“Oh yeah!” George cheered as he and Alex left the lunch line with their trays and headed toward the fourth-grade table. “Spaghetti and meatballs for lunch. This day just keeps getting better and better.”

“It’s definitely the best hot lunch they serve,” Alex agreed.

George plopped his tray down on the table next to Julianna and Alex, and across from Louie, Max, and Mike. The smell of meatballs and tomato sauce floated up to George’s nose. And then . . . suddenly . . . his stomach started to rumble.

George gulped. Uh-oh. Not again.

Grumble rumble.

Rumble grumble.

Phew! That wasn’t a bubbling sound. That was a hungry belly sound. And it was easy to squelch. All George had to do was take a big bite of a meatball.

“Aaaaahhhhh!”

Before George could even take one bite of his lunch, he heard Sage scream. He turned just in time to see her drop her tray.

Crash! Meatballs and spaghetti flew all over the place. A few kids clapped.

“WORM!” Sage shouted. She ran over to the table and grabbed George’s shirt. “Help me, Georgie!” she begged.

George quickly pried himself away from Sage. “Get off of me,” he told her. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Th-there’s a worm in my food!” Sage told him. “I hate worms. They’re so slimy.”

Quickly, the kids in the lunchroom gathered around to see what was happening.

George looked down at the pile of spaghetti and meatball mess on the floor. Sure enough, there was something gray and slimy-looking mixed in with the spaghetti. He reached down and picked it up.

“You’re scared of this?” he asked, waving the worm in front of Sage’s nose.

“Ooo. Get that away from me, Georgie,” she squealed.

“It’s rubber,” George told her. “Someone was just pulling a prank on you.”

A few kids laughed.

“Oh,” Sage said, embarrassed. “I thought it was real.”

“It looks real,” Julianna agreed.

“Until you look at it closely,” Alex commented. “Then you see it doesn’t have any parapodia.”

George stared at Alex. “Para-whatia?”

“Parapodia,” Alex repeated. “Tiny hair-like things that help the worm move. I read about them in a science book once. That worm doesn’t have them.”

Just then, Mr. Coleman, the school janitor, came over with a mop and started to clear away Sage’s spilled food. He didn’t look happy. “First someone uses tape to post a note on my freshly painted cafeteria wall, and now this,” he grumbled.

“There was a note?” George asked him.

“What did it say?” Louie wondered.

Mr. Coleman reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper covered in letters cut from magazines and newspapers. He read the note out loud. “‘Always check the contents of your food before you eat. Signed, The Phantom.’

“I have no idea what it means,” Mr. Coleman said with a shrug. He shoved the note back in his pocket and went back to mopping the floor.

The kids looked at one another. They knew what the note meant. They just didn’t know why this Phantom guy was leaving notes for them.

Just then, Principal McKeon walked over to the lunch table and frowned. “What’s going on here?” she asked.

Sage pointed to the rubber worm in George’s hand. “I thought it was a real worm,” she told Principal McKeon. “Georgie was so brave. He reached right into the hot spaghetti and pulled it out.”

“It was just rubber,” George told her.

“But you didn’t know that,” Sage insisted.

“Or did he?” Louie asked.

George gave Louie a funny look. Louie glared back at him.

“Sage, please help Mr. Coleman pick up the plate and silverware,” Principal McKeon said. “Then you may go get another lunch.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sage said. She bent down and started to clean up the mess.

Principal McKeon shook her head. “Pranks are not funny,” she said as she glanced up at the black-and-orange Halloween parade banner hanging from the rafters. “You students have a lot of privileges in our school. Privileges can easily be taken away.” And with that, she walked out of the cafeteria.

No one said anything for a minute. Finally, George turned to Louie. “Why did you make it sound like I already knew the worm was rubber?” he demanded.

“What do you mean?” Louie asked him.

“You know,” George insisted. “When Sage told everyone I didn’t know the worm was rubber, you said ‘Or did he?’ right in front of the principal.”

“Well, you sure grabbed that worm fast,” Louie explained. “And you weren’t scared at all. So you must have known it was fake. Only you couldn’t have known it was fake . . . unless you were the one who put it there.”

“You think I pulled that prank on Sage?” George asked.

“It’s the kind of thing you would do,” Louie told him. “You’re always joking around. And Sage is always driving you crazy . . . Georgie.”

Max and Mike both started to laugh.

Grrrr. It was bad enough when Sage called him that.

“I’m just not afraid of worms,” George said. “I’d have picked it up even if it was a real one.”

“Sure,” Louie said. “Whatever you say.”

“Yeah, sure,” Max agreed.

“Sure, sure,” Mike added.

George couldn’t believe Louie was accusing him of being the prankster. Okay, at his old school, George played pranks on kids every once in a while. Like when he pretended to take a picture of his pal Katie Kazoo with a camera that squirted water, or put a whoopee cushion on the seat of snooty Suzanne Lock in the school cafeteria. But George didn’t do stuff like that anymore.

Besides, there was something else Louie hadn’t considered. “When would I have dropped the worm in Sage’s food? I came in the cafeteria the same time you did. And I was sitting right here with you when she saw it for the first time.”

Louie didn’t answer. He couldn’t argue with that. “I don’t know how you did it,” he told George. “But I do know Principal McKeon was staring right at that parade banner when she talked about taking away privileges. And I am not going to let that parade be canceled. Not when I’m going to be this year’s leader. So you just better cut it out, George.”

George didn’t answer. Instead he picked up his fork and started to roll his spaghetti around and around. Only he wasn’t very hungry anymore.

Louie was right. Mrs. McKeon had been looking at that banner. Everyone knew it. Even George’s friends. They were all very quiet. George could tell they were worried the parade would be canceled. And he was even more worried that they would blame him if it was.

So much for this day getting better and better. Thanks to Louie and the Phantom, spaghetti and meatballs day was ruined.