Mascot Madness! (5 page)

Despite Mr Brainfright's attempts to find a volunteer, I got the feeling that he wasn't too disappointed to be getting back into the suit.

‘Can somebody do the zip up at the back?' he said.

Jenny jumped up, zipped the suit, and Mr Brainfright immediately began singing. ‘If you're a banana and you know it, clap your hands!'

None of us clapped, though.

We just stared.

If you've never seen your teacher in a banana suit singing ‘If you're a banana and you know
it, clap your hands!', let me tell you it's a pretty bizarre sight.

But our staring and non-clapping didn't seem to dampen Mr Brainfright's enthusiasm. ‘If you're a banana and you know it, clap your hands!' he sang.

He looked so ridiculous that I had to laugh . . . and clap. Jenny joined in. So did Jack.

‘If you're a banana and you know it, then you really ought to show it,' sang Mr Brainfright loudly. ‘If you're a banana and you know it, clap your hands!'

Gretel and Newton joined in, followed by Fiona, David and Grant. By the time Mr Brainfright had started the second round, everyone but Clive was clapping.

‘You know one of the other things I love about bananas?' said Mr Brainfright, after we'd sung the song for a third time.

‘What?' said Jack.

‘The word is so much fun to spell!'

‘I love spelling!' said Fiona excitedly.

Mr Brainfright wrote it up on the board. ‘Say it with me,' he said, pointing to each letter as we chanted it.

‘B-a-n-a-n-a-s.'

‘Good!' boomed Mr Brainfright. ‘Again . . . but louder this time!'

‘B-A-N-A-N-A-S!' we yelled.

‘THAT'S RIGHT!' yelled Mr Brainfright, jumping and punching his fist into the air.

‘LET'S GO . . . BANANAS! Now, get up and say it all together: B-A-N-A-N-A-S . . . LET'S GO . . . BANANAS! B-A-N-A-N-A-S . . . LET'S GO . . . BANANAS! B-A-N-A-N-A-S . . . LET'S GO . . . BANANAS!'

By this time we were all out of our chairs, jumping, punching the air, and yelling ‘B-A-N-A-N-A-S . . . LET'S GO . . . BANANAS!' as loud as we could. We made a mess of the spelling, but nobody was in doubt about the feeling behind it.

‘This is really fun!' said Jenny.

‘I feel great!' said Jack.

‘Me too!' said Newton, who for once wasn't looking scared at all.

‘This is all highly irregular,' shouted David above the noise. He had the school handbook open in front of him and was pointing at a page. ‘Section thirty-one, sub-paragraph three specifically forbids chanting in class.'

‘It most certainly DOES!' agreed Mrs Cross, who was standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips, but before she could tell Mr Brainfright to control his class and stop making so much noise, she saw the giant banana that was dancing and singing and pointing at the letters on
the blackboard. Her mouth dropped open.

‘Oh, hello, Mrs Cross!' said Mr Brainfright. ‘Would you be so kind as to point to the letters for me? I'm trying to dance, you see, and the pointing is really cramping my style.' And with that, he skipped over, put the pointer into her hand and guided her to the front of the room.

At first, poor Mrs Cross was too surprised to do anything but stand there and point, but as the chant continued, an amazing thing began to happen: the corners of her mouth began to twitch, and spasm, and curl up.

‘Henry!' cried Newton, alarmed. ‘Something's wrong with Mrs Cross!'

I laughed. ‘There's nothing wrong,' I reassured Newton. ‘She's just smiling.'

And soon she was doing a whole lot more than that. She was singing and dancing and chanting along with the rest of us.

If we needed any more proof of the power of Mr Brainfright's banana suit, the sight of Mrs Cross kicking her heels up and smiling was it.

But there was more to come.

Plenty more.

We had just formed a conga line behind Mr Brainfright and were parading and stomping around the room when Principal Greenbeard appeared.

He was all decked out in a brilliant white suit, looking more like the captain of a ship than a school principal.

And there was a good reason for this.

Principal Greenbeard didn't think that he was a school principal.

In fact, he didn't even think that the school was a school.

He liked to imagine that the school was a big ship and that he was the captain and the staff and students were all members of the crew.

Principal Greenbeard stood there, trying to make sense of the sight of a giant banana leading a group of students—as well as another teacher—in
a mad, noisy conga-line stomp around the classroom.

‘What in the deep blue sea is going on here?' he finally spluttered.

The conga line came to a halt.

‘Good morning, Principal Greenbeard!' said Mr Brainfright. ‘Care to join us in a conga?'

‘Most certainly not,' said Principal Greenbeard. ‘This is a ship, not a bawdy house! And who—and what—the devil are you?'

Mr Brainfright removed the head of his costume. ‘It's me,' he said.

Principal Greenbeard blinked a few times. ‘Brainfright?' he said.

‘Yes! I'm the new Northwest Southeast Central School mascot!'

‘I've sailed the seven seas for many years and seen and heard of many strange things,' said Principal Greenbeard. ‘But I've never seen or heard of a banana mascot.'

