The Terrible Two Go Wild

by Mac Barnett

  “One,” said Josh.

  “Two,” said Josh.

  Then Josh threw the stick and hit Splinters in the face.

  “Ow!” said Splinters. He was afraid of doing something wrong, so, despite the pain, he remained perfectly still, and the rock remained on his head.

  “You missed the rock, sir,” said Mudflap, then immediately regretted saying it.

  “Of course I did,” said Josh. “Why would I hit a dumb rock? I was demonstrating how to hit an enemy in the face.”

  Mudflap nodded. Splinters didn’t, because he had a rock on his head.

  “But you said you wouldn’t hit me, ” said Splinters.

  “I know I did,” said Josh. “I pranked you! It was a prank!”

  (It was not a prank.)

  Mudflap nodded. “You’re a really great prankster, Major Barkin!”

  Josh beamed. “Right you are, Mudflap. I’m probably the best.”

  Over in a field on a nearby hill, it sounded like a rock scoffed.

  Josh Barkin held a finger in the air and said, “HUMMUS!” HUMMUS was a military acronym Josh had made up, which in Papa Company meant “Hush Up, My Men, Utter Silence!” and more generally refers to a delicious paste made from garbanzo beans.

  “Hummus?” asked Mudflap.

  “It means be quiet,” said Splinters. “It’s another one of those acronyms, from when you had chicken pox.”

  “Oh!” said Mudflap. “I was thinking of garbanzo beans.”

  “Yeah,” said Splinters, “to be honest, I am too, and I know what HUMMUS is supposed to mean.”

  “Mom makes good hummus,” said Mudflap, who suddenly missed home.

  “SHUT UP!” said Josh.

  Josh wished he was holding another stick so he could throw it at Mudflap’s head.

  “UTTER SILENCE. Did anybody else hear that rock scoff?”

  The cadets turned and stared at the hill for five utterly silent mikes, alert to any sign of trespassers.

  Nothing happened.

  Josh got bored.

  “Eh,” said Josh, “it was probably the wind blowing through the violets, or some dumb animal coughing.”

  Nods all around.

  “OK,” said Josh, “who’s hungry?”

  “Me, sir!” shouted the twins, who’d been thinking of hummus for the last six and a half mikes.

  “Mudflap, go get the fruit cocktail.”

  Mudflap crossed the grove and reached into the hollow of a tree, which is where Papa Company stored their snacks. He returned with a can of fruit cocktail so big he had to carry it with both arms. Splinters watched hungrily as Mudflap proudly produced his Swiss Army knife, which combined a number of useless tools into one: a can opener that didn’t work, a toothpick that was too thick to get between your teeth and was made of gross plastic, tweezers too dull to pull out a sliver, blunt scissors, and a knife you stabbed yourself with every time you tried to fold it back up. Selecting the can opener, Mudflap began puncturing the lid of the can. Plink, plink, plink. He poked holes along its circumference, working slowly. He sweated a little. Mudflap’s right arm got tired, so he switched to his left arm, which got tired even faster. Plink, plink, plink. There was a lot of grunting. His brother’s eager eyes made Mudflap nervous, which made the whole thing take longer. Plink, plink.

  Three mikes passed and Mudflap was barely more than a quarter of the way around the lid. Three mikes might not seem like a very long time to wait, but put this book down and go stare at a can for 180 seconds. You’ll see why Splinters was getting antsy. Splinters stared, starving, marking Mudflap’s slow progress with greedy anticipation. He looked lovingly at the label, its drawings of cherries, grapes, pineapples, and pears. And a peach! He read over and over the three most beautiful words in the English language: in light syrup. It was poetry, that fruit cocktail label, and Splinters imagined the syrup sticking sweetly to his tongue, his lips, his fingertips. (Splinters had a Swiss Army knife too, an identical one, with a spork that couldn’t hold food. And so Papa Company ate with their hands.)

  Josh, who hated when his cadets’ attention was on anything besides him, began to grow jealous of the can. He needed his men’s eyes, their minds, their hearts. Papa Company was made in his image, and he hated any indication that these boys were anything else but extensions of his will in the world. The fruit cocktail was a threat to his power. Josh had to do something to reestablish his primacy in the grove.

