The Wizzle War Read Free

involving the girls from Miss Scrimmage’s Finishing School for Young Ladies, located across the highway from Macdonald Hall, alarmed him. Some of the girls were wildly unpredictable.
    “Yeah, that’s it,” concluded Bruno triumphantly. “We’ll call in Cathy and Diane and the troops. That dress code is as good as gone!” He rolled over and promptly went to sleep.
    Boots tossed and turned, sleepless.

Chapter 2
Dressed to Kill
    “I can’t breathe!” gasped Bruno Walton, standing stiff as a board and staring wild-eyed into the mirror.
    “It’s awful,” agreed Boots in a strained voice. He craned his neck gingerly and peered over Bruno’s shoulder into the mirror. “Look at us. We look like accountants! How can we be expected to eat breakfast in these outfits?”
    “How can we be expected to eat breakfast,
period
?” howled Bruno. It had always been his custom to sleep until quarter to nine, missing breakfast altogether, and then to make a frantic effort to get to his first class more or less on time. Now the necessity of being nattily dressed was forcing him to get up earlier. “I can’t stand it!”
    The scene was similar in every room in Macdonald Hall.
    “This tie doesn’t look nice and neat like yours,” complained Wilbur Hackenschleimer to his roommate, Larry Wilson. “And I can’t get it to hang right.”
    “Well, that’s because you haven’t done up the top button of your shirt,” said Larry.
    Wilbur staggered backward. “You mean you have to do up the top button?”
    “Of course.”
    “You mean the
top
button? The one at the very
top
? Right where your
neck
is?” gasped Wilbur.
    “Yes.”
    Wilbur turned and looked at his sad, forlorn face in the mirror. “Here goes …”
    “What’s the matter with you?” Chris Talbot shouted at his roommate, Pete Anderson. “You can’t wear a yellow-and-black striped shirt with a purple tie!”
    “All right,” said Pete. “I’ll take the tie off. What goes with a yellow-and-black striped shirt?”
    “Pollen,” said Chris in disgust. “You look like a
bee
.”
    “How do you tie this thing?” asked Sidney Rampulsky, standing in confusion in the middle of the room.
    “Leave me alone!” growled Mark Davies. “I’m miserable enough!”
    “Now, let’s see …” said Sidney. “I guess you loop these together and pull the end through here. Does that look all right?”
    “Gorgeous!” muttered Mark without looking up. “Let’s go.”
    They started for the door, but Sidney stopped abruptly. “Hey, my tie’s caught on something.” He grabbed the tie and pulled. With an odd crunching noise, the hanging light fixture was ripped from the ceiling and came crashing down on Sidney’s head. Sidney went sprawling onto the desk, dazed.
    “Oh, you klutz!”
    In the dining hall the atmosphere was positively pained. Most of the boys sat in silent, stiff-necked misery.
    “This looks like the International Zombie Convention,” remarked Bruno savagely. “It just isn’t Macdonald Hall anymore.”
    “Hey, Bruno,” called Larry, adding insult to injury. “White shirt, red tie — you look like your throat’s been cut.”
    “At least my tie doesn’t have a big green palm tree on it,” retorted Bruno. “Yours would go best with a grass skirt.”
    “Get out of here with those polka dots! I’m trying to eat!”
    “You know, the thick end is supposed to hang lower than the thin end. But I suppose that doesn’t apply to silver ties.”
    “I can’t breathe!”
    “Hey, stupid, your jacket’s inside out!”
    “A silver tie?
Where
?”
    “Everything tastes the same.”
    “Perry’s tie has a sunburst on it.”
    “Perry’s tie has scrambled egg on it!”
    “Help!”
    Mark Davies appeared, leading Sidney by the arm. “Get Sidney some food,” he ordered briskly. “He had a little accident this morning.”
    “What happened?” asked Bruno.
    “His tie got caught in the light fixture and he pulled half the ceiling down on his