by David Lubar
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Table of Contents
About the Author and Illustrator
Copyright Page
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For my good friends Danny and Kim Adlerman, whose kindness, generosity, and good spirits make the world a better place.
MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT
I had to write a report on the greatest American president. We’d gotten the assignment on Monday. It was due on Friday. Right now, it’s Thursday, an hour before bedtime. And, yeah, I’m just about to start my report. I kept putting it off. And my parents, who normally ask me about homework, had been real busy. Mom was starting a new job. Dad was traveling.
Did I mention it had to be three pages long? Right now, I didn’t even have three words. Okay. I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to get started. I figured it would be easy to do George Washington. I mean, he helped America get independence. He was the father of our country.
I sat at my desk and started typing.
George Washington was the greatest American president …
I paused to decide what to say next.
“Bad choice.”
The words startled me enough that I let out a shout.
“Whoa!”
I looked up at the guy standing next to me. Then I looked farther up, because he was really tall. And he was wearing a hat that made him look even taller.
“Lincoln?” I asked.
He smiled and nodded.
I managed to ask the obvious question. “What are you doing here?”
“Trying to keep you from making a mistake,” Lincoln said. “Don’t pick George. He wasn’t all that great.”
“Are you kidding?” I felt I had to defend my choice. “He was the father of our country.”
“He had wooden teeth,” Lincoln said.
“That’s a myth,” I said. We’d learned about that in school.
Lincoln shook his head. “It’s not a myth. You should have heard him try to talk. I had a really hard time understanding him.”
“You didn’t talk with him,” I said. “He died before you were born.”
“Are you sure about that, Blake?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m positive!” I blurted out. But then I paused. I wasn’t totally sure at all. But it sounded right. I ran some historical dates through my mind. The revolution was in 1776. I had no idea how old Washington was at the time or how long he lived. The Civil War was somewhere in the middle of the 1800s. I could never remember exactly when. And I had no idea how old Lincoln was at that time.
I realized none of that mattered. “Who cares about his teeth? That’s not important. And it doesn’t take away anything from him being great. Really, who was greater?”
Lincoln pointed at himself. Then he listed a string of his accomplishments. Somewhere along the way—it was a long list—my mind wandered and stumbled right into one thought that would totally end this conversation.
“Mr. Lincoln,” I said, holding up my hand to stop him from talking.
“Yes?”
“You say you’re the greatest president?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” he said.
“But I think that rules you out. Anyone who is so full of himself that he thinks he’s great probably isn’t as great as he thinks he is, especially if he thinks he’s the greatest of all.” As the words spilled out, I realized that was a pretty deep thought. And a true one. I waited to see whether Lincoln would try to argue with me. I knew he was a great debater. But I felt my argument was solid.
Lincoln laughed. “Nicely stated, Blake. And you’re right. If I really believed that I was the greatest, I wouldn’t be great at all.”
Now, I was confused. “Wait. So you don’t believe you’re the greatest president?”
“No. Not at all.” His smiled faded. “I was just a man trying to do his best at a very difficult time in our history.”
“So why did you say all that stuff?” I asked.
“I was just messing with you. George wanted to thank you himself for picking him. But he’s pretty busy right now. There are a ton of kids writing about him this evening. So he asked me to help him out.”
“Oh…”
“And I am a bit of a joker, which you would know if you’d studied me at all,” he said.
“Maybe next year,” I said.
“Maybe?” he asked.
“Either you or Herbert Hoover,” I said, picking a random president I knew absolutely nothing about.
Lincoln stared at me and frowned. “Hoover? Are you kidding me?”
“Yup.” I let out a laugh. “You aren’t the only joker in the room.” And then I got back to work, because I wanted to get good grades so maybe I could grow up to be president, too.
HOME WRECKERS
Imagine a thousand pencil sharpeners grinding the tips of a thousand pencils. Now, imagine that all the pencils are made of steel. Then totally forget what that would sound like, because what I heard was a whole lot worse.
I was up in my room, sitting on the floor, wrapping the Christmas presents I’d bought for my parents. That’s when the screech shot through my closed window. The floor shook beneath me. I stood up, trying to figure out what was going on. The noise was somewhere outside. I was alone in the house. My parents had just headed out for the supermarket.
I ran out the front door. The sound got louder when I reached the porch. I stopped and listened. It seemed to be coming from the back. I went through the gate in the fence and headed for the backyard.
