The Terrible Two

by Mac Barnett

  “STUART, STEP AWAY FROM THE BUILDING.”

  “There are SIX cows in the art room!”

  Chaos. Laughter.

  “STUDENTS! ALL STUDENTS! PRINCIPAL BARKIN SEZ: STEP AWAY FROM THE BUILDING. STOP LOOKING THROUGH THE WINDOWS.”

  “There are COWS EVERYWHERE!” Stuart said.

  Bossie came up to the window behind Barkin.

  “Well, isn’t this something,” said Holly.

  “ANOTHER cow!” said Stuart. “This is like COW CITY!”

  Bossie’s breath left a thick coating of cud on the glass.

  “THERE IS NOTHING REMARKABLE HAPPENING!” shouted Barkin.

  “I think the cat’s out of the bag, Barry,” said Ms. Shandy.

  “LEAVE! GO HOME! STOP LOOKING! GO AWAY!” Principal Barkin said. “SCHOOL IS CANCELED!”

  Mayhem. Cheering.

  Chapter

  37

  MILES WENT OVER TO NILES’S house for a celebratory breakfast: cereal and toast with three kinds of jam and scrambled eggs with onions, all washed down with a big glass of milk. It was delicious.

  But the prank wasn’t quite finished.

  At about 10:30, Miles and Niles returned to school.

  They found Barkin behind the school, where he’d gone with his son after the students had left that morning. For a while, Josh had tried to push a cow out the rear exit.

  “It won’t go down the steps, Dad!”

  “Of course she won’t!” Principal Barkin had said. “Haven’t you even read the booklet? You’re not helping. Go home.”

  He’d called his wife to pick Josh up and spent the next couple of hours sitting.

  “Niles, am I glad to see you,” said Principal Barkin when he saw the pair approach. “Miles, I am not glad to see you. Unless you’re here because Niles can prove that you put these cows in the school, and he is here to turn you in.”

  “I didn’t do it,” Miles said.

  “That’s what you always say,” said Principal Barkin. “You should put that on a T-shirt. And then I will wear a T-shirt that says YES YOU DID.”

  “Principal Barkin,” said Niles, “Miles couldn’t have done it.”

  Barkin stared at his School Helper. “Why not?”

  “Because Miles spent the night at my house.”

  “On a school night?”

  “We were studying for Ms. Shandy’s test,” Niles said.

  “Test.” Principal Barkin exhaled faintly. “School canceled on a test day.”

  “And election day!” Niles said. “We were supposed to vote for class president.”

  Principal Barkin’s gaze went fuzzy.

  “It looks like the cows are still here,” said Miles.

  “Of course they are,” said Principal Barkin. “They can’t go down steps. Doesn’t anyone read the booklet?”

  “Hey, maybe you should call your brother!” said Niles. “Isn’t he a farmer?”

  “I can’t. They’re all branded ‘B.’ They’re his cows.”

  “Oh!” said Niles. “So then . . . shouldn’t you tell him?”

  “No, no, no . . . Bob has a big mouth and—you boys wouldn’t understand. Thanks for coming, but I’m afraid you can’t be of much help, Niles. And Miles, you can be of even less help.”

  “Actually,” said Niles, “we think we figured out who did this. We think we know who did all the pranks.”

  Barkin snapped upright. “You do?”

  “Yeah,” said Miles. “We think . . . well, we think . . .”

  “We think it was Josh,” said Niles.

  “Josh who?” said Principal Barkin.

  “Josh Barkin,” said Miles.

  “Josh, my son, Barkin?” said Principal Barkin.

  “Yes,” said Niles.

  “THAT’S INSANE!” said Principal Barkin.

  “Is it?” said Niles. “Think about it. He would have access to your car keys. And the keys to the school. And even the locker combinations! Maybe Josh is the one who framed Miles with that pie catapult. I mean, we know Josh doesn’t like Miles.”

  “Well, nobody likes Miles. He’s a prankster.”

  “But what if he’s not?”

  Barkin hesitated.

  “But no! Josh couldn’t have! He was at Cody Burr-Tyler’s Nature Scout Outdoor Jamboree last night!”

  “On a school night?” Niles said.

  “Well, you boys understand . . .” said Barkin. “It was Cody Burr-Tyler . . .”

  Miles smiled.

  “Principal Barkin,” Miles said, “Cody Burr-Tyler doesn’t even exist.”

  “NOW THAT IS INSANE.”

  “That is insane,” said Niles. “We went to his birthday party! I bought that guy a present!”

  “I met some kids from St. Perpetua the other week,” Miles said. “They’d never heard of him.”

  “But then who’d I give a present to?” Niles asked. “Who’d we all give presents to? Who was wearing that football helmet? Unless . . .”

  “I mean, Josh was basically the only kid who was not at the party . . .”

  “No, no, no, no. I have the invitation to the jamboree right here. See. From Cody Burr-Tyler.”

  Barkin pulled out a card from his Principal Pack.

  Niles took a look. “Red ink.” He drew in a slow, tragic breath and shook his head. “I hate to say it, but this could be a forgery, Principal Barkin. Josh was the only student to fill out my midyear wellness survey in red . . .”

