The World's Greatest Underachiever and the Crazy Classroom Cascade Page 5

  Our school is three storeys high. On the street side of the building, the bricks are covered with a big mural that was painted by some local New York artists. It shows a lot of kids with books open, sitting and reading happily under a rainbow. They sure didn’t use me as a model.

  When the road was clear, Mr Baker, the lollipop man, took us across.

  “That’s a mighty fine looking mountain you got there,” he said to us.

  “It’s Niagara Falls, sir,” I said.

  “Well, it’s a mighty fine looking Niagara Falls.”

  That made me feel good. Even though Mr Baker says nice things to all the kids, I like to think he really did like our project.

  Finally, we reached the main door of PS 87. There were kids swarming all around the school, and we had to be careful not to get crunched. We were attracting a lot of attention.

  “Keep your distance,” I said to a bunch of first-graders who were hovering around us. “Important fourth-grade business coming through.”

  Ashley held the door open for us and we backed into the corridor. We started the long climb to the second floor and our classroom. As luck would have it, the first person we saw when we got to the top was Nick McKelty.

  “What is that supposed to be?” he asked in his usual creepoid manner.

  I wasn’t going to let this guy get to me.

  “You just might be the only person in New York not to get it,” I said. “We totally stopped traffic on Amsterdam Avenue. The taxis honked like we were a float in the Thanksgiving Day parade.”

  “Oh yeah?” McKelty said. “I was asked to ride on a float this year.”

  “Right, and my name is Bernice,” Frankie said.

  “In fact,” McKelty went on, “they wanted me to be Santa Claus in the parade, but I said, ‘Sorry, I’m already booked. Maybe next year.’”

  “Breathe,” Frankie said to himself. Then he turned to McKelty. “That’s good,” he said, “because your face would’ve scared all those little kids. It’s such a drag seeing kids cry at a parade.”

  “Oh yeah?” McKelty answered.

  “What a comeback,” said Ashley. “You’re quick, McKelty.”

  From around the corner, we heard the squeak, squeak, squeak of rubber on lino. That could only be Head Teacher Love. He always wears these black rubber-soled shoes that do up with two Velcro straps. I guess he has never learned to tie his laces.

  “What have we here?” he boomed in his tall-man-bushy-hair voice.

  We put Niagara Falls down on the floor.

  “My summer holiday,” I answered.

  Nick stepped right in front of me.

  “Our assignment is to do a five-paragraph essay on what we did this summer,” said Nick. He gave Mr Love a smile that any sane person would describe as very, very icky. “My adventure was so exciting that my essay turned out to be eight paragraphs. And that’s cutting it down from ten.”

  “Mr McKelty, you’ve got a future.” Mr Love grinned. Then he turned to me. “And as for you, Mr Zipzer, don’t be late for class.”

  He squeaked off down the hall. McKelty ran after him, continuing to blab in his ear – probably telling him how much he happens to love Velcro straps on shoes.

  “Don’t be late,” I muttered under my breath. “Where does he think I’m going? To the dining room for a big breakfast?”

  “Forget him,” said Ashley. “You’ve got to keep your mind on what you’re doing here.”

  I could still see McKelty walking down the hallway, talking to Mr Love like he was his best friend. Then I saw something truly disgusting.

  “I don’t believe it,” I said. “McKelty’s putting his arm round him!”

  The McKelty Factor strikes again.

  The bell rang and Nick came lumbering down the corridor towards us. Just before he turned into the classroom, he stopped and looked at me.

  “I have a wonderful surprise in store for you, Zippity Zipzer,” he said.

  He gave me an annoying flick under the chin and slithered into class like the slimy snake he is.

  Ms Adolf was on the prowl. She was hungry for paper. “Please take your essays out, class,” she said. “I hope you remembered to staple them in the upper-left-hand corner.”

  She walked up and down the aisles, clutching her register close to her chest. When she stopped at my desk, I could feel her hot breath on my head.

  “Your desk appears to be empty, Mr Zipzer,” she said.

