4. Left Behind

CHAPTER 4 LEFT BEHIND Mr. Krupp marched George and Harold over to the janitor's closet. "You can use these supplies to clean the teachers' lounge," said Mr. Krupp. "I want it SPOTLESS by the time we get back!"

Mr. Krupp went back outside, climbed onto the school bus, and laughed loudly as the buses pulled away. The teachers all pointed at George and Harold and laughed, too. "Rats!" said Harold. "l thought we were going to have fun today!"

"We can still have fun," said George. "All we need is this ladder, that bag of powdered paste, and those big boxes of Styrofoam wormy thingies." So George and Harold carried their supplies to the teachers' lounge and got down to business.

At the sink, George pulled the sprayer nozzle, while Harold carefully taped the sprayer handle in the "on" position. Then the two boys put the nozzle back, making sure the sprayer head was pointed in the right direction.

Next, George held the ladder steady while Harold climbed up to the ceiling fan. There he began scooping generous amounts of powdered paste onto the tops of the fan blades. "Is this right?" asked Harold. "Yeah," said George. "Try to get most of it on the ends of the blades." "Got it," said Harold.

George closed all the blinds while Harold adjusted the ceiling fan so it would turn on when the lights came on. Finally, the boys filled the refrigerator up with worm-shaped Styrofoam packaging pellets. "This is going to be fun," said Harold. "Not for the teachers!" laughed George.