The Zucchini Warriors

by Gordon Korman

  “What are you talking about?” bawled Carson, squeezing the delicate china cup in his hamlike fist. “Football builds character! It builds men!”

  “It builds slobs,” replied Klapper primly.

  Henry Carson was livid. “What makes you the big expert?” he challenged Klapper.

  Klapper looked vaguely shamed. “I may not look it,” he confessed, “but I was once a football addict. It filled my every waking moment. I spent my time in front of the television; I spent my money travelling all over the continent to games.” He shuddered. “I lost my job! My wife left me! I didn’t even notice! It was Super Bowl Sunday …” He lapsed into sudden silence.

  “Oh, you poor man!” sniffled Miss Scrimmage.

  “We’re back together again,” Klapper went on, “and I got a new job. But it was because I swore off football forever.”

  In the silence that followed, everyone heard Mr. Sturgeon sigh with resignation.

  “Would anyone care for some banana cream pie?” asked Mrs. Sturgeon brightly.

  * * *

  Bruno Walton didn’t normally get up for breakfast. But on Friday morning before the monthly assembly, he was established at the end of a long dining-hall table, holding court.

  “Okay, guys, here’s our strategy for the assembly.”

  “Bruno, you don’t need strategy for an assembly,” Boots explained patiently. “You go, and then when it’s over, you leave.”

  “But,” Bruno reminded him, “at the end of our assemblies, you hear bells. And before you know it, you’re looking at a plate of zucchini sticks.”

  “Good point,” said Wilbur, digging into a mountain of French toast. “Lay the strategy on us.”

  “It’s very simple. When the wagons come in, we act thrilled. Oh, wow, zucchini sticks. We line up, we get our plates, and we get out of there. We take them back and hide them in our rooms. And then, after lights-out, the Zucchini Disposal Squad visits every room, bags up the zucchini sticks and throws them in the woods.”

  “Sounds good,” said Pete. “Who’s the Zucchini Disposal Squad?”

  “Us,” Bruno announced grandly. “We’re the Zucchini Disposal Squad.”

  “Count me out,” chorused several voices. Other boys just glared.

  “Might I point out,” said Elmer timidly, “that what you’re describing is against the rules.”

  “And we’re supposed to be in training,” Boots added. “What if Hank the Tank spot-checks our rooms and tracks us down, dumping a truckload of his precious zucchini sticks in the woods?”

  A babble of protest rose.

  “Well, that’s fine,” said Bruno. “Anybody who wants out, just leave your name and room number with Boots. The Squad won’t bother you. You can get rid of your zucchini sticks yourself. You might even want to eat them.”

  “Bruno doesn’t fight fair,” said Sidney, pointing an accusing finger.

  “He’s a sleazeball,” Wilbur agreed. “But this time he’s right.”

  “Of course I’m right,” said Bruno. “So spread the word. I want every single guy in on this.”

  “I think I can help with that,” said Dave Jackson with a wry smile. “I’ve got this roommate — the Blabbermouth. You tell him a secret at five-thirty, and you can watch it on the six o’clock news!”

  * * *

  The strategy went without a hitch. Mr. Sturgeon began the assembly with his usual “study hard” lecture, and then turned the proceedings over to Henry Carson, who led a pep rally for the football team. This brought on baleful looks from Kevin Klapper. The zucchini wagons came right on schedule, and all seven hundred-plus students followed Bruno’s instructions exactly. Bruno described it as “a thing of beauty.”

  After lights-out that night, the Zucchini Disposal Squad, at a hundred percent attendance, began prowling the bushes from window to window, dumping plates of zucchini sticks and small containers of sauce into large green garbage bags.

  It took three boys, each making several trips, to drag the twelve overstuffed bags across the north lawn, past the football stadium and into the woods. The entire operation took less than an hour.

  Chapter 4

  The Greenhouse Effect

  “Peee-yew!” exclaimed Coach Flynn at football practice the next afternoon. “The whole field smells like a garbage dump! What happened here?”

  Bruno and Boots exchanged agonized glances. To them, as to most of the team, the stench was easily identifiable — rotting zucchini. Something had gone wrong with the perfect plan.

  Larry jogged over to them. “Bruno, remember last night when Elmer said if we left the zucchini sticks in the bags, the plastic would create a greenhouse effect and the zucchini would rot, and you said ‘Shut up, Elmer’?” He wrinkled his nose. “Well, I think I smell a greenhouse effect.”

