Planet Omar: Epic Hero Flop

CHAPTER 1
RRRRRR!
The sound broke through the pin-drop silence of the classroom. It was the sound that was the start of the WORST TWO WEEKS OF MY LIFE.
We were having a computer lesson, and my best friend Daniel couldn’t wait to show me the new crazy video he had been talking about, of a lion being friends with a human and saving her from an attack by a hyena. I had said he could just email me the link and I would watch it at home, because I knew that our computer teacher, Mr. Philpot, would go absolutely
bananas if he saw us. But Daniel said, “No way. I can’t live through the WHOLE day without showing you. It’s only one minute long anyway.” And he hit the PLAY button with the sort of look on his face that my little brother, Esa, has when he’s farted and he’s waiting for everyone to smell it.
But it was the WORST idea possible, because:
• we are not allowed to watch videos in class.
• we forgot to plug in our headphones, so EVERYONE heard it.
•THE VOLUME WAS ON (((FULL BLAST’)).
Ellie even screamed and jumped out of her seat before she figured out it was just a video. I guess she thought a real lion had somehow come through the door.
Our other best friend, Charlie, was staring at us from across the room, where he was working with his partner, Adam.
HIS EYES TRIPLED IN SIZE.
Mr. Philpot was scanning the few computers around us to make up his mind who to shout at.
You haven’t met Mr. Philpot before, so I will tell you about him. Remember Mrs. Crankshaw, the substitute teacher we once had instead of our lovely usual teacher, Mrs. Hutchinson? The really mean one? Well… Mr. Philpot made her look like a baby lamb wrapped in cotton candy with a drizzle of extra-nice sprinkles on top.
When Mr. Philpot shouted, you could hear him from the other side of the school building. And even if he wasn’t shouting at you, you would still shiver in your boots.
The good thing was that it only happened every so often, not all the time. I guess some things really made him blow his top, and other things didn’t so much. We hadn’t figured out what they were yet, but Charlie was on it. Because Charlie likes math so much, he sees patterns and common factors in everything, and he said, “There must be a common factor in all the times Mr. Philpot has exploded. We just have to figure out what it is so we
NEVER, EVER, like, EVERRRRRR do it.”
But with the video, I thought we might have done it. I looked at Daniel and saw the horror in his eyes as Mr. Philpot took big fat steps toward us. Daniel used to be a mega-bullying TROUBLEMAKER, but those
days are behind him. He hasn’t been in trouble for a long, long time, and I know how happy that makes him. But now he would end up back in the principal’s office like he used to be ALL the time before we were friends.
I saw a tear trickle down his cheek as he put his hands on his ears to prepare for Mr. Philpot’s storm, and I knew I had to do something…

CHAPTER 2
I looked at Mr. Philpot, who was wearing his usual shorts with sandals. He had knobby knees, and something about them made me imagine him as an ogre covered in poisonous warts. This ogre was about to eat my friend.
I stood up really fast. My legs felt all WOBBLY but I found the courage to say,
“IT WAS ME!”
My hand went up to make super sure Mr. Philpot knew who to blame.
“You??” he said. He said it like he didn’t believe it.
“Yes, me, sir. I did it; you can shout at me in my face, if you want.”
That made somebody at the back giggle, but they quickly stopped when Mr. Philpot turned his poisonous warts toward them.
The whole class was looking at me.
That means around sixty eyeballs in total.
I could see Daniel from the corner of my eye. His hands had moved from his ears to his mouth, covering his shock at what I was doing.
Mr. Philpot didn’t shout. Instead, he said, “Can I see you outside, please?”
So I followed him as he walked toward the door. I turned around to look at Daniel, who looked relieved, scared and super confused all at the same time.
When we were outside the classroom, Mr. Philpot said, “Now, young man, what has gotten into you? What a ridiculous fuss you’ve caused! This isn’t like you at all.”
“I know, sir. I’m sorry. It was sort of an accident, I guess. I was trying to catch my pencil which had taken off into the air as if by magic, and…” I babbled on, trying to imagine ways a video could be played by accident.
“OK. OK. Well, don’t do it again, please, Omar.
You’re a good kid.”
And that’s it! I was let off the hook. No principal’s office, no earth-shattering shouting, no anything at all.
With a wide smile of relief, I walked back to my seat next to Daniel, who could still be Daniel-the-kid-who-used-to-be a-troublemaker-but-is-now-a-totally awesome-well-behaved-kid instead of Daniel-the-naughty-kid-who-has-gone-back to-his-bad-ways. That made me feel
really super fantastic.
I had helped my friend and everything had turned out great.
When it was time for recess, the first thing Charlie said to me was, Omar, YOU are a hero!”
Daniel said, “I can’t believe you took the blame for me! It was so crazy! I always knew you were cool, but I never thought I would ever have a friend that cared so much he would get in TROUBLE for me.”
OK, now I felt awkward and shy because Daniel and Charlie were making it a big superhero deal. So I did a handstand to distract them. I had been practicing at home and had only broken one lamp in my mission to get really good (and the telling-off I had gotten from Dad was totally worth it).
It worked. Charlie and Daniel started clapping and trying to do their own handstands,
which they weren’t quite managing just yet. Soon other kids from our class were coming up to me to ask what happened. And when they found out it wasn’t really me who had played the lion video, but that I’d taken the blame so Daniel wouldn’t get into trouble, they all looked at me as if I had burped a rainbow or something.