by Lin Oliver
Oh no, he thought to himself. He’s onto me. How could he possibly know what I’m doing?
“Hey, man,” Ricardo said to Billy. “You coming to baseball practice today?”
“Absolutely,” Billy answered, stuffing his hand with the Scotch tape strips into his pocket. He was glad that Ricardo hadn’t put out his hand for a high five. That would have been a very sticky situation.
“Got your gear?” Ricardo asked.
“Oh yeah. I have a whole plastic baggy full of pencils, a sharpener, and a new score pad.”
Ricardo squinted at Billy. “I thought you wanted to make the team,” he said. “Leave the pencils in your backpack, dude. Show the coach you’re a player.”
Ordinarily, Billy would have welcomed this advice, but at the moment, all he wanted was for Ricardo to leave so he could get on with his mission.
“Thanks for the tip,” Billy said. “I’ll see you later. No pencils. That’s a deal.”
Ricardo nodded and walked off, joining some other members of the team as they headed for homeroom. Billy had to act fast, before anyone else noticed he was hanging around the display case. He unfolded the flyer and pulled his hand with the tape strips from his pocket. Unfortunately, all the strips stayed behind, having adhered to the inside fabric. Billy had no choice but to pull the roll of Scotch tape out and start all over again. His hands were shaking as he tore off four more strips.
“Move fast,” he said to himself. “Like a Scotch tape ninja.”
That didn’t make much sense, but the image did the trick for Billy. He deftly tore off the four strips and was just about to put the flyer in place against the glass, when he felt someone tapping on his shoulder. Billy spun around to see none other than Rod Brownstone standing next to him.
“Hey, Broccoli, back off the glass. You’re leaving breath marks. Some of those trophies are mine, and I don’t want you contaminating the display.”
Billy looked at Rod and realized that he looked a mess. His usually combed black hair was tangled. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his clothes looked slept in.
“You’re not looking too good this morning,” Billy said to him. “Have a rough night?”
“I couldn’t sleep. What’s it to you?”
Billy shot him a mysterious little smile.
“Word on the street is that you lost something,” he said.
“How do you know?” Rod answered. “Tell me the truth, Broccoli, or I’ll lock you in this case and throw away the key.”
“Really, Rod? Are you all that tough? Because I never heard of a tough guy needing his” — and now Billy lowered his voice to a whisper — “baby blankie.”
“How do you know about that? Have you been spying on me?”
“If I did, I learned from the master. You’re not the only one with intel.”
All the color drained out of Rod’s face. Suddenly, he didn’t look so tough anymore. In fact, he looked scared. With newfound courage, Billy took advantage of the moment.
“Tell me, Rod,” he said with a grin. “Do you suck your thumb, too, or is rubbing Blankie on your nose all you need to put you to sleep?”
“You saw me?”
“Personally, no. But my source tells me you don’t look like much of a football player when you’re all curled up with Mr. Blankie.”
“You’re not going to tell anyone about this, are you, Broccoli?”
“No, I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m just going to invite everyone to view it. To see a piece of the great Rod Brownstone’s cute little blue satin baby blanket.”
“You have it? So you’re the one who stole it?”
“No, actually, I’ve never even been in your room. But I have my own unique way of acquiring evidence.”
“You’re a thief,” Rod said.
“No, that would be you — who took the tonsil jar right out of my room and brought it to school to humiliate me. So now I’m going to return the favor and humiliate you right back.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Rod said, moving his hulking body right up next to Billy, getting in his face in a threatening way. “Hand it over, toadface, or I’ll flatten you into a pancake.”
But for the first time in his life, Billy wasn’t backing down. He thought of what the Hoove had taught him — that he had to face this guy once and for all. Now all he wanted was to stand his ground and make Rod feel the embarrassment and shame he had felt.
“You’re too late, Rod, because it’s almost done. The plan is in motion. See this note? It tells the entire student body to go outside and see your little blankie, which in a few minutes is going to be hoisted to the top of the flagpole.”
“This will ruin me,” Rod groaned.
“Oh, really? Just like you ruined me when you took my tonsil and made me the laughingstock of the school?”
“That was different.”
“How do you figure that? Because it happened to me? That’s the trouble with creeps like you. You don’t care that you made me feel bad, that everyone made fun of me. Well, now you’re going to know what it feels like. And trust me, Brownstone, it doesn’t feel good.”
“Don’t do this, Broccoli. I’ll do anything if you just keep quiet and give me the blanket back.”
This offer caught Billy quite by surprise. It had never occurred to him that he could turn this terrible situation into something positive. Suddenly, an entirely different plan popped into his mind.
“I might consider halting the plan under certain circumstances,” he said to Rod. “If you meet my demands, I will take this flyer and give it to you. No one ever has to know about our little secret.”
“Tell me what you want,” Rod begged. Billy thought it looked like he was about to cry. He had Rod right where he wanted him.
