Curse of the Were-wiener

by Ursula Vernon

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  PREMONITION (WHATEVER THAT IS)

  A STRANGE HOT DOG

  THE MORPHING

  LUNCH LADIES

  LUNCH MEATS

  LICAN-SOMETHING

  1-800-HELP

  THE WORST WURST

  ITCHING AND SCRATCHING

  SLEEPOVER

  DOWN, DOWN, DOWN

  YOUR POTATOSHIP

  FOOD FIGHT!

  BARBEQUE

  FOLLOW THE TRAIL

  SUSPENSION

  For Kevin, who cooked while I painted

  DIAL BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Published by The Penguin Group • Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, N Y 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0R L, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camber well Road, Camber well, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa • Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2010 by Ursula Vernon

  All rights reserved

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Vernon, Ursula.

  Dragonbreath : curse of the were-wiener / by Ursula Vernon. p. cm.

  Summary: When Danny Dragonbreath’s best friend Wendell the iguana is bitten by one of the hot dogs from his school lunch, he begins to turn into a were-wiener.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-44335-4

  [1. Dragons—Fiction. 2. Iguanas—Fiction. 3. Frankfurters—Fiction.

  4. School lunchrooms, cafeterias, etc.—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction.

  6. Humorous stories.] I. Title. II. Title: Curse of the were-wiener.

  PZ7.V5985Drh 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2009049358

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  PREMONITION (WHATEVER THAT IS)

  “What is your problem?” asked Danny’s best friend, Wendell, shaking him awake.

  Danny Dragonbreath woke with a start.

  “Huhzz? What?” He blinked at the iguana. “Wendell?”

  “You fell asleep on the bus,” said Wendell, leaning back. “And then you started flailing and saying my name, and you’re just lucky I woke you up before anybody heard. Sheesh. How embarrassing.”

  Danny rubbed the back of his neck and then put his hand over his stomach. He’d been having some kind of nightmare—something about the moon and Wendell.

  And he remembered spooky woods. Not the fun Halloween kind of spooky, but the real kind of spooky, dark and dripping wet.

  He couldn’t remember what had been happening in the woods, but it was bad, whatever it was.

  Danny looked out the window. It was a gray day, but it hadn’t rained yet. Of course Wendell had brought his umbrella with him anyway. Wendell’s umbrella—which his mother had picked out—had a map of the world on it. (Wendell’s house also had shower curtains with a map of the solar system on them, and periodic-table place mats. That was just the sort of person Wendell’s mother was.)

  “Well?” said Wendell, poking him with the umbrella.

  “I had a really weird nightmare,” said Danny.

  Wendell waited.

  “You were in it. We were in a dark forest, and something was wrong.”

  Wendell waited.

  After a minute, the iguana said, “That’s it? That’s all?”

  “What?” asked Danny defensively. “It was totally scary!”

  He had to admit that once he’d said it out loud, it didn’t sound nearly scary enough.

  Wendell put his hands on his hips. “It was scary. That’s it? No elaborate stories of monsters and quicksand and lightning and having to cross rivers of hot lava by jumping on the heads of ravenous lava earwigs the size of cows, with pincers made out of giant steel knives?”

  “Well, no . . .” said Danny, “but that would be pretty cool. Especially the lava earwigs! I never knew you had it in you, Wendell! What do lava earwigs eat, you think?”

  “People,” said Wendell. “No, wait, it’d be too hard to eat people all the time if you lived in hot lava. They’d have to survive on some kind of rocks, I suppose.”

  “But they’d eat people when they could get them,” said Danny, waving his hands. “Like ice cream! I bet if you lived in lava and ate hot rocks all day, people would taste cool and refreshing. Different people would be different flavors too. Spicy Dragon . . . Vanilla Iguana . . . Chocolate Chip Salamander . . .”

  The bus arrived at school, cutting short more speculation on the life and times of the Giant Lava Earwig, but Danny was feeling better anyway. Lava earwigs were much more interesting than vague dreams about woods and Wendell.

  There was still a nagging uneasiness buried at the bottom of his mind, like the old papers at the bottom of his locker. But it was easy enough to ignore. Danny had heard of the word “premonition” but thought it had something to do with car engines. Wendell did know what the word meant, but he didn’t believe in premonitions.

  A STRANGE HOT DOG

  The line for lunch was nearly to the door, which was normal, and the hot dogs were large and bright red, which was not normal. Danny poked his lunch a few times and thought he felt it twitch.

  “There’s something weird about the hot dogs,” he said to Wendell.

  “Weird how?” asked Wendell, who brought his lunch. His bologna sandwich was cut into neat triangles, again, courtesy of his mother. Danny would bet money that there was a neatly folded napkin in Wendell’s lunch box, possibly with a map of the solar system on it.

  “Take a look. Doesn’t the color strike you as sort of . . . unnatural?”

