Zero to Hero

by Lin Oliver

  “Gatorade?” the Hoove repeated. “Is that made directly from the alligator? Because if it is, count me out. I don’t drink juice they have to squeeze a reptile for.”

  “Boy, you really are a hundred and thirteen years old!” Billy laughed. “Gatorade is a sports drink. I drink it when I need a burst of energy. Like now, when I have a lot of things to mull over.”

  “What’s there to mull over? You’re going pull off this plan, aren’t you?”

  Billy didn’t answer. He had never really done anything like this before. Usually when he had a conflict with someone, he would take the easy way out and let the other person win. This new way would take a lot of courage. The Hoove saw Billy waffling, and moved in very close to him.

  “Listen, Billy,” he said, suddenly very serious. “You have to stand up to this guy or he’s not going to stop making you miserable.”

  “I’m going to get Brownstone,” Billy said, suddenly sounding not so sure of himself. “At least I think I am. I just have to figure out how. I’ll be right back with a solid plan.”

  Billy headed down the hall toward the kitchen, his mind racing. The idea of getting even with Rod was very appealing. Yet there was something gnawing at him. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of revenge. He had been taught that two wrongs don’t make a right. In the back of his mind, he wondered if embarrassing Rod Brownstone would make his situation any better.

  Maybe he should just tell the Hoove to forget it. Maybe in time, the Great Tonsil Incident would become a distant memory for him and for everyone else.

  As he rounded the corner into the kitchen, Breeze was finishing a phone conversation. She didn’t look at all happy to see him.

  “Thanks a lot,” she said, before he had even reached the refrigerator.

  “You’re welcome. For what?”

  “For putting an end to my band before we even got off the ground.”

  “Me? What did I do to your band?”

  “For starters, no one wants to come over here to rehearse. Two of the girls, Sofia and Rachel to be specific, said they don’t want to be in a house where people collect body parts. Oh, and in case you hadn’t heard, since this afternoon, you apparently have a new nickname at school … Mr. Tonsil. Or Big T, for short.”

  Billy felt like he had been punched in the stomach. He knew word of his tonsil had spread, but he had no idea everyone had heard about it, even the seventh graders. And that nickname. He would never, ever live it down if he stayed at Moorepark Middle School for two hundred years.

  “I had no idea,” he said, his voice cracking.

  “A funny thing happens when you bring a tonsil to school,” Breeze said, shaking her head at how dense her new brother could be. “Word spreads fast. You might want to think about that next time you get a bright idea like that.”

  Billy wanted to sink through the speckled linoleum floor and disappear. All the embarrassment of the day came flooding back over him. Suddenly, he felt a surge of anger rising up in him like a powerful ocean wave. Rod had done this to him. Rod had ruined his life.

  He knew what he had to do.

  Without a word to Breeze, and forgetting entirely about the Gatorade he had come to get, Billy stormed back to his room, flung open the door, and announced to the Hoove, “I’m in.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Billy didn’t sleep a wink that night. He was too nervous. Never before in his life had he done something as brave or as bold as what he was about to do to Rod Brownstone. He was always the nice guy, looking for ways to solve problems, not cause them. He was a peacemaker, not a troublemaker.

  “That was the old Billy Broccoli,” the Hoove had said to him after he returned from the kitchen and they huddled in his room, formulating the plan. “The new Billy Broccoli fights fire with fire. The new Billy Broccoli lives the Hoove’s Rule Number Eighty-six: ‘The only way to handle a bully is to out-bully him.’ ”

  So Hoover and the new Billy Broccoli got to work. The Hoove made Billy take out a piece of paper and list all of their ideas. There were eleven in total. Then they ranked each one according to how much it would embarrass Rod and how likely it was that Billy could actually pull it off.

