The World's Greatest Underachiever and the Soggy School Trip Read online

  I learned a lot about Collin that night. And I guess about myself too. The most important thing I learned was that Collin likes me the way I am. He doesn’t care if I have learning difficulties. He says he doesn’t pick his friends by looking at their reports.

  I also learned some other interesting things that night about Collin Sebastian Rich the Fourth.

  TEN THINGS YOU WOULDN’T KNOW ABOUT COLLIN JUST FROM LOOKING AT HIM

  1. He bites his nails too.

  2. He pulls cards from the middle of the Chance pile in Monopoly.

  3. He likes the Yankees better than the Mets. That made Frankie happy.

  4. At night, he wears headgear the size of a flying saucer. That’s how he gets those perfectly straight teeth.

  5. His favourite fruit is prunes.

  6. He only knows three knock-knock jokes, and two of them aren’t funny.

  7. He is scared of scary movies.

  8. He is also afraid of iguanas.

  9. He can’t make himself burp unless he’s had a Coke first.

  10. He is one lousy bowler.

  I showed this list to Papa Pete. He said it proves one thing: nobody’s perfect, even the perfect people.

  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 a 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.

  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 and The World’s Greatest Underachiever and the Crunchy Pickle Disaster)

  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 Lucky Monkey Socks

  The World’s Greatest Underachiever and the Mutant Moth

  The World’s Greatest Underachiever and the Soggy School Trip

  The World’s Greatest Underachiever and the Killer Chilli

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

  The Night I Flunked My Field Trip (2008)

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

  First published in the United States as Hank Zipzer #05: The Night I Flunked My Field Trip (2004) 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.

  This edition published 2012

  Text © 2004 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 978-1-4063-3275-9 (ePub)

  www.walker.co.uk