by Mo O'Hara
‘What?’ cried Camille. ‘That’s terrible!’
‘We’ve got to figure out how to reverse this,’ Pradeep butted in. ‘If Mark can use the handshake to drain people’s sportiness, there’s got to be a way to get it back.’
‘But why weren’t all of the St Agnes track team affected?’ I thought out loud.
‘Most of them managed not to shake hands with Mark,’ Camille said. ‘Too many germs, remember?’
‘So where are they then?’ Pradeep asked.
‘Locked in the school bus,’ Camille said. ‘That’s what I was coming to tell you. We were heading into the gym when one of the girls spotted this little kitten on its own in a box by the bus. When she went to pick it up, the kitten ran into the bus and upstairs to the changing rooms. Everyone, including the sports coach, kept shrieking about how cute it was and followed it.’
‘Did the kitten have strangely long front teeth,’ I murmured, ‘that looked a bit like . . . ?’
‘Fangs?’ Camille, Pradeep and I said at the same time.
‘Fang used her power of cuteness to lure the girls on to the top deck of the bus,’ Pradeep said, shaking his head. ‘Will that evil kitten stop at nothing?’
‘I’m not really into cute furry things,’ Camille said. ‘That’s why I didn’t bother going up. I much prefer tropical fish. Once they were all up there, the kitten slipped out through their legs, ran through the door, kicked it closed and somehow jumped up and grabbed the key! She ran off with it in her mouth.’
‘That’s pretty impressive,’ I said, finding a more comfortable position on the grass. ‘Even if it is completely evil!’
‘I’ve spent the last twenty minutes trying to pick the lock,’ Camille went on, ‘but it’s no good. And the emergency exit is blocked by gym equipment. They’re really stuck in there. Plus, it looks as if I missed the hundred-metre dash!’ she added, and scuffed the gravel with her trainer.
‘The next event – the javelin throw – is about to start. Will the competitors please take their places on the playing field?’ the announcer boomed over the loudspeaker. ‘Speed-knitting finalists, please head to the blue tent. Round two of the poetry challenge will be in the yellow tent.’
‘We can’t let Mark win . . .’ I whispered to Pradeep and Camille. ‘Or he’ll get to build his Evil Science lab, and then he’ll be . . . well . . . even MORE evil . . .’ I trailed off.
‘Tom!’ Pradeep shook me awake. ‘What are we going to do? There’s no one sporty left!’
‘You have to do it,’ I mumbled. ‘You have to throw the javelin, Pradeep.’
By now, the rest of the chess-club kids had arrived, and while they helped me into a seat in the spectator stands closest to the throwing circle, Camille grabbed Pradeep by the arm and dragged him down to choose a javelin. I looked around hopefully in case someone had left some half-finished knitting nearby, but no one had.
Camille was first. She got into position, pulled back her arm and threw with all her might. The javelin flew a good way before it landed. The officials went out to mark her distance and then Pradeep was up.
Pradeep looked back at me as he stood on the dirt circle. ‘I really don’t think today can get any worse,’ his look said.
‘Pradeep!’ The shout of shame echoed across the field. ‘Cooooeee! It’s Mummy.’
‘Or maybe it could,’ Pradeep’s look added.
‘I just want to check that the javelin has been cleaned properly,’ Mrs Kumar shouted. ‘I have antibacterial wipes!’
Sami skipped along after Pradeep’s mum, who was bustling towards the throwing circle, waving her wet wipes.
‘Hi, Tom!’ Sami waved at me as they went past. ‘Me got swishy fishy!’ She held up the water bottle and I suddenly had a brilliant idea.
‘Sami!’ I yelled. ‘Can you give the bottle to Pradeep?’
While Pradeep’s mum wiped down the javelin, Pradeep’s hands and the official’s hands with her antibacterial wipes, Sami handed her big brother the water bottle.
I saw Pradeep peek inside, then pat Sami on the head and set the bottle down next to him in the circle. Mrs Kumar planted an especially embarrassing kiss on Pradeep’s head, handed Pradeep the spotless javelin and then led Sami back to the stands.