  They both agreed that Number 1 on the Embarrassment List was announcing on the loudspeaker that Rod Brownstone’s baby blanket was flying on the flagpole and anyone who wanted to see it was invited to come outside and salute. To the Hoove’s dismay, however, this idea ranked Number 11 on Billy’s Ability to Pull It Off list. There was no way Billy could sneak into his mother’s office, where the loudspeaker microphone was kept. And Billy would never be able to get the blanket up the flagpole because the raising of the flag was done every morning by Mr. Yuki, the school groundskeeper. He was a gruff man who did not tolerate any nonsense. If you were walking on the lawn instead of the path, he’d turn the sprinklers on you without batting an eye.

  “We’ll have to go with Plan Number Two,” Billy explained to the Hoove. “I’ll tape a sign on the trophy case outside the attendance office, telling everyone that Rod’s little baby blankie is available for viewing in the lunch pavilion.”

  The Hoove shook his head.

  “The lunch pavilion lacks flair,” he said. “It’s what ordinary thinkers come up with. But the flagpole, now that has style. You don’t want to just get this guy, Billy Boy. You want to get him with style. How bad could Mr. Yuki be?”

  “I’ll show you,” Billy said. “Wait here.”

  He went to Breeze’s room and knocked.

  “I’m out here,” she called. She was sitting at the dining room table with Bennett, looking bored while he sifted through a box of dusty old papers.

  “Come out and join us, Bill,” Bennett called. “I was putting some things away in the garage and found these original maps of the property. Breeze is fascinated with them, aren’t you, honey?”

  “It was this or algebra homework,” Breeze explained when Billy shot her a look.

  “Can I borrow your yearbook for a second?” Billy asked her.

  “Only if you put it right back and promise not to read any of the notes from my friends, because they are extremely private.”

  As Billy headed back to his room with Breeze’s yearbook, he wondered if anyone would ever write anything extremely private in his yearbook. Anything other than You’ve got a humongous tonsil, Big T, that is.

  He took the yearbook to the Hoove and flipped through it until he found the section of staff pictures. There was one of Mr. Yuki holding his prize oscillating lawn sprinkler and scowling at the camera. Even the Hoove had to acknowledge that he did indeed look like a man who meant business, sprinkler-wise and flagpole-wise.

  Reluctantly, the Hoove abandoned the flagpole idea and agreed to settle on the trophy case plan. He and Billy sat at the computer and composed a note that was to be taped on the glass when no one was looking. Billy was shocked to see that the Hoove had excellent computer skills. He helped Billy pick a unique type style, changed the color of each letter, and put fancy scrolls down the margins to make the note look like the Declaration of Independence.

  “They didn’t even have computers in your day,” Billy said. “How’d you learn to do all this?”

  “I may be dead, but I am not ignorant,” the Hoove answered as he waited for the note to come out of the printer. “I’m what you’d call a lifelong learner. If I had a life, that is.”

  “You taught yourself? How? Where?”

  “There’s a cozy little spot down the street they call the public library. I like to frequent it in the after-midnight hours. It’s just me and one other ghost, so there’s no wait for the computers.”

  Billy was amazed. He’d imagined that Hoover had a wild night life, doing ghostly things like flying around in the shadow of the moon and howling like a banshee and scaring random people in graveyards. A smile crossed his lips.

  “Hey, what’s so funny?” the Hoove asked.

  “You in the library. I don’t think of you as the library type. I thought
you’d be out cruising around on broomsticks and stuff like that.”

  “Broomsticks are very slow and clunky, which is why only witches ride on them. Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead on a broomstick. Oh, wait, I am dead. Make that, I wouldn’t be caught alive on a broomstick.”

  The Hoove howled with laughter at his own little joke. He was in a jolly mood. To his surprise, he had developed a real affection for Billy Broccoli, and he couldn’t wait to see the joy on his face when he got even with Rod Brownstone and restored his own reputation.

  When the note was finished, Billy placed it in his backpack along with the wooden box containing the swatch of Rod’s baby blanket. Then he and the Hoove went over the plan one more time. There was nothing left to do except for Billy to get a good night’s rest. The Hoove, making an exception to his “no mornings” rule, said he would be back at exactly seven to make sure Billy was up and dressed in style for his big day. He disappeared through the door of Billy’s room, and as he floated down the hall, Billy heard Breeze yell, “There’s a cold draft in here. Will somebody please close their window?”

