101 Ways to Bug Your Friends and Enemies

by Lee Wardlaw

  “I don’t have a sister—yet,” I answered. “But my mom’s pregnant. Baby Sis is due in December.”

  “But if you had a sister now, how would you bug her?”

  “Why would I want to bug her?”

  “Just wait. You will!”

  “I was sorta freaked out when I first heard about the baby,” I said while practicing a hook move. “I mean, my life will be so different with her around. But now I’m looking forward to having a little sister.”

  “A little sister, maybe. Five big ones? They’re an absolute pain in the . . . belt. Truth!” She moved my fingers to the correct position along the staff. “You must have at least one or two bugging ‘secrets’ I could use. Maybe something left over from the bug-your-parents research that didn’t work on them, but might work on kids?”

  “You could rip the heads off their Barbies.” I concentrated on pantomiming a block.

  “Excellent. Try a first strike,” Joonbi said. “But your suggestion won’t work. My sisters haven’t played with dolls in years. What else?”

  “Read their diaries?”

  “Yes! Baekjool keeps a journal under her mattress. What else?”

  “Would you show me how to do that first strike again?”

  Joonbi huffed a sigh, but her small hand grasped mine firmly.

  “This strike can travel in two directions,” she explained. “Straight up, to hit the hand, wrist, or funny bone of the weapon-bearing arm. Or, if your attacker is right-handed, strike cross-body like this. To be effective, you have to use a great deal of speed and power. Try it.”

  I clutched the cane hook. Took a deep breath. And—

  Whoosh.

  The cane flew over my head, narrowly missing Hiccup before clattering against the mirror.

  I cringed. “Oops!”

  Hic glowered and clenched his cane, knuckles whitening.

  “Eep!”

  Hiccup advanced, lips pursed, eyes blazing, cane held high.

  “Yipe!”

  Joonbi’s face paled. “Hector! That’s not—!”

  “Enough.” Master Yates stepped in front of me. The room fell silent. “Lower your weapon, Mr. Denardo.”

  Hic stared at his arm, his hand, the cane rising high. He stared as if they belonged to someone else. Then he turned and stared at our classmates. Like Joonbi’s, their faces were pale with shock.

  Hiccup’s cheeks blotched. “Sir, yes, sir.” He hung his head. The cane dropped to the mat. “I apologize, Master Yates. I apologize, Mr. hic! Wyatt.” He bowed. “I—don’t know what hic! came over me.”

  Master Yates did not return the bow. He moved, unhurried, to the front of the room. “Line up!” he instructed.

  We snapped to attention.

  “Hapkido is not street fighting,” the master said, hands clasped behind his back. “There will be no conflict of ego on the mat. There will be no competition on the mat. The purpose of hapkido is not to fight and defeat an enemy. The purpose is to train your aggressive instincts and reactions. We spar not to win, but to learn. Is that understood?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “It is your moral responsibility,” he continued, “never to use your martial arts skills on anyone except in an emergency—and only to defend yourself and your family. Is that understood?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  Master Yates focused on Hiccup—then me. “The dojang membership is one of family,” he said, his voice kind, compassionate. “The secret of hapkido is harmony. Remember that.”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “Recite the tenets!”

  “Courtesy. Integrity. Perseverance. Self-control. Indomitable spirit.”

  “You would do well, all of you,” Master Yates finished, “to think hard about number four. Now bow to the flags, bow to the black belts. Thank you. Class dismissed.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Smoothies, here we come!” Joonbi burst from the dojang, tugging me out to the sidewalk.

  Hiccup shuffle-hicked from a way-too-close distance behind us. I shot him a wary glance. Why was he following? Was he biding his time, waiting for the right moment when he could push me into the path of an oncoming cement mixer?

  “I shouldn’t, Joonbi,” I said, fidgeting to flee. “I can’t miss the bus. I have a lot of homework tonight.”

  “Just half an hour! Afterward, Umma will drive you home. She was so excited when I told her I had smoothies with you yesterday. She’s always pressuring me to socialize more. That’s number four on her 101 Ways to Bug Your Youngest Daughter list. Anyway, remember what the ‘fortune cookie’ predicted!”

  “You will share secrets with a new hic! friend,” Hiccup quoted, “while imbibing a liqhic! refreshment.”

  “That’s right, Hector!” Joonbi said, impressed. “You’ll join us, yes?”

