‘These ones.’
The sheet had two graphs on it. One was labelled R2 and the other C3. The bottom of each graph was marked with dates and each vertical axis was marked Number of pellets.
‘See, I’m recording how much R2 and C3 poop every day and I’m plotting it on these graphs. I’m also comparing their rate of poops to each other and to the different kinds of food they eat. Like, I’m working out the average number of poops per carrot and the average number of poops per apple. It’s very complicated stuff. I have to take into account all sorts of things like the different sizes and weights of the apples and carrots. Lucky for me, all the poops are almost exactly identical.’
I stared at him. I blinked. He was still there. It wasn’t a weird dream. ‘But … why?’
Chewy shrugged his shoulders as if the answer was obvious.
‘For scientific research.’
‘Right. Of course. Well, that’s great, Chewy. I’m proud of you. You’re helping make the world a better place. But I still don’t see how that covers all four categories? You’ve got Maths and maybe some Science, but what about Arts and Literature?’
‘Well, for the Literature bit I’ve written an awesome poem. Took me ages.’
Chewy opened a folder on his desk and handed me a sheet of paper. There was a poem on it, all right. I read it out.
‘Did you notice how it’s a poem about guinea pigs and at the same time, the first letters of all the lines together actually spell the word guinea pigs? I did that on purpose,’ Chewy said proudly.
‘Wow,’ I said, ‘now that you mention it …’
I was almost too scared to push the next question out of my mouth.
‘And so … for the Arts category, then?’
‘That’s the killer, Eric. That’s where I totally blow the judges away. That’s what gives me … the edge.’
I waited as Chewy’s round face split into a big smile.
‘I’m recycling R2 and C3’s poop pellets and making them into a picture!’
‘You’re wha …’
Before I could finish my question Chewy had whipped out another cardboard sheet from behind his desk – a giant one this time. He was holding it inches away from my face. It had a strange smell about it.
‘Pretty awesome, hey?’
I leant back a little to take it all in – and to get my breath back before I passed out. It was an almost completed, life-sized picture of a person made entirely out of thousands of guinea pig droppings glued to cardboard. Something about the way the ears stuck out, the cheesy grin, the little round head and the spiky hair seemed familiar.
‘Is … that … supposed to be … a self-portrait?’
‘Sure is,’ Chewy said, looking super-pleased, ‘except I like to call it … a self-pootrait!’
There are times when I think that maybe my good friend William Choo-Choo Rodriguez might be from another planet. All the other times I’m sure he is.
‘Well, Chewy, you’ve obviously got the School Project Award all tied up, so what about me? What am I gonna do to beat this Eric Vale – Epic Fail thing? What other sort of epic win could I have?’
‘You got me,’ Chewy said as he grabbed some fresh pellets from R2 and C3’s cage and began gluing them to the sheet.
‘Maybe you need to go to someone else for help.’
‘But who?’
We both thought about that for around a micro-second.
‘Big Bob,’ we said at exactly the same time.
o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•
Of course Big Bob could help! Big Bob always helped! That’s what Big Bob did. He was the friendliest, most helpful guy in the world. Even teachers went to Big Bob for help. That’s why he was class captain and the most popular guy in Year Five and almost the whole school.
Big Bob helped move heavy stuff.
Big Bob helped kids with their homework. Big Bob helped new kids settle in (except for Aasha Alsufi, but we were all bombing out there). Big Bob helped organise class activities. Big Bob helped keep Martin and Tyrone under control. Big Bob was an expert helper!
‘I don’t think I can help,’ Big Bob said.
It was before school on Monday morning. Chewy and I were sitting with Robert ‘Big Bob’ Falou on one of the lunch benches.
‘There must be something you can do?’
Big Bob narrowed his eyes.
‘Well, you said Martin and Tyrone are the main ones carrying on about the Eric Vale – Epic Fail thing, right? So maybe you just have to stop them. I suppose I could give them a “friendly” head squeeze if you want.’
