ELROD McBUGLE ON THE LOOSE

By Jeff Strand

Elrod McBugle on the Loose copyright 2000 by Jeff Strand

Cover design by Lynne Hansen

http://www.LynneHansen.com

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author.

For more information about the author, visit http://www.JeffStrand.com

Introduction

JUST ABOUT ALL the Greenwater Junior High students have said that they’ll never forget last year, and it’s my fault. People seem to blame me for a lot of stuff...though in the interest of honest reporting I should mention that they’re usually right. But I don’t try to cause turmoil and wreak havoc and produce mayhem and blow things up. It just happens.

By the way, my name is Elrod McBugle, and I’m the reason wind-up chattery teeth were banned from Greenwater Elementary. I’m also the reason the gymnasium floor is a bright orange color that burns your eyes if you look at it for more than a couple seconds. And I’m the reason Greenwater Junior High has this appalling smell in the...but I’ll get to that a little bit later.

I just want you to know that I’m really not a bad kid. I don’t kick three-legged dogs or throw rotten eggs into the mailboxes of elderly people so that when they reach inside their hands become covered with stinky goo and their mail gets all slimy and the ink on their postcards gets all blurry and unreadable and they curse the way kids these days have no respect for private property and in their day any kids pulling stunts like this would have their hides tanned but good and whatever happened to common decency anyway?

I’ve always tried to do the right thing.

Really.

It’s just that sometimes things get...weird.

Anyway, this book is about my first year at Greenwater Junior High and how I managed to survive. It’s also about chocolate-covered gummi bears, because there aren’t nearly enough books being written about chocolate-covered gummi bears, especially the yellow ones. And it’s about why you should be nice to everyone you meet, if I remember to write that part. In case I forget, just be nice to everyone you meet, okay?

Oh, and there’s going to be a quiz after each chapter. I figure if I had to be tested on this stuff as I lived it, you might as well be tested on it as you read it. It’s only fair.

Introduction Quiz

1. What is the name of Elrod’s school?

2. What color of chocolate-covered gummi bears are especially lacking books being written about them? (For bonus points, write the book, making it between 257 and 258 pages, double-spaced, with footnotes and a bibliography. We will check your sources.)

3. Fill in the blanks: This is the greatest book ever written because ___________________________________ and also because ________________________________ and Elrod should be paid $_ _ _, _ _ _, _ _ _. _ _ for having written it.

Chapter One

“I DON’T WANNA GO to school.”

“Come on, get up. You have to go.”

“No, I don’t wanna!”

“Listen,” I said, plopping down on the chair next to my friend Scoopy’s bed. “Your mom is going to be up here any minute. You might as well get up now.”

He rolled over, facing the wall, and pulled the covers over his head. “Go away.”

Scoopy, my best friend, is not a morning person. He’s not much of an afternoon person, either. He’s more of a 5:00pm to 5:45pm person...on good days.

His real name is Hugh Casson, but in third grade he went through a phase where he wanted to try out various nicknames. First he asked us to call him “Truck,” which we did. Then a few days later he asked us to call him “Scoopy,” which we did. A couple minutes after that he wanted us to refer to him as “Wrench,” but we were having too much fun calling him “Scoopy,” and the nickname stuck. It’s a combination of Scooby-Doo and Snoopy, and it really impresses the girls, even if they don’t realize it.

I’ve known Scoopy since kindergarten, and he’s always been the tallest boy in class. But it seems like every inch he grows takes away ten percent of his coordination, leaving him a very tall, very skinny, hopeless klutz. You wouldn’t think the tallest kid in school would be picked last for basketball, but you haven’t seen Scoopy try to dribble. It’s scary.

His great height is accented by his hair, which tends to stick straight up in a gravity-defying spell that is only broken when Scoopy trips and falls. This happens often, since Scoopy usually manages to trip over things like ants, sand, his toes, and air. Because of this, his clothes (which were never all that fashionable in the first place) are usually dirty, torn, and ragged.

I, on the other hand, am built much like that fine politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, minus all that excess flab. I sort of look like a combination of Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson, if they’d had plastic surgery to improve their appearance. My voice is so manly that I’ve prevented eight or nine robberies just by saying “I wouldn’t do that if I were you...punk.”

No, I’m not lying, except for maybe the parts about Arnold, Tom, Mel, and the robberies. Actually, I’m average in appearance, if you exclude a few extra Twinkies I carry under my skin near the stomach area. I’ve got short black hair, wear wire-framed glasses, and have a face that contains two eyes, one nose, and a mouth, as well as some other features, including but not limited to eyebrows, a chin, some adorable dimples, and one of those little dents everyone has under their nose.

Now back to our story...

I glanced at my watch. “If you get up right now, you’ll have a full six minutes to get ready before we have to leave. We can’t be late our first day. They’ll think we’re slackers, which doesn’t go with the fact that we’re supposed to be nerds.”

“I’m sick,” said Scoopy, keeping his head beneath the covers. “I think it might be glomerulonephritis. Leave me alone.”

Scoopy has been obsessed with glomerulonephritis ever since he read about it two or three years ago. It’s some sort of kidney infection that Scoopy managed to convince himself was lurking behind every corner, ready to leap out and get him. I once made ten dollars by selling him some anti-glomerulonephritis medicine, which was actually some hamster pellets I colored with a magic marker. I am not proud of this.

Then I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. These were a special kind of footsteps heard only in the Casson residence. They were slow, forceful, and each echo sent out a very explicit message: This is your mother coming up to check on you, and if I don’t like what I see things are going to be UGLY!

“Now you’ve done it,” I said, wishing Scoopy had some extra pillows I could press over my ears to block out The Voice of Mom.

The door opened with a hideous creak, and Ms. Casson entered. She’s not a very large woman, but I swear that three-fourths of her body mass is pure lung. This was going to be bad. This was going to be very bad.

“HUGH CASSON WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU STILL IN BED?!?!?”

One of my eardrums passed out from sheer fright.

“I’m sick,” said Scoopy.

“YOU MOST CERTAINLY ARE NOT SICK YOUNG MAN DO YOU WANT ME TO DRAG YOU OUT OF THAT BED BY YOUR HAIR?!?!?”

“No.”

“THEN I WOULD ADVISE YOU TO GET UP RIGHT THIS VERY INSTANT AND I MEAN NOW!!!!!”

I would’ve been out of that bed before you could say the entire word “a,” but Scoopy barely moved. Oh yes, this was going to be bad indeed.

“I’m going to wait out in the hall,” I said, hurrying out the door. I walked halfway down the stairs, until I could see Mr. Casson sitting at the dining room table, reading a newspaper.

“Good morning, Elrod,” he said. “Looking forward to your first day of junior high?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

Upstairs, there was a very loud discussion regarding somebody being far too old for this kind of nonsense and somebody else being old beyond her years because of that specific nonsense.

“Are you nervous?” Mr. Casson asked.

I shrugged. “A little. Not too much.”

There was a loud thump of a body falling to the floor and a sharp cry, followed by a discussion regarding the degree to which somebody was sick and tired of a certain behavior.

“You’ll do fine,” said Mr. Casson. “Do your homework and study for all the tests—that’s the secret to a successful school career.”

“I’ll remember that.”

The upstairs discussion continued, now centering around the upcoming change of certain disagreeable attitudes from the way they’d been in the past. A couple minutes later, Scoopy came down the stairs, fully dressed, wearing his backpack and a nasty, sleep-deprived scowl.

“Have fun, boys,” said Mr. Casson. “Don’t forget to write down your locker combination.”

“We won’t,” I said, opening the front door. “Come on, Scoopy, we really need to get moving.”

We left the house and walked down the sidewalk toward school. I maintained a rapid pace which Scoopy only met when he realized that I wasn’t going to wait for him despite comments like “Slow down,” and “C’mon, slow down,” and “Will you slow down, please?”

Our new school was only three blocks away, which was a wonderful thing because it meant we no longer had to ride the bus. I hated riding the bus. People always threw stuff at me on the bus. If one more slice of bologna had hit me in the back of the head, I would have gone crazy and started poking my fellow riders with a really sharp Pez dispenser.

Three blocks later we hurried through the main entrance of Greenwater Junior High just as the first bell rang. The first bell was the “move your butt” bell, which would be followed in two minutes by the “your butt is late” bell. We knew where our home rooms were from the orientation we’d attended last week, so I veered to the right while Scoopy veered to the left, though it was not the most graceful veering to the left I’d ever witnessed. In fact, it was a pretty pathetic veering to the left. If it’s ever necessary for you to do any veering to the left, I hope your veering to the left is better than Scoopy’s veering to the left was that day.

I walked into Room 153 and sat down at an unoccupied desk in the front row. The top of the desk contained the most elaborate drawing of somebody picking their nose I’d ever seen. The artist hadn’t signed his masterpiece, but I would have bought a couple prints.

I knew a few of the other kids in the room, but most of them were strangers. Greenwater has three different elementary schools but everyone gets thrown together into the one junior high, so there were a lot of new people to meet (and then forget about when we moved on to the three high schools).

The second bell rang, followed immediately by six or seven students stampeding into the room while the teacher shook her head disapprovingly. Her name—Ms. Webster—was written on the blackboard in handwriting so perfect I swear she used a ruler and carpenter’s level. I’d say she was about a hundred and thirty-eight years old, give or take a couple months, and her grey hair was pulled back so tightly it looked like she was preparing to be scalped.

She held her disapproving gaze for about twenty more seconds, then picked up a long wooden rod suitable for use as a pointer or a brain-stabber, and said “Good morning.” Personally, I’m not so sure she thought it was all that great of a morning, but I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt since she had the rod.

She pointed to the board. “My name is Ms. Webster.”

“Hello, Ms. Webster,” said one student in a sing-songy voice that he thought was going to earn him a big laugh. Instead it earned him a glare from Ms. Webster, and I just knew he was going to get a rod through the forehead and spend the rest of his life not being able to pronounce the letters a, b, d, f, h, k, or y.

But instead she paced around the room. “I would like to welcome you to Greenwater Junior High. In about twenty minutes you’ll be attending an assembly where the principal will welcome you, but for now it’s just me, and my welcome isn’t going to be nearly as comforting. You’re not in elementary school anymore. This is where the real education begins. The baby treatment is over. Do you all understand?”

The kid next to me nodded. Ms. Webster lashed out with her rod, smacking him on the side of the head and knocking him out of his chair. “You will not nod without raising your hand first!” she snarled. “You will sit motionless in your seats, eyes forward, unless I signal that your participation is required by activating the electroshock system within your seats!”

She walked back to her desk and pressed a button. There was a huge crack of thunder, and a girl in the back row cried out as sparks flew from her seat. Smoke billowed up from her clothing. She ran around the room, hair on fire, screaming.

“Is that understood?” Ms. Webster demanded, ceasing the girl’s ruckus with a solid rod strike to the head.

Nobody moved.

“Good. And these men will be here to ensure that you follow my rules!”

The door burst open and a single-file formation of fifteen soldiers marched in, wearing black uniforms and holding futuristic laser death rays. They moved until they had formed a line around the perimeter of the room, then simultaneously raised their death rays and pointed them at us menacingly.

A guy raised his hand. “I have a question...”

“No questions!” shrieked Ms. Webster, as the soldiers zapped him with their greenish-yellow beams, disintegrating him. “School is not a place for questions!”

She pushed a second button on her desk and the walls rotated, revealing too many implements of torture to count. There was a rack upon which a screaming student was being stretched out to eight feet in length by shirtless men in black executioner hoods. Another student was having hot coals applied to her feet, seriously wrecking the fine job she’d done polishing her toenails. A whole bunch of other students were being poked with stuff.

I could take it no longer.

“Cease this villainy!” I shouted, standing up. “Unhand my fellow pupils and begone with thee, wretched creature!”

Ms. Webster gave me a disapproving look, one that was made even more disapproving by the way her eyes were glowing bright red. She snarled at me, revealing razor-sharp fangs.

“What did you say?”

“I said, cease this villainy. Unhand my fellow students and...no, wait, I think I said pupils. That’s right, unhand my fellow pupils and...go somewhere...ummm...I made it up on the spot, so I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I’m pretty sure the word ‘wretched’ was in there. Does that help?”

Ms. Webster let out a roar that blew everyone’s hair back as if there were a tornado in the room. “Destroy him!” she shouted.

The soldiers zapped away, but I had already picked up my desk and was using it as a shield. I spun around, deflecting their lasers, which bounced back and struck the soldiers, vaporizing them one by one. A couple kids were also disintegrated in the crossfire, but at least I didn’t know them.

“Curse you!” screamed Ms. Webster after all her soldiers were gone. “Now I’m going to lose my deposit on them! Oh, you will pay for this, I promise you that!” And with that, she tore away the false skin of her human face, revealing the most horrific, gruesome, appalling—

“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Ms. Webster, snatching up the comic I’d been drawing before I could complete the horrific, gruesome, and appalling part.

“Uhhh...uhhh...uhhh...” I said.

She quickly looked the comic over. “So, are we in third grade again?”

“Uhhh...uhhh...uhhh...”

“Do you know where the principal’s office is?”

Instead of saying “Uhhh” again, I shook my head.

“Do you know where the main entrance is?”

Instead of shaking my head again, I nodded.

“It’s right there. Go now. I’ll join you shortly.”

I nodded again and stood up as some of my classmates snickered. They would perish in the next comic. As I walked out into the hallway, I wondered if this was some kind of record.

Chapter One Quiz

1. What is the nickname of Elrod’s best friend? (Hint: If you add an X in the middle of it, it’s ScoXopy.)

2. How many common English words can you make by rearranging the letters used in this chapter?

3. If a really big yak fell out of the sky and landed on your nose, how would it smell?

Chapter Two

“I’M SUPPOSED TO see the principal,” I told the secretary, a pretty woman in a yellow blouse who almost looked young enough to be a student herself.

“Already?” She glanced over at the wall clock. “Are you trying to set a record? What did you do?”

“Drew a comic during home room.”

“What kind of comic?”

“One that said Ms. Webster is a cruel, bloodthirsty demon,” I admitted. “It wasn’t meant to be entirely true. At least my artwork tried to capture the tortured soul beneath the murderous exterior.”

“I’m going to see a lot of you, aren’t I?” asked the secretary with a resigned sigh.

“I hope not…but yeah.”

“Mr. Botkin will be addressing the eighth graders in the assembly room for a while. Is there someone else I can have discipline you? Perhaps the assistant principal?”

“You could have the janitor beat me with a mop.”

The secretary smiled, then suddenly realized that she probably shouldn’t be smiling at smart remarks made by juvenile delinquents. “I’ll have Mr. Clark give you a good talking to,” she said. “And no more drawing comics during class, understand?”

“I understand.” As I glanced down at her desk, I realized that the piece of paper she used to take phone messages had the sides completely covered with random cartoon doodles, one of which was a surprisingly accurate drawing of Mr. Botkin, providing he were an eight-tentacled alien. She hurriedly shoved the paper into a file.

Ms. Webster entered the office, brandishing my comic as if it contained plans to assassinate the President with Silly Putty. I hoped it didn’t get shown around to many people, since it was drawn quickly and was far from my best work. If I’d known it was going to have an actual audience I would have done a better job with the shading.

Thirty-nine seconds later I was sitting in Mr. Clark’s office. The assistant principal was a large man, and by “large” I mean “Oh my gosh I hope he doesn’t stomp me under his big toe like an aphid” large. The man could have been a professional wrestler if he’d been into spandex.

“Starting a bit early, aren’t we?” asked Mr. Clark. “What’s your name?”

“Elrod McBugle.”

Mr. Clark looked thoughtful. “Hmmm...I think I knew an Elrod McBugle back in ’Nam.” His thoughtful look changed to a look of merely thinking. “Then again, maybe not. What seems to be the problem?”

Ms. Webster handed over the comic. “This young man was disrupting home room with this.”

Mr. Clark glanced at the comic, glanced up at Ms. Webster, glanced back at the comic for comparison, glanced at Ms. Webster again, then glanced at me. “Thank you, Ms. Webster,” he said. “The problem will be taken care of.”

With a satisfied nod Ms. Webster left. Mr. Clark spent a few more moments reading the comic, his mouth occasionally trying to curl up into a smile but being squashed back down before it could successfully complete the task. Then he regarded me with a stern eye. “Mr. McBugle, I’m afraid I must inform you that you are no longer in elementary school. Drawing during class is unacceptable. You are here to learn.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Because it’s still the first hour of this school year, there will be no punishment. But consider this your official warning. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir,” I repeated.

“Good. On another note, here at Greenwater Junior High we like to encourage students to reach their maximum potential and productively use their various talents. Are you enrolled in any art classes?”

I shook my head.

“It’s definitely something to consider for your elective next semester. I’m going to keep these drawings, because I don’t want them to be of any further distraction to you. Now go back to home room, and I don’t want to see you in here again.”

I tried to think of something more creative to say than “Yes, sir,” but all I could think of was “Yeah, sir,” which didn’t sound right. “Yes, sir,” I said, standing up and walking out of his office.

I gave the secretary a light wave as I passed her and headed out into the hallway. I’d only taken about ten steps before I realized that I was no longer carrying Quincy, my imaginary friend who lives in my right index fingernail (which is why I never clip it).

No, I’m kidding. Quincy is my pen. It’s a regular old black pen covered with little notches I make every time I successfully throw a paper airplane that hits Scoopy in the nostril and sticks. I’ve been doing this for about a year now. “Hey, Scoopy, look over here!” I say.

