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

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. HonestyâFiction. 2. MushroomsâFiction. 3. SchoolsâFiction.]
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 itâSid 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 fibâthe
one I'm going to tell you aboutâthat 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 usâMary, 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

“H
ey, 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 Harry's face. “I can see the black hairs in your nose.”