It was time for Pradeep to take his throw. Just as the javelin was about to leave his hand . . . Frankie launched himself out of the bottle in a blur of orange and chomped Pradeep square on the bum, before plopping back into the water with a splash!
‘YaaaaaaaAAAaawwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhh!’
Pradeep yelled as he hurled the javelin with more force than I had ever seen Pradeep hurl anything.
The officials measured the throw while Pradeep rubbed his bottom. ‘Thanks, Frankie,’ I could see him saying. And, ‘Ouch!’
Incredibly, the distance was a straight tie with Camille’s throw! Now there was only Mark left to go. As he walked up to the throwing spot, he grinned and said something to Pradeep that looked like, ‘Nice shot, moron. Let me shake your hand to congratulate you,’ but Pradeep wrapped both his hands around the water bottle and backed away.
Mark started to prepare for his throw . . . and that’s when I noticed the little furry tail sticking out from the hood of his sweatshirt. It had to be Fang! Maybe she still had the key to the coach and we could get the girls from St Agnes out?
I dragged myself out of my seat and started to move towards the throwing area so I could warn Pradeep.
Just as Mark was about to let go of the javelin, a shot of orange sprang from the water bottle in Pradeep’s hands, bounced off the throwing circle and landed in the hood of Mark’s sweatshirt.
‘Frankie!’ I croaked, speeding up.
Mark lurched, distracted by the wrestling match taking place in his hood – and his javelin went high, landing in exactly the same place as Pradeep’s and Camille’s.
He yanked his thrashing hoodie over his head. ‘Moron fish!’ I could just hear him whining. ‘You ruined my throw!
He ducked into an empty officials’ tent at the edge of the throwing area while the officials measured his distance, and I noticed that he was closely followed by Sami, who had somehow escaped from Mrs Kumar’s watchful gaze.
‘Bad kitty. Bad fishy. No fighting!’ I could hear her shouting.
By the time Pradeep, Camille and I made it to the tent, Mark had dropped the thrashing sweatshirt and was nursing a scratched thumb.
‘Naughty!’ Sami said in her most serious toddler voice.
I could hear a muted ‘Miaoowww!’ from Fang and an apologetic but muffled ‘Grrr!’ from Frankie.
‘Play nice,’ Sami said sternly to the hoodie, which immediately stopped shaking.
‘How does the little moron do that?’ Mark asked.
‘Is she really talking to . . . a kitten and a fish?’ asked Camille.
Pradeep and I shrugged as Sami carefully unwrapped the hoodie. But all we found inside was . . . Fang!
‘Frankie!’ Pradeep and I yelled at the same time.
‘Drop fishy,’ Sami said in her cute but serious toddler voice. ‘Now!’
With a splutter, Fang spat out Frankie and Pradeep quickly scooped him up and put him back into the water bottle. His gills flapped gently, then he opened his glowing green eyes and tried to launch himself straight back out!
Pradeep quickly shoved his hand over the top of the bottle. ‘It isn’t worth it!’ he whispered to Frankie.
‘Come on, evil kitty,’ Mark snapped. ‘Let’s make sure we win this thing.’ Then he grabbed Fang, covered her with his hoodie and stormed back on to the field.
The loudspeaker crackled into life. ‘We have combined the points from all the sporting and intellectual events and we can now announce . . .’ There was a pause during which you could hear bits of paper being shuffled around. ‘. . . there is a tie between all three schools!’
The crowd in the stands muttered excitedly.
‘We will take a short break to reset the track for the final event. This will
be an obstacle race that will incorporate all the elements of the day! Please choose TWO competitors from each school. The race will start in thirty minutes!’
‘Now’s our chance,’ Pradeep said. ‘We’ve got to find out how Mark is sapping people’s sportiness with his handshake and then figure out how to reverse the process.’
‘And we’ve got to free the St Agnes track team!’ Camille added. ‘Is your fish OK? It looked like . . . well . . . it looked like its eyes were glowing, and that it was trying to fight that evil kitten. But . . .’
She was interrupted by a sound from the water bottle like a fish clearing a hairball followed by a very loud BUUUURP! Frankie had coughed up a shining silver key! He popped his head out of the top and held it up to Camille.
