The World's Greatest Underachiever and the Crazy Classroom Cascade

by Henry Winkler

  “Hank’s sister, Emily, is an excellent student,” my father said. “She doesn’t seem to have any problems at school.”

  Emily held an iguana pellet in the palm of her hand. Katherine whipped out her long tongue and snapped it up. I’ll tell you one thing – Emily may not have school problems, but she has weird taste in pets.

  “I’m sure you’re very proud of Emily,” Mr Rock continued, “but having a sister who excels adds to the pressure on Hank.”

  “What pressure?” said my father. “Hank doesn’t worry about anything. That’s his problem.”

  My mother was studying me very carefully. My leg was bouncing up and down again. She was watching it.

  “Stan, can we at least talk about this?” she asked.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Mr Rock said. “You have a lot to think about. I just thought it was better to have this conversation in person rather than on the phone. Give me a call if you want to talk further.”

  Mr Rock turned to me. “Hank, we’ve been talking about you but not to you. Do you have any questions?”

  “Just one,” I said. “Let’s say a person in the fourth grade might have learning difficulties. And that person wanted to do something that was very creative, like for example a magic show, which included earning, let’s say, a ten-dollar bill. Don’t you think that person should be allowed to do it because he tries so hard at everything?”

  “I think creativity should always be encouraged.” Mr Rock smiled.

  He stood up to go. He shook hands with everybody, including Katherine. She must have liked him too, because her tongue shot out and gave his hand a sticky lick.

  As soon as Mr Rock had gone, I turned to my parents.

  “You wouldn’t go against the advice of a teacher, would you?” I asked. I had great hope in my heart. “Please … can I just do the magic show?”

  My mother and father looked at each other for what seemed like a year and a half.

  “We’ll get back to you on this,” my father finally answered.

  They got back to me the next morning.

  They said yes.

  The show was on!

  Magik 3 was back in business. I was so excited that if you hold this book to your ear, you can hear me jumping up and down.

  At exactly seven o’clock on Saturday night, we pushed the giant hat through the swing doors of McKelty’s Roll ’N Bowl. If I do say so myself, the hat was awesome. It was big and black and it had wheels. We had even built the secret pocket inside where Cheerio could hide until it was time to pull him out. To keep him happy, we put doggie treats inside the pocket with him.

  McKelty’s was jammed with people. It was opening night for the bowling league season. There were twelve teams. Each had their own lane and their own T-shirts. Papa Pete and The Chopped Livers were on lane five warming up. In the middle of the bowling alley, where they usually serve pizza at birthday parties, my mum had put out sandwiches. Papa Pete had warned her that anything with soy was out of the question. It had to be the real thing. I could smell the hot pastrami on fresh rye bread. My mouth started to water, but I knew we had more important things to do before we ate.

  “Attention, bowlers,” came a voice from the loudspeaker. I knew that voice.

  “Magik 3 couldn’t be with us tonight because one of its members was grounded for being too stupid to write his essay,” the voice said.

  The McKelty Factor strikes again.

  “Instead we have something much better – a thrilling, unbelievable, death-defying bowling exhibition that stars me.”

  Trust Nick McKelty to put together a show starring only himself.

  “That slimy toad thinks he’s taking our spot,” Ashley said.

  “Yeah, well, I hope that slimy toad can swim because I’m going to flush him down the toilet,” Frankie growled.

  The loudspeaker crackled again. “For my first feat, I’m going to bowl a strike with my left hand. Blindfolded.”

  Before we knew it, Nick appeared on lane ten. The jerk was actually wearing a blindfold. Everyone watched as he brought the ball up to his chest. On his bowling ball was a big picture of his slimy face. Unbelievable!

  He took one, two, three steps towards the line and let the ball fly off his fingers. It landed on the lane with a thud and rolled smack into the gutter. The crowd groaned. I knew this was our opportunity.

  I jumped up on to one of the benches and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, how about that Nick McKelty, the bowling whizz – doesn’t he look great in a blindfold? Let’s give it up for him.”

  Everyone laughed. I motioned for Frankie and Robert to wheel out the hat.

  Nick looked stunned. He tried to take off his blindfold, but he had tied the knot too tightly.

  “While we’re setting up for the real entertainment, take a moment to enjoy the mouth acrobatics of Miss Ashley Wong, as she tries to tie not one but two cherry stems into a knot, never once using her hands,” I said with pride.

  I handed Ashley two cherries from the bar. She popped them into her mouth, scrunching up her face and moving her tongue a mile a minute. As she worked, she strolled around the audience, showing off her T-shirt with the red rhinestone cherries. By the time she got back to where she had begun, she had produced two knotted cherry stems, connected at the top. They looked like a small Christmas tree. Papa Pete led the applause.

  Frankie gave me the nod. He was ready to go.

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen, for the main event, I’m happy to present the freestyling magic of Frankie Townsend and Magik 3,” I announced.

