Horrible Harry at Halloween (2 page)

T
hat morning we did science experiments with water. Everybody paid attention except for Sidney. He kept bugging Harry about his Halloween costume.

“Are you going to be a mummy?”

Harry laughed. “Nope.”

“Give it up, Sid,” Mary scolded. “It's
my
turn now to go up and do an experiment. I don't want you to distract anyone. So ...
shhhh!”

We watched Mary take a big brown bag to the front of the room. Two big words were written in cursive on the blackboard:

Miss Mackle had an empty aquarium, plastic containers, and four jugs of water set up on a side table. Mary set her bag down on a desktop.

“These are the materials you need to do my experiment,” she explained as she pointed to each one. “A glass, oil, food coloring, and a spoon. Now I will tell you about each step.

“First, you fill the glass with water. I'm adding orange coloring for Halloween.

“Then you drop a spoonful of oil in the glass.

“See what happens?”

“I can't see,” Sidney complained.

“Me either,” Ida said.

Mary held the glass up in the air. “The oil and water do not mix. The oil is just floating around the top like beads.”

“Cool,” Dexter said.

“I knew that already,” Harry said.

Mary shot Harry a look.

“Wonderful job, Mary!” Miss Mackle exclaimed as she recorded a grade in her red book.

Suddenly, Harry sneezed.

Right on the back of Mary's head.

Mary turned around. “Aaaugh!” she complained. “Why don't you use a tissue ?”

“Don't need to,” Harry said. Then he pulled a white hankie out of his back pocket. “See?”

It had two big boogers on it.

“You're so
gross!
” Mary groaned.

When she turned around, Harry showed me the boogers up close. They were just raisins.

“It's an old joke,” he whispered. “But Mary fell for it.”

Harry and his Halloween tricks! They were just beginning....

“Harry Spooger?” Miss Mackle called. “You're next.”

Mary folded her arms.

Harry took his backpack with him to the front of the room. Carefully he put the aquarium tank on Mary's desk and started filling it with water.

After we watched him empty three jugs into the tank, Harry opened up his backpack.

“See if you can guess which things will sink or float,” he said.

First he pulled out a pumpkin. “Who thinks this will sink?”

Everybody raised their hands.

Harry dropped the pumpkin into the water. It made a big splash, dipped under the water, and then popped back up!

“It floats!”
everyone shouted.

“Tricked ya!” Harry grinned. Next, he held up a potato. Harry had drawn a face on it with a black marker. It looked like a shrunken head. “Do you think this will sink or float?”

“Float!”
everyone replied.

Harry dropped the potato into the tank.

It sank to the bottom.

“Tricked ya again!” Harry snorted.

Mary started to pout. “I'll get the next one!” she said. “For sure!”

Harry cackled as he held up one purple grape. I noticed there was a black dot colored in the middle. It looked like an eyeball. “Sink or float?”

This time no one called out anything. People were still thinking.

“Float,” Mary said first.

“Float!”
some other people agreed.

“Sink,” said Song Lee.

Harry dropped the purple grape into the tank. It sank to the bottom next to the potato.

Mary made a face.

Harry explained everything like he was a professor. “If something has air pockets, like a pumpkin or lemon, it floats. If it's solid, like a potato or grape, it sinks. I tricked ya today in science. I'll trick ya some more on Halloween!”

Most people groaned, but Song Lee and I smiled. Miss Mackle clapped. “Great job, Harry.”

Song Lee went last. She filled a plastic jack-o'-lantern with water. It had a short rope tied to the handle. “I will show you how centrifugal force works.”

First she stepped as far as she could away from the blackboard. “Will the people in the front row please put their heads down?”

They did, but their eyes looked up.

Then Song Lee twirled the bucket over her head. We gasped as she swung it around and around.

Miss Mackle's eyes almost popped out of their sockets. The water stayed in the bucket! Not one drop fell out.

When Song Lee stopped, everyone shouted,
“Do it again!”

“Please do! I'll get my camera this time,” Miss Mackle said running to her desk.

Song Lee began her experiment again. But this time, just as she brought the bucket up, she accidentally hit the corner of Mary's desk, and waves of water splashed everywhere!

Everyone laughed but Mary.

She got drenched.

“Hey Mare,” Harry snickered. “You should be a sprite for Halloween. That's a water fairy.”

Mary blew her wet bangs in the air. “Harry Spooger, one of these days I'm going to get you back!”

T
he next morning, I galloped into the classroom. I was the first one there on Halloween! Dad had to drop me off ten minutes early. He had some kind of meeting.

Miss Mackle was dressed as a witch. She was at the science table cutting the tops off two pumpkins. A very big pumpkin sat on one cookie tray, and a small one sat on another.

I whinnied like a horse. “Nnneeyehaa!”

Miss Mackle jumped. “
Oh!
You scared me, Doug!” she said. “I love your centaur costume! Half man and half horse!”