“Huh? What?” he replies.

There’s a mighty swish, and suddenly poor Scoopy has a paper airplane sticking out of his nose. Yes, it’s immature, and I’m not proud of this action any more than I’m proud of passing off hamster pellets as vitamins. Also, you should never try it. Paper airplanes are dangerous. You can put out somebody’s eye, or knock out a tooth, or put a hole right through their head if you throw it hard enough and/or have special attachments. Only a person like me, who has spent countless hours practicing to perfect the art of paper airplane nostril lodging, should try this. And really, even I shouldn’t be doing it, because it’s so deeply stupid.

Anyway, the second time I hit Scoopy (he had a terrible cold, and it was not a pretty sight) I decided to keep track of my victories, so I started cutting notches into a black pen that I happened to be carrying. I named the pen Quincy, after my friend Quincy Hagglin, who I occasionally saw writing with a black pen, though he used blue ones as well.

Where was I going with this...?

Ummmmm...

Oh yeah, I left Quincy in Mr. Clark’s office. So I turned around and went back into the main office, where Mr. Clark was standing next to a teacher, holding my comic up for him to see.

“I swear, I had to practically bite my face in half to keep from laughing,” he said. “I mean, doesn’t that look just like her? I should get this thing framed and hang it up in my—”

He looked over and saw me standing there. He immediately crumpled up my comic and tossed it into the wastebasket. “Was there something else you needed?” he asked, sternly.

“I forgot my pen in your office.”

“Oh. Well, go ahead and get it.”

“Yes, sir.”

I went into his office and grabbed Quincy off the floor where I’d dropped him, then walked back out.

“Remember, that pen is for schoolwork, not for drawing during class,” said Mr. Clark.

“Yeah, sir. I mean, yes, sir.”

I left the office, returned to home room, and completed my first day of school without any further trouble.

Except for the little thing that happened in Home Economics, but part of that wasn’t my fault.

And the medium-sized thing that happened in Social Studies, but that wasp should never have been flying around in the first place.

And the...well, you get the idea.

Chapter Two Quiz

1. Who is Quincy? Have you ever named a pen Quincy?

2. Who is Mr. Clark? Have you ever known somebody named Mr. Clark? Did you like him? Did he ever eat anything weird?

3. Have you ever wrestled a giant squid? Describe the experience in terms of how squishy the squid felt.

Chapter Three

HAVING STUDY HALL first period sounded like a good idea, but, like mayonnaise-flavored chewing gum, it wasn’t. The whole point of having it first thing in the morning was to give me a chance to do a quick review for the day’s tests and quizzes, or check my homework to make sure it was done correctly and to the best of my ability, or even to—yes, I actually believed I would do this—work ahead.

Oddly enough, my original study hall plans never involved a frantic rush every day to finish all the stuff I didn’t touch the night before.

I’d be sitting at home, books laid out neatly on my desk, thinking cap on my head, a “learning-is-good” smile on my face, and the little angel on my right shoulder would say “Now, Elrod, it’s time to study like a good boy.”

But the little devil on my left shoulder would say “Forget that! You’ve got study hall first thing in the morning—do it then! Push those books aside and let’s play some computer games!”

Then the little angel would say “No, no, no, that won’t do at all. What if it takes you longer than fifty minutes to finish your homework? What then, huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Answer me, McBugle, what then?”

The little devil would poke me in the side of the head with his mini-pitchfork and say “Then you can do it between classes! It never takes you the full five minutes to get to each one anyway!”

I’m ashamed to admit it, but that sounded like pretty good logic. I’m so lame.

Of course, none of the events in this book took place during study hall, so I’m not going to talk about it any more. For right now, I’m going to talk about Advanced English, which I had third period. It was taught by Mr. Rodriguez, who one fine day in class said:

“Today, each of you is going to write a letter.” He walked to the chalkboard. “It’s going to be a letter that makes somebody take action. Hugh, have you ever bought a product that didn’t live up to your expectations?”

“Huh?” asked Scoopy, who’d been in a semi-conscious daze.

“That’s exactly the answer I was looking for,” said Mr. Rodriguez. “Elrod, when was the last time you felt ripped off by something you bought?”

I thought for a moment. “I bought one of those slimy eyeballs from the machines outside Save-U-Lots and there was barely any slime on it. And it had a bunch of air bubbles in it, and it didn’t even look like a real eyeball.”

Mr. Rodriguez turned to the chalkboard and wrote defective slimy eyeball on it. “Now, after you realized that this eyeball was not all you hoped it would be, what did you do?”

“When I was at Scoopy’s house and he wasn’t paying attention, I stuck it in one of his shoes.”

Scoopy looked at me, then down at his shoes.

“He might not have found it yet,” I said.

“So,” said Mr. Rodriguez, “you didn’t get your money’s worth. Did you consider letting the manufacturer know that you were dissatisfied?”

I shook my head.

“Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to do today. Everyone will write a letter to a company that ripped them off, whether it was a shirt that tore or a frozen pizza that wasn’t any good or whatever.”

Jim Horken raised his hand. “Last week I bought a chocolate bar that was all hairy.”

“Don’t let them get away with that! We’re going to spend the rest of class individually writing letters. Grammar and spelling count. You’ll each be responsible for finding the addresses of the companies that you’re writing to, and we’ll mail these letters on Monday. Then throughout the rest of the term we’ll track the responses and see how we did. Any questions?”

Jim raised his hand again. “How long does it have to be?”

“As long as it takes to get the point across.”

“You mean like five hundred words?”

“I mean as long as you need. There’s no length requirement on this assignment.”

“All right!”

“So everyone take a minute to think about what you want to write, and I’ll walk around to see how you’re doing. If you have any questions, raise your hand.”

Jim raised his hand.

“Yes, Jim?”

“Does it have to be a real company?”

“How exactly would you get a response from a fake company?”

Jim considered that. “I dunno.”

“You should keep it real,” said Mr. Rodriguez.

“Aw.”

I leaned back in my chair and thought about it for a moment. I honestly didn’t care if I got a new slimy eyeball or not...I had about two dozen of them on my desk at home already. My Captain Hocker action figure (with super-spitting action) had both legs pop off minutes after I bought it, but I wasn’t certain I wanted to admit to anyone, not even to the manufacturer, that I’d purchased a Captain Hocker action figure a full three years after they’d officially stopped being cool. I saw it at a discount store. I was weak. Don’t judge me.

I cleared my throat and thought about asking if I could go get a drink of water. What I really wanted was a nice apricot-flavored Slurpy Gulp. Not only was Slurpy Gulp the ultimate taste sensation, and so thick you almost had to use a spoon, it had the best commercials I’d ever seen.

[Scene: The desert. A lizard scurries over the bleached bones of some long-dead cow. A kid is just standing there.]

KID: I am so very thirsty, but there is nothing to drink. I guess I will just have to die.

[He shrugs and lies down in the sand. Some vultures swoop down and land on him. Suddenly an announcer bursts out of a cactus.]

ANNOUNCER: There’s no need to die! All you need is a Slurpy Gulp!

[He whips out an assortment of Slurpy Gulps in the convenient 16 oz. bottles.]

ANNOUNCER: There’s grape, there’s cherry, there’s apricot, there’s kiwi-strawberry, there’s prune, and there’s pomegranate! Six flavors in all!

[He tosses a bottle into the air. The kid’s tongue shoots fifteen feet into the air, wraps around the bottle, and yanks it back down to him.]

KID: Wow, thanks, mister!

[He twists open the lid and pours some of that thick fruity goodness into his mouth. His stomach begins to gurgle, and then to rumble, and then to bounce around as if something inside were trying to break out.]

KID: Wow! What a magical fruity taste!

[The kid’s stomach explodes as thousands of brightly-colored fruits burst out, sailing across the sky and forming a rainbow.]

ANNOUNCER: Slurpy Gulp! The only liquid your body needs!

CHORUS OF VERY PERKY SINGERS: Whether you want to slurp or you want to gulp, the only thing to drink is...Slurpy Gulp! Yeah!

[Commercial ends.]

Yep, that was what I wanted.

But it didn’t fit the assignment, because they put out a perfect product, one that I’d never had any complaints with except that I emptied the bottle before I was ready to quit slurping and gulping.

Of course, that didn’t mean I couldn’t make something up. I mean, somewhere in the world there had to be an imperfect bottle. It was only logical. And it wouldn’t be outside of the realm of possibility for me to eventually purchase that very bottle. So technically it wouldn’t be lying to write a letter of complaint, it would just be looking into the potential future.

And maybe the future would hold a whole bunch of free Slurpy Gulp!

Okay, so, I had to come up with a believable but serious problem that occurred with my drink. Something I found in my drink that I didn’t want there. Hypodermic needles and dead rats were overdone...I needed something original.

A frog? Nah.

A pair of fingernail clippers? Nah.

A live rat? Nah.

Suddenly I had it! A slimy eyeball!

Yes, I’d purchased a bottle of apricot-flavored Slurpy Gulp, carried it to the shade of my favorite tree with a spring in my step and a song in my heart, unscrewed the cap, took a long, deep drink of the delicious fluid, and realized THERE WAS AN EYEBALL IN MY MOUTH!!! I’d choked on it, but thanks to a self-induced Heimlich Maneuver I hadn’t swallowed it. The eyeball had popped out of my mouth and hit a squirrel, who ran off with it to feed its young. I was going to have nightmares for the rest of my life. Probably require hundreds of thousands of dollars in therapy. Drool a lot.

Unless...they gave me a bunch of free Slurpy Gulp. Because only by drinking bottle after bottle of Slurpy Gulp without an eyeball in it could I erase the trauma from my memory.

To Whom It May Concern:

I’ve enjoyed your product, Slurpy Gulp, for nearly four years now, and have never had any reason for complaint. Until that horrible moment last week when I found an eyeball in my bottle.

I didn’t just find this eyeball—it actually ended up in my mouth. Have you ever tasted an eyeball? I bet you haven’t, and I bet you don’t want to. They’re squishy and gooey and this one had squiggly lines all over it that made my tongue feel weird. And I almost choked on it. Do you know what kind of newspaper headlines people would read if I had choked?

Greenwater Boy Chokes To Death On Slurpy Gulp Eyeball; “We’re All Headed For The Poor House,” Says Company Spokesman.

That wouldn’t be very much fun, now would it? I want you to know that last night I dreamed I was running down a long hallway and this giant eyeball was rolling after me, like that boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I woke up screaming, and I got a “D” on my Social Studies test because I was deprived of all that sleep. And now everywhere I go I feel like I’m being watched.

What I suggest you do is check all of your employees. If any of them are recently missing an eye, you may want to consider asking them where exactly that eye went. If none of them are missing an eye, you may want to start doing surprise inspections just to make sure they aren’t carrying around spare eyeballs that they throw into the Slurpy Gulp (at least the apricot-flavored brand).

I am not going to sue you, because I don’t want to miss any more school than I already have over this tragedy. What I want is as much free Slurpy Gulp as you’re willing to give me. You need to regain my trust. You need to make me forget that I had somebody’s eyeball right there in my mouth where I could taste it and everything. You need to do what is right.

Sincerely,

Elrod McBugle.

Chapter Three Quiz

1. Which of these is a real flavor of Slurpy Gulp?

a. Apricot.

b. Rice Krispie Treats.

c. Crazy Bob’s Armpit Squeezings Delight.

2. Which of the following is an acceptable use for Slurpy Gulp?

a. Drinking.

b. Stuffing turkeys.

c. Filling an aquarium with it, then staring at the aquarium for hours at a time going, "Oooooh, pretty!"

3. If you were a bottle of Slurpy Gulp, you would feel...

a. Like an idiot.

b. Like an idiot.

c. Like an idiot.

Chapter Four

“YOU MADE THIS all up,” said Mr. Rodriguez, setting my paper on my desk. It was five minutes before the end of class.

“No, I didn’t,” I insisted. “I really got a 'D' on my last Social Studies test.”

“You were supposed to use a real incident. You’ll have to write a new letter at home.” He raised his voice, speaking to the entire class. “Today is Wednesday. By Friday I want all of you to have found the address for the company you’re writing to, and I want to see a final draft of your letter. By Monday I want them all neatly typed or printed out on your computers, so they can be mailed.”

“SO WHAT DID you write about?” I asked Scoopy as we walked home.

“Remember that really awful-tasting candy I bought about a month ago?”

“You mean the cough drops?”

“I mean the cough drops that only said they were cough drops in really small print. They were packaged like candy. If they’re just cough drops, they shouldn’t say ‘Great Cherry Taste.’”

“I guess you’re right.”

“I told them I want my money back, or at least for them to send me some real candy, like Junior Mints or Ex-Lax. We’ll see what happens.”

“I have to write a whole new letter,” I said. “But I’m still going to mail the first one I wrote.”

And I did.

Three weeks later, there came a knock at my door.

I OPENED THE DOOR to find two tall, muscular men standing on my porch, dressed in identical grey suits. They both had short hair, wore sunglasses, and didn’t look like they were here to sell Avon.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“We’re looking for a Mr. McBugle,” said the first man, who I will refer to as Mr. Black.

“Elrod McBugle,” added the second man, who I will refer to as Chuckles the One-Toothed Clown.

No, that doesn’t quite have the right ring...let’s call him Mr. Yellowish-Orange.

“I’m Elrod McBugle,” I told them.

“Are your parents home?” asked Mr. Black.

I shook my head.

“May we come in?” asked Mr. Yellowish-Orange. You know what, I don’t like that name either. I’m just going to call him Mr. Tan. That’ll work. Nice and simple.

“Who are you?”

Mr. Black stood up as straight as he could. “We are representatives of the Slurpy Gulp Beverage Manufacturing Corporation. Take us to your eyeball.”

“Oh, I don’t have it anymore,” I said.

The two men glanced at each other. “Hmmmm...” they said in frightening unison.

Now, I don’t consider myself a cowardly person (except when there’s something scary happening), but these men looked very much as if they might kill me. I took a step backwards.

“Well, homework’s calling,” I lied, continuing to back away. “I’m sorry you guys made a wasted trip.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Mr. Black, adjusting his sunglasses. “You found an eyeball in your drink, felt compelled to write to us about it, and yet you no longer have this important piece of evidence in your possession? I find that most unusual.”

“Most unusual indeed,” agreed Mr. Tan.

“It’s not all that unusual,” I insisted. “After I choked on it I spit it out. Why would I want to keep it after that? That would be freaky.”

The men glanced at each other again. “All right, Mr. McBugle,” said Mr. Black, after a long pause, “We’re going to acknowledge that keeping the evidence may in fact have been construed as ‘freaky.’ But that doesn’t change the fact that we find your story most unconvincing. Did you retain the bottle?”

I shook my head.

“Surely you’re not suggesting that keeping the bottle in which the eye was found is ‘freaky,’ are you?” asked Mr. Tan.

“No, but I never keep the bottles. I throw them in the recycling bin.” (I may be a troublemaker, but I’m an environmentally conscious troublemaker.)

“Perhaps you recycle untainted bottles,” said Mr. Black. “But we find it most unusual that you would not have kept the one in question. How are we to inspect for eyeball residue when you don’t even have the bottle?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Surely you didn’t think we would merely accept your claims at face value,” said Mr. Tan. “Did you assume we just hand out free Slurpy Gulp to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who claims to have choked on an eyeball?”

“No...I just didn’t think I’d need it.”

“All right, Mr. McBugle,” said Mr. Tan, “you claim to be an eyeball cuisine aficionado. Perhaps you’d care to describe what the eye tasted like.”

“I don’t remember,” I said, a trickle of sweat running down the side of my face. My palms were sweating, too, so I wiped them on my jeans. “It was only in my mouth for a second, and I could barely taste it over the apricot.”

Mr. Black shook his head. “That’s just not going to cut it. I want you to know that I wasn’t just randomly given this assignment, I requested it. Because I have tasted an eyeball. It was seventeen years ago when I was in the Peace Corps, where I’d been sent to Africa. One day I got separated from the others and I found myself captured by a tribe of cannibals. They were going to eat me, Mr. McBugle. Have you ever been captured by somebody who had plans to eat you?”

“Not that I remember,” I said.

“I didn’t think so. You’re young, you’re naive, and you think the world is a perfect place. I’m not going to bore you with the details of my escape, except to say that through some imaginative hand gestures I managed to convince these cannibals that I was the President of the United States and that our foreign policy with Africa would be screwed up for years if they ate me. So they agreed to let me go, and even had a small feast in my honor. Do you know what they gave me to eat, Mr. McBugle?”

“An eyeball?”

“You’re darn right an eyeball. In three of the longest bites of my life, I ate that eyeball, and it was a sensation that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Some nights I wake up screaming because of it. Just the thought of having it in my mouth makes me shudder. Do you know what an eyeball in your mouth feels like?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Liar! You have no idea! I’ll tell you what it feels like. It feels like a peeled grape! And if you’ve ever had a peeled grape in your mouth for any long period of time, you know just how disgusting it is! And so I will not have you diminishing the trauma of my experience by sullying it with your own unfounded claims! You are a bad child, Elrod McBugle! A bad, bad child!”

I figured any moment now I should be slamming the door shut, running upstairs, and hiding underneath the bathroom sink.

“I want you to look me straight in the eye and tell me what you found in that bottle of Slurpy Gulp,” said Mr. Tan.

We looked each other straight in the eye. The feeling began to seep out of my legs.

“Please don’t kill me,” I whimpered.

