by David Lubar
“I didn’t do it!” Mookie screamed. He threw his hands in the air and backed against a counter.
“Zardo Goldberg?” the cop in front asked, ignoring Mookie.
“Never heard of him,” Abigail’s uncle said.
Abigail raced to the window and flung it open. “Run, Uncle Zardo!” Then she glanced out, got even paler, slammed the window, and yelled, “Third floor. Forget it.”
The cop looked down at a picture in his hand, and then back up at Abigail’s uncle. “Zardo Goldberg, you’re under arrest for the importation of endangered plant specimens without a license.”
“But I need them for my research!” he shouted. “I’m on the verge of a breakthrough! It’s for the good of all mankind.”
The cops didn’t seem to care about his research, or his breakthrough. They slapped on the cuffs and dragged him off. He kicked, thrashed, and begged like a hyperactive two-year-old being taken to his room for a nap. I guess he really didn’t want to leave the lab.
Mookie and I stood there with our mouths hanging open.
Abigail sighed, pulled out a cell phone, pressed a button, and said, “Mom, Uncle Zardo is going to need bail again. Yeah, I’ll be home soon. Love you, too. Bye.”
“Again?” I asked.
Abigail shrugged. “He’s had a colorful past.”
While I was trying to figure out what that meant, Mookie said, “I wonder if it worked.”
“Huh?” I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“The Hurt-Be-Gone—do you think it got rid of your feelings? I mean, if a dose is one drop, you really got dosed big-time. Nothing should hurt your feelings. Not even a thousand Shawnas.”
Just the mention of her name made my chest feel tight. “I don’t think it worked.”
Abigail poked me in the shoulder. “Your breath stinks, your nose is too big, and everybody hates you.”
“Hey!” I shouted.
Abigail gave me an innocent smile. “Guess not.”
“Yeah, it looks like it didn’t work. I still have feelings.” I held my hand up to my mouth, blew on it, and tried to smell my breath. It seemed fine to me. “You didn’t really mean it about my breath, did you?”
“Of course not,” Abigail said. She gazed up at me with those puppy-dog eyes. I wasn’t sure whether to believe her.
“Aren’t you worried about your uncle?” Mookie asked.
“Nah,” Abigail said. “He gets arrested all the time. I think this is his third time for the year. He’s kind of crazy.”
“Crazy? And you brought me to his lab?”
“Hey, no harm,” Abigail said. “Nothing bad happened. At least, not to you.”
Boy, was she wrong.
4
Hurt Feelings
So,” Abigail asked as we headed out of the lab, “what do you want to do?”
“Go home and take a shower.” Whatever Uncle Crazy had spilled on me hadn’t smelled bad at first. But now it smelled sort of like wet dirt mixed with really old cheese and cheap perfume. Definitely worse than Mookie’s breath that time he ate a whole envelope of dry onion-soup mix, but not even close to the boy’s locker room during wrestling season.
Mookie sniffed the air. “Better take two. And a bath.”
“We could do something after that,” Abigail said. “I know this great hiking trail in Ackerman’s Woods.”
Mookie shrugged like he didn’t care either way. I wasn’t really in the mood to hang out with Abigail. It was nice that she wanted to help me, but all she’d done was get me soaked with chemicals.
“I have homework and stuff,” I said.
“Oh . . . okay.” She reached in her bag and pulled out a piece of notepaper with her address and phone number printed at the top. “Here. Give me a call if anything unusual happens.”
“Huh? Like what?”
“I don’t know,” Abigail said. “But Uncle Zardo would probably want to keep track of any effects. So keep in touch, okay?”
“Sure.” I took the paper and walked off with Mookie.
“I like her,” he said after we’d gone outside and crossed the street. “She sort of makes me seem normal.”
“Almost,” I said.
A block from home, my shirt fell to pieces. I stared at the shreds of cloth scattered on the ground at my feet.
“This isn’t good,” Mookie said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
I looked at my chest. My skin seemed okay. It tingled a little, but I figured that was from the cool air. “It’s no big deal. I’m fine.”
