21 - Go Eat Worms! (4 page)

It’s a real big family! he thought, grinning.

Once the worm house was in place, Todd pulled out the sign he had made for it
and placed the sign beside it on the table.

He stepped back to admire his work. But someone pushed him gently aside.

“Make room. Make room, Todd.” It was Mrs. Sanger. And to Todd’s surprise, she
was helping Patrick MacKay carry a long cardboard carton to the table.

“Move your project to the side, Todd,” the teacher instructed. “You have to
share the table.”

“Huh? Share?” Todd hesitated.

“Hurry—please!” Mrs. Sanger pleaded. “Patrick’s box is heavy.”

“I’m sharing the table with Patrick?” Todd couldn’t hide his unhappiness.

Obediently, he slid his worm house to one side of the table. Then he stood
behind the table, watching as Patrick and the teacher unloaded the long carton.
The box was nearly six feet long.

“Is that all
one
worm?” Todd joked.

“Very funny,” Patrick muttered. He was straining hard to lift his project
onto the table.

“This will be our worm table,” Mrs. Sanger said, grabbing the end of the
carton and tugging. Patrick pulled, too.

Todd gasped as Patrick hoisted his project onto the tabletop.

“Very impressive, Patrick,” Mrs. Sanger commented, straightening her skirt.
She hurried off to help someone else.

Todd gaped at the project. It towered over his. It was nearly six feet tall,
taller than Patrick!

“Oh, nooooo,” Todd moaned to himself. He turned to Patrick. “It—it isn’t…
it
can’t
be—!” He choked on the words.

Patrick was busily setting up his sign. He stepped back, checking it out,
making sure it was straight.

“Yes, it is!” he said, beaming at Todd. “It’s a worm skyscraper!”

“Wow.” Todd didn’t want to show how upset he was. But he couldn’t help it.
His legs were trembling. His mouth dropped open. And he started to stutter, “But—but—but—”

I don’t believe this!
Todd thought miserably.

I built a crummy little worm house. And Patrick made a skyscraper!

It’s not fair!
Not fair!

Patrick doesn’t even
like
worms!

He stared at the giant wood-and-glass structure. He could see dozens and
dozens of worms inside. They were crawling from floor to floor. There was even a
wooden elevator with several worms tucked inside.

“Todd—are you okay?” Patrick asked.

“Yeah. Uh… fine,” Todd replied, trying to force his legs to stop
quivering.

“You look a little weird,” Patrick said, staring at Todd with his bright blue
eyes.

“Uh… that’s a nice project, Patrick,” Todd admitted through clenched
teeth. “You could win the big prize.”

“You think so?” Patrick replied, as if the thought had never occurred to him.
“Thanks, Todd. I got the idea from you. About worms, I mean.”

You
stole
the idea, you thief! Todd thought angrily.

I have only one wish for you, Patrick.
Go eat worms!

“Wow! What’s
that?”
Danny’s voice broke into Todd’s ugly thoughts. He
was staring in amazement at Patrick’s project.

“It’s a worm skyscraper,” Patrick told him, beaming with pride.

Danny admired it for a while. Then he turned to Todd. “Why didn’t
you
think of that?” he whispered.

Todd gave Danny a hard shove. “Go blow up a balloon,” he muttered.

Danny spun around angrily. “Don’t shove me—”

Mrs. Sanger’s voice over the loudspeaker rose over the noise of the gym.
“Places by your projects, everyone. The expo is starting. The judges will begin their rounds.”

Danny hurried back to his balloon solar system against the wall. Todd watched
him make his way past a display of rocks. Danny was swinging his arms as he
walked, and he nearly knocked over all the rocks.

Then Todd stepped behind the table. He brushed a speck of dust off the roof
of his worm house.

I should just toss it in the trash, he thought miserably. He glanced at
Patrick, who stood beside him, grinning from ear to ear, his hands resting on
the sides of his magnificent skyscraper.

The copycat is going to win, Todd thought sadly.

He sighed. Only one thing would cheer him up a little. One thing. And gazing
across the gym, Todd saw that it was time for it to happen.