  “Love to! Where are we going?” Goldie said, whirling between us from behind a tree. “To the place where true looooove blossomed?”

  “HIC!-HIC!” said Hiccup with a squirm of humiliation.

  “Who are you?” Joonbi asked. “I already said no to an interview.”

  Goldie tsked. “I told you at lunch: I’m Goldie Laux, the Snoop with the Scoop! I always get my . . . information. ‘No’ is simply not in my dictionary.”

  “Vocabulary,” I said.

  “Whatever. It’s not in either one.”

  Ace appeared in his magical fashion. “Then how about: Go away?”

  Goldie stamped a hoof and started to shove him.

  Ace stared at her over his sunglasses as if he’d detected a curious species of beetle squashed beneath his shoe. Goldie sidled away.

  “Who are you?” Joonbi asked Ace.

  He shrugged. “Is Hayley here?”

  “Who’s Hayley?” Joonbi asked.

  “Hic!” said Hiccup.

  “She, he, they’re all sorta friends of mine,” I sorta explained.

  “Hayley’s at Gadabout. She’s always at Gadabout,” Goldie said, tapping her teeth with her gnawed pen. “You know that, Ace.”

  Ace shrugged.

  “Steve, you have so many pals!” Joonbi said. “I’ve never lived anywhere long enough to make real friends. Smoothies for everyone—my treat! Would all of you like to come to my birthday party? It’s next weekend. I’m turning thirteen. Umma said I could have a pool party and invite whomever I want. Bring—what’s her name?—Hayley too! The party will be at the Lemon County Country Club.”

  “Ooo, I wouldn’t miss it!” Goldie gushed. “Mother lunched there last week and said the watercress-and-cream-cheese sandwiches are to die for! Ooo, and she spotted Chandler Scirocco , the snooty soap star, sashaying out of the ladies’ room with toilet paper stuck to her shoe! Can you imagine?”

  Joonbi slipped an arm through mine and buzzed me down the street. “I think you should write a sequel to your book. I could help you! With five older sisters, I’ve had plenty of experience as the buggee. Truth!”

  “Sneeze already wrote a sequel,” Goldie said. “101 Ways to Bug Your Teachers.”

  “It was more a list than an actual book,” I said, “and it was for my personal use only, because—”

  “I was thinking of 101 Ways to Bug Your Siblings,” Joonbi said.

  Goldie gushed, “That’s a fab idea!”

  “I’m not interested in writing another book,” I said.

  Hiccup hic-snorted.

  “I’m not,” I insisted, walking faster.

  Goldie trotted to keep pace. “But I can see the headline now! Brainy Bugging Boy Busily Brushes Up on Ways to Badger, Bother, and Bedevil Brothers!”

  “And sisters!” Joonbi added.

  “I got into enough trouble writing the first two books,” I said. “So the answer is No. Nope. Never!”

  We’d arrived at Lickety-Split Chick. I reached for the door.

  Ace stopped, his warning calm. “You don’t want to do that.”

  “Do what—say no?” I asked. “I’ve got the right to not do anything I don�
��t want to do!” I yanked. The cowbell clanged. Joonbi, Goldie, and Hiccup filed past me.

  “Stephen.” Ace sauntered backward. “You don’t want to go in there.”

  “I’m thirsty.” I turned my back on him and speed-walked to the polished counter where a kid in an egg-yolk-colored uniform and a beak-red paper hat posed behind the cash register, ready to take our order and—

  Great golf tees. I completely forgot!

  “Pierre!” Goldie shriek-gloated.

  Pierre, aka Fee-leep, paled and clutched at the Lickety-Split badge over his heart. “Oh, CAROTTE!” he spat.

  “So this is where you’ve been hiding the last three months! No wonder I couldn’t find you! Never in a bazillion years would I have looked”—Goldie’s nose wrinkled—“here! Why, Pierre? Why are you working at Lickety-Split, hmm?”

  “Eet eez none of your beez wax!” Pierre said stiffly. Then his shoulders sagged. “Ah, eet eez of no use! Eye know you will chase me to zee endz of zee earth to learn zee truth.” He swept off his hat, crushing it between his hands. “Eye do eet for Papa. Zis bistro, she eez loozing money and we are, ’ow you say, short’anded.”

  Goldie rolled her eyes. “There’s got to be a better reason. You despise this place with every fiber of your croissants!” She scrutinized the restaurant as if a juicier explanation lurked in the saltshakers or was encoded in the chicken-feet hieroglyphics.

