by Steve Cotler
I looked at Goon. Her hand started to reach toward her back pocket … then stopped.
Sometimes you do something without thinking. That’s what I did right then. I leaped at Goon, grabbing her around the waist and reaching for her back pockets.
We struggled.
She pushed.
I thrashed.
I heard yelling—probably me and Mrs. Crespo and Georgie and everybody else, but I couldn’t tell one noise from the other.
Goon, who is bigger and stronger than I am, jabbed out with the heel of her hand and caught me in the mouth. I tasted blood, but I was so focused on finding those ticket stubs that nothing hurt.
Goon kicked me. I didn’t even feel it.
“Stop fighting!” Mrs. Crespo yelled, grabbing us both and shoving us apart. “This is—”
Panting almost uncontrollably, I interrupted. “Punish me! Punish me if I’m wrong! But if I’m right, then you have to look in her pockets.”
Mrs. Crespo was unconvinced.
“Please!” I pleaded. “If the ticket stubs aren’t there, then my sister is right, and I am an idiot, and whatever punishment you were going to give me, double it!”
Mrs. Crespo looked straight at me, one eye getting slitty because she was thinking so hard. It looked just like she was giving me the squinty-evil-eye, but without anything funny in it. Everyone was silent. Right then I became aware of my split lip and tasted the blood in my mouth. I could feel my heart pounding in my temples. I looked at my sister. She hadn’t moved. Her face looked frozen.
Then Georgie stepped up and said, “Punish me, too. If Cheesie’s wrong, then we’re both idiots and make it triple.”
I told you he was my best friend.
Mrs. Crespo took a deep breath and turned toward my sister. The frozen look on Goon’s face cracked into a weird sort of fake smile.
“This is ridiculous,” Goon said. “I’m leaving.” She started to walk away.
“Stop, young lady,” Mrs. Crespo said.
Goon didn’t stop.
“June!”
Goon kept walking. “Come on, Kevin,” she said. Kevin ran after her, kind of like when I call Deeb.
“June!” Mrs. Crespo repeated. “I will have to call your mother.”
Goon turned around suddenly, knocking into Kevin. “Please do. And tell her that my brother is a liar.” She took a deep breath and calmed her voice a bit. “Mrs. Crespo, I am not trying to be disrespectful, but Ms. Higgins asked me to help, and I did, and I am just completely insulted by my brother’s stupid lying.” Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked away, with Kevin trotting after her.
Stubs
No one said a word until Goon and Kevin were out of sight.
Finally Mrs. Crespo spoke. “Well, Miss Mack has called her brother a liar. Are you a liar, Ronald?” Her lips were pinched into a thin line. I don’t think I had ever seen her so mad.
I shook my head.
“We shall see,” Mrs. Crespo said as she tipped the jar of ticket stubs over onto the table. “Ms. Higgins,” Mrs. Crespo said, “there are twenty-nine students at this party. Right?”
Ms. Higgins nodded.
“So,” Mrs. Crespo said, “if June is correct and Ronald is lying, there should be exactly twenty-nine stubs in this pile. But if Ronald is telling the truth, there should be twenty-seven. We shall now find out.”
Mrs. Crespo counted the stubs out loud and dropped them one by one back into the jar. When she reached twenty-two, I knew what the outcome would be. I could see how many stubs remained on the table.
“And the last one,” Mrs. Crespo said, “makes twenty-seven. It appears, Ronald, that you are telling the truth.”
“That only proves that two are missing,” Glenn Philips interrupted. “To complete the proof, you need to make certain that Cheesie’s and Georgie’s are the ones.”
Of course Glenn, who is super smart, was right.
Mrs. Crespo nodded. “What are your ticket numbers?”
Georgie answered quickly. “Mine is zero-five-five-five-five. And Cheesie’s is zero-five-five-five-four.”
Mrs. Crespo emptied the tickets out and dropped them back in one by one, silently scanning each for our numbers. As she dropped the last one in, she turned to Glenn. “The proof is complete.” And then to me. “You are not a liar, Ronald.”
Georgie grabbed me around the shoulders and squeezed. I grinned, and my lip hurt.