  “It’s a hot dog,” said Wendell, but peered over at Danny’s lunch anyway. “Oh. Hmm.” He shoved his glasses up on his nose and picked up the hot dog warily. “You’re right. That’s not normal hot dog color.” He handed it back to Danny.

  “Looks sort of like . . . blood,” said Danny.

  “Anyway,” Wendell said, “it looks more like a candy-apple red to me—OW!”

  “What? What?”

  Wendell jerked his hand away from the hot dog and shoved a finger into his mouth. “Owwwmmmff!” he said around the mouthful of finger.

  “Are you okay?”

  Danny considered this. On the one hand, hot dogs didn’t usually bite. On the other hand, Wendell was not what their teacher Mr. Snaug called “a fantasy-prone personality.” (Mr. Snaug did call Danny this on a regular basis, generally in notes sent home to Danny’s parents.)

  Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time the school lunch had fought back. There had been that incident last spring.

  “You remember the potato salad?”

  “The one that bit Big Eddy?” Wendell nodded. “Yeah. I thought it escaped into the storm drain, though.”

  “It did. And anyway, everybody knows that potato salad and hot dogs are mortal enemies,” said Danny.

  “You’re lucky I’m in too much pain to ask how you know that.”

  “Let
me see your hand.”

  Danny peered over the wound. Sure enough, there was a semicircular row of little red dents, with a tiny bead of blood at the bottom of each one. “Holy cow, I think it did bite you.”

  “Should I go to the nurse?” asked Wendell worriedly. “What if I catch some horrible hot-dog-borne illness?”

  “Wiener pox,” said Danny gravely, tapping his snout. “Kills thousands every year. The government hushes it up.”

  “I think I have some bandages in my locker . . . ” Wendell glanced suspiciously at the now-quiet hot dog. “Are you gonna eat that?”

  “After it bit you?” Danny considered. “I dunno. Feels sort of like . . . long-distance cannibalism.” He held it up in one hand.

  “What are you—”

  “Wait for it . . . ”

  Big Eddy the Komodo dragon, the school bully, stalked by a minute later and plucked the hot dog out of Danny’s hand. “Thanks, dorkbreath,” he sneered.

  “Oh, no. You have taken my lunch. Stop,” recited Danny in a monotone.

  Big Eddy looked briefly confused, but settled for slapping Danny on the back of the head and stomping off.

  Wendell did indeed have bandages in his locker—three boxes worth. Danny peered over the iguana’s shoulder with mild awe.

  “Are those periodic-table bandages?”

  “Mom buys them,” said Wendell, sighing. He slapped the atomic weight of chromium on his wound.

  “Your mom has issues.”

  “You have no idea . . .”

  THE MORPHING

  Danny woke up the next day feeling a little off. Not bad, exactly, not unsettled the way he had been the previous morning on the bus, just . . . off.

  He went down to breakfast and found his mother snoring into her coffee. Danny’s dad was away on a business trip, and Danny’s mother did not do mornings well.

  Toast. Toast seemed like a good idea. He slid some bread into the toaster.

  “Zzz . . . zz . . . ”

  It was taking forever for the toast to pop up. Danny rubbed the back of his neck. Something just wasn’t quite right. His mom sat at the end of the table with her claws around a cup of coffee, looking like death only partially warmed over.

  “Are you . . . ” He stopped. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask. “Is everything okay?”

  Something in his voice must have alerted her. She opened an eye and made an effort to focus on him. “M’fine. Morning. Y’know.” She dipped her tongue into her coffee.

  Danny wished his dad were home and cooking breakfast—bacon and eggs might go a long way toward chasing the last bits of his nightmare away. He could talk to his mom about it, and she’d probably make an effort to wake up and listen, but he didn’t know what he’d say. I had a nightmare and it was scary but I don’t really remember why seemed sort of vague, not to mention babyish.

  After a minor eternity, the toast popped up. Danny buttered it thoughtfully. Had he had another nightmare? He didn’t remember dreaming at all.

  “Are you okay?” his mother asked, making a Herculean effort to wake up.

  Danny nodded, then shrugged. “Yeah. Just . . . I dunno. You know, some mornings you just don’t feel right.”

  “That’s every morning,” muttered Mrs. Dragonbreath, sinking lower into her chair with her coffee.

  Normally Danny would have enjoyed the walk to the bus stop, but it was a gray, gray day, and it left him in a gray, gray mood that his usual cheer-fulness couldn’t shake. The sky couldn’t decide if it was raining or not. Occasional raindrops splattered on his head and on the pavement, but not quite enough to justify getting out an umbrella.

  It was drizzling, he decided. He felt like he was drizzling too. (His head, not his body—that would have just been disgusting.)

  After about ten minutes, the drizzle increased to something close to plain old rain. Danny gave up toughing it out and dug around in his backpack for his umbrella.

  One side of it was sort of broken from the time he and Wendell had an umbrella fight, but it kept the rain off.

  Wendell was already at the bus stop, slumped against the sign. He looked even more miserable than usual, which for Wendell was saying something. Most iguanas had a sort of gloomy look anyway, but Wendell seemed to feel that if he was miserable in advance, life would go easier on him.