  My heart was pounding. This was the moment.

  “I thought we agreed you were to read your essay first,” she snapped.

  “And I am completely, totally prepared, Ms Adolf,” I said.

  I looked at Frankie. I gave him a nod. He gave Ashley a nod. The three of us stood and went to our planned positions.

  Ashley took the clingfilm-wrapped tube and attached it with tape to the tap at the sink. Frankie and I disappeared into the corridor.

  “Excuse me!” Ms Adolf shouted. I think she was starting to get angry.

  I stuck my head back into the classroom and said, “Get ready for creativity like you’ve never seen before.”

  Out in the corridor, we got my costume out of the plastic bag. Frankie held the yellow raincoat for me to slip into and I pulled on the boots and the fisherman’s hat. Then we picked up the project and walked it into the classroom, where we placed it by the sink.

  “Exactly what do you think you’re doing?” Ms Adolf demanded to know.

  “What you’re about to see, Ms Adolf, is what I did in my summer holidays. My living essay.”

  The kids moved closer so they could see. Ryan Shimozato even stood up on his chair. Katie Sperling and Kim Paulson were whispering to each other and giggling. I noticed that Nick McKelty kept looking at the door to the classroom, like he was expecting someone.

  Before Ms Adolf could object again, I began.

  “Niagara Falls was formed twelve thousand years ago, but when I visited this summer, it didn’t look a day over eleven thousand. It did, however, look wet – really wet.”

  That was Ashley’s cue. She turned on the tap at the sink. With a quick twist of the nozzle, the water started to run through our hose and into the hole at the top of the papier-mâché cliff. I was so excited I couldn’t continue. The falls were actually doing what they were supposed to do … falling! The water hitting the bottom of the turkey tin sounded like rain.

  Ashley turned on the fish tank pump and it started to bubble, moving the water from the bottom of the turkey tin back up to the top of the falls. The boat at the bottom of the tin rose in the water. It was floating! Everything was working!

  “Seven hundred and fifty thousand gallons of water flow over these falls every second,” I said. Old Robert had finally come in handy.

  “Do you see that boat?” I asked, pointing to the Lego people in it. “Picture my mother, my father, my sister and me – dressed as I am now, covered with mist.”

  At that moment, Frankie turned on the fan, and a little of the water started to blow towards my raincoat. The kids gasped.

  “Awesome,” said Ryan Shimozato.

  “Truly awesome,” said Justin, Ricky and Gerald. They’re Ryan’s crew and they like whatever he likes.

  “Half the falls are in Canada, and the other half are in the United States, making Niagara Falls a link between our two countries,” I went on. I remembered the tour guide had said that while we were waiting in line to get on the boat. I was on a roll. I knew so many facts about Niagara Falls, I could’ve gone on until lunch or longer.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Frankie was trying to get my attention. I glanced over at him. He whispered something, but I couldn’t quite understand him. It sounded like “no peeking”. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I shrugged and went on.

  “We left New York City on a muggy August morning,” I said, pretending to be driving in a car. “My mother said it was so hot you could fry eggs on her knees.”

  The kids laughed. They were loving thi
s. I really felt wonderful and successful. Maybe I’ll be a stand-up comedian when I grow up, I thought. Take this show on the road. I looked at Frankie. He wasn’t laughing. Why not?

  Whatever he had been trying to say to me, he said again. “No peeking”? Was that it? I still couldn’t understand him. He sure was flapping his arms around a lot.

  Just then, the door swung open. In walked Leland Love. Wow, this was great. The head teacher was coming to see my project, just like I had hoped.

  “Tourists from all over the world come to see Niagara Falls,” I said. I was getting more and more confident by the minute. “A couple from Italy asked me to take their picture with the falls in the background,” I added. I hadn’t even planned to tell that part of the story. It just came out.

  Suddenly, Frankie walked in front of me and with an Italian accent said, “I thinka thesa falls are betta than SpaghettiOs.”

  The class howled.

