“No, an eggclair is a female chicken!”
“I thought a hen was a female chicken?”
“No, a chicken is a female chicken?”
“How can you classify something by referring to itself?! That’s like saying that a man is a male man.”
“Duuuh, my mailman is a man.”
Dave slapped his forehead. The conversation was interrupted when all of a sudden Caroline yelled out “BINGO!” and jumped up onto her desk. The other students all turned to her. Caroline was dancing on top of her desk while singing “Bingo, bingo, I got bingo.”
“What are you talking about, what bingo?” asked an angry sounding Michael.
“It’s right here, baby: second row down. Read ’em and weep: porcupine … feather duster … cubic zirconium … potato … and unscathed. I got them all.”
“Okay, hold on!” Leon said as loud as he could as he snatched away Caroline’s card. “Official verification check.”
Last year, John had decided to make school a little less boring, and so he created a number of bingo cards for the whole class. Each card was filled with a variety of words. John had compiled a master list of words and had given it to Leon to keep as the impartial scorekeeper. Every time a teacher said a word that was on a bingo card, the student holding the card would check it off. The first student to fill an entire row or column would win that year’s Bingo Contest and would become the recipient of a very unflattering picture of Principal Freeman that John had.
One day Principal Freeman had been chasing after John, and in the process had tripped as he was running down a flight of stairs. As Principal Freeman landed on the floor with his legs and butt in the air, his pants got caught on the banister and got pulled off, revealing his teddy bears with hearts underwear. Before Principal Freeman had been able to get up, John had snapped a picture with his trusty pocket camera and had scampered off on his merry way. That picture had cost John three months of detention, and so John was very much looking forward to sharing it with the class. Unfortunately, nobody had won the Bingo Contest during the fourth grade.
John eagerly rubbed his hands. It looked like he was finally going to get his revenge. Mr. Levis was still ranting about motorcycles and was completely oblivious to the Bingo discussion. Leon cross-referenced all five of Caroline’s words with the master list, and noted that the other four words had in fact been used by teachers during the fourth grade. Leon looked up with a smile and said “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!”
The class burst into booming applause. As the other kids went over to congratulate Caroline, Michael was still angrily protesting.
“Now wait just a minute! That’s not fair! Nobody knew that we were still playing! I thought that the game ended last year with no winner, and that we needed all new cards this year. I haven’t been keeping track. I demand to take a look at the master list and see if I already won.”
Michael made a grab for the master list, but Caroline shoved him away.
“No, you hold on. I remember very clearly the official rule that nobody is allowed to touch the master list except for the official scorekeeper. I also recall the rule that everybody has to pay attention by themselves, and if you miss a word, you can’t go back and add it later.”
“Oh yeah? Well what do the official rules say about using last year’s card for this year?” Michael demanded.
Everybody turned to look at John. John put up his hands to tell the class to calm down. He turned to Dave and snapped his fingers. Dave scurried to his locker and pulled out a big dusty stack of papers that were stapled together. He handed the stack over to John, who blew off the dust, revealing the cover page, which said in John’s handwriting: “Official Ohno Bingo Rulebook.”
John began flipping through the pages.
“Let’s see, Chapter One – General Information, Chapter Two – Eligibility, Chapter Three – How to Enter, Chapter Four – The Prize, Chapter Five – Judging … Ah, here we go, Chapter Six – Terms and Conditions of Winning.”
All of the kids watched intently as John read through the chapter. John closed the book with a smile on his face and turned to Michael.
“The official rules mention nothing about having to complete the card within one academic school year. Accordingly, and in my capacity as official judge and prize holder, I am happy to award Caroline her well-earned victory prize.”
Again, the kids broke out into raucous cheering and clapping.
“But … but … you’re the one who made up the official rules,” stammered a dejected Michael.
“Sorry, kid, dem’s da breaks,” goaded an ecstatic Caroline.
