5. The Little Monsters

5 The Little Monsters Everybody cheered when Mayor Hubble finished his speech. I wasn't sure if they were cheering because it was such a good speech or because it was over. Some guys rolled the red carpet back up and took away the podium. "And now," said Mayor Hubble, "I would like to introduce our hostess for the day, my lovely wife, Bubbles!" Bubbles Hubble? Mrs. Bubbles came running over. She looked like one of those ladies in a shampoo commercial who swirls her hair around in slow motion. Mrs. Bubbles had on a red dress and high heels. She gave the mayor a big kiss and told him how happy she was to

see him again. Ugh, disgusting! "Hey, everybody!" Mrs. Bubbles announced. "Thanks for coming today! Are you ready for our annual egg roll?" "Egg roll?" I shouted. "Yipee! I love Chinese food!"

"Not that kind of an egg roll, dumbhead," Andrea said to me, rolling her eyes. "In an egg roll, you roll eggs." "I knew that" I lied. Apparently, an egg roll is when a bunch of kids roll eggs along the grass. The first one to push the egg across a finish line is the winner. If you ask me, that had to be the dumbest contest in the history of the world. What's the point of rolling an egg around somebody's lawn? "I'm not doing that," said Michael. "That's for little kids." "Me neither," said Ryan and Neil. Andrea and Emily said they didn't want to get dirt on their new dresses. "The winner of the egg roll will receive a prize," announced Mrs. Bubbles. "The first child to push his or her egg across the finish

line will receive a wooden egg, personally autographed by Mayor Hubble and me." Mrs. Bubbles held up the wooden egg. "Wooden egg?" Alexia whispered to me. "Where do you think she got a wooden egg?" "From a wooden chicken," I guessed. Alexia and I decided that it would be cool to win a wooden egg. We went over to the starting line. So did about a million first graders. "Look at these little munchkins ," whispered to Alexia. "No way they're gonna beat us." "This is gonna be a piece of cake," said Alexia. I didn't know what cake had to do with anything. Why is everybody always talking about cake? Mrs. Bubbles gave each of us a plastic

egg and a long spoon. Then we went over to the starting line. "Okay, is everybody ready?" said Mrs. Bubbles. "On your mark... get set... let's ROLL!" I thought that Alexia and I could just push those first-grade munchkins out of our way, but it was the other way around! They were like animals, yelling and screaming and pushing and shoving and crying and swinging their spoons every which way. It was like a war zone! "Get out of my way!" some kid shouted. "Watch out!" "Mommy!" "Oww! You hit me in the face with your spoon!" I thought I was going to get trampled by those little monsters. They were brutal! And they were actually winning!

If Alexia and I lost the egg roll, the gang would never stop making fun of us. That's when I came up with the greatest idea in the history of the world. "Pssst!" I whispered to Alexia. "Let's just pick our eggs up and throw them across the finish line. Nobody will know." "You should get the Nobel Prize for that idea," Alexia whispered back. I bent down to pick up my egg. But before I could get it, one of those first-grade munchkin girls stomped on it. CRACK. My egg was all over the grass in a bunch of pieces.