“First, I want you to tell Ruby Baker that the whole thing was your idea. That you planted the tonsil in front of her. That you wrote the note.”
“Okay,” Rod said. “She’s in my first-period class. I’ll go tell her right away.”
He started to leave, but Billy grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back.
“I’m not finished yet,” he said. “Second, and most important, I want a public, all-school apology.”
“What do you want me to do?” Rod was whining now. “Go up to every student and individually tell them? I can’t do that.”
“We happen to have a very fine public address system in this school.” Billy smiled. “And I have an in with the principal. I think I might be able to talk her into letting you use it.”
“I can’t,” Rod said.
“Fine, that’s your choice,” Billy said. “And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go outside to the flagpole and fly something that’s very close to you from the top of it.”
Billy turned and started down the hall toward the front door. Before he had taken five full steps, he felt Rod’s hand on his shoulder.
“You win,” Rod said. “I’ll do it. I won’t like it, but I’ll do it. Now give me Blankie back.”
“I’ll meet you back here in five minutes,” Billy said. “I have to find my source to get it back. He prefers his identity to remain secret.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said, Brownstone? I told you to stay here, and I’m not kidding. That’s part of the deal.”
Rod started to pace back and forth, biting his nails and spitting out the clippings. Billy left him there and ran down the hall toward the front door. He felt like Superman without the cape. He had done it. He had surprised himself and stood up for what he knew was right. And he did it without becoming just like Rod. That felt powerful indeed.
Billy heard the bell ring as he ran down the front steps, two at a time. That meant he’d be late to homeroom, but in this case, it was a good thing. Everyone else would be in class, and he could talk to the Hoove without being seen. He looked around and saw no one.
“Hoove!” he called out. “Make yourself visible.”
Billy heard a whistling from around the top of the flagpole. It was the familiar tune that he was beginning to get accustomed to — “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” Billy looked up and saw the Hoove start to appear in stages … first his belly, which looked pretty weird floating up there by itself. Then his right leg, followed by his neck and the other leg.
“Stop messing around and concentrate,” Billy called to him. “I need to talk to you … all of you.”
“Trust me, this is the best I can do,” the Hoove said. Then he whistled a little more, and suddenly, the rest of his body and his face appeared. He was sitting on the brass ball on top of the flagpole.
“Get down here,” Billy called to him. “And bring the blanket with you. There’s been a change of plans.”
The Hoove slid down the pole, letting out a playful whoop as he did. When he reached the ground, he floated over to Billy and snapped his suspenders.
“I should have been a fireman,” he said. “Turns out I’m good at pole sliding.”
“Hand over the blanket,” Billy said, talking very quickly. “We’re giving it back. Rod is waiting for me at the trophy case, practically biting his finger off.”
The Hoove looked extremely distressed. “You caved in to that bully. What’d he do, threaten you? I’m going in there to take care of him once and for all.”
The Hoove took off, gliding through the air toward the school entrance.
“I didn’t cave,” Billy called after him. “I got exactly what I wanted. He’s going to tell Ruby I didn’t give her the tonsil, and apologize to the whole school over the loudspeaker.”
The Hoove came to a sudden stop, as though he had slammed on an invisible brake.
“Wait a minute,” he said, flying back to where Billy was standing. “That’s good. Very good. How’d you do that?”
“With your help. I could never have convinced him without you flying through walls to get the blanket for me. You got the plan started.”
“That I did.”
“And I finished it. With style, I might add. Just like you taught me.”
“Like I always say, the Hoove’s rules rule.”
“You showed me how to believe in myself, Hoove. And that made me able to stand up to Rod. Before I met you, I didn’t even think this was possible. And now look. I got the guy begging for his Blankie back.”
Hoover tucked the little piece of blanket into his pocket.
“Well, he’s not getting it back. We were on the way to bringing the big boy down, Billy. Can’t we just let it flap in the breeze for a little while?”
“I gave him my word. Now give it to me, Hoove.”
“I want you to know that my entire body, or lack of body, is vibrating against this decision.”
“I know, Hoove. But trust me, for a change. It’s the right thing to do.”
“That does not come easy to me.”
Billy looked the Hoove right in the eye until the Hoove couldn’t stand it anymore. Slowly, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the little blue wad of blanket.
“We could have had such fun together,” he said to the blanket. Then he handed it over to Billy.
No sooner was the blanket in Billy’s hand than there was a roar of an airplane overhead. Billy and Hoover looked up. There was no airplane to be seen, but written in the sky, in a trail of white smoke, were the words:
HELPING OTHERS: SHOWS IMPROVEMENT.
And as suddenly as those words appeared, they were gone.
“Look at that,” the Hoove said. “There’s hope for me. That’s the best report card I’ve ever gotten.”
“Stick with me,” Billy said.