John again snapped at Dave, who ran back to his locker and returned with a wooden box. The kids all crowded around as John slowly opened the box and pulled out a tiny four inch by six inch rectangle covered in a tissue, and handed it to Caroline.
“And now folks, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: I give you Principal Freeman at his finest!”
John pulled away the tissue and the classroom broke out into thunderous laughter. In the front of the classroom, Mr. Levis had finished his rant on motorcycles and had moved on to a very serious discussion about how the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors” was invented by the little green men. Before Mr. Levis could get too worked up, however, the bell rang. His face instantly softened, and he looked up with a big smile.
“Okay class, we’ll pick this up tomorrow with our discussion of quadrilaterals.”
The class shuffled out of the classroom and headed toward the cafeteria. It was 1:00 p.m. – lunchtime. John and Dave grabbed trays and took their places in line.
“Do you know what they’re serving today?” asked Dave.
“No, they didn’t send out the lunch schedule yet. Hopefully it’s not Mystery Surprise.”
In previous years, on Mondays the kitchen would serve spaghetti and sauce, although it was hard to understand why “spaghetti” would contain so many broken plastic forks and why the sauce was the same brownish color as the liquid that would drip out of the radiators throughout the building. Tuesdays were supposed to be “chicken” days, yet the chicken always had a funny taste and the kids did notice that the school was conspicuously free of mice and rats. Plus, the faculty seemed to have a particular affinity for cats.
Wednesday was “pizza day”, but it was kind of hard to get excited for the paper-thin slices that tasted like cardboard. It was also kind of odd that the kids who came early to school on Wednesday mornings would see lots of cardboard pizza boxes being delivered to the building, but with no pizza inside the boxes. On Thursdays the kids would get “hot dogs,” but no kid could recall ever eating a “hot dog” that could bounce fifty feet across a room. The more creative kids made Thursdays a school favorite by coming up with various hot dog bouncing contests. John had actually compiled an official handbook for Thursday Hot Dog Olympics, which had some very nice prizes, although none as special as the Bingo photo. Fridays made for the most interesting lunch, consisting of lumps of cardboard-tasting meat interspersed with broken plastic forks that bounced fifty feet across the room. Mystery Surprise was reserved for special days.
After five minutes of impatient waiting and shoving, it was John and Dave’s turn. The lunch lady, Romana, stood at an imposing 6 feet 4 inches tall, and looked as if she would do very well in a discus-throwing competition. She had been Fatsinoff’s replacement after he was accidentally declared by NASA to be the Earth’s second moon and taken away for research. The only things bigger than her forearms were her eyebrows, which this year were nicely groomed to look like front lawn hedges. She scooped a ladle into the large vat in front of her and plopped two globs of green goo onto their trays and shouted “NEXT!” The goo had a malodorous stench, and John and Dave held their noses as they made their way to an empty table. Dave was cautiously observing the goo as they walked.
“I think it’s moving,” Dave mumbled out of his mouth.
“It’s just because we’re walking. After we sit
down it will stop moving.”
The boys found a table and sat down. The goo did not stop moving. John and Dave watched as it wobbled back and forth without stopping.
“Maybe it’s like jello?” Dave suggested.
“Or maybe it’s made out of the little green men,” John joked.
Dave’s face got white. Then John noticed something peculiar.
“Hey, you know what I just realized? I don’t think anybody else got green goo. Take a look around.”
Dave looked around the room. Everybody else had spaghetti. Somewhere in the room, someone cried out in pain as he chomped down on part of a plastic fork. Dave’s face got whiter and he squeezed John’s arm.
“John, why didn’t we get spaghetti? Is Romana trying to poison us? Why, oh why, would she want to poison us?!”
John pushed him off.
“Don’t be silly. She likes us. Remember that time when her hair caught on fire and we put it out by throwing toilet water all over her? I bet she’s been waiting all this time to thank us, and she finally discovered something special to convey her appreciation.”