‘Rude fishy,’ Sami giggled.
‘That’s no ORDINARY goldfish,’ Camille gasped.
Frankie winked and splashed back into the bottle.
‘Actually he’s a zombie goldfish,’ I admitted. ‘It’s a bit of a long story.’
‘He must have wrestled the key off Fang and swallowed it for safe keeping while they were fighting!’ Pradeep said. ‘Nice one, Frankie!’
At that moment the chess-club kids arrived. ‘There you are!’ said Felix French.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Chin Li.
‘Is it something evil?’ asked Kofi Johnson.
‘How can we help?’ said Susan Church.
‘Mark has been draining people’s sportiness by using his handshake,’ explained Pradeep. ‘Yes, it’s evil, and yes, we need your help. Tom and Camille – you free the St Agnes track team. The rest of us will figure out the chemistry behind Mark’s evil powers!’ He handed the water bottle to Sami. ‘You look after Frankie,’ he added in a whisper. ‘Go and find Mum – she’ll be looking for you.’
Felix spoke up. ‘I’ve got my junior chemistry set in my sports bag!’ he said. ‘I never leave home without it. If we do a litmus test on Mark’s palm, then we should be able to analyse whatever he’s using to sap people’s sportiness, replicate it and come up with a compound to counteract it.’
‘Translation?’ I said to Pradeep.
‘We’ll see what it’s made of, make more and produce an antidote,’ Pradeep answered.
‘That’s what I said,’ Felix mumbled.
Camille and I headed to the coach park, but I was so drained the most I could manage was a fast walk. By the time we got there, the girls were using practice javelins to try to pry open the windows so they could squeeze out.
‘Hang on!’ Camille yelled up! ‘We’ve managed to get the key back!’ She opened the door and the girls poured downstairs, muttering, ‘Thank you,’ and insisting they’d never trust kittens again.
‘Right, girls, let’s hustle,’ their sports coach snapped, stretching against the side of the bus. ‘From what I heard the announcer say on the loudspeakers, we can still win this thing! Good work, Camille. Girls, let’s GO!’
By the time we’d run (Camille) and shuffled (me) back to the officials’ tent, the chess club’s science experiments were in full swing.
Pradeep filled us in from his position lounging on the grass. ‘I had to go and get Mark to shake my hand with the litmus paper hidden in my palm.’ He knitted as he spoke. ‘It had to be me – I was the only kid left at Parkside Primary that Mark would want to suck any sportiness from.’
‘It worked though,’ Felix French interrupted. ‘We’ve isolated the compound and copied it already.’ He held up some light blue goo. ‘Mark has created an ingenious chemical gel that absorbs the sportiness of an individual through their pores! This stuff is so strong it will override Mark’s compound and suck all the sportiness straight out of him!’
‘That’s great!’ I said, fighting off the urge to grab Pradeep’s knitting and have a go.
‘Hang on though. If the compound just drains sportiness, how are we going to give it back to everyone he took it from?’ asked Camille.
‘By making an antidote gel,’ Susan Church interrupted.
‘And we can do that?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ Susan replied. ‘Well, we could if we had the right ingredients. It’s just a shame that we don’t have anything acidic such as citrus fruits to make the chemical compound.’
‘Citrus fruits?’ I said.
Then Camille and I looked at each other. ‘Oranges!’ we cried. ‘We’ve got oranges!’
Within minutes the chess club had managed to prepare an antidote, while Pradeep and I knitted a lovely cover for Frankie’s water bottle.
There were only four minutes left before the start of the race when Kofi Johnson finally said, ‘We’re ready!’
His right hand was smeared with blue goo – ready to take all Mark’s stolen sportiness – and his left hand had been covered in orange goo – so he could transfer sportiness back to the ‘drained’ athletes.
He marched across the playing field to where Mark was waiting at the starting line for the final event. ‘Good luck,’ Kofi said, and held out his blue-goo smeared hand.
‘Good luck, moron,’ I heard Mark reply, followed by an evil ‘Mwah haaaa haaaa ha!’ as he grabbed Kofi’s hand.
At that moment Chin Li ran up to the two of them with a digital camera. ‘Hold that pose,’ he said. ‘For the school paper!’ Then he started taking about a zillion photos.
