Zero to Hero

by Lin Oliver

  “Wow, this is worse than I could have ever imagined,” Rod said. “I bet it stinks, too. You don’t ever take the lid off, do you?”

  Billy shot across the room and grabbed the jar out of Rod’s hands.

  “Give me that!” he shouted. “It’s a little piece of me, and it’s not available for public inspection!”

  “Fine, you can have it. It’s disgusting,” Rod said. “Like the rest of you.”

  Holding the jar tightly to make sure it was secure, Billy returned to his desk, where Breeze was still standing.

  “Eeuuuwww!” she screamed. “Get that thing out of my sight before I totally gag.”

  “Do what she says, you freak,” Rod chimed in.

  Billy pulled open the top drawer of his desk, put the jar inside, and shoved it all the way to the back.

  “There, you satisfied?” he said.

  As he closed the drawer, Mrs. Broccoli-Fielding called from the kitchen.

  “Dinner’s ready!” she hollered. “Grab your own drink from the fridge on the way out.”

  “Finally,” Breeze said. “Come on, guys. My dad makes great steaks.”

  “What are you going to have?” Rod said to Billy. “Barbequed tonsil?”

  He let out one of his spit-spraying laughs, which Billy ignored as he followed Breeze into the hall. Rod Brownstone started after them, then stopped suddenly, as an idea entered his thick skull. They didn’t enter very often, and when they did, they were usually half-baked, but Rod happened to think this one had a certain brilliance to it.

  “I’ll be right there,” he called. “Just got to tie my shoe.”

  As soon as Billy and Breeze were out of sight, Rod quickly took off his plaid flannel shirt, opened the desk drawer, and removed the tonsil jar, wrapping it in his shirt so no one could tell it was there. Then he smiled a devilish smile, tucked the shirt under his arm, and left Billy’s room with a bounce in his step.

  CHAPTER 9

  “All right, let’s go over the procedures one more time,” Hoover said to Billy.

  It was the next morning, and the Hoove was giving Billy some last-minute instructions for his second day of school. He wanted to make sure there was no repeat of the previous day’s disaster. Billy stuffed his books and papers into his backpack, listening to the Hoove with only one ear. Maybe even half an ear.

  “Billy Boy, are you listening to me? I don’t see you paying attention.”

  Billy was concentrating on the zipper of his backpack, which had gotten stuck on the pages of his math homework. “I got it, Hoove. Hoove’s Rule Number Forty-seven: ‘No onions for breakfast, grilled or otherwise’.”

  “You see that,” the Hoove said. “All my effort is for naught. I moved on from that five minutes ago. If you had been paying attention, you’d know that what I am discussing with you now is Rule Number Three, also known as the Nod.”

  “Right,” Billy said. “The Nod.”

  “Now observe. I will demonstrate.”

  The Hoove floated off Billy’s desk and strutted dramatically across the rug, snapping his suspenders when he arrived at the other side of the room.

  “This is how you do it, Billy Boy. Notice the confidence, the powerful aura.”

  “Excuse me, Hoove. Do you remember who you’re talking to? I don’t have a pinky finger full of confidence, let alone a powerful aura.”

  “All the more reason for you to study what I’m doing. This is for your future, ducky. Now for the Nod. You walk up the front steps, and as you reach the top, you nod ever so slightly. But only to those who nod at you first. Try it. Let me see your best nod.”

  Billy put down his backpack with a sigh and strutted across the room, trying to imitate the Hoove, but on him it looked less like a swagger and more like a chicken trying to climb out of a puddle.

  “Now nod,” the Hoove commanded.

  Billy looked out at an imaginary group of students and, instead of nodding, started to wave his hand enthusiastically.

  “Hold it! Hold it right there! Who said anything about waving? There is no waving involved here. How did you get from nodding your head to flapping your hand?”

  “In my mind, I was happy to see everyone,” Billy said. “I saw them all smiling.”

  A hopeless feeling swept over Hoover. This kid was proving to be really difficult. He had no instinct for cool. In fact, Billy just naturally went in the totally opposite direction.