“The truth! Now!”

“I didn’t find an eyeball in my drink,” I admitted in a small voice.

Mr. Black and Mr. Tan gave each other a high-five. “Are you aware, Mr. McBugle,” said Mr. Black, “that you have committed fraud, a crime punishable by a lengthy prison term? Are you?”

“I was just doing it as an English assignment,” I said.

“This isn’t the first English assignment I’ve seen turn ugly,” said Mr. Tan. “Okay, Mr. McBugle, I think you’ve learned your lesson. Nobody messes with the Slurpy Gulp Beverage Manufacturing Corporation. Nobody. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Good. We’re not going to press charges this time. But in return, you must tell all of your friends to buy Slurpy Gulp every chance they get. I want to see Slurpy Gulp sales in Greenwater skyrocket. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then our work here is done. I hope the next time you consider sending a fraudulent letter to a fruit drink manufacturer you’ll remember our little visit.”

THE NEXT DAY in English class, Scoopy passed around the free sample packets of various candies he’d received from the cough drop company. There had been a letter enclosed expressing deepest apologies for the confusion, and promising to look into his concerns with their packaging immediately. And if Scoopy ever developed a nasty cough, they hoped he would find their product soothing and refreshing.

Margaret Bradley raised her hand. “I heard back from the Slurpy Gulp company, but I can’t find the letter. I think my mom threw it away.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” said Mr. Rodriguez. “What did they say?”

“They were very nice,” said Margaret, though it was impossible to miss the tremor in her voice. “They said they were really sorry I found the bug in my drink. And I just want to say that everyone here should go out and buy lots of Slurpy Gulp, because it’s a wonderful drink made by wonderful people. Please, buy as much as you can. You’ll like it. I promise.”

Nobody messes with Slurpy Gulp.

Nobody.

Chapter Four Quiz

1. How many times was the phrase “his face looked like a Jack-O-Lantern that had been carved with a garbage disposal” used?

2. How many times did this chapter cause you to think about how comfortable it would be to tie a lobster around your neck?

3. How many times did you stick out your tongue and go “yagga yagga yagga!” while reading this chapter? (If the answer is “zero,” please do so now.) (If the answer is “one or more,” please seek professional help.)

Chapter Five

A SCARY THING HAPPENED in science class one day. Ms. Jones assigned our lab partners.

The reason this was scary is that science class contained a higher-than-usual number of people I didn’t really want to be partnered with. In particular, it contained three bullies, Andy, Warren, and Colin, who had taken an immediate dislike to me at the beginning of the year. Andy is the tallest of the three, exactly a head taller than Warren, who is exactly a head taller than Colin. When they stand side-by-side they look like a staircase.

I hadn’t tried to make them dislike me the first time we met. I was minding my own business as I stood in front of my locker, praying that the Locker Fairy would magically appear, wave her glowing wand, and make me remember my combination. Andy, Warren, and Colin were a few feet away, making fun of Julie Gelder’s new hairstyle, which they were comparing to various dead mammals.

“You guys are such jerks!” said Julie, after Warren suggested that her hair most closely resembled a dead yak. “You stand around thinking you’re so tough, but even he could beat you up!” She pointed at me.

The three bullies turned and looked at me. I really, really, really, really wanted the Locker Fairy to appear so I’d have a place to hide. Either I’d unknowingly did something to make Julie hate me, or she was attracted to guys with multiple fractures.

There was a long pause. “What are you smiling at?” Andy finally asked me.

I wasn’t sure how he’d confused my expression of trying not to puke with a smile, so I didn’t say anything. I’m not a wimp, but I certainly didn’t want to fight all three of them at once. I’d have horrible amounts of homework to catch up on when I came out of my coma.

As it turns out, I wasn’t required to be stomped eight feet into the ground that day, since Ms. Webster walked by and gave us all her disapproving glance. I took that opportunity to head off to class, possibly saving my life.

The Bully Trio hadn’t really said anything to me after that, aside from the occasional death threat, but I still didn’t want to be partnered with one of them.

Ms. Jones read the names of our partners. I assume English was Ms. Jones’s first language, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to her. Charlie Brown’s teacher would tell her to enunciate. Fortunately, she usually wrote all of her lecture notes up on the blackboard, allowing them to serve as subtitles.

After a couple moments to decipher what she said, I found that Ms. Jones had put me with Julie.

Aside from her dead mammal hair, Julie was one of the more attractive girls in the school. She was definitely one of the tiniest. She would have been perfect for one of those circus acts where a car drives into the ring and then clown after clown after clown after clown gets out...not that I’m suggesting that Julie looked like a clown. She didn’t look anything like a clown. She was just tiny.

After the official partner announcements were made, everyone in the class went back and took their places at the lab tables, where we had a wide variety of chemicals, test tubes, beakers, metal stirring thingies, and other scientific equipment to work with. I was disappointed to find that we didn’t have any electrodes to use to re-animate a dead body, but sometimes life was unfair.

“So what are we supposed to do?” asked Julie.

I picked up the lab sheet that rested on the table. The title was “Chemical Reactions.” That sounded pretty cool. Ms. Jones had written out step-by-step instructions on how to produce the various chemical reactions, and we needed to write detailed notes about each reaction in our lab book.

At the bottom of the sheet, in big letters, was a message that said “Chemicals are not toys! None of the chemicals in today’s lab are harmful or poisonous, but I still expect you to treat them as if they were. Anyone caught throwing chemicals at anyone else will be given an F for the assignment. Anyone caught drinking out of a test tube, or forcing anyone else to drink out of a test tube, will also be given an F. And keep your eyes on your own lab.”

So Julie and I began to do the lab. We mixed the first set of chemicals in two separate test tubes, following the instructions perfectly until we had a pair of test tubes filled with dark blue liquid. The last step was to pour them together into a beaker and observe the reaction.

This was going to be really cool, I could feel it.

We poured them together. The dark blue liquids combined to form...a slightly darker blue liquid.

Yeee-ha.

“That’s it?” asked Julie.

“I think so,” I replied. “We did everything right.”

“But that’s so lame.”

“Maybe the beaker was dirty.”

We raised our hands, and Ms. Jones walked over. We asked her if our chemical reaction had turned out the way it was supposed to, and she said something which we translated as “That’s exactly what was supposed to happen. Great job, you two.” You could also have translated it as “Monkey noses are really good in lowfat yogurt,” though that seemed a less likely interpretation.

We followed the step-by-step instructions for our next chemical reaction, and wrote in our lab books that the pale yellow liquids had turned a slightly paler shade of yellow when combined. Only eight more exciting reactions to go.

At this point we wondered if a little creativity was in order. After all, would Thomas Edison have invented the light bulb if he’d just followed instructions? Would Albert Einstein have come up with the theory of relativity if he’d just followed instructions? I think not! So why should I, Elrod McBugle, just follow instructions?

Answer: Because we’d flunk the assignment.

Okay, but what if we did the actual assignment, and then added our own special touch after our notes were complete? For example, what if we combined the dark blue liquid and the pale yellow liquid?

We combined them in our largest beaker.

We got a darkish pale green liquid.

Woo-hoo!

Julie and I continued to go through the lab sheet, creating all the required chemical reactions, but at the end of each step we poured the result into the large beaker to see what would happen. What happened was that the mixture turned to a pretty disgusting brownish-black color. But it still didn’t do anything interesting.

When we finished our reactions, there were ten minutes of class left. Ms. Jones had left the classroom to take an important phone call from her husband. I stirred the brownish-black mixture, hoping it would bubble or dissolve the glass or leap out and devour somebody, preferably Colin, Warren, or Andy, but nothing happened.

“I dare you to drink it,” said Julie.

“I would,” I said, “but Ms. Jones specifically told us not to drink any of the reactions.” I pointed to the part of the sheet where it said that.

“No, she said not to drink out of test tubes. That’s a beaker.”

Fortunately, I didn’t have a crush on Julie, or I might have actually drank it. I’m not even going to tell you some of the stupid things I’ve done for girls I had crushes on.

Okay, I’ll tell you one, but only if you promise not to tell anyone else.

Wait a second, I don’t even know you. Forget it.

At this point, Andy came wandering over from where he and Warren had finished copying the lab notes of the people next to them. “What’s this?” he asked, tapping the beaker.

“It’ll give you eternal life,” I said. “Drink it.”

“Ha-ha,” said Andy in such a way to indicate that he didn’t think my comment was worth a ha-ha at all. Then he spat his gum into the beaker.

It plopped in the liquid, bobbed up to the top, and floated there.

“Gross,” said Julie, searching through her immense vocabulary to find the one word that perfectly expressed her innermost feelings.

Then the liquid began to swirl, and the pink gum sank beneath the surface. There was a fizzing sound. There was a bubbling sound. There was a footsteps sound that was Andy getting out of the way in case it decided to blow up.

The liquid suddenly turned pink.

“Gross,” Julie repeated, because if one word perfectly expresses your innermost feelings, there’s no real reason to waste energy trying to find another one.

The liquid was now bubbling violently and rising to the top of the beaker. This was not good, because spilling pink gook that hadn’t been created according to lab instructions all over the table was a sure way to get in trouble. For a split second I considered slamming my hand over the top of the beaker to block the liquid, but then I decided I kind of liked that my hand didn’t have holes in it.

Right before it could spill over the top, the liquid stopped rising, and then sank back down to its original level. Julie and I breathed a sigh of relief. I picked up the metal stirring thingie and poked at the liquid, which was no longer liquid but a sticky, gooey, gum-like concoction.

“We’re never going to be able to get the beaker cleaned before Ms. Jones comes back,” Julie noted.

The beaker solved that little problem by cracking in several places and falling apart. The gum-like stuff slowly oozed out, forming a nice pile of glop. By now, everyone in the class was watching.

Julie sniffed. “You know, that smells really good.”

I bent my face down to the glop and took a whiff. She was right. It had an absolutely fantastic smell, like the best strawberry-flavored bubble gum ever.

I looked at the clock. Only five minutes until the end of class, and Ms. Jones could walk in any second. I hurriedly grabbed a large petri dish and scooped the glop into it with a clean beaker. I was thankful to learn that it didn’t stick to the table at all, just leaving a large pink spot that wiped off with a paper towel.

“What are you going to do with it?” asked Julie.

I draped another paper towel over the dish. “Take it to the bathroom and throw it away, where Ms. Jones won’t find it.”

“It does smell good,” said Julie. “I think you should try it.”

“Yeah, right.”

Ms. Jones walked back into the classroom right as the bell rang and told us to leave our lab books on the table, so she could collect and grade them. Fortunately, I was able to move past her without her noticing the paper towel-covered petri dish I was carrying.

As I headed for the bathroom, I got another whiff of the glop, and decided not to throw it away just yet. Maybe this was a genuine scientific discovery. Maybe it could cure glomerulonephritis! I picked up my pace so I wouldn’t be late to my next class, and made a quick detour to my locker. I set the dish on the top shelf, right beside my glow-in-the-dark wart, then shut my locker and hurried off to my next class.

WHEN PRE-ALGEBRA ENDED and my day at school was officially complete, Scoopy and I walked back to my locker. I spent a few moments once again trying to remember my combination, then opened it. The smell was overwhelming. And it was goooooooooood.

“Whoa!” said Scoopy. “What is that?”

“A chemical reaction.”

“Can I have some?”

“No. It’s probably...” I started to say “poison,” but hadn’t the lab sheet said that none of the chemicals were harmful? The only real danger would be catching some horrible and disgusting disease from Andy’s spit. What could it hurt to let Scoopy try some?

I removed the paper towel, grabbed the petri dish, and held it out to him. “Here, grab a blob.”

Scoopy pinched off some between his index finger and thumb, sniffed it, gave a wide smile, then shoved it into his mouth and began chewing.

“This is the best gum I’ve ever had!” Scoopy proclaimed. “If you tried to sell this, you could become a millionaire!”

“Is it really that good?”

“Try some yourself!”

“No, that’s okay.” I’d seen how it was made, and that was enough to convince me that I didn’t want it going into my mouth. “But are you serious? It’s really the best gum you’ve ever had?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Well, then,” I said, “I think it’s time for us to become millionaires.”

Chapter Five Quiz

1. How many fingers am I holding up?

2. What is the meaning of life? (For bonus points, also explain the meaning of something else.)

3. Which chapter number is this quiz for? (For bonus points, also tell which chapter number the chapter four quiz was for.)

Chapter Six

“WHAT ARE YOU boys doing?”

Scoopy and I stopped what we were doing, which is, Scoopy was rolling the glop into little balls, and I was covering them with powdered sugar and then wrapping them in aluminum foil. So far we’d made about fifteen of them, and it looked like we’d get another ten or so before we’d used up the last of the glop.

“Hi, Mom,” I said. “We’re just working on an experiment for science class.”

I haven’t described my mom yet, and I’m proud to announce that I have the coolest mother alive. The coolest father, too. The reason they’re so cool is that they know when to be normal, boring parents and when to be fun.

For example, when they’re driving my friends and I somewhere, you will never, ever hear them sing along to a popular song, thus embarrassing me beyond the point of no return. One time I was in the car with Howard Mosher when his mom was driving us home from the movies, and she started singing along to a current rap song in a very loud, energetic voice. That was the last I ever heard of Howard.

And yet, while my parents have never tried to sabotage my social life by pretending to be hip young kids, they can be all kinds of fun. I can take them to the movies without fear of humiliation, they play a mean game of miniature golf, and we play board games at home all the time. The only time my dad embarrasses me is when he gets all worked up about wanting to be the car in Monopoly.

“What kind of experiment?” Mom asked.

“We’re making gum,” I said.

“You’re doing a scientific experiment where you make gum? And this is for school? I didn’t think you were even allowed to chew gum in school.”

“That was last year. Now that we’re in junior high we can chew all the gum we want. We’ve earned the right.”

“It smells really good. What did you use to make it?”

“I forget,” I admitted. “It’s written on the lab sheet at school. Actually, right now we’re concentrating on the business portion of the experiment.”

Mom furrowed her brow. “This is one of those instances where I’d be better off just going downstairs to make dinner and pretend I never heard a thing, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s no big deal,” I said. “We’re going to sell some gum, that’s all.”

“Elrod, my son, I love you very much, but the words ‘it’s no big deal’ and ‘Elrod McBugle’ just don’t go together. I’m going downstairs to make dinner. I never heard a thing.”

ONE OF THE keys to a successful business venture is losing tons of money at first so that when you finally start to show a profit you appreciate it more. At least that’s the way I understand it. While Scoopy and I hadn’t invested any money into our gum business yet, we did decide to give away our first twenty-five pieces as free samples. Okay, our first eighteen pieces, since a certain member of our partnership couldn’t keep from chomping down on a few pieces.

We got to school a couple minutes early, which was a big deal for Scoopy, and walked up to a group of kids standing outside the main entrance. We’d taken the lid of a cardboard box and turned it into an elaborate display case, with the name “McBugle Chew” written in big letters on the front. I held the box out to the kids for their inspection.

“Free samples!” I said. “It’s the best gum you’ll ever chew. If you disagree, I’ll take the sample right out of your mouth and chew it myself.”

The kids helped themselves to a few of the pieces. “This is delicious!” one girl proclaimed. The other kids chewed and nodded their agreement.

“Remember, it’s McBugle Chew,” I said. “Tell your friends.”

We gave out the rest of the free samples on the way to first period. As the day progressed, more and more people came up to me asking where they could get some.

“It goes on sale Monday,” I said. “Bring lots of money.”

When it was finally time for science class, I had two missions. First, copy down everything I’d written in the lab book. Second, convince Julie to join our partnership. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really want to share the profits, but since Julie already knew how McBugle Chew had been invented, I figured it was best to fend off the potential competition early. Besides, she could help pay for ingredients and provide some manual labor.

Her first reaction was “You let human beings chew that stuff???”

“Yes,” I said.

“Why???” she asked.

“Because,” I said.

“Are you crazy???” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

She stared at me, horrified.

“By the way, people are willing to pay for it,” I said. “Do you want to join us in making all kinds of money?”

“Yes,” she said.

And so it was settled. Julie’s job was to buy the chemicals we needed, while Scoopy’s job was to purchase a wide variety of bubble gum brands and flavors. My job was to make two more McBugle Chew display boxes, and fix the first one because “Chew” had fallen off. Surprisingly, there was no complaint about my having named the gum after myself. I guess Julie’s reasoning was that if something went seriously wrong, I’d be the one to take the blame.

Julie is a very smart girl.

The next day, Saturday, I woke up early. Then I went back to sleep, because there was no way Scoopy would be awake anytime before one in the afternoon. I got up around nine, ate a couple bowls of cereal-shaped sugar, and finished my display cases. I watched a bit of brain-rotting television, read a brain-rotting horror book about killer fuzzy slippers that bit people’s feet off, and called Scoopy around twelve-thirty.

“It’s about time,” he said. “I was wondering how late you were going to sleep.”

“What are you talking about? I was waiting for you.”

“I’ve been up since seven-thirty. I feel great! Let’s make some gum!”

This gum truly had powers beyond anything we imagined.

I talked to Julie, after five minutes of interrogation by her father about why I (a boy) was calling his precious daughter (a girl). She said she’d be over in fifteen minutes.

So finally we were all together, in my kitchen, ready to make our fortune. We mixed the chemicals exactly as we had during class, except that we used a plastic pitcher instead of a glass beaker, and finally ended up with the same nasty brownish-black liquid.

“I chewed that?” asked Scoopy, looking sick to his stomach.