  For once, Barkin didn’t go purple. He went pale. “Excuse me, boys. I have to make a phone call.”

  Earlier that week, Josh Barkin had received an invitation from Cody Burr-Tyler. But it hadn’t been to a jamboree. And it hadn’t been written in red ink. It was written with a blue Bic Velocity 1.6-millimeter ballpoint pen and mailed by Miles Murphy on March 23. Here is what it said.

  It took a brief principal-to-principal call for Barkin to verify that Miles and Niles were right: Nobody named Cody Burr-Tyler was enrolled at St. Perpetua. But at home Josh Barkin swore Cody was real. “OK, so I wasn’t at his Jamboree. But I couldn’t have moved Uncle Bob’s cows. I was spending the night at Cody Burr-Tyler’s Secret HQ. I even carved my initials in the wall! With the date! I’ll show you.”

  And so Principal Barkin followed Josh into the forest. But while the perfect tree house takes hammers, saws, and six weeks to build, it only takes a sledgehammer, a delicious breakfast, and a couple of hours to dismantle completely.

  “But . . .” Josh Barkin stood at the base of a sycamore, looking up at branches that held only the beginnings of buds that would soon bloom bright red.

  “I want you to walk out of this forest, back to our house, and up to your room,” said Principal Barkin. “You are grounded. And, although it pains me to say it, you are officially on probation at Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy.”

  “But you can’t put me on probation. That would mean—”

  “Yes, that would mean you are ineligible for student council. When we reschedule school elections, Holly Rash will be running unopposed.”

  Josh turned his back and muttered, “Nimbus.”

  But Principal Barkin wasn’t finished. “And, Josh,” he said. “I certainly can put you on probation. I can do anything. I am a principal.”

  Principal Barkin straightened his red tie. He’d had a pretty bad day, but that was a pretty good power speech.

  Chapter

  38

  THE BEST WAY TO GET COWS down a short flight of stairs is to build a ramp by covering the steps with a few sheets of thick plywood. (It’s also the best way to get a car up a flight of stairs.) By the time Bob Barkin showed up in his truck and built just such a ramp, Miles Murphy was already asleep.

  It was the earliest Miles had ever gone to bed, including sick days. After Miles left school for the second time that day, he’d gone straight home and found his wagon waiting on the front porch. There was a present inside, wrapped in green with a yellow ribbon. He opened it up in his room. In a shoe box, wrapp
ed in tissue paper, was a sash that said SCHOOL HELPER HELPER. He tried it on. Maybe it was just the exhaustion, but he liked how it looked.

  Miles Murphy brushed his teeth and got into bed. He put his pranking journal underneath his pillow. The sun streamed through his window, but he didn’t pull the shade.

  Miles Murphy was a cowboy. A cattle rustler. A pranking legend. And nobody knew it. Except himself. And Niles Sparks. And that was good, and his bed was warm, and it wasn’t long before Miles was sleeping the best sleep he’d slept since he moved to Yawnee Valley.

  Somewhere in the distance, a cow mooed.

  ABOUT the AUTHORS

  MAC BARNETT is a New York Times bestselling author of many books for children, including Extra Yarn, illustrated by Jon Klassen, which won a 2013 Caldecott Honor and the 2012 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Excellence in Picture Books; Sam & Dave Dig a Hole, also illustrated by Jon Klassen; and Battle Bunny, written with Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Matthew Myers. He also writes the Brixton Brothers series of mystery novels.

  JORY JOHN is the author of the picture book Goodnight Already! (with Benji Davies) and the forthcoming I Will Chomp You (with Bob Shea) and coauthor of the national bestseller All My Friends Are Dead; a sequel, All My Friends Are STILL Dead; and Pirate’s Log: A Handbook For Aspiring Swashbucklers, among other books. Jory is also the editor of Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: Kids’ Letters to President Obama. He spent six years as programs director at 826 Valencia, a nonprofit educational center in San Francisco.

  KEVIN CORNELL is the illustrator of many children’s books, including Count the Monkeys and Mustache!, both by Mac Barnett.

  FOR TAYLOR

  —MB

  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ALYSSA; MY MOM, DEBORAH; AND STEVEN MALK, WHO BELIEVED IN THIS PROJECT FROM THE START. I WILL CONTINUE THANKING THE THREE OF YOU UNTIL THE COWS COME HOME, WHICH MIGHT TAKE A WHILE.

  —JJ

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Barnett, Mac.

  The terrible two / by Mac Barnett & Jory John ; illustrated by Kevin Cornell.

  pages cm — (The terrible two)

  Summary: When master prankster Miles Murphy moves to sleepy Yawnee Valley, he

  challenges the local mystery prankster in an epic battle of tricks, but soon the two join

  forces to pull off the biggest prank ever seen.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-1491-7 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-61312-763-6 (ebook)

  [1. Practical jokes—Fiction. 2. Tricks—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Moving, Household—

  Fiction. 5. Humorous stories.] I. Barnett, Mac. II. Cornell, Kevin, illustrator. III. Title.

  PZ7.J62168Ter 2015

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014027503

  Text copyright © 2015 Mac Barnett and Jory John

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 Kevin Cornell

  Book design by Chad W. Beckerman

  Published in 2015 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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  trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

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