The New Kid, page 13
Soon he was fast asleep.
In a dream he was chased by a huge furry frog. It had big clumps of hair growing out of its back. Carson was running as fast as he could, but he kept hearing the flap-flapping of the frog’s enormous flat webbed feet coming closer and closer up behind him. He jumped into a stream and the huge frog flopped in after him, and when it came up from the bottom of the stream, it was a gigantic bald gorilla. Birds were circling around its head, and it was snapping at them with slimy, pointed yellow teeth. Carson tried to get away, but it grabbed his ankle and pulled him under the water.
Carson awoke to the sound of the phone ringing. Yay! It was just a dream. He heard his dad say, “Nick Blum here.” Then a pause. “Yeah, that’s what we figured. Yup. Came down in buckets all night long. Okay then, five o’clock in the multipurpose room.”
As it turned out, the morp was fine—in fact, fun.
Carson was happy that Wes was allowed to come, especially because he brought his grandma.
The Stink Eye came in handy, too. Wes’s grandma had the ability to raise just one eyebrow in his direction and at the same time lower the other eyebrow, which was effective.
Scary, actually!
She did bring the hot dogs and make-your-own-pizza ingredients. The oven in the multipurpose kitchen didn’t work. But Chloe and Zoe discovered a big toaster oven way, way in the back of the cupboard marked PTA.
Wes’s grandma dragged it out, dusted it off, and plugged it in. Then she rolled out the pizza dough, cut it into strips, and wrapped the hot dogs up in the strips, with just the tips of the hot dogs sticking out.
They were kind of like pigs in a blanket, but gorier!
She baked them in the toaster oven till the dough was crispy and the dogs were steamy hot. She took them out and dunked one end of each wrapped hot dog in pizza sauce. And served them on a big aluminum tray.
They looked like old cutoff mummy fingers, wrapped up in bloody gauze.
Wow!
They were delicious!
Carson’s dad, Oswaldo’s dad, and Luciana’s dad barbecued outside in the rain in the breezeway. Nancy’s mom stood by to check the interior temperature of the meat with a thermometer. Abby and Lee Crabbly stopped by and listened intently to the tri-tip tips.
Quite a bit of sampling went on.
After dinner, everybody played board games. Then Carson’s dad, Wes’s grandma, and Mr. Lipman figured out how to make s’mores in the toaster oven. Later they plugged it into a thick black extension cord and put it on the floor in the middle of the multipurpose room.
Everybody sat in a big, wide semicircle around it, with the lights off.
They all stared at the pretty orange toaster coils, all lit up, listening to the rain drumming on the rooftop.
They sang a few songs, including “La Bamba.”
There was impromptu entertainment: Zach juggled hats, Shelly did an interpretive dance with scarves, Sydney recited part of a depressing and creepy poem about a raven.
Chloe and Zoe showed Mr. Lipman some Halloween decorations they found in a closet, including a huge, sparkling orange harvest moon.
Mr. Lipman taped it to the wall. He had forgotten to clean out his day pack after the paragraph lesson, so in addition to the roll of masking tape, he also still had a big box of crayons, his bow tie, and his mosquito-netting face mask, which he put on—and told a scary story.
And laughed like this: “Whoooohahahah hahah ha ha ha ha!”
And the kids all screamed.
And the thunder rolled.
Nancy brought Ethel and boldly sat with the stuffed otter on her lap. When she was little, she had scribbled under Ethel’s nose with a wide-tipped red marker; she was trying to draw lipstick and overshot the mark.
It looked okay.
Sitting on the multipurpose room floor on blankets next to Nancy and Ethel was okay. It wasn’t anywhere near as good as sitting around a campfire on the ground.
On the other hand, it was better than sitting in a soggy tent in the rain in a mud puddle in a campground with a fire ring filled with water and floating charcoal. With mammals peering through the soggy trees.
