Annie Pitts, Swamp Monster

by Diane deGroat

  Right before lunch, Miss G. called on Marsha. “Oh, please let me go last,” Marsha-the-Wonderful said sweetly, “because mine’s the best one.” She folded her hands neatly on her desk as she spoke.

  “Well, Marsha,” Miss G. said, “if we have to have one more biography before lunch, then it should be the best one. Who are you reporting on?”

  Marsha walked to the front of the room and said, “Myself!”

  No kidding. Marsha did her own biography. She talked about how she had won a beauty contest when she was three years old, even though most of us have already heard that story.

  She talked about her horseback riding lessons and how she’s going to get a riding outfit for her birthday. She also talked about the skirt she was wearing that she had bought yesterday just for this presentation.

  She didn’t even read from a paper. I guess she knew everything about herself by heart. And now we did too.

  Miss G. said she wasn’t sure if Marsha followed the directions or not, because she couldn’t remember saying that we couldn’t write our own biographies. That would make it an autobiography Miss G. is very strict about following directions. She thanked her for her very thorough report, and sent us all to lunch.

  In the afternoon, we listened to a few more presentations, and then Miss G. called on Matthew and me to make the last one. Finally, everyone was going to see my first movie—including me!

  Matthew jumped up and popped the tape into the VCR. I thought we needed some kind of introduction so I stood up and said, “Matthew and I did something very interesting. We took two of the most interesting characters we could think of, and we made an interesting presentation about them. I hope you like it. It’s very … interesting.” Then I sat down.

  Miss G. smiled at us, and I could see she was happy that we had made a video. She had borrowed the VCR from the library, hoping that someone would need it.

  Everyone watched the screen. Suddenly a redheaded swamp monster came screaming toward the camera.

  “What’s that supposed to be?” Thomas shouted. “A troll?”

  “No! It’s a swamp monster,” I said. “It doesn’t look anything like a troll!”

  But just then the swamp monster tripped, and everyone laughed. I remembered when that happened. It was right after I saw the fake hand, and I was trying to climb back up the hill. Mark was supposed to cut that part out of the tape.

  Then the swamp monster tripped again.

  And again—this time in slow motion. Why would Mark edit the tape this way?

  The next scene was a super close-up of the swamp monster’s mouth saying, “Try Golden Glo shampoo. Try Golden Glo shampoo. Try Golden Glo shampoo.”

  It was me, practicing my smile, while Mark and Matthew went off to move some branches that were in the way of the camera. I was just standing around, so I tried out all my different smiles right into the lens. Smiles #1 through #12. But I didn’t know the camera was running at the time! “What’s going on?” I asked Matthew.

  “I don’t know,” he said. He picked up the envelope and a letter fell out. As he read it, Matthew had a strange look on his face. “Uh-oh,” he said. I grabbed the letter and read:

  Dear Sir:

  Enclosed is some material that I think would be perfect for your show, America’s Funniest Halloween Bloopers. If you choose to show it, please send payment to the above address.

  Thank you.

  Sincerely,

  Mark McGill

  CHAPTER TEN

  Smile? You’re on Candid Camera?

  I couldn’t believe that Mark put this stupid tape together! Things I had done when I thought no one was looking were now being shown to the entire class—and soon to all of America, if Mark had his way.

  The camera even caught me trying to do the moonwalk with my flippers on. The way they were laughing, you’d think the class had never seen a swamp monster do the moonwalk before.

  I was really mad now. “Where’s the rest of the tape?” I shouted to Matthew over the noise.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Mark probably took it to school with him.” Then he laughed and added, “But this is pretty funny!”

  He stopped laughing suddenly when the mummy appeared on the screen, picking his nose. Believe me, it wasn’t easy for a mummy to pick his nose when it was covered with bandages, but Matthew managed to find a way.

  Then we saw him wiggling his butt. I guess that was Matthew’s imitation of me trying to climb down the hill. We saw the butt wiggle two more times in fast motion. Everyone thought that was hysterical. Even Miss G. was laughing.

  Matthew buried his face in his hands, but I sat and watched the whole thing, unable to take my eyes off the screen. I was finally in a movie, and it had to be the most humiliating experience of my life.

  And finally, when I was sure there couldn’t possibly be any more embarrassing moments, the camera zoomed in for a lovely view of Annie Pitts lifting up her costume to pull up her tights. Now everyone in Miss G.’s class knows that I wear Minnie Mouse underpants. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. The second worst thing happened next.

  Miss G. wiped her eyes with a tissue and said, “I must say that in all my years of teaching, I’ve never seen a biography done so … so … creatively! But I’m afraid you two didn’t follow directions. The assignment was to present information about a real person. You’ve chosen to present some fictional characters. I’m sorry, but I’ll have to give you each a zero.”

  Matthew jumped up and cried out, “Well, I didn’t know it had to be a real person! Annie didn’t tell me that! She said we could do it on anybody as long as it was interesting! It’s all her fault.”

  Miss G. was not giving in. “If you were absent, Matthew, you should have gotten the assignment from someone else. Someone reliable.”

