by Nancy Krulik
“That’s the jacket I’m getting,” Louie said.
George frowned. No fair! Louie didn’t even have a skateboard. He had sneakers with wheels that popped out. But that wasn’t the same thing at all. He didn’t need a black, leather jacket. Not like George did.
Louie’s mom looked at George and frowned. She remembered him from Louie’s birthday party. Considering all the things the burps had made him do, her memories probably weren’t too great.
“We’re closing in fifteen minutes,” the salesman told George’s mom. “Is there anything else your son wants to try on?”
George’s mom shook her head. “I guess not. We’ll take the slacks, the shirt, the suspenders, the bow tie, and . . . oh! Two packages of underpants.”
The salesman nodded and walked off. A moment later he returned with the underwear.
George went into the dressing room and changed back into his own T-shirt and jeans. They felt so much better than the new pants and shirt. As he came out, he handed the new stuff to his mother.
“I have to run upstairs and return something in the lingerie department,” she told him. “We can go and pay for everything there.”
Uh-oh. George knew what lingerie meant. Ladies’ underwear.
“Mom,” George pleaded. “Don’t make me go with you.”
“I guess you could stay here with your buddy Louie,” his mom suggested.
Louie’s mom’s eyes narrowed. She frowned at George again. “We’re . . . um . . . we’re just about done here, and we have to run,” she told George’s mom. Then she grabbed Louie, and they left.
“Listen, Mom,” George said. “I’ll just sit right here on the bench next to the escalator. I won’t move. I promise.”
George’s mom thought about that for a second. “Okay,” she said finally. “Spell escalator.”
“E-s-c-a-l-a-t-o-r,” George spelled.
His mom smiled. “That’s my boy!”
George felt really grown-up sitting by himself on the bench by the escalator.
He liked watching the silver, metal stairs go up, up, up.
Then, suddenly, George felt something funny in his tummy. Bing . . . bong. Ping . . . pong.
Uh-oh. The bubbles in George’s belly were trying to go up, up, up, and out.
The burp was so loud all the clothes on the racks started to shake. Everyone in the boys’ department turned to stare. George opened his mouth to say, “Excuse me.” But all that came out was “Burp—that’s spelled b-u-r-p.”
That was not a spelling bee word, but the burp was in charge now.
Just then, George’s eyes spotted a boy mannequin wearing a pair of jeans and a Beaver Brook Beagles football jersey. George’s legs raced toward it.
“TACKLE!” George’s mouth shouted. He pounced on the mannequin.
“Young man!” a salesman shouted. “Stop that!”
The mannequin tipped over. Both its arms came off.
George held the arms in the air. “Someone call an ambulance!” George’s mouth called out. “This guy’s lost his arms! He needs a doctor! STAT!”
George had no idea what “stat” meant. But the burp must have known because it made his mouth say it.
George waved the mannequin’s arms in the air. “Hi!” he shouted to customers until a salesman hurried over and grabbed the mannequin’s arms from George.
“Oh, thank you, kind sir, for helping!” George shouted and hugged the salesman, who was having a hard time putting the arms back.
“Young man, where is your mother?” the salesman asked George. “Leave before you get in any more trouble.”
Trouble was what the burp liked best!
George’s eyes fell on a stack of hats across the aisle. He ran over and began piling them on his head, one on top of the other. His head was happy because now it was getting into trouble, too.
“Caps for sale,” George’s mouth shouted as he paraded around the floor with a stack of hats on his head. “Caps for sale.”
A three-year-old boy in a stroller took his thumb out of his mouth and looked up at his mom. “I want that green hat,” the little boy said.
“Sure! Have a green one!” George said. He tossed the green cap to the boy. Then he threw another hat at him. “Have a red one, too!”
“I only want green,” the little kid said.
George’s arms reached up and began to throw the hats off his head, one at a time.
“Here’s a blue hat.” George threw a blue baseball cap in the air. “And a yellow one!” Suddenly, caps were flying everywhere!
Whee! A red hat flew over a display of socks.
Whish! A yellow baseball cap soared over a rack of little boys’ overalls.
Whooeee! A black hat flew up high and landed on a light fixture.
By now, a circle of salespeople had surrounded George. One of them pulled out his cell phone. George had a feeling he was calling a guard.
George was cornered. His legs decided to make a break for it. Squirming through salesmen, George felt himself propelled right toward the down escalator.
Whoa! All of a sudden George was running up the down escalator.
“Hey, kid. Watch where you’re going,” a passenger shouted.
George’s legs climbed up the metal stairs faster and faster. A woman with lots of shopping bags tried to move out of the path of the oncoming George.
She was too late. George plowed into her.
The woman’s packages went flying. A pair of shoes fell out and started going down the escalator without her.
A sweater flew out of another bag. It landed on the shoulders of the man in front of her.
“This isn’t mine,” the man said.
“Will you turn around and go the right way?” the woman shouted at George. But George’s feet kept marching up, up, up—as the escalator stairs went down, down, down.
