Free Go Jump in the Pool by Gordon Korman Page A

Boots repeated. “What about all those numbers in between? You know, like sevens, twos, fours.”
    “None of them rhyme with ‘great,’” said Bruno. “I’m sending it in. It’s a cinch.”
    There was a polite knock at the door. “Am I interrupting anything?” came the timid voice of Elmer Drimsdale.
    “Oh, nothing much,” called Boots sarcastically. “Only the greatest jingle ever to sell a bottle of pop — or maybe eight. Come on in.”
    Elmer entered the room. “Could you please spare an entry blank for the Cool Cola jingle contest?” he requested. “I think I’ve come up with the winner.”
    “A tie!” crowed Boots. “We have a tie! Let’s hear it.”
    Elmer cleared his throat:
    “Caffeine for your addled pate
,
    Carbohydrates for your weight
,
    Make your thorax palpitate —
    Get Cool Cola by the crate.”
    Without a word Bruno handed over an entry blank and Elmer rushed off to complete it.
    The scene was similar that evening in many Macdonald Hall rooms. In 107, Chris Talbot was labouring over a piece of paper.
    “Hmmm. Let’s see,” he said slowly. “
I eat Snappy Wappies for breakfast because …”
    “They taste like sawdust,” finished his roommate.
    “Well, yes, they do,” Chris admitted, “but I can’t put that. So I’ll put that they’re delicious and they set me up for the whole day. That should win me something.”
    * * *
    Pete Anderson leaned back in his chair and surveyed his work with great satisfaction. “I’ve just completed a hundred and nineteen entries for the Happy Elephant Jellybean contest,” he announced to his roommate. “It’s that count the jellybeans in the jar thing. Surely one of my guesses has to be right.”
    “Mmmm,” said his roommate absently. “What rhymes with refrigerator?”
    * * *
    “Listen to this!” said Mark Davies to Louis Brown.
    “What a shine from Gleam-o Wax!
    It really takes those hits and whacks
.
    You couldn’t scratch it with an axe!
    Three dollars ten, including tax.”
    “Pretty good,” admitted Louis, “but naturally it’s not a match for this:
    Use a Smith foot-odour pad
,
    And your feet won’t smell so bad.”
    “That’s touching,” said Mark. “Very touching.”
    * * *
    On construction
, wrote Sidney Rampulsky,
you should always wear a hard hat because if someone drops a brick on your head and you’re not wearing a hard hat you could die
.
    * * *
    “I think I’ve come up with something honest and refreshing,” said Wilbur Hackenschleimer to his roommate. “It’s for the Whippo Cheese Spread contest. Listen:
I love Whippo Cheese Spread because it’s food and anything that’s food is okay by me
. Hey, why are you laughing? What’s so funny?”
    * * *
    I like Azgard Soap because it gets you so clean that you don’t have to take another stupid bath for a month
, wrote Marvin Trimble.
    “A month? Boy, I’m putting in for another roommate!”
    * * *
    Perry Elbert was poetic. He wrote:
    ’Twas a dark and stormy night
    And my heart was filled with fright
.
    But everything turned out all right
,
    I had my Sammy Norse night light
.
    * * *
    The contest fever carried across the road. Miss Scrimmage’s girls were hard at work filling in entry blanks and making up commercials.
    “I’ve been using Fragrant Daisy Shampoo for forty years,”
read Cathy Burton,
“and never once have I had a speck of dandruff.”
    “That’s ridiculous,” exclaimed Diane Grant. “You haven’t even been alive for forty years!”
    “True,” said Cathy. “And it’s also true that I’ve never been a stock-car racer, but that didn’t stop me from saying how I use only XEQ Motor Oil. No matter what I have to say, Boots is staying right where he is!”
    “Fine,” observed Diane. “And what if you win the contest and they come here looking for a racing driver? They’ll find out you’re not even old enough to have a licence.”
    “That’s why I signed Miss Scrimmage’s name,” Cathy replied.
    The thought of Miss