  Boots went pale. “The Fish is going to go in there to check out the stink, and when he sees what it is, we’ll get expelled! Or, worse, we’ll have to clean it up!”

  Fortunately Mr. Carson was off working with the defence, and Coach Flynn was fully occupied trying to keep Calvin Fihzgart from dismembering the tackling dummy. So Bruno and Boots had no trouble sneaking away from the field and sprinting undetected into the woods.

  The smell was so strong the boys had to hold their noses as they ran to the scene of last night’s stash. There an incredible sight met their eyes. At least twenty fat raccoons were rooting around in the remains of the torn garbage bags, gnawing the batter coating off the zucchini sticks. The heap had also attracted every fly in the county, and the swarm hung in the air like a black cloud.

  “Oh, Bruno!” came Boots’s smothered voice from behind his hand. “What are we going to do about this?”

  Uncharacteristically Bruno had no answer. “Maybe we can just leave it, and act twice as amazed as everyone else when they find it.”

  “Why didn’t you listen to Elmer?” Boots accused. “He knew this would happen!”

  “Let’s be fair. He didn’t mention a word about raccoons.”

  “Bruno, you’re joking, and I’m dying! If we can’t get rid of this mess, The Fish is going to kill us!”

  Bruno shrugged. “So we’ll come back tonight and bury it.”

  “Bury it! The terrain in these woods is seventy-five percent rocks! You’d need dynamite to dig in here!”

  Bruno kicked at the ground experimentally. “Hmmm. I see what you mean. Well, where’s a good burying place around here?”

  “Let’s pray The Fish doesn’t know of one,” said Boots feelingly, “or we’ll be in it!”

  Bruno snapped his fingers. “Scrimmage’s apple orchard. It’s perfect.”

  “You’ll never convince the guys to do it,” said Boots positively.

  “Of course they’ll do it. It’s the only way.”

  * * *

  Just after midnight, the Zucchini Disposal Squad marched into the woods, armed with shovels and more green garbage bags.

  “To think that I could be safe and sound at Jefferson Junior High right now,” Dave Jackson was muttering. “But no. I had to come to Canada so I could shovel up rotten zucchini sticks. Oh, that smell!”

  “Bruno,” grumbled big Wilbur, “I just want you to know that tonight is the end. You’ll get no more loyalty from me after this. No human being should have to do what we’re going to be doing.”

  “I don’t see why I have to be here,” whined Elmer. “If you’d listened to me last night —”

  “Will you guys back off?” snapped Bruno, adjusting a high-powered flashlight. “I’ve got a nose, too, you know. This isn’t my idea of a good time, so I don’t want to hear any more complaining tonight.”

  “How about tomorrow?” asked Larry innocently.

  “Hey, did you guys know that Perry Elbert cuts his toenails with a bowie knife?” came the voice of Myron Blankenship.

  Bruno stopped in his tracks. “Wait a minute — who brought the Blabbermouth along?”

  “Me,” mumbled Dave. “It was either that or two weeks
of ‘Hey, did you guys know my roommate sneaks out in the middle of the night?’”

  “Okay,” said Bruno, “but you tell the Blabbermouth that if word of this gets out, he’s going down in the pit with the zucchini.”

  “Hey,” said Myron, “your secret is safe with me.”

  Boots shone his own flashlight to illuminate the zucchini mound. “There it is,” he announced grimly. “Those things up above it are flies.”

  “Oh, wow!” gasped Mark Davies. “All in favour of making Bruno do it himself say aye.”

  There was a chorus of strangled ayes. But eventually the group set themselves to the distasteful task of shovelling the decayed zucchini into their bags.

  The flies were terrible, and the workers battled against the smell by breathing as little as possible. Sidney succeeded in holding his breath so well that he blacked out and toppled face first into the slop heap. Mark, his roommate, hauled him out.

  “Sidney! Sidney, speak to me!”

  “Where am I?” Sidney asked groggily. “And what’s that terrible smell?”

  They worked on, fuelled by their desire to have it over with. But when the last bag was sealed, and they began dragging their load toward the highway, the smell came with them on the person of Sidney Rampulsky.

  “It was an accident,” said Sidney defensively.

