by Mo O'Hara
As I hopped as best I could, the others arrived at the next station and started playing chess against a computer, but both teams were losing fast. I huffed my final few hops to the station and collapsed on the floor, while Pradeep sat down at the computer. Five moves later he was pulling me up for the next leg of the race. ‘We’re in the lead now,’ he yelled. ‘I don’t believe it!’
We looked out at the stands as we ran the sprint section of the race. Pradeep’s mum was clapping – while Sami had toddled down to the side of the track and was waving Frankie’s bottle at us from near the finishing line. The chess team were screaming and cheering, and I could see a huge banner that the football, netball and track teams had knitted for us. It read, ‘GO, TOM AND PRADEEP, GO!’ Camille’s team was right behind us now, closely followed by Mark and Jezza as we all approached the poetry station.
Jezza recited his Shakespeare sonnet to one judge there, while the head girl spoke a poem she had written herself.
I was just about to launch into a limerick that I had once read in a greetings card when Pradeep stepped forward and started reciting a poem about trees that he had used for our school-play auditions earlier in the year.
We all finished at just about the same time. There was one short dash left to the finish, but just as we were about to start running, the judges handed out thick rubber bands to each pair. It was a three-legged sprint!
Camille and the head girl were the first to set off and seemed to move perfectly in time.
Mark and Jezza were next, but Mark kept shouting at Jezza to keep up with him, throwing off their pace.
Pradeep looked at me. ‘The last time we did this we both ended up with sprained ankles,’ he said.
‘I know,’ I replied, ‘but if it happens again, at least this time we can knit each other really cool ankle supports.’ I smiled at him. ‘We can do this.’
Pradeep and I set off, shouting, ‘Middle, out, middle, out, middle, out . . .’ so we knew which legs to move and when. I think we had got in a muddle last time by saying, ‘Left, right . . .’
We overtook Mark and Jezza and were gaining on Camille and her teammate.
‘Middle, out, middle, out . . .’ We got faster and faster and soon we were just ahead of Camille’s team. Pradeep and I were finally going to win something and neither of us had ended up in the medical tent!
We were steps away from the finishing line.
That’s when it happened.
Sami was still standing near the edge of the track with Frankie in his water bottle. Frankie was peeping out, punching the air with a fin and cheering us on. His eyes weren’t glowing, which meant his zombie-fish danger senses couldn’t tell he was in trouble.
But he was.
On the edge of the awning above the spectator stands was Fang. She was poised, bottom wriggling, ready to pounce.
‘Pradeep, look!’ I shouted, instead of ‘Middle’.
‘No, Frankie!’ Pradeep shouted back instead of ‘Out’.
Fang licked her lips, then leaped through the air.
We didn’t even have to think. It was as if time had sloooooooowed down. Turning away from the finishing line, we threw ourselves off the track towards Sami and Frankie! Rolling in mid-air so we both landed on our backs, I grabbed Sami, who was still clutching tightly to Frankie’s water bottle, while Fang crash-landed on Pradeep’s stomach and bounced off in the other direction.
At the same moment, the St Agnes team crossed the line just in front of Mark and Jezza.
‘Nooooooo!’ Mark was shrieking. ‘It’s not fair! I should have won. ME! IT’S NOT FAIR!’
We sat up and dusted ourselves off, while Fang hissed and shot Frankie a look. If I could read cat looks I would swear she said, ‘You were lucky this time, fishy, but we will meet again!’
Frankie was trying to wriggle out of the bottle and turn his zombie stare on her, but Fang quickly turned her face away and bounded over to hide in Mark’s sports bag.
Mrs Kumar came rushing through the crowd, checked Sami quickly for cuts and bumps, and then threw herself at Pradeep.
‘My lovely, are you all right? Did you bang your head? How many fingers am I holding up? Do you know what county we’re in? Can you remember the twelve times table?’ She moved a finger from side to side in front of his eyes.
I realized that the only one of those questions I could possibly answer was the finger one.
‘I’m fine!’ Pradeep said. ‘Really, I’m OK.’
Pradeep’s mum gave him that mum look that means, ‘Are you sure?’
Pradeep sighed. ‘Twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six, forty-eight, sixty, seventy-two,’ he rattled off. She hugged him and simultaneously checked his head for bumps. Then she moved on to me.
‘Tom, are you all right?’ she started. ‘Thank you for getting Sami out of the way! She could have been scratched . . . or worse!’
I pulled away as I answered her so she couldn’t start checking my head too. ‘I’m OK too, Mrs Kumar. Thanks. We’re fine, really. Why don’t you take a seat for the prize presentations?’
‘If you’re sure,’ she said doubtfully.
‘We’re sure,’ Pradeep and I said at the same time.