  “Knock, knock,” said Josh, sweetly.

  Nobody asked, “Who’s there?”

  “Nimbus,” said Josh, sweetly.

  Nobody asked, “Nimbus who?”

  “Aw, come on, Mudflap. How long are you gonna be with that can?”

  “I’m trying,” said Mudflap.

  And Splinters watched him try.

  “OK.” Enough was enough. Josh pulled his knife from the stump. “Splinters, bring me that squirrel.”

  Splinters saw Josh’s knife.

  Josh had his attention.

  “The squirrel, sir?” said Splinters.

  “You heard me. The dumb squirrel! Fetch it. Now. That’s an order.”

  Splinters, who hoped Josh did not notice that he had taken the rock off his head and set it quietly on the ground next to him, was eager to earn back his commander’s favor. He took the cage down from its branch and set it before Josh’s feet. The squirrel, which had been squeaking this whole time, even during the five mikes of HUMMUS, now began to screech. The sound was almost human.

  Josh picked up the cage with his left hand. The knife was still in his right. He stared at the animal behind the wire and laughed.

  “Dumb squirrel,” said Josh.

  Splinters’s eyes were on Josh Barkin. Mudflap’s eyes were also on Josh Barkin, but his hands were still on the can. He would not be swayed from his task. Josh watched him with contempt. He decided that Mudflap, not Splinters, was definitely his less favorite twin.

  “Watch this,” Josh said.

  Josh raised the knife over his head. The sun shone on the blade, but it was too rusty to gleam. The squirrel was quiet. The cadets were quiet. Even the birds seemed to have stopped their song.

  And then Mudflap screamed.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” screamed Mudflap.

  The knife hovered in Josh’s hand.

  Splinters and Josh looked at Mudflap. He’d finally gotten the lid off, and now he was looking into the can and screaming.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  The can trembled in Mudflap’s hands. Splinters ran over and looked inside.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  Splinters was screaming too now.

  A black-and-yellow snake slithered out from the can and wound around Mudflap’s hand.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” continued Mudflap. He threw down the can. Two more snakes fell out and writhed on the forest floor.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” screamed everybody.

  Mudflap shook the snake off his hand. It landed on Josh’s foot. He dropped his knife and the cage, and wondered what he should do.

  “Stay still, sir!” cried Mudflap.

  “Kick it off!” cried Splinters. “Move!”

  “Nimbuses!” cried Josh.

  The snake slid off Josh’s foot—and onto his other foot. Then it slithered off that foot too.

  Josh thought he might throw up.

  Splinters was crying.

  Everyone was running around.

  “Are they poisonous?” asked Mudflap.

  “One bit me,” said Splinters, who had not been bitten.

  “Smash them!” Josh ordered.

  But there was no way anyone was going near those snakes.

  Splinters had torn off his shirt and was sucking on his forearm to get the venom out, but there was no venom, because, again, he had not been bitten.

  “They’re rattlesnakes!” said Mudflap.

  “But
they don’t have rattles!” said Splinters.

  “They could be babies,” said Mudflap. “Babies’ venom is even more deadly than adults’! They haven’t learned to control their bites! They just shoot the poison into you!”

  Splinters moaned.

  And then the rattling began. It was a loud and angry rattling that came from who knows where. In their panic, there was no way the boys could identify the dreaded noise’s origins. The rattling seemed to echo through the trees and surround them. (Though if they’d been a little more levelheaded, they might have determined that the sound was coming from the rock in the field on the hill nearby.)

  “IT’S THEIR MOM!” screamed Mudflap. “SHE’S GONNA KILL US.”

  “RUN!” PLOPped Josh. “THAT’S AN ORDER! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!”

  And since they did not know where the rattling was coming from, the three members of Papa Company scattered in three different directions, leaving three harmless garter snakes to happily hunt beetles in the grove.

  (Now that’s a prank.)

  Chapter

  3

  Up in their hiding place, Miles and Niles set down their baby rattles and laughed. They rested their heads against rocks and laughed the laughs of pranksters, pure-souled laughter that started deep in their bellies and floated high over the breeze. They wiped tears from their eyes, then laughed so hard they cried some more. They were weak from laughing.