  “Listen to me,” the Hoove instructed. “What the Nod says is ‘I’m happy to see you and you’re lucky because of it.’ This is all communicated with just the smallest move of your head.”

  “What’s wrong with waving?”

  “The wave moves you from acceptable to dorkdom. Don’t question what I say. Just know that it’s true. I’ve had ninety-nine years to perfect the Nod.”

  Billy slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed for the door.

  “I wish I could go with you today,” the Hoove said. “You need some serious coaching.”

  “Well, I’m glad you can’t. If you think waving is weird, can you imagine how everyone would react if I showed up with a ghost? Oh yeah, there’s nothing weird about that.”

  After a quick breakfast of shredded wheat and milk, Billy set out for school. He felt good about the fact that Breeze allowed him to walk with her. It was unusual for a sixth grader to walk to school with a seventh grader, especially with one who had her own band and tons of friends at Moorepark. He tried to match her confidence, and began to strut in the most Hoover-like way he could.

  “Did your jeans shrink in the wash or something?” Breeze asked him as they rounded the corner of their block and headed up Moorepark Avenue.

  “No. Why?”

  “You’re walking funny. Like you have a giant wedgie.”

  Billy decided that maybe the strut wasn’t for him, and he resumed his normal gait, which was like a pony learning to trot. He had always been small, and he found it easiest to keep up if he trotted.

  When Billy and Breeze reached school, Breeze was immediately surrounded by her friends, who led her off to get hot chocolate at the cafeteria, leaving Billy alone at the foot of the steps.

  “Don’t trip,” he said to himself as he walked up the stairs.

  And he didn’t.

  That was good. The day was already off to a much better start than his miserable first day. As he walked in the front door, Billy passed Ricardo Perez, who was getting a drink of water. Ricardo nodded to him, and Billy gave him a Hoove-style nod back. It must have worked, because Ricardo actually spoke to him.

  “Look who’s here. The new assistant scorekeeper. Got your pencils sharpened?”

  “It’s kind of a drag,” Billy answered. “I was hoping to play.”

  “You got to show Coach you’re developing your skills. The last scorekeeper eventually made the team. Never got a hit, but he learned to spit sunflower shells farther than anybody else.”

  “Thanks, Ricardo. You’re a pal. I really appreciate the encouragement.”

  “Here’s a tip, dude. Get yourself a pack of sunflower seeds and start practicing.”

  Billy was amazed at how nice this guy was. So far, his day had been perfect. The opposite of the day before. Maybe his mother was right when she said that it was just a matter of time until he’d feel right at home in his new school.

  Billy’s morning classes couldn’t have gone smoother. In math, Mr. Bentley asked him to go to the board and solve a problem, and not only did he get it right, he noticed that Ruby Baker seemed to be impressed with his mathematical skills. She didn’t say that outright, of course, but he thought he noticed her smiling at him for a split second as he headed back to his seat.

  After class, when he stopped by his new locker to put his books away, he was able to open the combination on the first try. It seemed like everything was falling into place.

  Even at lunch, he didn’t have to sit by himself. Ricardo and a couple of the guys from the baseball team hadn’t objected when he sat at their
table. His seat was at the very end of the table, but still, that was a lot better than sitting by himself.

  As he sat in the outside lunch pavilion, the warm California sun beaming down on him, Billy unwrapped his peanut butter, jelly, and potato chip sandwich with a sense of well-being that was entirely new to him. To make the day even better, Ruby Baker and several of the cross-country girls had stopped at Billy’s table on their way out of the salad bar line. There they all were, talking and laughing.

  Billy Broccoli … part of the group. Man, that felt good.

  He was so busy having a great time that Billy didn’t notice Rod leaving the football team table and tucking his plaid flannel shirt under one arm. Rod walked over to where Ruby and her friends always sat, looked stealthily around, then unfolded the shirt and took out the glass jar with Billy’s tonsil in it. That morning, he’d attached a note to it that said: Dear Ruby. Here is a little piece of me. Want to join my tonsil and me for lunch? Love, Billy Broccoli.