  “Philip!” a girl shouted from the kitchen.

  Alarm bells tolled, sirens wailed in my head.

  It was the same voice I’d heard yesterday . . .

  . . . and this afternoon in front of Patrick Henry High. “You didn’t greet those customers with a ‘Welcome to Lickety-Split Chick,’” the voice said, “and I’ve already told you three times today that if you insist on straying from the script I’ll be forced to write you up, not that I have time to keep reprimanding you, my boyfriend will be here any minute for our dinner date—”

  “Do not ruffle zee featherz!” Pierre half yelled, half crooned, his face now the color of his hat. “All eez well, eye assure—wait! You ’ave a date? Wis a man?”

  “No, with a chicken! What are you hiding, your tone sounds weird, what’s going on, don’t make me come out there—”

  “No, pleeze, my leetle sweet beak!” Panic overwhelmed Pierre’s words. “Eye beg of you, Juliette, do not bothaire yourself wis—”

  “Ooo!” Goldie yipped. “I know that voice!”

  “Unfortunately, I—hic!—as well,” Hiccup said.

  “It’s July!” Goldie exclaimed.

  “Who’s July?” Joonbi asked. “Another pal of yours?”

  “Zey wish!” Pierre said. “My Juliette, she eez too fine to assoceeate wis zee likes of zem!”

  Goldie yipped again. “The Queen of the Clubs, working here! Ooo, what a comedown. Ooo, what a scoop!”

  “I’m not your little sweet beak and don’t call me Juliette!”

  July Smith stormed from the kitchen, her slender hands dusted with flour, apron splotched with grease and gravy. Her face had a flushed sheen to it from working in the hot kitchen; wisps of dark hair escaped her French braid, curling against her cheeks.

  No wonder Ace had warned me! After all, July Smith was his sister. A little-known fact he took great pains to keep a little-known fact. (Why, you ask? That’s another story.)

  “It’s obvious you can’t handle these customers, Philip,” July said, “so take your break now, then I can escape this hen hole as soon as my boyfriend—”

  She froze. Arced a dark, elegant brow. Glared at me.

  “YOU,” she said.

  I gulped and managed a thin smile. “In the flesh.”

  “I DESPISE you, LOATHE you, it’s ALL YOUR FAULT I’m stuck at Patrick Henry, it’s ALL YOUR FAULT I’m working in THIS . . . THIS . . . THIS—”

  “Don’t blame him for your hic! mistakes,” Hiccup countered. “If you hadn’t tried to steal the hic! alarm—”

  July jabbed a floury finger into Pierre’s chest. “Is Sneeze Wyatt a friend of yours? IS HE?”

  Pierre choked. “Eye—eye no speeka zee Eengleesh, mademoiselle.”

  July glared at Goldie, then Hiccup, then jabbed at Pierre again. “I know you, all three of you, you’re all with Sneeze, I remember you from the district Invention Convention® last spring when you had me disqualified!”

  Pierre shredded his hat into confetti. “Eye told you yesterday not to return, Sneeze. But deed you listen? No! And now you ’ave blown my deesguise! My true identity would ’ave continued to elude Juliette eef eet were not for you!”

  July gave a tinkly laugh. “THAT’S supposed to be a DISGUISE? What a laugh! I knew immediately you had to be the owner’s pathetic son. Why else would he give a job to a kid with a weird speech impediment and a Magic Marker fetish?”

  “I smell a scoop!” Goldie shoved her microphone beneath Pierre’s moosetache. “Tell us, Fee-leep, what’s the real reason you’re working here?”

  Pierre flung out his arms, showering confetti. “Eye confess! At first, eye work ’ere only to ’elp Papa. But zen—zen eet eez becuz eye fall in love!”

  Goldie’s eyes glittered. “With who?”

  “Wis Juliette!”

  “With hic! July?” Hiccup said.

  “With me?” July asked.

  “I can see the headline!” Goldie said. “King of the Kitchen Falls for Queen of the Clubs!”

