Mascot Madness! Read online

  I knew how he felt. The sight of a giant banana brought back a flood of bad memories . . . memories that I would sooner have forgotten.

  ‘I’m confused,’ said Fiona, which was unusual; she was so smart that she was rarely confused about anything. ‘Why was there a giant banana in our classroom? And why was it doing cartwheels?’

  ‘I didn’t know bananas could even do cartwheels,’ said Gretel.

  ‘Or somersaults,’ said Grant.

  ‘We should see if it’s all right,’ said Jenny, getting up and going to the window. She leaned out. ‘Are you okay?’ she called.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine, thank you,’ called a voice from below.

  ‘That’s weird,’ said Clive. ‘It sounds just like Mr Brainfright.’

  ‘That’s because it is Mr Brainfright!’ said Gretel.

  ‘But what’s Mr Brainfright doing in a banana suit?’ said Newton.

  ‘Let’s ask him,’ I said.

  ‘Mr Brainfright, why are you wearing a banana suit?’ Jenny called out.

  ‘This isn’t just a banana suit,’ Mr Brainfright called back. ‘Meet the new Northwest Southeast Central mascot!’

  10

  An inspiring mascot?

  After Mr Brainfright made his way back into class and took off the suit, he told us all about it.

  ‘I think this is the solution to your athletic problems,’ he said, holding up the suit. ‘An inspiring mascot!’

  ‘I can see that a bright, colourful mascot could act as a rallying agent for our school and encourage and inspire us,’ said Fiona. ‘But a banana?’

  ‘Yes, a banana,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘Believe me, nothing will strike fear into the heart of your opponent more than the sight of a giant banana.’

  ‘Confuse them, more like,’ said Jack.

  ‘Even better,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘A confused opponent is a weakened opponent.’

  11

  Mr Brainfright’s important lesson no. 1

  Nothing will strike fear into the heart of your opponent more than the sight of a giant banana.

  12

  Mr Brainfright’s important lesson no. 2

  A confused opponent is a weakened opponent.

  13

  Who wants to be the banana?

  ‘You really like bananas, don’t you, Mr Brainfright?’ said Jenny.

  ‘What’s not to like?’ he replied. ‘They are bright and cheerful in colour, easy to peel, and taste great. Plus they’re good for you.’

  ‘But where did you get a banana suit?’ said Gretel.

  ‘I found it!’

  ‘You found a banana suit?’ said Gretel.

  ‘Yes!’ Mr Brainfright beamed. ‘It was one of the happiest days of my life. I was taking a shortcut across a vacant lot and I found the suit lying in a puddle. I took it home, cleaned it up, and it was as good as new. Why anybody would want to throw away a perfectly good banana suit is completely beyond me!’

  It wasn’t beyond me, though.

  I knew exactly how it got there.

  And to tell you the truth, I would have been happy never to see it again.

  Mr Brainfright held it up. ‘So,’ he said, ‘who wants to be the banana and inspire Northwest Southeast Central School to victory?’

  We all looked at each other.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘Well, what about you, Gretel?’

  ‘No, we can’t spare Gretel,’ said David. ‘We need her for shot-put, javelin and discus.’

  ‘Then how about you, David?’

  ‘Oh no, sir,’ said David. ‘I’m a long-distance runner and I also do the long jump. I don’t think I could do those in a banana suit.’

  ‘Good point,’ said Mr Brainfright, looking around the room. ‘Penny and Gina. Are either of you interested?’

  ‘No, Mr Brainfright,’ said Gina. ‘We do the hurdles.’

  ‘Our horses love the hurdles,’ said Penny.

  ‘Grant?’ said Mr Brainfright.

  ‘Pole vault,’ said Grant.

  ‘Jenny?’

  ‘Relay, sir.’

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘Um, er, I have to focus on my event,’ said Jack.

  ‘Which is?’ said Mr Brainfright.

  ‘Triple jump,’ he said, with a perfectly straight face.

  The class laughed.

  Jack grinned. ‘What about you, Henry?’ he said, trying to deflect attention from himself.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Do you have a special event?’ Mr Brainfright asked me.

  ‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘I have to do a sports report for the school newsletter.’ Well, it wasn’t really a lie—it was the truth, although it wasn’t the whole truth about why I couldn’t possibly be the banana mascot.

  ‘What’s the matter, Henry?’ said Jenny. ‘You’ve gone all red!’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘have I? It’s very hot in here . . .’

  ‘But the windows are wide open,’ said Jack.

  ‘I can vouch for that!’ said Mr Brainfright.

  14

  Mr Brainfright inspires the school

  ‘So,’ said Mr Brainfright, ‘nobody wants to be the banana mascot?’ He looked around the room.

  Nobody volunteered.

  Especially not me.

  ‘Well,’ he said, with a big smile, ‘I guess that leaves me!’

  Despite Mr Brainfright’s attempts to find a volunteer, I got the feeling that he wasn’t too disappointed to be getting back into the suit.

  ‘Can somebody do the zip up at the back?’ he said.

  Jenny jumped up, zipped the suit, and Mr Brainfright immediately began singing. ‘If you’re a banana and you know it, clap your hands!’

  None of us clapped, though.

  We just stared.

  If you’ve never seen your teacher in a banana suit singing ‘If you’re a banana and you know it, clap your hands!’, let me tell you it’s a pretty bizarre sight.

  But our staring and non-clapping didn’t seem to dampen Mr Brainfright’s enthusiasm. ‘If you’re a banana and you know it, clap your hands!’ he sang.

  He looked so ridiculous that I had to laugh . . . and clap. Jenny joined in. So did Jack.

  ‘If you’re a banana and you know it, then you really ought to show it,’ sang Mr Brainfright loudly. ‘If you’re a banana and you know it, clap your hands!’

  Gretel and Newton joined in, followed by Fiona, David and Grant. By the time Mr Brainfright had started the second round, everyone but Clive was clapping.

  ‘You know one of the other things I love about bananas?’ said Mr Brainfright, after we’d sung the song for a third time.

  ‘What?’ said Jack.

  ‘The word is so much fun to spell!’

  ‘I love spelling!’ said Fiona excitedly.

  Mr Brainfright wrote it up on the board. ‘Say it with me,’ he said, pointing to each letter as we chanted it.

  ‘B-a-n-a-n-a-s.’

  ‘Good!’ boomed Mr Brainfright. ‘Again . . . but louder this time!’

  ‘B-A-N-A-N-A-S!’ we yelled.

  ‘THAT’S RIGHT!’ yelled Mr Brainfright, jumping and punching his fist into the air.

  ‘LET’S GO . . . BANANAS! Now, get up and say it all together: B-A-N-A-N-A-S . . . LET’S GO . . . BANANAS! B-A-N-A-N-A-S . . . LET’S GO . . . BANANAS! B-A-N-A-N-A-S . . . LET’S GO . . . BANANAS!’

  By this time we were all out of our chairs, jumping, punching the air, and yelling ‘B-A-N-A-N-A-S . . . LET’S GO . . . BANANAS!’ as loud as we could. We made a mess of the spelling, but nobody was in doubt about the feeling behind it.

  ‘This is really fun!’ said Jenny.

  ‘I feel great!’ said Jack.

  ‘Me too!’ said Newton, who for once wasn’t looking scared at all.

  ‘This is all highly irregular,’ shouted David above the noise. He had the school handbook open in front of him and was pointing at a page. ‘Section thirty-one, sub-paragraph three specifically forbids chanting in c
lass.’

  ‘It most certainly DOES!’ agreed Mrs Cross, who was standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips, but before she could tell Mr Brainfright to control his class and stop making so much noise, she saw the giant banana that was dancing and singing and pointing at the letters on the blackboard. Her mouth dropped open.

  ‘Oh, hello, Mrs Cross!’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘Would you be so kind as to point to the letters for me? I’m trying to dance, you see, and the pointing is really cramping my style.’ And with that, he skipped over, put the pointer into her hand and guided her to the front of the room.

  At first, poor Mrs Cross was too surprised to do anything but stand there and point, but as the chant continued, an amazing thing began to happen: the corners of her mouth began to twitch, and spasm, and curl up.

  ‘Henry!’ cried Newton, alarmed. ‘Something’s wrong with Mrs Cross!’