The three judges—all teachers from another school—were stepping up to
check out Christopher Robin. As they bent low to examine the papier-mâché bird
feet, Todd made his way quickly over to his sister’s project.

He wanted a good view.

One judge, a plump young woman in a bright yellow vest, examined the tail
feathers. Another judge, a man with a shiny bald head, was questioning Regina
and Beth. The third judge had her back to Todd. She was running her hand over the bird’s swelling orange
breast.

Reggie and Beth look really nervous, Todd thought, edging past a display on
how trash gets recycled.

Well, they
should
be nervous. What a dumb project.

Todd stopped a few feet in front of the bleachers. There was a really big
audience for the expo, he noticed. The bleachers were at least two-thirds
filled. Mostly parents and younger brothers and sisters of the contestants.

The bald judge kept making notes on a small pad as he questioned Regina and
Beth. The other two judges were staring up at the giant robin’s beak.

Todd edged closer.

“What’s this string?” the judge in the yellow vest asked Beth.

“Huh? String?” Beth reacted with surprise. She and Regina raised their eyes
to the yellow beak.

“What string?” Regina demanded.

Too late.

The judge in the yellow vest pulled the string.

The beak lowered, revealing a surprise inside.

“Ohhhh.”

“Yuck!”

Disgusted groans rose up from the audience.

And Regina and Beth started to scream.

Fat worms wriggled out from inside the bird’s beak.

Some of them wriggled out and rained down on the judges.

A huge purple worm plopped onto the bald judge’s head. The angry judge’s red
face darkened until it nearly matched the purple worm.

Early that morning, Todd had packed about thirty worms in there. He was glad
to see that most of them had stayed in the beak.

People in the bleachers were groaning and moaning. “That’s
sick
!”
someone yelled.

“Gross! That’s so gross!” a little boy kept repeating.

The judges were demanding to know if Regina and Beth had stuffed the worms up
there as a joke.

Mrs. Sanger was glaring angrily at them. The two girls were sputtering their
apologies.

It was a thrilling moment, Todd thought. A thrilling moment.

About ten or fifteen worms were wriggling across the gym floor. Todd started
to edge back to his table.

“There he is! My brother!” he heard Regina shout. He glanced up to see her
pointing furiously at him. “Todd did it! It had to be Todd!”

He gave her an innocent shrug. “I thought Christopher Robin looked hungry—so I fed him!” he called. Then he hurried back to his worm house.

A big grin on his handsome face, Patrick slapped Todd a high five. “Cool
move, ace!”

Todd grudgingly accepted the congratulations. He didn’t want to be friends
with Patrick. He wanted Patrick to go eat worms.

He glanced back at Danny. Danny was frantically blowing up a balloon. The
rings had fallen off Saturn. And someone had accidentally popped Pluto.

Todd smiled. He felt pretty good. His little joke had worked perfectly.
Revenge was sweet. He had paid Regina back for sending him to that creepy old
house.

But his smile faded as he glanced at Patrick’s skyscraper and remembered that
he was going to miss out on the grand prize.

It took the school janitor a few minutes to round up all the worms. The crowd in the bleachers cheered him on as he scooped up
the wiggling worms one by one and dropped them into an empty coffee can.

After that, the expo continued calmly and quietly. The judges moved from
project to project, asking questions, making notes.

Todd took a deep breath when they approached his table. Don’t get excited, he
warned himself. The worm house looks really puny next to the worm skyscraper.

He had a sudden urge to bump the table, to shake it really hard. Maybe the
skyscraper would topple over, and the house would be left standing.

I could pretend it was just an accident, Todd thought.

Evil thoughts.

But he didn’t do it.

The three judges spent about ten seconds looking at Todd’s project. They
didn’t ask Todd a single question.

Then they gazed at Patrick’s skyscraper for at least five minutes. “How did
you get all those worms in there?” the bald judge asked.

“I love the elevator!”

“How many worms are there in total?”

“Can worms survive in a
real
skyscraper?”

“And what does this project prove about gravity?”

Yak yak yak,
Todd thought bitterly.

He watched the judges coo and carry on over Patrick’s project. He wanted to
grab all three of them and say, “He’s a copycat! I’m the real worm guy! I’m the
one who likes worms!”