Up. Up. Up.
Down. Down. Down.
Whoosh!
Just then, George felt something go pop. It was as if someone had just punctured a balloon in the bottom of his belly. All the air rushed out of him. The super burp was gone.
The salespeople were all still there, too, waiting for him. So was the woman with the spilled packages and the man with the women’s sweater. They all looked ma-a-ad. George knew he had to get out of there quickly. If his mother found out what had happened, he’d be in trouble—T-R-O-U-B-L-E!
So George climbed up the down escalator as fast as he could. At last he reached the next floor. He spotted his mother at the cash register. She was paying for some white, lacy things. George shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at them.
“George,” his mom said when she spotted him. “You were supposed to wait for me downstairs.”
“I . . . um . . . I got bored,” George told her.
“All right,” his mom said, taking her bag and handing George his to carry. “Time to head home.” She started to walk toward the escalators.
Uh-oh. George gulped. That gang of salespeople was probably still waiting for him on the floor below.
“Forget the escalator,” he told his mom quickly. “Let’s take the elevator. It’s much faster.”
“So the onion milkshake didn’t work?” Alex said the next morning when he and George met up on the school playground. “That’s a bummer.”
“Tell me about it,” George agreed. He wiggled a little and pulled at his pants. The new tighty whities were a little too tight. “At least Louie was gone before the burp exploded.”
Alex smiled at George. “Don’t worry. I’ll do more research. There’s got to be a way to stop the . . .”
“Shhh,” George interrupted him. “Julianna and Chris are coming over.” He felt bad about keeping secrets from his pals, but the fewer people
who knew about the burps, the better.
Alex zipped his lips, quick.
“Hey, guys,” Julianna said.
“What’s up?” Chris asked.
“George was just telling me how his mom made him go shopping for spelling bee clothes,” Alex said.
“That’s just what I wanted to talk to you about,” Julianna told George.
Huh? That was weird. Sure, most girls liked to talk about shopping. But not Julianna. The only thing that interested her was sports.
“Well, we went to Mabel’s Department Store,” George told her. “I ended up getting a pair of pants and . . .”
Julianna cut him off. “I don’t mean the clothes. I want to talk to you about the spelling bee. I want to tape an interview with you about how you’re training for it for my sports report.”
Julianna was the fourth-grade sportscaster on the school’s closed-circuit TV station, WEBS TV. So that made more sense. Sort of. But not exactly.
“What does a stupid spelling bee have to do with sports?” Louie asked. He, Mike, and Max had walked over to where George and his friends were standing.
“Excuse me, but she wasn’t talking to you!” George said.
“Since you’re asking, Louie, here’s why,” Julianna said. “It’s a competition. And it takes training, like any other competition.”
“Who wants to listen to George talk about spelling?” Louie asked.
“Not me,” Max said.
“Me neither,” Mike said. “Boring— b-o-r-r-i-n-g!”
“That’s b-o-r-i-n-g,” George corrected him. “There’s only one r.” Then he turned to Julianna. “Want me to try standing on my hands? Then I could spell upside down.”
“Sure,” said Julianna.
“Now, spell banana,” Chris said.
“B-a-n-a-n—” George began to spell as he sprang straight up on his hands.
“What a dweeb,” Louie said. He walked away in disgust with Mike and Max trailing after him.
George smiled—of course, since he was upside down, his smile looked like a frown. But it was still a smile. He loved making Louie mad.
A few minutes later, George and his pals were all seated at their desks. Mrs. Kelly had written the date on the board. March 31.
That meant tomorrow was April 1. April Fools’ Day. When you pulled pranks on people and made them do stupid things. George gulped. He had a funny feeling that April Fools’ was the super burp’s favorite holiday! Things could get really out of control. Even more than usual.
“Good morning, class,” Mrs. Kelly said. “Tomorrow is April 1. And at Edith B. Sugarman Elementary School, you know what that means.”
George looked at his teacher curiously. He was the new kid. He had no idea what that meant.
But everyone else did. “Backward Day!” they all shouted.
“That’s right,” Mrs. Kelly said. “Which means everything that happens tomorrow is going to be backward. You should wear your clothing backward. We’ll run our class schedule starting with last period. There will be breakfast for lunch and all sorts of other fun, backward events.”
She beamed a wide smile at George. She’d had scrambled eggs this morning. “Maybe our spelling champ will even spell words backward for us.”
George had always liked Backward Day at his old school. Last year, he and his buddy Kadeem told lots of jokes—only they each gave the punch line first, and the other kid had to figure out the riddle question.
But last year, George had only burped like a normal kid. Suddenly he had a terrible thought. What if the super burps decided to go backward? What if instead of bursting out of his mouth, they blasted out of his other end?
“Dude, you have to help me,” George told Alex as the boys left school at the end of the day. “Tomorrow, what if the burp goes backward? Think about it!”
