12

Fritz vs. the Loch Ness Monster

Fritz was a member of Mr. Grump’s sixth-grade class. He wore swimming goggles all day every day.

The reason he wore swimming goggles was simple. He had perfect vision. In fact, he could easily read street signs a whole block away. He was very valuable during car rides. However, he noticed that whenever he went swimming in a pool, his vision became blurry.

Since seventy percent of the Earth is covered in water, Fritz did not like the idea that he only had perfect vision on thirty percent of Earth’s surface. By wearing swim goggles all the time, he was guaranteed to have perfect vision no matter where he was on the planet.

Fred had straight, orangish brown hair that hung over his head like wisps of straw on a scarecrow. Thirty percent of his face was covered in freckles and seventy percent was clear skin.

He had large ears, but they didn’t work as well as his eyes.

The defining moment of Fritz’s life happened when he was five years old. His parents had built a pool in the backyard. The only problem was, Fritz didn’t know how to swim. His parents had spent all their money building the pool and had none left to pay for swimming lessons. So, they decided to throw Fritz into the pool with all his clothes on. They figured if he wanted to live, he’d teach himself how to swim.

As Fritz sank to the bottom of the pool, he was very upset that everything around him became blurry. A moment later, he realized that if he didn’t do something soon, he was going to drown.

He made the decision that he did not want to drown and began to furiously flail his arms and legs. He discovered that moving his arms and legs in a synchronous motion caused him to rise upward.

It’s amazing how fast you can teach yourself something when you will die in thirty seconds if you choose not to.

Fritz was apparently a very good self-teacher, for he shot upward through the water with such a burst of speed, he did a double flip in the air and landed in a perfect dive. He continued to swim around the pool at blinding speed, like his little legs were motors and his tiny arms were propellers.

His parents stood there watching with their mouths hanging open.

His father turned to his mother and said, “I think we may have fed him too many fish sticks.”

 

It was mid-October at Scary School.

A heat wave was sweeping through the region, and the students were hard at work on their daily lessons. But they were happier to be inside the air-conditioned classrooms instead of outside in the blazing heat.

Far away in Monster Kingdom, King Zog was hard at work training legions of monsters in the ways of martial arts in preparation for the upcoming assault upon Scary School to retrieve his daughter.

In Mr. Grump’s sixth-grade classroom, the forgetful teacher was hard at work trying to remember the names of the kids who were raising their hands so that he could call on one to answer his question.

He pointed to Jason, who always wore a hockey mask, and said, “What’s your name?”

“Jason,” replied Jason for the third time that day. “The answer is Abraham Lincoln.”

By the time Jason had answered the question, Mr. Grump had already forgotten what the question was and had no idea whether Jason was right or not.

Mr. Grump looked around the classroom to see if he could pick up on whether the class thought Jason’s answer was right. He noticed that Petunia was nodding her head at him. She often nodded to indicate whether an answer was right or wrong, just so the lesson could move forward.

“That’s correct!” exclaimed Mr. Grump.

“Yes!” said Jason. Then he jumped out of his seat, put on his backpack, and bolted out of the classroom.

“Hey. Why did he leave?” asked Mr. Grump.

“Because,” said Wendy Crumkin, “you said that whoever could name the tallest president in US history could have the rest of the day off.”

“Oh. Why did I say that?”

“Because you said that we were about to have a surprise and none of us wanted to be here for it.”

“All right, if you say so,” said Mr. Grump. “Only now I can’t remember what the surprise is and I’m getting scared myself. Maybe I’ll go home too. Do any of you know where my house is?”

The doors burst open and everyone jumped in fright.

“Good afternoon,” said Mr. Snakeskin, the school gym teacher.

Mr. Snakeskin had big, bulging muscles all over his body and wore a red-and-blue sweat suit. His hair was chopped in a crew cut. He looked very mad most of the time. He could also remove his skin whenever he wanted and then put it back on because he was half zombie.

“For your big surprise today,” Mr. Snakeskin continued, “Principal Headcrusher has ordered that all of you must go swimming in Scary Pool during gym class to beat the heat. Now hop to it! We don’t have a second to waste!”

At that, Mr. Snakeskin ripped off his sweat suit. He was only wearing skintight swim trunks underneath. He marched out of the classroom, expecting everyone to follow.

Fritz was ecstatic. His day had finally come! He was terrible at sports and was always the last picked on every team. Because his class had never gone swimming in Scary Pool before, Fritz had never had a chance to show them the one thing he was good at.

Everyone else groaned in aggravation.

Scary Pool was not a place many entered and made it out alive.

 

Each kid in Mr. Grump’s class got into an official Scary School bathing suit. The suits were brightly colored in oranges and yellows so that the wearer stood out in case there was an emergency. Unfortunately, the bright colors also attracted the most dangerous creatures in the pool, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

The water of Scary Pool was as black as tar. Nobody could see what lurked within its depths. It was also enormous—the size of a football field. Just swimming one lap looked like it would take the entire gym class period.

Something about the pool seemed vaguely familiar to Mr. Grump, but he couldn’t say why.

Bubbles started bubbling up on the surface of the pool. When they popped, growling sounds could be heard. There was definitely something alive in there.

“All right,” said Mr. Snakeskin. “Who wants to jump in first?”

All the kids shook their heads and backed away. Even Fritz was hesitant. He wanted to show how well he swam, but he didn’t want to get eaten in the process.

“No volunteers, eh?” Mr. Snakeskin huffed. “It’s perfectly safe. I’ll go in first to show you.”

Mr. Snakeskin bent his knees on the diving board, held the pose for a few seconds, then did a perfect dive into the water.