  “Hey, what about my bowling tricks?” Nick McKelty shouted. He had finally managed to untie his blindfold. His eyes looked blazing mad. “I’m not finished yet.”

  “Yes, you are!” the crowd yelled back.

  Nick ran into his father’s office to sulk.

  Frankie started right away on his act. He pulled scarves from his sleeve, cut a rope into three pieces and put it back together and pushed a pencil through the centre of a quarter that he borrowed from Papa Pete. That truly is one of my favourite tricks. And Frankie, that rat, won’t tell me how he does it.

  Ashley and Robert wheeled out the hat while I kept watch on Cheerio, trying to keep him calm. He was getting that look in his eye, his pre-spinning look.

  “Not now, Cheerio,” I whispered to him, reaching into the hat to scratch him between the ears. He loves that. “Don’t go crazy on me, boy.”

  “And now, for my grand finale,” announced Frankie. “At the special request of Papa Pete, I will pull a small live furry thing from this magical top hat!”

  “It’s probably a stuffed teddy bear,” McKelty shouted from the office doorway. “I’m sure everyone would rather see me throw a strike backwards, between my legs, again using my left hand. Wouldn’t you?”

  It was his father who gave him the answer everyone else was thinking.

  “Be quiet, Nick,” he said, “and enjoy the show.”

  “Here we have a hat,” Frankie began, pointing to our giant top hat. “My assistants will show you the inside of the hat.” Ashley and I tipped the hat forward so everyone could see inside. Cheerio was tucked in his secret pocket so you couldn’t see him. I thought I heard a tiny yip as he slid against the side.

  “Notice that it’s actually empty,” Robert said with this kind of goofy smile. We had decided to give him a line.

  “I will now take my cape and cover the hat,” Frankie said. He showed the audience both sides of the cape and laid it over the hat like a tablecloth. The place was silent, except if you stood close enough to the hat, you could hear the crunch, crunch, crunch of doggie treats inside Cheerio’s mouth.

  “Hank, the magic words, if you please,” Frankie said.

  I stepped forward, closed my eyes and waved my hands over the cape. We hadn’t rehearsed that part, but I thought it added a lot to the moment. I chanted:

  “Something live, something furry,

  Appear now, in a hurry!”

  “Z
engawii!” Frankie shouted as he pulled the cape off the hat. People in the audience moved to the edge of their seats. Everyone was completely quiet. Frankie reached into the hat. Suddenly there was a sound! It was the growl of one very angry little dog. Frankie pulled his hand out of the hat really fast. Cheerio stuck his face out, his paws hanging over the brim of the hat. He looked at the audience. I don’t think he’d ever seen so many people in one place.

  The audience burst into laughter and applause, which must have really scared Cheerio, because he dived back into the bottom of the hat and started to spin. And I don’t mean just normal spinning. No, this was mega-spinning. He was going so fast that the hat started to move down a lane.

  “Is this part of the trick?” I whispered to Frankie.

  “He’s your dog, Zip. Don’t ask me,” he answered.

  By that time, the hat was rocketing down the lane. It turned round and round, picking up speed from the oil on the wood. In no time, it was at the end of the lane. Smack! The hat crashed into the pins, sending them flying in every direction. Nine pins went down. The last one teetered back and forth, back and forth. Almost … yes … no … yes … finally, it fell.

  The crowd gasped.

  “How about that for a strike!” Papa Pete yelled.

  The place went wild. Everyone was applauding – everyone but Nick McKelty. He just stood by the sandwiches, scowling.

  “Hey, doesn’t anyone want to see my world-famous left-handed trick shot?” he yelled.

  “Give it up, Nick!” I said to him. “You can’t top the hat!”

  He was so mad, his face turned bright red.

  “Fine,” he said. “Then I’m getting a Vanilla Coke. And you can’t have one!”

  “Is he the comeback king or what?” Ashley said. We all laughed as he stomped off.

  Cheerio was out of the hat by now, sliding down the lane as he tried to make his way towards me. He looked like he was on ice skates. I think he was still feeling dizzy, because his eyes were spinning in opposite directions. I scooped him up and gave him a big hug.

  I turned round. All the people in the bowling alley were on their feet cheering – for Cheerio and for us, the Magik 3.

  Frankie, Ashley, Robert and I joined hands and took a bow. It was the greatest feeling of my entire life.

  There’s a little balcony off our living room. It’s my favourite place because at night you can see the moon from there. As I sat on the balcony and looked up at the moon, I thought about how great it feels to actually do something right.

  Papa Pete slid the door open and brought out two pickles – my favourite bedtime snack. Mine was an old dill and his was a crunchy garlic. He sat down next to me and said, “You should be very proud of yourself tonight, Hank.”

  “I really am,” I said.

  We were quiet for a while, just sitting there, enjoying our pickles.

  “They want to test me,” I said finally.

  “In what, maths?” Papa Pete asked.

  “A teacher came over to our house. He said I might have learning difficulties. He said my brain might be different.”

