Eric Vale Epic Fail

by Michael Gerard Bauer

  For Meg who pointed out my ‘eric fail’ – MGB

  For Rita and all the hugs between the pages – JB

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epic Fail No. 1: My Nickname

  Epic Fail No. 2: The School Assembly

  Epic Fails Nos 3 to 7

  Epic Fail No. 8: The Annual Moreton Hill Primary School Swimming Carnival

  Copyright

  Epic Fail No. 1: My Nickname

  Ever had a nickname?

  And I’m not talking about something cool here like Dragon Slayer or Dark Knight or Masked Avenger or Strider. I mean one of those crummy names someone just hurls at you and then you’re stuck with it.

  ‘Hey, kid, your head’s a weird shape. I’m gonna call you Booger Brain from now on.’

  ‘Gee, thanks! That’s soooooo much better than Gary!’

  That sort of thing.

  The problem with most nicknames is you hardly ever get to choose the one you want. Just look at what happened to Cooper King last year in Year Four. He’s got this pretty good name, right, but then one day he turns up here at good old Moreton Hill Primary School and sits down in class same as normal – and everything changes.

  First up, Martin Fassbender, who’s sitting right behind him, lets out a moan like he’s just seen his own face in the mirror, and the next thing you know everyone around Cooper goes crazy. Some kids are choking and gulping for air. Other kids are holding their breath and turning blue.

  Most of the girls look like they’re going to pass out or throw up!

  And it’s all because there’s this killer pong coming from Cooper King and that’s because Cooper’s stepped on a giant piece of doggie–do on the way to school and it’s still plastered under one of his shoes like a squashed brown sausage, only he doesn’t know it. Anyway, now he can forget all about being good old ‘Cooper King’ any more, because somewhere in Martin Fassbender’s twisted brain a nickname has already popped up.

  And TAAA–DAAA!

  Just like magic, Cooper King changes into …

  Now whenever there’s a whiff of something in the classroom that smells like a giant rat has died while gagging on a skunk in a sewer (but which is probably just Pete Bunter doing his ‘thing’), Martin or someone else just has to shout out, ‘Oh, no! Run for your lives! It’s KING PONG and his killer POO SHOE!’

  Which was probably funny for the first twenty or thirty times it happened. Unless you’re Cooper King. See what I mean? Nicknames can be deadly. And not in a good way. Sean Nottingham would agree. His luck ran out when someone saw his name on a class list shortened to S. Nott.

  Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Snotty Nottingham! Ouch.

  Of course I guess you can be lucky. Some kids have pretty good nicknames. Like Tyler Webb gets to be called ‘Spider’, which is kind of cool, and ‘Micky’ Micareeno (who no one calls ‘Charles’ even though that’s his real name) and Robert Falou, who gets ‘Big Bob’ because he’s … well … big.

  And then there’s my best friend, William Rodriguez. His nickname is embarrassing enough, but the way he got it is even more embarrassing.

  That happened way back one day in Year Three when we were doing this class crossword puzzle on Types of Transportation. Our teacher, Miss Wu, was checking the answers and she says, ‘Who thinks they have the correct answer to three across? It has seven letters and means a type of train that carries cargo? A something train.’

  Of course the answer Miss Wu was looking for was ‘freight’ but for some reason William sticks his hand up and calls out, ‘Choo-Choo, Miss!’

  Have you met my crazy, best friend Choo-Choo Rodriguez? Chewy for short.

  But seriously, ‘Choo-Choo’ train? What was he thinking? That he was back in kindy or something? I suppose if the clue was People drive these on roads his answer would have been ‘Brm-brms’.

  But wait, it gets even crazier. William actually likes his nickname!

  I’m not kidding. He reckons that Choo-Choo Rodriguez has ‘a nice ring to it’. Chewy’s a bit weird like that. He thinks everything is pretty good. I blame his parents. They’re nice people, but they’re both life coaches. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but they go around saying stuff like, ‘If you think you can’t, you won’t! If you think you can, you will!’ and ‘There’s no such thing as failure, just delayed success!’

