Almost a Winner

by Molly B. Burnham

  “No,” I say.

  He shrugs and wanders into the aviary, and I struggle with the bucket now filled with water. When I get there, The Destructor is pouring the pigeon food into their food container.

  “What are you doing?” I say.

  “I’m feeding the pigeons. Mr. Marney taught me how.”

  “It’s not that easy. We have to time it,” I say as the pigeons flock around, grabbing the seeds that The Destructor has poured.

  “I know,” he says. “I’ve got a watch.” He sticks his hand into my face, pulls up his sleeve, and shows me.

  “Where’d you get that from?” I ask.

  “Mr. Marney gave it to me. He said if I was going to take care of the pigeons I better have a watch. It even has an alarm so I know when ten minutes is up.” The Destructor presses some buttons and the watch beeps. “See?” he says. He presses another button and it stops.

  Grumpy Pigeon Man gave him a watch! He’s never given me anything except a lot of hollering! (And, of course, a sleeping bag when I lived in my tent—but that doesn’t count. If I’d frozen to death, I wouldn’t have been able to take care of his pigeons.)

  If I knew the pigeons wouldn’t get scared, I would scream my head off!

  Instead I storm back to the house, trying to think up ways to destroy The Destructor. Unfortunately, I’m so mad I don’t come up with any.

  But, like Thomas Edison, I’m going to give it one more try.

  STARTING NOW

  I was so distracted by The Destructor this morning that I forgot to bring any plastic bags to school. I actually don’t even remember until I see Lonnie and Viva walk up together, pulling a wagon filled to the top with wires, springs, cardboard, string, fabric, cans, bottles, paper towel tubes, toilet paper rolls . . . (I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point.) On top of all that stuff is a huge bag of plastic bags.

  Lewis glares at them from the front of the line. “I’ve got loads of stuff at home. I’m bringing it tomorrow.”

  When Ms. Raffeli walks out to greet us, her face lights up like the 601,736 lights that hold the record for most lights on a residential property (that means a place someone lives in). I have to say, I have never seen Ms. Raffeli this happy. She’s definitely happier than when I brought in stuff.

  “Oh! What would I do without you two?” she gushes as she leads us to our classroom. “We are definitely winning the inventors’ fair this year. I feel it in my bones!”

  Ms. Raffeli is so happy she forgets to tell us to hurry and hang up our backpacks, or to get in our groups. Instead, she stands by the wagon, picking through it. She pulls out a piece of fabric and says, “This will be perfect for the baby blanket.” She pauses and looks at all the plastic bags. “That’s a lot of plastic bags.”

  Viva shrugs and smiles right at Ms. Raffeli. “You never know when you’ll need them.”

  The rest of us quickly walk away. It’s obvious that this is not the time to tell Ms. Raffeli about the world record. The inventors’ fair is clearly too important to her. And really, sometimes it’s best not to tell grown-ups everything. Their lives are hard enough as it is.

  YOU’D TOTALLY GET IT

  Ms. Raffeli says to pull out our sketches and imagine what materials we’ll need to make our inventions.

  Ny stares at our sketch. “Maybe train tracks,” she says, “or Hot Wheels tracks. Something for the plastic bag to attach to and also slide the used bag away from the dog.”

  “We’ll need something to connect everything to the dog,” Cornelio says. “Maybe a belt?”

  “Great ideas!” Ms. Raffeli leans over. “You’ve got a winner here.”

  And maybe it’s because she says that, or maybe because we’re inventing and breaking a record, but I get that zingy feeling again. “You know what we need?” I say. “A dog!”

  Everyone looks at me like I’ve gone crazy.

  Ms. Raffeli’s face lights up for a second, then she frowns. “Unfortunately we can’t have any dogs in the school unless they are therapy dogs.”

  “I mean a fake dog,” I say. “I don’t know how we make it, but we have to make one so everyone can see how our invention works.”

  Ms. Raffeli smiles. “I like how you think, Teddy.” And she moves on to another group.