Carson didn’t have thick all-wool hiking socks like Patrick’s. But having a secret furry four-legged footwarming snoozing Moose at the bottom of his sleeping bag worked out just as well.
In the morning after breakfast, with Chloe and Zoe’s help, Liliana’s mom located a huge old roll of waxed paper in a drawer that had been stuck shut for a hundred and ten years and hosted an arts-and-crafts project: stained glass windows—grating crayons on a cheese grater and ironing them between sheets of waxed paper with Mr. Lipman’s travel iron.
It would have been more fun for Carson if he had been able to report to Gavin and Case about an actual camping trip.
On Sunday afternoon, Carson and his dad returned home from the morp, and thunder began to roll again.
That called for another cup of hot chocolate on the front porch, with Genevieve safely attached to the end of her leash. Carson had a thought: Would thunder scare a doe and her pups? He told Genevieve, “Be right back.”
He patted the top of her head and set his mug on the small end table. He hurried inside into the guest room.
Carson’s dad had remodeled the cage so that the second Dan Post cowboy boot was now incorporated into the architecture: it was poking out of the side of the cage and functioning as a spare room, nursery, or den.
Carson peered into the boot.
All the pups were sacked out together, cozy and warm.
Mrs. Nibblenose was having a drink from the water bottle—a moment to herself. When thunder rolled again, she moved to the ceramic food dish and sat on the edge, eating a grape.
Life was good.
Carson went back outside.
“Thank you for sacrificing both boots for the privacy and comfort of the rat pups and Mama,” Carson quietly said. “Think you’ll ever be able to wear those boots again, Dad?”
“Those? Heck yeah I can! Those boots were designed for a hard-ridin’ wrangler who sleeps on the ground, eats grub from a chuck wagon, lives out of a saddlebag—who wears the same dusty duds for days on end. When he beds down under the stars, prairie dogs and lizards climb in and out of those boots.”
“Will you, Dad?”
“Maybe. I’ll go over them with some sanitizing wipes. All ready with your Whiz Quiz poem?”
“I am. Any final thoughts, Dad?”
“Hit me with one more clue.”
“Okay. One more clue. Sleeps in a weed bed with its head covered as sparsely as parsley.”
“I know, a shrew.”
“Nope.”
24. HELLO,
Yo-Yo!
Right after Sustained Silent Reading and right before Shape It Up to Shipshape, it would be Carson’s turn to try to trick the class with his Whiz Quiz poem, and then Nancy’s turn to sing her onomatopoeias.
Carson wandered about the classroom, picking up scraps of paper, straightening books on the shelves. He was aware that his hoodie was still behind the rolling book cart.
So embarrassing!
He was glad nobody knew it was there, not even his dad. He’d been wearing his jacket. But he should definitely retrieve his hoodie soon.
In fact, since no one seemed to be looking in his direction, he should definitely retrieve it immediately.
It was so dusty behind the rolling book cart when Carson squeezed behind it that he wouldn’t have been surprised to see a hair frog hop out. He found his hoodie just as he’d left it, except it had a Jolly Rancher candy stuck to the back. When the coast was clear, he came out from behind the cart, put the hoodie on, and wore it, with his wrists poking out of the sleeves.
It was very snug. But Carson liked that. He would feel more confident standing in front of the class with his Whiz Quiz poem if he was zipped up nice and tight. Besides, he had spilled pomegranate juice on the front of his uniform shirt at lunch.
Mr. Lipman settled his detective’s cap properly on his head. “Okay, Carson, let’s hear it,” he said. The class was quiet because Wes was absent.
Carson unfolded his poem. “Face round as a balloon. Nose black as a prune.”
“A fat-faced baby lamb,” whispered someone.
“Shh!” said Mr. Lipman. “Wait till the end, then raise your hand.”
Carson continued: “Sleeps in a weed bed with its head covered as sparsely as parsley. Can’t get sunk. Won’t soak. Likes to dunk. Can’t croak. Like a froggy, won’t get soggy.”
