Wrong
Disaster struck Wesley just when he least expected it. If he hadn’t been checking his Tracker Watch, he might have seen it coming…
“So, Wesley,” said a voice out of nowhere, “how did Gulliver escape the Lilliputians?”
Wesley blanked. He smiled weakly.
“Uh … what?” he stammered.
“The book,” repeated Mrs Goldfield, at the head of the class, “The book we’re all reading. You do remember we’re reading a book, don’t you, Wesley?”
Wesley looked down at his desk, and sure enough, there was a book there.
“Absolutely,” he said, trying to sound like he knew what was going on.
“Excellent!” exclaimed Mrs Goldfield, “So then you should be able to tell me how Gulliver escaped the Lilliputians.”
Wesley looked down at his book. There were lots of words there, but he didn’t remember reading any of them. He didn’t know who the Lilliputians were, and he definitely didn’t know how to escape them.
He was thinking he could try confusing Mrs Goldfield by jumping up on his desk and performing a few songs from The Sound of Music, but he’d done that yesterday and she didn’t look like she was ready for more tap dancing just yet.
His only hope was to delay.
“That’s an interesting question,” he said smoothly, leaning back in his chair, “Maybe we should discuss it as class. You know… really get to the bottom of it?”
Mrs Goldfield did not think so.
“Wesley Wilson,” she said sternly, “have you been paying any attention at all in this class?”
“Starting when?”
“The very beginning!”
“I don’t think I was born at the very beginning. Come to think of it, neither were you. That was a long time ago … like, millions and kazillions of years ago. Hey! Maybe we could talk about that instead!”
Mrs Goldfield was rubbing her head in that way she did before she sent Wesley to the office. He started packing up his pencils so he’d be ready.
Next to him, a red-headed girl named Gabby was rolling her eyes. She was like the polar opposite of Wesley: smart in class, good at sports, and popular. On the other hand, she wasn’t nearly as witty as he was. And she was a girl. So there.
“Mrs Goldfield,” she said, raising her hand, “I know how Gulliver escaped.”
“He showed them a picture of you and they all ran away?” Wesley cracked.
Gabby glared at him. He stuck his tongue out at her, and she just rolled her eyes again. She always did that. It was girl code for “I’m too dumb to think of a proper response.”
But then he saw it: the Tracker Watch was flashing red! He must have missed it when he was being distracted by books and what Gulliver ate for breakfast!
He tapped the watch and in an instant, a voice squeaked out in at a frequency only Wesley could hear. It was Rezzit, the body-less computer that could do anything from creating an energy shield to defend against alien attacks… all the way down to checking math questions in Wesley’s homework.
“Danger detected at the sewage treatment plant!” Rezzit shouted urgently, like he did for absolutely everything that happened in life, “Urgent!”
Wesley nodded, looking around the room for a reason to leave. Aside from singing songs and dancing on tables.
Apparently, Rezzit thought he was too slow: “Don’t just sit there and nod! Do something!”
Wesley frowned at the watch.
“Give me a second, I’m in class here,” he whispered.
“Boo hoo! Poor baby! Did I mention it’s URGENT?”
“Quit it!” Wesley hissed.
“What did you say?” growled Mrs Goldfield.
Wesley looked up quickly, smiled sweetly.
“I sneezed. Kerchoo. Dusty in here. Woo.”
“Good recovery.”
“You be quiet!” Wesley whispered.
“Wesley told me to be quiet!” Gabby complained to Mrs Goldfield.
“I did not!”
“Did so!”
“Did not!” Wesley argued, “If I had, I would’ve said ‘be quiet, stupidface’!”.
Gabby’s mouth dropped open.
“Mr Wilson!” Mrs Goldfield boomed, “I think it’s about time you took a trip to the office!”
Uh oh! Going to the office was the worst thing that could happen! There was no way he could sneak out to the sewage treatment plant if he was stuck sitting outside the Principal’s office! He had to think fast!
“Mrs Goldfield!” he said suddenly, “I have to go!”
“Go?” she said suspiciously, “Go where?”
“Bathroom!”
Mrs Goldfield glared at him. She trusted him just about as much as a fish trusts a cat. A cat in scuba gear. With a fork.
“Why?” she said slowly.
“Diarrhea!” he groaned loudly.
Mrs Goldfield still didn’t trust him, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to take chances with diarrhea. Not after last week with Lucas in the library…
“Mr Wilson, if you —”
“Ah!” yelled Wesley, smacking his head into his desk for effect, “I can’t hold it anymore!”
“Go! Go! Just go!” Mrs Goldfield screamed, rubbing her head furiously, “Don’t you dare make a mess in my classroom!”
Wesley jumped out of his seat and waddled to the door sideways like a tap-dancing hermit crab, and waved good-bye to everyone before he left. Especially Gabby. She looked like she wanted to stick four pencils up each of his nostrils.
“And just remember!” Mrs Goldfield yelled after him, “You’ll have to answer the question about Gulliver when you get back! You can’t escape!”
“No kidding,” Wesley muttered to himself, as he ran down the hall towards the exit. When he was clear, he tapped back into Rezzit to get more information.
“So it’s a sewage treatment plant for sure?” he asked.
“No, I’m making things up for fun. It’s a candy factory. And they want you to taste a new kind of chocolate bar. Mmm, yummy. YES OF COURSE IT’S A SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT!”
“Sheesh, I was just asking…”
“Ask better questions from now on. You’re giving me a headache like Mrs Goldfield, and I don’t even have a head!”
Wesley shot down the stairs towards the front door, careful not to disturb the Principal, who had a very bad habit of putting Wesley in detention for no good reason.
“Where’s Crash gone to?” Wesley asked as he slipped out the door and into the school yard, “Can he just meet us at the plant, or do I need to pick him up first?”
“You don’t have time for that,” sighed Rezzit, “and besides, you don’t need him.”
“He usually comes in handy,” Wesley noted.
“No, I come in handy. He makes a lot of noise and breaks things by mistake.”
“Still, we should probably find him.”
“Yeah, fine. I’ll see what I can do. But you know… chances are, he’s got his head stuck in a trash can or something.”