by Obert Skye
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For my brilliant Phoebe—
This book wouldn’t be the same without you.
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
DEDICATION
1. PROBLEMS
2. STICKY FIRST STEP
3. FRIENDS
4. THE FLINGER
5. TAKING SIDES
6. TUCKED AWAY
7. FINDING SOLUTIONS
8. SAVED BY THE BELLE
9. MAKING PLANS
10. THINGS
11. THE GRAVEYARD
12. ESCAPING
13. AFTER MATH
14. ONE LAST OBSTACLE
15. ABOVE AVERAGE
16. OPEN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PRAISE FOR WONKENSTEIN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER 1
PROBLEMS
My name is Robert Columbo Burnside, and I have a problem. There, I said it. Although I really should have said, “My name is Robert Columbo Burnside, and I have a lot of problems.” For starters, I’m not completely sure how to begin this book.
My sister, Libby, is another problem. She’s constantly obnoxious and usually staring at herself in the mirror.
I’m also bothered by my younger brother, Kevin. We call him Tuffin because when I was little I couldn’t pronounce his name right, so I said Tuffin. The problem with him is that my mom insists on telling everyone the story about his name. Two days ago, when our new neighbor came over to borrow some sugar, my mom went out of her way to embarrass me.
I think that’s why parents were created, to embarrass us. Not that I don’t like my mom and dad, but they’re still a problem. I mean my mom calls me Ribert, and if she’s not humiliating me, she’s sleeping.
And my dad’s a problem because he’s constantly happy, even when things seem bad. He sells playground equipment to schools and cities, and he always wears a suit and tie. He loves his job.
My pets are sort of a problem. I have a fat dog named Puck, who whines and eats a lot, and a parrot named Fred. Fred escaped from his cage years ago, and we couldn’t catch him. Now he just spends his days flying around the house and pooping on everything.
My friends are definitely a problem. For example, just last week we accidentally broke the photo booth at the mall, and my dad had to pay two hundred dollars to get it fixed.
I guess you’re not supposed to have more than three people in the booth at a time. Now my dad has me cleaning things that don’t need cleaning just to pay him back.
My neighbor Janae is a problem. Okay, she isn’t really a problem, but her not being interested in me kind of is. We’re on much better terms since the dramatic poetry contest. Still, whenever I see her, I feel like every joint in my body stops working, and I come unhinged.
I think one of my biggest problems is that I have to keep writing stuff down. It’s not something I would normally do. I mean, to be completely honest …
It’s also sort of a bummer that I’m not even getting a grade for all these words. It’s like I’m doing an extra-credit project for no reason. Still, I know I have to document what is happening to me, because someday the world will need to know about the very biggest problem of all, MY CLOSET.
My closet used to be normal. It didn’t have a door, and I used to sit inside of it and play with my homemade science lab. Then my dad found an old door at a garage sale. I think there’s a good chance it’s the heaviest door in the world—my arms get sore just opening it. It also has a gold doorknob with a small bearded man I call Beardy engraved on it.
I’m not sure I like Beardy; he’s always looking at me weird. Once when I was gazing out my window and accidentally staring at Janae riding her bike with her friends, Beardy gave me a really smug look.
These days, however, Beardy’s not the oddest thing about my closet. The oddest thing began a short while ago when my mom forced me to clean my room. To make the job easier, I just shoved everything into my closet and shut the door. The new stuff mixed with the old lab supplies and the many books my mom was always giving me to read. A short while later my closet began to make disturbing noises.
When my best friend, Trevor, and I tried to figure out what was happening, we couldn’t get the door open. We tried to bust it down and pound off the knob, but nothing worked. Finally it popped open on its own, and there was Wonkenstein, a small, half Willy Wonka, half Frankenstein creature that caused me a lot of grief but also made things pretty exciting.
As soon as Wonk came out, my closet locked up. I tried everything to get it open, but Beardy kept it shut tight. I’m not positive what happens in there. My best guess is that all the lab supplies and all the books have begun to mingle. I think science chemicals are dripping down into the books and bringing mixed-up characters to life. I call it the Drip Theory.
Trevor calls it …
As soon as Wonk helped me solve my problem, he went back into the closet and disappeared. The only thing he left behind was his small cane, which I now keep on my dresser.
I thought that would be the end of the oddness, but soon after he left, my closet opened and I was visited by a new thing. Bits of him were hairy and fuzzy like Chewbacca the Wookiee from Star Wars. Other parts of him were sort of Harry Potterish. He’s a little smaller than Wonkenstein, and he smells like a wet dog. He also showed up wearing a scarf, glasses, and a robe, and he was holding a wand. He has long hair over parts of his body. If I were a scientist I’d say …
Since I’m not a scientist, I decided to just call him something shorter—Hairy. He was friendly and interesting right from the start.