Sami handed me the water bottle and took her mum’s hand. ‘Bye-bye,’ she said, pulling her mum away.
The announcer’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker again. ‘That was an exciting finale to our competition!’ he said, and everyone in the stands cheered. ‘All three schools competed very well. The judges wanted me to especially congratulate Westfield High School for their achievements in the sprint, knitting and cooking areas, St Agnes Prep for their skills in poetry, quilting and hurdles, and Parkside Primary for their javelin and chess success.’
The crowd cheered again.
‘Could I please have all the teams – sporting, craft and intellectual – on the field for the final announcement of the winner!’
‘Let’s get moving,’ Mr Thomas bellowed automatically at the Parkside kids. ‘And try not to act like a bunch of . . .’ He trailed off. ‘Er . . . poetry-reading hooligans. Let’s go!’
Mark, Jezza and the other members of Westfield High (knitting needles and quilts still in hand) slowly headed down to the field. Mark shot us a look that could have said, ‘This is sooo your fault, morons. I’m gonna get you and your stupid fish!’ Or it could have said, ‘That tracksuit is sooo your colour, Tom. I’m gonna get one just like it but with a fish!’
Sometimes it’s hard to read his looks.
Camille and the other St Agnes girls headed past us as well, with their sports coach. Camille smiled as she went past. ‘It’s a shame you had to lose the race, but I know it was worth it to save a friend,’ her look said.
We smiled back and then looked down at Frankie, who’d calmed down now. When no one was looking, he jumped up and high-fived first me and then Pradeep.
‘You’re welcome, Frankie,’ I said as we started to walk towards the field.
‘Tom? Pradeep?’ a voice interrupted us. It was Mr Thomas. ‘Good job out there, boys.’ He patted us on the back. ‘Shame you had to make a dive to save that little girl from being clawed by some kind of wild kitten – but you did great! You should be proud of yourselves.’
‘Thanks,’ I replied in surprise, giving Pradeep a look that said, ‘Did he just get our names right?’
The announcer’s voice broke through the murmurings of the crowd. ‘The winner, by a very small margin, of this year’s Countywide Inter-Schools Intellectual Sport’s Day Challenge is . . .’
The St Agnes head girl reached over and grabbed Camille’s hand. Mark glared at us, and even the Parkside Primary kids seemed to be holding their breath . . .
‘St Agnes the Achiever Preparatory School for Girls!’
Suddenly the whole of the St Agnes team was a mob of bouncing ponytails, hugging each other, crying and giggling at the same time.
‘I SO don’t get girls,’ Pradeep whispered.
Mark stomped his foot and mutt
ered, ‘Stupid morons, stupid fish, stupid sports day!’
The St Agnes team went up on the podium to collect their trophy and have their picture taken, and Camille and the head girl were handed a microphone.
‘It’s great to win,’ Camille said, ‘but it’s great to share this prize with friends too.’
‘All the teams from all the schools worked really hard today, and we are all winners,’ the head girl added.
‘And what are you going to do with the prize money for your school?’ an official asked.
The head girl nodded at Camille, who answered, ‘We really want the school to have a tropical fish tank installed so we can learn about the care and behaviour of exotic fish. They’re SO much more interesting than kittens!’
The rest of the St Agnes students murmured in agreement.
Camille smiled over at me and Frankie, who was peeking out of his bottle. ‘After all, some fish behaviour has to be seen to be believed!’
‘There is one more special prize that we would like to give out today,’ the official said, taking back the microphone, ‘which is the prize for team spirit. Could Tom and Pradeep from Parkside Primary please come up to the winners’ podium to accept their award?’
Pradeep looked at me and I looked at Pradeep, but the only thing readable in either of our looks was, ‘WOW!’
We headed up to the platform and were handed a silver trophy, to the cheers of the crowd.
‘Ummmm . . .’ I spoke into the microphone. ‘There are other people that deserve to share this trophy too. Without them we wouldn’t be here.’
Pradeep spoke up. ‘This award also belongs to the Parkside Primary chess team, Camille from St Agnes and my little sister, Sami!’
I looked down into the water bottle and whispered. ‘And you too, Frankie!’
As the crowd cheered, Pradeep tugged on my arm. He shot me a look that said, ‘This is great and everything, but how are we going to get Mark to give back all the sportiness he sucked out of everyone?’
Just then I spotted Mr Thomas walking up to the sports coach from Mark’s school and shaking his hand. I nudged Pradeep so he saw them too.
‘I think I have an idea,’ I said.
As we walked back down into the crowd, we knew exactly what we had to do.
‘We need to get Mark to shake the hands of everyone he stole sportiness from,’ Pradeep thought out loud. ‘So that’s his own track team, the St Agnes football and netball teams, and pretty much all the Parkside Primary sports teams.’