  Lewis says, “That’s what I was going to say.”

  I don’t even get bothered because my brain is too busy trying to think of how to make a fake dog.

  OUR RECORD WILL BE A FIRST

  At lunch we all squeeze into the same table. Viva shows us a chart she’s making to keep track of how many bags we collect. She tells us about the only two plastic bag records she knows. One is for the most plastic bags collected in eight hours (120,000). She pauses to take a bite of her carrot, then says, “The second one is for a sculpture made out of 68,000 plastic bags. It’s in the shape of an octopus!”

  Lonnie says, “I’d like to see that in person.”

  Lewis says, “That’s what I was going to say.”

  Viva sighs and then looks at me. “Teddy, am I forgetting anything?”

  “I can’t think of any others,” I say, peeling a very mushy, very brown banana. I’d rather not eat it, but it’s this or the sandwich Dad made on moldy bread. You’d think he’d notice mold!

  Lonnie says, “So our record will be a first.”

  I nod.

  Lewis says, “That makes it easy.”

  “Not necessarily,” Lonnie says. “We still need an amazingly large amount of bags, or else the world record people won’t take us seriously. Like, more than 120,000 for sure.”

  Ny’s eyes get big. “That’s a lot.”

  Everyone at the table starts talking at once. And even though we are talking about my favorite thing in the world, my banana peel is distracting me. The peel looks like two ears of a dog and the banana looks like a dog’s face. Which gets me wondering about how to make a fake dog for our invention.

  “Teddy,” Lonnie says.

  “Sorry,” I say, blinking a couple of times.

  Lewis says, “You’re the one with access to the most bags, so we need you to stay focused.”

  “Right,” I say. “Bring in bags. Got it.”

  While I’m wiping banana off my hand, Lonnie, Viva, and Lewis do a high five; then the lunch monitor rings the bell, and everyone runs through the doors to the playground.

  By everyone I do mean everyone.

  Lonnie and Viva don’t even wait for me.

  That’s a first. And even though my feelings are a little hurt, I understand, because I know how exciting breaking a record can be.

  It makes your brain do crazy things.

  THAT’S A GOOD QUESTION

  At recess, I was hoping we’d all play tag, but the whole group is huddled together looking over the chart, trying to figure out how many bags we need to bring in every day to come close to some kind of record.

  Angus is hopping all over the place, which looks like a lot more fun than sitting around doing math. He also looks like a hopping chicken, which makes me laugh. And thinking about chickens makes me remember the chicken sculptures we made last year in art class out of wire and papier-mâché.

  “That’s how we can make our dog! Lewis! Cornelio! Ny!” I run over to them, but they don’t even look up.

  I tap Lewis’s shoulder. I think he’d be really excited, since this invention was his idea. “I thought of how to make the dog.”

  “How can you talk about our invention when we’re thinking about our world record?” Lewis asks.

  I admit that’s a good question, especially for someone like me, who usually only thinks about breaking a record.

  And speaking of records, Angus is still hopping. That guy could break a record!

  ALL BY MYSELF

  When we go back into our classroom, Lewis, Cornelio, and Ny listen to my idea about the papier-mâché, and they love it. The rest of the day is spent digging through the recycled items, finding things we’ll need for our invention. We have plenty
of newspapers, which is important for papier-mâché, and even some chicken wire to make the dog shape.

  “Am I allowed to bring in flour?” I ask Ms. Raffeli.

  “As long as you don’t buy it just for this,” she says.

  We can’t believe our luck when we pull out things we can use later, like a belt that will hold our invention onto the dog, and old chair legs that can hold up the track and the plastic bags. Before we know it the bell rings for the end of the day.

  For me, this has been the best day ever. I’d stay longer and keep on working, but the rest of my group grabs their stuff while Ms. Raffeli hands out a few pages of reading and heads out the door.

  By the time I get outside, no one is around. Max leans out the bus window. “They all took off,” he yells, “but Viva said to bring in as many plastic bags tomorrow as you can!”

  “Where’d everyone go?” I shout back.