“Maybe you should call Abigail?”
“What’s the point? She can’t do anything for me.” I just wanted to go home and forget about the whole day.
“Remember,” Mookie said when we reached my house. “Two showers and a bath.”
My folks were at work, so I didn’t have to explain why I came home without a shirt. Mom works in a store that sells teddy bears. It’s called Stuffy Wuffy. Really. She helps people find the perfect bear. Dad is an accountant. That means he helps people with their taxes.
After my shower, I went to my room and put on clean clothes, then took out my homework. I managed to finish before my folks got home. They both popped their heads into my room to say hi, ask how my day was, and then nod and smile when I told them my day was just fine. I really couldn’t tell either of them how bad it was. Dad would just say, “Take it like a man.” Mom would get all upset and call the principal. She sort of tries to protect me too much. That’s why I didn’t play any sports when I was little.
I was pretty tired by then. My tongue was still numb, and the skin on my chest felt even more tingly than before—like my upper body was falling asleep.
I was so wiped out, I spent most of the weekend in my room. I didn’t even do anything with Mookie on Saturday. I slept so much that Mom kept asking me if I was feeling okay.
The sleep didn’t seem to help. By Sunday evening, I felt like I was walking through a dream. My folks were cooking dinner when I came down to the kitchen. Dad was in charge of the salad, because that’s the only thing he can make without poisoning anyone. Mom was frying burgers, because she isn’t all that much better a cook than Dad, and it’s pretty hard to ruin a burger, as long as you don’t care how burned or raw it is. Besides, you can make almost anything taste good if you pile on enough pickles and ketchup.
Mom went to get the dishes from the cabinet. “Can you put the burgers on the table?” she asked.
“What?” I heard the words, but they didn’t make much sense. My brain was totally fuzzy.
She pointed to the oven and spoke again. I forced myself to pay attention.
“Put the burgers on the table.”
“Sure.” I opened the oven door. Mom can never get the cheese to melt on the stove top, so she always finishes the burgers in the oven. As I grabbed the handle of the frying pan and turned toward the table, a scream ripped the air.
“Hot!!!!!” Mom yelled, racing toward me. “Hot! Hot! Hot! Drop it!”
I looked at my hand. Then I looked at the pot holder on the counter next to the oven. Then I looked back at my hand.
I dropped the pan, screamed, and braced myself for the wave of pain. I’d burned myself last summer when Dad was teaching me how to use a soldering iron, so I knew how badly burns could hurt. But the pain seemed to be taking a long time to get from my fingers to my brain.
Mom was making those weird whimpering noises that you can spell with nothing but vowels. She grabbed the sprayer from the sink and sprayed my hand with cold water. “Are you burned?”
I looked at my palm. It was a little red, but there weren’t any blisters or anything. “No. I’m okay.” I guess the pan wasn’t that hot after all. My hand felt fine. The burgers, however, weren’t doing too well. They’d bounced out of the pan and slid across the floor like greasy hockey pucks.
“Thank goodness you aren’t hurt.” Mom squeezed me in a hug. “You gave me such a scare. Don’t ever do that again.”
D
ad grabbed the phone and hit number 2 on the speed dial. “I’ll call for a pizza.” He sounded relieved.
While we waited for dinner, I kept glancing at my hand. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t even the tiniest bit sore. After my horrible heart-stomping last Friday, I’d finally caught a lucky break. I guess I should have figured everything out right then. Maybe I would have if my brain wasn’t so fuzzy.
But the truth was about to hit me right in the face.
5
I’ll Take a Stab at That
Don’t worry,” Mookie said. “She’s done with you.”
“You think?” We were back at lunch. It was Monday. My tongue was still a little numb, but my brain was less fuzzy. I’d slept so well, Mom needed to wake me three times before I got out of bed. I kept glancing over at Shawna’s table, wondering whether she was going to stomp on any of my other organs. Maybe she could put a kidney under each foot and do a tap routine, or rip out my lungs and use them as leg warmers.
“She’s like a cat, and you’re like a dead mouse. All the fun is gone. She’s going to go after the next unsuspecting rodent.” Mookie wrinkled his nose and sniffed like a mouse.