Next came the moment of truth. I unwrapped a piece of strawberry bubble gum, held it above the pitcher, and paused dramatically. If you’re going to be a successful inventor, you have to know how to use those dramatic pauses.

Then I dropped it in.

Two seconds later, we were all still alive, which is always good. Since this is a book about my wacky misadventures, I’d like to be able to say that an enormous blob of gum burst out of the pitcher, covering every square inch of the kitchen. And then I’d describe how my father walked in, clenched his fists, and shouted “ELROOOOOD!!!” while his face turned red and smoke came out of his ears.

But, as it turned out, the gum worked exactly as before. Our plan was a success.

We experimented with different kinds of gum, and they all turned out equally delicious. At least, Scoopy said they were...Julie and I wouldn’t try any. By the end of the day we had all three display cases filled, with 150 pieces per case. At a quarter a piece, we’d make over a hundred dollars if we sold them all. And this was just a one-day supply. It was time to get rich!

MONDAY MORNING SCOOPY and I arrived at school half an hour early. We would have been there even earlier, but I just couldn’t get moving as quickly as him. Julie was already there, and she waved excitedly to us.

“I’ve sold eighteen pieces so far!” she said. “People love it!”

There was no doubt that she was right. By the end of first period I’d sold more than half of my supply. By the end of second period it was completely gone, and people were bugging me about getting more.

Everything was wonderful!

Until the start of seventh period.

Chapter Six Quiz

1. 5 + 4 = ?

2. 12 + 7 = ?

3. 18 + 9 - 16 + 5791.32 - 17,382,190.88888 + 2 = ?

Chapter Seven

WHEN I FIRST SAW the sign on the science room door, “Ms. Jones’ class, please meet in Room 212,” I didn’t really think anything of it. Behind the teacher’s desk in Room 212 sat a tall, cheerful-looking man in a three piece suit. After we were all settled, he wrote “Mr. Flipson” on the board.

“Ms. Jones’ husband is in the hospital with nose job complications, so I’ll be your substitute for the next week or so,” he explained. “I apologize for making you wander all over the place, but there’s been a horrendous smell in your real classroom since this afternoon. It’s enough to make you sick.”

“Warren must’ve been in there,” said Andy, slapping his good buddy on the back.

“The custodian found the source,” said Mr. Flipson. “It’s some brownish-black stain on one of the lab tables, but he can’t seem to get it off.”

Julie and I looked at each other. It was not a happy look.

After informing us that having a substitute did not mean this was a free day, Mr. Flipson lectured to us from our science book. I raised my hand and asked to use the restroom, explaining that no, it couldn’t wait. I grabbed the hall pass and left the room, then hurried to our real classroom.

I pushed open the door and grimaced. Yes, this was one bad smell. Consider yourself very lucky that this isn’t a scratch-and-sniff book or you’d be on the floor making gagging noises. I held my nose and walked to the lab table where Julie and I had worked. The stain was there, and it was definitely the place where the pink gum glop had oozed over the side of the beaker. Apparently wiping it up with a towel hadn’t been good enough.

Okay, so, a whole bunch of students had chewed gum that started out delicious, then later turned nauseating. That didn’t mean anything bad was going to happen. I mean, they all spit it out, right? Maybe some of them stuck it under their desks, which might lead to some stinky classrooms, but there wouldn’t be any health risks, right? Right?

Oh, man, was I in trouble.

I DID NOT HAVE pleasant dreams that night. I dreamed that I was in court, being tried for the murders of half the students of Greenwater Junior High.

“And in conclusion, Your Honor,” said the prosecuting attorney, “I wish to say that Elrod McBugle is a bad, bad, bad person! He’s selfish and greedy and uncaring and I hate him! I want him sent to jail for the rest of his life! You’re a jerk, McBugle! That will be all.”

The judge checked his watch. “Since the defense attorney is still in the bathroom, we’re going to skip ahead to jury deliberations.”

The head juror stood. “Your Honor, we’ve been passing notes throughout the trial which indicate that all of us think Mr. McBugle is completely guilty. That is, except for Juror #11, but I think you’ll agree that he’s a real dork.”

The judge shook his head. “I’m afraid my official ruling is that Juror Eleven is, in fact, a dweeb.”

“Yes, Your Honor. Anyway, I say we send this McBugle kid to jail for the rest of his life and go out for pizza.”

“Very well.” The judge pounded his gavel. “Elrod McBugle, for the crime of killing your classmates with bad gum, I hereby sentence you to life in prison without parole! But you still have to do all your homework!”

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!” I said as I sat up in bed. I shook my hands, spraying sweat everywhere like a dog shaking itself after a bath. I looked at the clock and saw that it was three in the morning. My stomach hurt. It couldn’t have been from dinner, since I hadn’t been able to eat.

I wanted to call Scoopy to see how he was doing, but I figured if he was fine his parents would be mad at me for waking them up, and if he was dead his parents would have more important things to do than answer the phone.

When I finally went back to sleep, I dreamed I was living in a zoo. I don’t know why. It was a pretty stupid dream.

“HOW DO YOU feel?” I asked Scoopy the next morning as we walked to school.

“Fine. Kinda tired. I need more gum.”

“NO! Forget about the gum. It’s evil.”

Scoopy gave me a strange look. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Do you feel sick at all? Do you feel like your insides are turning black and gooey?”

“No.”

“Do you feel like your heart and stomach are trying to beat each other up?”

“No.”

“Do you feel like your nose is about to fall off and take on a life of its own?”

“Yes, but I feel that way all the time.” Scoopy looked worried. “What’s wrong with the gum?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “Gum itself is evil. Causes tooth decay. Forget I said anything.”

IN THE MIDDLE of Mr. Stamper’s lecture, Terry Drummond hiccuped.

This was not a big deal. People hiccup all the time. It’s human nature. You’ve probably hiccuped once or twice in your life, too.

He continued hiccuping, earning lots of giggles, until Mr. Stamper excused him to go get a drink of water. A few minutes later he returned, still hiccuping. He did his best to cover it, but it was still very distracting, and I’m sure that only about three percent of Mr. Stamper’s lecture was retained by anyone in the class.

WHEN I WALKED DOWN the hall toward my next class, somebody else was hiccuping. I didn’t know him, but I thought he looked familiar, like one of the kids who’d received a free sample of McBugle Chew.

BY THE END of the day, everyone was talking about the twenty-five students who couldn’t stop hiccuping. The principal thought it was all a big prank and threatened to give each of them detention if they didn’t knock off that hiccuping right this minute, but none of them complied.

“What have you <hiccup> done to <hiccup> me?” asked Scoopy as we walked home.

“It’s not my fault!” I insisted. “How could I have known? I’m not psychic! I’m not a chemist! There’s no way I could predict that McBugle Chew was going to cause hiccups!”

“When <hiccup> are they going to <hiccup> go away?”

“I don’t know, but, I mean, how long can hiccups possibly last?”

“<Hiccup> <hiccup> <hiccup> <hiccup>,” Scoopy replied.

YOU KNOW WHEN you’re walking around at night and you can hear hundreds of crickets chirping? The next day, as I walked down the hallway listening to the constant background noise of hundreds of hiccups, I was reminded about how much I hate crickets.

Teachers tried to hold class, but when you’ve got that many kids hiccuping all at once, it’s just not going to work. And there didn’t seem to be any end to it. I could just imagine the upcoming newspaper headline:

Hiccups Claim The Lives of Over 100 Students; “That Darn Elrod!” Relatives Shout.

Gym class was interesting, watching all the kids trying to do push-ups while hiccuping. Finally, the PA system crackled and I heard the announcement I’d been waiting for all day.

“Elrod McBugle, please report to the principal’s office. Immediately.”

I waved to the secretary as I entered. I could see Principal Botkin in his office waiting for me, looking stern. Mr. Clark was also there, and as I walked by his office I think I saw the comic I’d drawn hanging up on his wall. Another man was with them, wearing glasses so thick I’m surprised he could lift his head.

“Please sit down, Elrod,” said the principal, gesturing to a chair. I sat down. “I understand you were selling a type of gum called McBugle Chew. Is this correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see. And have you perchance noticed any particular...side effects that seem to have resulted from the chewing of that gum?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, Elrod, I don’t mind telling you that you’re in a great deal of trouble. We may have to cancel school until these hiccups go away. If they go away. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t witnessed such a mass display of student hiccuping in twelve years. And that other time was just two students who cured themselves by drinking water upside-down, so there’s really no comparison.”

“Elrod, my name is Dr. Larson,” said the other man. “I need to know exactly what ingredients are in McBugle Chew, so we can start searching for a cure.”

I’d anticipated this, and handed him my lab notes. “It’s all here. I just put each of these mixtures into one big beaker, and then dropped in a piece of gum.”

Dr. Larson looked over my notes. “Hmmmm. Hmmmm. Hmmmm. Odd. Hmmmm. Hmmmm.”

“You may go back to class,” said Principal Botkin. “But I want you to think twice the next time you try and sell something you made in science class. I understand that worm dissections are coming up, and I don’t want you getting any ideas.”

THE HICCUPS DID not go away, and they had to cancel school the next day. This should have made me more popular, except that we were going to have to make up the lost time over Christmas break. And, let’s face it, if you’re hiccuping non-stop you’re not going to enjoy the day off anyway.

“I <hiccup> hate you,” Scoopy told me, as we sat up in my room. His hiccups were really starting to get on my nerves, but since they were my fault I couldn’t exactly tell him to go hiccup someplace else.

I unscrewed the lid of my Slurpy Gulp and took a drink. “Do they feel like they’re going away at all?” I asked.

“<Hiccup> No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of <hiccup> course I’m <hiccup> sure! These <hiccup> stupid <hiccup> hiccups <hiccup> haven’t stopped <hiccup> for two <hiccup> days!”

“Want some Slurpy Gulp?”

Scoopy glared at me and snatched the bottle out of my hand. “If <hiccup> these things don’t <hiccup> stop in—” he took a quick drink, “—the next couple days, I’m going to make sure that you...hey, I think they’re gone!”

He took a deep breath. No hiccups were forthcoming.

“It’s Slurpy Gulp!” I proclaimed. “Slurpy Gulp is the antidote!”

And indeed it was. We called the principal, who spread word of the cure to all of the affected students. Everyone with hiccups was administered a bottle of Slurpy Gulp, and their misery was brought to an end.

Then Dr. Larson decided that, as a preventative measure, everyone who’d been exposed to the hiccuping students should be given some Slurpy Gulp as well. And so it was Slurpy Gulp for everyone in Greenwater!

The McBugle Chew curse was now over. Of course, everyone still hated me, but at least classes would resume normally.

A COUPLE WEEKS LATER I got a letter from the Slurpy Gulp Beverage Manufacturing Corporation.

“Good work,” it said. “You’re off the hook.”

Chapter Seven Quiz

1. Without looking back, what is the first word in this chapter?

2. Okay, if you look back, then what’s the first word?

3. Name ten really good cures for hiccups. Try them on somebody who doesn’t have hiccups just to annoy them.

Chapter Eight

“ONLY TWO WEEKS until the 17th Annual Greenwater Junior High talent show!” the sign in the cafeteria announced. “Win prizes! Have fun! Show your school spirit!”

Scoopy and I were seated at one of the tables, eating some yellow stuff they served us. “Do you have any talent?” I asked.

“No,” he replied. “Do you?”

“No. But maybe our lack of talent will be less than everyone else’s lack of talent. We could win prizes. We could have fun. We could show our school spirit.”

“We could disgrace ourselves for the rest of our lives.”

“Cool! No, wait, I’ve already done that. I guess there’s no reason to bother with the talent show.” I took another bite of the yellow stuff. It kinda tasted like meat loaf.

Andy, the tallest member of the Bully Trio (you can go back and look it up if you don’t believe me), walked by our table. “What are you looking at, Gum-Boy?”

“He’s looking at something really gross on your lunch tray,” said Julie, who was seated at the next table. “Oh my gosh, it’s your reflection!”

A couple of kids laughed. Andy glared at me. “You think that’s funny?”

“No,” I said. “Her delivery wasn’t very good. Not a long enough pause after ‘oh my gosh.’”

“So what if he did think it was funny?” asked Julie. “It’s not like you could beat him up or anything. Elrod could knock you out in less than six punches.”

“Yeah, right,” said Andy. He walked off, making what I’m pretty sure were genuine snarling noises.

I got up from my seat and sat down next to Julie. “You know, I wish you’d quit doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Trying to get me killed. Badly killed.”

“I’m not trying to get you killed. I honestly think you could beat him up.”

“No, you don’t. Nobody thinks that. Not even I think that, and I’m really good at deluding myself.”

“You need more confidence.”

“No, I need fewer people who want me dead.”

“I think you could take him out in under a minute.”

“You can’t be serious! One punch from Andy and I’d be bleeding for the next three weeks. Stop trying to make him mad, all right?”

Julie sighed. “All right.”

“You promise?”

“No.”

“I’m serious, Julie. This isn’t funny, so knock it off.”

“Oh, if you insist,” said Julie. “I’m only trying to help you reach your full potential, but if that doesn’t interest you I’ll just have to help somebody else.”

“Good! Help somebody else! Help anybody else!”

I went back to my table and rolled my eyes. Scoopy grinned.

“She likes you.”

“She does not.”

“She does so. She’s trying to make you defend her honor. I think you should ask her to marry you and get it over with.”

“I don’t even want to ask her to go to the movies.”

“Why not? Movies are dark. You guys can sit in the back row and kiss for two hours.” Scoopy made kissing noises at me.

“Shut up.”

Scoopy made louder kissing noises at me. Then he glanced over at the other table and noticed that Julie and her friends were giving him the kind of look you usually give somebody who is making an idiot out of himself by making loud kissing noises. He quit.

“Seriously, she has a crush on you,” he said.

Well, maybe she did. It was understandable. I’m quite a handsome guy every once in a while. But that didn’t matter, because I didn’t have even the tiniest bit of a crush on her.

At least, I didn’t think I did.

No, no, I definitely didn’t. Not a bit.

Okay, maybe a tiny smidgen of a bit. But that was all. And she only earned that much because I was feeling generous at the moment. Otherwise, there would be no crush whatsoever for her!

“So when are you going to ask her out?” Scoopy asked.

“Never.”

“How come?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“Ah, but you’re admitting that you would if you wanted to! That means there’s a chance!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s because true love has clouded your mind.”

The bell rang, and we picked up our trays to empty into the garbage can. I looked over at Julie as she threw away her own trash, and she smiled at me. Okay, okay, maybe a speck more than a smidgen of a bit, but that’s all.

I SLAMMED MY NOTEBOOK shut on my thumb as Scoopy walked to my desk right before Pre-Algebra started. It stung like mad, and I practically had to blink back tears.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded.

“What were you writing?”

“Nothing.”

“You were writing something. I saw your pencil touching the paper and moving. What were you writing?”

“Nothing.”

“You lie!”

Scoopy grabbed the notebook away from me. Had my thumb not hurt so bad, I would have been able to stop him. He opened it to the page that I was especially keen for him not to read, and read it. His eyes widened.

“Is this a love poem?”

“No!”

He closed the notebook and handed it back to me. Since he was my best friend, he was going to respect my right to not be mocked in public. But once we were alone, I was doomed.

“THAT WAS A LOVE poem,” Scoopy said as we walked home from school.

“It was not,” I insisted.

“The first line was ‘Julie, Julie, will you be mine?’ That sounds like a love poem to me.”

“You’re wrong. I didn’t mean ‘mine’ in a lovey-dovey way.”

“Then how did you mean it?”

“In a different way. A non-lovey-dovey way.”

“Uh-huh. What about the line ‘Your eyes sparkle like blue diamonds?’”

“I meant that they’re jagged.”

“Face it, Elrod, you like her.”

“No, I...okay, maybe a little. Barely any.”

“If you barely like her, why are you writing a love poem?”

“It’s not a love poem! It’s just a regular poem! I was thinking about becoming a poet when I grow up, so I was getting in some practice. That’s all.”

“You lie, lie, lie.”

“I’m serious!”

“Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.”

“Okay, fine, believe whatever you want.” I was getting mad, and I was also embarrassed. After all, it really was a love poem I was writing. For some sick, twisted reason (possibly the flu), I hadn’t been able to get Julie out of my mind since lunch. I could always see her face, smiling at me. I could always hear her voice, singing a bunch of annoying songs that I couldn’t get out of my head no matter how hard I tried.

I think maybe I was in love.

“I don’t know much about girls,” Scoopy admitted. “But I can give you one piece of advice. If you want to win Julie’s heart, find somebody to help you write a better poem. The one in your notebook stinks.”

VERY FEW THINGS in life can match the great joy of having gym class right after you’ve pigged out at lunch. Let me tell you, a brisk five-lap run will digest those Ho-Ho’s real good, especially if you don’t mind an energetic vomiting session afterward.

My teacher, Mr. Torrance, never really wanted to teach physical education. He wanted to be a poet. But I guess there aren’t enough opportunities for professional poets in today’s job market, so he was stuck writing in a notebook while he shouted out instructions for us to run faster, climb the rope higher, and quit cheating at flag football.

“Mr. Torrance, can I talk to you for a minute?”

He continued to fold up the gym mats that we’d been doing sit-ups on for what felt like the past eighteen years. “Sure, but aren’t you going to be late to your next class?”

“Yeah,” I said, “but this is important. You write a lot of poetry, right?”

“I write some. Why?”

