Horrible Harry and the Ant Invasion Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Horrible Harry and the Ant Invasion

  Horrible Harry and the Square Dance

  Horrible Harry and the Deadly Fish Tank

  Horrible Harry and the Class Picture

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Is Harry really as horrible as everyone thinks he is?

  After lunch when we were working on math, Harry walked back to check the tank. Then he shouted, “The black molly is floating on the water. She’s DEAD!”

  Everyone rushed back to the tank.

  Miss Mackle opened the cover of the tank and took out the net. She scooped up the dead fish. Then she put her finger in the water. “Why, the water is hot! Someone has been fooling with the temperature knob. ”

  Everyone looked at the thermometer. The mercury was way above the green zone. “Who would do such a horrible thing?” Miss Mackle exclaimed.

  Everyone looked at Harry.

  BOOKS ABOUT HORRIBLE HARRY AND SONG LEE

  Horrible Harry and the Ant Invasion

  Horrible Harry and the Christmas Surprise

  Horrible Harry and the Drop of Doom

  Horrible Harry and the Dungeon

  Horrible Harry and the Green Slime

  Horrible Harry and the Holidaze

  Horrible Harry and the Kickball Wedding

  Horrible Harry and the Mud Gremlins

  Horrible Harry and the Purple People

  Horrible Harry Goes to the Moon

  Horrible Harry Goes to Sea

  Horrible Harry at Halloween

  Horrible Harry in Room 2B

  Horrible Harry Moves Up to Third Grade

  Horrible Harry’s Secret

  Song Lee and the Hamster Hunt

  Song Lee and the “I Hate You” Notes

  Song Lee and the Leech Man

  Song Lee in Room 2B

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 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 by Viking Penguin,

  a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 1989

  Published in Puffin Books, 1991

  Reissued 1998

  20

  Text copyright © Suzy Kline, 1989 Illustrations copyright © Frank Remkiewicz, 1989

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PREVIOUS PUFFIN BOOKS EDITION

  UNDER CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 91-53152

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07679-8

  RL: 2.5

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For my class who launched the original ant invasion at Southwest School:

  Horrible Harry and the Ant Invasion

  When Harry and I walked into Room 2B, we couldn’t believe our eyes.

  “Look at that!” I said.

  “Wow! What is it, Doug?” Harry asked me.

  “It’s an ant city.”

  “Ants ...” Harry grinned. Then he rubbed his hands together.

  Harry loves anything that crawls, slithers, or slides. He loves slimy things, hairy things, and creepy things.

  Harry loves anything horrible.

  “The ants haven’t arrived yet,” Miss Mackle said. “But they should come any day now in the mail.”

  “The mail?” Sidney made a face. “Eeyew. There’s going to be ants in Miss Mackle’s mailbox.”

  Harry flashed his white teeth, “Neato ...” he said. “Are we going to have an ant monitor?”

  Miss Mackle looked at the list of jobs on the Monitor Chart. “We’re going to need one. Would you be interested, Harry?”

  Harry smiled so wide his silver fillings showed in the back.

  Miss Mackle printed Harry’s name next to Ant Monitor.

  One week later when the class was lined up in the hall by the office, Miss Mackle checked her mailbox. She found a small manila envelope in it.

  When she opened it up, she pulled out a plastic vial. There were a lot of black, hairy things moving around in it.

  “THE ANTS!” the class shouted.

  The school secretary, Mrs. Foxworth, poked her head around the corner. “Ants ... ?” she replied.

  “We’re going to observe their behavior,” Miss Mackle said.

  Mrs. Foxworth tried to smile, but she was shaking so much the pencil that was sitting on her ear dropped to the floor.

  Harry picked it up and handed it to her. “Are you afraid of ants?”

  Mrs. Foxworth ran back to her typewriter.

  Harry grinned. “She’s afraid of ants.”

  “Well,” Miss Mackle said, “the directions on this small package say to put the vial in a refrigerator for ten minutes so the ants will go to sleep. It’s easier to put sleeping ants in the ant city.”

  Harry stepped forward. “I’m the ant monitor. I’ll take it to the teachers’ refrigerator for you.”

  Miss Mackle raised her eyebrows.

  “Can I pick an assistant?” Harry asked.

  Miss Mackle nodded as she looked at the waving hands.

  “I pick ... Doug,” Harry said.

  I beamed.

  Miss Mackle looked relieved.

  We walked down the hall to the teachers’ room with the vial of ants.

  When we opened the refrigerator, we looked for a place to set the vial.

  “Gee,” I said, “there’s so much diet soda in here, it’s hard to find room.”

  Harry finally set the vial on top of a container of banana yogurt.

  Then we walked back down the hall.

  Mrs. Foxworth was coming toward us. “Hello, boys,” she said in a cheery voice.

  “Taking your morning break?” Harry asked.

  Mrs. Foxworth nodded. “Thought I would have a little banana yogurt.”

  Harry and I stopped. We looked at each other.