“Thanks. I feel a lot better knowing that.” One table away from Shawna, Rodney was also staring at her, and talking loudly to his friends. I guess he was trying to impress her.
“Speaking of mice, I should have gotten the burger. It might be gray and dead, but it’s soft.” Mookie sawed away at his pizza brick.
That’s what we call the rock-hard cafeteria pizza. You can’t really bite it, unless you want to end up with a smile like a professional hockey player. Most of us just hack away with a knife and fork, trying to chip off small pieces. The sound of sawing could be heard all around the cafeteria. Mookie had somehow managed to eat half his pizza brick already.
I sawed at my own pizza. It was especially tough today. I guess the lunch ladies got an extra shipment of cement. I kept sawing, putting all my weight into it. My knife didn’t even make a dent. I jabbed the pizza with my fork. It bounced off my tray and hit the table between me and Mookie. I didn’t care—I wasn’t really all that hungry.
“Die!” Mookie shouted, stabbing at my pizza with his fork.
The pizza flipped into the air and bounced back toward me.
“Death to the brick!” I shouted. I stabbed at it again. It did a double flip with a half twist and landed on Mookie’s tray.
“Acrobatic pizza! Awesome!” He grabbed his fork with both hands and slashed down at the pizza.
“Pizza hockey!” Denali shouted, whacking her brick at Adam with her fork.
“Blocked!” Adam yelled, knocking it back.
All the Second Besters joined in with their bricks.
We started a frenzy of stabbing and jabbing. I hit my brick so hard, it shot up four or five feet. As it tumbled down, Mookie leaped from his seat and tried to spear it in midair. His fork glanced off the edge of the pizza, sending it flying past my ear.
Mookie kept coming. He toppled forward, the fork still gripped in his fist. Luckily, I stopped his fall.
With my face.
I stared down. My eyes crossed as I looked at his hand. And then I followed the blurred, shiny thing that was between his fist and my nose.
The fork handle . . .
In my face . . .
I screamed. Mookie tumbled backward like he’d just jammed the fork in an electric outlet. He did a half flip over his chair, landing flat on the floor.
I yanked the fork, but it was stuck. Past my clenched fist, I could see Abigail staring at me from the Table of the Doomed. She looked like she was watching a horror movie. Mookie, sprawled on the ground, looked like he was a victim in a horror movie. Everyone else at my table was staring at him.
I leaped from my seat and raced to the boys’ room at the end of the hall. I crashed through the door, ran over to the row of sinks, and stared at myself in the mirror.
The two tines in the middle of the fork were sunk into the center of my nose. The two tines on the outside speared through my nostrils. I could have been the lead singer in a punk rock band. I was definitely screaming like one.
The sight totally freaked me out. I tugged at the fork. It wouldn’t budge. I pulled harder. No luck.
The door swung open. “Oh man,” Mookie said. “I was hoping I didn’t stick you too badly, but that looks really deep. It’s got to hurt.”
I started to nod, but then I stopped dead as the weird truth hit me: It didn’t hurt.
“It’s all my fault,” Mookie said. “I’m the worst best friend in the world. Or the best worst friend. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to stab you.”
“I know. Forget about that. Just help me get it out.”
Mookie tucked his index finger against his thumb, reached out, then flicked the end of the fork. It vibrated, making a wubba-wubba-wubba sound. “Cool. Sort of like the tuning forks in music class.” He flicked it again, harder.
“Stop that!”
“Sorry. I just gotta work my way up to this. It’s not every day you get asked to un-fork someone.” Mookie grabbed the fork and pulled. It didn’t budge. He grabbed it with both hands, put one foot against my chest, and yanked.
That did the trick.
The fork pulled free with a grating sound I don’t ever want to hear again. Mookie toppled over. I staggered back and slammed into the wall behind me.
The door opened again, and Principal Ambrose walked in. He stared at us. I was standing there with my hand clamped over my nose. Mookie was on his back with a fork in his hand. I wanted to say something, but my mind was coming up empty.