“Ooh, that’s a nasty thought,” Alex said. Then he thought for a moment. “Look, George. The first thing you have to do is chill out,” Alex warned him. “All my research shows that being stressed can give you gas.”
George took a deep breath and tried to relax. But it wasn’t easy.
“And stay away from beans tonight,” Alex added. “’Cause you know what they do.”
“Right. No beans,” George agreed. He took another big breath.
Just then, Chris came over to where the boys were standing. “What are you guys doing this afternoon?” he asked.
“George is stressed out about the . . . uh . . . spelling bee,” Alex said. “I want him to stay chill.”
“Julianna and I are going over to her uncle Harry’s miniature golf course,” Chris said. “It’s opening day for the season. You want to come?”
Alex looked at George. “Whenever my dad gets all stressed, he goes out to hit a few golf balls.”
“Okay,” George said. Then he laughed. “But maybe I should run home and get another pair of pants, just in case.”
Julianna looked at him. “In case of what?”
“In case I get a hole in one,” George said.
His friends all laughed. George smiled. He loved it when his friends liked his jokes. It was like how things used to be at his old school.
Too bad Backward Day couldn’t take George back in time—to the days before the big burp bing-bonged its way into his life.
“I’ve been playing miniature golf here ever since I was little,” Julianna said as she and the boys lined up at the first hole later that afternoon.
“Miniature . . . m-i-n-i-a-t-u-r-e,” George spelled. He looked around. Each hole on the mini-golf course was based on a famous fairy tale.
“My favorite is the Snow White hole,” Julianna said as she handed George a yellow golf ball. “The witch spins around like a windmill, so you have to time it just right to get your ball over to the hole without her blocking it. The Aladdin hole is cool, too, because if you manage to hit your ball onto the little, flying carpet, it takes off and lands you a hole in one.”
George knew all about the Aladdin story. He also knew what he would wish for if he had a magic genie—he’d wish for the super burp to disappear!
“The Alice in Wonderland hole is fun,” Julianna continued as she handed Chris a white golf ball. “It’s got a rabbit hole, a rose garden, and a mouse who pops up and down out of a teapot. And at the Three Billy Goats Gruff hole, you have to get your ball over the bridge before a mechanical troll pops up and blocks it.”
“That seems really hard,” Alex said.
“It is.” Julianna put her blue ball at the start of the Jack and the Beanstalk hole.
“B-e-a-n-s-t-a-l-k,” George spelled out.
Julianna frowned. “Are you going to spell at every hole?” she asked. “Because that’s going to break my concentration.”
“S-o-r-r-y,” George spelled. Alex and Chris both laughed.
But Julianna didn’t. Instead, she laid her golf club down on the green felt and eyed it carefully.
“What are you doing?” George asked her.
“Measuring out a straight line between here and the giant’s hand,” Julianna explained. “The ball slides down his arm and lands near the hole.”
“She’s really serious about this, isn’t she?” Alex said to Chris.
“Julianna takes all sports seriously,” George said. “Seriously. S-e-r . . .” He stopped when Julianna turned and gave him a dirty look.
“A Toiletman mini-golf course would be cool,” Chris told the boys. Toiletman was a superhero Chris invented.
“You could make all the holes look like mini toilets,” George told Chris. “The first hole could be called the Royal Flush. And then maybe you could have brown golf balls and . . .”
“Gross! Will you guys stop it?” Julianna asked. “I’m trying to concentrate here!”
&n
bsp; George frowned. Playing mini golf with Julianna wasn’t exactly relaxing.
Finally, Julianna hit the ball. “All right!” she shouted as it landed in the palm of the giant’s hand and flew into the little cup at the edge of the green. “A hole in one.” She smiled. “Who wants to go next?”
George managed to get the ball in the cup in three hits. Chris and Alex each took four. Then they all moved on to the Alice in Wonderland hole.
“The goal here is to get your ball to go down the rabbit hole,” Julianna said, pointing. “And stay away from the rose garden, because it’s almost impossible to get out of there.”
The rose garden looked like a maze. George could see that would be a problem.
But that wasn’t the only problem George had. All of a sudden, he felt some wild bubbling in his belly. Ping-pong. Bing-bong!
Oh no! The super burp was back! George shut his mouth tight and tried to keep the burp from slipping out.
But the super burp wasn’t about to let two little lips keep it from bursting out. Already it was bing-bonging its way around George’s kidneys and ping-ponging over his liver.
George tried remembering the signal he and Alex had about the burp. If George gave the signal, Alex would grab him and get him somewhere he couldn’t cause any trouble.
Was he supposed to rub his belly and pat his head? Or pat his belly and rub his head? Or . . .
Too late.
George let out a major burp. It was so loud that Julianna’s golf ball actually popped back out of the hole.
“Uh-oh . . . ,” Alex said. “George. Don’t . . .”
George’s legs immediately went into action. They ran over to the Three Billy Goats Gruff hole and began dancing across the bridge. George got down on all fours. “Maaaa . . . maaaa . . . ,” his mouth bleated as he crawled over the bridge.