  “They all went to Lewis’s house,” he yells, sticking his head in the window as the bus drives off.

  For a few seconds, I stand there in front of school all by myself.

  Ms. Raffeli walks out. “Teddy? Is everything all right?”

  I nod.

  “See you tomorrow,” she says, and walks to her car.

  Like I said, this has been a really great day, but suddenly the best day ever isn’t so great anymore.

  MY TO-DO LIST #11

  When I get home, I grab a snack, pull out my to-do list, and add a few things to it.

  1. Invent a way to keep The Destructor far from me.

  2. Invent a way to keep The Destructor out of the aviary.

  3. Break a world record with Lonnie and Viva.

  4. Get my old desk back.

  5. Come up with an invention.

  6. Muddle through school for the rest of the year.

  7. Have three seconds alone with Lonnie and Viva.

  8. Survive breaking a record with a lot of people.

  9. Bring in plastic bags.

  10. Bring in more wire.

  11. Bring in flour.

  ONE GOOD THING

  After dinner I grab as many plastic bags from Caitlin and Casey as I can while they fight over plastic bottles. I can’t believe my luck when I find more chicken wire.

  I don’t ask if I can have it; I just take it.

  I’m stuffing all the plastic bags into one large trash bag when Mom says to Dad, “Please try and get Jake out of the pigeon costume. We need to wash it.”

  “Where are you going?” Dad asks.

  “I’m doing the trash.”

  “But I cooked,” Dad says. As if that means something, considering dinner was chicken so burnt that you needed a saw to cut through it, and broccoli that was so overcooked it melted in your mouth.

  Instead of answering him, Mom lugs the bag outside.

  Dad looks at The Destructor. The Destructor looks at Dad.

  Dad says, “This is not a problem.”

  “Coo! Coo!” The Destructor does not sound happy.

  “We can do this. Right, Jake?” But instead of answering Dad, The Destructor squawks out of the room.

  “How does your mother do this?” Dad mutters, and runs after him.

  I reach into the cabinet and grab the bag of flour. In some families, you need to ask before taking a bag of flour. I guess that’s the one good thing about mine, no one notices anything!

  INVENTORS VS. THE DESTRUCTOR

  The next morning as I walk into the aviary to feed the birds, I get slammed in the face with something.

  “Ow!” I scream, and pull off another wad of wet paper.

  “Oh.” The Destructor shrugs. “It’s you. I thought you’d never wake up. Not even the alarm on my watch woke you up, and it beeps really loud.”

  I glare at him. “What is with you and that slingshot?”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “And what exactly is your job?”

  “I’m Pigeon Boy, protector of the pigeons!” He jumps onto a bucket, sticks out his chest, and holds his slingshot high. “Coo! Coo!”

  “Well, I’m not here to hurt them,” I say. “I’m here to feed them.”

  “If you’re going to feed the pigeons,” The Destructor says, still standing on the bucket, “you’ve got to get up early in the morning.”

  “I do get here early,” I say.

  “But not as early as me,” he says. “And that’s why I fed them.”

  “You fed them?” I say.

  “Yeah, they seemed hungry.”

  “That’s because it’s the morning!” I say. “And I feed them in the morning. Me! Not you!”

  “Admiral Ackbar was getting grumpy.”

  “He’s always grumpy!” I yell.

  “Don’t shout,” The Destructor whispers. “It scares the birds.”

  “Argh!” I say, and storm out.

  One of the things I learned from my homework is that inventors were not always nice to each other. It’s awful to think about, but sometimes they stole ideas from one another. I guess some people call this being dedicated; I call it lousy.

  And stealing is exactly what The Destructor is doing to me. He’s stealing my aviary, my Grumpy Pigeon Man, my job! And he doesn’t see anything wrong with it. Well, I’ve had enough. The only way to fight him is to be like him, which means acting like a miserable, thieving inventor.

  I do not think this will be easy, but it will be necessary.