  “Are you hic! daft, man?” Hiccup demanded. “How can you feel affection for her?! I am the first to admit that Sneeze’s faults are plentiful—and annoying!—but that was no reason for this woman to wrong him. She lacks hic! morals! She lacks hic! scruples! She is guilty of trademark infringehic!ment”

  “Eet eez true, eye am cray-zee! Cray-zee wis love!” Pierre bent down on one knee and clasped July’s flour-y hands. “Juliette, now zat eye ’ave reveeled my feeleengs for you, pleeze tell me: Do eye ’ave your ’eart? Just say zee word and eye shall bee yours for eeterneetee!”

  We all looked at July.

  We all held our breaths.

  “Yuck,” July said.

  “I quit,” July said.

  She yanked off her greasy apron. Dropped it onto Pierre’s head. “And don’t call me Juli—”

  The cowbell clanged as a customer entered. A waft of pungent aftershave, mingled with peppermint, itch-tickled my nose.

  My neck prickled with chicken skin.

  “Ready for dinner, babe?” asked Marcos the Moke.

  Chapter Twenty

  My heart jackhammered in my chest.

  “Well, well, well,” Marcos said with a little smile. He strode toward us, his cleated golf shoes crunch-clacking across the chicken tracks. “Look who it is: my favorite post-nasal drip.”

  I managed a weak laugh. “Ha-ha, that’s pretty good.” I edged behind the counter. “You’ve been boning up on your puns!”

  “Zis eez zee boyfriend, Juliette?” Pierre asked. He gave Marcos the once-over, taking in the PHHSVGT uniform with distaste. “You prefer zee jock to zee Jacques?”

  “And the Drip has his little adenoids with him again,” Marcos added, popping a peppermint. “How cute.”

  July grabbed a purse and her cape. “I’m ready to get out of here anytime you are, Marcos. And I’m not coming back,” she shot at Pierre.

  “Eez zat zee threat . . . or zee promise?” Pierre shot back.

  “Be with you in five, babe,” Marcos said. “First I need to have a little ‘chat’ with Banana Nose here. You know, the punk with the monkey food on his face.” In one swift movement, he hopped the counter.

  I inched backward into the kitchen. Bumped into a sink. Banged into hanging pots and pans. A lid clattered to the floor.

  I looked wildly around for something, anything I could use to defend myself.

  Stainless steel tables. Bowls of fresh fruit. Deep fryers. Refrigerator. Overflowing garbage can.

  “Pssst!”

  I glanced behind me.

  Ace lounged in the
doorjamb of the emergency exit. He beckoned with one nonchalant finger.

  I faced Marcos again. He’d moved closer—too close!—with the calculated stealth of a mountain lion. Then he smiled, turned his hat backward—and pounced.

  I scooted beneath one of the tables. Marcos caught the loose tail of my hapkido belt and yanked. I belly flopped, my nose connecting with—ow!—a metal drain. Marcos yanked again, dragging me toward him. I kicked blindly. Marcos grunted and let go. I scrabbled to my feet and shoved the garbage onto the floor.

  The contents spewed.

  Marcos and his cleats slipped—

  tripped—

  and sprawled in a slough of gizzards, gravy, and rotting banana peels.

  He roared. Struggled to rise. But Joonbi was on him, wrenching his arm behind his back.

  July rushed in, cape billowing, hand to her mouth.

  Marcos lifted his head, spitting, sputtering, face splattered, dripping. An orange rind replaced his hat; a banana peel dangled from one ear.

  I shouldn’t have said it. I really shouldn’t have. But I couldn’t resist: “Ho! Look who’s got monkey food on his face now!”

  She shouldn’t have done it. She really shouldn’t have.

  July laughed.

  Marcos’s face purpled.

  No humiliate dat moke a third time. It could be your last . . . Marcos roared again and slip-struggled to his feet, bucking Joonbi.

  “Bye!” I yelled, blasting out the back door.

  “Thanks!” I yelled as I blasted past Ace.

  “Wait!” I yelled to the bus idling on the corner. I raced up the steps and down the aisle, diving to the crusty floor of the rear seat.

  “Wouldn’t you be more comfy up here?” quavered a pair of thick panty-hosed cankles wedged into turquoise sneakers. They were attached to an elderly lady who batted her crepey eyes and patted the seat beside her.

  I peeked out the window. Marcos, still trailing garbage, his face purple with rage and plum juice, pounded toward the bus.

  I ducked, my heart drilling a hole out my chest.

  Great, just great. First I humiliate him in front of his friends, then in front of the Amys, and now his girlfriend. What’s left? How can this possibly get worse?

  The lady patted her seat again.

  The bus lurched forward.