The Zucchini Warriors

by Gordon Korman

  “Oh, wow,” said Bruno into the painful silence. “Zucchini sticks. I just can’t get enough of that Blue Cheese dressing.”

  “Come and get it!” crowed Carson.

  But still the group hung back, until Larry Wilson was struck with inspiration. “Fan-tastic!” he exclaimed. “But I’m still stuffed from dinner. So I’ll take mine ‘to go.’ I’m always starving by lights-out.”

  “Me, too!” chorused twenty-five other throats.

  “Great idea!” bawled Carson. “They’re delicious cold, too. Help yourselves, men. And I’ll see you on the field!”

  Walking back from the guest cottage, the boys had nothing but praise for Larry.

  “Man, you saved our lives!” exclaimed Dave.

  “Yeah,” Pete agreed. “Elmer might have to step down as school genius. Quick — where’s the nearest garbage can?”

  “What are you — nuts?” Bruno stopped the procession. “Don’t let me see anybody throwing out those zucchini sticks. If Hank the Tank sees them in the garbage, it’ll break his heart!”

  “Better his heart than my stomach,” said Wilbur feelingly.

  “Bruno, I really don’t think Mr. Carson goes through the trash cans.”

  “We can’t take the chance — partly for our rec hall, but mostly because Hank the Tank is a great guy.”

  “Well, what are we supposed to do with them?” Wilbur challenged. “Eat them?”

  Bruno grinned, his dark eyes gleaming. “Of course not. We can’t throw them out, but we can give them a burial at sea — flush the evidence.”

  It was a very merry football team that made its way back to the three dormitories that evening.

  “Why so quiet, Boots?” Bruno asked as the two entered room 306. “You haven’t said anything since the meeting.”

  “Bruno, there are no words to describe how much I want to wring your neck!”

  Bruno looked amazed. “Why?”

  “Up until tonight,” his roommate said accusingly, “our noses were completely clean. Sure, you were bugging The Fish the first day, and you opened your mouth at the assembly — that’s nothing. But now you’ve made us captains of the football team, which means that when something goes wrong with the Zucchini Warriors, The Fish is going to come to us.”

  Bruno laughed. “You know what your problem is? You worry too much, and about the wrong things. Why are you thinking about problems that don’t even exist when you should be thinking about how we’re going to get two jumbo orders of zucchini sticks down the toilet?” He hefted the two plates and switched on the bathroom light. “Grab the Blue Cheese dressing, Melvin. We’ve got a job to do.”

  * * *

  It was ten o’clock that evening when Mr. Sturgeon returned home to find his wife waiting for him anxiously.

  “Well, William? What was so urgent that they had to contact you at this hour of the evening? Did it have anything to do with that awful yelling coming from the guest cottage after dinner?”

  The Headmaster looked grim. “I have a theory about that, Mildred, but I don’t think you’re going to believe it.”

  “Why, whatever do you mean, dear?”

  “Mildred, I have just witnessed the unclogging of no fewer than twenty-three toilets in our three dormitories.”

  Mrs. Sturgeon was taken aback. “Twenty-three in the same night?”

  “Twenty-three in the same hour. And from each one we removed a glutinous mass of zucchini sticks, cemented in by sauce. I have rarely seen anything quite so disgusting.”

  “I don’t think I understand.”

  “I devoutly wish I didn’t. I took the liberty of checking the roster of Carson’s football team. It matches exactly the map of plumbing disturbances at Macdonald Hall. Thank heaven a few of the players are roommates, or we would have had three more pipes to clear.”

  Light dawned on Mrs. Sturgeon. “The sounds from the cottage were a team meeting. Henry gave the boys zucchini sticks, and they — they disposed of them in the manner they felt best. How awful.”

  “It gets worse, Mildred. That tattling Blankenship boy told me that the idea for this assault on the plumbing came from Bruno Walton …” He looked up at the ceiling. “Why didn’t I know that?”

  “Calm down, dear. It’s all over now.”

  “On the contrary, Mildred — it hasn’t even started yet. These twenty-six boys are loyal to Carson not because of the football team, not because of the recreation hall they want, but because they somehow believe that over-weight, muscle-headed ex-football player is ‘one of the gang.’ Why, while I was putting Walton and O’Neal on dishwashing duty for their evening’s efforts, Walton was accepting it gladly, and begging me not to hold a grudge against Carson!”

