“You need to get to sleep, okay?” he said.
“Okay.”
And she did.
Worry. It’s such a big boss. It bosses all the good feelings right out the window.
The next morning, Mrs. Pickett walked them to school holding the biggest cup of coffee Cody had ever seen. She and Mr. Pickett had pulled an all-nighter to get their website ready for the launch.
Spencer carried his violin and his amazing leaf project. He looked so happy. He looked lit up from the inside out, like a lantern wearing glasses.
Cody decided to wait till later to tell him that in just a few hours, he was doomed to a fight to the finish.
The playground was nice and muddy. Kids ran around slipping and sliding. Cody rescued three worms stranded on the sidewalk and put them safely back in the grass. Molly Meen, Pirate Queen, pointed at them from the top of the climber.
“Don’t forget!” she cried.
“Forget what?” said Spencer.
“Umm. I forget,” said Cody.
Spencer gave her a strange look.
By the end of the day, Cody had the whim-whams. On the way to GG’s, she tried to calm herself down by saying the four times table. The times tables were like a parade. When you wrote them, the numbers marched along in perfect straight lines. And when you said them out loud, they beat like a drum.
“Four times one is four! Four times two is eight!”
Mrs. Pickett kept yawning. Even her ears looked tired. Spencer told her to go take a little rest. He said he could make their snack.
“My big boy.” His mother gave him a kiss. “I’m so proud of you. You really are learning how to take care of yourself!” Then she gave Cody a kiss, too, and up the stairs she went.
Spencer got out the crackers. He measured out perfectly equal amounts of apple juice. But no way Cody could eat.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she said.
Before she could say another word, footsteps pounded up the back steps.
“Battle time!” yelled a familiar voice. “Don’t even think about chickening out!”
Behind his glasses, Spencer’s eyes popped.
“Escape is impossible!” yelled the voice. “The time is at hand!”
Footsteps pounding away.
“That,” said Cody. “That’s what I needed to tell you.”
Spencer gripped the apple juice like it was trying to get away. “What’s happening? What battle?”
“I couldn’t help it,” Cody said. “I got sick of them bossing us around!”
“You challenged them to a battle?”
“Not really. Just sort of.”
Spencer set the juice down. He shook his big, round head.
“What were you thinking?” he said.
“Are you sure you don’t have some secret fighting skills you never told me about?”
“We’re going to get exterminated,” Spencer said.
Spencer curled into a Spencer ball. The boy who knew how to take care of himself was gone. Old, timid Spencer was back.
“I’m no good at fighting. Besides, fighting is bad! It just makes things worse.”
“How can things get worse? We have to stand up for ourselves. Otherwise we let the bad stuff win.”
“I don’t want to get creamed,” he whispered. “Getting creamed is not good, in my experience.”
Spencer’s eyes grew shiny with tears. He needed Cody to protect him, all right. He needed her, the same as he used to.
Cody felt a tiny bit glad.
But just a tiny bit. Because right then, Cody understood something she didn’t before.
She needed Spencer, too.
“We can do it together,” she said. “Like the ants! If we stick together.”
“I can’t,” said Spencer. And then, all of a sudden, he sat up straighter. “And I won’t! You’re the one who got us into this! I wasn’t even here.”
“I know! Because you keep going over to Pearl’s.”
“I can’t help it if I have to practice.”
“You and your dumb violin. You and dumb Pearl.”
“Dumb is a mean word!”
“So?”
“So . . . go ahead and fight! I refuse.”
Spencer crossed his arms on his chest. He squinched his eyes shut, like a little kid who thinks that if he can’t see you, you can’t see him.
“Fine!” Cody jumped up. “Be like that! You microscopic bacteria, you!”
She waited a minute, hoping Spencer would change his mind. But his eyes stayed shut. His arms stayed crossed. At last, she opened the door and stepped outside.
The backyard was soppy with puddles. A bird perched on GG’s brimming birdbath.
No Meens in sight.
Cody stood very still. Please! Let Molly get sick of war, too. Let her sign a peace treaty. Please! Let . . .
Behind her the door creaked open. She spun around. Spencer!
“I knew it!” Cody hugged him. “I knew you’d stick with me!”
Really, she hadn’t known it at all. But she’d hoped it. And that is just as good.
“Shh! They might be planning an ambush.” Spencer swiveled his head. “They could be hiding, waiting to jump out.”