  He didn’t even look up when Danny approached.

  “Wendell? Buddy?”

  Danny waved a hand in front of the iguana’s face. “Wendell?”

  “Oh. Hey.” Wendell twisted the straps of his backpack between his hands. “It’s you.”

  Danny didn’t exactly expect a wild greeting in the morning—Wendell dancing around and cheering would have been weird—but this was worrisome. “Are you okay?”

  “I . . . I have a problem,” said Wendell.

  Danny opened his mouth to say that Wendell had a lot of problems, most of them mental, but the expression on the iguana’s face stopped him. “Really?”

  Wendell looked around nervously. There was no one else at the bus stop, but he still lowered his voice.

  “Promise you won’t tell anybody?”

  “Dragon’s honor.”

  Wendell sighed, turned around, and pulled his shirt up.

  “Wendell!” Danny put a hand up to his mouth involuntarily.

  “Keep your voice down!” hissed Wendell, yanking his shirt quickly back down.

  “No! We’re reptiles, same as everybody!” Wendell crossed his arms, looking defiant and miserable all at once. “And look at my hot dog bite!”

  Danny leaned forward. “Oh man . . . ”

  The wound was puffy and looked a little swollen, like a mosquito bite. But more importantly, the entire thing was bright red. Not infected red, but an unnatural, candy-apple red . . . a very familiar shade . . .

  “Wendell! Dude! That’s the same color as the hot dog!”

  “I know!” said Wendell.

  “Did you tell your mom?”

  “Yeah. She called the doctor and they said some redness was normal for an insect bite. She didn’t see the hot dog, so she thinks it was a bug.” Wendell tucked his hand into his armpit.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No. Kinda itches, though.”

  “There’s something very weird going on here,” said Danny, not without some delight. “And we’re going to get to the bottom of it!”

  “I want to go to the hospital,” said Wendell.

  The dragon put his hands on his hips. “And say what? They’re never going to believe it was a hot dog bite.”

  LUNCH LADIES

  “This is a terrible plan,” said Wendell.

  “It’s a great plan,” said Danny. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I think you killed it that time you said we should build a catapult.”

  “It was a great catapult.”

  Wendell realized that he was on the losing side of history regarding the Avocado Catapult Incident, and went back to his original complaint. “Besides, you never said how we were going to get into the lunchroom and get a look at those hot dogs. They don’t let kids back there. Ms. Woggenthal will throw you out on your tail.” (Ms. Woggenthal was a matronly salamander who always wore a hairnet, despite not having any hair. She ran the lunchroom with an iron fist and plastic gloves.)

  “That,” said Danny with relish, “is the cleverest and sneakiest part of my plan.”

  Wendell heaved a sigh and waited, like a kid seeing a tetanus shot in his not-too-distant future. “Yes?”

  “You’re on the yearbook committee.”

  Wendell folded his arms. “I don’t like where this is going.”

  “Oh, come on. You go to the lunchroom. You turn on the charm. You tell Ms. Woggenthal that you’re doing a special section on lunch, and that you want some photos of the lovely ladies of the lunchroom.”

  Wendell wavered.

  Danny played his last card. “Do you really want to shave your back for the rest of your life?”


  Danny lurked behind the door while the iguana talked to Ms. Woggenthal. He had to admit, when Wendell put his mind to something, he really gave it his all.

  “So,” Wendell finished up, “we were thinking of a little spotlight on the people who feed us lunch every day. The school chefs! The people who make it all happen!” He held up his fingers at right angles, looking through the little window as if it were a camera. “I was hoping I could get some ideas for shots back in the kitchen, and then we’ll come back next week when we’ve got the section approved and take a few photos.”

  Danny rolled his eyes. If he’d tried this, he’d have been thrown out so fast, his tail would smoke. But of course, because it was Wendell—

  “That sounds nice,” said Ms. Woggenthal, patting girlishly at her hairnet. “Come on back.”

  Wendell winked at Danny behind the door and followed the lady salamander into the kitchen, leaving the door open behind him. “Thank you, Ms. Woggenthal. Would you mind answering a few questions as well? For instance, how do you come up with these masterpieces? The cheese wrap last week was exquisite!”

  Their voices receded. Danny waited a moment, then poked his head around the door.

  Wendell had Ms. Woggenthal on the other side of the room. “Stand right there,” he said, again holding up his fingers. “I’m seeing a photo with you at the table here, perhaps with a ladle in one hand, or a spatula—”

  Danny slipped through the door and hurried across the room. There was a short corridor, and the big walk-in freezer stood at the end of it, cold and silver . . . and shut tight.

  “Well,” Danny muttered under his breath, “nothing ventured, nothing gained . . . ” It was one of his mother’s favorite sayings. Whenever she said it, his father would reply with “Fools rush in,” but Danny didn’t think that was terribly productive under the circumstances.