“If I needed to write a poem to a girl...for an English assignment...and it had to be romantic...for that English assignment...how would I go about doing it?”

Mr. Torrance smiled. “Elrod, a love poem isn’t something you can just whip out between classes. It has to come from your heart and soul. Are you able to stay after school?”

“Sure.”

“Great. Come down here at the end of the day and we’ll sit down and see what we can come up with. We’ll do everything we can to win the heart of that girl.”

“You mean, get me an A on the English assignment.”

“Yes, that’s what I meant.”

Chapter Eight Quiz

1. Have you ever been making really loud kissing noises in a cafeteria then suddenly realized that a bunch of people were staring at you?

2. Have you ever had a dream where you were standing in your underwear making really loud kissing noises in a cafeteria then suddenly realized that a bunch of people were staring at you?

3. Have you ever actually been standing in your underwear making really loud kissing noises in a...you know the rest. And on second thought, I don’t want to know the answer.

Chapter Nine

I ALMOST WIMPED OUT, but then un-wimped out at the last second and went to see Mr. Torrance after school.

“Now,” he said, as we sat on the gym bleachers, “I want you to close your eyes and picture her in your mind.”

I closed my eyes. Julie’s face appeared before me, her features twisted into the expression of disgust she’d wore at that special moment when Andy spit his gum into our beaker of chemical reactions. “Okay.”

“Now tell me, what’s the first thing that catches your eye?”

“Her face.”

“What about her face?”

“The front part .”

“Her eyes...her nose...her smile...?”

“Yeah.”

I was not very good at this, which is really kind of amazing. I mean, it was so easy for me to draw a comic about Ms. Webster being a student-torturing demon, yet a simple love poem was beyond my abilities.

And why did I have a crush on Julie all of a sudden, anyway? I hadn’t felt anything for her while we were making the gum. Maybe I only liked her now because I thought she had a crush on me, so I felt obligated to have a crush on her in return. An obsession just to be fair!

Or maybe I was just being an idiot.

What should I do? What should I do? What should I do?

“This is a bad idea,” I said. “I should go home.”

“What about your English assignment?”

“Come on, you know it’s not an assignment. I don’t think I even like her that much. And she’s got really freaky hair.”

“Oh, is it Julie Gelder?”

I nearly choked on my teeth. “Uh, yeah.”

“We don’t have to give up quite yet. If you really want her to know how you feel, a poem can be a wonderful thing.”

Maybe, but I was having very serious doubts about this whole idea. What could I possibly write? What rhymed with Julie?

Julie, Julie

You’re so cool-ie.

You’re no fool-ie.

You make me drool-ie.

All over the school-ie.

Ummmmm, no.

I was ready to get up and leave, but then it occurred to me that I didn’t actually have to give her the poem. What harm could it do just to write it? Even if I chose not to deliver it to Julie, it might be helpful to have a spare love poem handy should I ever need one on short notice. For example:

MUGGER: Give me your money and a love poem!

MAN: I don’t have a love poem!

GUN: Bang!

MAN: Aaahhh! I’m dead!

MUGGER: You! Give me your money and a love poem!

ME: Here you go.

MUGGER: Thank you very much.

ME: Whew! I’m not dead!

See? It could be useful.

“Okay, Mr. Torrance,” I said. “I want whatever help you can give me. Let’s get this poem written.”

BEFORE YOU ASK, no, I’m not going to share my poem with you. I know it’s unfair, and you probably feel cheated for having read all this way hoping to catch a glimpse of the poem it took Mr. Torrance and I nearly two hours to write. But the simple truth is that it was a terrible poem, and I just couldn’t handle having anyone else read it ever again.

I mean it, it was really lousy. I don’t know where Mr. Torrance came up with the idea that he could write anything resembling a real poem. I don’t know how I managed to convince myself that it was a good poem, if only for a very short time. Mere words can’t express just how bad this poem was, unless I put them in all caps, like this:

It was a REALLY BAD poem!

But we wrote it, and I thanked Mr. Torrance, and I decided that the next day I was going to give it to Julie and let her know how I felt, if I still felt that way the next day.

When I woke up the next day, I wasn’t sure if I still had a crush on her. I ate some cereal and thought about it. Okay, yeah, I still had a crush on her. I’d give her the poem.

But I wasn’t going to put my name on it. I wasn’t that stupid. I’d slip the poem (which I’d typed on my computer so she couldn’t recognize the handwriting) into her locker and see how she reacted before I revealed my identity. And nobody else was going to know about it, not even Scoopy.

I was very calm, cool, and collected. As I walked past Julie’s locker on my way to study hall, I quickly slipped the poem through the slot at the top. I didn’t think she’d dust for fingerprints or anything, so I was safe. I went to study hall, thought about her instead of doing my homework, went to home economics, thought about her instead of paying attention in class, went to English, got in trouble because I was thinking about her instead of paying attention in class, and so on.

Then came lunch.

I sat with Scoopy in our usual spot. We were eating cafeteria food again, which was a color I didn’t recognize. Julie was seated in her usual spot, with her usual friends, acting unusual. She had a goofy grin on her face, and her eyes were lit up with what can only be called one hundred percent pure love.

She was holding the poem in her hand.

She looked at me and smiled.

I smiled back.

“Why are you smiling like that?” asked Scoopy, nervously. “Did you put something in my food? What did you put in my food? I’d better not get sick.”

“Your food is fine,” I said. “I’m just smiling because I’m a happy person.”

“Oh. Why are you happy?”

“No reason.”

“Is it because Andy is standing right behind you, and you’re in the mood to get beat up?”

I turned around. Andy stood there, holding his tray of food. “You guys are done with that table, right?”

“No.”

“Let me say this again. You guys are done with that table, right?”

“Why don’t you just shut up?” said my true love. “You know he can beat you up with one hand tied behind his back.”

Yeah, sure, if my other hand held a baseball bat. With spikes on it.

“You know, I’ve had enough of this,” said Andy, glaring at her. “You don’t think I can beat up this little twerp? Fine!” Andy pointed at me. “Today right after school. Hanley Park. You and me. Be there. Got it?”

“Hanley Park? Where’s that?”

“You know...it’s that park about five blocks from here.”

“I’ve never been there,” I told him.

“Yeah you have. Everyone’s been to Hanley Park.”

A few other kids who’d been listening muttered that they’d never heard of Hanley Park, either.

“Do you mean Ketchum Park?” asked Scoopy.

“No, I don’t mean Ketchum Park, stupid. I mean Hanley Park. How can you not know where it is? It’s right there! It’s this big ol’ park!”

“Sorry, I’ve never heard of it,” I said.

Andy sighed with frustration. “Okay, you go out the main entrance and cross Gates street. Then you walk up Gates street toward the church—”

“Which church?”

“You know, the church!”

“There are two churches on Gates street.”

“The big church! The one right there!”

“Why don’t you draw a map?” Scoopy suggested.

“Okay, fine, give me some paper.”

“I don’t have any paper,” I said.

“Me either,” said Scoopy.

The other kids listening checked around, but none of them had any paper, either.

“How can you not have paper?” asked Andy. “We’re in school! Everyone’s supposed to have paper in school!”

Scoopy handed Andy a napkin. “Here, write on this.”

“Do you have a pencil?”

“No.”

“If someone doesn’t give me a pencil, I’m gonna beat up everyone here!” Andy threatened.

“Is a pen okay?” asked Julie.

“Yes, a pen is fine! Give me the stupid pen!”

“It’s not a stupid pen. My grandma bought it for me for my birthday.”

“Just give it to me.”

Julie tossed Andy the pen. He sat down next to me and began to scribble directions on the napkin. When he was done, he shoved it at me. “Here.”

I looked it over. “I can’t read your handwriting. What’s this word?”

“Shut up! I don’t care how you find it, but if you’re not at Hanley Park after school today, I’m gonna hunt you down and make you wish you’d never been born!”

At this moment I finally got it through my head that I was going to have to fight Andy today. I was going to be beaten senseless! And it was all because of Julie! Whoever thought love would be so complicated?

“We don’t have to fight,” I said. “I’ll just say right here, in front of all these witnesses, that you won. You’re the champion. I admit it.”

“No way. I’m tired of you saying you can beat me up.”

“I never said it!”

“I’m tired of Julie saying you can beat me up.”

“And he can!” said Julie.

“We’ll find out then, won’t we?” asked Andy, as he stormed off. I stared at the napkin death sentence and my stomach did a few Olympic-quality flip-flops.

“You don’t think he’s going to beat me up too, just because I’m your friend, do you?” asked Scoopy.

“Maybe.”

“Aw, man.”

Okay, so I was in serious trouble. I wondered if Julie would still like me after she discovered that I couldn’t squish Andy after all.

She turned to one of her friends and whispered something. I’m sure I wasn’t supposed to hear it.

“Andy is so cute. And he wrote me the most adorable love poem you can imagine. Oh, I just can’t wait to watch him beat up Elrod!”

Chapter Nine Quiz

1. Wouldn’t it be nice if this quiz only had one question?

Tenth Chapter! Collector’s Item

I WAS NOT A happy camper. I was like a camper whose tent had blown away in a thunderstorm and was being chased up a tree by a starving grizzly bear with really bad breath.

So, Julie didn’t have a crush on me after all. I was going to get beat up just so she could watch Andy’s muscles ripple. And with word spreading fast, half of the school was probably going to be there to watch. This was completely unfair!

And I had to show up for the fight. If I didn’t, I’d only be delaying things. Might as well get the pain out of the way so I could go on with my life...if I still had one after the fight.

I wondered if I could hide a chainsaw behind my back.

There had to be a way out of this. Andy talked big, but he really wasn’t the type to go around beating people up for no reason. If he was, I’d have been his victim a long time ago. So I merely needed to convince him that we didn’t need to fight.

How hard could that be?

“Hey, Andy, let’s forget the fight, okay?”

“Sure thing, buddy. No problem. Wanna get some Doritos after school?”

“Sounds like fun. Let’s go.”

Somehow I didn’t think that was going to work.

Maybe if I begged Julie to take back what she said, she could convince Andy not to obliterate me. Maybe if I told her that I was the one who wrote the poem, she’d try to keep me alive.

No, no, that wouldn’t work. She’d be so disappointed that it hadn’t been from Andy that she’d want him to beat me up even more.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!

(Yes, I realize that it’s difficult to stretch out a “G” sound like that, and it doesn’t do a lot of good to use the letter “H” six times when it’s silent, but at least you get the idea of how frustrated I was.)

The final bell rang. Normally I was happy to have school end, but this afternoon I could have sat in Pre-Algebra for weeks. Months, if the tests weren’t too frequent.

Scoopy was waiting at my locker. So was Julie.

“I can’t wait to see the fight!” Julie told me, her eyes flashing with excitement. “You’re going to show that bully who the real winner is!”

“I heard you talking at lunch,” I said. “You just want me to get beat up because you like Andy.”

“Oh.” Julie looked uncomfortable. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Ask me after my bones heal, if they ever do.”

Julie left. I started to turn the dial on my locker, realized that if I couldn’t remember my combination on days when I was feeling good, there was no way I’d be able to remember it in my current state of anxiety. Forget it. No reason to get my homework when I might not have use of my brain later, anyway.

“Are you feeling strong?” asked Scoopy.

“No.”

“I could work out with you in the gym for a few minutes, if you think it’ll help. Lift a couple weights maybe.”

I shook my head. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. There might be a good side to this...once he’s beaten me to a frothy pulp he may leave me alone for the rest of the year.”

“Well, if it helps, I found out where Hanley Park is. I hear they closed it down because of a really bad squirrel problem.”

“Wonderful.”

I’D SAY ABOUT forty kids were hanging around Hanley Park when Scoopy and I got there. One of them was even holding a sign reading “Go, Elrod, Go!” Then he turned it around, showing that the back said “Go Before He Kills You!”

They had as much confidence in me as I did in myself.

Maybe that was the problem! Maybe I needed confidence! Andy wasn’t that big, and maybe he hadn’t started his day with a nutritious breakfast! You know...if I tried hard enough, I could win the fight!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

No, I was going to get pounded today, no doubt about it. Andy was standing there with Warren and Colin, looking tough. Julie was there with her friends, looking like she was going to swoon any second. I’m sure I looked like I was going to run off going “Yip! Yip! Yip!”

“Hi,” said Andy. “Are you ready?”

Slowly, I nodded.

Warren raised his hands for attention. “Okay, everyone, welcome to the official Andy Click versus Elrod McBugle fight. If you’re going to place bets, place them now. The rules are, no biting, no scratching, no weapons, no wedgies, and no spitting. But if you get hit in the face and some spit flies out, that doesn’t count. Loser is the first person to say ‘Uncle.’”

“Uncle,” I said.

Andy and Warren exchanged whispers. “There’s been a change in the rules,” Warren announced. “Loser is the first person to cry.”

I tried to make myself cry, but it wasn’t working.

“Is everyone ready to see a fight?”

My schoolmates cheered. Warren took out a whistle.

“Let the fight begin...now!”

He blew the whistle.

Andy stepped toward me. I stayed right where I was, not out of bravery but because I couldn’t move my body.

A sort of rumbling sound came from the trees. The branches began shaking.

“It’s an earthquake!” somebody exclaimed.

Suddenly a squirrel leapt from one of the lower branches, landing right on Julie’s hair. She screamed and thrashed around, trying to get it off, while the squirrel made loud squirrel noises and danced around on her head.

More squirrels leapt from the trees, some landing on the ground, some landing on innocent kids who just wanted to see Andy squash me. More and more squirrels emerged, scurrying down the tree trunks, heading for the nearest people.

Warren blew his whistle again out of surprise, and instantly a dozen squirrels went straight for him. Within ten seconds he was covered with the vicious rodents. He fell to the ground and began rolling around, trying to get them off him.

“Help me! Help me!” shouted Julie, whose hair was sticking up worse than Scoopy’s.

All around, kids were screaming and running in all directions from the insane squirrels. I didn’t see any of them foaming at the mouth, so I hoped that they weren’t rabid, just goofy.

“Let’s get out of here!” Andy shouted. I nodded and we took off, with Scoopy following close behind. A squirrel jumped on his back, but he grabbed it by the tail and threw it on Colin. It went down the front of his shirt and he let out a shriek that sounded a whole lot like Warren’s whistle, causing a bunch of squirrels to rush at him.

Andy, Scoopy, and I ran as fast as we could, leaving the sounds of our screaming classmates behind. We ran for several blocks, not stopping until Scoopy was completely out of breath.

“Well, that was strange,” Andy remarked.

“Just a little,” I agreed.

“My house is right up the next street. We’ll go there to call the police.”

“Good idea,” I said. “Police are good.”

“<Gasp> <Gasp> <Gasp>" Scoopy added.

We hurried over to Andy’s house. Andy quickly explained the situation to his father, who called 9-1-1 and told the police that they might perhaps want to investigate an odd situation occurring at Hanley Park.

Then we all laughed and laughed.

“That was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!” shouted Andy. “I wish I’d caught it on video! Nobody at school will ever believe this!”

“Well, I think at least forty or so kids will,” I commented.

“Yeah, but...was that fantastic or what? I think every week we should pretend that we’re going to fight and get a new group of people to come there to watch!” He was laughing so hard that if he’d been drinking milk it would have come out of his nose with enough force to break through a wall.

Scoopy and I exchanged a look that said “We’re in the presence of a real weirdo.”

Andy stuck his hand out at me. “Put ’er there, buddy. You’re all right.”

“I didn’t do anything but run away from the squirrels with you.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

We shook hands. I had a new ally in the war against...well, whatever I felt like warring against. Pretty cool, huh?

APPARENTLY, BY THE time the police got on the scene, the squirrels had fled back to their trees, leaving a bunch of scratched-up and freaked-out but otherwise unhurt kids. None of them had rabies, in case you were concerned.

Guess who they all blamed? Was it Andy, who’d not only started the fight but chose the location? Was it Julie, who’d been the one to provoke Andy into starting the fight? Was it Howie Hankensnorker, the magical elf? Nooooooooo, they blamed me, Elrod McBugle!

I think they were all still mad about the gum.

Chapter Ten Quiz

1. Who would you have bet on in an Andy vs. Elrod fight, knowing that Elrod was writing the book and could have changed the facts any way he wanted?

2. Do you think squirrels are cute? Do you think squirrels are cute when they’re in your hair?

3. Write an essay (three words or less) describing your feelings about the way the government treats people who wear clown suits and carry big mallets and walk up to people on the street and say “Hi there, I’m Mr. Mallet, would you like me to hit you?” and when the person says “No, not today,” they go right ahead and hit them anyway and give an evil clown chuckle and then when the person gets back up they hit them a second time with the same mallet and when the person says “Hey, I said I didn’t want you to hit me!” the clown says “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you said you did want me to hit you, just like this,” and then they hit the person again and give that same evil clown chuckle and when the person starts to run away they throw their mallet and hit him or her or whatever the person is in the back of the head and they keep doing that for hours and hours. Don’t you hate that?

Chapter Eleven

REMEMBER ABOUT THREE chapters ago when Scoopy and I were talking about the Greenwater Junior High Talent Show? I didn’t just mention that to fill space, like I do sometimes when I’m writing an essay. You know, when you’re writing an essay and you have to hit a certain number of words, and so you put in little things that aren’t really important but they sound nice, like “Christopher Columbus had pretty eyelashes.” It makes whatever you’re writing longer and therefore better, but it’s a bad technique and I hope that nobody reading this ever does it, even if the average cow has 3.87 legs.

