Holy Enchilada by Henry Winkler Page A

asked in a gruff voice. This wasn’t going so well. I had to kick it up a notch.
    â€œWell, sir,” I whispered. “She asked if I could stand guard because—I don’t mean to alarm you—but rhinestones have been disappearing from that sign in record numbers. We suspect two or three of the kindergarteners. Have you noticed how sparkly they have been lately?”
    It wasn’t my mouth’s best work, but it was all I could come up with at the time.
    â€œThis is ridiculous,” Principal Love said, rubbing his face with his hand. His index finger brushed across the Statue of Liberty, poking her somewhere between her rump and her armpit.
    â€œI don’t know what you’re trying to do, young man, but I’m not going to let you do it. Come with me. I’m taking you back to class.”
    I looked over to Mr. Rock. Even he couldn’t help me now.

CHAPTER 19
    PRINCIPAL LOVE DROPPED ME OFF in Ms. Adolf’s room and picked up Yoshi. He was taking him to spend the morning with the fifth-grade classes and then on an exciting tour of the library. Yoshi wasn’t going to be back with us again until the buffet lunch.
    I was stuck in class all morning. Three times I asked Ms. Adolf for a hall pass to go to the Multi-Purpose Room. Three times she said no.
    She said I had to stay in my seat and work on our assignment. We had to write an in-class essay on Multi-Cultural Day. This is what mine said:
    Multi-Cultural Day by Hank Zipzer
    I hope I don’t ruin it.
    The End

CHAPTER 20
    BECAUSE OUR CLASS WAS HOSTING the luncheon, we had to go to the Multi-Purpose Room a few minutes before lunchtime to make sure everything was all set up. I was nervous as we walked down the hallway. I knew it was too late to sneak our enchiladas out of there. The ship had sailed, as Papa Pete likes to say. There was nothing I could do now but hope they weren’t going to be hotter than firecrackers.
    Calm down, Hank. It’s not like you put the whole jar of chili powder in the sauce. Okay, maybe you put a little too much in. Then again, maybe you didn’t. I hate that I don’t know.
    Most of me truly believed the enchiladas were going to be okay. I just wished I could get all of me to believe that.
    When we walked into the Multi-Purpose Room, I was completely blown away. Wow, did it look different from how it had early in the morning.
    It was wall-to-wall food. There were probably twenty tables set up, covered with tastes from all parts of the globe. Next to each dish was a sign explaining where it came from. Kidney pie from England. Squid floating in its own ink from Spain. I wondered if you ate it with a fountain pen. Puffy bread called naan from India. Olives from Greece. Bird’s nest soup from China—without the bird of course. And our very own, very cheesy Killer Cheese Enchiladas from Mexico. Next to them were pigs in a blanket from Kansas. I think we all know what fool brought those in.
    Good old Nick McKelty. He still thought Kansas was a foreign country near Brazil.
    The room was an amazing sight. This wasn’t just a multi-cultural lunch. It was a multi-multi-multi-cultural lunch. There was food from countries I hadn’t even heard of, like Tonga and Burundi, and it was so colorful. Red and green and chocolate brown sauces were practically waving at you, saying, “Come on, try me. I’m delicious!”
    â€œLook! Snails!” shouted Luke Whitman about two seconds after we had walked in.
    He found them first thing, like a heat-seeking missile. They were over by the crepes filled with apricot jelly from France. A whole plate of snails, just lying around in their shells, with some butter and garlic and parsley on top. Wouldn’t you know Captain Disgusto would grab one and pop it into his mouth, shell and all? The crunching sound was so loud, everyone in the room stopped talking.
    â€œThis tastes awesome,” Luke said, spitting bits of shell out into his