“We get to have cake?” said Ryan, who is always thinking about eating. “Cool!”

  “Follow me, kids,” said Mr. Harrison.

  Chapter 10

  Digger

  We each took a piece of cake with a candle stuck in it and followed Mr. Harrison down the stairs. I felt like a secret agent sneaking around in the dark. It was cool.

  “Basements are scary,” Emily said as we made our way downstairs.

  “Yeah, there are probably monsters down there,” I told her.

  “Stop trying to scare Emily,” Andrea told me.

  “I’m scared!” said Emily.

  “Hey, can we eat this cake?” asked Ryan.

  “You can’t do that,” said Mr. Harrison. “We need the candles to light our way.”

  “If we had solar-powered flashlights,” I said, “we would be able to eat the cake.”

  “Well, you can’t use your cake as a flashlight and eat it, too,” said Mr. Harrison.

  Finally, we reached the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, there was a hole in the floor. I almost fell in it.

  “I noticed this hole yesterday,” said Mr. Harrison, “and I think I know who made it, too.”

  “Who?” we all asked.

  “A squirrel.”

  “A squirrel?”

  “A squirrel.”6

  Mr. Harrison told us that he had noticed a squirrel hanging around the monkey bars in the playground, digging deep holes in the dirt. He even gave her a name: Digger.

  “I think Digger might have dug a hole into the school and chewed her way through an electrical wire,” he told us. “That would knock out the power, and Mrs. Mentry might have fallen in the hole in the floor.”

  “WOW,” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down.

  “If Digger chewed through a live electrical wire,” Mr. Harrison told us, “she probably got the shock of her life. There might be a fried squirrel down there.”

  “Ewwww, gross!” we all said.

  “Poor Digger,” said Emily.

  “I wonder what fried squirrel tastes like,” asked Ryan.

  “Fried squirrel would have to be cooked in oil,” Andrea said. “That’s what ‘fried’ means. If Digger was electrocuted, she would have been broiled or baked. I take a cooking class after school, so I know these things.”

  Why can’t an electrocuted squirrel fall on Andrea’s head?

  “Wait a minute!” said Alexia. “If Mrs. Mentry touches that live wire, she could get the shock of her life, too!”

  “You’re right!” said Mr. Harrison.

  We got down on our knees around the hole.

  “Mrs. Mentry, are you down there?” Michael hollered.

  There was a long pause, and then . . .

  “Of course I’m down here!” yelled a faraway voice. “Why is there a hole in the floor? I’m going to sue the school!”

  Mrs. Mentry sounded pretty mad.

  “The school is fifty years old,” Mr. Harrison yelled into the hole. “Stuff is breaking all the time.”

  “Tell me what you see,” Neil yelled. “Any dead squirrels down there?”

  “I can’t see anything!” Mrs. Mentry shouted back. “Get me out of here! I need to call my lawyer.”

  “Don’t touch any wires, Mrs. Mentry,” Andrea warned her.

  Mr. Harrison looked at us seriously.

  “I’m too big to fit through this hole, kids,” he said. “A few of you need to go down there and help get Mrs. Mentry out.”

  We all wanted to go down the hole except for Emily, who was scared, of course. Mr. Harrison chose the skinniest ones—me, Andrea, Alexia, and Ryan—to go down there and rescue Mrs. Mentry.

  We lowered ourselves through the hole one at a time. It was scary, but exciting, too. The candles on our cake didn’t give off a lot of light.

  “I’m down,” I said when my

  feet touched the bottom. It was dusty and dirty.

  “Mrs. Mentry?” Andrea asked. “Where are you?”

  Silence.

  “Do you see anything?” Alexia asked.

  “No.”

  “I’ve just seen a face,” said Ryan.

  “Where?” said Andrea. “Is it Mrs. Mentry?”

  At that moment the scariest thing in the history of the world happened. I heard a deep, rumbling sound, then a crash. And the next thing I knew, the ceiling was falling on top of us!

  It was a cave-in!

  Chapter 11

  I Don’t Want to Hold Your Hand

  “Help!”

  That was the first word I heard when I opened my eyes. I’m not sure if I was out for a few seconds or a few hours. It didn’t feel like I had broken any bones or anything. There was concrete and dust and junk here, there, and everywhere.

  “Am I dead?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so, Arlo,” said Andrea. “Unless we’re both dead.”

  I knew I couldn’t be dead, because if I was in heaven, Andrea wouldn’t be there.

  When the dust had cleared, I was in a little cave deep beneath the ground with Andrea, Alexia, and Ryan. Luckily, the whole school hadn’t fallen on our heads. Except for a few scratches, we were all okay.

  I could hardly see a thing. My candle was gone. My cake was gone too. I was cold. This was the worst thing to happen since TV Turnoff Week.

  “We’re trapped,” Ryan said, “like those miners in Chile.”

  “Those miners were underground for months before they got rescued!” said Alexia.