  They’ve even written books – POSITIVE Thinking for POSITIVE Results! and POSITIVE Advice for the POSITIVE Family!

  Chewy’s mum and dad are positively positive! about a lot of stuff. So’s Chewy. Including his stupid nickname.

  But this isn’t about Chewy and his stupid nickname. It’s about me and my stupid nickname. Once I used to be just plain old boring ERIC VALE. And that was totally fine by me. I didn’t want a nickname. But then one day, just like Cooper King, I got one anyway. And it ended up being way worse than Choo-Choo or Snotty or King Pong or even Booger Brain.

  Yep, no doubt about it. My nickname was an epic fail!

  o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•

  I got my nickname the first day back after the holidays. And it was all because of Secret Agent Derek ‘Danger’ Dale.

  Here’s what happened. Mr Winter, our Year Five teacher, was out the front of the class and he was going on about something or other. Mum reckons Mr Winter is ‘a lovely young man with the patience of a saint’. I think she’s got him mixed up with someone else. Except I guess Mr Winter is pretty hard to miss. He’s really tall and skinny and he’s got this weird red hair. He’d make a good traffic light. Only it would be stuck on STOP all the time.

  So anyway, while Mr Winter was up the front of the class, I was down the back minding my own business and looking through my Awesome Stories and Genius Thoughts Journal. That’s a journal where I keep all my awesome stories and genius thoughts. So far I haven’t had that many genius thoughts. Or any. But don’t worry. I’ve left heaps of blank pages just in case!

  But I did have lots of awesome action–adventure stories. The one I was working on that day was my best one ever. It was called The Totally Awesome Action Adventures of Secret Agent Derek ‘Danger’ Dale. I’d just started reading over the stuff I’d written in the holidays. I was up to a really good bit. That’s because Secret Agent Derek ‘Danger’ Dale was in big trouble …

  Secret Agent Derek ‘Danger’ Dale was in trouble. BIG trouble.

  See, told ya!

  He was surrounded by a hundred bloodthirsty ninja assassins. They were heavily armed. They were also heavily legged and heavily stomached. Let’s face it: they were just really, really fat. It was like an episode of Ninja Biggest Loser. Oh, and they had heaps of weapons too!

  Pretty exciting, huh? But wait, it gets even better!

  It was looking very bad for Secret Agent Dale. And the fact that he was handcuffed and about to be pushed off a high plank into a pool full of hungry crocs, deadly piranha and poisonous sea snakes didn’t help that much either.

  And neither did being naked except for a pair of old Batman undies. Old Batman undies that hadn’t been changed for a month. And had holes in them. Heaps of holes. Holes in very embarrassing places. More holes than actual undies.

  No doubt about it, Danger was in a WHOLE lot of trouble!

  I was on fire! I was going to try to do a big sketch of that last scene during the holidays, but when I told Chewy, he said he’d do it for me.

  Chewy’s mum and dad reckon he has a ‘special gift’ when it comes to art.

  I’m not so sure.

  But anyway, Mr Winter was still going on about something or other out the front of the class so I kept reading.

  The narrow plank Derek was bal
ancing on began to creak and bend. Five metres below him, the water was thrashing with starving and deadly flesh-eating monsters. The point of a ninja sword stabbed into Derek’s back, pushing him even further forward.

  Then an angry voice shouted at him …

  ‘Eric Vale! Concentrate!’

  ‘Huh? What? Oh, yeah, yeah, I am, Mr Ninja – aaah, I mean Whinger – I mean Winter!’

  For some reason Mr Winter was giving me a bit of a Death Stare. I thought I’d better concentrate like he said. So I tried. I really did. But it wasn’t easy. It never is for me. You see, my mind tends to wander a teeny, weeny bit sometimes. Okay, who am I kidding? It’s more like my mind goes off on long hiking trips all by itself and leaves no forwarding address!