‘Hurry up!’ Mark muttered. ‘The race is about to start!’
‘All done!’ called Chin after a minute, and both chess-club kids ran straight back. Well, Kofi sprinted, and Chin sort of bumbled.
‘Did it work?’ cried Susan.
‘I think so,’ said Kofi. ‘I feel amazing! But I didn’t have time to suck all the sportiness back. We’ll have to try again after the race!’ He grabbed my left hand with his orangesmeared hand, and I could feel a surge of energy run up my arms and down into my legs. It worked!
Kofi gripped Pradeep’s hand too, using the orange antidote, and then raced over to the St Agnes head girl, who was now embroidering a quilt in the stands. He grabbed her with his orange-goo-covered hand and pulled her up.
‘Competitors for the final obstacle race, please take your places on the track,’ the announcer’s voice boomed over the speakers.
Mark had been joined by his sports coach and one of the star sprinters from his school at the starting line. The sprinter tripped over his feet as he tried to get into the blocks.
‘Why does he have to race with me?’ Mark was whining. ‘I could totally do this on my own.’
‘You’re doing great, Mark,’ the coach said, helping up the other runner, ‘but Jezza here did a lovely meringue in the cooking challenge and recited a very moving Shakespeare sonnet in the poetry event. We need both of you out there to win.’
The St Agnes head girl had reached the starting line too and was warming up. Her coach jogged over, whispered something into her ear and then beckoned to Camille. ‘You’ve done great today, kid.’ The coach slapped her on the back. ‘I think it’s time we gave you a second chance!’
Camille grinned over at us as she got into the starting blocks.
Just then, Mr Thomas came up to the officials’ tent and patted me and Pradeep on the shoulders. ‘How are my little track stars today?’ he asked.
We both looked around to see who he was talking to.
‘I mean you two,’ he said. ‘You have to represent Parkside Primary in this race. We need you, Preston and Trey!’
‘It’s Pradeep and Tom,’ I corrected him.
‘B . . . b . . . but there’s gotta be some other people that could do this,’ Pradeep stuttered.
‘You’re our only hope,’ Mr Thomas said as he dragged us towards the starting line.
‘The rules of the race are simple,’ the announcer said over the loudspeaker. ‘This is an obstacle course made up of race sections and stations. Both competitors have to make it to each station. At least one competitor from each school needs to do the activity at each station before you can move on.’
; ‘On your marks, get set . . .’
Then the starting pistol sounded and we were off.
The first one hundred metres was hurdles. We all took off quickly out of the blocks.
It’s fair to say that Pradeep and I didn’t technically clear any of the hurdles, but we managed to stumble over them somehow. Mark was racing well – he still had lots of stolen sportiness in him – but Jezza was struggling and falling behind.
Camille and the St Agnes head girl stormed ahead to the first station. It was a cooking challenge. The task: to make an elegant fruit salad!
Mark had arrived and was hacking away randomly at a pineapple. Camille was already chopping oranges, apples and mangoes like a pro. As we crawled over the last hurdle and sprinted towards the station, I suddenly spotted Pradeep’s first potential sports-day disaster.
‘Don’t touch the watermelons!’ I screamed, and I threw myself in front of Pradeep. ‘I’ll make the fruit salad!’ I started chopping away next to Camille. ‘See?’ I said. ‘All that orange chopping was really race training in disguise.’ She smiled.
Jezza finally caught up with everyone else. He might have lost his running ability, but his cooking skills were awesome. He whipped the pineapple away from Mark and created a delicious exotic fruit salad in moments!
‘Later, morons,’ yelled Mark, as his team and Camille’s set off.
I was just pouring my salad into a presentation dish when Pradeep grabbed my arm. ‘Tom . . . it’s a sack race next! I can’t do it . . . I’m sorry!’
I looked at the sacks. Then I looked at Pradeep. I could see he was imagining himself swelling up like a balloon. ‘Don’t worry, Pradeep, I’ve got a plan!’ I said. I jumped into a sack and pulled it up to my waist. ‘Climb on my back,’ I yelled. ‘I’ll hop us to the next station.’