  Mrs. Foxworth closed the teachers’ room door.

  Then we heard it. A shrill scream!

  Harry and I walked back to Room 2B laughing.

  Ten minutes later Miss Mackle brought the vial of ants back to the classroom.

  Everyone gathered around the science table. “I think I should do this, boys and girls,” Miss Mackle said. “Some ants bite. I don’t want any of you to touch one. Is that clear?”

  Everyone nodded their heads.

  Miss Mackle took the roof off an ant house. Then she took the cap off the vial. We all watched her pour the ants into the small opening.

  “Their bodies look like raisins,” Ida said.

  “That’s the way they sleep, Ida, all rolled up,” Miss Mackle replied.

  “Eeyew,” Sidney groaned. “They’re gross.”

  The teacher looked at Sidney. “We are scientists. We are observing ant behavior. Someday, someone in Room 2B may be a great scientist and make great discoveries in a lab.”

  Harry and I pointed at each other. We were planning to be great scientists. Someday.

  Just as Miss Mackle finished pouring the sleeping ants into the hole, the ants at the bottom of the vial started to wake up.

  “Goodness!” Miss Mackle exclaimed.

  Sidney screamed when three ants crawled out of the vial onto the science table.

  Miss Mackle stood up. “N
o one move or touch anything. I will get the ants.”

  “One is on the floor!” Mary called.

  Miss Mackle crawled after it. She put a pencil in front of the runaway ant. It crawled up the eraser. Miss Mackle popped the ant into the opening of the ant house, then put the roof back on.

  “Two ants are missing,” she said. Her hair was in her eyes and one of her high heels was off.

  “THEY’RE GOING TO GET US!” Sidney shouted.

  “Sidney,” Miss Mackle said with her teeth clenched, “we must remain calm.”

  Harry stood in front of the teacher. “As your ant monitor, I will find the missing ants.” And then he gave her a salute.

  “Just don’t touch the ants!” Miss Mackle insisted.

  Harry took out his lunch box. He unwrapped his sandwich and scraped some peanut butter onto his finger.

  Then he put his finger under the science table and waited.

  Miss Mackle put her shoe back on, and pushed her hair out of her face. “I think everyone should return to their desks now.”

  “I found them!” Harry shouted from under the table.

  Everyone bent down and looked.

  Including Miss Mackle.

  There were the two runaway ants on Harry’s finger.

  Miss Mackle grabbed her pencil and quickly scraped them off and then dropped them into the opening of the ant city.

  Harry flashed a big smile. “I told you I’d find them.”

  Miss Mackle frowned. “I told you not to touch the ants. Look at your finger.”

  Everyone did. There were two red marks.

  “He got bit!” Mary exclaimed.

  “I think you should go to the nurse,” Miss Mackle said. “And when you come back you’ll see another name on the Monitor Chart next to Ant Monitor.”

  Harry put his head down as he walked to the nurse’s office.

  The next morning, Harry was really quiet. He didn’t join our conversation about ants at the science table.

  “They bury their own dead,” I said.

  “They bury their own food,” Mary said.

  “Eeyew,” Sidney replied. “Look, those ants are kissing!”

  Miss Mackle walked over to our table. “Ants pass food by kissing. Sometimes they send messages that way.”

  Sidney fell off his chair and rolled over on the floor laughing.

  “You may return to your seat, Sidney. Ida is about to feed the ants, and I want only serious scientists to watch.”

  Sidney frowned as he walked back to his chair.

  Harry frowned as he watched Ida doing his job.

  Ida filled an eye dropper from a bowl of sugar water. Then, when the teacher removed the roof, Ida squeezed the eye dropper three times into the ant house.

  “I’ll get it back,” Harry whispered to me.

  “Get what back?”

  “My ant monitor job.”

  I looked at Harry. I could tell he was making plans.

  “How?”

  “All I have to do is get on the teacher’s good side. Then I can ask her for another chance.”

  Just then Harry tipped back on his chair and his baseball cards came tumbling out of his pocket.

  Miss Mackle put her hands on her hips. “Harry, put those things away. Baseball is a distraction in the classroom.”

  Harry got down on his knees and picked up his baseball cards.

  “I don’t want any more antics from you today, Harry,” Miss Mackle said.

  “Antics?” Harry repeated. “That’s an ant word.”

  Miss Mackle smiled. “Yes, it is. We have lots of ant words in our language. Maybe we should think of some.”

  Harry clapped his hands.

  Mmmmmm, I thought. Harry might just pull it off.

  “I’ll start,” Miss Mackle said. “Antifreeze; I had to put some in my car this morning.”

  “Antarctica and Atlantic,” Mary said, looking at the globe.

  “Good, any others?” the teacher asked.

  “Antipasto,” Mr. Cardini, the principal, said as he showed up at the door.

  Everyone laughed.

  “My mother makes the best antipasto in the world—salami, cheese, black olives, mmm.... Just stopped in to visit the ants,” he said, sitting down at the science table.