  Last year at our Year Four Parent–Teacher night Mrs McGurk told my parents that I had an ‘overactive imagination’. Mrs McGurk didn’t really look that happy about it.

  But Mum said, ‘Rubbish! Imaginations are supposed to be active. The more active the better! Eric’s imagination is fine. Perhaps some people just need to try a little harder to keep up with it!’

  Mrs McGurk was looking even less happy after Mum said that. My mum was looking pleased. My little sister Katie was looking bored. My dad was looking embarrassed. I was looking for a way out of there!

  But seriously, how was I supposed to concentrate on what Mr Winter was going on about when Secret Agent Dale was handcuffed, wearing only his stinky, holey, month-old underpants, surrounded by a hundred deadly ninjas and about to be shoved off a plank into a pool of crocs, piranha and sea snakes? It just wasn’t possible!

  I guess that’s why even though I tried to pay attention, my eyes sort of ended up back on my journal …

  ‘Move!’

  The angry voice came from the angry ninja at his back.

  Agent Dale crept forward on the plank. While his toes curled over the edge and gripped tight, his expertly trained secret agent eyes darted back and forth looking for something – anything! – that he could use to save himself. A rusty paper clip perhaps, a tiny piece of broken glass, a lost nose stud, a carelessly misplaced rocket launcher.

  But there was nothing. Nothing at all! The situation was hopeless! This time it really looked like the end for …

  ‘Eric Vale! Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?’

  Mr Winter was standing right beside my desk! How did he get there without me seeing him? Did he teleport himself? There was no time to work it out. He was frowning at my journal. I slapped it shut.

  ‘Yes, sir, I’ve been listening. Every word!’

  ‘Every word? Well, that’s excellent, Eric. I’m pleased. So … what was I just talking about?’

  ‘Talking about? You, sir? Just now? Well … you … were talking … a … booooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuut …’

  Come on, brain! Help me out here! I really had been concentrating for a little while there. Surely something must have got through.

  Then I had it! Mr Winter had said something about Tyrannosaurus rex. I remembered that because it got me thinking about the movie Jurassic Park. Only I thought wouldn’t it be funny if it was really called Jurassic PORK and all the dinosaurs looked like giant pigs and that made me think about …

  ‘Eric? Any time before nightfall would be good.’

  ‘Huh? Oh, right. Um, you were talking about … um … dinosaurs? Like how they’re extinct and everything?’

  Mr Winter pushed out his bottom lip a bit and he nodded.

  ‘Well, yes, Eric. You are completely correct. I was talking about dinosaurs …’

  ‘… around twenty minutes ago.’

  ‘What’s that, sir?’

  ‘I said, Eric, that I was talking about dinosaur extinction, but that was about twenty minutes ago. Since then, while your mind has obviously been elsewhere, I have been talking about the problems of introduced species and the alarming number of present-day animals that are on the brink of extinction.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Winter …’

  ‘I know, Eric. You always are. But if I find you tuning out and drifting off into your own little world just one more time, then I’m afraid I’ll have to confiscate that journal of yours and you will have some catching up to do with me at lunchtime. Now let’s see if we can focus for the remainder of the lesson, shall we? After all, entire animal species on the brink of extinction is an extremely serious and important topic.’

  It was too. And the last thing I wanted to do was lose my journal and spend my lunchtime with Mr Winter! So I did exactly what he asked. I focused. I pushed every other thought out of my head. Nothing or no one was going to sidetrack me this time. It was definitely time to CONCENTRATE ON THE TOPIC!

  All righty then, let’s see, animals on the ‘brink of extinction’. I was all over it. I had myself right in the ‘brink of extinction’ zone. There was just no room in my mind for anything else but ‘brink of extinction’ stuff. Yep, no doubt about it, being on the ‘brink of extinction’ would totally suck! Wow, just think – what if you were the one on the ‘brink of extinction’? Just imagine what that would be like!

  I grabbed my pen and threw open my journal.

