Googol Boy and the peculiar incident of the Great Quiz Trophy by John Michael (classic books for 13 year olds txt) 📕

“I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’ll give you five laps around the oval! That’s right Horace and Barnaby... five laps! That’s a sweet deal -one lap for every five minutes that you were late? What do you think?”

A sweet deal? That was a rotten deal! What a bummer! I could have received a better deal from Lazy Lenny with his three Wednesday wedgies for the price of one mid-week supersaver special. And what was with the five laps? One lap for every five minutes we were late? We were fifteen minutes late! I guess Mr Perriman really sucked at maths. Even Freckles never got five laps and he took away all of Corporal Punishment’s instruments of torture (read that as sports equipment) for an entire week. Five laps would be the death of me and, not to be mean to Barney but he would probably cark it sometime through the first lap. I had seen him run and he pretty much moved like a gammy goose with pneumonia. Against my better instinct, I decided to use diplomacy, hoping that maybe we could get a reduced sentence.

“Sir, I just wanted to –”

“There’s no ‘I’ in team, mister... you gotta give 110% in this operation! Play to win and, as they say in the big league, pull your own weight!”

We nodded in agreement but this time, once again, before I knew what was going on, some whirring started to happen in my head and my brain was suddenly instructing my mouth to talk.

“Actually sir –”

Barney let out a moan and whispered to me. “No... don’t do it!”

But it was too late, I couldn’t stop myself.

“Actually sir, the idiom, pull your own weight, is a nautical term. There are two possible origins. Firstly, in the olden days, sailors would have to cast the sails with heavy ropes. If a man was slothful or incompetent, he was not doing his fair share. The other possibility is that pull your own weight is a rowing term. It’s to do with the idea that you need to offset your own weight in a row boat with the amount of strokes required, otherwise the boat would slow down. Oh... and one last thing, it is mathematically impossible to give more than 100%, sir.”

Mr Perriman’s face looked like it had been slapped with a wet mullet.

“Are you controverting me? Is this a controversion?”

I was pretty sure that ‘controversion’ wasn’t a word but this time I bit my lip and said nothing. I felt the teacher glaring at me with all his might as I stared at my shoes. If he had x-ray vision, he would have burned a hole in the back of my head. I just kept on staring at my shoes really hard (hmm... I never did notice that mustard stain on my left shoe − note to self, clean shoe if you ever get out of this alive). I was trying to keep perfectly still and not to flinch, like a cornered mouse hoping that the stalking predator would lose interest and move on.

Finally, Mr Perriman broke the awkward silence.

“Ha! We’ve got a funny one here... a real Bozo the Clown,” he scoffed.

Then the teacher let out a forced laugh and looked around at the circle of students for some confirmation of his authority, not that he needed it.

“Okay... let’s raise the stakes here. I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do Horton.” He put his dinner-plate sized hand on my shoulder. “If you can get three basketball shots in a row – you’re off the hook.”

“But sir, you know that I’m the worst at –”

“Yes... you’re right Humbert... I agree with you. We both know that your name should be Cinderella because you always run away from the ball! But I’m willing to give you a chance... cut you some slack!”

“But... but... but sir –”

“Or you’re gonna do TEN laps of the oval... with your friend Baldrick here! We can triple the fun!”

At this point in time I felt more than a little deflated. Ten laps? Triple the fun? With Baldrick? Bummer! And all things aside, Maths certainly wasn’t Mr Perriman’s strong suit.

Barney whispered into my ear. “Please take the shots Howard... I had a big breakfast this morning, there’s no way I’ll make ten laps!”

“What are you talking about Barney?”

“Well I had some bacon and eggs, grilled pork sausage with baked cherry tomatoes, buttered raisin toast, blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, a bowl of froot-loops, hash browns with fried onions, a chocolate and banana smoothie, some baked beans on –”

“No, no... I don’t care about your breakfast! What makes you think that I can shoot those baskets?”

“Well... you’ve been pulling off a lot of weird stuff lately... I just thought, why not take a chance?”

Barney was right, things had been quite weird lately. Plus, there was no way that I would finish ten laps either (or even five laps) and I didn’t even have a big breakfast. We were going to die on that oval either way − might as well go out in a blaze of glory. What did I have to lose? (Apart from my self-respect and pride but, hey, I had been down that road before.)

I turned to Mr Perriman and cranked my neck so that I could look him in the eye but I wasn’t even close, so I just spoke to his enormous chin. “Okay sir... I’ll do it!”

He just stood there emotionless and nodded towards the court. All the students cheered as I strolled up to the free-throw line. Barney ran up to me − to offer a word of encouragement no doubt. “By the way Howie, just remember that Breezy Walcott, basketballer of the year three years running, scored eleven free throws in one game last season and he didn’t even –”

“Get out of here Barney... how is that supposed to help me? Comparing me to a professional basketball player?”

“Okay Howard... I was just trying to give