  Miss Mackle continued the lesson.

  “Elephant and panther,” I said, thinking about animals in the zoo.

  Harry held up Jack and the Bean-stalk. “Giant!”

  Miss Mackle wrote the new words on the board.

  “Fancy,” Ida said.

  “Nice try, but that doesn’t have a t in it,” Miss Mackle said.

  “Ranch?” Sidney asked.

  “That is a c-h word.”

  Our class seemed to be stuck.

  Then Mr. Cardini saw two ants kissing and he stood up. “I’ve got one—romantic !”

  Everyone groaned as he waltzed out of the room.

  “I’ve got the best ant word,” Harry said. Then he pointed to the December calendar. “Santa!”

  Everyone cheered and clapped.

  Then Harry stood up like he had the biggest idea in the world. “Why don’t we draw pictures of ants carrying these words? We could make them go up the stairway and invade the second floor!”

  Invasions, I thought. Harry loved them.

  Miss Mackle looked at the long list of ant words on the board.

  “Let’s do it!” she said.

  Everyone took out their crayons and scissors as the teacher passed out brown paper.

  “I’m making a black ant to carry my word, panther,” I said.

  “I’m making a HUGE ant to carry my word, giant,” Harry said.

  “I’m making a big red heart next to my ant,” Mary replied.

  Everyone knew what ant word Mary was doing. Romantic.

  When all the ants were drawn and cut, and the words were neatly printed above, the class lined up in the hall.

  Miss Mackle walked us to the stair-well. “Let’s hope we have enough to make it to the top!”

  “We will!” Harry called out. Then he whispered to me. “We have to. She’ll be in such a good mood, she’ll give me another chance to be Ant Monitor.

  We started taping the ants at the bottom of the wall near the stairs and made a trail going up and down and around the stairway.

  When we got to the top, we were one word short.

  Everyone sat down on the stairs.

  “I knew we couldn’t do it,” Sidney complained.

  “Well,” Miss Mackle replied, “maybe tomorrow.”

  Harry made a face. Then he reached in his back pocket and pulled out three baseball cards. “The Yankees! They won the pennant this year.”

  “AN ANT WORD!” everyone shouted.

  Miss Mackle clapped her hands. “Bravo, Harry! You can make the word today and put it up. We reached the second floor thanks to ...”—and she looked at Harry’s baseball cards—“some distractions!”

  Harry beamed at his teacher. “If I promise to follow your directions in science, will you give me another chance to be Ant Monitor?”

  Miss Mackle put her hand on Harry’s shoulder and smiled. “All right, Harry. I don’t see why you can’t.”

  Harry was horribly happy.

  Horrible Harry and the Square Dance

  Miss Mackle stood in front of the room. “This Friday we are going to have a square dance.”

  All the boys groaned.

  Except Harry.

  I knew what Harry was thinking. He wanted to dance with Song Lee.

  Harry has had a crush on Song Lee since the day that she brought in a potato beetle for show-and-tell.

  She didn’t say anything but she passed a box around with a small striped bug in it.

  Harry looked at the bug, then at Song Lee.

  It was true love.

  Friday afternoon, Miss Mackle led our class down to the gym. She had a record under her arm. It was called “Let’s Square Dance.”

  “Now,” she said.
“I want the boys to line up behind Sidney, and the girls to line up behind Mary.”

  “I don’t want to dance with her,” Sidney said, looking at Mary across from him.

  Miss Mackle put the record down and then she looked at Sidney. She had her hands on her hips.

  “Sidney, one of the reasons I have dancing is that we need to learn manners.”

  Sidney put his head down.

  “We must say thank you to everyone we dance with. Being polite is very important.”

  After a moment of silence, Miss Mackle added. “ANYBODY who doesn’t agree can dance with the teacher after school—when we’ll go over these rules.”

  Sidney turned green.

  All the girls giggled.

  All the boys groaned. I did, too. Dancing with the teacher would be deadly.

  Miss Mackle showed the girls how to curtsy.

  Then she showed the boys how to bow.

  Everyone practiced.

  I made a face. I hate to dance. When I looked across the floor, I looked at my partner.

  It was Song Lee.

  Harry gave me a jab in the side. “Move over,” he said. “I’m dancing with her.”

  I didn’t mind at all. There were more boys than girls, and no one was standing next to Song Lee.

  “You have Miss X,” Miss Mackle said to me.

  I beamed. Dancing with no one wasn’t bad at all.

  Miss Mackle then showed us how to do the Virginia reel.

  Harry walked over and took Song Lee’s hands. He wanted to get ready early.

  “Not yet,” Miss Mackle said. “I haven’ t even turned the music on.”

  Everyone laughed.

  Harry held up his fist.

  When the music finally did go on, the boys walked across the floor and bowed.

  The girls walked across the floor and curtsied.

  “Now let’s do the Virginia reel!” Miss Mackle called.

  Sidney walked over and took Mary’s hands. His eyes were closed.

  They sashayed down the center.