“How can we play them and keep a straight face?!” Marybeth hooted.
“Hey, guys, can you loan me your makeup?” Roxanne jeered. “I left my lip gloss in my locker!”
“Eat dirt, Roxanne,” Victor yelled. “You’re going down.”
“Ooh, Cody, was your old headmaster too poor to buy you real sticks?” Virginia sneered. “Whose bones did you use? The eighth-graders’?”
“They couldn’t afford team uniforms, either,” Marybeth called. “Hey, Carlos. Your tie’s come undone.”
“Losers, losers, Splurch boys are losers,” Brittany and Brooke chanted.
Cody gritted his teeth but said nothing. He got into position.
The boys won the coin toss. The whistle blew, and Cody flicked the ball to Victor, who took off running, dribbling around Marybeth and passing it quickly back to Cody. Cody dodged Roxanne and passed the ball over to Carlos, who snagged it away from Brittany—or Brooke—and passed it back to Cody.
Hey, Cody thought. So far, so good! We might beat the girls after all!
Then Virginia attacked. She whizzed past Cody, snagging the ball out from under him and whacking it down the field. Marybeth was there first. She passed it to Roxanne, who fired a goal so hard the ball punctured through the netting.
1—0, Priscilla Prim.
The stands went wild.
Farley chewed his fingernails.
Referee Bilgewater dropped the ball at the midline, and Cody passed it to Victor again—the last thing the girls would expect, he figured. Victor dribbled down the field, then doubled back and made a long pass to Carlos. Carlos outmaneuvered Brooke—or Brittany—and passed it to Cody.
Marybeth sprinted past Cody and scooped the ball up before he could get his stick on it. She fired a long pass to Virginia, who waited in perfect position.
BAM. Mugsy spun like a top as the ball whistled past him.
2—0, Priscilla Prim.
Miss Prim waved a set of pom-poms and cackled with delight while the girls slapped one another on the back.
The whistle blew. Cody flicked the ball to Carlos, who passed the ball back.
“Foul! Foul!” screamed Farley, but Referee Bilgewater held up her hands.
“Splurch rules,” she said. “All’s fair.”
Priscilla Prim shrieked with delight. “It was your idea, Starchy-Archie-Farchie,” she cried. “Your boys are too wimpy to win!”
To everyone’s surprise, Mugsy blocked Marybeth’s shot on goal, and hit the ball down the field toward Ratface, the sweeper. Brittany and Brooke appeared out of nowhere, intercepting and passing the ball until they were inside the shooting circle. They set up a sweet pass for Roxanne, who fired the ball into the goal, right between Mugsy’s feet.
3—0, Priscilla Prim.
The crowd in the risers went berserk, stomping and screaming. Princess did backflips in her seat.
Dr. Farley wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Okay, men,” Cody yelled. “Take no prisoners! Don’t hold back! We’re fighting for our lives, and don’t forget it!”
Virginia intercepted Carlos’s next pass and took off toward the Splurch goal. Cody chased after her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Farley rise to his feet and pull his walkie-talkie from his pocket.
Back in the game, Roxanne was making a beeline for the goal. Nobody could catch her. Cody’s heart sank.
Then, miracle of miracles, Sully intercepted Roxanne!
It might have been an accident. Nobody seemed more surprised than Sully himself. Roxanne was almost to the goal before she even realized she’d lost possession.
“Sully!” Victor screamed. “I’m open!”
“Over here, Sully-meister,” Carlos yelled. “To me! To me!”
From the corner of his eye, Cody saw Marybeth barreling down the field to clobber Sully. He had to think fast, while they still had possession.
“TIME!” he screamed. He made a T sign with his hands.
Bilgewater looked puzzled. “T-what?”
“TIME OUT, SPLURCH!”
Bilgewater blew her whistle. Cody and the other boys joined in a huddle.
“We’ve got to think of something,” Cody said. He scrubbed his face paint off onto his sweater. “Anything! We’ve got to win this game! Does anybody have any tricks up their sleeves?”
Ratface reached up his sleeve. “I have some water balloons filled with Jell-O,” he said.
