by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver
HANK ZIPZER
The World’s Greatest Underachiever
Who Ordered This Baby? Definitely Not Me
Grosset & Dunlap
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Doodles by Theo Baker and Sarah Stern
Text copyright © 2007 by Fair Dinkum and Lin Oliver Productions, Inc. Illustrations
copyright © 2007 by Grosset & Dunlap. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Printed in the U.S.A.
Library of Congress Control Number is available.
ISBN: 978-1-1012-0897-7
To Bonnie Bader, who helps us one word,
one paragraph, one chapter at a time. And to
Stacey always. —H.W.
For Henry Winkler—definitely the best
partner ever. Definitely. —L.O.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
CHAPTER 1
“Hey, Frankie. Major news,” I said into the phone. “We got invited to I Love Chopped Liver Day.”
I wasn’t prepared for the shriek that came screeching out of the receiver. Frankie Townsend has been my best friend since we were babies, and I’d never heard a sound like that come out of his mouth.
“What’s he saying?” my other best friend, Ashley, asked, leaning in close so she could hear.
“He’s gagging,” I said. “In between the gags, I think he said something about needing to throw up immediately.”
“Chopped liver will do that to you.” Ashley nodded. “I’ll bet he’s picturing squishy chicken livers mixed with slimy raw egg and greasy onions.”
Suddenly, I felt like I was going to barf, too.
“Could you do me a favor, Ashweena, and keep the disgusting food descriptions to a minimum?” I asked. I don’t know if it was the squishy part or the slimy part or the greasy part, but my stomach was definitely doing backflips.
“Just telling it like it is,” she said.
“We’re not talking about real chopped liver here, anyway,” I whispered to her.
“Tell Frankie, not me,” she said.
I waited until the gagging noises stopped, then spoke.
“Yo, Frankie,” I said into the phone. “We’re not going to a party honoring an actual chicken’s liver. It’s honoring Papa Pete’s bowling team, the Chopped Livers. They’re having their annual Bowl-Off, and they asked us to do a magic performance.”
“That’s way better, dude,” Frankie said, and immediately switched from gagging to business. Being a very organized kind of guy, he wanted to know the time, place, and date they needed us to perform. Being a very disorganized kind of guy, I knew none of the above. Hey, I was excited that I even remembered we were invited in the first place.
“Hold on,” I told him. “Papa Pete didn’t tell me the date, but my mom said she wrote it on the calendar.”
Ashley and I were standing in my kitchen. Frankie was in his apartment four floors down. He couldn’t come up because his mom was making him go through his drawers and take out all the clothes that were too small for him. Frankie is having what you call a growth spurt. Since Ashley and I were having what you call a non-growth spurt, our clothes were fitting just fine, thank you.
Checking the calendar didn’t turn out to be so easy. We were talking on the yellow wall phone next to the refrigerator. Our family calendar where my mom had written the date of the party was on the wall way over by the kitchen table. I tried to reach it, but even with the spiral phone cord stretching to its absolute limit, I could only make it halfway there.
“Here, Ashweena,” I said, handing the phone to her. “Talk to Frankie while I check out the calendar.”
She took the phone and started to talk to Frankie about how much we should charge. Our act, Magik Three, hadn’t worked in quite a while, and we were a little out of practice in the charging department. I was pretty sure we’d be out of practice in the magic department, too. Frankie was probably going to pull a zucchini out of a hat instead of a bunny.
I went to the calendar and looked for the words “chopped liver.” They weren’t there. Maybe I had imagined that my grandpa, Papa Pete, had actually asked us to I Love Chopped Liver Day.
No, Hank. That would be too weird, even for you. People don’t go around just imagining stuff like I Love Chopped Liver Day.
Then I saw it, written on the calendar in my mom’s handwriting, which is messy and hard to read. I think I got that from her. My handwriting is so messy, it looks like the paper has been attacked by a wild herd of dancing caterpillars using all of their legs to write in code.
Chopped Liver Day, as we’ll call it, was Monday night, February 8. Okay, I could remember that, because it was the day after my birthday, which was Sunday, February 7.
I went back to the phone and took it from Ashley.
“Okay, Frankie. Write this down. It’s Monday night, February the…uh-oh.”
“February the uh-oh doesn’t exist,” Ashley pointed out.
“I know, I know,” I said. “But I forgot the date. I just had it. Where did it go? It was either the day after or the day before my birthday.”