  THE BEST WAY TO ORGANIZE

  Mom couldn’t drive me to school this morning even though I had a full trash bag of plastic bags to carry. Mom couldn’t drive me because she has to work on the plumbing in the downstairs bathroom. She has to work on the plumbing because it turns out that for days The Destructor has been stuffing pigeon feathers down the toilet. He did this because he wanted to clean the aviary and the toilet was the best place to dump the evidence. Since the evidence was mostly poo.

  Nothing happened until this morning, when I used the toilet and it overflowed. Feathers went all over the floor and all over me!

  Anyway, the plastic bags aren’t all that heavy, but they did slow me down a little. I was also slowed down because I needed to find dry sneakers, so I was late to school.

  When I walk into class, Lonnie and Viva rush over to help.

  “Look at all of them,” Lonnie says.

  Viva sits down on the bag like it’s a chair.

  “Did you get new sneakers?” Lonnie asks.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  This is not true, of course he wants to know, but luckily Ms. Raffeli walks over right then. “That’s a lot of plastic bags.”

  “You never know when someone will need a plastic bag,” I say.

  “Good thinking,” she says, and wanders away to help Team #1 with a wheel issue.

  Ny walks over with a clipboard. “How many bags did you bring in?” She sees I’m confused. “It’s for this chart.”

  “I thought Viva made a chart?”

  “Our charts are different. Hers was for how many we need to collect. Mine is for how many bags we have collected.”

  Lewis steps in between us. “So far we have thirty.”

  Viva pushes Lewis out of the way. “But that doesn’t include the bags Lonnie and I brought yesterday. We have to count those up today at recess.”

  Lewis holds a rolled-up ball of plastic bags about the same size as a tennis ball.

  Lonnie says, “We tied the ends of the bags together and then rolled them up.”

  “It’s the best way to organize them,” Viva says.

  “When did you do that?” I ask.

  “This morning,” Lewis says, tossing it up and down. “We got here early. If you’re going to break a world record, you’ve got to get up early.”

  I think about this. I know it’s true because The Destructor gets up early, and he’s about to break a world record for most annoying brother in the world.

  THE DOG

  I pull out the wire and the flour I took from our kitchen and we all g
et to work. Ny and I bend the chicken wire into the shape of a tall dog. Lewis directs us, and I don’t even mind because I’m having so much fun. “Longer legs,” he says. “Bigger ears, or he’ll look like a tall cat,” he says. “Don’t forget the tail. My dog has a tail.”

  By lunchtime, we’ve got the dog halfway covered in papier-mâché.

  Ms. Raffeli comes over. “Oh!” she says. “It’s wonderful.” Her eyes actually fill up with tears and she hugs me. “Good thinking, Teddy.”

  It’s nice to feel like I’m getting something right.

  TOP OF THE WORLD

  “We’ve got to get the word out that we need plastic bags,” Lonnie says, taking a bite out of a sandwich that looks really good.

  “We need to make posters,” Viva says as she takes a bite of her yogurt. Yogurt is not my favorite, but it’s still better than the dry crackers I have in my lunch today.

  “That’s what I was going to say,” Lewis says.

  Viva shakes her head. “And because we need to make posters, I’ve brought markers and paper.”

  Lewis doesn’t say anything.

  During recess, some of us sit around tying plastic bags to each other and adding them to the plastic bag ball we already have, while Cornelio checks off how many bags we have. And some of us make posters.

  By the end of recess, we have a plastic bag ball as big as a beach ball, we have three posters asking for plastic bag donations, and we have a bunch of kids feeling like they’re on top of the world.

  GRACE NEEDS NEWS

  I’m in the kitchen inventing possible ways to keep The Destructor out of the aviary.

  1. Superglue him to his bed.

  2. Set up a giant net that drops on him when he opens Grumpy Pigeon Man’s gate.

  3. Throw bars of chocolate at him every morning and afternoon. He forgets about everything when there’s chocolate around.

  I’m trying to come up with number four when Grace walks in.

  “Pay attention,” she says. “Pay very close attention. I need a good story for the newspaper.”