giving me the silent
treatment, it might
be my only hope.
When school ends,
the three of us make
a beeline for Uncle
Pedro’s house.
“Uncle Pedro,” Teddy says, “you remember my
friends Nate and Dee Dee.”
“Absolutely,” he says, shaking our hands. He peers
at me through his Coke-bottle glasses.
“Yeah, you’re RIGHT!”
I exclaim. “How’d you
know that?”
“Lucky guess,” he says simply. “Come inside.”
“I was . . . uh . . . wondering if you could make me
neater,” I say after we sit down.
So I tell Uncle Pedro all about Francis and the
camera and everything. Then I wait for him to put
some crazy hypno-whammy on me. But he just
reaches behind his back, winks at me, and says . . .
Huh? Is he serious?
How’s a CARD TRICK
going to help?
“Any card,” he says, nodding at me.
I don’t get it. I was expecting him to wave a watch
in my face or something. But I guess I’ve got
nothing to lose. I slide a card from the deck and
place it facedown on the table.
“Interesting,” Uncle Pedro says. “Flip it over
again.”
I turn the card facedown.
“Your card was the seven of spades, correct?”
“Uh-huh,” I answer.
“Hey, how’d you do that??” I ask in astonishment.
“How’d you change it?”
“Me? YOU’RE the one who flipped the card over.”
Uncle Pedro shrugs.
“Then perhaps there
is no explanation,”
he says.
Okay, I get it. It’s a card trick. You’re not SUPPOSED
to know how it works. Let’s move on.
“Can we start now?” I ask Uncle Pedro.
He shoots me a quizzical look. “Start what?”
“Well,” I say, a little confused. “Aren’t you going to
hypnotize me?”
Uncle Pedro smiles.
“What a rip-off!” I grumble as we leave Uncle
Pedro’s.
“You don’t feel any different?” Dee Dee asks.
“Not a bit,” I snort.
Teddy frowns. “Since when are you afraid of a
PUDDLE?”
“I’m not AFRAID of it, doofus,” I answer.
“Are you CRAZY, Dee
Dee?” I shout angrily.
“YOU JUST RUINED
MY SHIRT!”
“No, I just PROVED A POINT!” she says, grinning
like the village idiot.
“NEAT? Open your EYES! I’m a MESS, thanks to
you and your little MUD BALL attack!” I growl.
“You never cared about clean clothes BEFORE!”
Teddy exclaims. “I think Dee Dee’s right! You’re
HYPNOTIZED!”
“We need to make sure of it!” Dee Dee announces.
“Let’s do another test!”
“No more mud balls,” I say quickly.
Mr. McTeague is a
total whack job about
his lawn. No, wait.
He’s a total whack job,
PERIOD. What else
do you call a guy who
digs crabgrass out of
his yard with a pair of
eyebrow tweezers?
Teddy sweeps his arm across the bright green
grass. “It’s PERFECT, don’t you think?”
Maybe I just never looked at Mr. McTeague’s lawn
all that carefully before. But I am now. And it’s
definitely got issues.
“Did you really just say the ACORNS are too
messy?” Teddy asks in disbelief.
“I’m just pointing out they could be a bit more
organized,” I explain.
Dee Dee’s hopping up and down like a frog on a
pogo stick. “EUREKA! That PROVES it!!”
“Wow,” I say as Dee Dee goes skipping away.
“SOMEBODY’S pretty fired up about this.”
“Well, aren’t YOU?” Teddy asks.
And speaking of underwear, I’ve been wearing
the same pair of tighty-whities since this morning.
That’s gross.
Dad’s burning something on the stove when I
walk through the kitchen door. “Hi, Nate! Want a
snack? Supper won’t be ready for a while.”
“No, thanks. I’ve got some work to do in my room.”
A couple hours later, Dad knocks on my door.
Dad’s lips start moving, but no sound comes out.
Either he doesn’t know what to say, or he just won
a scholarship to mime school.
“Y-you cleaned your room,” he finally stammers.
Brilliant observation, Dad. “Yeah,” I tell him.
“With my hands. Because
it was messy,” I explain.
Gotta love these father-son
chats. They’re so DEEP.
Downstairs at the supper table, Ellen continues
the sparkling conversation.
“Besides an annoying big sister, you mean?” I ask.
“You’ve got your napkin in your lap for once,”
she says. “You haven’t spilled anything yet. And
you’re actually CHEWING your food . . .”
“ . . . a concept you’re obviously too BRAIN-DEAD
to understand!”
“You know what I think?” Dad announces in that
fake-happy voice he uses whenever he’s trying to
keep Ellen and me from killing each other.