“What choice do I have?” the Hoove answered. “You’re my assignment.”
As Billy stuffed the blanket into his pocket and hurried up the stairs to school, the Hoove hovered in midair, watching him go. He noticed a look of confidence about Billy, an attitude he hadn’t seen before.
“Maybe there’s hope for that kid after all,” he said.
But Billy, being Billy, ran smack into the doorjamb, bumping his forehead and spilling the contents of his backpack all over the bricks. He looked up at the Hoove and waved, as if to say, “I’m all right.”
“No waving,” the Hoove called out to Billy. “Nowhere in the rules does it say it’s okay to wave.”
But Billy wasn’t listening. He just continued to wave until the Hoove had no choice but to flick him a little wave back.
As Billy disappeared inside the school doors, Hoover Porterhouse shook his head and sighed. It was going to be one tough year.
Preview
Can’t get enough of Billy and the Hoove?
Read on for a sneak peek at their
next crazy adventure!
GHOST
BUDDY
MIND IF I READ
YOUR MIND?
“Who wants to go first?” Mr. Wallwetter said, his beady eyes scanning the classroom like an eagle searching for a big, fat snake to eat. “Do we have a volunteer?”
“I nominate Cheese Sauce here,” Rod Brownstone blurted out, pointing to Billy with his beefy index finger. Some of the kids in the class snickered, but Billy ignored them. Growing up with the last name of Broccoli, he had gotten very good at ignoring cheese sauce jokes.
“How about it, Billy?” Mr. Wallwetter said. “Why don’t you be our first speaker in the Speak Out Challenge. SOC it to ’em, if you catch my drift?”
Billy gulped. The Hoove still hadn’t shown up, and without him, Billy had no speech. The assignment was to give a demonstration, and the Hoove was the main ingredient in his demonstration. He was going to have to stall until the Hoove arrived … that is, if he ever did arrive.
“Thanks so much for the offer, Mr. Wallwetter,” Billy said, using his most charming voice and sociable smile, “but I’d rather go last, if that works for you.”
“It doesn’t,” Mr. Wallwetter answered tartly, tugging on his skinny little mustache.
“Then how about next to last? I can make that work.”
“Come right up to the front of the class now, Billy,” Mr. Wallwetter said in a way that didn’t leave much room for saying no. “Wow us all with your demonstration.”
Billy looked around desperately for signs of the Hoove, hoping that he had floated in and was hovering somewhere above the fluorescent lights. No such luck. Billy’s heart raced with a combination of anger and nerves. The Hoove had sworn he’d be there when the opening bell rang. Promised. On his honor.
“The Hoove’s Rule Number One Hundred Forty-Three,” he had declared just that morning. “When you count on the Hoove, you can count on the Hoove.”
Yeah, right, Billy thought. I’d do better counting on my fingers and toes.
As Billy shuffled reluctantly to the front of the class, Rod made farting sounds with his mouth in time to Billy’s steps. Mr. Wallwetter didn’t seem to notice, though. He was busy writing Billy’s name on the board, along with the topic he had submitted.
A Demonstration of Mind Reading by William C. Broccoli.
“Check it out,” Brownstone snorted. “I bet that C stands for Cheese Sauce.”
“Honestly, Rod, why don’t you knock it off already,” Ruby whispered to him. “It wasn’t even funny the first time.”
Billy smiled at Ruby and she smiled back. Enjoy it while you can, he thought. In about two minutes, that great smile of hers was going to vanish when he made a total dork of himself trying to demonstrate mind reading and coming up with zippo.
“Are you ready, Billy?” Mr. Wallwetter asked, putting down the chalk and walking over to his desk.
“We were born ready, weren’t we, Billy Boy?” came a ghostly voice from the back of the room. Billy looked up and there, swooshing through the door in his hyperglide mode, was Hoover Porterhouse.
“I was about to give up on you, pal,” Billy said aloud before he could stop himself.
Mr. Wallwetter, not knowing there was a ghost in the room, thought Billy was addres
sing him. “Well, I’ll never give up on you, pal,” he whispered, coming over to Billy and giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Show us what you got, buddy.”
“Let’s do this,” the Hoove said. “We’re going to make their heads spin!”
About the Author
HENRY WINKLER is admired by audiences of all ages for his roles as the Fonz on the long-running series Happy Days and in such films as Holes and The Waterboy. He is also an award-winning producer and director of family and children’s programming, and the author (with Lin Oliver) of the critically acclaimed Hank Zipzer series. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
LIN OLIVER is a television producer and writer, who co-authored (with Henry Winkler) the New York Times bestselling series, Hank Zipzer: The World’s Greatest Underachiever, and Who Shrunk Daniel Funk? Lin resides in Los Angeles, California.
Copyright
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Copyright © 2012 by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver.
Cover art by Sam Nielson
Cover design by Steve Scott
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.
SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First printing, January 2012
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