  “Come on, guys,” said Boots. “Speed it up. We’ve got a lot of digging to do.”

  Grumbling all the way, the Disposal Squad pulled, pushed, rolled and carried its rancid cargo past the football stadium and the dormitories, and across the highway. They had quite a struggle heaving the bulky bags over the wrought-iron fence that surrounded Miss Scrimmage’s Finishing School for Young Ladies. Finally they trooped into the orchard, almost exhausted. The first shift of diggers manned the shovels.

  “Boo!!”

  Boots jumped like a terrified rabbit. “Bruno —”

  “Hi, guys.” Cathy strolled onto the scene, a nervous Diane in tow. “What’s going on?” She spied Elmer. “Oh, I get it. It’s a Drimsdale experiment.” She marched up to Elmer and shook his hand heartily. “Congratulations. You’ve created the ultimate stink bomb.”

  Elmer’s throat closed up as it always did in the presence of girls.

  Diane wrinkled her nose painfully. “What is it?”

  Wilbur supplied the answer. “Rotting zucchini. Tons of it.” He held out his shovel to Bruno. “It’s your turn. Start digging.”

  At last the hole was deemed deep enough, and the green bags were dumped into it. When the earth was filled in, the only remnant of the smell was Sidney, and even he was beginning to fade.

  Boots breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s over!”

  There was a sudden rustling in the underbrush behind them. Everyone wheeled just in time to see Miss Scrimmage burst onto the scene, dressing gown flapping, curlers bobbing, brandishing her shotgun.

  “Halt!”

  * * *

  Henry Carson stepped out of Dormitory 3 and paused, a thoughtful expression on his face. Walton and O’Neal weren’t in their beds, either. That made eight team members breaking training. Well, this was nothing unusual. Football players never obeyed the curfew. It was a tradition. Now, where would they be? His mind took him back thirty years to his own days at Macdonald Hall. Where would he be? Instantly he cast his eyes across the highway to Miss Scrimmage’s Finishing School for Young Ladies. Sure. Where else?

  He broke into a jog, crossed the highway at a trot and leapt over the fence in a single bound. The orchard. There were voices in the orchard. He cut his pace and moved stealthily toward the sounds. There, in a small clearing, a horrible sight met his eyes. Miss Scrimmage was holding a group of boys at gunpoint. And most of them were football players!

  “My team!” Hank the Tank Carson took off like a thundering buffalo. Roaring into the clearing, he left his feet and sailed through the air, hitting Miss Scrimmage just below the knees. The Headmistress went down like a sack of oats. She and Carson hit the ground with a resounding crunch.

  Boom! Boom! Both barrels of the shotgun went off harmlessly into the air. Echoes of the blasts reverberated about the countryside.

  “What a tackle!” breathed Cathy in awe.

  Miss Scrimmage scrambled to her feet. “Assault!” she shrieked. With a wild swing, she brought the butt of the shotgun down on Henry Carson’s head.

  “Mr. Carson!” cried Bruno. He rushed over to the fallen zucchini tycoon. “Can you hear me? It’s Bruno!” But the ex-linebacker was out cold.

  By this time, the orchard was teeming with girls in pink nighties as Miss Scrimmage’s dormitories emptied. There were lights on at Macdonald Hall as well, and pyjama-clad boys were beginning to dot the campus, curious as to the source of the shotgun blasts. The more adventurous of them ran across the highway to witness the goings-on first-hand.

  Through the milling crowd rushed a familiar figure in a red silk bathrobe and bedroom slippers. Mr. Sturgeon took in the scene in one horrified instant. He turned burning eyes on Miss Scrimmage.

  “Woman, what have you done?”

  “She didn’t shoot anybody!” Diane blurted out. “She just hit him!”

  Carson stirred and tried to sit up. “Ooooh!” he moaned, holding his head gingerly. “Did somebody get the licence number of that truck?”

  “See?” Cathy said triumphantly. “He’s alive!”

  Mr. Sturgeon looked around. Boys and girls were everywhere, but it was easy to locate the guilty parties. They were the sweaty, smelly ones not in pyjamas. In some annoyance, he noticed that Kevin Klapper was there, wrapped in a grey dressing gown, leaning against a tree, making extensive notes on a small steno pad.

  Boots grabbed Bruno. “The Fish is looking right at us!”