“What on earth do you have those for?” Victor shook his head in disgust.
“You never know when things like this may come in handy,” Ratface sniffed.
“I don’t want to beat these girls with Jell-O. I want to beat them with muscle!” Victor pounded his fist in his palm.
“Good luck with that,” Sully said. “Come on. Let’s just do our cheer.
BOOM.
“Hands in the middle,” Cody said. “One, two, three, gooooo team!”
BOOM.
They all stopped. The ground underfoot was vibrating.
BOOM.
The boys looked at one another.
Voices from the stands were starting to cry out in alarm.
BOOM.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE DINOSAUR
“I warned you, Cody Mack,” Farley shrieked. “Sic ’em, Rover!”
The dinosaur blasted his fiery breath, and the grass became a roaring wall of flames.
Priscilla unclipped Princess’s leash. The little monkey hopped and screamed.
With a jet of flaming barf-breath, Rover blasted the bleachers. They went up in flames like matchsticks.
“Run to the plane,” Cody yelled. “Go!”
They heard a sound like a million bass drums.
It was Princess. Growing.
At the sight of Princess, the dinosaur reared back its head and roared at the sky.
In reply, the monkey bared its primate lips and shrieked a deafening battle cry.
There was a metallic scream. Cody glanced over his shoulder to see the dinomonster’s massive clawed foot smash through Dr. Farley’s old, repaired Cadillac like it was a loaf of sandwich bread.
Farley screamed. “Bad dog, Rover! Bad dog!”
The monster-monkey picked up the warped sedan and heaved it at the dinosaur. Its bones collapsed in a heap, then—clackety-clack—reassembled themselves. Rover’s red eyes blazed with murderous fury. He roared at the gigantic monkey.
“Guys!” Cody cried. “Let’s not stick around to watch!”
The boys ran like there was a hungry troll on their tail. They reached the plane and clambered up onto the lower wing. Cody hopped into the pilot’s seat, and Victor, the first in line, hopped into the compartment behind him.
They squeezed into the plane like sardines. The playing field below looked like a war zone. Rover galloped over to the Academy and blasted it with his fire-breath. The shrubbery caught fire.
“Go, Rover!” Ratface yelled. “Go, Rover! Burn down the school!”
“Can it, doofus!” Sully yelled. “He’s here to eat us! Don’t let him hear you squawking.”
Princess leaped toward the Academy building, clung to the topmost tower, and swung her body around to topple the dinosaur with a mighty kick.
But no sooner did Rover hit the ground than his bones reassembled, angrier than ever.
Cody flipped levers and flicked switches on the old plane. How do you fly this thing? He twisted a key. The plane coughed to life. A miracle.
“Spin the propeller!” Cody shouted.
Victor hopped out, gave a propeller blade a mighty heave, and climbed in the plane.
“Floor it, Cody,” Sully yelled.
Rover was chasing them.
“You can’t outrun him, Cody!” Sully yelled. “Lift off!”
“Just a little faster . . .” Cody leaned on the throttle for all he was worth. At last, when Rover was ready to take a bite out of the plane’s tail, Cody grabbed the control column and pulled back. The plane’s nose rose, and she sailed into the sky
.
Rover sent a fiery jet of his flaming breath after Priscilla’s plane. It didn’t reach the plane, but the blast of hot air made the wings flip. The plan started spinning out of control. It was like the best—or worst—amusement park ride of Cody’s life.
Cody pulled as hard as he could on the control column, but the plane was gyrating wildly.
“So long, world!” he yelled. “Adios, Mom and Dad and Snarfy!”
The plane leveled just in time, and they thumped down, bouncing and skidding, right side up on the playing field.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE BODYGUARD
For a second Cody only saw colorful specks. Then his eyes focused.
The mighty dinosaur was lumbering toward them.
Then, from out of nowhere, the Priscilla Prim field hockey team appeared. They climbed up the wings and elbowed the boys aside, crawling into the overcrowded passenger bay.