  His wife smiled sympathetically. “So it comes down to you against Henry, just like it was thirty years ago.”

  “I’m afraid not. This time it’s me against everybody — Carson, the Board and the students.” He sighed heavily. “I’m getting too old for this.”

  Chapter 3

  The Zucchini Disposal Squad

  Miss Scrimmage’s sister was in town from Port Hope, and various girls had been selected to prepare for tonight’s dinner party. Cathy Burton and Diane Grant were entrusted with baking the cake, an apple-crumb confection that was the Headmistress’s favourite dessert.

  Without much enthusiasm, Cathy sprinkled the final spoonful of brown sugar onto the crumb topping. “Okay, Diane. Fire up the oven. We’re ready to roll.”

  Diane made no move. “Cathy, is there something wrong?”

  “Why would you think something’s wrong?” asked Cathy morosely.

  “Because you mope twenty-four hours a day,” replied Diane readily. “And you climb up to the roof every afternoon to watch Macdonald Hall practise football. And you do nothing but crab about how lousy they are. And now, for the very first time in your career as my roommate, you’re about to serve Miss Scrimmage and her sister a real cake. No extra ingredients — no horseradish, no Tabasco, no ground jalapeno peppers. Why, I’ll bet you’re not even planning to drop it on the floor. What’s the matter with you?”

  Cathy sighed. “I’m bored. All the excitement has gone out of school this year.”

  “It’s only the second week,” Diane pointed out.

  Cathy nodded. “And by this time any other year, Bruno would be on some big crusade, and we’d be right up there with him.”

  “Risking our lives,” Diane added feelingly.

  “Having a great time,” Cathy amended. “But this year, all they care about is football, which, as Bruno so kindly pointed out, is a man’s game.” Her face twisted. “We used to be part of what was going on at the Hall, Diane, and now we’re left with this — baking a crumb cake!”

  “I know the real reason for all this,” Diane challenged. “You’re jealous because they have a football team, and you used to love playing so much.”

  They were interrupted when Miss Scrimmage herself breezed in. “Now, let’s see how our little dessert chefs are coming along.” She dug a small spoon into the batter, tasted it and paused thoughtfully. “Hmmm. Very nice. But it does lack that particular zing that you girls always put into your baking.” Smiling, she whisked out of the kitchen.

  “Okay,” shrugged Cathy. “Break out the curry powder.”

  * * *

  It was half an hour after lights-out, and eerie shadows played upon the walls of room 306 in Dormitory 3. Bruno and Boots, both holding flashlights in their dishpan hands, hunched over their desks, finishing their homework.

  “This is your fault, you know,” Boots said, not for the first time. “You were so busy thinking about Hank the Tank and football that you let The Fish sneak right up and zonk us from point-blank range.”

  “You know, it’s beginning to get on my nerves, too,” said Bruno thoughtfully. “I mean, twenty-some-odd toilets block, and only we get put on dishwashing duty.”

  “But we’ll never be bored,” said Boots with bitter sarcasm in his voice. “We’ve
got classes till three-thirty, football practice till six, and we have to eat dinner, put in two hours of dishwashing and finish all our homework by ten. It’s a full life.”

  “It’s only for a week,” Bruno said soothingly. “We’ve got a bigger problem to deal with. What are we going to do the next time those zucchini sticks show up? I mean, Hank the Tank is a prince of a guy, but he’s got a blind spot when it comes to that deep-fried soap he makes. We need a plan.”

  “I’ve already got a plan,” Boots growled. “The next time somebody hands me a plate of zucchini sticks, I’m going to take it and throw it in the woods.”

  Bruno leapt to his feet. “That’s a great idea! The woods behind the school! The Tank’ll never go there! Boots, you’re a genius!”

  “I was joking! You can’t throw stuff in the woods. That’s pollution.”

  “It can’t be,” Bruno argued. “Nobody goes there. It’s like the famous philosopher who said, ‘If a zucchini stick falls in the forest and there’s no one there to see it, does it make a mess?’”