  If she only knew, Billy thought. She’d really be yelling.

  Billy got in bed, but as the minutes ticked into hours, he just lay there with his eyes wide open, staring at the ponies jumping over rainbows on his wallpaper. Dawn was breaking by the time Billy fell asleep. In the blue-gray light of his room, as his eyelids grew heavy and finally closed, Billy fell into a dream that he was shaking all over and someone was calling his name. His eyes flew open. It wasn’t a dream. The Hoove was hovering over him, shaking him vigorously and calling his name.

  “Billy! Billy! Wake up, Billy Boy! You’re not going to believe it!”

  Billy rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock on his pink and lavender bed stand. It was barely six o’clock.

  “I don’t have to get up for another hour,” he muttered, and tried to turn over to avoid the Hoove, who was slapping his shoulder with a dusty old piece of paper.

  “You know what this is?” the Hoove was saying. “Your stepfather, Bennett, is a genius. I love that guy, even with all his molar talk. Look what he’s uncovered.”

  Billy’s curiosity was aroused. He turned over and glanced at the rolled-up yellowing scroll in the Hoove’s hand. He thought he saw a little spider crawl out of it and scurry across his bedsheet.

  “Look at this,” the Hoove said, unraveling the scroll and smoothing the paper with his hands, which revealed a map that looked like it was hand-drawn in brown ink. “It’s a map of our ranchero.”

  “Right,” said Billy, sitting up to get a better look. “That’s the old map Bennett found in the garage. So what?”

  “See, here’s the orange grove,” the Hoove said, pointing to the largest section of the map. “And here’s the barn. There’s the corral, the original house, the toolsheds … all four of them … and the horse-shoeing shed. And way over there is the avocado orchard. I never knew the avocado orchard was part of our property. Can you believe it, Billy? This is, as you modern kids say, way cool. The avocado orchard!”

  “What’s the big deal?” Billy asked. “Do you have, like, a huge craving for guacamole or something?”

  “I did used to love it with Lupe’s homemade chips,” Hoover said. “But that’s not the point. The point is that the avocado orchard is on our property. Which means I can travel there safely without dematerializing. And do you know what the avocado orchard has become, Billy? Do you?”

  Billy studied the map carefully. The avocado orchard had a small road running through it. And although it was hard to read, if he looked carefully, he could see the fine print that said the road was called Moorepark Avenue.

  “My school?” he asked.

  “The very same,” the Hoove said with a grin as big as a crate of oranges. “Moorepark Middle School. Slam-bam in the middle of the old avocado orchard. Which means, my friend, that I can go with you to school today. That the flagpole plan can be reinstated. We don’t need your Mr. Yuki to run Rod’s blankie up the flagpole. I can do it for you.”

  And just to demonstrate, the Hoove drifted over to Billy’s backpack, took the piece of blanket out of its box, and floated up to the ceiling, waving the tattered old thing around like it was a pair of underpants fluttering on the clothesline.

  The Hoove couldn’t wait to put the plan in motion. He rustled Billy out of bed and practically threw him into the shower. While Billy was in the bathroom, Hoover changed the note so that it told kids to go outside and find the blanket waving on the flagpole. The Hoove was so jittery, he made Billy try on three different T-shirts until he found the one that was just right — a vintage shirt from the Brooklyn Dodgers, back when the team still played in New York. It wasn’t really that old, but it was made of soft blue cotton and had some fake fraying around the collar that made it look authentic.

  “Now you look dapper,” he said to Billy, standing back to admire the outfit he had carefully selected. “So let’s go to school and watch you go from a zero to a hero.”

  The Hoove followed Billy into the kitchen. He was itching to get on the road, and very annoyed that Billy had to stop for breakfast. But Billy had told him that there was no negotiating with his mother about breakfast, and if he tried to skip it, it would only provoke a lecture from her on how it’s the most important meal of the day.