(I just made up the cow fact. I hope nobody reading this ever makes up facts just to have something to write.)

What’s that you’re shouting at the page? Get to the point, Elrod? Okay, okay...but you should know that a bunch of people saw you yelling at the book, and they think you’re weird.

A couple days after the squirrel incident, Julie and I were in science class, doing our lab experiment and making absolutely no changes whatsoever to the procedure, as per instructions from Ms. Jones, Mr. Botkin, Mr. Clark, Dr. Larson, my mom, my dad, the local authorities, and this kid named Doug.

Andy walked over, along with Warren and Colin. “Hi, Julie,” said Andy. “Nice hair.”

I had to admit, Julie’s hair looked a lot better now that most of it had been torn off by the squirrels. Julie even thought so.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling.

Andy turned to me. “Were you going to enter the talent show? You can win prizes. You can have fun. You can show your school spirit.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Why?”

“The three of us were going to enter, and we wanted to know if you wanted to join us.”

“Yeah, okay. What about Scoopy?”

“Sure. He’s pretty funny-looking. He’ll be good.”

“What are you going to do?”

Andy glanced at Julie and at the other kids who were listening. “It’s a secret. Can you come over to my house after school?”

“I’ll have to make sure it’s okay, but yeah, I think so.”

“Great. See you then.”

Ms. Jones said something that was probably a command for Andy, Warren, and Colin to return to their own lab, so they left. Julie put her lip out in a pout.

“You’re so lucky,” she said.

“WHAT IF THEIR idea of an act is beating you up on stage?” asked Scoopy, as we walked toward Andy’s house.

“Then we’d probably win.”

When we got there, Andy’s garage door was open and the Former Bully Trio was already inside. They had some instruments set up: Colin on drums, Warren on keyboard, and Andy on lead guitar.

“Hey, guys!” said Andy. “What do you play?”

“Clarinet,” Scoopy replied. “But I left it at school.”

“I don’t think we can use a clarinet,” Andy told him.

Scoopy thought for a moment. “I can blow into a jug and make a neat sound.”

“There’s a jug on one of the shelves. See if you can find it.”

Scoopy nodded and went in search of the jug. “What about you?” Andy asked me.

“I can’t play anything,” I admitted. “I have no musical talent whatsoever. I didn’t realize this was going to be a band.”

“You can do background vocals then.”

“I can’t sing, either.”

“Yes you can. Everyone can sing. Watch.” Andy began to jam on his guitar and screech “BABY BABY BABY I’M THE ONE YOU WANT!!! BABY BABY BABY I’M THE ONE YOU NEED!!!” Warren and Colin got into it and began playing their instruments as well. They were sort of the musical equivalent of an eighty-five car freeway accident.

“OOOHHHH BABY I NEED YOUR LOVIN’!!! BRING ME THAT SWEET LOVIN’ THAT YOU GOT, BABY!!! OOOOHHHHH YEAH!!!”

“YEAH YEAH YEAH!!!” Warren and Colin pitched in.

After about another half-minute of jamming, Colin ended the musical number with a cymbal crash. “What did you think?” Andy asked.

“It was amazing,” I said, purposely not specifying whether it was amazing in a good or bad way.

“We wrote the music and lyrics ourselves,” Andy said.

“And we’re called The Dogs,” Colin told me.

“The Dogs?”

“Yeah, The Dogs!” said Andy. “Isn’t that a great name for a band?”

“I guess so. It’s kind of boring.”

“It’s filled with meaning,” said Colin. “Because we’re mean like dogs, we’re wild like dogs, and we’re loud like dogs.”

“Do you sniff other dogs’ butts?” I asked.

Colin glared at me. I realized that I’d become a little too comfortable around the Former Bully Trio. He could still slam my head between his cymbals if he felt like it.

“The Dogs is an okay name,” I said.

“What would you call it?” asked Warren.

I thought for a moment. “How about Squirrel Rampage?”

Andy, Warren, and Colin all looked at each other for a moment, then broke out into a smile at the same time. “That’s great!” Andy exclaimed. “See, I knew having you around was a good idea!”

“I can’t find the jug,” said Scoopy.

“Keep looking,” Andy told him.

“I found an empty paint can, but blowing into it isn’t doing anything.”

“So, anyway,” Andy said to me, ignoring Scoopy, “we’ll have you pretend to play guitar and do background vocals.”

“I really can’t sing,” I said. “How about I just make comments while you practice?”

“No, we need you up on stage. You fit with our image as wild dogs. Everyone hates you.”

“Not everyone hates me.”

“Well, a lot of people do.”

I think he genuinely believed he was giving me a compliment.

“How come you’re willing to split the prize money five ways?” I asked.

“Oh, we don’t care about the money,” said Colin. “We’re doing this for the publicity. Maybe a music scout will be in the audience and offer us a contract.”

Andy and Warren nodded.

“I see.” I figured the only person interested in them would be a zookeeper, but I wisely kept that little comment to myself.

“There’s a bottle of aspirin over here,” said Scoopy. “I can’t get the lid off, but once I do it might work.”

“This will be fun,” Andy assured me. “Everyone will love us. I promise.”

“How can you promise that?”

“How? Just watch!” Andy played his guitar again, and Warren and Colin immediately joined in with their own instruments. “OH BABY, BABY, BABY, BABY, BABY, BABY!!! I WANT YOU TO BE MY BABY, BABY, BABY, BABY, BABY, BABY!!!”

“Yeah, yeah!” sang Warren.

“Yeah, yeah!” sang Colin.

“YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH!!!” sang Andy. He strummed his guitar so hard that I thought his hand would break right through the wood. I got ready to run for cover in case he started smashing the guitar against the floor.

“YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!” the three of them sang, ending with another cymbal crash from Colin.

I applauded. “Wow. That’s the only thing to say. Wow.”

“So, do you wanna be part of our band? Just for the talent show, I mean. Once we’re on the road nobody will know you and you won’t do us any good.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Found it!” Scoopy emerged victoriously from behind the car parked in the garage, holding a blue jug. He blew into it a few times, then began moving his shoulders to the rockin’ beat. “Oh, yeah, I can feel the music flowing! This is gonna be great!”

“Okay, sure, we’ll be part of it,” I said. After all, what was a little disgrace and humiliation if it made Scoopy happy?

“YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!!!”

I raised my hand, gesturing for Squirrel Rampage to stop. “Too many yeahs, Colin. It’s only supposed to be five.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.” I held up the lyric sheet, which clearly showed five yeahs after the eight babys.

“Oh, sorry about that.”

“No problem. Once again, from the top.”

“Hit it!” Andy shouted.

Scoopy blew into his jug. After six beats, the rest of the band joined in. “I JUST CAN’T STOP LOVIN’ YOU, BABY! YOU’RE THE ONE I WANT ’TIL THE END OF TIME, BABY! IT’S ABOUT TIME YOU TRIMMED THOSE SNOTTY HAIRS IN YOUR NOSE, BABY!”

I had suggested that last line as a joke, but they liked it and added it to their song. Go figure.

We practiced every day after school for the next week, and our musical abilities improved from “utterly pathetic” to “utterly pathetic but with the occasional moment that at least doesn’t make your brain shrink.”

“We’re ready!” said Andy, the day before the talent show. “Everyone go home, get a good night’s sleep, and wake up tomorrow ready to rock!”

Chapter Eleven Quiz

1. Pick a song. Visit a library. Stand on a shelf. Sing the song. Loudly. How long did it take you to be thrown out of the library?

2. Pick another song. Visit a fancy restaurant. Sing the song. Loudly. How long did it take for the head chef to come after you with a pair of crab claws?

3. Pick a third song. Sing it in your head. Isn’t that much better?

Chapter Twelve

I WENT HOME, GOT a good night’s sleep, and woke up feeling like I’d swallowed a power drill. My throat was so sore I could barely speak. There was no way I’d be able to do background vocals with my voice in this condition.

Good. I was saved.

My mom called Scoopy and told him that I was staying home from school, and to go on without me. But he arrived ten minutes later, looking grumpy and tired.

“I thought my mom called you,” I said as he walked into my room.

“She did. But we need you, Elrod. You and me are the only ones in the band with any talent.”

“Scoopy, I can’t do it. My throat is killing me.”

“But I wanted everyone to see me play the jug.” He looked really sad and pitiful. “I spent all last night practicing. I can play that jug like Shrieking Seth can play the ukulele.”

“Who’s Shrieking Seth?”

“This guy. He plays the ukulele really well.”

“You can do the talent show without me.”

“But it won’t be any fun! You’re my best friend.”

“Why do you consider me your best friend, anyway? I throw paper airplanes up your nose.”

“I know, but it shows that you like to be around me. Most people don’t. Come to school today, please?”

He gave me a look so filled with pleading that there was no way I could refuse. I realized that, as lousy as Squirrel Rampage sounded, it was something that was truly important to him. I have no idea in the world why, but it was. And I wasn’t going to let Scoopy down.

But I also resolved that in the near future Scoopy and I were going to work on making him a little less pathetic.

BY LUNCH, MY throat was feeling better. Then somebody came up behind me and shouted “BOO!” causing me to let out a yelp that made it sore again. But by the end of the day, it was feeling better again.

Classes for eighth period were cancelled, and everyone gathered in the auditorium. Those of us who were performing were supposed to wait in the backstage area, but as Scoopy and I headed back there Andy stopped us.

“Bad news,” he said. “We can’t play.”

“What? Why not?”

“The drums are still in my garage. I told my mom to bring them, but did she listen? Nooooooo. She’s too busy picking up my stupid sister from daycare. So we can’t do it. Sorry.”

“Sorry?” I was furious. “We gave up all our afternoons practicing with you guys! Why can’t we play without drums?”

“You can’t have a rock band without drums.”

“Does anyone else have some drums that we can borrow?”

“No, we already asked the band teacher. He said no because of that time in class when Colin was chewing on the cymbals. That’s okay, we’ll get our exposure some other time. Our vocals needed a bit of fine-tuning anyway.”

Scoopy held up his jug. “Then we’ll just have to go on without you guys. Elrod will sing, and I’ll play the jug.”

“Huh?” I said.

“Well, good luck,” said Andy. “If you want I could beat up some of your competition.”

“No, that’s okay,” I assured him. Scoopy walked toward the backstage area, and I hurried to follow him. “Are you sure you want to do this? I don’t know any of the lyrics!”

“Make some up! It’s not like the original ones are any good.”

“My throat is still sore!”

“That’s good. Lots of rock singers sound like they have sore throats.”

Scoopy pushed through the curtain and we found a nice spot against the wall to stand. A couple girls were standing there, dressed in identical pink dresses, touching up each other’s makeup. Mr. Clark smiled as he saw us enter.

“Ah, Mr. McBugle, Mr. Casson! You’re part of Squirrel Rampage, correct?”

“Actually, we’re all of Squirrel Rampage.”

“Really? I thought there were supposed to be five squirrels.”

“The other three couldn’t make it.”

“Oh, well I’m sure you two will do fine.”

I looked around. Aside from the girls, there was nobody else in the backstage area. “How many acts are there?”

“Two. You and the Math Club Women. It was a fairly low turnout this year. If you want to add some extra verses to your song to make it longer, that might be nice.”

Scoopy grinned. “Wow! We can’t come in worse than second!”

“Oh, gee, that’s wonderful,” I muttered.

Then I realized something. Scoopy was supposed to be the whiny one. If he was determined to have a good time, well, darn it, I was too. Scoopy could play that jug pretty well if you wanted my honest opinion, and the lyrics wouldn’t be a big deal as long as I remembered the words “yeah” and “baby.” We’d do fine.

Mr. Clark went out on stage and made his opening comments, which included instructions that nothing was to be thrown on stage while we were performing, and that booing was a sign of bad manners. Then he introduced the Math Club Women, who went out and began singing something called “How I Love Prime Numbers.”

They sounded good. Really good. Their voices blended in perfect harmony. Compared to them, my singing was going to sound like a dying buffalo clearing its throat.

But it would all be over in a few minutes.

The Math Club Women finished their song and marched backstage to wild applause. “You’re on,” said Mr. Clark, motioning for us to walk on stage.

Scoopy chose that particular moment to trip, and the jug slipped out of his fingers. It fell as if in slow motion, and I dove for it, trying to catch it before it shattered against the floor.

The Math Club Women gasped.

Mr. Clark gasped.

Scoopy gasped.

I caught it.

“Please be more careful,” said Mr. Clark. “Broken glass is nobody’s friend.”

“Yes, sir,” said Scoopy, taking the jug from me. As I got to my feet, Scoopy tripped once again. The jug fell out of his hand and shattered against the floor.

“I couldn’t help it!” he insisted. “My hands are all sweaty!”

I stared at the broken pieces of the musical jug for a long moment. “I guess The Math Club Women win.”

“No!” said Scoopy. “We can still go on! I can...I can say ‘Aaaooogah’ in the background while you sing.”

“How about you sing and I say ‘Aaaooogah?’”

“No, that’ll be stupid. C’mon, Elrod, let’s do it!”

He marched out on stage. I reluctantly followed him.

“Hi, everyone,” I said, as I looked out at the seemingly millions of people who could potentially throw sharp objects at us. “We’re Squirrel Rampage, and this is a song called ‘Baby Bring Me Your Love, If It’s Not Too Much Trouble.’” That wasn’t the real name of the song, but at this point it didn’t really matter. I pointed to Scoopy. “Hit it.”

“Aaaooogah,” said Scoopy.

I began to tap my feet against the floor to the beat. “Baby, baby, baby,” I sang, snapping my fingers as well. “I need you, baby.”

“Aaaooogah,” Scoopy repeated.

“Oh yeah, be my baby. Oh yeah, be my baby.” I tried to raise my voice, and with my sore throat my voice cracked, making me wince.

I heard a bunch of kids laughing.

Good! Let them laugh! If we couldn’t be talented, we’d be funny!

“BABY, BABY, BABY!” I screeched. The audience howled with laughter.

“AAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOGAH!” shouted Scoopy.

“Okay, stop this,” said Ms. Webster in a loud voice. She stood up from where she’d been sitting in the front row. “This is not what the annual talent show is all about! This is a mockery of talent! Both of you, sit down.”

I was in shock. She couldn’t do that, could she? Who was she to tell us that we were terrible? She wasn’t in charge of this talent show! She could give us all the disapproving glances she wanted, but the show must go on!

And even though it meant that I could get in all kinds of trouble later, I made Ms. Webster part of that show.

“There she is!” I sang. “There she is! There’s my baby! There’s my baaaaaaaaaaay-beh comin’ to see me!”

The class exploded in laughter. Ms. Webster turned a dark red color that can’t have been healthy. Then she marched up the three stairs leading to the stage, I guess with the intention of dragging Scoopy and myself away by force.

This was, I thought, very rude. It sounded like a whole bunch of students were getting plenty of enjoyment out of how awful we were, so where did she get off deciding to take it upon herself to stop us?

I was mad.

She walked toward us. “This is completely unacceptable,” she said. “Absolutely appalling.”

“Aaaooogah!” said Scoopy.

Then I made a decision. We all make many decisions that will affect the course of our lives. Some are small decisions, such as whether to put on a clean shirt or just turn the shirt with the mustard stains inside-out. Some are big decisions, such as whether or not to stick a fork in a toaster (don’t). Then there are decisions like the one I made, decisions with the potential to change your life forever.

I had already made the choice to get up on stage and sing badly. If I let Ms. Webster take me away, this day would simply be remembered as the day Elrod McBugle ruined an already lousy song and was dragged off by a teacher. No glory there.

True glory rested in making this moment one that nobody in school would ever forget, no matter what the personal cost.

And so when Ms. Webster started to reach for me, I threw my arms around her and kissed her on the lips.

Saying that the other students had a strong reaction to this is sort of like saying “Sitting on a circular saw can ruin your pants.”

The auditorium exploded with shrieks of shock and laughter. Several students jumped to their feet, unable to believe what they’d just seen. I thought the walls were going to crumble from the intensity of their reaction.

Ms. Webster eyes were bugged out so far I thought they might drop onto the floor (and maybe roll into an open bottle of Slurpy Gulp). She stumbled backwards, gasping, and then fell off the stage, landing on the floor with a loud thump. The reactions of the other students grew even louder, and several teachers were waving their arms, trying to restore control.

I glanced at Scoopy. His jaw was hanging open, and his knees buckled underneath him. He fainted, dropping face-first onto the stage.

Mr. Clark rushed onto the stage and spoke into the microphone. “Please remain calm! Everyone be seated! Everything is under control here!”

Nothing was under control.

Especially after somebody pulled the fire alarm.

Students stampeded for the exits, trampling over each other in an amazing display of bad fire drill technique. The air was filled with screams and laughter and sounds I’d never heard from human beings before.

I moved to the edge of the stage and peered down at Ms. Webster, who lay on her back, eyes wide open. “Stay away from me!” she shrieked. “Don’t even look at me!”

Fine with me. I hurried to Scoopy, who Mr. Clark had helped to a sitting position. “Where am I?” he asked. “What just happened?”

“I kissed Ms. Webster,” I informed him.

“Oh yeah, now I remember,” said Scoopy, fainting again.

Three minutes later everyone had fled the auditorium except me, Scoopy, and Mr. Clark. Ms. Webster had been carried out by a couple teachers.

“Uh, sorry about that,” I said to Mr. Clark.

