11 A Blowout

CHAPTER 11 A BLOWOUT WIDER. AHHH... OPEN UP. Our hopes are riding on Freddy, who can now get twen- ty-nine pieces of bubble gum into his mouth. Eric and I keep shoving it in until his cheeks are puffed out like softballs.

When he tries to blow, Freddy just starts turning an odd shade of blue and we have to rush him to Miss Hearse, who does an emergency extraction with pliers. Derek's team wins the event, and our whole team is blue. STAY BACK. GIVE HIM SOME AIR. MY HAND IS STUCK! NURSE, WILL HE BE OK? HE'LL BE FINE.

But we rally and take the Cake Walk. EASY! THAT WAS CLOSE. DON'T STEP ON THE CAKES. It's tied again! Now it's all riding on the last event—the Tug- of-War. Can we pull it off? Freddy, who still is a shade of aqua, is our anchor. The Tigers' anchor is Doris. She looks pretty tough. We line up on the rope and spit on our hands. We're off. WALK. DON'T RUN.

We huff and puff. We tug and chug. We yank and crank. We heave and haul, but nobody's budging at all-not even an inch! MY HANDS ARE BURNING! DON'T QUIT! PULL!

After fifteen minutes of major exertion, Coach Kong blows his whistle, and he declares the field day a tie. We let go of the rope and all fall down laughing and rolling around. Everyone's beat, but a winner! PULL HARDER! DON'T STOP! MY ARMS HURT! YOU CAN DO IT!