He’s also my biggest problem at the moment. And as I was riding my bike to the library to do some research on him, I had a bad feeling that things were going to get worse before they got better. Hairy wiggled in my backpack. I thought about my dad and what he always says whenever he has a problem …
If it’s true, I think I’m about to become one of the stickiest kids around.
CHAPTER 2
STICKY FIRST STEP
I felt pretty good about heading to the library with Hairy. After all, libraries are famous for helping people.
As soon as we got to the library, I checked out the first volume of Harry Potter: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. It was harder to choose a Star Wars book because there were so many. So I just picked the one based on my favorite movie, book four: A New Hope. My plan was to read about Hairy’s different personalities, to really get to know the creature. I had seen the Harry Potter and Star Wars movies, but I had never read any of the books.
I found an empty table by the bathrooms and started to read. I was actually enjoying myself when I looked over and noticed that Hairy had crawled out of my backpack. He had also pulled a book off one of the shelves and eaten part of it.
I pushed Hairy down into the backpack just as a librarian appeared out of nowhere. She saw the chewed-up book and screamed.
I wanted to tell her that Hairy ate the book, but I didn’t want to freak her out, so I took the blame.
For some reason, the librarian was still freaked out. She agreed to let me off the hook if I paid an eight-dollar fine. I looked in my pockets.
I didn’t have anywhere near that much money, so the librarian made me shelve books to work off my debt. It wouldn’t have been too bad, except Hairy smelled and people kept looking at me like I was the stinky one.
While I was shelving a bunch
of books about senior citizen vampires, I ran into my friend Jack. I’ll be honest; I never thought I’d see him at the library. Of course before Wonkenstein, I never thought I’d see me at a library. Jack didn’t look too happy about being spotted. He started rapidly making excuses for being there.
None of his excuses explained the books he was holding.
I didn’t care why he was there, I was just glad to have someone to help me. I stood up and begged him nicely to stay and assist me while I worked off my fine.
I unzipped the top of my backpack and let Jack take a quick peek inside. He was pretty pleased to see that my closet had cooked up something new. He wanted me to take Hairy out so he could hold him, but there was no way I was going to do that in the library. So Jack offered to help me shelve books if I promised he could see Hairy when we were done.
After half an hour we got a little bored working so we started to straighten the books in a more creative way. It was sort of fun. Then a man wearing a hat and really short shorts told on us and ruined the whole thing.
Nobody arrested us, but the librarian made us go. As we were leaving, we walked past the community bulletin board near the exit. It was covered with announcements and ads from all sorts of local people and events. A poster in the lower right-hand corner caught my eye.
I couldn’t believe it—Average Chef was one of my favorite shows on TV! It was hosted by a guy named Chad Average. Chad takes two teams of people and makes them race against each other to cook things using only eight average ingredients. One of those eight ingredients is chosen to be the focus of the meal, and the contestants have to make things that go along with it. The goal is to make the average food as interesting as possible. I once saw a man and his daughter make fish sticks out of pinto beans and dried macaroni. They also made sesame seed tartar sauce.
Now Average Chef was coming to my town for tryouts. I had problems, but I thought that if I made it to Average Chef and won the competition, Janae and girls everywhere might adore me. And I felt pretty confident that my problems would be less painful if I was adored.
When Jack and I finally got out of the library, Wilt Johnson was sitting on my bike and cracking his knuckles.
I thought about running away, but he was on my bike. Besides, even if I ran, Wilt would find me. He was a bully who thrived on bothering anyone smaller than him. And since he was so huge, there weren’t many people he didn’t bother. Once, when I was digging a hole in the vacant lot with my friends, Wilt came by and pushed us all in just so that he could, as he put it, “see how many doofuses it takes to fill a hole.”
Wilt loved to ride around the neighborhood on bikes he had “borrowed” and throw things at people. Now Wilt had my bike. The truth is, I was willing to walk the rest of my life if it meant he would take the bike and just leave me alone. Wilt told us to come closer, and like dumb robots, we mindlessly walked up to him.
Wilt informed me that he would be borrowing my bike for a while. I wanted to protest, but my urge to stay alive kept me quiet as he sat there resting his big rear on my seat.
There was no way I was going to let Wilt just take my bike. I stood up tall and looked him in the neck.
Thanks to my bravery, Wilt rode off on my bike and I was forced to walk home. Jack had his skateboard, but he decided to tag along with me. He was annoying as usual, and he kept begging me to let him see Hairy.
We cut across a large field, and when we got to the middle, I set my backpack down and took Hairy out. The little Potterwookiee stretched and growled and then began to walk around.
Hairy moved in an odd fashion. He took long steps, and his arms swung from side to side. He was so interesting to watch that Jack and I both temporarily forgot about the owls.
Okay, here’s the deal. The city of Temon, where we live, has a secret—we have an owl problem. Well, I guess it’s not a secret, but it’s definitely not something you’ll ever see printed in our tourist brochure.