“No way!” Cody yelled. He tried to block Virginia from crawling into the cockpit beside him. “This is our plane. We stole it fair and square!”
Without a word, Virginia leaned into her turn and executed a neat barrel roll and loop, flying low enough to clip Rover’s thick skull with her landing gear. He growled and snapped at the air.
Cody was relieved not to have to pilot the plane. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
“Not without Miss Prim,” Virginia said.
Cody caught sight of Farley, still talking into his walkie-talkie and grinning like the mayhem was a Sunday picnic. His mother, Madame Desdemona Chartricia Sackville-Smack, snoozed in her wheelchair, oblivious. Priscilla ran over to Farley, shouting and pointing at the plane. She walloped him with her purse.
That second, Rover stopped fighting with Princess and looked at Farley and Priscilla. He dove for the would-be headmistress of Splurch Academy and clutched her between his two clawed, reptilian hands.
“He’s got Miss Prim, Virginia!” The girls seated behind Cody shrieked. “The big monster’s got Miss Prim!”
Princess was out of her mind with rage. She seemed unsure of who needed protection more: Miss Prim or the girls. She chose her mistress. While Virginia circled around the Academy and swung back for another attack, the monkey dismantled Rover’s tailbones and kicked a leg out from under him. But he only snapped back together again. Virginia swooped low and knocked him in the skull once more.
“That oughta give him a headache,” Virginia said.
“It would if he had a brain,” Cody answered.
“Have you got any better ideas?”
“Plow right into him,” Cody suggested. “Chop him up with your propellers.”
Virginia frowned. “What if Miss Prim gets hurt?”
Cody looked at Rover’s gigantic teeth. “If you don’t try, she’ll get eaten for sure.”
Virginia nodded, then did a loop-de-loop over the field. “Hold on tight,” she yelled, gritting her teeth and clutching the control column tightly.
They swung low, flying right over the grass. “Stay on target,” Virginia chanted. “Stay on target!”
Mugsy and Sully covered their eyes.
Rover looked up just in time to see them coming. He hopped to one side. The plane’s wing struck Princess in the chest. The gigantic monkey bodyguard fell to the earth with a thud. The plane screeched to a halt on the turf.
“Missed!” Cody cried.
“No, we didn’t,” Virginia said. “We hit Princess!” She watched the fallen monster-monkey with eyes filled with tears. “She’s not getting up! Princess! I can’t believe I killed Princess!” Roxanne put an arm around her, too sad to speak.
The dinosaur’s head shook up and down. The evil beast was actually laughing! It wagged its bony dino-tail.
Then the dinosaur held Priscilla Prim where it could get a better look at her. She kicked and screamed at it. It roared back in return, nearly blasting off Miss Prim’s wig.
“Carlos, did you see that?” Cody said. “What on earth was Uncle Rastus doing?”
Virginia sniffed. “He found Miss Prim’s lost treasure,” she said. “She’s a witch. I never knew we were searching for a stolen broom.”
“Look at Uncle Rastus,” Carlos said. “He’s running back into the school. I thought he wanted to escape from there.”
“Um, Cody,” Sully said. “Can we fly? Rover’s back for another game of fetch.”
“Get your mitts off my students!” Priscilla shrieked. She sat on her broom, holding an enchanted fireball.
She flung the fireball. Rover exploded like he’d swallowed a bomb, with bones flying every which way. When the dust settled, there was a huge hole in the ground, like a meteor’s crater, with Rover’s bones at the bottom. “That’s for Princess!”
But the dinosaur couldn’t be beaten so easily. His bones began reassembling just as before.
Then a skeleton appeared by the side of the crater. Uncle Rastus held a lab beaker in his hand. He held it up high.
“NO!” Farley shrieked. “Not the antidote! Nooooooo!”
Uncle Rastus flung the liquid, beaker and all, onto Rover’s reassembled body. The glass shattered, and the liquid fizzed and smoked. Slowly, slowly, Rover began to sway from side to side like a skyscraper in a hurricane. Back. Forth. Back. Forth.
CRASH.
