Horrible Harry in Room 2B

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

“Harry is one of those characters who is made up of parts of children whom readers all know. He is the devilish second grader who plays pranks and gets into mischief but can still be a good friend. Told by his best friend Doug, this story should prove to be popular with those just starting chapter books or looking for a new male character, along with Kline's ‘Herbie Jones.' ”

—
School Library Journal

 

 

“True to Life”
-Kirkus Review

 

PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,
a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 1988
Published in Puffin Books, 1990
Reissued 1997

Text copyright © Suzy Kline, 1988

Illustrations copyright © Frank Remkiewicz, 1988
All rights reserved

eISBN : 978-1-101-07689-7

 

[1. Friendship-Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction] 1. Remkiewicz, Frank, ill.
II. Title [PZ7.K679Ho 19901 [Fic]—dc20 89-36021

 

 

 

RL: 2.3

Horrible Harry and Me

H
arry sits next to me in Room 2B. He looks like any other second grader except for one thing.

Harry loves to do horrible things.

On the first day of school, Harry was out on the playground holding a shoebox. I asked him, “What's in there?”

“Something. Want to see a girl scream, Doug?”

Before I could say anything, Harry took off after Song Lee. When he trapped her by the tree, he opened up his box and dangled a garter snake in her face.

Song Lee screamed!

That's when I first saw Harry do something horrible this year.

When it rains, we have recess indoors. Sometimes we play a game called “Seven Up.” When it's Harry's turn to be up, everyone wonders,
Will Harry tap me on the head?

Harry presses his knuckles down hard on your skull.

He calls them knuckle noogies.

Nobody should give anybody a knuckle noogie. But Harry does.

Harry loves to do horrible things.

The second week of school, Sidney called Harry a name. It was during science when we were reading about birds.

“Harry's a canary!” Sidney whispered.

And a lot of kids laughed.

“What's so funny?” the teacher asked.

“Nothing, Miss Mackle,” Sidney replied.

Harry didn't think it was nothing. Harry planned to get revenge after school. And he did.

At 3:05, Harry jumped Sidney, pinned him to the ground, and said,
“Say I Love Girls
twice.”

“Never!”
Sidney said, trying to get away.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And that's when Harry started to tickle Sidney under the armpits until Sidney couldn't stand it any longer.
“I LOVE GIRLS! I LOVE GIRLS!”
Sidney shouted.

Song Lee, Ida, and Mary heard Sidney.

So did a lot of the boys.

Harry got his revenge all right. And it was horrible.

Sidney ran down the street screaming, “I'll get you back someday!”

When Miss Mackle wants the floor cleaned, she asks Harry to sweep. No one sweeps the floor like Harry. He picks up every piece of paper, every pencil stub, and every bit of clay. Once Harry even crawled under my desk to get a broken crayon!

Nobody knows that Harry
keeps
some of that stuff.

But I do. I sit right next to him and watch. Harry is making stub people!

Harry says his stub people are the scariest creatures in the world. He keeps them in a cigar box in his desk. Someday, when he has made twenty-four, Harry says, his stub people will invade our room.

“It won't be long, Doug,” he whispered. “Soon, the stub people will bring
doom
to Room 2B.”

When it was Song Lee's birthday, her mother brought in two trays of treats for the class. After we sang “Happy Birthday,” Song Lee passed out the treats. Miss Mackle noticed there were three fortune cookies and one cupcake left.

Miss Mackle put them on a plate with a card that said WE LOVE MRS. MICHAELSEN.

Then she said, “Who would like to take these treats to our librarian?”

Everyone raised their hand except Song Lee. She's too shy.

We kept raising our hands. Sidney made noises like, “Oooooo ... Me! Me! Me!”

Miss Mackle picked Harry and me. She knows we're not afraid to go upstairs where the big kids are.

When we were walking up the stairs to the library, Harry asked me if I wanted to split the cupcake.