“Unless they —”
“Cowabunga!”
Molly and Maxie charged up out of their hole. Well, Molly did. Maxie had to get hauled out. They’d plastered their faces with mud war paint. They waved their swords. They gave bloodcurdling battle cries.
Sometimes your feet are moving before your brain even knows it. Cody and Spencer took off, running as fast as they could. Only this was not very fast at all, because Spencer was always slow and the ground was one big mud-goosh. Cody gripped his hand.
Around the yard they went. First Cody dragging Spencer, then Molly, then, bringing up the rear, Maxie. Around and around they went, past GG’s garden, the big hole, the butterfly chairs. Spencer started gasping for breath. He couldn’t keep it up much longer. They had to do something. But what?
“Throw something!” Cody commanded.
He pulled off his sensible shoe. Like a mighty warrior, he swung it over his head and let go. It missed the Meens by about a mile.
“Throw something back!” Molly commanded.
Maxie pulled off her sneaker but slipped on the wet grass. Her arms shot out like a superhero who just lost her super flying power.
Whomp! Maxie landed on the ground.
Whomp, whomp! Her big sister landed on top of her. This was Cody and Spencer’s chance to escape. They spun around and flew toward the house.
Except.
Another bloodcurdling scream.
“Yellow jackets!”
Cody looked back. Molly leaped to her feet, slapping the air around her. What Cody saw then turned her ice cold. Cold in parts of her she didn’t even know could get cold.
Yellow jackets swarmed up from a hole in the ground. Not one. Not two or three or ten. Dozens and dozens, more than she could count. Grabbing Spencer, Cody started to run.
“Look out!” she yelled over her shoulder. “Get away! Quick!”
Molly ran, too. But not Maxie. She froze. She turned into a Maxie statue. The furious yellow jackets buzzed straight for her. War! They declared war against her for disturbing their nest!
“Maxie! Run for your life!”
But she just stood there, hypnotized. Cody’s heart did a cartwheel. She remembered how bad her sting hurt. Bad bad bad! She raced back, picked Maxie up, and took off. She didn’t stop till she was up the back steps and safe inside GG’s kitchen.
Only, uh-oh.
By mistake, she’d run up the wrong steps.
This was the Meen kitchen.
“What’s all the racket? What’d I tell you kids about playing nice?”
Steel-toed boots stomped toward them.
Cody had never been indoors with Mr. Meen before. The way a Christmas tree always looks bigger when you take it inside the house, so it was with Mr. Meen.
“Look at the mud you tracked in! I just scrubbed this floor!” But then he saw that Maxie was crying. “What happened? What have you kids been doing?”
The back door banged open. In rushed Molly and Spencer.
“Killer bees!” Molly’s face matched her hair. “They attacked us!”
Something you might not know: even Pirate Queens cry.
“Dang bugs!” roared Mr. Meen. “Sit down! Show Daddy. Aw, I know it hurts, Max.”
Another thing you might not know: all dads, even the exterminator ones, want to make their kids feel better.
And Mr. Meen turned out to be a feel-better expert. One two three, he had Maxie patched up and slathered with Big Ralph’s. He had her blowing her nose in a napkin instead of her sleeve. Molly kept saying the bees got her, too, but even though Mr. Meen looked, he couldn’t find a single sting.
“They didn’t get you, honey pie,” he said.
“Yes, they did! It really hurt!”
Mr. Meen flashed his dazzling, gold-toothed smile.
“Your baby sister got hurt. You’re such a good sister, you felt her pain.” He turned to Cody. “You didn’t get stung again, did you?”
“Not this time.”
“She saved me!” said Maxie. “She saved me from killer bees!”
“She did?” Mr. Meen smacked the table. “Now, that’s what I call super brave. Because this is a girl who knows firsthand that a sting is no fun.”
“That’s how come I did it,” said Cody. “I remembered how much it hurts.”
“Well, the entire Meen family thanks you.” He pumped her hand up and down. “You like ribs?”
“Huh?”
“Because I’m cooking up some tonight, and I got plenty.” He slapped the table again. “Tell you what. Invite that nice old lady Grace, too. And those other two that are always running around like chickens with their heads chopped off. Let’s celebrate you kids becoming friends at last!”
Molly’s mouth made a shape like an egg. But Maxie . . . Well.