  Billy’s mother was surprised to see him at the breakfast table so early. She had heard about his tonsil, of course — nothing that happened at Moorepark Middle School escaped the principal’s notice. But she had chosen not to say anything to Billy. He was already embarrassed enough without having to discuss the situation with his mother. Instead, she chose to give Billy a reassuring smile as she put a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of orange juice on the table for him.

  “I’m happy to see you up and eager to go back to school, honey,” she said, looking for her car keys, which she had left somewhere on the kitchen counter. “If you face trouble with a smile, everyone will respect you for it.”

  Billy tried not to consider what his mother would think if she knew what he was planning. He just nodded and took a spoonful of his oatmeal. The Hoove sat down on the chair next to Billy.

  “Hurry up,” he said. “You don’t have to scrape the bowl.”

  Mrs. Broccoli-Fielding found her car keys and came over to say good-bye to Billy. As she bent down to give Billy a kiss on the cheek, she got a strong whiff of the Hoove’s orange grove aroma.

  “Be sure to change your shirt before you leave,” she said to Billy. “Somebody smells like he spilled orange juice on himself.”

  “See you later, Mom,” Billy said.

  “Be a good boy,” she answered, then added, “What a silly thing to say. You always are.”

  “And that is exactly his problem,” the Hoove said, although Mrs. Broccoli-Fielding could not hear him, and certainly would not have agreed with him if she had.

  By the time Billy had put his glass and bowl in the dishwasher, the Hoove was waiting for him at the back door, holding his backpack. Hoover floated next to Billy as they walked to school. When they reached the corner of Moorepark Avenue and Avocado Lane, the Hoove stopped in his tracks.

  “Hold it, ducky. I want to savor this moment.”

  Then he took a giant exaggerated step out into the street, over an imaginary line. He burst into a big smile.

  “Victory!” he shouted. “This is the first time in ninety-nine years I’ve crossed over this line. Now I know how those astronauts felt, exploring new territory. One small step for the Hoove, one giant step for ghostkind.”

  Billy had to laugh. If he had to have his own personal ghost, Hoover Porterhouse was not a bad choice. He certainly was a lot of fun.

  “Do you mind if I fly on ahead?” the Hoove asked Billy when they were still a block away from school. “I want to get there before you and check out the grounds. See where everything is. Get my game face on.”

  “Go right ahead,” Billy said.

  “So cou
gh up the blankie,” the Hoove said, holding out his hand. “I’m going to take it on a practice run up the flagpole, just to make sure there are no last-minute glitches.”

  Billy unzipped his backpack and pulled the swatch of blue blanket out of its box. The Hoove wadded it up tightly so that it was no bigger than a marble. As he flew off, he whistled “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” and it actually worked this time, making him invisible even to Billy. All he could see of the Hoove was the little blue ball of blanket traveling through the air, looking like a dandelion floating in the breeze.

  Billy was actually relieved to be free of the Hoove for a while. He had to focus on what he was about to do. The old doubts were creeping in again, and he had to overcome them. This was no time to be soft on Rod Brownstone. Billy knew his reputation was at stake. Was he forever going to be the good little boy or was he finally going to stand up for himself?

  He forced himself to concentrate on what the Hoove had taught him … that the only way to fight a bully was to out-bully him. He repeated that sentence over and over and over again as he turned the corner and walked up the steps and through the doors of Moorepark Middle School.

  CHAPTER 14

  The trophy case was located in the main hall between the principal’s office and the attendance office. Every kid in school had to pass by it on the way to class. Billy approached the case cautiously, looking both ways down the hall. His stomach was doing somersaults as his mind began to grasp the risk he was about to take. It was not going to be easy to put the note up without being seen. He was going to have to look casual, like he was really interested in examining the school’s athletic history, and at the same time, tape the note to the glass as quickly as he could.

  Billy reached into the pocket of his sweatshirt. He pulled out the roll of Scotch tape he had hidden there, and did exactly what he had practiced the night before, pulling off four equal strips that he attached to the tips of four of his fingers. Looking intently at the case, as though he had never seen a trophy before, he reached into his other pocket and pulled out the flyer, neatly folded into fourths. He looked around and noticed Ricardo Perez walking up to him.