  I laughed. ‘There’s nothing wrong,’ I reassured Newton. ‘She’s just smiling.’

  And soon she was doing a whole lot more than that. She was singing and dancing and chanting along with the rest of us.

  If we needed any more proof of the power of Mr Brainfright’s banana suit, the sight of Mrs Cross kicking her heels up and smiling was it.

  But there was more to come.

  Plenty more.

  15

  Principal Greenbeard arrives

  We had just formed a conga line behind Mr Brainfright and were parading and stomping around the room when Principal Greenbeard appeared.

  He was all decked out in a brilliant white suit, looking more like the captain of a ship than a school principal.

  And there was a good reason for this.

  Principal Greenbeard didn’t think that he was a school principal.

  In fact, he didn’t even think that the school was a school.

  He liked to imagine that the school was a big ship and that he was the captain and the staff and students were all members of the crew.

  Principal Greenbeard stood there, trying to make sense of the sight of a giant banana leading a group of students—as well as another teacher—in a mad, noisy conga-line stomp around the classroom.

  ‘What in the deep blue sea is going on here?’ he finally spluttered.

  The conga line came to a halt.

  ‘Good morning, Principal Greenbeard!’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘Care to join us in a conga?’

  ‘Most certainly not,’ said Principal Greenbeard. ‘This is a ship, not a bawdy house! And who—and what—the devil are you?’

  Mr Brainfright removed the head of his costume. ‘It’s me,’ he said.

  Principal Greenbeard blinked a few times. ‘Brainfright?’ he said.

  ‘Yes! I’m the new Northwest Southeast Central School mascot!’

  ‘I’ve sailed the seven seas for many years and seen and heard of many strange things,’ said Principal Greenbeard. ‘But I’ve never seen or heard of a banana mascot.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘That’s why it’s going to be so effective! It will confuse Northwest West Academy no end.’

  Principal Greenbeard’s eyes lit up. ‘And a confused opponent is a weakened opponent!’

  ‘Exactly!’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘Well, what do you think?’

  Principal Greenbeard stroked his chin. ‘Hmmm,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’re right, Brainfright. There’s no denying that Northwest Southeast Central is in the doldrums. We’ve been all at sea for a long time—maybe a banana mascot is just the thing the crew needs to cure their sporting scurvy!’

  16

  Return of Fred and Clive

  That lunchtime Gretel, Newton, Jenny, Jack and I were sitting in our usual spot in the shade beside the basketball court, discussing the events of the morning, when Fred and Clive appeared.

  ‘Your teacher’s a freak,’ said Fred.

  ‘No, he’s not,’ said Jack. ‘He’s a banana.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Fred. ‘My mistake. He’s a banana-shaped freak.’

  ‘Good one, Fred,’ said Clive, slapping his brother on the back.

  ‘If you think your teacher dressing up as a banana is going to help us beat Northwest West Academy, then you’re wrong,’ said Fred. ‘We haven’t got a hope and you know it.’

  ‘At least he’s trying,’ said Gretel.

  ‘He can try all he likes,’ said Fred, ‘but Northwest Southeast Central School will never beat Northwest West Academy. Not in a million years . . . and not even with a million banana mascots.’

  ‘Hey, that’s a great idea,’ said Jack. ‘A million banana mascots! Imagine that!’

  ‘You can imagine all the banana mascots you like, Japes,’ said Fred. ‘Imagine us winning while you’re at it. Because that’s the only place it’s ever going to happen: in your mind!’

  ‘Why are you so negative?’ asked Jenny. ‘Don’t you want us to win?’

  ‘Sure I do,’ said Fred, shrugging. ‘But we never will. It’s not just Northwest West Academy we’re up against—it’s The Boa.’

  ‘Yeah, and you can’t beat The Boa,’ said Clive. ‘We’ve watched all his fights. My dad’s got the twenty-DVD set, The Greatest Wrestlers Ever in the History of the Entire World—and The Boa takes up nineteen of them. He’s a legend.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Jack. ‘Well, if he’s such a legend, then how come he was thrown out of the World Wrestling Federation?’

  Fred scowled and pointed at Jack angrily. ‘That was not his fault. It was a frame-up. He was attacked by the referee.’