Mr. Lipman said, “Hmmmmm. Go on, Carson.”
“Braves caves. Air in its hair. Cracks and smacks and bashes and crashes and smashes and crunches its lunches.” He paused. “Has a floaty goatee.”
He paused.
“Not a lumpy seal. Not a grumpy shabby gabby gull. Not a pouchy grouchy cranky crabby pelican with a limp shrimp in its beak. It’s sleek. Bobs for lobster. Gallops with scallops. Floats in its coat like a boat in the water.”
Nancy raised her hand. She and Carson locked eyes. “It’s an Ethel, isn’t it?” she quietly said.
Carson nodded.
Mr. Lipman frowned. “What’s an Ethel?”
Nancy answered, “A sea otter!”
“Ah.”
Mr. Lipman counted out ten Bonus Bucks and gave them to Carson. “Good job!”
“Thanks.”
“So, Nancy? I guess you’re up next.”
Nancy walked to the front of the class. “Ready, everyone?”
She cleared her throat. She unfolded her paper and looked sideways at Mr. Lipman. And to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” she sang:
Āchoo
ahem
baa
bah
bam,
bang and
bark and
bash and
bawl.
Beep and
boing and
boink and
bong,
bonk and
boo and
boom and
bump.
Buzz and
cheep and
chirp and
clang,
clank
clap
clatter
click
clink
cluck.
Clunk and
cuckoo
crunch and
ding,
drip and
eek and
fizz and
flick.
Flutter
giggle
growl and
gurgle,
hiccup
hiss and
honk and
hum.
Itch and
jangle
knock
meow,
moo and
mumble
murmur
neigh.
Nancy took a deep breath and continued:
Oink and
ouch and
ow and
phew,
plop and
plunk and
poof and
pop.
Purr and
quack and
rattle
roar,
rumble
rustle
screech and
shush.
Sizzle
slap and
slurp and
smack,
sneeze and
snip and
snort and
splash.
Squelch and
squish and
swoosh and
thump,
ticktock
tinkle
twang and
tweet.
Vroom and
whack and
wham and
whizz,
whoop and
whoosh and
woof and
yikes.
Zap and
zing and
zip and zoom,
and
that’s
it,
folks,
I’m
out
of
room.
Nancy bowed.
“Bravo!” said Mr. Lipman.
The class golf-clapped. Mr. Lipman declared twenty minutes of Ketchup Time—time to catch up on unfinished business.
Nancy collected her Bonus Bucks, and she and Carson signed them and headed out the door.
On the way to the office, Carson jammed his hands into his hoodie pouch.
What the?!
He pulled out the green yo-yo. “What’s this doing in my pocket?”
Nancy stepped back and looked at Carson from stem to stern.
“That’s your hoodie? Turn around.”
Carson turned around.
“Looks pretty small to me, Carson.”
Carson explained, “My dad shrank it in the dryer.”
“Three sizes? Put your arms down at your sides.”
“Well, I also think my arms have grown.”
“Three inches? Take it off.”
Nancy helped Carson pull his arms out of the sleeves. “Aha. What did I tell you?”
She showed Carson the tag. Size S. Chloe D. was neatly written in fine-point permanent marker.
Carson quietly said, “Guess it’s not mine after all.”
Oops.
In his panic about Moose, he must have accidentally grabbed Chloe’s sweatshirt off the hook. How the yo-yo got into the pouch, well, that was anybody’s guess.
They went into the office and deposited their Bonus Bucks in the Bonus Bucks Box. “Has the Wheel of Fortune been repaired?” Nancy politely asked Mrs. Sweetow.
Mrs. Sweetow pursed her lips and shook her head. “Bad subject.”
“Sorry.”
“The damage was more extensive than we originally thought.” She rolled her eyes. “In fact, it has to be completely reconstructed.”
“Wow. That’s unfortunate!” said Nancy.
“You can say that again,” said Mrs. Sweetow.