In this life, many things are sweet:
Marshmallows
A cat purring in your lap
Violin music played by someone who knows what he is doing
But nothing is sweeter than a little kid hugging you. Even one slathered with mud and meat tenderizer.
Mr. Meen, wearing an apron that said STAND BACK — DAD’S COOKING!, set up a table on the porch. GG brought out plates and napkins and her homemade green-tomato chutney. Mrs. Pickett stumbled out, rubbing her eyes, and a little later, Mr. Pickett got home from his meeting. Soon Mom and Wyatt arrived with a salad and a giant bag of chips.
Cody held the chips out to Molly and Maxie. Molly gave her a suspicious look. For two seconds.
“Oh, well. Don’t mind if I do.”
Maxie kept scratching her arms.
“You know why you itch?” Cody said. “Invisible poison.”
“Are you trying to scare my little sister?” Molly set her hands on her hips.
“Actually, my sister’s right.” Wyatt stepped up. “You have been injected with a toxic venom of reactive peptides, invisible to the naked eye.” He patted Maxie on the head. “Good news is, it’ll go away.”
Wyatt made a muscle. It was magnificent, like a knot in a skinny rope. Molly looked at it with eyes of respect. She ate another big handful of chips.
“Are those the kids who were mean to you?” Wyatt whispered, and Cody nodded. “They don’t look so bad,” he said. “Maybe you should let bygones be bygones.”
Cody thought this over. Wasn’t that the same thing as forgetting? The very thing people were always scolding her for? Was there such a thing as good forgetting? Whew. In this life, there is always something new to think about.
GG switched on her music. She grabbed Maxie’s hand and demonstrated the Loco-Motion. Before you knew it, Mom and the Picketts were dancing, too. Those grown-ups could get down! The porch shivered and shook. This was probably the most humans it had ever seen in its entire porch life. Not a single person more could fit.
Wrong! Like those gloves that stretch to fit any hand, that’s how that porch turned out to be. Because surprise — here came Dad, home early! And he fit just fine. Fine times a million!
Love always fits. GG said it was a scientific fact. Now she handed Cody a cookie.
“We never did get our welcome celebration, but this is even better!” GG winked. “Admit it, Cody Louise. Patience is a virtue.”
“You know what else is a virtue? Wearing shoes.” Mr. Meen pointed at Maxie’s feet. Somehow she’d lost both shoes. “What did you do with yours this time?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing, Spence,” said Mrs. Pickett.
“We’ll find them,” Cody said.
She and Spencer walked around to the backyard. Very carefully, utilizing yellow-jacket radar, they shoe-hunted. They circled the big hole. Cody wondered if Molly and Maxie would like to play evil radioactive ants in it. They looked under GG’s butterfly chairs. She wondered if the four of them could sit here and have a winter picnic. She wondered if Molly ever loaned out her pirate sword.
Spencer’s shoe was under a tomato plant. One of Maxie’s lay nearby.
“Hey,” he said, picking it up. “It says YOU ARE. That’s funny. You are what?”
He hunted for the other one. How peaceful it was back here. The distant music from the porch mixed with the sound of one bird singing his bird family to sleep.
“Here it is!” cried Spencer.
Maxie’s other shoe had landed in a mud puddle. Cody rubbed it clean with leaves and grass and, oops, her T-shirt. She set the two sneakers down side by side.
“‘You are,’” read Spencer, “‘not mean.’” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “You wrote that, didn’t you?”
“Yup.”
In the grass, two ants skedaddled by. Maybe they were headed for the party. Or maybe they wanted to get home before it was too dark. Overhead, the stars were getting busy. One by one, they popped out, so bright and sharp you could almost hear them. Ping ping ping! Even in the daytime, when you couldn’t see them, the stars were there. Invisible, like so many things in this complicated universe.
After a while, Cody and Spencer moseyed back to the music and food and laughing.
“Do you think the Meens will be nice to us now?” said Spencer.
“I was wondering the same thing.”
“We’ll have to be patient,” said Spencer. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
But somehow Cody’s impatient feet started running. She couldn’t wait one more second to be with her family, and her friends, and the people who might possibly be her new friends. She couldn’t wait to see what happened next. See it all with her own naked eye.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 by Tricia Springstubb
Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Eliza Wheeler
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2016
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2014960101
The illustrations in this book were done in ink and watercolor.
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
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Cody and the Mysteries of the Universe Page 5
