Mary suddenly appeared. “I overreacted about your coughing, Harry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just want to win like you do!”
Harry shrugged. “No problem, Mare.”
Then she added, “I notice you guys are both getting a sunburn. I bet you didn’t pack sunblock. Here, you can use some of mine.”
“Gee, thanks, Mare,” Harry said. And he squeezed some lotion into his hand and rubbed it over his lower arms and face.
I did too. “Thanks,” I said. I was thrilled those two were making up!
When Mary ran back to the front of the other line, Harry and I got ready.
“On your mark!” Mr. Skooghammer shouted.
Harry and I put our gloved hands firmly around the rope.
“Get set!” Mr. Cardini yelled.
“PULL!” both men roared.
As soon as Harry and I grabbed the rope and started to pull, our hands slipped right out of our gloves! We fell backward onto the grassy field while the rest of our team went flying forward.
Harry and I looked up. We both had grass in our hair. Our gloves were on the ground. And the other team was cheering madly, “We won! We won!”
After we picked ourselves up, Sidney came rushing over. “Why did you two let go?”
“We didn’t!” Harry objected. “The rope slipped right out of our hands.” Then Harry and I stared at our palms. They were covered with grease.
“How did they get so greasy?” Sid asked.
“THE SUNBLOCK!” Harry and I said in unison.
I slapped the side of my head. Man, I thought, why didn’t I see through Mary’s sneaky plan!
I wasn’t just tripping over my own feet or missing targets. I was losing my smarts!
“It was Mary!” Sid exclaimed. “I remember now she offered you guys that stuff. I know she wanted to get even with you, Harry, and make you lose. But it’s not right she made all the rest of us lose too! I’m telling!”
While the winning team was still jumping up and down, Sid stomped over to the principal. Harry and I waited and watched as Sid gave Mr. Cardini an earful of facts. Then the principal made a beeline for Mary and had a few words with her.
Boy, was she stunned! Mary looked like she had swallowed a bug!
“Scuse! Scuse!” Mr. Cardini called out. “Due to certain unfortunate events, we need to do the tug-of-war again!”
While Mary’s team groaned, our side got excited. We had another chance!
The principal came over and squirted our hands with hand sanitizer. “Rub them clean, boys.” And then he handed us another pair of gloves.
“ON YOUR MARK!” Mr. Skoog-hammer shouted again.
Harry and I grabbed the rope and got a good footing.
“GET SET!”
I was ready to tug with all my might!
“PULL!”
“Heave ho, guys!” Harry yelled. And our side started to drag Mary’s team our way.
Suddenly, we stopped going backward and were being pulled forward.
Now we were inching toward Mary’s side!
“We can do this, guys!” Harry yelled. “PULL HARDER!”
Our side stopped inching forward and started hauling the other team our way.
Sid was grunting as he pulled.
“Keep it up!” Harry hollered. Inch by inch we moved the red handkerchief closer to our orange cone.
I could hear Mary screaming, “NO! NO!”
“YES! YES!” Harry and I answered as we yanked the red cloth past our cone.
Mr. Cardini blew his whistle! “We have a winner!” he shouted.
Our team cheered as Harry and I slapped everyone five!
Mary plopped on the ground. She was pooped!
“Magnifico!” Mr. Cardini exclaimed. “Great effort, kids!”
I dashed over and checked our teacher’s clipboard. Ida and Song Lee were already there. Mary had lost one point for bad sportsmanship! “Sid lost one too?” I whispered to the girls.
“He did,” Ida replied. “I saw him untie Harry’s shoe when I was running back to tag him. That was awful. I had to tell the teacher. It just took me a while to do it.”
When I looked over at Mary, she was standing with the principal. Sid was there too. “And we’ll discuss the consequences later,” Mr. Cardini said.
“The Speedy Spiders are the winners for Room 3B!” Mrs. Flaubert announced. “Congratulations, Harry and Doug!”
Harry and I gave each other a bear hug.
Then Sid and Mary came up to us.
“I’m sorry about the sunblock,” Mary said softly. “I think I was desperate.”
“If I were in my right mind, Mary,” I replied. “I would have said no thank you!”
“And I’m still sorry about that shoelace business,” Sid chimed in.
“Well,” Harry said, “I found out how it feels when someone cheats you out of something. Doug and I could have set a new school record today. But I did mess you guys up during that jump roping and I’m sorry about that. So we’re even, okay? Just . . . don’t ever go near my shoelaces again, Sid, or . . .” Harry held up a fist.
“I promise,” Sid said. And he held up a fist too. “Don’t you tell jokes while I’m jumping rope!”
“Won’t happen,” Harry agreed.
I felt a big sigh of relief. The war with Sid and Mary was over! Harry wasn’t a big fat cheater after all. Mary and Sid were!
“We did it, Dougo!” Harry said.
“We did!” I replied. Maybe with a few shenanigans, I concluded.
“I can’t wait to pick that perfect prize for our class!” Harry exclaimed.
“I can’t wait to see it!” I replied.
The Perfect Prize!
That afternoon, Harry kept watching the minute hand tick away on Room 3B’s clock. It was 2:30 p.m. and still no sign of Mr. Deltoid.
Mrs. Flaubert handed out popsicles so the wait wasn’t painful for me. There was just one more thing I had to clear up. “Hey, Harry,” I asked. “Why did you bring that water bottle to school with the squirt nozzle?”
“If you stay cool, it gives you an advantage! And sometimes, I get an occasional tickle in my throat.” Then he flashed his white teeth.
Harry! I thought.
“Well, you’re right,” I added, “I need to stay calm. I can’t think straight if I’m freaking out! I really need to keep a cool head!”
“You do!” Harry said, then he squirted me in the face.
“Thanks!” I laughed.
Finally, at three o’clock, Mr. Deltoid came. He was carrying that big brown box. When he let it drop to the ground, it hardly made a sound.
“Harry and Doug, come on up. You boys get to award this last prize to your class.”
Everyone cheered and clapped except Harry.
“It’s the last prize left?” he inquired.
“Yes,” Mr. Deltoid replied. “I went by winning score totals. The other room winners had more than eight points. But you guys did a terrific job!”
Harry looked like his cat died.
“The perfect prize is gone then,” he moaned. “You can open it, Doug.”
“Are you sure?” I said.
Harry nodded.
I lifted the flaps and reached down to the bottom of the box. It was a rolled-up poster.
Oh man, I thought. Probably the five food groups. What a bummer!
Suddenly, Harry grabbed it. “Wait a minute!” he said, unrolleding the poster.
It was a picture of a HUGE HAIRY BROWN TARANTULA!
Everyone stared at it.
No one said a word.
“The perfect prize for Room 3B!” Harry shouted. “I wonder why nobody else took it first.”
Then he ran to the front closet door and held the poster up high. “This hairy beauty
will remind everyone in Room 3B that Spiders rule!”
It was the perfect prize for Harry.
The only horrible one in the box!
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Horrible Harry and the Field Day Revenge! Page 3
