Horrible Harry and the Mud Gremlins Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Harry the Fibber

  Harry’s Necklace

  The Writing Wall

  To Go or Not to Go?

  Hole in the Fence

  The Mud Gremlins

  To go, or not to go ...

  Harry took us to the far end of the playground, the side that faced an empty lot, not the street. “This is it.”

  Song Lee shrugged. “Where?”

  Harry pointed to the other side of the fence.

  We all looked at the vacant lot. There was scattered grass, a few bushes, and one white oak tree. The ground was covered with lots of dirt, leaves, and pebbles. A couple of candy wrappers and one crumpled potato chip bag floated in a puddle of water next to a chewed-up tennis ball.

  “We can’t go over there,” Mary snapped. “It’s a school rule. You never leave the playground. Can’t we see the mushroom kingdom from the fence?”

  “Nope,” Harry replied. “The kingdom of mushrooms is five yards away. Just beyond that oak tree.”

  BOOKS ABOUT HORRIBLE HARRY AND SONG LEE

  Horrible Harry and the Ant Invasion

  Horrible Harry and the Christmas Surprise

  Horrible Harry and the Drop of Doom

  Horrible Harry and the Dungeon

  Horrible Harry and the Green Slime

  Horrible Harry and the Holidaze

  Horrible Harry and the Kickball Wedding

  Horrible Harry and the Mud Gremlins

  Horrible Harry and the Purple People

  Horrible Harry Goes to the Moon

  Horrible Harry Goes to Sea

  Horrible Harry at Halloween

  Horrible Harry in Room 2B

  Horrible Harry Moves Up to Third Grade

  Horrible Harry’s Secret

  Song Lee and the Hamster Hunt

  Song Lee and the “I Hate You” Notes

  Song Lee and the Leech Man

  Song Lee in Room 2B

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group,

  345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin-Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, 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

  First published in the United States of America by Viking,

  a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2003

  Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2004

  Text copyright © Suzy Kline, 2003 Illustrations copyright © Frank Remkiewicz, 2003 All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Kline, Suzy.

  Horrible Harry and the mud gremlins / c by Suzy Kline ;

  Illustrated by Frank Remkiewicz.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Harry persuades his classmates to sneak through the playground

  fence during lunchtime recess to view some unusual mushrooms.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07687-3

  [ 1. Honesty—Fiction. 2. Mushrooms—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.]

  I. Remkiewicz, Frank, ill. II. Title PZ7.K6797 Hnr 2003

  [Fic]-dc2l 2002012163

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Special appreciation to my editor, Cathy Hennessy, and my husband Rufus who helped me write this manuscript.

  Also a special thank you to my daughter Emily for her comments, and to Ed Bosman, President of the Connecticut Valley Mycological Society, for an exciting hike in a state park discovering mushrooms!

  Dedicated with love

  To my fourth grandchild,

  Saylor Elizabeth Hurtuk, born on July

  2, 2002, in Rockville, Connecticut.

  I love you, Gamma

  Harry the Fibber

  I always knew my best friend Harry was a fibber. The good thing was he never fibbed to me, or Song Lee, or our third grade teacher, Miss Mackle. He just fibbed to one person.

  Sidney La Fleur.

  There’s no doubt about it—Sid bugs Harry. One day, Sid sneaked one of Harry’s homemade brownies and then had the nerve to ask about the crunchy part. Well, Harry got revenge by telling Sid a fib. He said the crunchy part was a special ingredient he had added.

  Cockroaches.

  Boy, did Sid flip out! He didn’t know it was just chopped almonds.

  I thought it was funny. Besides, Sid had it coming. He can be annoying! He also has this bad habit of calling Harry a canary. Once Sid put canary stickers on Harry’s chair, Harry’s lunch box, and then Harry’s new library book about dinosaurs. Harry got so mad he planned a triple revenge.

  Another fib!

  It happened after school. Harry told Sid he wanted to shake his hand to thank him for all the canary stickers. When Sid asked why the handshake felt so slimy, Harry told him, “It was a slug.”

  Sid screamed all the way home.

  Harry told me later it was just leftover banana from lunch.

  Harry’s fibs never bothered me before. Usually, they made me laugh. But there was one fib—the one I’m going to tell you about—that really bothered me. It gave me goose pimples and made me sweat!

  Harry’s mud gremlin fib.

  The really horrible part was that Harry got all of us—Mary, Ida, Dexter, Sidney, me, and even Song Lee to go along with it.

  It all began one Monday morning in November, when Harry wore a necklace to school.

  Harry’s Necklace

  “Hey, Doug,” Sidney whispered when he walked into Room 3B, “what’s Harry wearing around his neck?”

  “It looks like a necklace,” I said, hanging up my jacket.

  “A necklace?” Sid giggled. After he put his lunch box on the rack, we walked over to the science corner. Harry was standing on our new round yellow moon rug, checking the mold we were growing. Everyone in Room 3B had taped a Baggie to the wall with one slice of bread in it. We had started the experiment ten days ago.

  “Look at the cool green mold!” Harry exclaimed.