  Quickly, Rod placed the tonsil jar and the note on the table in front of Ruby’s usual seat and rejoined his football friends.

  Ruby and the girls continued to chat with the boys for a few more minutes, then carried their trays to their own table and sat down. Billy turned back to the conversation with the baseball team, when suddenly —

  “Eeeuuuwwwwwwww!” It was Ruby, screaming at the top of her lungs. “What is that? Get it out of here!”

  Everyone in the lunch pavilion stopped what they were doing and looked at Ruby. She hopped up from the table and danced around like her feet were on fire.

  “Eeeuuwwwwww!” she screamed again. Then all the girls at her table joined in. “Eeeuuwww, eeeuuwww, triple eeeuuwwww!” they shrieked.

  Every pair of eyes in the lunch area was focused on Ruby. No one knew exactly what had happened, except that something extremely eeeuuuwww-y had transpired.

  “This is so not funny, Billy Broccoli,” she said, marching directly over to him. “I don’t want to have lunch with you or with that thing in the jar.”

  Billy just sat there with his mouth open, his peanut butter, jelly, and potato chip sandwich suspended in midair. He had no clue what had just happened. Meanwhile, at the football table, Rod Brownstone was having himself the laugh of the century.

  A bunch of kids had clustered around Ruby’s table to see what was in the jar that had her so freaked out. Billy’s tonsil lay there at the bottom, suspended in its murky goo, looking in the daylight even more stringy and fleshy than usual.

  “Check it out!” Sammy Park hooted. “It’s even got a label. ‘Billy’s tonsil. Removed at Sherman Oaks Hospital, April 7, 10:00 a.m.’ ”

  “Ooohhhhhhhh, gross.”

  It seemed like everyone in the lunch area was saying it at once. Billy was humiliated, ashamed, and angry beyond words. He jumped to his feet and charged toward Ruby’s table, where Sammy Park was holding his tonsil up to the sun and shaking it to make it wiggle.

  “That’s mine!” he said, grabbing the jar.

  He immediately wished he could take that back. How could he have confessed in front of everyone that this was his tonsil?

  With a mighty rush of nervous energy, he tucked the tonsil jar under his arm and bolted out of the lunch area. He ran as fast as he could. But where could he go? There was nowhere he could escape the awful embarrassment that filled his body from head to toe.

  The last thing he saw as he left the pavilion was Rod Brownstone, fist-bumping his friends, taking full credit for the worst moment of Billy’s life.

  CHAPTER 10

  Hoover Porterhouse was actually doing homework, which was almost unheard of in all his ninety-nine years of ghostly existence. Hanging around Billy’s room, with all its baseball gear piled up in the corner, had made him remember how much he missed the game and how much he longed to see the baseball fields of America. He knew he was never going to get there unless he brought up his grades. And although he was a procrastinator of the first degree, he had managed to fire himself up enough to work on one subject … Invisibility.

  Hoover’s invisibility skills were inconsistent at best. To practice, he had forced himself to hang out at the Birthday Tree and whistle “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” for two solid hours. At first, he thought he saw improvement, but the last couple of times he tried it, only his feet appeared. Hoover had been told by an older ghost, Bernie Highwater, who haunted the hardware store next to the movie theater, that invisibility was a matter of concentration. According to Bernie, the very act of whistling cleared your mind enough so that you could fully concentrate on making yourself visible.

  It was that state of mind that Hoover was looking for.

  He had been whistling that same stupid song most of the afternoon and was getting really sick of it and frustrated that only his boots were standing by themselves on the leafy ground under the tree. Occasionally, a knee popped up, but that was as far as he could get, visibility-wise. Hoover wasn’t sure how much more whistling he could do. His mouth felt like it was full of cotton balls. He was actually relieved to see Billy Broccoli coming home from school. Throwing himself into Swoosh mode, he rushed across the yard so he could beat Billy to the back door.

  “Welcome home,” he said, holding the screen door open.

  Billy looked at the Hoove, or at least the parts of Hoove that were visible, and jumped nearly three feet in the air.

  “You’re kidding me,” the Hoove said. “I still scare you?”

