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***
It was four o'clock and the rain was still pouring down. It had been more
than two hours since the armies had started the waiting game, and the tension
on both sides had reached the breaking point.
Walter C. Wizzle walked across Miss Scrimmage's front lawn carrying his
umbrella, intent on visiting Miss Peabody. He had resolved to tell her that
she was right about physical fitness, and that he was going to begin morning
calisthenics at Macdonald Hall first thing Monday. He was also going to ask
her advice on organizing the exercises.
Approaching the school, he was startled to find Miss Scrimmage standing on
the front porch dressed in her rain slicker and staring about, wild-eyed.
"Good afternoon, Miss Scrimmage. Is Miss Peabody in?"
"Oh, she's in the orchard!" shrilled the headmistress. "Oh, how terrible!"
She shivered.
"Uh is something wrong, Miss Scrimmage?"
She pointed wordlessly to the apple orchard, face contorted with horror.
Mr. Wizzle made his way to the orchard, a trifle bewildered. What was wrong
with Miss Scrimmage? And why would anyone be outside in an apple orchard on a
miserable day like today?
He surveyed the orchard. It would be hard to find a person in there. The
trees were thick, and it was dark and gloomy. Well, he would just have to walk
around. Surely he would run into her eventually.
Cathy sat beside the loaded catapult, an intense expression on her face.
Suddenly her eyebrows shot up. "Someone's coming!" she whispered to her
troops. "The Red-Green army! Battle stations, everybody! Don't move till I
give the word!"
Cathy sat ready, hands shaking with anticipation, until a dim figure appeared
through the trees.
"Fire!"
She fired the catapult.
With an enormous splash, the blue-paint bomb shot up and struck Mr. Wizzle
full in the face, spinning him around, dazed.
"Attack!" Out of nowhere sloshed a bucket of red dye, registering another
direct hit on Mr. Wizzle.
The two armies spied each other and pandemonium broke loose. They surged
together, meeting in the middle, knocking Mr. Wizzle over. Red and blue dye
was everywhere. Streams from water pistols cut the air like laser beams, bombs
large and small were splattering all over, and buckets of dye were splashed in
all directions. Both armies plowed back and forth through the mud, stepping
over the collapsed figure of Mr. Wizzle.
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Casualties piled up quickly as the crazed battle progressed, and the very
ground and trees began to look solid red and blue. The melee raged on until it
became a shoot-out between Cathy, with one of her lieutenants, and five
Red-Green soldiers.
Over her shoulder Cathy saw a stream of red dye strike her companion's back.
She was alone. Screaming in defiance, she went up a tree like a monkey and
began picking off the enemy, one by one. She caught the last Red-Green with a
perfect shot to the centre of the forehead.
Miss Peabody ran onto the scene. "All right! All right! The war's over!
Blue-White wins!"
A crazed expression came over Cathy's face as she looked down at the
assistant headmistress. She would never get another opportunity like this.
"The enemy!"she cried, and squirted Miss Peabody full in the face.
She was out of the tree and disarmed in three seconds.
"All right, everybody!" cried Miss Peabody. "Good workout, all of you! Hit
the showers! Burton, I'll see you in my office!" She looked at the ground. One
figure did not stir. It was a man covered in dye, mud, and grass, holding a
mashed umbrella. She grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his feet.
Mr. Wizzle's eyes uncrossed and he stared into Miss Peabody's blue-dyed face.
"Miss Peabody?" he asked feebly.
She laughed. "Boy, Wizzle, did they ever give it to you!"
He was too stunned to argue. "Uh-huh."
"Well, you'd better come in for a while and recover. If we sent you home,
you'd never find the place."
Mr. Wizzle was still in a daze. "Was that the big earthquake? Am I dead?"
"No," she laughed, "you're dyed."
***
"Boy, Burton, you sure know how to gum up a good thing once you've earned
it."
Cathy looked at Miss Peabody questioningly.
"That was pretty nice shooting you did there. You should be proud. You caught
Sophie Lipton right between the eyes." She frowned. "You caught Gloria Peabody
right between the eyes, too. That was stupid."
Cathy assumed what she hoped was a perfectly innocent expression. "Miss
Peabody, I'm terribly sorry about squirting you. You see, I was so caught up
in the thrill of battle "
"Balloonjuice! You saw a way to get even for all those laps I've handed you,
and you took it! You only made one mistake. When you shot me, you were
shooting the referee. That's something to remember, Burton. Never shoot the
referee until the prize is already handed out. No trip."
Cathy was horrified. "No trip? But the girls will kill me!"
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Miss Peabody grinned."I wouldn't worry about that. They'll have to catch you
first. And you'll be moving pretty fast on the track."
Cathy glared her resentment. Well, all right, so there was no prize. But to
have given Peabody a faceful of blue dye it was worth it!
A Star Is Born
The Committee held a meeting of all major department heads over dinner on
Sunday. The dining hall was buzzing with the news that all students were to
turn out on the soccer field at six-thirty the next morning for calisthenics.
"I don't see how The Fish could have given Wizzle permission to do this to
us!" exclaimed Pete Anderson.
"I don't believe in morning calisthenics," put in Elmer.
"And it leaves so little time for breakfast," mourned Wilbur.
"The last time I tried to do jumping jacks I sprained both ankles," announced
Sidney. "I was in a wheelchair for weeks."
Everybody laughed.
"The worst part," put in Larry, "is this: I overheard at the office that Miss
Peabody is coming over from Scrimmage's to help out!"
"Oh, no!" moaned Sidney.
"Wait a minute!" said Bruno. "I've got an idea. This could be a really big
thing for us. Tomorrow morning we'll all go out and do Wizzle's calisthenics."
"What's so good about that?" asked Boots. "Do we have a choice?"
"We do the calisthenics," explained Bruno, "and then we ask to do more. Then
we all request that we repeat ourpersonal favourite exercises. We just keep
asking to do more and more exercises& "
Morning calisthenics began at six-thirty with Mr. Wizzle and Miss Peabody
standing up at the front of the Macdonald Hall student body. They began with
jumping jacks, jogging in place, push-ups, and sit-ups. At six-forty, Mr.
Wizzle announced, "That's enough for today. You can go."
Bruno's hand shot up. "Mr. Wizzle, sir, let's do that again."
"All of it?" asked Mr. Wizzle incredulously.
"Yes, sir," said Bruno enthusiastically. There were cheers from the assembled
students.
Mr. Wizzle and Miss Peabody led them through the ten-minute routine again.
Boots's hand shot up. "Mr. Wizzle, sir, let's have a morning run."
"Well," said Mr. Wizzle, breathing heavily, "we don't want to overdo it the
first day and "
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