  Sid was unimpressed. He wanted to talk about Harry’s jewelry. “Hey Harry, don’t you know that girls wear necklaces? Not boys!”

  Just as Harry put a fist up, Mary appeared. “I can’t believe you said that, Sidney La Fleur. Don’t you know boys have been wearing necklaces for years? Men too. Didn’t you watch the World Series? Half of the baseball players had necklaces on. And what about Michael Jordan? He wears a gold earring.”

  Sid took a step back, turned, and walked over to the art supply table.

  Mary moved closer to Harry and examined his necklace. “Hmm, interesting,” she mumbled. “It’s hexagonal, six sides. Is that a cover over it?”

  “Yup,” Harry replied. Now Song Lee, Dexter, and Ida joined us.

  “What’s underneath the cover?” Ida asked.

  “A locket?” Song Lee guessed.

  “Nope,” Harry answered. “I’ll show you.”

  Very slowly, Harry slid the cover to one side. “My grandma got this for me at the museum shop on Sunday. It’s a microscope. See the glass lens? You can look through it.”

  Mary picked up the end of Harry’s silvery chain and looked through the dangling lens. “Wow! I can see the lines on my own finger!”

  “Sure you can!” Harry said. “This baby magnifies things ten times.”

  When Song Lee took a turn, she used the lens to look at H
arry’s face. “I can see the black hairs in your nose.”

  Harry raised one eyebrow. “Want to see green hairs? Just look at the bread mold we’re growing.”

  Song Lee looked through the hexagonal magnifying glass into the closest plastic Baggie. “Ooooh neato! It looks like green fuzz growing out of craters.”

  “Yeah,” Harry agreed. “But it’s not as cool as what I saw this morning on the way to school.”

  “What did you see?” Mary demanded.

  “You mean, What did I discover?” Harry corrected. “I discovered a kingdom of mushrooms.”

  “A kingdom of mushrooms?” we replied.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Sid interrupted. He had returned to the science corner wearing a yellow yarn necklace. Three paper clips were hanging from it like silver jewels.

  No one made a comment. We were too interested in Harry’s discovery.

  Harry lowered his voice. “Just wait till recess. I’ll show you some wicked looking fungi. And you can look at it with my new magnifying necklace.”

  “What’s fun gee?” Sid blurted out.

  “Fun guy,” Harry corrected. “Don’t you pay attention in science? Mushrooms are a part of the fungus kingdom, like the bread mold we’re growing. My grandma told me we use fungi to make detergent, penicillin for antibiotics, blue cheese, and ...” Harry flashed his white teeth “... salami.”

  “Aaauugh!” Sid gasped clutching his throat. “Mom made me a salami sandwich today. I’m eating fungi for lunch!”

  “We’re all eating it for lunch, Sid,” Harry replied. “Yeast is a fungus that’s inside bread. But when it’s between our toes, it’s called athlete’s foot. You gotta be tough, Sid!”

  Sidney’s face turned as green as the mold in our experiment. Harry patted him on the back. “Today’s your lucky day, Sid. You get to eat a double fungus sandwich. Salami and bread!”

  Song Lee giggled. “Can you show us the kingdom of mushrooms at recess?”

  “At recess,” Harry said holding up a finger. “But first, anyone who wants to see it has to promise not to tell where it is. It’s a secret place.”

  Everyone watched Harry make a small circle with his index finger and thumb. “Put your fingers in here.”

  One by one we put our index fingers inside. It was a tight fit!

  “Now repeat after me,” Harry said, lowering his voice and squeezing our fingers. We huddled together on the moon rug and listened.

  “I promise ...” Harry began.

  “I promise ...” we repeated.

  “To follow Harry to the kingdom of mushrooms ...”

  “To follow Harry to the kingdom of mushrooms ...” we answered.

  “And never tell anyone where we go.”

  “And never tell anyone where we go,” we repeated.

  “Good,” Harry said, breaking up our circle of fingers. “At recess, you’re going to have the mushroom treat of a lifetime!” Then he tucked his microscope necklace inside his sweater and gave us a toothy smile.

  The Writing Wall

  It was a bummer being stuck in class all morning. We had to wait three hours until lunch recess. All we really wanted to do was visit the kingdom of mushrooms!

  Miss Mackle noticed our long faces.

  And frowns.

  She immediately wrote “Writing Workshop” on the blackboard, then turned around with a big smile. “Sometimes, when we’re having a bad day, it’s the best day to write!”

  Harry and I exchanged a look.

  Mary rolled her eyes.

  “I want you to write about something that bugs you, and then illustrate it. I’ll display your stories and pictures up on a Writing Wall out in the hall.”

  “Can I make bugs for the wall?” Harry asked.

  “Sure! That sounds like fun,” Miss Mackle replied. “Just as soon as you finish your story.”

  Harry’s face got longer. He wanted to make bugs first.

  “I know what I’m writing about—my brother!” Ida groaned. “He really bugs me.”

  Miss Mackle smiled. “No names please. But you can write about what a person does that bugs you ... like teasing or yelling or—”

  “Smoking,” Dexter interrupted. “I hate smoke.”

