Horrible Harry Cracks the Code (4 page)

“I will when the time comes. I want the smell to be really ripe,” he explained.

“Okay,” I whispered back. Harry was a pro when it came to gross smells.

“Someone else can go first,” Harry said politely. “Doug and I want to be last.”

Mary had her own paper cup. Four neat holes were punched on top. It was obvious she had used her hole puncher. “See if you can tell what it is, Doug,” she said, passing it to me.

I took a whiff. It was sweet. I wrote a word down.

Song Lee took a whiff. “I like it!” she said, then she wrote down her answer.

Harry took one whiff and said, “Piece of cake!”

“
Harry!
” Mary said. “You're not supposed to say your answer out loud. I'm telling!” Then she called out, “Miss Mackle!”

Uh-oh! Mary was tattling on Harry again.

The teacher came right over. When she found out what Harry said, she wasn't angry.

“‘Piece of cake' is an expression, Mary. He thinks your smell is easy.”

As soon as Miss Mackle left our group, Mary made fish lips and pouted.

The rest of us shared our answers. We all said “cake” except for Harry.

“It's frosting,” he said.

Mary tilted her cup so we could see. It was pink frosting.

Harry threw his shoulders back and stood tall. “I got it!” he sang out. “I'm not just a private eye. I'm a private schnozz!”

Sidney and Song Lee laughed.

“Where did you get that frosting, Mary?” ZuZu asked. “I thought you were having hot lunch today.”

Now Mary could brag. “I am,” she said. “I'm just resourceful. I asked the teacher if I could take some frosting from that birthday cupcake she had on her desk. Remember, a second-grader brought it in for her?”

We all nodded.

We did a lot of smelling that morning. Harry and I guessed Song Lee and Ida's soap, ZuZu's cedar chips from our guinea pig JuJu's cage, and Dexter's chalk dust. We didn't get Sidney's eraser.

Finally, it was our turn.

“How come your paper cup doesn't have holes in it?” Mary snapped.

Harry reached for a pair of scissors, jabbed a hole in the foil, and then cut out a circle. “It does now!” He grinned.

“You're about to smell one of my favorite aromas. But”—he paused, holding up a finger—“you need to take a deep whiff. It's hard to pick up its scent. You may go first, Mary,” Harry said.

Mary flared her nostrils a couple of times. Then she leaned over the cup and inhaled deeply.

“Aaaaaauuuuuuuugh! Fish!
Yuck!
”

Harry shook a finger. “Actually, it's pollack. We had it for lunch on Friday. And you're not supposed to shout out your answer,” he scolded. “You're supposed to write it down. So . . . I'm telling on you, Mare!”

Mary covered her mouth quickly. Her eyes bulged. She hid behind Song Lee.

“I told you your tattling would backfire on you sometime!” Harry snapped. “Well, it just did!”

Mary's body was shaking.

“How does it feel when someone's going to tattle on you?” Harry asked. “Huh?”

“N-n-not s-s-s-so g-g-g-good,” Mary stuttered.

Harry got his payback, all right. And the weird thing was, he never did tattle to the teacher. He just let Mary suffer and think about being tattled on! And that was good enough for Harry.

A
t lunchtime we all lined up to go to the cafeteria. Dexter was first, then ZuZu, Sidney, Ida, Song Lee, Mary, Harry, and me.

“Will the fourth person in line get the lucky lunch tray, Harry?” I whispered.

“I'm not so sure,” Harry whispered back. “We'll just have to wait and see.”

Mary had her fingers crossed as we snaked our line into the kitchen. Song Lee was wearing a special charm necklace. “Pigs mean good luck in Korea,” she said. “I hope they bring me good luck today.”

Mrs. Funderburke had our stack of trays hidden behind a poster. Each time she reached for a tray, she plopped a milk carton or juice box on top before she moved it out to the counter where we were. No one could see if there was a sticker underneath.

As we scooted through the line, we could see the two cafeteria ladies with their plastic gloves helping Mrs. Funderburke. One aide dropped chicken nuggets in the middle compartment and a handful of French fries in another. She passed the lunch tray down to the next aide, who filled the remaining compartments with a serving of broccoli, a packet of carrots, and a packet with a spork and a napkin.

When Harry came through the line, the aide dishing out the broccoli said, “The usual, Harry?”

“Yes, please,” he answered.

And she gave him two heaping servings.

As soon as we got to our table, we lifted our milk cartons to see who had an orange star.

“Boo!” Mary said. “I didn't get one!”

“I'm glad I didn't get one,” Sidney said. “My name was on the board yesterday. It would have been wasted.”

I checked underneath my milk. Nope.

Suddenly Song Lee sang out, “I have the lucky lunch tray! My pig necklace
was
good luck. I'm so happy I wore it today! See my orange star?” Harry and I looked at the star, then at each other.

Song Lee was not the third or fourth person in line. She was the
fifth
person in line. Song Lee peeled the orange sticker off her tray, jumped out of her seat, and hurried to the kitchen.

Harry and I went into deep thought.

The pattern of numbers Mrs. Funderburke was using was one, one, two, three, and now five!

While we all sat there feeling like losers, Mrs. Doshi stopped by our table with a big red bottle. “Who wants ketchup?” she asked. We watched her squirt some ketchup on Ida's plate. She didn't squirt it in one place—she made a ketchup happy face.

“Oh, that's so cute. Can I have one too?” Mary asked.

“Sure,” Mrs. Doshi said. “You know how to use ketchup packets properly.”

Mary beamed.

When Sidney asked for ketchup, Mrs. Doshi just gave him one glob. “Where's my happy face?” Sid complained.

Suddenly Mr. Skooghammer, our computer teacher, walked into the cafeteria. As he cut to the front of the line, Harry tapped Mrs. Doshi's arm.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Doshi,” he said. “I need permission to talk to Mr. Skooghammer. It's about math. May I, please? It's really important.”

Mrs. Doshi squeezed one glob of ketchup onto Harry's plate. “I'm glad you have better lunchtime manners today. Yes, you may, Harry. But be brief !”

“You're the best!” Harry replied. “I promise it will just be a one-minute conversation!” Then he dashed over to Mr. Skooghammer. He had a chef-salad plate in his hand and was nibbling on some celery. I watched him talk with Harry and nod and smile and laugh.

It was the longest one-minute conversation I've ever watched.

When Harry returned, I got the scoop.

“What did he say?” I whispered.

“Well,” Harry said, dipping a sprig of broccoli in his ketchup, “I asked him if he remembered last June when he was the teacher in the Suspension Room. And he said yes. That was where he first met me.”

I chuckled. That was funny. “Yeah?”

Harry continued, “I asked him if he remembered the cool lesson he taught me in math because I was a little fuzzy on it. And he said, ‘You mean the Fibonacci sequence?' And I said, ‘Yes.' And then he lit up like a Christmas tree and said, ‘You remembered?' And then I said, ‘Kind of.' I knew the sequence went one, one, two, three, five, but I didn't know the next number. And then Mr. Skooghammer gave me a super clue. He said just look at the last two numbers. When I did, I figured it out! I cracked the code!”