There was someone—no, something—sawing away at the foundation of the house, right at the corner. The thing was about two feet tall. He was shaped like a person, as far as having arms, legs, and a head, but his skin reminded me of that white bark that peels off birch trees, and his limbs were as thin as sticks.
Despite that, he must have been incredibly strong, because the saw was almost as long as he was tall. And it was a serious saw. Not one of those little plug-in ones my dad has in the garage. This was the kind of gasoline-powered beast that can cut through steel and concrete. I saw proof of this in the slash he’d already made through the cinder blocks that supported the house. Cement dust coated the ground at his feet.
The feet, by the way, were bare. Above them, he wore knee-length brown pants and a brown vest.
“Hey! Stop!” My shout was no match for the roar of the saw’s engine or the screech of its blade, and I’m the loudest girl in my class. At least, that’s what my teacher claims.
The thing kept cutting. He had sawed into the corner of the foundation and started to move along the back of the house. He obviously hadn’t heard me. I didn’t want to get close enough to tap him on the shoulder. If I startled him an
d he turned, that saw would swing in my direction.
I looked for something to throw to get his attention. Just then, he glanced over his shoulder.
I shouted again. I was still drowned out, but I figured he would at least see my mouth move. I waved my hands for added effect.
That worked.
The thing pulled the saw from the cut. The awful screech dropped to the tiger-purr rumble of an idling engine. “What do you want?” he asked. He had a pretty deep voice for something so small.
“Are you kidding? You’re cutting up my house!”
The thing shrugged. “Seems fair. You cut down my house yesterday.”
That was crazy. “No, I didn’t.”
He glared at me. “Yes, you did. You cut it down, dragged it away from where it belonged, tied it on top of a car, and drove off, singing cheerful songs like you didn’t have a care in the world or a stump where your home used to be. It’s a good thing I was out at the time.”
“You’re definitely out of your mind,” I said. “All I did yesterday was go get a tree.”
“All you did?” The thing stared at me and spread out his hands, one of which still clutched the saw, as if to say, “Now do you get it?”
“Wait…” I thought back. “The tree?” We’d gone to one of those places where you cut down your own Christmas tree. I’d thought it was a lot of extra work, when there were dozens of places where you could buy a tree that was already cut, and lots of stores where you could buy a fake one that would last forever, but Dad seemed to think the experience of hiking through muddy fields and selecting the perfect spruce would make a great childhood memory for me.
“That tree was my home,” the creature said.
“Your home?” I tried to imagine living in a tree. That was fine for birds and squirrels. But not for anything with two arms and two legs. “What are you?”
“A tree gnome,” he said.
“I’ve never heard of that,” I said.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Becky Dryson.”
“Never heard of you. And yet, you exist.” He revved up the saw. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do. I’ll say this for you people—you build sturdy homes.”
“But you can’t do that. That’s my house. I live there.”
“You cut mine down and dragged it off,” he said. “I’m just returning the favor.”
“So take yours back,” I said.
“I can’t. You killed it.”
He went back to sawing. I went back to shouting. Only one of us made any progress.
I gave up shouting and followed him as he made his way around the house. At several points, sparks flew as he cut through power lines. At one point, water gushed. I guess it was a good thing we didn’t have natural gas. He finished his cut back at the corner where he’d started. The house gave a small shudder when he pulled the saw free, as if it were just now realizing that things had changed in a big way.
He killed the engine. The sudden silence added to the strangeness of the scene. He put his arm through a strap and slung the saw over his shoulder. I followed him again as he walked to the front of the house.
“Please don’t…,” I said.
He ignored me, spat on his palms, grabbed two of the porch rails, and tugged. The house slid off the foundation. He dragged it down the front lawn, pretty much stripping the grass, then headed up the street in the direction of the Christmas tree farm. While nowhere near as terrible as the screech of the saw, the scrape of the concrete against the road was pretty awful.
I looked down at our basement, which was all that was left of our house. It was beyond weird seeing the clutter of boxes and old furniture from above. I didn’t move. I guess I was in shock.
My parents were beyond shocked when they got home. They stood there by the car, holding bags of groceries, staring at the empty space where the house had been.
After a long silence, Dad gave the bag in his hands a sad look and said, “The ice cream is going to melt.”
“I was going to mop the kitchen floor,” Mom said.
It took a while before they noticed me. Once they seemed able to listen, I told them what had happened. They didn’t believe me. They decided that whatever had really happened was so terrible that I had created a fantasy to explain things to myself.
For a month or two, they seemed to expect me to suddenly remember the truth and give them a satisfactory explanation. After a while, they accepted that the disappearance of our house would remain a mystery to them.