But he just stood there grinding his teeth, tapping his fingers tensely on
the tabletop.

Still scribbling notes about Patrick’s project, the judges moved on to the
next project—Liquids and Gases.

Patrick turned to Todd and forced him into slapping another high five. “You
can come over and see my new computer anytime,” Patrick whispered confidently.

Todd forced a weak laugh. He turned away from Patrick—and found his sister
glaring at him furiously from the other side of the table.

“How
could
you, Todd!” she demanded, spitting out the words, her hands
pressed tightly at her waist. “How could you do that to Beth and me?”

“Easy,” he replied, unable to keep a grin off his face.

“You
ruined
our project!” Regina cried.

“I know,” Todd said, still grinning. “You deserved it.”

Regina started to sputter.

The loudspeaker above their heads crackled on. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have
a winner!” Mrs. Sanger declared.

The huge gym grew silent. No one moved.

“The judges have a winner!” Mrs. Sanger repeated, her voice booming off the
tile walls. “The grand-prize winner of this year’s Science Expo is…”

“The winner is…” Mrs. Sanger announced, “Danny Fletcher and his Balloon
Solar System!”

The audience in the bleachers was quiet for a moment, but then erupted in
cheers and applause. Todd’s classmates on the floor applauded, too.

Todd turned and caught the startled expression on Danny’s face. Several kids
rushed forward to congratulate Danny. The balloons bobbed behind Danny as he
grinned and took a funny bow.

The gym erupted as everyone began to talk at once. Then the spectators made
their way down from the bleachers and began wandering through the displays.

I don’t
believe
this! Todd thought. Glancing at Patrick, he saw that
Patrick felt the same way.

Danny flashed Todd a thumbs-up sign. Todd returned it, shaking his head.

He felt a hard shove on his shoulders.

“Hey—” he cried out angrily and spun around. “Are you still here?”

Regina glared at him angrily. “That’s for ruining our project!” she shouted.

She shoved him again. “You apologize!” she demanded furiously.

He laughed. “No way!”

She growled at him and raised her fists. “Go eat worms!” she screamed.

Still laughing, he pulled off the wooden back of his worm house and lifted up
a long, brown worm. He dangled it in front of his sister’s face. “Here. Have
some dessert.”

With a furious cry, Regina completely lost all control.

She leaped at Todd, shoving him over backwards.

He cried out as he sprawled back—and hit the table hard.

Several kids let out startled screams as the enormous worm skyscraper tilted
… tilted… tilted….

“No!” Patrick screamed. He reached out both hands to stop it.

And missed.

And the heavy wood-and-glass structure toppled onto the next table with a
deafening crash of shattered glass.

“No!” a girl screamed. “That’s Liquids and Gases! Look out—it’s Liquids and
Gases!”

Dirt poured out of the broken skyscraper. Several worms came wriggling out
onto the table.

As Todd pulled himself to his feet, wild screams filled the gym.

“Liquids and Gases!”

“What’s that smoke?”

“What did they break? Did they break a window?”

“Liquids and Gases!”

Thick, white smoke poured up from a broken glass bottle under the fallen
skyscraper.

“Everybody out!” someone yelled. “Everybody out! It’s going to blow up!”

No one was hurt in the explosion.

Some strange gases escaped, and it smelled pretty weird in the gym for a
while.

A lot of worms went flying across the room. And there was a lot of broken
glass to be cleaned up.

But it was a minor explosion, Todd told his parents later. “Really. No big
deal,” he said. “I’m sure everyone will forget all about it in five or ten
years.”

A few days later, carrying a small, white carton in both hands, Todd made his
way down the basement stairs. He could hear the steady
plonk plonk
of
Ping-Pong balls against paddles.

Regina and Beth glanced up from their game as he entered the room. “Chinese
food?” Beth asked, spotting the little box.

“No. Worms,” Todd replied, crossing the room to his worm tank.

“Are you still into worms?” Beth demanded, twirling her Ping-Pong paddle.
“Even after what happened at the Science Expo?”

“It all got cleaned up,” Todd snapped. “It was no big deal.”