8. The Comic Is Mightier Than the Spitball

CHAPTER 8 THE COMIC IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SPITBALL George and Harold were sent straight to the detention room. "Man," said Harold, "Melvin is such a tattletale. Somebody ought to teach him a lesson." "And we're just the guys to do it," said George.

So George and Harold created an all-new comic book featuring everybody's favorite tattletalin' meanie, Melvin Sneedly. When they were done, the two boys sneaked out of the detention room to run off copies of their latest work and sell them in the hallway.

The new comic book was a great success. Everybody loved it. Well, everybody but Melvin Sneedly, I should say. As Melvin walked to his last class of the day, he noticed small groups of students in the hallway reading comics together and giggling. Normally, this was enough to make Melvin run straight to the principal's office and tell on everyone for unsupervised reading (which was strictly forbidden). But today, Melvin noticed something strange. The comic-reading students were pointing and laughing —at HIM.

"What?" said Melvin. "What's wrong? What are you guys laughing at?" Melvin looked around the hallway desperately. Everybody was laughing... everybody was pointing... and it was driving Melvin crazy! He marched over to a group of second graders, grabbed the comic book out of their hands, and looked at the cover. Melvin was FURIOUS!

"YOU GUYS ARE SO IMMATURE!!!" shrieked Melvin. He quickly darted off to read the comic in peace, but everywhere he ran, he came across more pointing and more laughing. Finally, Melvin thought of the one place he could read the comic in private. He went into the boys' bathroom, locked himself in one of the stalls, and sat down to read.

SPLAT!!! SPLAT!!! As Melvin sat reading, his legs dripping with ketchup, he became angrier and angrier. "I'm gonna get George and Harold!" Melvin vowed.