He disappeared beneath the surface. After several moments, Mr. Snakeskin had still not come back up. Each second that Mr. Snakeskin didn’t appear felt like an hour.

Then, dozens of bubbles began popping up on the water’s surface. Each time a bubble popped, they could hear the gurgled voice of Mr. Snakeskin shouting, “Help!…Help!…Help!”

The class turned to the one they relied on in situations like this—Fred, the boy without fear. Fred had once pulled twenty-two students and a teacher to safety from a fire in science class. Of course, the only one he didn’t save was yours truly, but I’m learning to forgive him. A little.

This time Fred shrugged his shoulders and said, “Don’t look at me. I don’t swim well at all.”

The class started to panic. Fritz knew he was the only one who could save the gym teacher. He tightened his swim goggles and stepped to the front of the pool.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Lindsey shouted.

Fritz declared, “I’m doing…what I was born to do.”

As Fritz dived into the water, the students screamed in terror.

Beneath the surface, the water was murky, but Fritz’s goggles allowed him to see just well enough to navigate.

He swam toward the middle of the pool, where the bubbles had surfaced. Something started nipping at Fred’s toes. He turned his head and saw several piranhas trying to bite them, like his toes were little chicken nuggets. The piranhas’ teeth were razor sharp, and drops of blood began seeping into the water around Fritz’s feet.

The scent of blood attracted more piranhas. A feeding frenzy was about to erupt. Fritz guessed that in about five seconds, he would no longer have feet.

Fritz switched from search mode to escape mode. He kicked his legs as hard as he could, taking off like a bullet through the water. The swift piranhas remained hot on his tail, and Fritz was running out of air.

He surged upward and went airborne, sucking in as much air as he could. The piranhas were unrelenting. They followed him out of the water, creating an arch of hungry flying fish.

The class cheered when Fritz burst from the water. But as soon as the piranhas leaped out of the water after him, they screamed. They were certain Fritz was a goner.

Back in the water, Fritz saw a light shining through the murk. He swam toward it with the piranhas in pursuit.

When he swam through the light, the scenery changed drastically. He was no longer in dark, murky water. Now the water was a crystal-clear blue. The piranhas halted behind him, as if blocked by an invisible wall. Before him was a beautiful, vibrant coral reef.

There were colorful clown fish, sinuous jellyfish, concealed eels, a carnival of barnacles, and cuddly cuttlefish generating dynamic displays of luminous light. (That, my dear readers, is called flowery writing. For your sake, I don’t do it often, but I couldn’t resist.)

There was still no sign of Mr. Snakeskin, and only one place Fritz hadn’t looked. He took a deep breath of air from the surface, then swam into an ominous underwater cave.

Fritz’s perfect vision was of no use in the pitch-black cave. He had to rely on his imperfect ears. Then—a sound in the darkness! It was the blubbering voice of Mr. Snakeskin calling for help. Fritz just needed some sort of light.

Then Fritz felt something slimy on his leg. A cuttlefish! Fritz grabbed hold of the football-sized mollusk. The cuttlefish created its own bioluminescence. When Fritz squeezed the cuttlefish, the cave lit up like a multicolored disco ball.

Fortunately, Fritz was able to spot Mr. Snakeskin. Unfortunately, Mr. Snakeskin was grasped in the claws of a hundred-foot sea monster with the head of a barracuda.

The light drew the attention of the sea monster. It lunged toward Fritz with its eighty-foot neck, but Fritz took off like a bumblebee, making dizzying circles around the monster’s head. The sea monster continued snapping, but Fritz was so fast it was like trying to catch a fly with your bare hands.

Fritz squeezed the cuttlefish on and off, creating a strobe effect in the dark cave, further confusing the monster. It grew weary and released its grip on Mr. Snakeskin. Fritz seized the opportunity and dashed toward him. Mr. Snakeskin deftly grabbed on to Fritz’s shoulder as he swam by.

Fritz churned his mighty legs and dragged Mr. Snakeskin out of the cave like a speedy tugboat. The monster roared in frustration, and the roar created an underwater wave that pushed Fritz ahead.

Fritz and Mr. Snakeskin surfaced, riding a thirty-foot tidal wave all the way back to shore. The class was cheering like crazy.

Mr. Grump pulled Fritz and Mr. Snakeskin onto land with his brawny trunk. Fritz breathed the sweet, sweet air as deeply as he could.

Mr. Snakeskin immediately bounded up and shook the water off himself. Then he opened his skull, took out his brain, and wrung the water out like a sponge. As he placed his brain back in his head, he said to the class, “See? It’s perfectly safe!”

All of a sudden, the hundred-foot sea monster rose out of the water.

“Kids,” Mr. Snakeskin declared, “say hello to Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. It gets very cold in Scotland, so Scary Pool is her home for fall and winter.”

“Hi, Nessie,” said the class.

The monster let out a bloodcurdling roar, which was her way of saying hello back.

“Mr. Snakeskin, how did you survive underwater for so long?” asked Frank, which is pronounced “Rachel.”

“I’m half zombie. I survived hundreds of years buried underground. A few minutes underwater is no big deal. And I must apologize to all of you. The other side of the pool is the not-so-certain-death area. This side of the pool is the certain-death area. I always get them confused.”

The students smacked their hands on their foreheads.

For the remainder of gym, Mr. Grump’s students went swimming in the not-so-certain-death area. As long as Fritz was in the water, every kid felt safe. Mr. Grump even joined the fun and sprayed water with his trunk. It was the best gym class ever, thanks to Fritz.

After that day, Fritz was no longer viewed as the worst athlete in the class. He was now considered the best athlete in the class. Instead of being picked last on every team, he was always picked first.

Unfortunately, Fritz’s talents did not extend to land sports, and the teams that chose him first always lost.