Hundreds of screaming owls live in caves on the outskirts of town, and they eat mice and small animals. There are always stories in the paper about some huge owl picking up a tiny dog or a cat and carrying it off. My mom never used to let Tuffin play outside alone because she thought he might get taken by a bird. Then he kept interrupting her quiet time, so she changed her mind.
I never worry about owls picking up Tuffin, because he’s too big. I also don’t worry about them getting our dog, Puck, because he’s too fat.
But now, as Hairy was dancing around in the field, an owl spotted him and swooped down. Jack and I screamed like those frightened women in scary movies.
The owl yelled back, and all of our screeching combined created a sort of sonic boom of fear.
The owl backpedaled in the air and took off in the other direction. Hairy waved his wand, yelled something, and then fell to the ground as if in a trance. I grabbed the little Potterwookiee and ran home as fast as I could. Jack wanted to stay and brush Hairy’s hair, but I made him go.
I was mad about Wilt taking my bike and having to walk home, but the worst part was that Hairy was so scared he wouldn’t talk or even move. I could feel my problems multiplying. I needed to tell my parents about Wilt taking my bike. I needed to tell them about Hairy and what was happening. Instead, I only told them the most important thing …
My dad started talking about how educational Average Chef was while my mom sniffed the air.
I went into my room, laid Hairy on my bed, and took a shower. After my shower, I changed into my pajamas. I always wore one of my dad’s old concert T-shirts to bed. He had tons of them, and they were really comfortable. I then sat down on my beanbag and started reading. It seemed like the next best step to understanding why Hairy was here.
CHAPTER 3
FRIENDS
I read on my beanbag until my father came into my room and told me to turn off my light. He then repeated the same words he quoted every night.
I kept reading under my blanket with a flashlight until my mom came into my room and shared her own saying …
I then secretly read with the help of a glow stick and two blankets. It was really warm under those blankets and somewhere after midnight, my eyelids grew so heavy I could barely keep them open.
When I woke up the next morning, I realized that I had read over half of The Sorcerer’s Stone. I guess caring for Wonkenstein had helped make me a much faster reader. Of course, it helped that the book I was reading was really good. It was way better than the movie. Also, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, and I really don’t want to freak anybody out, but there are parts of the book that aren’t even in the movie. I sort of feel like I should call the author and tell her.
My guess is she probably already knows that so I’ve decided to hold off on calling her. I stretched and looked around my room. I couldn’t see Hairy right off, but I could smell something.
Hairy had slipped down and under my bed. I pulled him out and put him on my pillow.
I got dressed for the day and then spent a couple seconds just looking at him. He was still not moving, and he was staring into space as if in a trance. I’m not a doctor or a hypnotist, so I don’t know much about trances. I do remember seeing a movie a few years ago about a person who was under a spell. I also remembered that the only way they got the person out of her spell was to sing to her about love. I couldn’t think of anything else to try, so I cleared my throat and gave it a go.
It was embarrassing, but I thought I saw one of Hairy’s fingers twitch, so I kept going. I was just about to sing a second verse when someone knocked on my window and interrupted my performance.
I turned around and saw my friends’ faces pushed up against the glass. I stopped singing and tried to make it look like I had been burping instead. I think they bought it.
My friends usually come in through my window instead of using our front door. It makes my mom mad. I figure I’m just doing her a favor by not having my friends ring the doorbell and traipse in dirt and other junk.
I sh
oved Hairy under my covers and opened the window. The second it was open, my friends came crashing in. They all started speaking at once.
Jack had told all of them about my Potterwookiee, and now they wanted to see if it was true. I tried to explain that Jack didn’t know what he was talking about as Jack began sniffing around.
Jack howled and pointed toward my bed. They all began to tear through my blankets like a pack of wild dogs.
Jack set Hairy on the bed as everyone huddled around to get a closer look. Poor Hairy just lay there stiffly. I was actually kind of worried about him until his left eye closed and opened in a slow wink. Nobody else noticed because they were too busy making fun of me for sleeping with a stuffed animal. At first their taunting didn’t bother me. Then they figured they might as well make fun of me for other things as well.
Apparently I was really easy to tease. They were wrong about one thing, though. Hairy was not a stuffed animal. Sure, I admit I like Average Chef, but that’s because it involves food and TV, two of my favorite things. As for Thumb Buddies, none of my friends had any idea that I still collected them.
Thumb Buddies are my secret obsession. They were popular years ago. Then they stopped making them due to too many kids getting poked. Also, some parenting magazine called them “the worst idea for a toy ever!” I disagree. I love how small and detailed they are. I used to openly collect them, and now I have to secretly collect them through eBay and Thumb Buddies conventions. My friends would make fun of me forever if they knew what was in the bottom drawer of my dresser.
