Horrible Harry and the Kickball Wedding

Table of Contents

 

 

Special appreciation
to Mary Ann Boulanger, my colleague and friend,
for her insight,
and
to Liz Breckinridge, my editor, for her enthusiasm
and hard work.

PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers,
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

 

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

 

First published in the United States of America by Viking,
a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 1992
Published in Puffin Books, 1995
Reissued 1999

 

Text copyright © Suzy Kline, 1992

Illustrations copyright © Frank Remkiewicz, 1992
All rights reserved

 

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Kline, Suzy.
Horrible Harry and the kickball wedding/by Suzy Kline
illustrations by Frank Remkiewicz. p. cm.
Summary: As Valentine's Day approaches, the students in Room 2B are
preoccupied with the kickball and a possible wedding
between Horrible Harry and Song Lee.

eISBN : 978-1-101-07686-6

 

 

 

RL: 2.4

Dedicated with
to my class:

Melanie Bazzano

Ashley Colella

Todd Davis

Erica Duprey

Randy Ford

Danielle Glover

Mark Greco

Crystal Grenier

Nathan Hannon

Elizabeth Jamison

JennyLynn Jarvis

Jonathan Kane

Robert Kittredge

Diane Lapseritis

Craig Lovely

Jessica Marciano

Matthew Marquard

James McBurney

Silvio Melo

Nicholas Moore

Taylor Musselman

Kevin Roberts

Matthew Talbot

Brian Wilkinson

 

 

 

 

H
arry sits next to me in Room 2B. He looks like any other second grader except for one thing. Harry loves to do horrible things.

The week before Valentine's Day, I didn't think anything too horrible could happen.

But it did.

Harry and I were looking at his new library book,
The Bug Hall of Fame.
Song Lee was looking at it too. “See that giant water bug?” she said. “When I live in Korea, I see one eat a fish.”

“No fooling?” Harry flashed his white teeth at Song Lee. He's had a crush on her ever since she brought in a potato beetle for show-and-tell in kindergarten.

“Hey, Doug,” Harry said.

“Yeah?” I replied.

“Look! Here's a picture of a stinkbug.”

“Eeyew, neat-o!” I said.

Then he turned the page. “And a KISSING BUG!”

Just as I made a face, Mary appeared. She had a pile of bright red valentines in her hand. “Ohhhhhhh! Did you say BUGS KISS?”

Ida joined the conversation. “We know they do, Mary. Remember when we had our ant farm? Ants kiss every time they pass food.”

Harry lowered his bushy eyebrows. “Ants are
not
bugs—they're insects. We're talking about bugs.”

“Well,” Mary snapped. “They're romantic, whatever they are!”

Suddenly, Sidney peered over her shoulder. “If you love ants so much, why don't you marry one?”

“SIDNEY!” Mary shouted. “That's dumb! You can't marry an ant.”

The rest of us tried not to laugh, but it was hard. Sidney's joke was so stupid, it was funny.

When the bell rang, everyone returned to their seats. Except Mary. She was still passing out her valentines.

“Mary,” the teacher said. “It's too early to pass those out. Please collect them.”

Mary made a long face. “Yes, Miss Mackle.”

“Boys and girls, we will pass out valentines on Thursday, when it's Valentine's Day. We will also have a party and a special Valentine's Day square dance.”

Everyone cheered.

“If you can wear something with a touch of red or white in it, that would be fun,” the teacher added.

“I know what I'm wearing,” Harry blurted out. “My black-widow sweat-shirt !”

“You're supposed to wear Valentine colors,” Mary grumbled.

“I am!” Harry replied. “A black widow has a
touch
of red. Heh! Heh! The deadly red hourglass.”

“Eeeeeeyew!” Mary groaned.

“The black widow is poisonous,” Ida said.

Miss Mackle just smiled.

Later, when we were standing in the lunch line, everyone was talking about what they would wear for Valentine's day. But not Harry and me. We were too busy taking deep whiffs.

“Mmmmmmm. It's hot dog day!” Harry said. “I love hot dogs!”

Sidney made his eyebrows go up and down. “So ... why don't you marry one?”

This time the joke was on Harry and he didn't like it.

All through lunch he glared at Sidney. We knew that the hot dogs weren't the only things steaming. Harry was, too!

After lunch, our class went outside for recess. Some of us started up a kickball game. Harry raced for the pitcher's mound.

“I GET TO BE PITCHER!” he shouted.

Dexter ran for the plate.

“I'M UP FIRST!” he called. Then he pushed his hair back with his fingers. Ever since January when he transferred into our class, Dexter's been the king of kickball.

“I'm FIRST BASE!” Ida yelled.

“I'm SECOND!” I shouted.

After everyone took a position, Harry said, “What do you want, Dex? My slime ball ... slow and smooth over the plate? Or my new specialty ...
the cyclone ball?”

Dexter rubbed his hands together.

“Gimme the cyclone!” he said as he kicked the air twice with his big blue sneaker. When he stopped running his fingers through his hair, we knew he was ready for the big pitch.

Harry wound up twice and delivered a fast, bouncy ball over the plate. Dexter ran forward and gave it a hard kick.