Down he went in a pile of bones. And stayed there.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE TRUCE
“Thanks, Uncle,” Priscilla said. She landed her broom on the grass and raced to Princess’s side. The kids watched from the plane as the massive monkey shrank back down to her original size, and then lay still on the grass. Priscilla cradled her in her arms.
“Princess,” Farley’s sister crooned. “Princess, wake up!”
But the monkey didn’t move.
Priscilla Prim reached into her pocket, pulled out her box of breath mints, and popped one between Princess’s teeth.
“If you’re dead, you don’t have breath at all,” Cody muttered. “Stinky or otherwise.”
“Quiet,” Virginia hissed. “Don’t you know a touching scene of denial when you see one?”
But Priscilla didn’t look like someone in grief. She looked at her watch like she had no worries at all. She examined her long-lost broom like it was her favorite birthday present.
“It’s all over, Archie-Farchie,” Priscilla told her brother. “We won the game, and the terms of the bet are set. You proposed them yourself. Don’t forget to leave the keys. Pack your things and go!”
“Why, you . . . !” Farley gnashed his teeth. “The rules say the game needs two complete periods before a winner is determ—”
“Rules, schmools,” Priscilla said. “Get over it. And be sure you take those hoodlum teachers of yours with you.”
Just then, Princess hiccuped.
“There you are, sweetikins!” Priscilla cried. She beamed at her injured pet. “Had a nice nap? Mumsy was so proud of her heroic angel monkey!”
“You are not the winner!” Farley cried. “You robbed me of my pet. You can’t have my school as well!”
He marched over to the wheelchair where their mother, Madame Desdemona Chartricia Sackville-Smack, the Grand Inquisitrix of the League of Reform Schools for Fiendish Children, and the ultimate authority behind Splurch Academy, was seated.
“Mummy!” he cried.
“You said yourself that all was fair in this war,” Farley retorted. “Splurch house rules. Anything goes!”
“Your team had zero points, Archie-Farchie,” Priscilla said. “My girls were annihilating your boys before you brought out your little pet to gobble up all the athletes.” She stroked Princess’s fur. “Besides, your monster died and mine didn’t. So that makes my school for total winners.” She smirked. “Your school’s for total losers.”
Farley scowled at his sister. He tugged on his mother’s sleeve. “Say something, Mummy!” he pleaded. “Tell Priscilla to take her nasty girls and go home!” He stroked her arm. “I’ll make you your favorite hot t
oddy with extra molasses.”
Priscilla Prim made a noise of disgust. “You’re pathetic.” She stroked her mother’s other arm. “Mumsy, dear, I’ll make you crab apple scones drenched in butter.”
Desdemona Sackville-Smack’s droopy eyes rolled back in her head. “Time for my nap now,” she said.
Her head drooped. Madame Sackville-Smack drifted back to sleep.
“You see? You see?” Priscilla was triumphant. “She said, ‘Listen to your big sister.’ That means I win!”
Their mother’s eyes opened once more. “Hmph? Huh? What? What’d I say?”
Priscilla hopped up and down. “You said Archie should listen to me. Which is like saying I’m in charge. And I won the game, anyway, so I ought to be in charge. And . . .”
“Share,” Desdemona said. She smacked her lips together and sighed. “Someone, wheel me to my room. I’m so tired. Share, you two. Or you’ll wish you had.”
“I won’t share with her,” Farley declared. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t . . .”
Priscilla wailed like a little girl. “Mother, I can’t share with Archie! You know I can’t! He’s a lying, sneaking, underhanded little beast! And a bad dresser. Mother, please, please don’t make me do it. Mother!” She shook her mother’s shoulder until the ancient woman woke up once more.
“Can’t a body get any rest around here?” Desdemona snapped. She raised a menacing finger. “NOT another word. Or I’ll send you BOTH to time-out for teasing your poor old mother! Now, wheel me in.”
The adults marched off toward the building, leaving the kids to climb down out of the airplane by themselves.
“I want that hot toddy and the buttered crab apple scones you promised,” Madame Desdemona told her children. “Don’t think for a minute that I wasn’t listening.”
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