“Your sister is in big trouble now,” Alex Welch said.
Duh.
“And now, at last,” Mrs. Crespo announced, “we shall have the pizza party drawing.”
“Mrs. Crespo,” Glenn interrupted, “without Cheesie’s and Georgie’s stubs, they can’t win.”
“Quite right again, Glenn,” Mrs. Crespo responded. “But I have a solution. I shall now draw a winning ticket.” She reached in, pulled out a ticket stub, and read the number. “Zero-five-five-three-seven.” There was complete quiet for a couple of seconds while all the kids examined their tickets (except for me and Georgie).
Then Lana Shen squealed and hugged her two best friends. “I won!”
After the shrieking and screeching died down, Mrs. Crespo continued, “I will now draw for a second pizza party prize, identical to the first, which I will donate and which will be won by whoever has the winning ticket that I am now drawing out of this imaginary jar that contains all the missing ticket stubs.”
“My ticket’s sort of missing!” Alex Welch shouted. “I can’t read the numbers.”
Mrs. Crespo nodded at Alex, then made a big show of holding up an imaginary jar and pulling out an invisible ticket stub. “The winning number is … zero-five-five-five … and the last digit is … is this a four?” She pretended to peer at the imaginary ticket.
“No … it’s a five!”
“That’s mine!” Georgie yelled. “Pizza!” He grabbed my shoulders and shook them really hard. “See? I told you I was lucky!”
While Mrs. Crespo was explaining to Georgie that she would call the pizza parlor and set up his prize party and that all he had to do was call them whenever he wanted to go, I sat listening to a conversation between a dope and a genius.
“It’s not fair,” Alex objected.
“It is fair,” Glenn explained. “Your stub was in the primary jar with all the other similar stubs.”
“But the numbers were all rubbed off my ticket,” Alex protested.
“Had Mrs. Crespo extracted”—Glenn really uses words like that—“your stub, you would have won, but she selected Lana’s instead.”
“But I couldn’t read my number.”
“An unmatched stub would have established your claim to the prize,” Glenn explained patiently.
“But how would I know?” Alex whined.
I couldn’t stand it any longer. “If she called out the number and no one claimed the prize, then the number on the stub would have to be yours!” I said directly and way too loudly into Alex’s ear. Alex looked at me blankly, which is normal for him, so I gave up.
“It would be proof by the absence of evidence,” Glenn continued. “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle often employs comparable methods in his Sherlock Holmes mysteries.”
I have read two Sherlock Holmes stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles and A Study in Scarlet. They are old and take place before cars and airplanes and way before computers. If you don’t mind British spelling—“colours” instead of “colors”—I recommend them highly. I learned many vocabulary words from them. In fact, a few months ago, after I found the Sherlock Holmes book that I had borrowed from the library hidden inside my dog’s kibble bin—it was a week overdue—I said to my father, “You may call it conjecture (guessing), but I believe that our domicile (house) is inhabited by a choleric (angry) personage (MY SISTER!) whose exploits (actions) include purloining (stealing) and deceit (lying).” My father laughed. Goon was punished. I got 8 points.
About half the class was gathered around Georgie, begging to be invited to his pizza
party, while most of the others were huddled around Lana Shen, doing, I guess, the same thing. I grabbed Georgie by the back of his bathing suit and pulled him toward the Boys room.
“What’s the matter?” Georgie asked once we were inside and changing out of our swimsuits.
“You better be careful how many kids you ask to your pizza party.”
Georgie didn’t respond. He just grabbed his wet swimsuit off the floor with his toes and flipped it backward up over his head. Georgie is a very excellent athlete. He didn’t even look. He just stuck his hands out in front of him, and the suit flew over his head and landed—plop—right on them. (I cannot do this. But I have a diagram of how to do it on my website. You can try it if you want.)
“I think pizzas cost about ten bucks each. Add in drinks and you’re only going to be able to buy three pies … maximum. Eight slices to a pie—”
Georgie was pulling on his pants, which made him lose his balance and crash into me. He is an excellent athlete, but sometimes a klutz.
