by Nancy Krulik
“If it is a prank, I don’t think it’s very funny,” Mrs. Kelly said. “It’s going to take us a lot of time to put this room back together. And that’s a shame, because I had something really special planned for this morning.”
George wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Mrs. Kelly’s idea of “something special” wasn’t always his idea of something special.
Still, cleaning the classroom wasn’t going to be fun. But they had to do it. First, the kids flipped their desks right-side up. Then they worked to put the books back on the shelves while Mrs. Kelly fixed up her filing cabinet.
As they were putting the last book away, Julianna found a note. But the note wasn’t handwritten. It was made of letters cut from newspapers and magazines.
Julianna read the note out loud.
“The Phantom?” Alex wondered out loud. “Who’s that?”
“Could be anyone,” George said.
“And what does he mean, ‘keep your eyes open’?” Louie asked.
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Kelly said. “What do you think it means?”
“Maybe he means don’t fall asleep in school,” Mike said.
“I fell asleep once in the cafeteria,” Max said. “My face landed right in my meatballs and spaghetti.”
Boy, did George wish he’d been there to see that. He started to laugh—but he stopped right away when he saw the look on Mrs. Kelly’s face.
“We’ve wasted enough time on this Phantom’s joke,” Mrs. Kelly told the class, looking at the clock. “Luckily, we still have time for my surprise.”
Mrs. Kelly reached into her desk drawer and pulled out her iPod. She plugged it into a speaker, and began to play music.
“The toe bone’s connected to the foot bone, the foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone . . . ,” Mrs. Kelly sang along with the music. She wiggled her foot all around. “Come on, you guys. Get up and do the Halloween Skeleton Dance!”
George didn’t want to dance. Not at all. But Mrs. Kelly took her dancing seriously. She’d be angry if he didn’t get up and start dancing. So he got out of his seat and joined the rest of the class in the Halloween Skeleton Dance.
“The ankle bone’s connected to the leg bone,” Mrs. Kelly sang out. “Now shake those skeleton bones!” Mrs. Kelly began to shake all over. So did most of the kids.
But not George. He wasn’t listening to the music anymore. He couldn’t. The only thing George could pay attention to was the bubbles that were suddenly dancing up and down inside his belly.
The super burp was back! Already the bubbles were hip-hopping on his hip bone, and bouncing off his backbone.
Oh no! If the super burp burst out now, there was no telling what it might do.
George had to squelch that belch. But . . . how?
“The knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone,” Mrs. Kelly sang out.
Plink-plonk. Zink-zonk. The bubbles were moving faster now. They were ricocheting off his ribs and trekking up his trachea. George had to stop them before they made it to his mouth.
There was only one thing to do. George was going to have to trick those bubbles into moving back down toward his toes. Quickly, he flipped over, and did a handstand.
“Look! George’s acting all weird!” Louie shouted.
The kids all turned to stare at George. But he didn’t care. All George knew was that it was working. The bubbles were still moving up, up, up. But now up was down. The bubbles moved past George’s neck bone, which connected to his collarbone. Then they moved to his rib bones, which connected to his backbone, which . . .
Pop! Suddenly, George felt something burst in his belly. All the air rushed right out of him. The super burp was gone.
But George was still there. Standing upside down.
Mrs. Kelly frowned at George.
Uh-oh. This was ba-a-ad.
Or maybe not. George was upside down. So what looked like a frown was actually a smile. Mrs. Kelly was smiling at George.
“Excellent, George,” Mrs. Kelly said. “I love your interpretive dancing. And you’re right: No matter which way we stand, our bones are still connected! Now come on everybody, shake those bones.”
The kids all began to shake.
George glanced over at Louie. He was looking at George and smiling. Well, not really. George was looking at Louie upside down. So his smile was really a frown. Louie hated when anyone got a compliment—other than himself, of course.
Louie’s frown made George smile. He’d managed to squelch the belch and make Louie miserable. It didn’t get much better than that.
“Oh yeah!” George cheered as he and Alex left the lunch line with their trays and headed toward the fourth-grade table. “Spaghetti and meatballs for lunch. This day just keeps getting better and better.”
“It’s definitely the best hot lunch they serve,” Alex agreed.
George plopped his tray down on the table next to Julianna and Alex, and across from Louie, Max, and Mike. The smell of meatballs and tomato sauce floated up to George’s nose. And then . . . suddenly . . . his stomach started to rumble.
George gulped. Uh-oh. Not again.
Grumble rumble.
Rumble grumble.
Phew! That wasn’t a bubbling sound. That was a hungry belly sound. And it was easy to squelch. All George had to do was take a big bite of a meatball.
“Aaaaahhhhh!”
Before George could even take one bite of his lunch, he heard Sage scream. He turned just in time to see her drop her tray.
Crash! Meatballs and spaghetti flew all over the place. A few kids clapped.
“WORM!” Sage shouted. She ran over to the table and grabbed George’s shirt. “Help me, Georgie!” she begged.
George quickly pried himself away from Sage. “Get off of me,” he told her. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Th-there’s a worm in my food!” Sage told him. “I hate worms. They’re so slimy.”
