BritSoc Children's Writing Competition, 1st Prize, Seniors
What did Harry do next?
“Harry! Come here,” screamed an infuriated Ms. Babcock as she splashed down the flooded school’s corridors.
“Catch me if you can,” laughed Harry, as he swam breaststroke down the corridor.
In case you haven’t already noticed, Harry’s a very troublesome boy. He’s comparable to an atomic bomb; his path of destruction is impossible to ignore. This isn’t the first time he overflowed the school’s toilets and flooded the hallways and classrooms. Harry is cheeky, insolent and isn’t intimidated by anyone or any authority!
Today is Harry’s favourite day; it’s Monday. Magnificent Monday; Harry loves Mondays because it’s the dawn of a new week. Monday represents another glorious beginning to more jokes and pranks; more opportunity to create pandemonium.
This week’s schedule:
Monday: Flood school toilets; put superglue on teacher’s chairs.
Tuesday: Put frogs in canteen food, start canteen food fight!
Wednesday: Hang headmistress’ car keys on the flagpole.
Thursday: Spray paint the gym.
Friday: Spike coffee with laxative; steal all loo paper!
Monday’s first prank was already a grand success; now all he had to do was the superglue; child’s play really!
On his way to school the next day, Harry had an Archimedes-like moment of “Eureka”; he was going to hack into the computer system and make the sprinkler system go off just as everyone entered the school!
It was 8:35 and Harry immediately took out his laptop and started looking for a place around the school where he could get a wireless signal. Within minutes, Harry had found his connection and was into the maintenance system. Nanoseconds after the school bell rung, Harry hit the start button and the chaos began! Everyone was screaming, girls were crying, teachers were trying to keep dry by putting their books over their heads. Everywhere you looked, people were slipping and falling. Mayhem at 8:45 and Harry still had a full day ahead of him! This was just the icing on the cake.
As the headmistress, Ms. Babcock, spotted Harry standing in the middle of the entryway, her blood began to boil. In a split instance, she knew this wasn’t a system failure; she knew Harry was behind this horrendously drenching start of her day. She pulled Harry towards her office. Harry slipped and landed on his back but Ms. Babcock’s anger seemed to develop her supernatural powers; she continued pulling Harry on his back into her office. After the usual lecture, of which Harry totally tuned out, the headmistress called his parents to have them come and pick up their son. The headmistress had a stern talk with the parents as well.
Harry’s parents didn’t, as you would expect, begin to hand out reams of punishments. Instead, the father began complimenting Harry on his resourcefulness.
Annoyed that by being sent home he couldn’t fully execute his week’s schedule, he turned his energies towards orchestrating the ultimate food fight. Once his strategy was solidified, he collected 13 frogs out of his backyard pond. He was feeling energised already!
Harry practically flew to school the next day powered by euphoria, exhilaration and anticipation. He and his frogs geared towards creating comic canteen havoc. He managed to get into school when all the doors were unlocked for the teachers, but before any of them had started to arrive. The custodians were busy enjoying their last cigarettes and coffee, before their day’s work began. Harry managed to stealthily sneak into the kitchen. He had loads of excuses ready for the canteen ladies, but didn’t need any of them, because no one was there. He put each frog into a different tray of food and doubled checked that the plastic wrap was extra secure. Now all he had to do was wait for lunch.
Everyone queued for lunch as the kitchen ladies removed the plastic wrap. Harry took his frog out of his pocket and threw it inconspicuously into the air towards a particularly girly girl; within seconds, complete pandemonium started. Frogs jumped off the trays and flew in every direction; people were screaming, girls were crying. Everyone flung their arms about, to keep the frogs away, but instead they hit someone and then the fighting began. Frogs and punches were flying. Then Harry thought, now is the precisely the moment to start the food flying. He took out a mini-catapult and launched his first lot of food. It landed on the head of the school’s worst bully, who then flung his soup at someone else. The food war was raging! Food was hurling in every direction and frogs were leaping from tray to tray and from head to head. The bedlam was breathtaking, even for Harry!
Mr. Batsy, the ancient and nearly deaf science teacher, had canteen duty. He was an antique, but being that he probably fought in the last two wars, he immediately went into military mode.
“Harry, it’s time you face the consequences,” he said with an incredibly young and strong voice.
“Right-oh, Mr. Batsy,” Harry replied in a condescending voice.
“Drop that insolence and get over here immediately!” bellowed Mr. Batsy.
Harry glided over the floor looking smug. Mr. Batsy however was holding himself so stiffly, Harry actually gulped a bit of fear down his throat; he had never seen Mr. Batsy look so alive. The moment that Harry reached Mr. Batsy’s side, his ear was put into a pinchlock by Mr. Batsy. The canteen commotion stopped. Even the frogs stopped jumping. All during this eerie silence, Harry began feeling emotions he’d never felt before; regret and anticipation. What was going to happen next?
Mr. Batsy marched him off to Ms. Babcock’s office. As he opened the door with Harry’s ear still tightly under his control, Ms. Babcock glanced over with a look of dread on her face and simply asked: “What did Harry do now?” But for the first time in his life, Harry suspected that this time his charming smile would get him nowhere.
( 991 Words)