It takes four and a half steps to get across my kitchen, and in those itsy-bitsy teensy-weensy steps, the date of the party flew out of my brain, out the window, down ten floors, over to Broadway, got on the 104 bus, went to the Empire State building, shot up to the hundred and first floor, and was probably having a great time, eating a sandwich and looking out over Central Park.
And me, I was left standing in my kitchen having to tell my friends that I had forgotten the date I had just looked at two seconds bef
ore. Welcome to Hank Zipzer’s brain. Believe me when I tell you it’s plenty annoying in here.
I handed the phone back to Ashley and marched myself over to the calendar again. I stared at the date.
Monday, February 8. Remember that, Hank. It’s not hard, even for a guy with learning challenges. Just stand there for a second and let it sink in. Okay, now go.
I spun around to return to the phone, but just before I completed my spin, something else on the calendar caught my eye. It was written in red ink, in my mom’s handwriting, and filled up the whole square for Wednesday, February 4. It said:
Baby Doctor for Lani.
And next to the words was a funny little drawing of a baby’s face with its mouth open, looking like it was letting out a gigantic yell.
Thursday, February 4. That’s tomorrow.
Why was my mom going to a baby doctor with Lani, Frankie’s mom? I mean, they’re friends and they hang out together. But why would you take an afternoon off work to go to the baby doctor? If it were me and I were hanging out with a friend, I’d go to the movies or play video games or something.
Then it came to me in a flash!
“Ashley,” I whispered. “Tell Frankie we’ll call him right back.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“No questions. Just hang up. Now.”
“Hey, Frankie,” she said. “We’ll call you back in a minute. Hank’s…um…Hank’s having a…um…hunger attack. He needs a piece of cheese or a slice of eggplant or something. Bye.”
She hung up the phone.
“Eggplant, Ashweena? Really.”
“Hey, don’t blame me. I wasn’t expecting to have to cover for you. What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
“Look at this, Ash. On the calendar. It says Baby Doctor for Lani. That’s Lani, as in Frankie’s mom, Lani.”
“You don’t think…” Ashley’s voice trailed off as I watched her start to twirl her ponytail like she does when she’s thinking really hard.
“Yes, I do,” I answered. “I think Frankie’s mom is pregnant. And my mom is going with her to the baby doctor tomorrow.”
“Wow, this is big,” said Ashley.
“Humongous.”
“And weird,” said Ashley.
“Extremely.”
“Do you think he knows?” she asked.
“He would have said something. A guy can’t keep a secret like that from his two best friends.”
Ashley sat down at our kitchen table and pushed her glasses back on her nose. She was wearing her blue glasses with the purple rhinestones to match the blue and purple dolphins she had rhinestoned on her tennis shoes. When she finally spoke, she sounded very, very serious.
“Hank, we have to tell him. He’s going to need our support.”
“Don’t you think we should let his mom tell him? I mean, after all, she’s the one who’s having the baby, not us.”
“What if she tells him when we’re not here?” Ashley said. She was twirling her ponytail a mile a minute now. “And what if he freaks out? He’ll need to talk to us so we can tell him that sure, it’s a big change, but he’ll probably adjust to it one day.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “We need to point out to him that babies only cry all the time for two or three years, max. And that spit-up can usually be washed out of your clothes before it smells really awful and starts to crust.”
“It’s the least we can do for him,” Ashley said.
Ashley picked up the phone and dialed Frankie’s number. As soon as it started ringing, she handed me the receiver.
Thanks, Ashley Wong. Save the hard part for me.
“Hello, Frankie,” I said, trying to sound casual. “It’s me, Hank Zipzer. Hold on a sec.”
Ashley was waving at me like her hands were asleep and she was trying to wake them up.
“Hank, you’ve got to sound like nothing’s wrong,” she whispered.
I nodded and went back to the phone.
“Hey, Frankie. Yeah, I’m back. Yeah, I know you know my voice. Yeah, I know we’ve talked every day since the day you were born. Yeah…I just thought that maybe I should tell you who I was in case I sounded weird or anything. Oh, not that there’s any reason to sound weird. I mean, nothing weird is going on. Well, maybe something weird is going on somewhere in the world, but not here in my apartment in New York City. Nope, here everything is just normal, like it always is. Isn’t it normal, Ashweena?”
Ashley grabbed the phone out of my hands. Obviously, she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Frankie,” she said. “Meet us in the clubhouse right away. We have to talk.”