Quickly, the kids in the lunchroom gathered around to see what was happening.
George looked down at the pile of spaghetti and meatball mess on the floor. Sure enough, there was something gray and slimy-looking mixed in with the spaghetti. He reached down and picked it up.
“You’re scared of this?” he asked, waving the worm in front of Sage’s nose.
“Ooo. Get that away from me, Georgie,” she squealed.
“It’s rubber,” George told her. “Someone was just pulling a prank on you.”
A few kids laughed.
“Oh,” Sage said, embarrassed. “I thought it was real.”
“It looks real,” Julianna agreed.
“Until you look at it closely,” Alex commented. “Then you see it doesn’t have any parapodia.”
George stared at Alex. “Para-whatia?”
“Parapodia,” Alex repeated. “Tiny hair-like things that help the worm move. I read about them in a science book once. That worm doesn’t have them.”
Just then, Mr. Coleman, the school janitor, came over with a mop and started to clear away Sage’s spilled food. He didn’t look happy. “First someone uses tape to post a note on my freshly painted cafeteria wall, and now this,” he grumbled.
“There was a note?” George asked him.
“What did it say?” Louie wondered.
Mr. Coleman reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper covered in letters cut from magazines and newspapers. He read the note out loud. “‘Always check the contents of your food before you eat. Signed, The Phantom.’
“I have no idea what it means,” Mr. Coleman said with a shrug. He shoved the note back in his pocket and went back to mopping the floor.
The kids looked at one another. They knew what the note meant. They just didn’t know why this Phantom guy was leaving notes for them.
Just then, Princ
ipal McKeon walked over to the lunch table and frowned. “What’s going on here?” she asked.
Sage pointed to the rubber worm in George’s hand. “I thought it was a real worm,” she told Principal McKeon. “Georgie was so brave. He reached right into the hot spaghetti and pulled it out.”
“It was just rubber,” George told her.
“But you didn’t know that,” Sage insisted.
“Or did he?” Louie asked.
George gave Louie a funny look. Louie glared back at him.
“Sage, please help Mr. Coleman pick up the plate and silverware,” Principal McKeon said. “Then you may go get another lunch.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sage said. She bent down and started to clean up the mess.
Principal McKeon shook her head. “Pranks are not funny,” she said as she glanced up at the black-and-orange Halloween parade banner hanging from the rafters. “You students have a lot of privileges in our school. Privileges can easily be taken away.” And with that, she walked out of the cafeteria.
No one said anything for a minute. Finally, George turned to Louie. “Why did you make it sound like I already knew the worm was rubber?” he demanded.
“What do you mean?” Louie asked him.
“You know,” George insisted. “When Sage told everyone I didn’t know the worm was rubber, you said ‘Or did he?’ right in front of the principal.”
“Well, you sure grabbed that worm fast,” Louie explained. “And you weren’t scared at all. So you must have known it was fake. Only you couldn’t have known it was fake . . . unless you were the one who put it there.”
“You think I pulled that prank on Sage?” George asked.
“It’s the kind of thing you would do,” Louie told him. “You’re always joking around. And Sage is always driving you crazy . . . Georgie.”
Max and Mike both started to laugh.
Grrrr. It was bad enough when Sage called him that.
“I’m just not afraid of worms,” George said. “I’d have picked it up even if it was a real one.”
“Sure,” Louie said. “Whatever you say.”
“Yeah, sure,” Max agreed.
“Sure, sure,” Mike added.
George couldn’t believe Louie was accusing him of being the prankster. Okay, at his old school, George played pranks on kids every once in a while. Like when he pretended to take a picture of his pal Katie Kazoo with a camera that squirted water, or put a whoopee cushion on the seat of snooty Suzanne Lock in the school cafeteria. But George didn’t do stuff like that anymore.
Besides, there was something else Louie hadn’t considered. “When would I have dropped the worm in Sage’s food? I came in the cafeteria the same time you did. And I was sitting right here with you when she saw it for the first time.”
Louie didn’t answer. He couldn’t argue with that. “I don’t know how you did it,” he told George. “But I do know Principal McKeon was staring right at that parade banner when she talked about taking away privileges. And I am not going to let that parade be canceled. Not when I’m going to be this year’s leader. So you just better cut it out, George.”
George didn’t answer. Instead he picked up his fork and started to roll his spaghetti around and around. Only he wasn’t very hungry anymore.
Louie was right. Mrs. McKeon had been looking at that banner. Everyone knew it. Even George’s friends. They were all very quiet. George could tell they were worried the parade would be canceled. And he was even more worried that they would blame him if it was.
So much for this day getting better and better. Thanks to Louie and the Phantom, spaghetti and meatballs day was ruined.
“So, have you guys decided what you’re going to dress up as for the Halloween parade?” Chris asked Alex and George as the boys met up on the playground before school the next morning.
George shook his head. “Not yet. This has to be an extra-special costume. It’s my first parade.”
“True,” Alex agreed. “The rest of us have been doing this since kindergarten.”