‘It’s only sportsmanlike,’ I added with a smile. ‘Plus, if we can make sure he has the orange antidote goo on his hands, then he’ll give back their sportiness without even knowing he’s doing it!’
We found the chess team and explained our plan, and then Pradeep and I rounded up Mr Thomas and Mark’s sports coach and brought them over to where Mark was standing.
‘Mark,’ I practically yelled. Some of the race officials looked over too as I was speaking so loudly. ‘I told the sports coaches what you said . . . about wanting to be a good sport and show your track teammates and the other teams that there were no hard feelings.’
‘Hunh?’ Mark gave me an evil stare. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Very sportsmanlike of you, young man,’ Mr Thomas said.
Mark’s sports coach nodded. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘Let’s get a handshake line going!’
‘What?’ Mark mumbled.
Within minutes, Pradeep, Susan, Kofi and Chin had picked out all the kids that Mark had drained and had them standing in a long line.
Just before Mark was about to start shaking hands, Frankie started thrashing about like crazy in the bottle I was holding and splashed water all over him!
‘You moron!’ yelled Mark, wiping his hands on his shorts and also wiping off the last traces of his sport-sapping compound.
‘Whoops!’ I said, looking at the sports coaches who were still standing nearby. ‘I must have tripped and splashed you.’
Mark glared at me as Felix French, the first kid in the queue, walked up and grabbed Mark’s hand with a squelch.
‘Urgh!’ Mark pulled back, looking at his dripping, orange hand.
‘It’s just hand gel,’ said Felix, ‘to protect you from germs.’ He winked at me as he walked away, wiping his hands clean with a towel.
Pradeep and I watched as Mark shook hands with every single kid in the queue. By the end he was so exhausted he could barely walk back to the track to pick up his sports bag, which contained one very annoyed evil kitten.
He glared across the field at me and Pradeep, and Fang stuck her head out of the bag and glared at us too. ‘I’ll get you morons for this, you and your stupid fish!’ their evil looks said. Mark added a feeble, ‘Mwhaaa haa ha ha!’ and Fang ended her look with an evil, ‘Miaow, miaow, miaow, miaow, miaow,’ just to make sure we got the message.
Even though everyone got their sportiness back, as the kids piled on to their different school coaches to go home some of them were still knitting or clutching poetry books.
‘Do you think the antidote didn’t work on them?’ I asked Pradeep, holding the bottle with Frankie inside as we walked back to our bus.
‘Naaah.’ Pradeep shrugged. ‘I think they just realized that they liked doing that stuff too.’
Camille came over to say goodbye. Frankie popped his head out of his water bottle and she gently stroked his gills. ‘You can come and visit St Agnes any time,’ she said to him. ‘Especially when we have the fish tank. Just be nice to the other fish, OK?’ Then she waved at Pradeep and me as she bounded on to the bus with the other girls.
‘You know, Pradeep,’ I said, ‘even though our school didn’t win so we won’t get a school pool, for once sports day wasn’t all that bad. You drew in a javelin toss, almost finished a race, won a trophy and returned sportiness to dozens of athletes!’
Pradeep smiled. ‘You’re right. Maybe my sports-day trips to the medical tent are finally over.’ He started to walk around the back of the bus to get to the door on the far side.
‘Maybe today is your lucky day after all,’ I added.
Mo O’Hara grew up in Pennsylvania, USA, but now lives in south-east London. She began her writing and acting career by touring theatres and schools across the UK and Ireland, working as a storyteller. As well as writing books for children Mo has written comedy sketches for Radio 4 and performed her own material in London and Edinburgh. Mo and her big brother once brought their own pet goldfish back from the brink of death.
Books by Mo O’Hara
My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish
My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish: The SeaQuel
My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish: Fins of Fury
My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish: Any Fin Is Possible
Quotes from My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish readers
‘This Franktastic story was so much fun it blew my socks off!’ Sharif (aged 8)
‘I wish I had a swishy fishy!’ Robin (aged 7)
‘Don’t look at Frankie! He’ll zombify you and you won’t be able to stop reading!’ Adil (aged 8)
‘My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish is a zombitastic book you won’t be able to put down’ Leon (aged 9)
‘It’s really funny and Frankie makes me laugh lots’ Spike (aged 7)
‘It was awesome. I read all day when I got it and I couldn’t put it down until I was finished’ Becky (aged nearly 9)
First published 2014 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2014 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-6297-8
Text copyright © Mo O’Hara 2014
Illustrations copyright © Marek Jagucki 2014
The right of Mo O’Hara and Marek Jagucki to be identified as the author and ill
ustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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