Big Bob was famous for his head squeezes. He did it to everyone. Except the girls, of course. The head squeeze was kind of like Big Bob’s hug. He’d just wrap one of his big arms around your head and squeeze it a bit. It didn’t hurt at all, and getting a head squeeze from Big Bob was the same as getting a pat on the back or a handshake from anyone else. It was his way of saying he liked you.
was definitely a good thing.
Unless he gave you a ‘friendly’ head squeeze, which looked exactly the same as a normal head squeeze only it was actually a bit less ‘friendly’ and a bit more ‘squeeze’. Not that Big Bob would ever hurt anyone. It’s just sometimes he had to kind of remind some people that he could. Martin and Tyrone mainly. Mostly for being rude to the girls. Big Bob didn’t like that much.
I have to admit that getting Big Bob to put the squeeze on Martin and Tyrone was very tempting – even if it didn’t work. But my problem was bigger than just the two of them. I had to show a whole lot of other people that I wasn’t the epic fail that it looked like I was turning into.
‘Nah, thanks anyway, Big Bob. I think Chewy’s right. It needs to be something I do. I need a proper epic win to change people’s minds. Something like the School Project Award, except it has to be something I’ve at least got one chance in a million of actually doing.’
We all went quiet for quite a long time then. I thought I might have set Big Bob an impossible task. But Big Bob never liked to let anyone down.
I could see his mind ticking over. After a while he began to nod his head slowly.
‘The swimming carnival,’ he said. ‘It’s next Monday.’
‘Yeah. What about it?’
‘Well, what’s the only thing that Martin is any good at?’
That was easy.
‘Swimming.’
‘And what does he always win without hardly trying?’
Also easy.
‘The first division freestyle final at the swimming carnival.’
‘So that’s it. That’s how you have your epic win. Beat Martin in the first division freestyle final. He just thinks he’s always going to win. But you’re a pretty good swimmer.
You always make the first division. Just think. If you beat Martin, then how can he call you an epic fail? What would that make him? And if you stop Martin, you stop Tyrone. Plus you’ll have your big win in front of the whole school, and I bet a lot of people would love to see Martin get beaten. You’ll be a legend. Yeah. I reckon that’s it. You beat Martin at the swimming carnival next Monday, I don’t think anyone will be calling you an epic fail after that.’
Everything Big Bob said was absolutely true! It was a brilliant plan! Perfect! Except for that bit about me beating the best swimmer in Year Five, a swimmer I’d never even got close to in the past, a swimmer who trained, who was in a proper squad, a swimmer who could actually dream of going to the OLYMPICS one day without people locking him up in a padded cell. And I had to do all that in front of the entire school in only one week’s time.
Yes, that’ll happen. Remember, if you think you can’t, you won’t! If you think you can, YOU’RE MAD!
‘You can do it, Eric,’ Chewy said, clenching his fist. ‘You really can. I believe in you, man!’
Which was nice, except William Choo-Choo Rodriguez also believed that it was possible to win the School Project Award with a self-pootrait. But I was getting desperate now and Bi
g Bob’s plan was the only plan I had. So I had to make myself believe that it was possible too.
Time for positive thinking for positive results!
‘Okay. I think it’s crazy but I’ll give it a shot!’ I said, and stood up to leave.
‘Hey, Eric, look.’ Chewy laughed with a snort. ‘You’ve got a big bit of gum stuck to your pants!’
I looked behind me. There was a long sticky grey line stretching from the back of my school shorts to the bench.
‘Hahahahahaha! Eric Vale – Epic Fa–’ Chewy froze with his mouth open. ‘Oh … yeah … right … Sorry, Eric … I forgot. You don’t like that much, do you?’
This was going to be harder than I thought.
Epic Fails Nos 3 to 7
One thing for sure. I was no chance of beating Martin without help. So straightaway I joined the after-school swimming sessions that Mr Heatherington, our PE teacher, was running for anyone who wanted to prepare for the carnival.