  Pre-prank, Miles and Niles had outlined a thorough post-prank procedure. It was a two-step plan:

  1. Laugh.

  2. Run away.

  Having completed step 1, Miles and Niles should have already been fleeing. But they turned back toward the grove.

  “The squirrel,” said Miles. “We gotta save it.”

  “I know,” said Niles.

  And they slid down the hillside and crept through the trees. The cries of Papa Company could still be heard in the woods. When the two boys arrived in the clearing, Niles picked up the can of fruit cocktail and admired their handiwork.

  Earlier that day, pre-prank, just after dawn, they had scavenged for the perfect sticks—sturdy, straight, and forked at the end—and gone to a pond deep in the woods, where they’d spent the morning looking for snake dens. Miles caught two snakes, Niles one. They carried their quarry in a pillowcase, which writhed as if alive, and stole into the grove, which they’d been watching for weeks. Miles held the pillowcase while Niles had gone to the hollow where Papa Company stored their snacks. He’d opened the can of fruit cocktail from the bottom (with a real can opener, from his kitchen). They’d dumped out the fruit and put in the snakes, and some grass, and some rocks to get the weight right. Niles had poked airholes in the bottom of the can and reattached it, discreetly, with duct tape. (It is a fact of life that nobody looks at the bottom of a can.) At the last second, Miles had added some stinkbugs, as a masterstroke.

  Now, back in the clearing, post-prank, Niles sniffed the can and shook his head.

  Miles approached and peered over Niles’s shoulder. “What happened to the stinkbugs?” he asked.

  “I think the snakes ate them,” said Niles.

  “Dang.”

  Niles shrugged. “Nature.”

  Niles put the can in his pack—it would make a good exhibit in the museum Niles was planning, dedicated to their pranking exploits—and the boys cautiously approached the cage.

  The squirrel saw them coming and went wild. The cage, which had toppled onto its side, rocked on the forest floor as the animal clattered inside it. The squirrel reared up on its back feet and glared at the boys, chattering.

  The boys looked at each other, then back at the squirrel.

  Rock paper scissors. They pounded their fists in their palms. Niles shot paper. Miles shot scissors. Niles slapped his flat palm against his forehead. Miles looked relieved.

  OK.

  Niles inhaled. He slowly reached toward the cage’s door.

  The squirrel lunged. Niles jumped back.

  “Hey,” said Niles. “You better do it.”

  “What?” said Miles. “You lost!”

  “Yeah, but you have better reflexes.”

  Miles considered this. He smiled. Niles had a point. He rolled the sleeves of his T-shirt up to his shoulders.

  “Well,” said Miles, “if I get rabies, tell my mother I love her.”

  “If you get rabies, I think you just have to get a bunch of shots. Like twenty. In your stomach.”

  “Oh,” said Miles. “Great.”

  “Anyway it takes a couple weeks to die of rabies, so you could just tell her yourself.”

  “Do you want me to do this or not?”

  “Sorry.”

  Miles extended a trembling hand. The squirrel leapt at it, then bounced back from the bars of its cage. Miles flinched, but pressed on. The squirrel was furious and frightened. It leapt and nipped at the air. With an outstretched finger, Miles flicked the latch on the cage and flung the door open.

  “HA HA!” Miles said (he actually said “HA HA!”) as he rolled away from the cage.

  “He’s not leaving,” said Niles, who had removed himself to a safe spot across the grove, behind a rock.

  Niles was right. The squirrel stayed in its cage, staring curiously at the open door.

  “Come on, little guy,” said Miles. But the squirrel didn’t move.

  “Hmm,” said Miles. “Well, take your time, but we gotta go.”

  “Hold on,” said Niles, popping up from behind his rock.

  “What are you doing?” Miles asked.

  Niles ran over to the oak, scrambled up into its branches, and inched out onto the bough that held Papa Company’s flag.

  “Oh,” said Miles. “Oh boy.” He tried to exchange a conspiratorial glance with the squirrel, which was still in its cage and now appeared to be asleep.