  ‘Oh, really? That’s not what I heard,’ said Jack.

  ‘What did you hear?’ said Fred.

  ‘That he started it,’ said Jack.

  ‘Well, you heard wrong,’ said Fred. ‘And if you go around saying that, you’ll be sorry.’

  ‘Why, what are you going to do?’ Gretel challenged. ‘Tell The Boa?’

  ‘I might just do that,’ said Fred, turning and walking away.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Clive, trotting after him. ‘He might just do that.’

  17

  The winners’ podium

  Even if we had a new mascot, we still had to go to the same old sports class. The next morning we were sitting outside on the oval while Mr Grunt called the roll.

  When he finished, he put down his clipboard and gave us a bug-eyed stare. ‘In case you’ve forgotten,’ he said, ‘the Northwest interschool athletics competition will soon be upon us.’

  None of us, of course, had forgotten.

  ‘Now,’ continued Mr Grunt, ‘in the unlikely event that any of you losers actually wins an event on the day, you are going to need to know how to stand on a winners’ podium without falling off. Do any of you even know what a winners’ podium is?’

  Fiona put up her hand. ‘It’s a set of three blocks, sir, of varying height. The winner stands on the highest block in the centre. The second place-getter stands on a lower block on the winner’s right and the third place-getter stands on another lower block on the winner’s left. Just like the one behind you, sir.’

  ‘Very good, Fiona,’ said Mr Grunt. ‘What a pity your legs don’t work as fast as your brain.’

  Fiona looked outraged. But she didn’t dare say anything.

  Mr Grunt went on with his lecture. ‘Now, you might think that climbing up onto one of these is a simple matter, but it’s not as easy as it looks. Even someone as experienced at winning as I am can occasionally stumble. I remember when I once won a gold medal for something or other—there’ve been so many I can barely remember them all . . .’

  I rolled my eyes. Mr Grunt was off on another story about his past sporting glories.

  ‘. . . as I went to mount the block, the roar of the crowd momentarily disoriented me and I stumbled. Luckily, thanks to my excellent reflexes and finely honed sense of balance, I was able to recover instantly, averting what could have turned a sporting triumph into nothing more than a highlight on a sporting bloopers show.’

  Clive laughed.

  ‘Somethi
ng funny, Durkin?’ said Mr Grunt.

  ‘I like bloopers shows,’ said Clive, still chuckling.

  ‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me,’ said Mr Grunt. ‘Bloopers shows are full of losers making mistakes for the amusement of other losers.’

  Clive stopped laughing. ‘I’m telling my brother you said that,’ he muttered.

  Mr Grunt ignored him. ‘So, since none of you have my great reflexes and finely honed sense of balance, we are going to spend this lesson practising how to mount and stand on a winners’ podium without falling off.’ He looked around for a suitable victim. ‘Hooton, you’re first up.’

  Newton looked worried. ‘I’d rather not, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m scared of heights.’

  ‘All the more reason to get up there,’ said Mr Grunt. ‘Fear is your enemy! Obliterate it. Pound it into submission. Show it who’s boss.’

  ‘Why are you always picking on Newton?’ said Jenny.

  ‘I’m not picking on him,’ said Mr Grunt. ‘I’m offering him an opportunity to feel like a winner.’

  ‘Could I just stand on one of the lower blocks, please?’ said Newton, pointing to the third-place block.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Mr Grunt. ‘Third place is no place for a winner.’

  ‘What about second?’ said Newton.

  ‘No! Second place is just another word for first loser,’ said Grunt. ‘Get up there, boy. Show me that you’re not as pathetic as you look.’

  Newton rose to his feet unsteadily. Jenny squeezed his hand. ‘Go on, Newton,’ she said. ‘You can do it.’

  Newton walked tentatively towards the podium and stood in front of it. Then he put his right foot onto the second-place block and climbed up. He stood there, knees shaking. ‘I think I’m getting a nosebleed. It’s the altitude.’

  ‘Nonsense, boy—keep climbing,’ said Mr Grunt.

  Newton put his left foot onto the first-place block. ‘I don’t want to do this, sir,’ he whimpered. ‘I can’t—’