  * * *

  “Hey, did you guys know that Mortimer Day is in love with the gym teacher at Scrimmage’s?” blabbed Myron Blankenship at practice the next day.

  “Shut up!” snapped Dave Jackson.

  “He sends her love poems every day.”

  “Shut up!”

  “They’re really lousy.”

  “Shut up!”

  “They don’t even rhyme.”

  Bruno adjusted his helmet. “I think I just figured out how The Fish knew it was me who came up with the idea to flush the zucchini sticks. Ten to one it was the Blabbermouth over there.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Boots. “We’ve got to watch ourselves around that guy.”

  Calvin Fihzgart was standing on the sidelines, pawing the ground and snarling. In his hands he cradled the large beefsteak tomato he had saved from the dining hall at lunch and taken along to all his afternoon classes. Suddenly he thundered out into the middle of the field, let go a bloodcurdling scream, dropped the tomato to the ground and hurled himself on it.

  Pete Anderson was bug-eyed. “What the heck was that for?”

  “This was a little demonstration of what The Beast is going to do to the other teams when we start playing games!” He got to his feet and carelessly brushed off the front of his jersey, which was oozing red tomato pulp.

  Under the direction of Coach Flynn and Henry Carson, the boys began to work at the various drills designed to put them in condition and sharpen their skills. Mr. Carson had even bought a tackling dummy and weight-lifting equipment to make for a complete football workout.

  Carson threw his hat to the ground in disgust. “He’s down again!” he complained as Sidney Rampulsky took another spectacular spill trying to run through a double line of large truck tires. “He can catch a pass, he can run like a gazelle, but he can’t stand on his own two feet!”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” said Coach Flynn coldly. “It’s your team. I’m not even important enough to be invited to the team meeting.”

  Carson flushed. “Aw, Alex, I told you a hundred times — I just forgot. Honest. I’m just the assistant and the sponsor. This is your team.”

  The two watched as quarterback Boots O’Neal heaved a wobbly pass three metres over the head of Larry Wilson and into the third row of bleachers.

  “Mine, eh? I’m not sure I want them. Look, Hank, these are good kids, and they’ll give a hundred percent, but you must have noticed that we’ve got very little talent out there. And a couple of real nuts, too. Did you catch that act with the tomato?”

  “They can learn,” said Carson absently, watching the tackling dummy take out Wilbur Hackenschleimer. “You can’t judge the talent until they get a feel for the game.”

  After the warm-up, Flynn lined the offensive team up against the defensive team for a short scrimmage.

  “Come on, Calvin,” called Boots. “Hurry up. We’re getting ready to start.”

  Calvin joined them, his voice raspy from growling. “I don’t understand why no one’s calling me The Beast.”

  “Hey, Beast, you’re facing the wrong way,” piped Larry.

  Finally they got Calvin into the right lineup, and the scrimmage began, with Boots directing the offensive team slowly down the field, more or less like a real football game.

  “Okay,” called Flynn. “Send in the punter.”

  Myron jogged onto the field.

  Dave Jackson ran up to the coach, arms flung wide. “Punter? Why are we kicking? It’s only third down!”

  “Canadian rules, Jackson. You get three downs, not four. Remember?”

  The Buffalo native looked crestfallen. “Three downs?”

  The coach shrugged, almost apologetically. “Canadian rules.”

  Mortified, Dave slunk back to the huddle. “Man, I had strategy planned for that third down! I was going to run right, cut left, wiggle, dipsy-doodle and finesse my way through for the TD. What a drag!”

  * * *

  “We’re back, Elm,” Bruno called, opening the door of room 201 and inviting himself and Boots in. They were on their way home from dishwashing, and Bruno had insisted they stop by to get Elmer’s plan for the rec hall.

  Instantly the four Manchurian bush hamsters darted over to them and swarmed around their feet. Elmer stepped away from his chemistry laboratory. “They’re excited by the smell of dishwashing suds on your hands.”

  A distant siren was heard as a police car roared by Macdonald Hall on the highway. Suddenly the bush hamsters were out of control. Fur standing on end, they began bouncing up and down, grabbing at the two boys’ legs, uttering sharp, high-pitched, chattering cries.