“No, thanks,” I say as I put my dishes in the sink
and head upstairs.
Later, Dad pokes his head in my room again.
“I don’t,” I tell him. “I’m just rewriting my class
notes for social studies.”
He sits down on my bed, which totally messes up
the blanket. But whatever. I’ll fix it later.
“So this isn’t something Mrs. Godfrey TOLD you to
do?” he asks, as one of his eyebrows heads north.
“No, I just wanted to make them neater.”
Dad hands me back my notes. He’s got the weirdest
expression on his face. It’s like half worried, half
gassy.
Hmm. Okay, here’s where things
get kind of dicey. I’m pretty sure
Dad wouldn’t be too happy about me getting
hypnotized, so I can’t tell him why I’ve turned into
Joe Tidy. And if he finds out a camera disappeared
from my locker, he’s going to call the school. You
never want a parent to call the school.
So I lie.
Dad gives me The Squint. He probably knows
there’s more to the story. But what can he do?
Ground me for being too neat?
“Can I stay up and draw comics for a while?” I ask.
He smiles. “I suppose a
miracle like that buys you
some drawing time. But
only half an hour, Nate.
It’s a school night.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I tell him. Then I jump into a
brand-new Luke Warm, Private Eye adventure.
I’m just getting started when . . .
“What? You said I had a half hour!”
Dad taps his watch. “That WAS a half hour.”
“But I haven’t even started DRAWING yet! I barely
finished measuring all the panels!”
I flail around for a good answer. “I just . . . I
wanted all th
e panels to look nice and straight,”
I say weakly.
Dad peers down at my notebook. “Well, they
certainly are nice and straight,” he says.
The sun’s barely up when I leave for school the
next morning. I need to get there early . . .
He doesn’t LOOK very sorry, if you ask me. But I’m
so happy to see Francis, I don’t even mind getting
clocked in the face by . . . the “Daily Courier”?
He doesn’t look at me. He
won’t even slow down. “I
need the money,” he says.
A hot wave of guilt washes over me—even though
I have nothing to feel guilty about . . .
I guess I could chase after
Francis and tell him that. AGAIN. Or I could tell
him that he doesn’t need to buy the school a new
camera, that I’LL pay for it if I have to.
The school’s pretty empty when I get there. And
you know what? It looks GOOD this early.
Mrs. Hickson eyes me suspiciously—which makes
sense, I guess. I’m usually here an hour AFTER
school, not an hour before, if you get my drift.
“I want to clean my locker before homeroom,”
I answer.
Hickey looks like she might kiss me. (She doesn’t.
Phew.) “My goodness, Nate, this is WONDERFUL!”
she gushes. “I assumed you’d LOST all these!”
“Nope!” I tell her. “I never lose
stuff! . . .”
Or at least, I never USED to. But now that I’ve
been hypnotized, I’m ready to send most of
what’s in my locker straight to Dump City.
It takes me almost forty-five minutes. What a
disgusting job. You wouldn’t believe all the stuff
that comes out of there.
And I won’t even get into how it SMELLED. Francis
was right. I WAS a slob.
“I’m a SPY!” Dee Dee says, like it’s supposed to be
obvious. “That’s how we TALK!”
“Where, at a BIRD SANCTUARY?” I say.
“No, silly!” She giggles.
“Here’s a suggestion, 007,” I whisper. “Don’t
announce to the world who you’re about to spy on.”
“Got it,” Dee Dee says a little sheepishly.
Right. I’ll believe it when I see it. Dee Dee’s about
as low-key as a match in a fireworks factory.
“Oh, and don’t forget!” she calls over her shoulder.
My heart sinks. Oh, yeah. The Trivia Slam.
I guess I should fill you in. The
Trivia Slam is like the ultimate quiz
show. The questions can be about ANYTHING,
and the last team standing wins. It happens every
year, and it’s HUGE.
I’m supposed to be on Francis’s team—the
Factoids—along with Teddy, Dee Dee, and Chad.
Talk about a trivia powerhouse. As soon as we put
that group together, we knew we had the goods to
knock off the defending champs . . .
But everything’s changed
now. How can I be on the
team . . .
When the bell rings for social studies, I’m
still thinking about the Trivia Slam—until
Mrs. Godfrey gets everyone’s attention.
Translation: Get ready for Mrs. Godfrey to throw
a conniption fit if she thinks your notebook is
too sloppy. Or too unorganized. Or too red. On a
normal day, a notebook check—for me, anyway—
is a one-way ticket to detention.