  “If you had big things on your mind and suddenly you were approached by a pair of boots and one knee, I think you’d jump, too.”

  Billy pushed past the Hoove, or at least what was visible of the Hoove, walked into the kitchen, and yanked open the refrigerator, pulling the door so hard it made all the salad-dressing bottles clatter. He took out a bowl of leftover potato salad, took a clean fork out of the dishwasher, and started to shovel the food into his mouth without even remembering that he hated potato salad. Something about the crunch of the celery next to the mush of the potatoes repulsed him.

  “This is anger eating,” the Hoove said to Billy. “And it’s unattractive on any human, living or dead.”

  “Yeah, well, so is having one knee.”

  “I’m working on that. In the meantime, why don’t you spill the beans. I can tell, something is very wrong.”

  “Wrong? What could possibly be wrong?” Billy answered, exposing some mildly disgusting clumps of potato salad on his tongue. “Just because everybody at school thinks I’m a total freak for keeping my tonsil in a jar? What’s wrong with that?”

  “Are you telling me you took that disgusto fleshy thing to school?” Hoover asked. “Has your mind left the building?”

  “Of course I didn’t take it. Rod Brownstone swiped it last night and put it on the lunch table right in front of Ruby and everyone else I might ever want to be friends with but now never will be.”

  “Brownstone? That twit?”

  “The very same.”

  “He did that to you? I can’t believe it! This is totally unacceptable.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  The Hoove felt a rush of anger swell up in him.

  “I never liked that twerp,” he fumed. “He’s a bad egg inside and out. But now he has crossed the Hoove’s line. I’m telling you, Billy, and hear me well: Anyone who messes with you, messes with me. Big-time.”

  Suddenly, right in front of Billy’s eyes, the Hoove appeared, his whole body totally visible, newsboy cap, suspenders, and all.

  “Whoa,” he said. “I’ve been working on that all day. Thank you, Billy Boy. You and your Rod story focused me, and lo and behold, here I am in my full greatness.”

  “Good for you,” Billy said, reaching for the milk and taking a swig right out of the carton. “Your life … or whatever you call it … is fabulous. Mine is ruined. So if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to my room to hide in the closet for the next twenty years. It’s been nice knowing you.”

  “Okay, but you might
want to wipe that egg salad off your face before it forms a crust.”

  “It’s potato salad.”

  “Whatever it is, it should not be on your face. It should be on a napkin, which should be placed immediately at the bottom of the garbage pail.”

  The Hoove laughed to lighten the mood, but Billy’s spirits couldn’t be lifted.

  “What is that?” he snapped. “Hoove’s Rule One Thousand and Ten? You know what, Hoove? I’ve had it with your rules and with your advice. There’s nothing that’s going to help me now. My life as I’ve known it is over. From now on, I’m just going to be known as the pathetic guy who keeps body parts as souvenirs.”

  Billy didn’t even bother to put the potato salad or the milk back in the fridge. What did it matter if his mom got mad at him for messing up the kitchen? What did anything matter now? Without another word, he turned and left, stomping down the hall to his room and slamming the door behind him.

  The Hoove did some serious stomping of his own. Without hesitation, he stomped out of the house, stomped across the yard, and stomped directly into the Brownstone house. Once inside, he threw himself into hyperglide, swooping around their house, looking for the Brownstone twerp. He swept by Amber, who sat at the kitchen table, coloring dresses in her princess coloring book. He was moving so fast that the pages in her book actually flapped in the gust of wind he created. Amber looked up to see if anyone was there, and when she didn’t see anyone, she yelled, “Mommy, I’m not alone, but I don’t see anybody.” Her mother came in from the laundry room, looked around, and gave Amber a little kiss on the forehead.

  “You have such an active imagination, honey,” she said. “You could be a writer when you grow up.”

  Rod was sitting in the living room, doing his perfect imitation of a couch potato. He held the TV remote in one hand and a bag of flaming-hot spicy nacho chips in the other. He was staring at the fourth rerun of an episode of Unsolved Parking Tickets, the one about a cross-eyed guy whose parking meter ran out seven years ago. It was just his kind of entertainment.