The principal shook his head. “I don’t even want to know what this is about. Just get back to wherever you belong.” As he headed out, he muttered, “One more year, and then I retire.”
I checked my nose in the mirror. There were four tiny red holes in my face. A little dribble of blood leaked from each hole. I grabbed a paper towel and washed my face.
“Nate, are you sure you’re okay?” Mookie asked.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t hurt. Shouldn’t it hurt? . . .”
“Maybe you’re in shock,” Mookie said. “Like once, I read about a guy who lost both arms in an accident, and managed to carry them to the hospital. Wait—something about that story doesn’t sound right.”
“Let’s just get back to the cafeteria,” I said. “Anybody notice what happened?”
“I don’t think so. It’s way too loud in there to hear any screams.” Mookie held up the fork. “Man, that’s a lot of blood.”
I leaned toward the mirror. The bleeding had stopped. “That’s not blood. It’s pizza sauce. Blood’s not that lumpy.”
“I thought it was a clot or something.” Mookie sniffed the fork. Then he licked it. “You’re right. Yum. Good sauce. Come on—now I’m starving.”
Back at the cafeteria, the Second Besters looked like they’d been on the losing side of a paintball battle. They were so busy scrubbing sauce off their shirts with wet paper towels that they didn’t pay any attention to me.
But someone else did. Before I could slip back into my seat, Abigail rushed up to me. “Are you okay?” She had a bunch of napkins in one hand and a piece of ice in the other. “I know first aid.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t need first aid.”
“But you had a fork in your nose.”
“It wasn’t deep.” I’m not sure why I was lying. Maybe because I really didn’t want to think about it myself.
Mookie started to speak. “Actually, it was—”
I grabbed my pizza brick and jammed it in his mouth. As he chomped down, I turned back to Abigail. I needed to talk to her uncle about my numb tongue. I needed to know why I could get burned and stabbed without feeling any pain. All of this had started when I’d gotten splashed with Hurt-Be-Gone. Abigail’s uncle was the only person who might be able to explain it. And fix it.
“Is your uncle in jail?” I wasn’t sure whether the cops would let a kid
visit someone they’d locked up.
“He’s not in jail anymore,” Abigail said.
“Good.” I figured I could go see him right after school.
“No, it isn’t good,” she said.
“Why not?”
“He escaped from the police station right after they got there. He’s on the run.”
“He can’t be.”
Abigail shrugged. “With Uncle Zardo, he pretty much can’t not be. It’s sort of his nature to flee.”
“No. You don’t understand. I really need to talk to him. You have to get in touch with him. Okay?” I grabbed her shoulders. “Please. You’ll try. Right?”
“Sure. Calm down. I’ll try.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Great. Call me as soon as you hear from him.”
Abigail nodded and scurried back to her table.
“What was that about?” Mookie asked.
I pulled him away from our table, then leaned toward him and whispered, “I think the Hurt-Be-Gone messed me up big-time. That’s why I need to talk to Abigail’s uncle.”
Mookie wiped some sauce from his chin with the back of his hand. “Maybe it will wear off.”
“What if it doesn’t?” As that thought shot through my mind and took a thousand scary turns, I reached in my pocket for my inhaler. I pulled it out, and froze.
“What’s wrong?” Mookie asked.
“My lungs feel fine.” For the first time in my life, even though I was upset, I didn’t need my inhaler. That really scared me.
6
The Inversion Diet
Not hungry?” Mom asked as I picked at my chicken that night. Dad had stopped on the way home from work to grab a bucket of wings for dinner. He does that a lot when Mom starts talking about making zucchini lasagna.
“Not really.” Normally, I could eat a dozen wings and still have room for a couple bowls of cookie-dough ice cream. Right then, I would’ve had trouble eating a couple hummingbird thighs. I hadn’t been hungry all day. That was weird, because food was one of my favorite things—especially when it wasn’t prepared by either of my parents. If this kept up, I might actually end up being the skinniest kid in school. Though I’d probably have to avoid food for at least a month to give Gervaise “The Twig” Halleck any competition.