  “Call off your monsters!” called Bruno, stumbling backward.

  Boots grabbed onto him for support. “Help!”

  The siren faded as the police car passed, and the animals quieted instantly.

  “They always do that when they hear sirens,” said Elmer calmly. “The frequency bothers their ears. You needn’t have been frightened.”

  Boots took a couple of giant steps away from the four animals. “I don’t know if I want them to reproduce,” he said faintly. “Four is plenty.”

  “There’s no worry about that right now,” said Elmer, obviously depressed. “My tests are still negative.”

  “Bummer,” said Bruno sympathetically. He spied a sheet of paper lying on top of the oscilloscope. “Hey, is this the rec hall? Great!” He examined the drawing with interest. “Elm, why are these tables so long? Wouldn’t it be better to have small café-style tables?”

  Elmer shook his head. “There’d be nowhere to run the gas lines for the Bunsen burners.”

  “Bunsen burners?” chorused Bruno and Boots in dismay.

  “Of course,” said Elmer, really warming to the discussion of his drawing. “What if you’re in the recreation hall and you suddenly want to perform an experiment? Now, the ceiling is domed here for the planetarium — I have a sizable collection of pre-recorded star lectures; but the dome is retractable, so the telescopes can be pointed at the sky. Now, in this corner I think we can fit two or three good-sized argon-neon lasers. And over here —”

  “No, no, Elmer,” Bruno interrupted. “Don’t overwhelm us now. Thanks for the help. We’ll get back to you.”

  As soon as they were out of the room, Boots burst out laughing. “‘Let’s go to the smartest guy in the whole school,’” he mimicked. “Did you see that plan? The only thing missing was an embalming room for the guys who die of boredom!”

  “Obviously, picking Elmer was a bit of a mistake,” Bruno admitted. “We’ll get someone else, that’s all.”

  * * *

  “Mildred,” said Mr. Sturgeon upon returning home that afternoon, “the Ontario Ministry of Education has sent a curriculum inspector to make sure that we’re up to scratch here at Macdonald Hall.”

  His wife smiled. “William, you know our teachers are among the best in the province, and our boys graduate w
ith high standing. We have nothing to hide from this inspector.”

  The Headmaster sat down heavily in his favourite chair. “Any other year, Mildred, I’d agree with you. But this ‘football fever’ is unbecoming in an institution like Macdonald Hall. After decades of excellence, why must they come to check up on us the year we are afflicted with football and zucchini sticks?”

  “Oh, dear, I see what you mean,” she said. “Well, do you think the inspector will understand this? What’s he like?”

  The Headmaster grimaced. “He has a long pointy nose, which he is about to stick into my business. If he knows how to smile, he has not demonstrated this talent to me. And he intends to interview my instructors, sit in on my classes and in general make a complete nuisance of himself.”

  Mrs. Sturgeon smiled smugly. “Never mind, William. The man is probably just shy. I know the perfect way to bring him out.”

  * * *

  Kevin Klapper, curriculum inspector for the Ministry of Education, resembled a man-sized mosquito, painfully thin and round-shouldered, with insect-like beady eyes and a long pointed nose. He sat stoically at the Headmaster’s dining-room table, dwarfed by another guest, Henry Carson. Across the table sat Miss Scrimmage, cowering in terror at the nearness of a Ministry inspector.

  Mrs. Sturgeon was just pouring the coffee. “So, Mr. Klapper, how is it that the Ministry came to choose Macdonald Hall? We were evaluated five years ago and found to be number one in the province.”

  Miss Scrimmage sank into her chair. Her school had recently ranked two hundred and seventeenth, and she had been praying that the subject would not come up.

  Klapper dabbed delicately at his thin lips with a napkin. “According to the new rules, Chapter 6, Paragraph 32/1, Subsection 4, all private schools are subject to random inspection by the Ministry.”

  “How nice,” said Mr. Sturgeon flatly. His wife’s dinner parties drove him mad.

  “Well, you sure came at the right time,” Henry Carson informed Klapper. “We’re revving up the football team for a big season. Maybe you can catch a couple of games.”

  Klapper looked highly offended. “I do not approve of football,” he said icily. “It is a destructive influence on men’s lives.”