver worst pancakes,

and they smile? The physical ed teachers make them run extra laps around the track, and again,

the student smile. Lulu couldn't figure out what the deal was.

Haven't these people ever heard of a bad day, she thought. Back when she lived in the P&W,

some people would tell Lulu to turn that frown upside down and smile. Now she wished they'd turn these kids unnatural smiles upside down.

She'd love to see just one single frown among her classmates.

At least things around here would seem more normal.

All day long, teachers and students were telling Lulu, welcome to our wonderful school.

Everyone was saying how wonderful it was.

In fact, they only used the word wonderful. There was nothing wonderful

about that. Talk about lack of imagination. When Lulu was eating lunch in the cafeteria,

...