“In all my years as an assistant principal, I have never seen anything like this,” he said. “Never. What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted to beat The Math Club Women.”

“Elrod, I’m going to tell you something, and you need to keep it a secret, okay?”

“Okay.”

“That was the funniest thing I’ve seen in my entire life.” He leaned down. “And if you ever do anything like that again, I’ll make sure you get expelled. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

After that, people started calling me Dr. Lips. They still do. And it was worth it.

Chapter Twelve Quiz

1. STUPID or SMART? Pulling a fire alarm when there is no fire.

2. STUPID or SMART? Sticking a fork into a toaster.

3. STUPID or SMART? Sitting on a circular saw.

(As a public service announcement, I should mention that the answer to all three questions is STUPID. Do not try any of these. And while you’re at it, don’t swim less than an hour after you eat, don’t cross your eyes because they might get stuck that way, and never, ever try and swallow your face. Got it?)

Beware! Unlucky Chapter Thirteen!

HEALTH CLASS WAS taught by Ms. Goggins, a cheerful, short, and plump woman who really liked duckies and bunnies. Every article of clothing she wore contained either ducky pictures, bunny pictures, or both. Since she was the only teacher who used the classroom she had free reign to decorate as she pleased, and it was a ducky and bunny paradise. I can’t even imagine what her house looked like. My guess is that you could take the most evil people in the world, such as Hitler (if he weren’t dead), lock them in Ms. Goggin’s living room, and twenty minutes later they’d be reduced to trembling, foaming-at-the-mouth blobs, capable only of babbling the words “ducky” and “bunny.”

“Today we’re going to learn responsibility,” said Ms. Goggins one fine day, picking a cardboard box off the floor and setting it on her desk. “Starting today and going until Friday, each of you is going to be given a stuffed animal from this box. It will be your responsibility to take care of it as if it were your own child. You will take it with you everywhere you go. Through this exercise you’ll hopefully gain a bit of perspective on what it’s like to be a parent.”

Susan Underall raised her hand. “My brother did this last year, and he said they used eggs.”

Ms. Goggins nodded. “Yes, that’s the way we used to do it. Eggs worked better because they’re very fragile and you can’t just set them anywhere you feel like. But none of you were here last year to witness the infamous Yolk War of February 17. The principal decided that from then on eggs were forbidden.”

I was glad I hadn’t been here last year. Everyone would’ve blamed the Yolk War on me.

“So, I’m going to pass the box around and each of you select your child for the week. And while we’re waiting, be thinking about what you want to name it.”

Ms. Goggins explained more about the assignment while everyone picked their stuffed animal. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t notice a single bunny or ducky. I guess she didn’t trust us with them.

By the time the box got to me, there were only two left. Both were teddy bears. Both were very girl-looking teddy bears, one with a bright pink dress, the other with a bright yellow one. I picked the one with the bright yellow dress. Oh, this was going to make me look ever so cool.

I decided to name her “Sludge.”

No, I didn’t have any real reason. I just liked the way “Sludge” sounded.

“Now, I want this assignment to be fun,” Ms. Goggins told us, “but I also want it made very clear that this is a serious project. You are being graded on it, and some of your classmates have been selected as spies. If you are not taking sufficient care of your child and they see you, they will report it to me and you will lose points.”

Boy, I hate squealers.

I took good care of Sludge throughout the day. I made sure she was comfortable and got plenty of invisible food to eat and that no other bears got a chance to look up her dress. I let her run laps with me during gym class (physical fitness is just as important for a bear as for a boy), and didn’t let anyone throw worms on her during science class, and believe me, lots of people tried.

Scoopy, being a traitor, would not walk home with me because I was carrying a stuffed bear in a yellow dress. Fine with me. As long as I had Sludge, I didn’t need anyone else.

Grrrrrrrrr...

One block from my house, I glanced over my shoulder to see a very large, very mean-looking dog standing about ten feet away. It had teeth, which are always scary on a dog. It gave me a look that seemed to say “Grrrrrrrrr.”

I knew that running away would be bad. If you stand in place and don’t show any fear, a dog will usually leave you alone. So I stood in place and tried not to show any fear.

But I guess Sludge did show some fear, because the dog ran toward me and snatched her right out of my hand!

“No!” I screamed. “Give her back! Give me back Sludge!”

The dog violently shook its head back and forth. Bits of stuffing flew into the air. The dog was killing Sludge and there was nothing I could do!

Well, that’s not true. I could have rushed at the dog and tried to pull Sludge out of its powerful jaws. But I wasn’t going to risk getting myself bit...after all, Sludge was just a stupid stuffed bear.

When the dog was finally done, all I had left was a big pile of stuffing and some scraps of a yellow dress.

Farewell, Sludge.

I gathered up the remains and carried them home. I couldn’t sew them back together, because the dog had eaten Sludge’s head. I was going to get an F on the assignment. I might even go to jail for bear neglect. This was going on my permanent record, I just knew it.

I went upstairs to my room, spread bits of Sludge out on my desk, and tried to figure out what to do. There was no way to get an A on the assignment, but maybe I could get myself a D. I had to make up something that wasn’t quite as bad as Sludge being shredded by a hungry dog.

“YOUR BEAR WAS kidnapped?”

I nodded. “Here’s the ransom note,” I said, handing an envelope to Ms. Goggins. Inside I’d placed a piece of Sludge’s dress, and a note which read:

We have your bear. We will return it for $50. Remain calm and await further instruction.

“I haven’t got fifty dollars!” I said.

“Okay,” said Ms. Goggins to the rest of the class. “If anybody stole Elrod’s bear, I want it returned right now. This is not funny.”

Nobody admitted to the deed. I looked at them, person by person, as if trying to find guilt in their eyes.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“If you’d been taking better care of it, this never would have happened,” said Ms. Goggins. “You’re just going to do a little detective work and get your bear back by the end of the week. Otherwise I have no choice but to give you an F on the assignment.”

“It’s not my fault somebody stole it!” I protested.

“If it were anybody else I might believe that was true,” she said. “How about this? If you make a good solid effort to get your bear back, I’ll take that into consideration when grading you. Is that fair?”

“Yes, that’s fair,” I agreed. I should have known better than to think she would just give me a brand new bear.

After school, I begged my mom to drive me around town, claiming that I’d forgotten I needed a present for Julie’s birthday, and there was only one special bear she wanted. But after two hours of going from store to store I was unable to find anything even close to Sludge, and Mom refused to spend another two hours looking.

The next day I put up signs all over school. I drew a pretty good rendition of Sludge, and in magic marker wrote “Have You Seen This Bear?” If I had everyone in school keeping an eye out for her, Ms. Goggins had to be generous at grading time, right?

After school, I begged my dad to drive me around town searching for another bear. He wasn’t very happy about it, but at the very first store, Toys-4-U-N-Me, my heart leapt for joy!

There was a bear exactly like Sludge!

It cost me a month’s worth of allowance, but it was worth it! It was even worth the strange look the cashier gave me for buying a stuffed bear in a yellow dress. I’d recovered my kidnapped bear, and everything was wonderful in the world!

The next morning, I opened my locker and an envelope fell out. I gasped in horror when I saw what was inside.

It was a photograph of the real Sludge’s head, chewed-up and covered with dog spit.

Chapter Thirteen Quiz

(In honor of poor Sludge, there will be no quiz for this chapter. All I ask if that you keep warm thoughts about Sludge in your heart. She will be missed.)

Chapter Fourteen

SOMEBODY HAD MY bear’s head!

What if they showed it to Ms. Goggins? I’d flunk the assignment! I’d be a bad bear daddy!

There was nothing else in the envelope, no clues as to who had slipped it in my locker. Maybe it had been one of the spies! Now I couldn’t pretend that the fake Sludge was the real Sludge, because the spy might tell Ms. Goggins, and then I’d be in even more trouble than before!

I was doomed!

I thought about confessing, but then I decided against it. This mystery person wanted something. They would surely be in contact soon, and when I found out what they wanted, maybe we could strike a deal. If they were willing to keep their mouth shut about Sludge’s condition, I might squeeze by with a D-minus.

In the meantime, I needed to put up more signs.

“ANY CLUES ABOUT your bear?” asked Ms. Goggins.

I shook my head sadly. “No, but whoever took her from me is going to pay, I promise you that.” I raised my voice, speaking to the rest of the class. “Do you hear me? Whoever has my precious Sludge is going to pay! They’re going to pay dearly! They may even pay with their life!”

“Okay, Elrod, stop being silly,” said Ms. Goggins.

“I don’t think first-degree kidnapping is all that silly,” I said. “If it had been your bear, you might not be saying that.”

“It was my bear. You were only borrowing it.”

“That’s right. I’m sorry.”

I looked around the class. Everyone else was taking good care of their stuffed animals. I was the only one whose responsibility assignment had turned into a web of deceit, blackmail, and tragedy. Which I thought made it a lot cooler than everyone else’s...but everyone else was going to get a good grade.

WHEN I OPENED MY locker before lunch, another envelope dropped out. I grabbed it and tore it open, praying that it would contain good news.

It did not contain good news.

Written in dark red letters were the words Tomorrow Your Bear Will Pay For Your Wicked Deeds.

This was revenge! But for what? For the hiccup gum? For the squirrel scratches? For bumps and bruises suffered during the talent show riot? There were dozens of things somebody could be mad at me for! If they didn’t tell me who they were, how was I supposed to make amends?

Oh, life could be so unfair!

THE NEXT DAY, I got to school early. If the mystery person wasn’t going to reveal who they were, I was going to find out myself. To do so, I enlisted the aid of Colin, whose locker was across the hall from mine. In exchange for one of my better comic books (The Adventures of Librarian Man #57) he told me his locker combination and said I could hide in there. He originally wanted to shove me in there himself, but then decided he didn’t want to get up that early.

I got inside his locker, which smelled like gym socks that hadn’t been washed since the invention of sweat. I kept it open just a tiny bit so I wouldn’t get locked inside, and peeked through the slits.

I watched and waited.

I waited and watched.

Several people walked by, but none of them stopped at my locker. The only really bad thing that happened was the janitor walked by and noticed that Colin’s locker was ajar, so he pushed it shut.

Well, I’d worry about that later. For now, I had to find out the identity of the mystery blackmailer.

Then, ten minutes before the first bell rang, somebody walked by and slipped an envelope into my locker. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Either of them.

It was Mr. Clark!

Yes, the assistant principal of Greenwater Junior High was threatening my teddy bear! How could this be? What had I ever done to him?

And how was I going to get out of this locker?

COLIN WAS NICE enough to let me out of his locker by third period. I could have pounded on it and made a ruckus until somebody got the janitor to free me, but I figured the fewer people who knew about my hiding spot, the better.

After I’d been released and spent a few minutes breathing fresh air, I went to the main office and told the secretary I needed to talk to Mr. Clark. She told me to go right in.

“Oh, hello, Elrod,” he said, leaning forward in his chair. “How are you doing today?”

“You’ve got my teddy bear head,” I told him.

“Could you close the door, please?”

I closed the door. Mr. Clark cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable, then gestured for me to have a seat. “Elrod, do you know what the word ‘discretion’ means?”

“Probably something about you not wanting me to tell anyone you’ve got my teddy bear head.”

“Yes, something like that.” Mr. Clark cleared his throat again. “Okay, Elrod, I’m going to be honest. I think you’re a great kid. You’re very creative and I think a lot of the things you do are hysterical. Anyway, when I came home from work on Monday my wife told me that Rupert had been a very bad doggie. He coughed up the head of a teddy bear he’d eaten.”

“Where did he cough it up?” I asked with disgust.

“Right on our living room floor. We’d just had it shampooed. My wife was not happy.”

“Was the dog okay?”

“Oh, sure, Rupert’s eaten a lot worse things than a teddy bear head. One time he ate an entire hamster cage, even though there wasn’t a hamster in it. I think he just wanted to get at the wheel. But that’s not important. The next day I came in and saw the signs you’d put up, and when I spoke with Ms. Goggins she said you claimed your teddy bear had been kidnapped, which I knew was not the case.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

“Basically, I was curious to see how you would handle the situation if you started receiving real kidnapper notes. I know it was unprofessional, but I couldn’t help myself. I just didn’t expect you to find out it was me. How did you find out, anyway?”

“I hid in a locker. By the way, could you write me an excuse for missing first and second period?”

“I think that can be arranged. And I think if we both use the discretion I mentioned earlier, we can work things out.”

THE NEXT DAY in health class Ms. Goggins talked about how well everyone seemed to be taking care of their stuffed animals. She didn’t mention me specifically, but I’m sure it was merely an oversight.

There was a knock at the door, and Mr. Clark entered. “Hello, Ms. Goggins,” he said. “I’m sorry to interrupt class, but I needed to return something to Elrod.”

He held up the fake Sludge I’d bought. “Your theories were absolutely correct, and you’ll be happy to know that the students who stole your bear are being punished.”

“Students?” asked Ms. Goggins. “More than one?”

“Oh, yes, several.” Mr. Clark walked to the front of the room and set Sludge II on my desk. “It was a very well-planned heist, if I do say so myself. Elrod didn’t stand a chance of defending his bear from these kids, not with all the distractions they planned. But with some of the best detective work I think I’ve ever seen from somebody his age, Elrod figured out who the culprits were and reported them to me.”

“Who were they?”

“We’ve decided not to reveal that, because some of our top students are among the guilty. It took some of the smartest kids in school to get that bear away from Elrod, but in the end Elrod outsmarted them. He will be a great parent some day, I promise you that.”

“Well...that’s a very nice thing to hear,” said Ms. Goggins. “I’ll definitely take that into consideration when I’m grading the assignment.”

Mr. Clark gave me a thumbs-up sign. “Good work, Elrod. Your bear will be safe from now on.” Then he left.

I got an A on the assignment.

And Ms. Goggins let me keep the bear.

Chapter Fourteen Quiz

1. Define the word “discretion.”

2. Define the word “philtrum.”

3. Define the word “word.”

Chapter Fifteen

THE MOST SCARED I’ve ever been in my life was because of another English assignment. It wasn’t that the assignment itself was scary, it’s just that...well, read on. (You’re close to being done with this book anyway, you might as well find out how it ends.)

Mr. Rodriguez spent the time discussing the right way to interview people. We also read a fascinating story about a guy who grew plants out of his nose and ears so that we could see what a proper interview looked like.

Then, of course, we were told that we’d have to conduct an interview of our own. It had to be with an adult, and it couldn’t be a relative. We didn’t have to decide on the person yet, but our homework was to write up twenty sample questions.

I wrote a lot more than twenty, but I had to reject a bunch of them. I figured questions like “Do you wear avocados as jewelry?” and “Have you ever stapled your tongue to a refrigerator?” wouldn’t be acceptable.

Even with me cutting out the ones I thought were too goofy, Mr. Rodriguez crossed out six of my questions, including a really clever one about belly button lint. We were then given two weeks to conduct the interview, write out the interview word-for-word, and then write a page describing how we thought the whole thing went.

By Pre-Algebra, I still hadn’t decided who I wanted to talk to. Who would be interesting? Who spoke English? Who had a dark secret that I might be able to get them to reveal?

Definitely my Pre-Algebra teacher.

Ms. Logan was a sweet, middle-aged woman who wore pretty dresses, laughed easily, and would occasionally give a look that said “When you look under your bed tonight, I’ll be there with an axe.” She didn’t give this look very often, and it never seemed like a purposeful look. Meaning, if somebody was whispering during class she wouldn’t give the axe look to get them to shut up, but instead she could be in the middle of a perfectly civil lecture about integers and suddenly give that horrible look for no reason without stumbling over a word. The look would only last a couple seconds and then she’d be back to normal, though I’m sure many students in that class checked under their beds those nights before going to sleep.

That was it! I was going to interview Ms. Logan and find out just what that horrible look was all about!

After class, I went to her desk and told her about the assignment. “Of course I’d be willing to let you interview me, you silly goose,” she said, beaming. “I think we should do it at my house, so I can show you all of my beautiful antiques. Aside from teaching, they’re the most important part of my life. And I’ll make cookies.”

“Sounds great,” I said. “Are you busy tomorrow?”

“I’m never too busy to help a student. Here, let me draw you a map showing you how to get to my house. Is seven o’clock at night all right with you?”

“I HEAR SHE MURDERED three of her husbands with an axe,” said Andy the next day at lunch.

“At the same time?” Scoopy asked.

“No, not at the same time,” said Andy, rolling his eyes. “It’s illegal to be married to more than one person. Duh.”

“Well, I figured if she was the type to axe-murder somebody, she wouldn’t be all that concerned with marriage regulations.”

“He has a point,” I said.

“Whatever. All I’m saying is that I wouldn’t go over there without a police escort. And I’m tough.” Andy took an especially tough bite out of his sandwich to demonstrate. At the next table, Julie looked at him, her eyes filled with longing.

“I’m sure it’s nothing like that,” I said. “But I’m curious about what really is wrong with her. She’s probably just lonely. I heard that she did have three husbands, but they died of natural causes.”

“Yeah, being killed by an axe with a natural wood handle.”

“Anyway, I’m not worried. Scoopy’s coming with me.”

“I am?” asked Scoopy, nervously.

“Sure. You haven’t picked anyone to interview yet, and Mr. Rodriguez said that more than one person could interview somebody. Ms. Logan will be glad to have you there.”

“Oh, okay,” said Scoopy.

Andy made hand gestures like he was swinging an axe. “Thunk! Chop! Thwack! Bleed, bleed, bleed!”