  Looks like I’m on the brink of extinction, just like all those poor, threatened animal species, Agent Dale thought as his toes started to lose their grip.

  Nothing could possibly save him now.

  But then … HE SAW IT!

  Awesome! Brilliant! Genius!

  Except … I had no idea what Secret Agent Derek ‘Danger’ Dale had just seen that was going to save him! What could it be?

  I checked out what Mr Winter was doing. He was up at the whiteboard still going on about something or other, so I looked around the classroom for some ideas.

  Let’s seeeeeeee … What could Secret Agent Dale posssssssssssibly have spotted that he could use in some super-tricky secret agent way to help him escape? Hmmmmmm. What … could … it … beeeeeeee …? We’ve got pens … pencils … rulers … staplers … books … ribbons … hair clips. They’d all be kind of useful, but no way would you find any of them lying around when you’re standing on a plank in just your undies. There had to be something else in the classroom that could help me come up with a brilliant idea.

  But there was nothing! Nothing at all! The situation was hopeless! This time it really looked like the end for my Secret Agent Derek ‘Danger’ Dale story! Nothing could possibly save it now!

  But then … I SAW IT!

  Sitting two desks across from me was Big Bob – Class Captain, tug-of-war legend and small planet. He was leaning back with his shirt stretched over his stomach. A couple of buttons had popped open. Part of Big Bob’s belly was sticking out.

  I had my answer! There wasn’t a moment to lose. Time to save Derek ‘Danger’ Dale!

  I began scribbling in my journal …

  The ninja army surrounding Agent Dale was chanting for blood. In seconds he knew his toes would lose their hold on the thin plank and he would plunge to a ghastly death.

  But ‘Danger’ Dale wasn’t thinking about any of that. He was gazing down at his stomach and the big piece of greasy, grey fluff he’d just plucked from deep within his bellybutton – and he was smiling!

  ‘Could be a bit tricky,’ Dale said, rubbing the bellybutton fluff between two fingers, ‘but it just might work.’

  Agent Dale quickly rolled the smelly fluff into a tight pointy shape. He stuck it into the lock of his handcuffs and jiggled it around. The handcuffs clicked open.

  YEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!

  WOOHOOOOOO! Thanks for your help, Big Bob!

  But I couldn’t stop there, could I? I mean, what about those ninjas? And what about the pool of hungry crocs, flesh-chomping piranha and poisonous sea snakes? What was Derek Dale going to do? He’d need a bomb or some sort of deadly weapon to get rid of those things. I scratched my head. I chewed on my pen. If I couldn’t think of something, Agent Dale was doomed! But what? He was almost naked. Where would he possibly get a deadly weapon from?

  U
mmmmmmm … Aaaaaaaahhhhhh … Maaaaaaaaaaaybeeeeeeee … GOT IT! My pen was flying across the page.

  Once he was free of the cuffs, Derek whipped off his disgusting, mouldy, month-old undies and threw them into the pool below. As soon as they hit the water it turned green and began to bubble. Dozens of humungous crocodiles struggled to escape but they all collapsed and died. Hundreds of bloated piranha and sea snakes floated belly-up on the surface.

  All right! I was on fire! Now for those ninjas!

  Derek spun round to face his would-be executioner. He stuck out his hand and pointed the spiky bellybutton fluff at the ninja whose sword had been forcing him to his death. He was the size of a bear and from what Derek could make out, twice as hairy but only half as friendly.

  ‘This is fluff straight from my bellybutton, my friend,’ Derek shouted as he waved it around, ‘and I’m not afraid to use it!’

  The giant fur-ball ninja frowned and looked down at the puny fluffy spike in Derek’s hand. Then he threw back his head and laughed hysterically.

  A puny piece of bellybutton fluff? That’s never going to stop a giant ninja with a sword! What was I thinking? Of course that ninja would laugh hysterically. Who wouldn’t? What a dumb thing for Agent Dale to do. I mean, he must have known he’d just get laughed at … Hey … wait on … Maybe he totally did know that …