She slammed the phone down and started for the door.
“It’s got to be done,” she said. “And we’re the ones to do it.”
This was going to be tough, I thought. I mean, how do you tell your best friend that his life as he knows it will never be the same again?
CHAPTER 2
As we rode down the elevator, my head was spinning with how to break the news to Frankie. But truthfully, all I could think of were the millions of ways a new baby could mess up his life forever and beyond that.
TEN WAYS A NEW BABY CAN MESS UP A KID’S LIFE
You’re having a messy sandwich, you reach for a napkin, and you grab a used diaper instead.
I can’t go on with this list. I’m still recovering from Number One. (No pun intended.)
CHAPTER 3
There must have been something in Ashley’s voice that alarmed Frankie, because he was waiting for us at the elevator door when it opened on the basement floor.
“What?” he said. “Talk to me.”
“I think it’s better if we talk in the clubhouse,” I said.
“I know that tone of voice, Zip,” Frankie said. “It’s your ‘we got a problemo’ voice. The one you used when you messed up and didn’t record The Moth That Ate Toledo for me. Man, that sucked.”
“Haven’t I apologized enough for that?”
“Right. I forgive you. So, what’s up? What’s the problem?”
“Let’s go sit down in the clubhouse,” Ashley said.
“Great idea, Ash,” I said, a little too quickly. “Let’s take a load off.”
Ashley and I headed down the hallway, past the laundry room, toward the storage room that we use as our clubhouse. Mrs. Fink was in the laundry room, hanging up her gigantic delicates on a wooden rack next to the dryer.
“Hi, Mrs. Fink,” I called as we turned the corner.
“Hi, children,” she called. “If I knew you were coming down here, I would’ve brought cherry strudel.”
“That’s okay, Mrs. Fink,” Frankie called out. “We’re not going to be here that long.”
“That’s what he thinks,” Ashley whispered to me. “It’s going to take him a while to get over this news.”
“After he hears this, he’ll wish he had some cherry strudel,” I whispered back. “With ice cream on top.”
As we rounded the corner and came into the clubhouse, Ashley and I both pointed to the couch at the same time.
“Have a seat, Frankie,” we said together.
“I will not sit until you guys tell me what is going on,” he said.
“We’re just going to tell you flat out,” Ashley said. “Go, Hank. You start.”
“Actually, Ash, I was thinking that you’d be the better person to explain the situation.”
“But you know, Hank, when it comes to explanations, you’re the king.”
We had completely stopped paying attention to Frankie. When we turned around to face him, all we saw was his back because he was on his way out the door.
“I can’t take this anymore,” he said on his way out.
Ashley grabbed his left arm, or maybe it was his right—I never get that straight. And I grabbed whichever arm was left. Together, we yanked him back into the clubhouse and onto the purple flowered couch that had once belonged to Mrs. Park on the seventh floor. When he landed, he almost disappeared in the cloud of d
ust that shot up when he hit the cushion. I had a sneezing fit, which was good because it gave me a chance to get my thoughts together.
“Okay, you two,” Frankie said. “I’ve done everything you asked. I hurried down here. I’m sitting. Now spill.”
This was the moment. I took a deep breath and put together the most gentle sentence that would break the news the easiest. But what came out of my mouth was:
“Sorry, dude. Your mom’s pregnant.”
Ashley just stared at me. “I said to tell him,” she whispered, “but I didn’t mean to tell him…not like that, anyway.”
Frankie looked at me like I had just spoken in a mixture of Chinese and Turkish.
“Let’s back up here, dude,” he said. “My mother is what?”
“Pregnant.”
“My mother, Lani Townsend, who lives in my apartment, is what?”
“Pregnant.”
“No, dude. You got the wrong Lani Townsend. My mother has two sons, eleven and thirteen years old. She is not about to have a child who is zero years old.”
“It’s true,” Ashley said. “We know.”
“How do you know and why don’t I know?”
“Because it’s on my kitchen calendar. Right there in red letters. Your mom and my mom are going to the baby doctor tomorrow for your mom’s appointment.”
Frankie just sat there, stunned, trying to wrap his brain around the idea. I could just imagine what was running through his head.
“I know what you’re thinking, dude,” I said to him. “That you’re going to have to share your room with someone you’ve never met. That you’re going to be ignored. That all the attention is going to the baby. That your parents won’t have time for you because a baby needs so much care and energy.”
Who Ordered This Baby? Definitely Not Me! Page 1