  “We’re all different,” said Papa Pete. “That’s what makes us great.”

  “But what if the test shows that I’m stupid?”

  “Grandson of mine, there is nothing stupid about you. Didn’t you build that project for school? Didn’t you figure out how to make the hat work? Didn’t you amaze every one of my friends tonight at the bowling alley? You’re a winner, Hank.”

  “But I’m different.”

  “Take pickles,” said Papa Pete. “There are big ones and little ones, smooth ones and bumpy ones, very crunchy ones and not-so-crunchy ones. There are bread-and-butter pickles, gherkins, hamburger slices, half-dills, full-dills…”

  “OK, Papa Pete, I get the picture.”

  “The point is this,” he said. “They’re all different and they’re all delicious to someone. And you, my grandson, are positively delicious.”

  I looked down at the little bit of pickle I had left. I popped it into my mouth. It was really good.

  Then I looked at Papa Pete. He really knows a lot about everything. I sure hope he’s right about me!

  An interview with Henry Winkler

  What’s your favourite thing about Hank Zipzer?

  My favourite thing about Hank Zipzer is that he is resourceful. Just because he can’t figure something out doesn’t mean that he won’t find a way. I love his sense of humour. Even though Lin and I write the books together, when we meet in the morning to work we never know where the characters or the story will take us. Hank and his friends make us laugh all the time.

  Hank likes to write lists. Are you a list person, too? (If so, what sorts of lists do you make?)

  Hank likes to write lists, and so do I. My whole life is organized on scraps of paper in a pile on my desk by my phone. If I didn’t make lists, I would get nothing done, because I would forget the important things that I had to do. And then, I’m constantly rewriting those lists and adding to them. So yes, I’m a list maker.

  Who was your favourite teacher?

  Believe it or not, Mr Rock, the music teacher at my high school, McBurney’s School for Boys, was my favourite teacher. He seemed to understand that learning was difficult for me. He understood that just because I had trouble with almost every subject, it did not mean I was stupid.

  Where did you grow up?

  I grew up on the West side of New York City in the same building Hank lives in. The neighbourhood, the stores, the park, the school and even Ms Adolf are all taken from my life. I took the Broadway bus number 104 to school every day.

  What was it like growing up with dyslexia?

  When I was growing up in New York City, no one knew what dyslexia was. I was called stupid and lazy, and I was told that I was not living up to my potential. It was, without a doubt, painful. I spent most of my time covering up the fact that reading, writing, spelling, maths, science – actually, every subject but lunch – was really, really difficult for me. If I went to the shop and paid the bill with paper money and I was given coins back for change, I had no idea how to count up the change in my head. I just trusted that everyone was being honest.

  What’s it like working as a team to write the World’s Greatest Underachiever books?

  We have the most wonderful time working together. Lin sits at the computer, and I walk in a circle in front of her desk. If I start talking like the characters, Lin kindly types it in because I don’t use a computer. Or, she’ll tell me to stop for minute because she’s got a great idea and her fingers fly across the keyboard. Sometimes, I’ll write my chapters in long hand and Lin will transcribe them and correct my spelling. When the book is done, we both go over it to see if we’ve left anything out, or perhaps we’ll find a better joke for one of the characters or better action in a scene. When it’s completely done, we send it to our editor, and she sends back her notes that we then incorporate.

  Did you always want to be an author?

  Until the day that I met Lin Oliver for lunch in 2002, I never thought about being an author for one minute in my whole life.

  How long does it take you to write a book?

  It usually takes about two months to write the first draft of a book. Lin and I meet in her office and create the outline for the story of the book and then, two months later, we have a 153-page adventure about Hank Zipzer.

  Which of your books do you like the best?

  I cannot pick one book that I like the best. Each one of them is like my own child. Each one of them has some great detail that makes me laugh every time I think about it.

  The World’s Greatest Underachiever series

  The World’s Greatest Underachiever

  Takes on the Universe

  (Bind-up of The World’s Greatest Underachiever and the Crazy Classroom Cascade The World’s Greatest Underachiever and the Crunchy Pickle Disaster)

  The World’s Greatest Underachiever

  and the Crazy Cla
ssroom Cascade

  The World’s Greatest Underachiever

  and the Crunchy Pickle Disaster

  The World’s Greatest Underachiever

  and the Lucky Monkey Socks

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.

  First published in Great Britain as

  Hank Zipzer the World’s Greatest Underachiever: Niagara Falls – Or Does It? (2008)

  by Walker Books Ltd, 87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

  First published in the United States as

  Hank Zipzer #01: Niagara Falls – Or Does It? (2003) by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver.

  Published by arrangement with Grosset & Dunlap™, a division of Penguin Young

  Readers Group, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All rights reserved.

  Text © 2003, 2012 Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver Productions, Inc.

  Cover illustration, design and interior illustrations © 2012 Nigel Baines

  The right of Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

  a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-4063-3267-4 (ePub)

  www.walker.co.uk