All of this happened nearly ten months ago. We live in an apartment now. Everything was fine until this morning, when Dad sprang his big surprise.
“I have great plans for Halloween,” he said. “We’re going to go to the pumpkin patch and pick our own pumpkin. The biggest one we can find. We’ll cut it right off the vine.”
I shuddered at the word cut, pictured Dad slicing his way through a thick, woody pumpkin stem with a handsaw, and wondered what sort of creature might make his home in a pumpkin. I really didn’t want to find out. But I had a feeling I would. And I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like it.
POLAR OPPOSITES
Peter had always thought it was just a story. His mom had read the picture book to him often enough. But there it was, big as a dream and dark as a nightmare. The train. The one and only. Loaded to bursting with nice kids who minded their manners and always remembered to say please and thank you. Filled with kids from engine to caboose and on its way to the top of the world.
“They don’t stand a chance against me,” Peter muttered as he sneaked into a car near the back of the train. “Hey,” he shouted at the smallest kid he could find, “that’s my seat! Get out of it!”
The kid scurried away, whimpering.
Peter sat and enjoyed the ride.
When the train arrived at the North Pole, Peter pushed his way to the head of the line. The Man himself was there, passing out candy canes. Santa winked at Peter, put his arm around him, and said, “I’ve been looking for someone like you. Got anything important going on at home?”
“Nope,” Peter said. “Nothing at all.”
“Good. Follow me.”
Santa led Peter through the workshop. “Here you go,” Santa said, herding Peter into a room so vast that the far wall seemed no larger than a postage stamp. The whole room was lined with empty shelves, but that’s not what caught Peter’s attention. It was the amazing stack of treasures on the floor that made him gasp.
“Wow,” Peter said, his eyes sweeping across the floor. “It looks like every toy in the world is here.”
“Yup,” Santa said. “That’s 10,837,459 toys. One each of every toy ever made. And it’s all yours.”
“Holy cow!” Peter said.
“There’s just one small rule,” Santa told him.
“What’s that?” Peter asked.
Santa looked embarrassed. “It’s not really my idea. But Mrs. Claus insists on it.”
“So what’s the rule?” Peter asked again.
Santa pointed to the empty shelves that lined the enormous room. And then, he pointed to the 10,837,459 toys scattered across the floor. “No dinner until you pick up your room. See you later, pal,” he said as he stepped outside and bolted the door.
As far as anyone knows, Peter is still at it.
WE’RE OFF TO SEE THE LIZARD
The doorbell rang again. Kelly knew what was coming next. “Could you get that, Kelly?” her older brother, Jeff, asked.
“Sure, but this is the last time.” She was growing tired of answering the bell. She was growing especially tired of all of Jeff’s friends coming over. She went down the hall and opened the door, then shivered as a blast of winter air ran across her face and arms.
“Hi,” Rickie Walton said. “I heard Jeff got a real cool lizard. Can I see it?”
Kelly nodded, then pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. She was also tired of talking to all of Jeff’s friends.
“Thanks,” R
ickie said, rushing down the hall.
“Sure,” Kelly muttered. She wandered back toward the family room. It was getting so crowded, she didn’t even see any place where she could sit. There were kids on the couch and on both chairs. Everyone was coming to see the stupid lizard. Six kids had come over so far, and Kelly was sure that more were on their way. She wouldn’t have minded so much, but Jeff hadn’t even given her a chance to look at the lizard. He was far too busy showing it to all his friends. Not that she was interested in the silly thing, but it would have been nice of him to ask.
“That’s cool!” one kid was saying.
“Real awesome. Take it out,” another said.
Jeff shook his head. “I’m not supposed to.”
Cries of “Oh, come on” and “Just for a little bit” burst from the crowd.
Jeff shrugged and opened the top of the cage. He reached down and grabbed the lizard.
He shouldn’t do that, Kelly thought. She knew Jeff was only supposed to let the lizard out in his room. Kelly remembered how their mom had made Jeff promise he would take good care of his new pet.
“Get it!”
The shout shook the thoughts right out of her mind. Kelly looked across the room just in time to see Jeff diving toward the couch. Kids were jumping all over. One kid was trying to crawl under the couch after the lizard. Another was climbing on top of the couch to get away from it.
Kelly didn’t panic. She walked across the room and closed the door so the lizard couldn’t get out.
“Oh, this is bad,” Jeff said. “I’d better get it back or I’m in trouble.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He was starting to sweat.
“I can help,” Kelly said, feeling sorry for him.