“But it’s still special,” Chris said. “That’s why I’m going to be Toiletman!”
George laughed. Toiletman was a cartoon superhero Chris had created. Whenever there was a chance to dress up—for the school talent show or a Halloween parade—Chris put on his Toiletman cape.
“My mom said I could buy a new plunger, so I’m really psyched!” Chris added. “And I know that no one else is coming dressed as Toiletman.”
“That’s for sure,” George said.
“I’m thinking of coming as Sir Alexander Fleming,” Alex told Chris and George.
George looked at him curiously. “Who?”
“Sir Alexander Fleming,” Alex repeated, sounding kind of surprised that George didn’t know who he was talking about. “He was a scientist who worked with mold and bacteria. He discovered penicillin.”
“Oh,” George said. “Well, mold’s kind of cool.”
“Mold’s very cool,” Alex corrected him.
“I bet no one else will have that costume, either,” Chris said.
The pressure was really on George now. He had to come up with an original costume idea. But what?
Rrrinnngggg. Just then, the bell rang. It was time to go inside. School was starting. Halloween was going to have to wait.
“What’s going on?” George wondered as he and his friends walked into the school building. It looked like every kid in the school was in the lobby.
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “But something definitely has to be going on.”
“Whoa,” George heard someone in the crowd gasp.
“Principal McKeon’s going to have a fit,” someone else added.
George just had to know what was happening! He squeezed himself through the crowd of kids that had gathered in the middle of the school lobby.
“Oh man, check out Edith B.!” George laughed so hard, he snorted. Someone had put fake eyeglasses, a rubber nose, and a mustache on the sculpture of Edith B. Sugarman. The school was named for Edith B. Sugarman—although no one seemed to know who she was or why anyone would name a school after her. The sculpture was pretty weird looking to begin with. But now it looked hilarious.
Alex started to laugh, too. So did Chris. And Julianna. And even Louie. Before long, everyone was hysterical.
Well, almost everyone.
“You think this is funny?” Principal McKeon bellowed from behind the crowd. “Well, I don’t. I demand to know who did this.”
“There’s a note on the bottom of the statue,” Louie pointed out.
Principal McKeon grabbed the note and began to read it out loud. “‘I cover my tracks well. You will never find the Phantom.’”
“AAAAAHHHHH!”
Just as Principal McKeon finished reading, a scream came from Nurse Cuttaway’s office.
Uh-oh. What now? George looked at Alex.
Alex looked back at George and shrugged.
There was only one way to find out. The boys raced toward the nurse’s office. The rest of the kids headed that way, too.
“Oh wow!” George peeked into the nurse’s office and tried not to laugh. But holding in giggles was almost as hard as holding in burps. “Hahahahahha!”
George wasn’t the only one laughing. It was hard not to laugh at a life-size bony skeleton with a green rubber monster mask over its head. The mask had bulging eyes and snakes for hair.
“Hey, George, isn’t that the same mask that you . . . ,” Alex began.
But before Alex could finish his sentence, Principal McKeon walked over and yanked the mask off the skeleton’s head.
“Who did this?” she demanded, waving the rubber mask in the air. The rubbery snakes wiggled and jiggled. “This skeleton belongs in the science room,” Principal McKeon continued. “Not in the nurse’s office.”<
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Clunk. One of the skeleton’s feet fell off.
I guess the foot bone’s not connected to the ankle bone anymore, George thought. But he didn’t say that out loud. He had a feeling Principal McKeon wouldn’t find that funny, either.
“There’s a note near the skeleton,” Sage said. She began to read it out loud. “‘This guy doesn’t have a brain, a heart, a stomach, or an appendix. He’s got no body. And nobody can guess the Phantom’s true identity!’”
“As I told a group of you yesterday, I am prepared to take away some very important privileges if this prankster is not stopped immediately,” Principal McKeon said to the crowd gathered outside the nurse’s office. “There have to be consequences for someone’s actions.”
George frowned as he noticed the principal’s eyes drifting toward the Halloween parade banner in the front hallway of the school. He knew what she meant. And he bet the other kids did, too.
“George, you better cut it out,” Louie said as the kids started moving down the hall to their classrooms.
“Me?” George asked. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, right,” Louie said. “These are just the kind of weird, freaky jokes a weirdo freak like you would play. If Mrs. McKeon cancels that parade, it’s gonna be your fault.”
Louie said that last part really loud. A bunch of kids in the hall turned and stared at George.
George shook his head. “It wasn’t me,” he repeated. “I’m not the Phantom.”
The kids kept staring. Some of them were glaring. Louie was the only one smiling. Louie was never happier than when he was causing trouble for someone else—especially for George.
‘“There he is,” George heard a third-grader whisper to his friend in the lunch line later that day. The kid pointed to George. “The one who’s going to ruin everything.”
“I hear he’s new here. He probably didn’t have a Halloween parade at his old school,” the other third-grader said.
“He must really hate Halloween. Or parades.”
George’s face turned bright red. That wasn’t true at all. George loved Halloween. And parades.