Martin didn’t show up, of course. He thought he didn’t have to practise to thrash the rest of us. And he was right. Besides, he had his real swimming club outside of school to train with.
My only hope was that he wasn’t anywhere near in full training mode yet. To have any chance at all, I knew I had to catch him off guard. It’s not that I’m a bad swimmer, I guess. It’s just that I’ve never thought much about it before. Just jump in and go like crazy is my method. But Mr Heatherington showed me what I was doing wrong with my strokes and how I could kick slower but smarter and still go faster! After a few sessions, I was swimming better than ever before!
Meanwhile, my plan in class that week was to keep my head down and not draw any more attention to myself. I didn’t want any more ERIC VALE – EPIC FAILS thrown at me. But it seemed that the more I tried to do everything right, the more everything went wrong!
Here are the week’s highlights of what Mr and Mrs Rodriguez would call my epic delayed successes!
MONDAY: At lunchtime I’m in the queue at the tuckshop and I’m waiting for the little Year Two kid in front of me to finish with the tomato sauce bottle. He’s squeezing and thumping it and hardly anything’s coming out. The tuckshop mum says, ‘You’ll have to put a bit more muscle in, sweetie. That one’s about done.’
Then I notice Aasha Alsufi sitting by herself under a tree and I smile at her but she just stares at me with her big brown eyes then goes back to scribbling in her diary.
Oh well, no one else had been able to get a smile or a word out of her either. When I turn back the Year Two kid is finished. Finally! So I grab the sauce bottle, aim it at my pie and give it the Iron Man’s Mother of all squeezes.
And tomato sauce spurts out of it like it’s exploding from a high pressure fire hose! While I was looking at Aasha and trying to get her to smile, the tuckshop mum must have changed the old bottle for a full one. Three rows of kids at the tuckshop are spattered with sauce. It looks like a massacre!
Miss Cahill is on playground duty. She glances over.
She starts shrieking, ‘Get the first aid kit! Call an ambulance! Don’t panic, anyone! Evacuate the school! Run for your lives!’ Everyone else is screaming or shouting stuff at me. Not nice stuff. All except Chewy. He’s just wiping sauce off himself and off the kids around him with his sausage rolls and chomping into them.
Right beside me is Meredith Murdoch. Her glasses have a fat line of red plastered across them and it’s dribbling down her nose and cheeks. But I can still feel her eyes burning into me. Then she yells out …
TUESDAY: I accidentally leave the lid off our class ant farm after I was on roster to feed them. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if Clayton Whitman-Byrnes hadn’t brought his fancy cupcake display for Show and Tell that day. Clayton wants to be on Junior Master Chef. I think he’ll make it, too, because those cupcakes must have been really delicious. Judging by how much the ants liked them.
WEDNESDAY: Somehow Mrs Booth in the library gets me mixed up with some girl in Year One called Erin Dale, and when she’s reading the overdue books out over the intercom for the entire school to hear, she says, ‘Eric Vale. Year Five. You have two books overdue: Baby Wu Wu’s Adventure and Ducky Takes a Waddle!’
THURSDAY: I think I’ve survived the day without a disaster! Yippee! Then we have a Drama class in the last lesson and we have to act out a scene from a movie. Chewy and I are put in a group with Macie Hudson and Sasha Bronski. We want to do something from X-Men. The girls want to do something from Harry Potter. The girls win. As usual. I have to play Harry Potter. Chewy has to play Dobby the house elf because the girls reckon Chewy looks ‘just like him!’. I’m not sure this is a good thing. It could be the ears. And his size. And everything else about him.
Anyway, Macie Hudson draws a big lightning bolt on my forehead and round glasses on my face with a washable marker pen. I look stupid.
Then when the bell goes for the end of the day we discover that of course Macie picked up the wrong pen! Yes, it’s the permanent one. So I have to ride home in the bus painted up like a stupid boy wizard. Everyone laughs. Lots of people ask me if I’m looking for Platform 9 ¾. And I get challenged to about a hundred games of quidditch. They think it’s hilarious.
