Horrible Harry in Room 2B by Suzy Kline

Horrible Harry and Me

    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.
    On the first day of school, Harry was out on the playground holding a shoebox. I asked him, “What’s in there?”
    â€œSomething. Want to see a girl scream, Doug?”
    Before I could say anything, Harry took off after Song Lee. When he trapped her by the tree, he opened up his box and dangled a garter snake in her face.
    Song Lee screamed!
    That’s when I first saw Harry do something horrible this year.
    When it rains, we have recess indoors. Sometimes we play a game called “Seven Up.” When it’s Harry’s turn to be up, everyone wonders, Will Harry tap me on the head?
    Harry presses his knuckles down hard on your skull.
    He calls them knuckle noogies.
    Nobody should give anybody a knuckle noogie. But Harry does.
    Harry loves to do horrible things.
    The second week of school, Sidney called Harry a name. It was during science when we were reading about birds.
    â€œHarry’s a canary!” Sidney whispered.
    And a lot of kids laughed.
    â€œWhat’s so funny?” the teacher asked.
    â€œNothing, Miss Mackle,” Sidney replied.
    Harry didn’t think it was nothing. Harry planned to get revenge after school. And he did.
    At 3:05, Harry jumped Sidney, pinned him to the ground, and said, “Say I Love Girls twice.”
    â€œNever!” Sidney said, trying to get away.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYeah.”
    And that’s when Harry started to tickle Sidney under the armpits until Sidney couldn’t stand it any longer. “I LOVE GIRLS! I LOVE GIRLS!” Sidney shouted.
    Song Lee, Ida, and Mary heard Sidney.
    So did a lot of the boys.
    Harry got his revenge all right. And it was horrible.
    Sidney ran down the street screaming, “I’ll get you back someday!”

    When Miss Mackle wants the floor cleaned, she asks Harry to sweep. No one sweeps the floor like Harry. He picks up every piece of paper, every pencil stub, and every bit of clay. Once Harry even crawled under my desk to get a broken crayon!
    Nobody knows that Harry keeps some of that stuff.

    But I do. I sit right next to him and watch. Harry is making stub people!
    Harry says his stub people are the scariest creatures in the world. He keeps them in a cigar box in his desk. Someday, when he has made twenty-four, Harry says, his stub people will invade our room.
    â€œIt won’t be long, Doug,” he whispered. “Soon, the stub people will bring doom to Room 2B.”
    When it was Song Lee’s birthday, her mother brought in two trays of treats for the class. After we sang “Happy Birthday,” Song Lee passed out the treats. Miss Mackle noticed there were three fortune cookies and one cupcake left.
    Miss Mackle put them on a plate with a card that said WE LOVE MRS. MICHAELSEN.
    Then she said, “Who would like to take these treats to our librarian?”
    Everyone raised their hand except Song Lee. She’s too shy.
    We kept raising our hands. Sidney made noises like, “Oooooo ... Me! Me! Me!”
    Miss Mackle picked Harry and me. She knows we’re not afraid to go upstairs where the big kids are.
    When we were walking up the stairs to the library, Harry asked me if I wanted to split the cupcake.

    â€œThat’s for the librarian,” I said.
    â€œMrs. Michaelsen just likes yogurt and carrots,” Harry replied. “We’ll be doing her a favor.”
    And so we both promised, “Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye,” that we would never tell on each another.
    Then we ate the librarian’s cupcake.
    Sometimes Harry gets me to do horrible things.
    The day before Columbus Day, Harry came to school with a tattoo on his arm. It was a skull and crossbones. Harry said the sea pirate Long John Silver made his tattoo.
    I know Harry did it with a Magic Marker. I think he just