27. Something Wedgie This Way Comes

CHAPTER 27 SOMETHING WEDGIE THIS WAY COMES At 2:45 P.M., when the final bell rang, George and Harold ran to their secret restroom stall and grabbed two empty glass jelly jars. Then they headed out toward the groundskeeper's shed. There were always a ton of spiders back there, and George and Harold worked very hard to safely capture as many as they could. "We gotta hurry," said George. "It looks like it's going to rain!"

Once they had collected about twenty harmless garden spiders each, they ran back upstairs to the lockers in the empty hallway. Harold held a piece of paper under one of the lower vent slots of Kipper's locker. George opened his glass jelly jar and sprinkled some spiders onto the paper as Harold blew softly. About ten spiders gently slid across the paper and through the slot, disappearing into the darkened depths of Kipper's locker. Next they moved on to Loogie's, Bugg's, and Finkstein's lockers, gently blowing an assortment of eight- legged residents into their vents, too.

George and Harold knew that it takes about an hour for a spider to build a completed web. They looked at the clock on the wall and realized they had only forty-four minutes until wrestling practice was over. "I hope those spiders work fast," said Harold. "We gotta work fast, too," said George. "There's still lots of stuff to be done!" The two boys grabbed some supplies and sneaked into the boys' locker room next to the gym. Harold found Kipper's deodorant stick, pulled off the cap, and twisted the dial on the bottom until the deodorant stuck all the way out of the canister. George pulled the thick, white deodorant off and threw it into the garbage can.

Then he opened a package of extra-spicy jalapeno cream cheese and began packing it into the plastic deodorant canister with a spoon. When the canister was filled, Harold molded the cream cheese into shape with his fingers, then popped the cap back on. George put the deodorant back in Kipper's gym locker next to his soap and his towel, while Harold started working on Loogie's deodorant. It took about thirty minutes, but soon George and Harold had transformed all four of the bullies' deodorant sticks into jalapeno cream cheese applicators. Once everything was back where it belonged, George and Harold rushed to their secret stall in the boys' restroom. Time was running out.

George climbed onto his stilts as Harold gathered the ancient-looking comics and an old walkie-talkie. Quickly, the two friends sneaked out to the hallway and got to work. Harold slid a comic book through one of the lower vent slots of each bully's locker while George placed the walkie-talkie on top of the lockers and pumped up the volume. They finished just as wrestling practice ended. Dark clouds were beginning to gather outside, and a distant thunder could be heard rumbling miles away. A terrible storm was coming.

Meanwhile, back in the locker room, Kipper and his cohorts changed their clothes, smeared on some deodorant, and strutted out to their lockers. Lightning was beginning to flash outside, filling the school windows with crackling bursts of fluorescence.