  Sitting up on the bough, Niles plucked up the flag and placed it in his lap, where he folded it into a triangle. “Catch!”

  Niles tossed the flag to Miles, who tossed it in his pack. They grinned at each other. Niles wrapped his legs around the branch and hung from it upside down. He reached two fingers down, and Miles reached two fingers up, and they exchanged their secret handshake.

  “Masterstroke,” said Miles.

  CLANG!

  Over in its cage, the squirrel shrieked and sprung through the door. The boys snapped their heads toward the sound and watched the animal flee into the woods, which is why they didn’t see what scared it off.

  Realizing he’d get yelled at, and have to do extra push-ups, if he returned to camp bare-chested, Splinters had come back for his shirt. The cadet now stood on the edge of the clearing, watching Miles and Niles.

  “UM THERE ARE TWO GUYS STEALING OUR FLAG AND THEY’RE DRESSED LIKE GIANT PLANTS!” he shouted.

  Then Splinters raised his hands to his mouth and made a series of unpleasant screeches, growls, and hisses. This was the call of the turkey vulture, which was a signal to his squad that their base was under attack.

  His call was answered by more screeches, growls, and hisses, and one call of “STOP THOSE NIMBUSES!” The members of Papa Company stormed back through the woods to defend their headquarters.

  Niles dropped from the branch and hit the ground hard. Splinters jumped into the clearing and pinned Niles to the ground. Niles struggled, but Splinters pushed his face into the dirt.

  “Mrmf,” said Niles.

  Then Miles charged into Splinters and tore him off his friend.

  “Come on!” cried Miles, and bolted toward the woods.

  Niles picked himself up and ran after Miles, who was running after the squirrel.

  Josh and Mudflap arrived at the grove and saw Splinters on the ground. Josh was embarrassed for the boy, who was definitely now his least favorite cadet. He picked Splinters’s shirt off the ground and held it out to him.

  “Wait,” Josh said. “This is my shirt.”

  “What?” Splinters asked.

  “It says my name on it. All my stuff has
my name on it.”

  Josh pointed to where FUTURE PRINCIPAL JOSH BARKIN was written on the inside collar in big block letters.

  “YOU STOLE MY SHIRT!”

  “It was a mix-up!”

  It had not been a mix-up. Splinters had been wearing Josh Barkin’s shirt because he wanted to be like Josh Barkin. Heck, he wanted to be Josh Barkin. And if he’d told Josh that, Josh would have been flattered. But instead, Splinters, lying shirtless on the ground, said, “You know how things get mixed up in the barracks!”

  “Of course I know,” said Josh. “That’s why my dad wrote my name on all my stuff, nimbus!”

  To be honest, Josh wished his dad hadn’t written FUTURE PRINCIPAL JOSH BARKIN on all of his clothes. He’d been having second thoughts about his future. In fact, Josh had decided that he didn’t want to be a principal like his father. He wanted to be a principal like his grandfather. And so he wished his grandfather had written FUTURE PRINCIPAL JOSH BARKIN on all of his clothes.

  “Sir?” said Splinters, who was wondering why Josh was gazing forlornly at the stump. Josh shook his head.

  Splinters looked down.

  “A hundred push-ups when we get back to camp. Plus however many push-ups the supreme commander gives you for showing up out of uniform.”

  Splinters sniffed. “Yes, sir.”

  “Which way did they go?” Josh asked.

  Splinters pointed.

  “Follow me, nimbuses!” Josh cried out. “Let’s get those nimbuses!”

  He crashed into the forest, waving the shirt above his head.

  Mudflap considered helping his brother up, but he turned and followed Josh instead.

  Chapter

  4

  Josh pursued Miles and Niles through the woods. He employed the wilderness tracking skills he’d learned at Yawnee Valley Yelling and Push-Ups Camp: searching for snapped twigs, examining bent blades of grass, but mainly following two pretty clear sets of bootprints in the mud.

  Over log and through bush, Josh stomped after his prey, all the while making disgusting vulture sounds as a signal for his cadets to follow. He gurgled triumphantly. He hacked rowdily. They were on the enemy’s trail.