  “Hey, maybe we’ll be on TV when we get out,” I said. “The miners in Chile were on TV all the time.”

  “TV?” said Andrea, all excited. “How do I look? Is my hair messed up?”

  I couldn’t even see Andrea’s dumb hair. It was too dark.

  “Will you stop thinking about how you look for once?” Alexia told her. “We could die in here!”

  Die?

  I hadn’t even thought about dying until Alexia brought it up. I wished I could run away to Antarctica and go live with the penguins.

  Then I heard another voice, in the distance. It was coming from far above our heads. It sounded like Mr. Harrison.

  “Are you kids okay?” he yelled.

  “I feel fine,” yelled Andrea.

  “An emergency rescue crew is coming,” he hollered. “They have a giant drill. We’ll have you kids out of there soon.”

  “Where did they get a giant drill?” I asked.

  “From Rent-A-Giant Drill,” Mr. Harrison said. “You can rent anything.”

  “What about Mrs. Mentry?” Andrea asked. “She’s not with us.”

  “She’s okay,” Mr. Harrison said. “Just before the cave-in, she crawled out of the hole that Digger dug in the playground.”

  “I’ll bet she’s really mad,” Ryan said. “She’ll probably never visit our school again.”

  Mr. Harrison told us that it might take the emergency rescue crew a few hours to drill a hole through the cement and pull us out that way. He sounded really upset.

  “I should have known better,” he said. “I never should have let you kids go down there.”

  “It’s okay, Mr. Harrison,” Andrea hollered up to him.

  I sat on the floor between Andrea and Alexia. Ryan sat across from us. There wasn’t a lot of room, so we had to sit close together.

  “I’m scared,” Andrea said. “What if they can’t rescue us? Hold my hand, Arlo.”

  “I’m not holding your hand,” I told her. “Hold Ryan’s hand.”

  “I don’t want to hold her hand,” Ryan said.

  “I want to hold your hand, Arlo,” Andrea said.

  “Don’t bother me,” I told her.

  “Hey, I want to hold A.J.’s hand, too,” said Alexia.

  “I asked if I could hold Arlo’s hand first,” Andrea told Alexia.

  “So?” Alexia said. “You get to hold his hand all the time. It’s my turn to hold his hand.”

  “Stop fighting!” I told them. “I don’t want to hold either of your hands.”

  That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Andrea and Alexia started crying.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll hold both of your hands. Just stop crying.”

  I held hands with Andrea and Alexia. Ugh, disgusting!

  “Ooooo! You’re holding hands in the dark with two girls, A.J.,” said Ryan. “You must be in love with them!”

  “Quiet, dumbhead,” I told Ryan.

  I had to sit in the dark and hold hands with Andrea and Alexia for a million hundred hours. I thought I was gonna die.

  “Isn’t this romantic, Arlo?” Andrea asked.

  “No.”

  “I wish we still had our candles,” said Alexia.

  “Candles are so romantic,” said Andrea.

  “Yeah,” I said, “people must have been romantic all the time before Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb.”

  We were down there for a million hundred hours. It didn’t seem like we were ever going to be rescued.

  “Arlo,” Andrea said. “Do you want to know a secret?”

  “No.”

  “In case we don’t make it out of here, I want to tell you something,” said Andrea, “something I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “She loves you,” said Alexia.

  “That’s not what I was going to say!” Andrea said. “What I wanted to say was—”

  But she didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence, because at that very moment we heard a loud drilling sound above us.

  “They’re coming to rescue us!” I shouted.

  We all cheered. Finally, I could let go of the girls’ hands.

  The drilling got louder, and a few minutes later we saw a little hole open up above our heads. Mr. Harrison put his eyeball against the hole.

  “When are you going to get us out of here?” I shouted up at him.

  “Any time at all,” he said. “It won’t be long. I’m fixing a hole. I’ll get you. I will. We can work it out. I’ve got a feeling. All I’ve got to do . . .”

  Mr. Harrison wasn’t making any sense at all.

  “What should we do?” I asked.

  “I need you,” he said. “See that big rock over there? Move it over to the side so the drill can get through.”

  I tried to move the rock, but it was too heavy.

  “I’m so tired,” I groaned.

  Ryan and the girls crawled over to help.

  “Dig it,” Mr. Harrison told us. “Carry that weight. All together now. Don’t let me down.”

  All four of us pushed against the rock as hard as we could. Finally, with a little help from my friends, I was able to slide it out of the way.

  “Okay!” Mr. Harrison said. “We’re going to drill again. Wait. Get back.”

  We moved out of the way, and the drill started up again. It was really loud. Pieces of cement were falling around us. It was scary and cool at the same time.

  And then, suddenly, the drill came through, and we could see a big hole open above us. Light flooded in. We could hear all the kids upstairs cheering.

  “Here comes the sun!” I shouted.

  “We’re saved!” Andrea yelled.

  We were about to climb up through the hole when I heard a noise in the corner. There was movement.

  “What’s that?” Alexia asked.