And with that John grabbed a big spoonful of the goo and gulped it down. Dave’s face turned from bright white to green, and his cheeks swelled up. He jumped up and ran off in the direction of the bathroom. Along the way, he knocked Duh into the vat of spaghetti sauce. Duh climbed out of the vat and made his way over to John, dripping sauce all over the floor.
“Duuuh, why is Dave running out of the room? Is it because of the lunar eclipse?”
John looked at Duh, puzzled.
“Lunar eclipse?” In the excitement of the eggclair argument and then Caroline winning the Bingo Contest, John had forgotten all about Mr. Levis’ brief warning.
“Duuuh, I just ran into Mr. Levis outside getting onto his motorcycle. He said that the lunar eclipse is starting at around 4:30 tonight and will last for almost sixty minutes. He said that he was heading to the store to buy batteries and duct tape for his house.”
John stared at the green goo in front of him.
“4:30 … 4:30 … why does that remind me of something … Oh yeah! We have detention then … and …” John’s face lit up. “… and it’s going to be completely dark outside for sixty minutes!”
The wheels started turning inside John’s mind. Across the cafeteria, Dave was returning from the bathroom. Dave’s face still looked green and kind of flushed. John yelled for him to hurry over. Dave began to run but he slipped on Duh’s trail of spaghetti sauce and fell to the floor, landing on his side. Dave’s momentum kept him sliding across the floor all the way to John’s table. John loomed over him and smiled mischievously.
“Dave old buddy, tonight we’re going to take the ultimate revenge for every kid who ever got detention.”
Dave rolled over and squinted up at John, the ceiling lights shining brightly in his eyes.
“What about our detention? Aren’t we in enough trouble already?”
John waved him off.
“What’s the school going to do? We already have three years of detention, and we’re only here for one more year after that. This is an opportunity that comes only once in a childhood. Plus they’ll never know it was us.”
Dave looked skeptical.
“How are they not going to know it was us? It’s always us.”
John shook his head.
“Because my simple friend, in case you haven’t already heard, at 4:30 today there is going to be a lunar eclipse, and when that lunar eclipse comes, we are going to arrange to have the school’s electricity turn off. The school will be in total darkness! With absolutely no light, nobody will ever be able to see us. And if they can’t see us, they can’t assume that it’s us!”
“John, of course they can assume that it’s us. It’s always us. They’ll give us detention for the rest of our lives.”
John sat back down and resumed planning. Dave tried to stand up but slipped again and found himself lying square on his back. Duh stood over him and looked down, dripping more sauce all over Dave’s face.
“Oh man, it’s going to be so great,” John said excitedly as he ate another spoonful of green goo.
Dave rolled his head to the side, spit out some spaghetti sauce, and groaned.
The rest of the day breezed by as John schemed about how he was going to get the lights to go out. Obviously, he and Dave had to be in the classroom when it happened so that they would be absolved from all blame. Then there was the question of what to actually do once the lights turned off. There wasn’t sufficient time to booby-trap the detention hall, and barring a miraculous discovery of the secret room, his arsenal of gag products was severely lacking. He knew that he had to do something so mischievous that it would forever be whispered in the halls of Ohrno Elementary. If only he had known about the eclipse earlier, John thought to himself.
John was so wrapped up in his plans that he was completely oblivious to everything else. He didn’t notice when Dave got hit in the face with a large spitball in the middle of English. He didn’t laugh when Mrs. Silver split her pants while teaching the class to climb rope in Gym. He didn’t even notice during last period Music when Alan jumped up screaming after sitting on a thumbtack, and had to be carried to the nurse’s office by the janitor. When the final 3:45 bell rang, John had come up with a plan for the lights, but was still blank about what he was going to do to Baldini.
As the other kids started to make their way out of the classroom, Dave made his way over to John, with a concerned look on his face.
“Man, did you see what happened to Alan? He didn’t even come back to class. That wasn’t you, was it?”
John was staring at the wall, deep in thought. He nodded, not really paying any attention.
“Mmmhmm, I’m sure he’ll be happy in Kentucky.”