  “SpaghettiOs rule!” Luke Whitman laughed. “SpaghettiOs forget-ios!” It doesn’t take much for Luke to go out of control.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered to Frankie. “You weren’t supposed to talk.”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you,” Frankie whispered. “We’re leaking! Look!”

  I looked over at the hose. Oh no, this wasn’t happening. The cardboard was soaking wet. The tube was turning to mush and the last piece of tape holding the hose to the cliffs was coming loose. I yelled for Ashley to turn off the water. She ran to the sink, but she was so nervous, she turned the water on full force instead, which totally blew the hose off the project. Water sprayed everywhere, but mostly on Ms Adolf. She opened her mouth to speak and got a mouthful of falls.

  The hose started to spin around, and the kids all ran for cover, laughing and shouting. Ms Adolf was so stunned, she just stood there. Bam! She got pelted again with a blast of water. When she put her hands up to her face to block the water, her register fell to the floor. It landed in a puddle of water. She gasped and tried to reach for it, but Luke Whitman was running wild and stamped on it, pushing it completely underwater.

  Ms Adolf stared at her register. The paper was absorbing water fast and turning into a soggy mess. She opened her mouth wide, like she was going to scream really loudly, but all that came out was a mouse-like “eeeeekkk”.

  Bam! The hose came around again and hit her with another shot of water. She was really wet now. It looked like she had just stepped out of the shower with her clothes on. The pile of grey hair that was always neatly pinned on top of her head fell down and looked like a horse’s tail.

  “The water!” Mr Love yelled. “Someone turn off the water!” The kids were all laughing pretty hard, so no one moved towards the sink. Mr Love bolted across the room. He had to push past Luke Whitman, who was leading a bunch of kids in a rain dance. There was so much water on the floor, the classroom looked like a pond. Pencils, crayons, Ms Adolf’s register and even a tuna fish sandwich in a bag floated by.

  Mr Love sloshed over to the sink. As he reached the counter, he stepped on the bag. It exploded and the tuna sandwich squished out from under his shoe. It was a slippery mess. Mr Love went sliding on the sandwich like he was on water skis. The last thing I saw before he went swimming was his hand reaching for the counter with the turkey tin on it. As the tin tipped, the papier-mâché flew and the muddy, mushy Niagara Falls landed with a splat all over Mr Love’s face.

  I didn’t mean to laugh, but I couldn’t stop. In fact, I was laughing so hard that I fell bum-first into the water. Then what do I see but Nick McKelty’s hand reaching out to Mr Love.

  “Don’t worry, sir,” he said. “I’ll save you.”

  Sometimes I think things happen the way they’re supposed to, because Nick McKelty, suck-up of the century, slipped too and went flying headfirst into the muck. When he came up for air, he looked like he had a papier-mâché chicken sitting on his head. He wiped his face and leaned over to Head Teacher Love.

  “Didn’t I tell you Zipzer was about to launch a disaster?” he said.

  Oh, so that’s why Head Teacher Love had come to class. McKelty, that rat, had told him to come and see me make a fool of myself. And stupid me thought it was because he had heard I had a great project.

  Head Teacher Love didn’t say a word. All he did was wag a finger at me. I knew what that meant.

  “I’ll see you in my office … now!”

  The Corridor Is a lonely place when you’re sitting on the bench outside the head teacher’s office. Kids you know walk by on the way to the toilets or the water fountain, but no one says hello to you. No one even looks at you. It’s like you’re wearing a sign round your neck that says TROUBLE – KEEP AWAY.

  I had been waiting in the corridor for more than an hour. They were inside – the three of them, Mr Love and the Zipzers. That would be Stan and Randi. Also known as Mum and Dad.

  It was hard to sit still. I got up and asked Mrs Crock in the attendance office if I could have a pencil and paper, just to doodle or something.

  “You’re supposed to be using this time to think about what you’ve done,” she said.

  “I think better when I doodle,” I told her.