I pushed him away and continued. “That’s only twenty-four slices. Figuring the average kid’ll eat three, maybe four slices—”
“I can eat seven,” Georgie bragged.
“Yeah, but some kids’ll eat only two, so that means you can invite only five or six other kids besides you and me.”
“I wasn’t planning to invite you,” Georgie said, squatting down to tie his shoes.
I glared at him. He didn’t even look back. Then I leaped onto his back and began fake-pounding him.
“You dare to insult the supreme dignity and undeniable worthiness of Dr. Cheez?! You shall be punished (pound), beaten (pound), battered (pound), and thumped mercilessly.”
With me hanging on to him and continuing my fake pounding, Georgie wobbled to his feet and began lumbering around. He grunted, “Ee-Gorg sorry, Master. Ee-Gorg bad. Ee-Gorg very bad.”
I already told you that Georgie is really strong and almost twice as big as I am, so a real fight would be over in less than one microsecond, with me flattened into a grease spot on the wall. So you can probably guess that this is a game Georgie and I play. In it I am the brilliant and totally warped Dr. Frank N. Cheez. Georgie is Ee-Gorg, my super-strong half-witted monster. We made up this game back in third grade, which is when he started to get really big.
When Ee-Gorg—toting his merciless, pounding master—came staggering out the bathroom door, he crashed us right into Lana Shen, who was standing there waiting. She screamed. I jumped off. Georgie, still acting like a demented (a good word to use as an insult—it means insane) monster, shambled away. Banging into everything in his path, he grunted, “Ee-Gorg get bicycle for Dr. Cheez. Ee-Gorg like bicycle. Ee-Gorg eat bicycle.”
I was laughing at Georgie until I realized that Lana was standing next to me, staring and smiling. She’s weird. In conversations, I think I mostly look at the other person’s mouth. But when she talks to me, she looks right in my eyes … and barely ever blinks.
“You and Georgie almost crushed me into the wall. So. Anyway. Here’s the deal. If you get Georgie to invite me to his pizza party, I’ll invite both of you to mine.”
“Umm, I don’t know. It’s up to him,” I said. She has straight teeth. I am going to have to wear braces starting next year.
“I have a small appetite. So it would be a good trade. Because, you know, Georgie eats a lot.”
Of course Georgie would say yes.
“I’ll try,” I mumbled.
She continued smiling and staring. Her hair is black and very shiny.
I know what you’re thinking, but Lana is not my girlfriend, and since I’m the one who is writing this book, and I know what happened, I can promise that there are no girlfriends in this book.
Lana then asked me to call her house and tell her Georgie’s answer. I don’t even know her telephone number, and before I could tell her to call Georgie herself, Mrs. Crespo walked up, congratulated Lana on winning one of the prizes, and turned to me.
“I am not quite certain what to do about your sister’s actions today, Ronald. I think that I shall leave it up to you.”
Mrs. Crespo seemed to be waiting for me to say something, but since Lana was there, I didn’t speak. It’s not that what I would decide to do about Goon would be secret or anything. It’s just that Lana was staring at me, and that made me nervous. Not nervous exactly, maybe more like shy.
“It’s your choice, Ronald. You may explain the situation to your parents or not,” Mrs. Crespo went on. “If they wish, they may telephone me.”
Mrs. Crespo said good-bye and walked away, leaving me standing there with still-staring-at-me Lana Shen and Rachel Campos, a classmate who had just sort of appeared next to Lana while I wasn’t looking. Rachel whispered to Lana. Lana giggled and waved, then they ran to get their backpacks and headed out the playground gate.
I looked around. Only Georgie and I were left. The school was deserted. Fifth grade was finished.
We had the rest of June. Then July and August. But no camp in Maine.
Summer.
Bummer.
A Face in the Window … and the Evidence
As we rode away from school, I was thinking about what Mrs. Crespo had said. I was also thinking about the Point Battle. Goon would be in big trouble if I tattled. And big trouble for Goon meant big points for me.
Here’s how I figured it. (If you forgot how the Point Battle works, please look back at Chapter 6.)
School punishment equals 8 points; punishment by Mom or Dad, only 4. This one was tricky. Since the incident occurred at school, but the punishment would come from Mom and Dad, I thought that 6 points would be a fair compromise.
