Horrible Harry Goes to Sea (3 page)

“See this wooden plank with big holes in it?”

We nodded.

“That's it!” Sid replied. “Pirates sat on it. They went to the bathroom right into the ocean.”

“Eeyeew!” most of us groaned.

Suddenly Harry jumped up. “You know what we should do?”

No one said anything.

“We should set sail on the sea!” Harry held his hands up high and then made a three-finger salute.

Mary stopped drawing the library room of the
Titanic.
“What? Room 3B go to sea?”

Harry shrugged. “Why not?” Then he raced over to the plastic tub of brochures Miss Mackle kept about our

“What?” Sidney asked.

“What?” Mary repeated.

They were both standing over Harry while he rummaged around. Finally he pulled out a bright red-and-blue brochure. There was a picture of a riverboat on the cover.
“This!”

Miss Mackle came over. “Oh, yes, that's the riverboat at Essex. It cruises up and down the Connecticut River.”

“Oooooooh,” Ida replied, looking at the picture of the riverboat with the two red, white, and black smokestacks. “I wish we could go to sea, too!”

“Why not?” Harry said.

Mary brought up one reason. “Because it costs money. We would have to pay for the bus and boat.”

“That's true,” I agreed.

Miss Mackle picked up the brochure and looked at the schedule for late fall trips. “Actually, we have money left in our field trip fund. ”We could ... go to sea. Lots of our ancestors did.”

Harry and Ida started jumping up and down.

The rest of Room 3B cheered.

“Let's do it!” Miss Mackle exclaimed.

“All aboard!” Ida and Harry called.

N
ovember 24 was the day we set sail. We met at 7:30 A.M. in front of the school. It was dark enough for Harry to use his pocket flashlight. When he saw me, he shined it in my face. “Sit with you on the bus,” he said.

“Sure,” I said. I was counting on it. Then I noticed what Harry was wearing. An orange life jacket.

“Where did you get that thing?” I asked.

Harry patted his life jacket and then secured the buckle. “I got it at a tag sale with my own money. Cool, huh?”

“Cool.” Then we slapped each other five.

Ida's mother, Mrs. Burrell, was one of the six chaperones. Miss Mackle was happy she was coming along because Mrs. Burrell was a nurse. Ida and her mother both had yellow raincoats on.

Sidney's stepdad got on the bus with Sidney. Mr. La Fleur was wearing a pith helmet and a black jacket with silver letters on the back that said: George La Fleur TOMBSTONES.

Sidney had a pen and a pad of paper. He was drawing a pirate ship.

Just before the bus took off, Miss Mackle passed out white sailor hats for everyone to wear. Each hat had our name printed on the front in black ink. “I couldn't resist these,” she exclaimed. “I got them on special at the Army Navy store. They'll make great name tags!”

“Yahoo!”
we all yelled as we pulled them down over our heads.

During the bus ride, Harry and I chatted.

“Have you ever gone to sea before?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Me neither,” I said.

Mary stuck her head over the back of our bus seat. “We're not really going to sea,” she snapped. “We're going on the river. The Connecticut River.”

“The Connecticut River empties into Long Island Sound and that goes right into the ocean,” Harry snapped. “It's all the same thing. We're going to sea!”

Mary rolled her eyeballs, “Okay, Captain Spooger, I'm going to sea for a second time.”

Harry grinned. He liked being called Captain.

“What do you mean second time? You've gone to sea, Mary?”

“Once I took a ferry to the Statue of Liberty. That's where a lot of our ancestors sailed to.”

Miss Mackle beamed. I could tell she was glad the word “ancestors” had popped up in our conversation.

“There were lots of waves,” Mary added. “The boat really rocked back and forth, like this.” Everyone watched Mary jostle Song Lee and herself backward and forward.

“It was kind of... scary,” she added in a soft voice.

Song Lee joined the conversation. I wondered why she was wearing just one gold hoop earring, but I didn't ask. “When I was four,” she said, “I sailed on a ship from Korea to San Francisco.”

“Whoa,” Harry groaned. “That's going to sea
big time!”

“What was it like crossing the Pacific Ocean?” I asked.

Song Lee smiled. “I felt safe sitting on Mother's lap. I smelled sea air and watched our ship make big waves. Once when we had dinner, my plate slid right off the table.”

Sidney interrupted. “Hey, you guys, maybe we'll discover Captain Kidd's pirate treasure. They say it's buried somewhere along the shore of the Connecticut River.” Suddenly, Sidney leaned over and tied his boots. When he sat back up, he was beaming like he had just found a treasure himself!

“You know Sid,” Harry replied, “if you were a pirate captain, they'd call you Captain Squid!”

Just as Sidney held up a fist, Mary screamed,
“Song Lee's gold earring is missing!”

Miss Mackle immediately turned around. “I'll tell the bus driver,” she replied. “If we don't find it, the bus company will.”

“It's okay,” Song Lee said.

When Harry and I noticed her eyes filling up with tears, we knew she was sad about it.

“Hey, Song Lee,” Sidney called. “Now
you
can be a pirate going to sea with one earring!”

Mary made a face. “Thanks, Sid. That really cheers her up.”

W
hen we arrived at
Essex,
we could see the big riverboat docked at the pier through our bus window. It was exciting to see the red, white, and black smokestacks.

“I'm sorry about your earring,” Mary said to Song Lee. “I bet it fell off when we were rocking on the bus.”

“I'll look for it while you're gone,” the bus driver said as we walked by. “You'd be surprised what I find on my bus.”

“Thank you,” Song Lee replied.

Ida changed the subject. “Look,” she said. “There must be ten other classes here. Don't you feel like you're boarding the
Titanic?
We even have our own green passenger tickets.”

Song Lee nodded as she pulled her sailor's hat further down over her head. Harry pointed to the top deck. “Let's make sure we get up there so we can see stuff. We want to go first class!”

“Single file please,” Miss Mackle ordered.

Mr. La Fleur followed at the rear of the line with Sidney. He kept calling, “All aboard! All aboard!” Mrs. Burrell was in the middle. She had a first aid kit. As we stepped onto the gangplank, I started to get excited. “Just think, we're going on a ship just like the Pilgrims and those people on the
Titanic.”

“And like the pirates!” Sid added.

“Downstairs, please,” one of the ship-men said. “The top deck is full.”