“What?” Dave asked confused.
John stood up suddenly, startling Dave. “Dave, we have to hurry. We only have about half an hour until we have to be in detention and we have a lot to do.”
Dave gulped.
“A lot to do?”
John winked at Dave.
“Yup. I came up with quite possibly my greatest plan ever, but we’ll have to split up if we’re going to make it in time. You head to the old gym and get a clump of wet hair, the old boot, and some of the popsicle sticks that we saw earlier today.”
“Eww. You want me to pick up the wet hair? I don’t want to touch that, who knows where it came from.”
“There’s nothing to worry about. We didn’t notice any dead rats when we were there, so if the hair didn’t kill any rats, I’m sure it will be safe for you.”
“Wait, what? That makes no sense!”
“Dave, we don’t have time for your unnecessary worrying. Just be happy that you got the easier of the two assignments,” John said impatiently.
Dave was so confused.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to make two return visits. First I’m going to head to the janitor’s closet. Then I’m going to head to the principal’s office.”
“The principal’s office?!”
John put his finger to lips.
“Shhh. Not so loud. The most vital component is there, and I know exactly how to get it. I knew that one day all my time with Principal Freeman would pay off.”
John looked at his watch.
“Your babbling already cost us two precious minutes! Dave, go to the gym and then meet me by the old staircase.”
“The staircase by the gym?”
“No, the old staircase! If I wanted you to go to the staircase by the gym I would have said the staircase by the gym.”
“But the staircase by the gym is an old staircase!”
John clasped his hands in front of Dave.
“Please, I’m begging you, just listen to me and stop asking questions. I’ll explain later but right now we just don’t have any time. Remember when I told you that I knew that the secret room wasn’t in the old staircase? Well I’m go
ing to show you how I knew, but we don’t have time to waste talking about it. Now go, but don’t tell anyone.”
John would have liked to explain things better, but there just wasn’t enough time. Everything had happened too suddenly and things were just too hectic. John knew that it was going to take some help from Lady Luck if he was going to pull this off.
“Don’t worry, Dave, old buddy, old pal. I’ve got this under control.”
And with that John scampered off toward the janitor’s closet with an enthusiastic bounce in his step. Dave sighed and slumped his shoulders. He was definitely not reassured.
“This has disaster written all over it,” Dave muttered, and with that, Dave headed to the old gym.
As John passed by the nurse’s office, he heard voices inside. He thought to himself that that was odd, because normally the nurse was gone by three o’clock. John crept up to the door and carefully peered inside. He saw Alan lying in his underwear on his belly on the nurse’s table with his butt in the air, while the janitor and nurse argued behind him. The janitor was waving a pair of pliers in his hand and was arguing with the nurse who was waving her arms no and yelling back at him.
“Hmm, I wonder what happened to Alan,” John thought. He glanced at his watch. “No time to find out now.”
The fact that the janitor was not in his closet made John’s plan significantly easier and saved him a bit of time. John smiled to himself. Already things were going his way. John took this as an auspicious sign. He ran to the closet and found it locked, but he easily bypassed the cheap, flimsy lock by swiping an expired gasoline card down the doorsill. The card didn’t have to be expired, but John preferred using expired ones, because sometimes the cards would bend or become mangled in the lock. John grabbed the broken scissors and a spool of string, as well as a bucket of red paint. He exited the closet and made his way to the emergency fire escape, which in fact was not a fire escape, but rather the secret door leading to Principal Freeman’s personal garden. John carefully snuck up to the office window to make sure that Principal Freeman’s back was turned.
John got to work. He was quick but meticulous. Even when in a rush, John liked his work to have high quality. When he was satisfied, and with a smug look on his face, John snatched up a pebble off the ground and quickly climbed up one of the trees. Hiding amongst the leaves, he tossed the pebble at the window.
The Amazing Magnificent Stupendous Incredible Outstanding Unbeatable Exceptional (and Humble) Rubberband Boy Page 5