  “So do I,” she said. She gave me a piece of paper and her pencil. That was nice of her.

  When I went back into the corridor, Mr Love was standing outside his office. He didn’t speak – he just wagged his finger, inviting me in. It’s the kind of invitation you don’t say no to.

  As I entered the office, I could tell my father was really angry. I knew that because his bum was hovering above the chair cushion, not quite touching it.

  “Can I say something?” I said.

  “Absolutely not,” answered Mr Love. “I think your actions have spoken loudly enough.”

  I noticed that Mr Love’s office smelled a little like tuna. It must be from his shoes, I thought. He had changed his shirt, but he still had some papier-mâché stuck to his cheek. It was right above his Statue of Liberty mole. I couldn’t help thinking that the Statue of Liberty finally had a torch.

  “What you did today in class was completely irresponsible,” Mr Love said.

  I turned to my father. He would understand. “But, Dad, what I was trying to do—”

  My father stood up. “Are you aware of the chaos you have created, Hank? First of all, you didn’t follow the rules. You can’t just make up your own assignment.”

  “Yes, but I wanted to—”

  “Don’t interrupt your father,” my mother said. I couldn’t believe it. Even Mum was on their side. I thought maybe it was the shoes. She usually wears sandals, but she had put on her black leather loafers, the ones that look like Ms Adolf’s shoes. She’s not as much fun when she wears those shoes.

  “You were supposed to write an essay. Five paragraphs. That’s with a pencil, Hank. Not papier-mâché.” My father was seriously mad.

  “But, Dad, I remembered every fact I learned on our trip. I was writing it with my mouth. Like, did you know that Niagara Falls is two thousand two hundred and twenty feet wide, and it’s one hundred and seventy-three feet high, and—”

  “Enough of this,” interrupted Mr Love. “We are here to decide on an appropriate punishment for what you’ve done.”

  At this moment I realized that the president of the United States was not going to be inviting me to the White House.

  “Detention for two weeks,” Head Teacher Love said.

  “Grounded at home,” my father added. “Same length of time.”

  My brain froze. Two weeks! The magic show – oh no! The magic show was right in the middle of my punishment.

  I’m dead. I’m doomed. I’m out of the Magik 3.

  I Left Head Teacher Love’s office and headed downstairs to the dining room. A couple of first-graders passed me on their way to the library.

  “I think that’s the boy who got into trouble,” one of them whispered loudly. They stared at me like I had just robbed a bank or something. I spilled a little water on the floor. B
ig deal. OK, a lot of water. OK, a whole lot of water.

  What does a guy do in this situation? I figured the only thing to do was wave. I went into my best Hank Zipzer strut.

  “Good to see you,” I said, grinning at them. “What’s up in show-and-tell today?”

  I think I scared them because they ran away. I continued downstairs. Some kids were already leaving the dining room and heading out to the playground. I passed Ryan and Gerald. Ryan held up his hand for a high five.

  “You’re a riot, man,” he said.

  “Truly,” said Justin and Ricky, who were following behind.

  “Your buddies are still eating lunch at your usual spot,” Ryan said, pointing in the general direction of our table.

  I went over to the table and slid in next to Ashley. She was in the middle of telling Frankie and Robert how she was going to spend her money from the magic show.

  “I already have nine dollars saved,” she was saying. “With the ten dollars we’ll each earn, I’ll have enough to get the dolphin which will complete my crystal sea family.”

  “I’d hold off on that dolphin,” I said.

  “How bad was Mr Love?” Frankie asked. “Paint the picture, Zip.”

  “It was ugly,” I answered. “I didn’t get one word in. What I did get was two weeks of detention at school and two weeks of being grounded at home.”

  “With or without TV?” asked Frankie.

  “That is without any electronic device known to mankind,” I said.

  Frankie grabbed his heart and fell to the ground. “Just the thought of it makes me stop breathing.”

  “Of course they’re going to let you out for the magic show,” Ashley said. She was twirling her ponytail in her fingers, which she does when she’s worried.