“Look,” Tom Morgan said to his friends Johnny Maverick and Stu Duncan. All three boys played for the Howling Timberwolves hockey team. “There’s the new girl.”
It was a cold winter day. The boys stood near the flagpole on the school playground at recess.
“I hear she’s a good dancer,” Johnny said.
Stu didn’t say anything. He was eating a sandwich with his mitts on. He ate a lot of sandwiches, with and without his mitts on.
“You think she’s cute,” Tom said.
“Do not,” Johnny said. “No way! Yuck. Girls.”
The new girl’s name was Connie. She couldn’t hear the boys talking, but she saw them looking at her. She smiled. It was a very friendly smile.
Johnny’s face turned red when she smiled at them. He kicked some snow.
“She’s a good dancer,” Johnny said. “And the Howling Timberwolves fundraiser is next week.”
“Do you mean the Valentine’s Day dance contest?” Tom asked.
“Yes. I want to win the grand prize,” Johnny said. “Even if it means going to a dance with a girl. The grand prize is a graphite hockey stick. Plus ten free dinners at the restaurant, and a bunch of other stuff too.”
Johnny didn’t have to explain which restaurant. The town of Howling was small. It only had one restaurant.
“Free dinners?” Stu asked. “Ten free dinners? Ten?”
“Every business in town has donated something toward the grand prize,” Johnny explained. “It’s mostly parents that enter the dance contest. But I bet if someone danced with Connie, they would win.”
“Ten free dinners?” Stu said again.
Connie still couldn’t hear them talking. But she smiled at them again.
That’s when Tom began to climb the flagpole. A rope ran up to the flag at the top. Tom pulled himself up the pole with the rope.
“What are you doing?” Johnny asked.
“I need Connie to be my dance partner,” Tom said. He was almost halfway up the flagpole. “I’m an athlete. I know how to get a girl’s attention.”
He kept climbing.
It wasn’t long before the students on the playground stopped what they were doing. Everybody gathered around the flagpole. Connie was there too.
Tom reached the top of the flagpole. He held on to the metal ball at the top with one hand. He looked down and grinned at Connie and waved.
She smiled back at him.
Everyone clapped. She did too.
The bell rang and recess ended. The students began to walk toward the school.
“Wait for me!” Tom yelled. The students stopped and turned to look back up at him.
Tom slid down the flagpole as fast as he could. He forgot about the part of the flagpole, near the bottom, where the rope wrapped around a metal cleat. The cleat stuck out on one side of the flagpole.
Tom smacked into the cleat at full speed.
All boys know hitting something like that, especially while sliding down a pole, is not good.
Tom’s eyes opened wide. His face looked like a balloon that was losing air fast. He fell off the flagpole, curled into a ball and groaned.
“Wow,” Johnny said to Stu, “he really does know how to get a girl’s attention.”