  “I’m writing about lice,” Sidney yelled. “I got them last year. That really bugged me.”

  “What good ideas!” the teacher exclaimed. “Anybody else?”

  Song Lee raised her hand. “I remember once my family got dressed up and went to a nice restaurant. There was sticky gum under the table. I hated that!”

  Miss Mackle put her hand over her heart.

  “I’ve got the worst one,” Harry bragged. “Tick bites. My grandma found one on her back last summer after we came back from a hike. That hairy bugger was half in and half out of her skin. As soon as I finish writing about it, I’ll make ticks and lice for the writing wall.”

  While everyone cringed, Ida raised her hand. “I’ve got another one now. Black ice. My mom and I nearly got in an accident last winter. Our car swerved all over the road!”

  Miss Mackle gasped. “Oh no! Let’s begin writing now!”

  Mary scowled. She couldn’t think of anything. I couldn’t either.

  Then Mary started tapping her pencil.

  That’s it, I thought. Tapping bugged me. Finger tapping, pencil tapping, foot tapping ... I got busy writing.

  Thirty minutes later, we shared our stories. One by one we used Miss Mackle’s microphone in the front of the room. Even the teacher read her story aloud. She hated long meetings.

  Mary was the only one who didn’t share. “I have writers’ block,” she complained. “All the things I hate have been taken. I don’t want to write on the same thing that someone else did. I want to hate something different.”

  Miss Mackle smiled. “Maybe something will come to you later in the day. I’ll call on you then.”

  Everyone who finished their writing got to look at the green bread mold under the microscopes. Song Lee and I even made slides of the green fuzz.

  Finally, at twelve o’clock, the bell rang. We all hurried to the cafeteria and gobbled down our lunches. Sidney traded his salami sandwich for Harry’s peanut butter and jelly. Sid said he wanted to eat just a single fungus sandwich. Not a double. When everyone finished, we hustled outside for recess!

  To Go or Not to Go?

  As soon as we got outside on the playground, the six of us gathered around Harry.

  “Take us to the kingdom of mushrooms!” Mary demanded.

  Harry took his necklace out of his sweater and grinned. “Follow me.”

  We did. Harry took us to the far end of the playground, the side that faced an empty lot, not the street. “This is it.”

  Song Lee shrugged. “Where?”

  Harry pointed to the other side of the fence.

  We all looked at the vacant lot. There was scattered grass, a few bushes, and one white oak tree. The ground was covered with lots of dirt, leaves, and pebbles. A couple of candy wrappers and one crumpled potato chip bag floated in a puddle of water next to a chewed-up tennis ball.

  “We can’t go over there,” Mary snapped. “It’s a school rule. You never leave the playground. Can’t we see the mushroom kingdom from the fence?”

  “Nope,” Harry replied. “The kingdom of mushrooms is five yards away. Just beyond that oak tree.”

  “Ooooh,” Dexter hummed. Then he started clicking his fingers. “The kingdom of mushrooms. That’s got a beat to it!”

  Harry lowered his eyebrows. “Haven’t any of you ever gotten a ball from the other side of the fence?”

  “I did once,” I admitted. “In first grade, I crawled under this very fence and got our kickball. The teacher didn’t seem mad at all. She just said, ‘Don’t do it again.’ I think she was glad I got our red ball back.”

  When I pointed to the fence where the wire was pushed back, everyone noticed there was an opening big enough for someone to crawl under.

  “I’m not going under th
ere!” Mary said crossing her arms.

  “Chicken?” Harry replied.

  “I’m not a chicken!” Sidney said, yanking his yarn necklace out from under his jacket. I think he was trying to copy Harry. “I’m tough!”

  “Me too,” Dexter replied. “When Elvis was in the army, he had to go into dangerous territory. I’m ready.”

  Harry looked at the girls.

  Ida had the same question I did. “What if someone sees us?” she asked. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “No one will see you,” Harry insisted. “That’s the beauty of my plan.”

  “What plan?” I asked.

  Harry answered right away. “You guys go one at a time. I’ll be waiting for you on the other side. Five of you will stand in front of the fence like a human wall. No one will see us back there.”

  “A human wall...cool!” Dexter replied. Then he added a “bee bop de boo.”

  I could tell Song Lee was curious about the kingdom of mushrooms. Her fingers were curled around the wire fence, and she gazed longingly at the other side. But I also knew Song Lee had never broken a school rule before.

  “Why don’t we go after school?” she suggested.

  Harry shook his head. “Half of you ride the bus. This is the only time we can all go together.”

  When Song Lee didn’t say anything, Harry knew she was thinking hard. “It’s for the sake of science,” he pleaded. “It will be our own secret field trip. No one will tell where we went. We made a promise about that. We’re not going to Timbuktu. Just a couple of yards beyond the fence!”

  Mary put her hands on her hips. “Five yards is not just a couple of yards, Harry Spooger!” she barked. “And what kind of mushrooms are in the kingdom anyway? Ordinary ones like the kind in tuna noodle casserole? I’m not going under the fence to see those boring beige ones!”