But today’s not a normal day.
Mrs. Godfrey’s eyes look ready to pop out of their
sockets as she flips through my notebook, staring
at page after perfect page.
Five minutes with Uncle Pedro, that’s what. But I
just shrug my shoulders. “I decided I wanted to be
neater, that’s all,” I say. Honest enough.
An A DOUBLE plus?? Holy COW!!
Isn’t she charming? And so FRIENDLY, too.
“There’s no mystery, Gina: I’ve cleaned up my act.”
This is killing her.
“Does it LOOK like I’m
faking?” I ask. “Get used
to the new me, Gina.
Neatness is now my way of life.”
HA! That’s me one, Gina zero. And you want to
know the best part? The rest of the day goes
EXACTLY THE SAME WAY!
In English, Ms.
Clarke gives me
extra credit for
my “phenomenal”
penmanship. In
math, Mr. Staples
tells everybody
my homework is
the “Mona Lisa of
bar graphs.”
Even Old Fossil Face is impressed.
Not too shabby, right? As I head for my locker
after class, I realize something: I didn’t get yelled
at today. Not even ONCE. Who knew it was this
easy to make teachers happy?
Looks like Dee Dee’s still in not-so-secret agent
mode. “What’s up?” I ask as I turn the corner.
“The pigeon has almost landed!” she whispers.
Not THIS again. “Try it in English, Dee Dee,” I tell
her. “I can’t speak Spy.”
“That DOES sound kind of suspicious,” I admit,
amazed that Dee Dee actually turned up some
useful information.
“I’ll continue my investigation tomorrow,” she says.
That’s good. The “bride of Dracula” look might
not work two days in a row.
My stomach drops off a
cliff. “You know what?
I’m going to skip the
Trivia Slam, Dee Dee.
You guys will do fine
without me.”
“SURE, he does!” Dee Dee
chirps a little too quickly.
“Oh, yeah?” I mutter. “Did
you ask him?”
She gets a little fidgety. “I . . . I’ve talked to him
about it a couple times, yes,” she answers.
“Well? What did he say? In his EXACT WORDS.”
“Uh . . .” Dee Dee mumbles nervously. “He said
that . . . that he didn’t care if you came or not.”
“Francis didn’t say you COULDN’T come! He just
said that . . . um . . .”
I swallow the lump in my throat and start home.
They really WILL do fine without me. The Factoids,
I mean. They can beat anybody, as long as they’ve
got Francis. He’s always been a trivia geek.
I come to the edge of the Little Woods. If I go to
the left and stay on the sidewalk, I’ll be home
in ten minutes. But if I go to the right, there’s a
shortcut through the woods that leads straight to
my street. It’s a little muddy sometimes, but it’s
fast.
I go to the left.
I’m starting to hate being neat.
Everything takes so LONG. Like right now, for
example. I’m getting ready for school picture
Retake Day . . .
Pretty ridiculous, right? NOBODY spends that
long on his hair.
But I can’t help it.
Whatever Uncle Pedro
did when he hypnotized
me is working TOO well.
Sure, there are some upsides to being a neatnik.
Like my GRADES. All of a sudden, I’m getting A’s
in EVERYTHING.
Plus, I’m not spe
nding my afternoons in detention.
I haven’t seen Mrs. Czerwicki for a WEEK.
But look, I didn’t get
hypnotized to be Joe
Honor Roll. I did it to
patch things up with
Francis. Which isn’t
working out so hot.
And that’s not all. Turning into Mr. Clean is
ruining all my hobbies. I can’t play soccer with the
guys because—don’t laugh—I’m worried about
getting grass stains on my pants.
Oh, and want to read the latest edition of “Luke
Warm, Private Eye”? Well, you CAN’T. I ripped it
into a zillion pieces . . .
Huh? What does HE want? I’m used to Principal
Nichols looking for me, but not with a SMILE on
his face. It’s a little creepy.
Okay, now it’s a LOT creepy. Remember who ELSE
is a hall monitor? Nick Blonsky. Need I say more?
“Oh, I DISAGREE, Nate!”
he continues. “Thanks to
the recent change in your
behavior . . .”
A BADGE? Why not just stamp “LOSER” on my
forehead? It’s pretty much the same thing.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Teddy chuckles and tugs on my tie.
He’ll WRINKLE it? LISTEN to me. I sound like a
complete dorkwagon.
“Just don’t TOUCH it,” Teddy warns Dee Dee. “You
might ruin Nate’s swanky OUTFIT!”
“I never said that,” I snap.
Big Nate Flips Out Page 3