Since I was the one who exposed her crime, double it to 12 points.
Since it would undoubtedly be a big punishment, double it again to 24 points.
Since Goon lied and was caught, double it again to 48 points.
There has never been a 48-point win in the history of the Point Battle. With Goon currently ahead 623–592, this would put me in the lead, 640–623! The last time I was ahead, I was in fourth grade and the score was only 17–15!
“You want to stop and see if there’s a reply?” Georgie asked.
“Huh?” I had been pedaling and thinking and had no idea what he was talking about.
“The Toad, remember?”
We were just turning the corner onto Eureka Avenue. I nodded and accelerated, passing Georgie and zooming down the street toward the old green-gray house. I skidded to a stop, almost knocking over the recycling can again. I heard my mind saying, Whew! That would’ve been hard to explain. Then I peered over the fence that guarded the front yard.
“See anything?” Georgie asked as he stopped his bike next to mine.
“Nope. Hold my bike.” Remembering my disastrous exit through the bushes last time, I went around to the front gate, opened it, and walked along the flat rocks that led up to the front steps. I had not forgotten that Officer Crompton had told us to stay away from The Haunted Toad, but because our note was gone, I figured that G. J. Prott had sort of invited us to trespass so that we could see if there was a reply.
(Now that I’m writing this, I’m not sure my reasoning was logical, but that’s what I was thinking back then.)
I climbed the steps and looked around. Nothing. I turned toward Georgie and shook my head.
“What’s that under the mat?” he whispered very loudly.
A white corner peeked out. I reached down, lifted the mat, and there, next to a bunch of sow bugs, was a small white envelope.
I know you want to know what was in the envelope, and for sure that’s more important than sow bugs, but sow bugs are my favorite insects, mainly because they are not insects. I have included two drawings, so just in case you don’t know what a sow bug is, you’ll know what non-insect I’m talking about.
A sow bug is also called a roly-poly or a pill bug, depending on where you live. (If you use a different name, please go to my website and tell me. I have
a whole page about sow bugs.) They don’t have wings. They are brownish or gray and have seven pairs of legs. They also have tiny overlapping armor plates that make them look like little armadillos. I like that. And they roll up into little balls when disturbed. I like that, too. But here’s what’s so cool. These non-insects are actually crustaceans and are close relatives of shrimp and lobsters.
Okay, I love to eat shrimp, and I really love lobster. Gloucester is famous for lobster. We have tons of lobster fishermen who go out in their boats and set lots of lobster traps—they call them pots—in the Atlantic Ocean. You can buy lobsters right down at the harbor.
So here’s the question I have not had the courage to answer. If someone cooked and ate a sow bug, would it taste like shrimp or lobster? Or would it be disgustingly gross? I am not going to try it, and the people who published this book don’t want you to try it, either. So … DON’T TRY IT! AND DON’T EMAIL ME!
I walked back to my bike holding up the small envelope for Georgie to see.
“Let’s get out of sight before we open it,” Georgie said.
I shook my head. “Nope. Let’s open it here. Maybe G. J. Prott has been waiting for us to come back and is watching us right now from one of the windows.”
Both of us looked back at the house, our eyes moving from window to window, but we saw nothing unusual. I tore open the envelope. Here’s what was inside:
“What’s M-E-S-S-R-S?” I asked as I stuck the letter back in the envelope.
“Maybe ol’ Prott saw us mess up that next-door lady’s trash and thinks we’re messers, and he or she or it can’t spell,” Georgie replied.
That seemed like a really good answer, but I actually looked up “Messrs.” It is the plural of Mr., and it’s pronounced exactly like “messers.” Weird.
“Tomorrow morning two mysteries will be solved. Who is G. J. Prott? And”—I did my spookiest “ow-hooo-eeeee” and grinned devilishly—“what creepy creeps creep around inside The Haunted Toad?”
But Georgie wasn’t paying attention. His mouth was open, and he was staring straight at The Haunted Toad. I followed his eyes. There, on the third floor, the curtains were parted, and a very small, very old woman stared back at us.