Carson didn’t say “Wow. That’s unfortunate!” again because Mrs. Sweetow was one sour lady about the Wes and the Wheel of Fortune incident.
On the way out the door, Nancy frowned. “What a stinker! Chloe took Parks’s yo-yo from the June Box.”
“I’m not supposed to tell,” said Carson. “But actually, it’s Chloe’s brother Joey’s yo-yo. So I’m not sure what’s going on. Are you?”
Nancy closed her eyes and shook her head.
“But I did hear Chloe try to convince Mr. Lipman that Wes put it in his pack. Even I believed Wes had it!”
They slowly walked down the hall.
“Poor Wes,” said Nancy. “He gets blamed for everything.”
“Well,” said Carson. “Sometimes he deserves it. Remember how he broke the wheel? Whose fault was that?”
Nancy whispered, “It may have been improperly installed.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “It’s not like Mrs. Sweetow is a professional carpenter or anything.”
“What about when Wes forged the numbers on the tongue depressors? Whose fault was that?” asked Carson.
“Actually, I’m not so sure he’s the one who did that.”
“Well, who else would have done it?”
“Now ya got me. But I do know this much.” Nancy picked up Carson’s hand. “On his homework papers, Wes makes big, fat, wide, messy numbers. Like this.”
Nancy scrawled a big, fat, wide, messy 4 on Carson’s palm. “On the other hand”—she picked up Carson’s other hand—“the numbers on the tongue depressors were neatly drawn. Like this.” She neatly and carefully drew a small 4 on Carson’s other palm.
It tickled.
“Well, he boosted a foroon out of the cupboard,” said Carson. “That much we do know. He ate half my half a burrito with it!”
“Do you know that for a fact?”
“Yes, and he grabbed my mango juice to wash it down.”
“Wait. What I’m asking is: Do you know for a fact that he is the one that took the foroon?”
“Pretty much.” He glanced at Nancy. “Unless you believe in fairies.”
“I have a hunch the Dustbusters may somehow have something to do with this,” Nancy said mysteriously. “I’m feeling a bit Nancy Drewish at the moment. And I’d like to see if I’m right about it. You with me?”
“Yup.”
25. GOOD-BYE,
Deputy Dustbusters
Ketchup Time was still going on when Carson and Nancy walked in, with some unfinished business. The sweatshirt was casually slung around Nancy’s shoulders. They strolled up to Zoe and Chloe.
“There’s an ant on your head,” Nancy told Zoe.
“Where?”
“It fell off.”
Nancy leaned against the counter. “I’m wondering if you two individuals were responsible for forging numbers on Star Jar sticks.”
“Us?”
“Yes, you.”
“So what if we were.”
What would Nancy Drew say to that?
“We love Wes’s whoppers,” said Zoe. “Wes is a very creative and inventive Whopper Weaver, in case you haven’t noticed. The 4 after the 1 and a 1 in front of the 4 was an act of generosity.”
“We were upping Wes’s chances of getting called on,” said Chloe. “And so what?”
Nancy couldn’t think of what Nancy Drew would say to that, either.
“We have the right to delegate our Star Jar chances to anybody we want! Those were our numbers and we were sharing them. Star Jar sharing is a life skill.”
“But Weston got blamed for it.”
“He was happy he got blamed. Wes loves eating lunch with Mr. Lipman. It’s Guy Time.”
“Did you two happen to have anything to do with the foroon that appeared in Weston’s back pocket just before Guy Time?” Carson asked.
Zoe and Chloe made a face at each other. “What’s a foroon?”
“You know exactly what he’s talking about,” said Nancy. “A foroon is a plastic eating utensil with little fangs on the edge.”
“That’s a spork, and yeah, we took one and gave it to Wes, and so what again,” Chloe told Nancy. “We heard Wes say he wished he could share Carson’s burrito, and we granted his wish! We’re the Sporks Fairies!”