‘Of course not,' said Mr Brainfright. ‘That's why it's going to be so effective! It will confuse Northwest West Academy no end.'

Principal Greenbeard's eyes lit up. ‘And a confused opponent is a weakened opponent!'

‘Exactly!' said Mr Brainfright. ‘Well, what do you think?'

Principal Greenbeard stroked his chin.
‘Hmmm,' he said. ‘Perhaps you're right, Brainfright. There's no denying that Northwest Southeast Central is in the doldrums. We've been all at sea for a long time—maybe a banana mascot is just the thing the crew needs to cure their sporting scurvy!'

That lunchtime Gretel, Newton, Jenny, Jack and I were sitting in our usual spot in the shade beside the basketball court, discussing the events of the morning, when Fred and Clive appeared.

‘Your teacher's a freak,' said Fred.

‘No, he's not,' said Jack. ‘He's a banana.'

‘Sorry,' said Fred. ‘My mistake. He's a banana-shaped freak.'

‘Good one, Fred,' said Clive, slapping his brother on the back.

‘If you think your teacher dressing up as a banana is going to help us beat Northwest West Academy, then you're wrong,' said Fred. ‘We haven't got a hope and you know it.'

‘At least he's trying,' said Gretel.

‘He can try all he likes,' said Fred, ‘but Northwest Southeast Central School will never beat Northwest West Academy. Not in a million
years . . . and not even with a million banana mascots.'

‘Hey, that's a great idea,' said Jack. ‘A million banana mascots! Imagine that!'

‘You can imagine all the banana mascots you like, Japes,' said Fred. ‘Imagine us winning while you're at it. Because that's the only place it's ever going to happen: in your mind!'

‘Why are you so negative?' asked Jenny. ‘Don't you want us to win?'

‘Sure I do,' said Fred, shrugging. ‘But we never will. It's not just Northwest West Academy we're up against—it's The Boa.'

‘Yeah, and you can't beat The Boa,' said Clive. ‘We've watched all his fights. My dad's got the twenty-DVD set,
The Greatest Wrestlers Ever in the History of the Entire World
—and The Boa takes up nineteen of them. He's a legend.'

‘Yeah?' said Jack. ‘Well, if he's such a legend, then how come he was thrown out of the World Wrestling Federation?'

Fred scowled and pointed at Jack angrily. ‘That was not his fault. It was a frame-up. He was attacked by the referee.'

‘Oh, really? That's not what I heard,' said Jack.

‘What did you hear?' said Fred.

‘That he started it,' said Jack.

‘Well, you heard wrong,' said Fred. ‘And if you
go around saying that, you'll be sorry.'

‘Why, what are you going to do?' Gretel challenged. ‘Tell The Boa?'

‘I might just do that,' said Fred, turning and walking away.

‘Yeah,' said Clive, trotting after him. ‘He might just do that.'

Even if we had a new mascot, we still had to go to the same old sports class. The next morning we were sitting outside on the oval while Mr Grunt called the roll.

When he finished, he put down his clipboard and gave us a bug-eyed stare. ‘In case you've forgotten,' he said, ‘the Northwest interschool athletics competition will soon be upon us.'

None of us, of course, had forgotten.

‘Now,' continued Mr Grunt, ‘in the unlikely event that any of you losers actually wins an event on the day, you are going to need to know how to stand on a winners' podium without falling off. Do any of you even know what a winners' podium is?'

Fiona put up her hand. ‘It's a set of three blocks, sir, of varying height. The winner stands on the highest block in the centre. The second place-getter stands on a lower block on the winner's
right and the third place-getter stands on another lower block on the winner's left. Just like the one behind you, sir.'

‘Very good, Fiona,' said Mr Grunt. ‘What a pity your legs don't work as fast as your brain.'

Fiona looked outraged. But she didn't dare say anything.

Mr Grunt went on with his lecture. ‘Now, you might think that climbing up onto one of these is a simple matter, but it's not as easy as it looks. Even someone as experienced at winning as I am can occasionally stumble. I remember when I once won a gold medal for something or other—there've been so many I can barely remember them all . . .'

I rolled my eyes. Mr Grunt was off on another story about his past sporting glories.

‘. . . as I went to mount the block, the roar of the crowd momentarily disoriented me and I stumbled. Luckily, thanks to my excellent reflexes and finely honed sense of balance, I was able to recover instantly, averting what could have turned a sporting triumph into nothing more than a highlight on a sporting bloopers show.'

Clive laughed.

‘Something funny, Durkin?' said Mr Grunt.

‘I like bloopers shows,' said Clive, still chuckling.

‘Well, that doesn't surprise me,' said Mr Grunt.
‘Bloopers shows are full of losers making mistakes for the amusement of other losers.'

Clive stopped laughing. ‘I'm telling my brother you said that,' he muttered.

Mr Grunt ignored him. ‘So, since none of you have my great reflexes and finely honed sense of balance, we are going to spend this lesson practising how to mount and stand on a winners' podium without falling off.' He looked around for a suitable victim. ‘Hooton, you're first up.'