  Then Miss G. looked at me and said, “We went over this material quite thoroughly, Annie. You were probably daydreaming again.”

  Miss G. waited for me to say something, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. After all, she was right. I chewed on my fingernail and stared at the wall, the flag, the doorway. And that’s when I spotted Grandma, walking down the hall with two large shopping bags full of books.

  “Miss G.!” I said quickly. “I’m sorry you didn’t like our video, but that wasn’t our official biography. Matthew and I will present the real one right now.”

  Matthew looked at me. “We will?”

  “Of course. Just like we planned. First the monster tape. Just for fun. Then the real one.”

  “The real one?” Matthew said.

  “Yes,” I said. “But first I have to get our visual aid.”

  “Our visual aid?” I wished Matthew would stop repeating everything I said and go along with me.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said and sped out the door. Matthew and the rest of the class were surprised when I returned with Grandma, shopping bags and all.

  “This is our visual aid, Miss G.,” I said. I stopped to catch my breath, hoping that Matthew-the-Stupid would catch on. I finally saw something in his brain click.

  “Oh, yes, our visual aid,” he said loudly. He came up to the front of the room and stood next to Grandma and me. Then he whispered, “What exactly are we doing?”

  Grandma answered for me. “I think we’re doing my biography,” she whispered.

  I spoke out of the comer of my mouth as I smiled out at the class. “Just go along with me, you two, and everything will be cool.”

  I started my speech. “Our biography is about my grandmother, Isabel Quinn. She’s a real live Very Interesting Person.”

  “Very interesting,” Matthew repeated.

  “Yes, very interesting,” Grandma said also.

  “She takes care of me when my mother works, but when I’m in school, she does some amazing things. Like …” I paused, waiting for Matthew to continue.

  “Oh,” he said. “Like she takes flying lessons. She’s going to get her license.” Finally, Matthew was
getting it.

  I continued, “And she does a lot of volunteer work at the senior center where she knows a lot of interesting people like …”

  “Like Gus Wicki,” Matthew said. “He’s famous, because he used to sing the Sudso commercial. He did a cartoon voice-over too. Mrs. Quinn is going to get his autograph for me.”

  This is going great, I thought. I went on, “And she helps out a bunch of art students by…”

  “By taking all her clothes off,” Matthew said.

  He was supposed to talk about Grandma tutoring at the Y. Not about the painting class. I didn’t think the whole class needed to hear about my grandmother being naked.

  “She’s a model,” I explained. And then I quickly added some other things, like her garage sale adventures—how she finds really neat stuff like skateboards and Ruby Red fake fingernails, and books for the library, and I stopped only when I couldn’t remember anything else.

  When we were finished, there was still some time left over for questions. The kids were especially interested in the flying lessons. “But nobody tell my mother,” I said. “She doesn’t know.”

  They asked if Grandma could get Gus Wicki’s autograph for them too. Grandma said that she would see what she could do, and then the bell rang, and suddenly it was time to go.

  Miss G. thanked Grandma for being our visual aid, and she thanked us for giving a proper report. Matthew and I smiled at each other with a look that said, “Whew-that-was-close.”

  Then we remembered that we weren’t ever going to talk to each other again, unless we really had to—like in class—and he walked one way and I walked the other.

  But before I left the classroom, I tossed the tape into the trash can. I wanted to be in a movie, but not as a tripping, moonwalking, no-pants swamp monster!

  As we walked home, Grandma said, “I’m sorry the film didn’t work out the way you had planned. But you and Matthew handled it pretty well.”

  I scuffed my sneaker across the sidewalk and said, “Yeah, but I’m still never talking to him again.”

  Grandma hugged my shoulder and said, “You know, you’d have a nice friend there if you gave him half a chance.”

  I made a face and said, “Actually, I think he likes you better than he likes me.”

  “Does that bother you?” Grandma asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, because I really wasn’t.

  “Well, I’m sure about one thing,” Grandma said. “You could use some cheering up, Annie. How would you like to go to the Burger Barn for a shake and some fries?”

  We never went to the Burger Bam except on Wednesday nights when my mother worked late, so this came as quite a surprise. “I think a large order of fries would make me feel a whole lot better,” I said. “And maybe a hamburger too.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Grandma said, smiling.

  So my show-business career was kind of off to a slow start. But I once heard about an actress being “discovered” by a movie producer while she was hanging out in an ice-cream place. Who knows? Maybe someone could get discovered at the Burger Barn. Sometimes they take pictures of people for their posters.

  Maybe I should work on a new smile just in case.…

  About the Author

  Diane deGroat is the illustrator of more than 120 children’s books and the author-illustrator of other bestselling books about Gilbert, including Mother, You’re the Best! (But Sister, You’re a Pest!); Last One in Is a Rotten Egg!; Trick or Treat, Smell my Feet; Jingle Bells, Homework Smells; Happy Birthday to You, You Belong in a Zoo; No More Pencils, No More Books, No More Teacher’s Dirty Looks!; Brand-new Pencils, Brand-new Books; and the New York Times bestseller roses are pink, your feet really stink. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.