  “Maybe it’s the fried squirrel,” said Ryan.

  “It’s not a fried squirrel!” said Andrea. “It’s a live squirrel. It’s Digger!”

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!”

  Chapter 12

  Supersquirrel

  A live squirrel was staring at me, no more than two feet away! Ryan, Andrea, Alexia, and I climbed out of that hole in the ground like our pants were on fire. You should have been there! I thought I was gonna die!

  “If Digger chewed through the electrical wire, how come she didn’t get electrocuted?” Ryan asked me when we got to the top.

  “She must have supersquirrel powers,” I told him.

  And then the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Digger jumped out of the hole after us! She looked all scared, like she didn’t know what to do or where to go. She was sitting there looking at everybody.

  “Oooh! Look at the cute squirrel,” all the girls yelled. “It’s adorable!”

  “Kill it!” yelled all the boys.

  We started chasing Digger down the hall. I didn’t know what we were going to do if we caught her, but it was fun anyway. Finally, one of the teachers opened a door and Digger ran out of the school.

  When we got back to the front office, all the lights in the school suddenly went back on again. Everybody cheered.

  Ella Mentry was standing by herself in the front hallway waiting for a ride home. There was dirt on her face, and her clothes looked kind of muddy and messed up. She didn’t look very happy.

  “I’ll be on my way,” she said when she saw us.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay, Mrs. Mentry,” said Andrea. “Will you come back and visit us again sometime?”

  “Sure,” she replied, “over my dead body.”

  Hip hip hooray! Ella Mentry is going to come back and visit us after she’s dead!

  “Goodbye,” we all said when a car pulled up to drive her home.

  After it was over, we were on the TV news, and there was a picture in the news-paper of me being chased out of the hole by Digger the supersquirrel. It was a real Kodak moment. Kids were asking me for my autograph. I was a famous celebrity, like that Snooki lady on TV.

  Maybe we’ll get our own reality TV show. Maybe Ella Mentry will sue Ella Mentry School. Maybe Mr. Harrison really is one of the Beatles. Maybe Digger will dig another hole into the school. Maybe Mr. Granite will get through page twenty-three in our math book. Maybe Mrs. Lilly will finally get a scoop so she can pick up her dog’s poop. Maybe grown-ups will stop drinking so much coffee. Maybe I’ll find out what Andrea wanted to say to me when we were trapped in the cave-in. Maybe we’ll finally get off the fritz. Maybe we’ll be able to talk Mrs. Mentry into coming back to visit our school again while she’s still alive.

  But it won’t be easy!

  Within this book are hidden the titles to forty-five Beatle songs. How many of these can you find? Ask your mom or dad to help.

  “Good Morning, Good Morning”

  “Yesterday”

  “I Want to Hold Your Hand”

  “Hello Little Girl”

  “Tell Me Why”

  “Because”

  “Birthday”

  “Run for Your Life”

  “No Reply”

  “I Saw Her Standing There”

  “You Won’t See Me”

  “You Can’t Do That”

  “Tell Me What You See”

  “I’m Down”

  “I’ve Just Seen a Face”

  “Help!”

  “Here, There, and Everywhere”

  “I Feel Fine”

  “I Should Have Known Better”

  “Don’t Bother Me”

  “Do You Want to Know a Secret?”

  “I Want to Tell You”

  “Something”

  “She Loves You”

  “Any Time at All”

  “It Won’t Be Long”

  “Fixing a Hole”

  “I’ll Get You”

  “I Will”

  “We Can Work It Out”

  “I’ve Got a Feeling”

  “All I’ve Got to Do”

  “I Need You”

  “I’m So Tired”

  “Dig It”

  “Carry That Weight”

  “All Together Now”

  “Don’t Let Me Down”

  “With a Little Help from My Friends”

  “Wait”

  “Get Back”

  “Here Comes the Sun”

  “I’ll Be on My Way”

  “Goodbye”

  “The End”

  Notes

  Chapter 1

  1 That’s a grown-up joke that isn’t funny to kids—sort of like those dog whistles that humans can’t hear.

  Chapter 2

  2That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.

  Chapter 3

  3What do hips have to do with cheering? That sounds like you’re cheering for hips.

  Chapter 6

  4What do beans have to do with anything?

  Chapter 8

  5That is, if there were any pins around. Which there weren’t.

  Chapter 10

  6Why is everyone saying “a squirrel”?

  About the Authors

  Dan Gutman has written many weird books for kids. He lives in New Jersey (a very weird place) with his weird wife and two weird children. You can visit him on his weird website at www.dangutman.com.

  Jim Paillot lives in Arizona (another weird place) with his weird wife and two weird children. Isn’t that weird? You can visit him on his weird website at www.jimpaillot.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Copyright

  Mr. Harrison Is Embarrassin’!

  Text copyright © 2011 by Dan Gutman

  Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Jim Paillot

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-06-196919-5 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-06-196918-8 (pbk.)