  “Listen,” said Bruno soothingly, “there are ten of us. Sure, we’ll get nailed, but no more than the other guys.”

  The two watched in paralyzing horror as Myron Blankenship ran over to the Headmaster and began a long story, complete with gestures which left no doubt that he was describing every single action of the Zucchini Disposal Squad. He finished with his finger pointing directly at Bruno and Boots.

  “That Blabbermouth!” Boots exclaimed. “I’ll kill him!”

  “No, you won’t,” said Bruno through clenched teeth. “I’ll kill him!”

  Finally Mr. Sturgeon and a few members of the Macdonald Hall staff managed to gather up the boys and Henry Carson and herd them back to their own side of the highway. Before sending them off to their rooms, a red-faced Headmaster directed the ten culprits to be in his office at eight o’clock in the morning.

  “We’re doomed!” Boots predicted mournfully.

  “Come on, Sidney,” said Mark kindly. “Let’s get you into the shower.”

  Dave was trudging along ahead of the rest. “Three downs, and now this,” he muttered, shaking his head. “You Canadians are nuts!”

  * * *

  Henry Carson, his head sporting a large white bandage, hefted his rake and regarded his neat mound of leaves.

  “So I said, ‘Mr. Sturgeon, if you’re going to punish my players, you’ll have to punish me, too.’ And he put me on leaf-raking duty.”

  The Zucchini Disposal Squad was spread out all over the rolling lawns of Macdonald Hall, raking the mid-September leaves as part of their punishment for the previous night’s incident. There was also a lot of dishwashing, essay writing and suspension of privileges divided up among the squad’s ten members.

  “Come on, Mr. Carson,” grinned Bruno, working his own section of grass. “You know you don’t have to do this.”

  “Forget it,” said Carson stoutly. “I refuse to allow The Fish to call my bluff. I’m holding out until he takes us all off punishment.”

  Boots laughed mirthlessly. “You’ll wait a long time.”

  “Probably. It’s unbelievable. Thirty years go by, and he still has my number. I’m in shock! My head hurts, too,” he added, touching his bandage gingerly.

  Bruno
scanned the skies. “One of these days it’ll rain, and we can get good and soaked, and sneeze in front of Mrs. Sturgeon. Then she’ll shame The Fish into letting us off the hook.”

  Carson looked at him with a new respect. “I never thought of that. Well, we’ve got to look at The Fish’s point of view, too. You know that needle-nosed guy who was at the riot last night? He’s an inspector from the Ministry of Education.”

  “Oh, no,” moaned Boots. “We really made a great impression.”

  Bruno shrugged. “It’s not our fault Miss Scrimmage is crazy. But it does explain why The Fish got so steamed over a minor incident. I’ve never seen so many guys getting chewed out at the same time that they wouldn’t all fit on the bench!”

  Boots snorted. “It was memorable — all of us crammed in there like sardines, The Fish hitting the ceiling, Elmer whimpering, the Blabbermouth filling in extra details —”

  “Come on, men,” interrupted Mr. Carson, quickening his pace. “We’ve got to get all this done by football practice.”

  As Mr. Carson raked his way north toward the stadium, Bruno and Boots worked in the opposite direction, and soon found themselves alongside Myron and Dave, with Elmer Drimsdale not too far away.

  Elmer looked at Bruno reproachfully. “I shouldn’t be here, you know. I should be with my bush hamsters. Time could run out on the whole species while I’m raking leaves.”

  But Bruno’s attention was on someone else. “Hey, Blabbermouth. How come you’re so quiet today? All talked out? Ever eat a rake? Want to try mine?”

  “Sorry about that,” said Myron blithely. “It just slipped out.”

  “Slipped out?!” howled Boots. “Two hours of details just slipped out?”

  Myron shrugged. “It won’t happen again. Hey, you guys don’t know about Chris Talbot’s ingrown toenail.”

  “Shut up,” said Dave.

  “They’re going to have to operate.”

  Dave looked earnestly at Bruno and Boots. “You see? Don’t be too hard on him. He can’t help it. He’s a blabbaholic. Whatever goes in his ears comes out his mouth.”

  “Well, okay,” said Bruno, “but from now on it’s your responsibility to control the Blabbermouth. If he sells us out and we have to kill him, it’s on your head.”