AROUND 6:30 P.M., SCOOPY and I hopped on our bicycles and rode to where Ms. Logan lived. The houses along her street were all old, but huge and nicely-kept. Right next door to Ms. Logan’s house, Ms. Webster was crouched on her lawn, pulling some weeds. She stiffened as she saw me.

“What do you want?” she demanded, covering her lips.

“Nothing. I’m here to see Ms. Logan.”

“Then go see her. And stay off my lawn.”

“We aren’t even close to your lawn,” I insisted.

“And stay that way!” With a mighty harumph, Ms. Webster got up and went inside her house.

We rode into Ms. Logan’s driveway and put up our kickstands, then went onto her porch and rang the doorbell. It rang in twelve chimes which I think may have been the theme song to some old sitcom, though I’m probably wrong. A moment later, the door swung open.

“Hello, boys!” said Ms. Logan. “The cookies are almost ready, so come right in!”

We walked inside and were immediately impressed. Every square inch of her walls was covered with old black-and-white pictures, and everywhere we looked there were knickknacks of every type. She led us through the foyer into her living room, where there were shelves and shelves filled with all kinds of neat stuff, all of it old.

Including an axe hanging on the wall.

I decided to ignore that for the time being. It couldn’t hurt me while it was up there on the wall. I’d just have to keep an eye on it.

“Now, you boys make yourselves right at home,” she said. “I’ll go get the cookies. Is chocolate chip all right? If it isn’t I already made up a batch of peanut butter cookie dough.”

“Chocolate chip is great,” I assured her. “Thanks.”

After Ms. Logan walked into the kitchen, Scoopy and I went to the mantle above the fireplace. There were more framed pictures, some of which were in color. In the very center were three large photographs, each of a different man.

“Check for bloodstains,” Scoopy whispered. I gave him a swat to get him to shut up.

“Cookie time!” announced Ms. Logan, returning to the living room with a tray piled high with cookies. Huge cookies. I’m pretty sure she used half a bowl of batter for each one. Now, I’m a big believer in large cookies, but these things were just outrageous.

“Are these your brothers?” I asked, pointing to the pictures.

Ms. Logan shook her head sadly. “No, those are my husbands. I was married three times before I married Donald, and each of the poor sweeties passed away less than a year later. None of their bodies were ever found, poor darlings.”

“How did they die?”

“They ate cookies until they exploded,” said Ms. Logan with a grin. “Now come on and take some while they’re still warm.”

Scoopy and I each took a cookie then sat down on one of the sofas. “How long have you been married this time?” I asked.

“Just under a year. Donald is such a dear, but he’s gone away on business a lot. I guess that’s why I always get so excited to have company over.”

Suddenly there was a loud crash that nearly caused Scoopy and I to drop our cookies. Ms. Logan shook her head and walked over to the axe, which had fallen off the wall. “This silly thing does that all the time. One of these days I’m going to have to find a better place for it.”

She picked up the axe. She looked very comfortable holding it. I felt very uncomfortable watching how comfortable she looked. But I wasn’t going to get worked up over nothing. As long as Scoopy and I didn’t marry her we’d be safe.

I took a bite of the cookie, and realized that in addition to being the biggest cookie I’d ever had, it was the worst. It was absolutely disgusting. I don’t know what kind of chocolate chips she used, but they were so bitter that it was all I could do not to spit ’em across the room at one of her antiques.

“How is it?” asked Ms. Logan. “It’s my mother’s recipe. She didn’t use sugar or real chocolate, but after trying these I’m sure you’ll never miss those ingredients.”

“It’s very good,” I said, trying to force my throat not to make a really loud gagging sound similar to “Gaaarrrghhh.” Scoopy took a bite of one of his cookies and chewed happily. For about half a second. Then he looked like he was going to cry.

“Where’s your bathroom?” I asked.

“Right down that hall, across from the bedroom.” Ms. Logan pointed me in the right direction. I thanked her, then took as big of a cookie bite as I could fit in my mouth. It was going to get flushed. I’d figure out a way to dispose of the rest later.

I walked into the bathroom, shut the door, and immediately spat it out into the toilet. Then I ran some water and used it to rinse out my mouth. If I ran out of ideas, I could devote my entire paper to adjectives describing how awful those cookies tasted.

I waited around long enough so that it wouldn’t seem like I’d only gone into the bathroom to spit out a wad of cookie, flushed the evidence far, far away, then walked back into the hallway. I glanced into the bedroom for a second, since I’d never actually seen a teacher’s bedroom before. It was nice to know that they didn’t sleep in coffins.

Then I froze. Cold sweat poured down my back. Because poking out from underneath the bed was a shadow-covered object that I was pretty sure was a human leg.

Chapter Fifteen Quiz

1. Ooooooh, is this scary or what?

2. Booga-booga!

3. Did that scare you? Huh? Was it scary? Was it? Was it?

Chapter Sixteen

I STOOD THERE, STARING at the leg, trying to make sure if it really was a leg or if I was just imagining it. After all, if I ran back into the living room shouting “There’s a leg under your bed! There’s a leg under your bed!” without due cause, the rest of the interview would be extremely awkward.

I continued to stare at it.

Maybe it was just a pair of pants.

Or, maybe it was just a pair of pants...with a leg in it!

“Are you okay, sweetie?” asked Ms. Logan, peeking into the hallway. My heart felt like it said “Okay, that’s it, I’m outta here,” and leapt out of my body.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I said.

“What are you staring at? Do you see an antique in there you like?”

She walked to me, reached inside the bedroom door, and flipped on the light. I came very, very, very, very close to screaming, but managed not to.

Underneath the bed, a blue-jean-wearing leg was sticking out. Ms. Logan stepped over to it, bent down, and pulled out the scarecrow. “This is Bennie,” she said, sitting him upright. “My cousin in Indiana sent him to me after my second husband’s funeral. Isn’t he delightful?”

“He’s great,” I said, so filled with relief that I almost passed out.

“Well, we should get started on the interview. Back to the living room with you.”

When we returned to the living room, Scoopy rubbed his stomach. “Mmmmmm, that cookie was good. It was so good that I ate it right up while you were gone. Too bad I’m so full or I’d ask for another one.”

“Are you sure?” asked Ms. Logan. “I have plenty.”

“No!” said Scoopy, too quickly. “I mean, I really am full.”

“Well, then, let’s begin.” She sat down on a recliner. “Which one of you wants to go first?”

“I will,” I said, picking up my notebook. “Where were you born?”

“I was born in a town in Ohio called Sharpview. If you’ve ever heard of that comedy group Out of Whack, well, that’s where they came from. No, on second thought, you wouldn’t have heard of them—they do evil, wicked comedy that kids shouldn’t listen to.”

I hadn’t heard of them, but I’d have to check them out. I love evil wicked comedy that kids shouldn’t listen to.

“And what year were you born?”

Ms. Logan smiled. “Tell Mr. Rodriguez that I told you it was none of his business.”

I wrote that down. “What was your first—?”

I was interrupted as the axe dropped off the wall again. “Mercy, it just won’t stay put tonight, will it?” Ms. Logan remarked, getting to her feet again. “I may have to put it somewhere else.”

Please not my head, I thought to myself.

Oh, stop being paranoid, I told myself a second later.

And stop talking to yourself, I finally told myself.

She picked up the axe, looked around for a good spot, and finally leaned it against a small table. Which is when I noticed something that made my stomach go thunk-thunk-thunk against my belly button.

There was a small bloodstain on the blade.

At least, I thought it was a bloodstain. I wasn’t close enough to be sure, and my life has been refreshingly free of the sight of bloodstains on axes, but that spot looked like blood.

No, it couldn’t be. Or if it was, there was a logical explanation. Psycho Pre-Algebra teachers who murdered all of their previous husbands didn’t leave the axes out in plain sight for interviewing students to see.

Unless that’s what we were supposed to think.

Ms. Logan returned to her chair. “I apologize for the distraction. What’s your next question?”

“Do you ever hear voices in your head telling you to do terrible things to people?” I asked.

Oh no! I hadn’t really asked that, had I? I was so nervous that I couldn’t control what I was saying!

“Excuse me?” asked Ms. Logan. Scoopy looked like he was trying to push himself right through the back of the couch.

I had. I had asked that question. I needed to get out of this place before I did anything else stupid and signed myself up for an appointment with the axe.

“I was only kidding,” I said. “Actually, I think we’re about done. The interview didn’t have to be very long. After all, we’re only in seventh grade.”

“That’s it? That’s all you wanted to ask me?” Ms. Logan frowned. “Now, I know Mr. Rodriguez didn’t assign you to do a two-question interview. You’re just kidding around again, aren’t you?”

“Uh...yeah,” I finally said.

“You think I murdered my husbands with that axe, don’t you?”

My eyes widened. “No!” I insisted. “Not at all!”

“Now, boys,” said Ms. Logan, shaking her head, “are you really such silly geese that you would believe a story like that? I listen to what kids say, I know that there are rumors that I’ve chopped up a few spouses, but they’re all just that...rumors. Foolish ones. Ridiculous ones. Nobody believes them except a tiny group of kids, and I’m simply amazed that the two of you are part of that group.”

“I...I didn’t really believe it,” I said. “It’s just that the axe made me nervous. And the bloodstain—”

“Bloodstain? What bloodstain?”

“The one on the blade. I saw it.”

Ms. Logan sighed, got up, and went to the axe. She picked it up and ran her finger along the edge. “You mean this dirt?”

“Ummm, yeah. I guess the dirt is what I meant.”

“Elrod McBugle, please don’t tell me you asked me to do this interview because you thought I was a killer. Tell me you at least did it out of a genuine love for Pre-Algebra.”

She still hadn’t put down the axe. “I did it because you’re my favorite teacher,” I said.

“Truthfully?”

“Yes.”

She leaned the axe back against the table. “Boys, boys, boys. You need to work on your ability to tell a plausible rumor from a ridiculous one. Let’s just forget all of this axe-murdering nonsense and finish the interview, all right?”

“All right.”

I noticed that Scoopy’s face was completely white. If it didn’t turn back to normal in a couple days we’d go out and buy him some makeup.

Ms. Logan didn’t sit down again. Instead, she started to pace around the room. “What’s your next question?”

“What was your first job?”

“Oh, that was while I was in high school. I worked at a carnival, making cotton candy, caramel apples, things like that. Do you like caramel apples?”

I nodded. Actually, while I like the taste of caramel apples, I can’t stand the way they always stick to my face and get in my eyes. But I may be eating them wrong.

As I wrote down her answer, the axe fell over yet again. As it crashed against the floor, the closet door next to the kitchen swung open.

A dead body tumbled out.

Scoopy and I stared at it in horror.

“Whoopsie,” said Ms. Logan, picking up the axe. “You weren’t supposed to see that. I didn’t have any plans to kill you two, but you know how sometimes these things just come up.”

Chapter Sixteen Quiz

1. Oh no! How am I going to get out of this one?

2. Why are you wasting time taking this quiz? There’s a teacher with an axe after me! Get moving to the next chapter!

3. I mean it, stop lollygagging on this page! She’s coming after me! She’s coming closer! Closer! AAAAIIIIEEEEEEE!!!

Chapter Seventeen

SCOOPY AND I LET out a scream as she raised the axe above her head. “Knock off that screaming,” she said, “or I’ll kill you even worse.”

I wasn’t sure exactly how that would work, but it sounded pretty bad so I stopped screaming. Scoopy stopped too.

“Yes, I killed my husbands,” she said, taking a step forward. “My first husband, Charles, wouldn’t stop snoring no matter what I did, until I found that you can’t snore very well...without a head!”

Scoopy and I rushed into the kitchen. It seemed like a good idea until we entered the kitchen and saw that there wasn’t a door. There was a window, but we’d never be able to squeeze through it even if we broke it.

We pressed ourselves against the far wall as Ms. Logan walked into the kitchen, the axe still high above her head. “My second husband, Ralph, didn’t snore, but he had the worst morning breath you can imagine. We tried every kind of mouthwash there is, until I finally realized that you can’t have bad breath... without a head!”

“Please don’t kill us!” I said. “We won’t tell anyone!”

“That’s very sweet of you,” said Ms. Logan, “but I don’t believe it for a second. Now where was I? Oh, yes. My third husband, Simon, didn’t snore or have bad breath, but he chewed with his mouth open! I told him over and over, ‘Simon, don’t chew with your mouth open. It’s very rude.’ But he wouldn’t stop until I showed him that you can’t chew with your mouth open...without a head!”

I picked up a jar from the counter and threw it at her. She swung the axe and shattered it in what was really a pretty impressive display of batting ability. Scoopy picked up a blender and threw it, but since it was still plugged in and he didn’t throw it very hard it just sort of dropped off the counter and dangled.

“My fourth husband, Donald, was my favorite husband of all,” said Ms. Logan. “He didn’t snore or have bad breath or chew with his mouth full of food. What he did do was burp. I hate people who burp. And I showed Donald that it’s not very easy to burp...after you’ve eaten poisoned cookies!”

“AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!” Scoopy and I screamed.

“But not the same cookies I gave you,” Ms. Logan said.

Scoopy and I sighed with relief.

Ms. Logan took another step closer to us. “I’m not happy about having to kill you boys, I hope you know that. If it were up to me, I’d strap you into some machine that wipes away your memory and let you go. But those machines are expensive, and I’ve heard that in one instance it left a man thinking he was a radish, so it’s going to have to be the axe.”

At that moment, we heard the front door open. Ms. Logan turned to see who it was, and Ms. Webster burst into the kitchen, holding a shotgun.

“Let them go, Logan,” she snarled. “If you want to fight, fight somebody with a shotgun.”

“Ms. Webster! I love you!” I shouted.

“Save it, McBugle.” Ms. Webster glared at Ms. Logan. “Put the axe down. I’ve already called the police. It’s over.”

“It can’t be over. Nobody’s dead yet.”

“Your fourth husband is,” I pointed out.

“He doesn’t count.” Ms. Logan took another step toward us. “Come on, Ms. Webster. You don’t like these boys. Let’s do it together.”

“Elrod and I have had our differences, I’ll admit,” said Ms. Webster. “But he’s still a fully-registered student at Greenwater Junior High, and I’ll defend him to the death!”

“Fine,” said Ms. Logan, spinning around and rushing at her with the axe.

Ms. Webster pulled the trigger. There was a huge gunshot, and the head of the axe blew right off the handle. Ms. Logan stared at her ruined weapon, quite displeased.

“You’ve ruined my axe!” she wailed. “Now what am I going to use to remember my first three husbands by?”

“Put down the handle,” said Ms. Webster. “Slowly.”

Ms. Logan rushed at her again, the handle raised over her head. Ms. Webster fired off another shot, blowing the handle in half.

“You’ve ruined my handle!” wailed Ms. Logan. “Now I’m going to ruin you!”

“I don’t think so,” said Ms. Webster. As Ms. Logan rushed at her again, holding the half-handle above her head, Ms. Webster smacked her in the face with the shotgun barrel. Ms. Logan dropped to the floor and didn’t move.

“You saved us!” Scoopy declared. “You’re our hero!”

“You’re the best home room teacher ever!” I exclaimed.

Ms. Webster gave us both a disapproving look. “You’re lucky I heard you two screaming. But didn’t your parents ever teach you not to visit the homes of raging lunatics?”

“I guess not,” I admitted.

Suddenly Ms. Logan leapt to her feet. “It’s not over yet! I’ll have my...no, wait...I’m feeling pretty dizzy...oh, yeah, down I go again...” She fell back onto the floor, unconscious.

“Let’s scram,” said Ms. Webster.

THE POLICE ARRIVED shortly afterward, and took Ms. Logan away. The only math she’d be teaching from now on was in the slammer.

Ms. Webster was given a medal of honor by the mayor of Greenwater, and a certificate by the principal. She seemed very touched by the honor, but she still wouldn’t let me go anywhere near her.

Scoopy and I, having braved the terrors of Ms. Logan, were celebrities around school for a couple days. Everyone wanted us to share the details of our exciting adventure, which we were glad to do (minus a couple of our louder screams). But then the replacement teacher, Mr. Arlen, was brought in, and he was the strictest, meanest, most test-happy teacher anyone had ever seen. Everyone hated me again.

“I REALIZE YOU HAVE a good excuse for not finishing your interview,” said Mr. Rodriguez after class one day. “But I’d like to propose something a little more substantial to make up for it. Have you ever thought about writing a book?”

“Not really.”

“I think the whole adventure with Ms. Logan would make a pretty good story, or at least the action-packed conclusion to a story. Not many kids get books published, but you did live through quite an ordeal, and I think a lot of people would want to read about it.”

“You really think so?”

“Certainly. And I’d be happy to look at it if you wanted, or give you any help you needed.”

“Nah,” I said. “Books are boring.”

And so I never wrote one.

Okay, I’m kidding. I wrote the very book you’re reading at this very moment. Mr. Rodriguez did give me some constructive criticism, but all the eyeball gags were mine.

And you know what? My fingers are starting to get tired, so I think I’m going to wrap this up. But it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve got plenty more to say, so I might write another one sometime. I might write a whole series of them! I might write them until the end of time! Hahahahaha! Beware, people! You’re going to have Elrod McBugle books everywhere you look! There’ll be no escape! You’ll all be my prisoners! Beware! Beware! Beware!

Sorry. I’m calm now.

And I’m done now.

No more quizzes. Class dismissed.

Visit Jeff Strand's more-or-less official website at http://www.jeffstrand.com