FRIDAY: I’m playing soccer before school. I’m a defender. The ball comes bouncing to me and because I don’t want to have any epic fails, I take a big kick at it to clear it right away from my team’s goal. But I miskick it completely and it heads for our classroom. It’s going straight at a window!
I put my hands over my ears waiting for the big crash. But it goes right through without a sound because the window is open! YEEEESSS! Thank you! A minor epic win! My luck is definitely changing at last!
I run into our classroom. There’s a bunch of girls standing around a desk. On the desk is a big cake. Or what’s left of a big cake. It must have been a birthday cake, but it’s hard to tell because it’s been completely smashed like a bomb has gone off inside it. But I can see a bit on the floor with ‘HAPP’ written on it in red icing.
And then I see another bit with ‘SOP’ on it. That bit is squished on the front of a dress. Inside that dress is Sophie Peters. She doesn’t look like she’s having a very happy birthday.
Then I notice that Sophie Peters is holding a soccer ball. My soccer ball! It’s covered in cake and cream. So is Sophie Peters. So is Li Wan. So are all the other girls. The only one not covered with gobs of cake and cream is Aasha Alsufi. That’s because she’s sitting way down the back of the classroom by herself. I smile at her. But she stares at me the same way as the other girls are. Like I’m a cake murderer!
Sophie Peters is way too nice to say it, but I know exactly what she’s thinking.
And then, just to top off the week perfectly, on Friday afternoon when I’m packing my bag to finally go home, I see the picture I drew of myself at the beginning of the year for our Who Am I? unit. It’s pinned up on the noticeboard with everyone else’s. But it’s looking worse than Chewy’s self-pootrait.
Someone’s drawn a big ‘L’ on my forehead and given me clown hair and a clown nose.
They’ve also written ‘Loser’ on my shirt.
Except they spelled it ‘Looser’.
Which is kind of funny when you think about it. But I wasn’t smiling.
I pulled it down, screwed it up and threw it in the bin. If only it was that easy to get rid of my stupid nickname!
Every spare minute I had on that weekend I spent imagining myself beating Martin Fassbender in the freestyle final at the school swimming carnival on Monday.
Positive thinking for positive results!
On Sunday night I started getting really nervous. The next day was supposed to be the scene of my epic win. But a swimming carnival was like a school assembly – just the sort of place where, if you weren’t really careful, you could actually end up having the epic-est of all epic fails.
At least I had one thing going for me. On the day I’d get to wear my brand new super-cool swimmers! Mum had gone shoppi
ng and she’d finally bought the ones I’d been bugging her about for ages. They were shiny and white with little skulls on them and yellow lightning flashes down the side. Super-cool!
Of course Mum also went and bought me some teeshirts that weren’t quite so cool. But they ended up being super-awesome compared to the pyjamas she got for me, which were the least cool thing in the entire universe. Can you believe that the top had Sweet Dreams! written on the front in tiny kisses? And the shorts were white with little teddy bears all over them!
‘Well, they were an absolute bargain, sweetie – sixty per cent off! – and I thought they’d look so cuuuuute on you. Besides, who’s going to ever see them?’
Hello, Mum! Have you noticed I’m not in a cot any more and I actually go to the toilet all by myself? Sometimes mums just don’t get it. She even made me try them on, but then I just left them on the kitchen table.
But freaky pyjamas weren’t my problem. My problem was the next day’s swimming carnival and all the things that could go wrong for me there. I knew I had to be totally prepared. Like the big sign above Chewy’s desk says, ‘If you FAIL to PREPARE, you are PREPARING to FAIL!’
I prepared this table:
Possible Epic Fail situations. Precautions to take.
1. I dive into the pool for the big race and my new super-cool swimmers come off.
Eric Vale Epic Fail Page 4
