In Todd We Trust

by Louise Galveston

Was he expecting me to feel sorry for him after he put the Toddlians through weeks of cruel circus-stunt training, nearly killing them? It had taken me too long to figure out that Max was using our joint science project, a Toddlian circus, as an excuse to hurt the Toddlians, but as soon as I did, I hatched a scheme to stop him and save the little guys. Clearly, Max still hadn’t forgiven me for the fallout. But what could I say? I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. “Sorry, Max.”

  His beady eyes disappeared under his unibrow. “Oh, you will be, Buttrock.” Thump, thump. He tossed poor Mr. Bone Jangles’s femur down on the counter. “You will be.”

  I glanced toward the door. Kids were starting to trickle in. “I don’t know why you’re still so mad at me. You ended up getting a good grade on the science test anyway, so your parents aren’t sending you to military school.”

  Max snorted. “Yeah, but now we have to do that stupid makeup science project for Katcher.”

  I frowned at him. “Now?” I asked. Mr. Katcher had given us both Fs on the failed Toddlian circus. But he’d also offered us the opportunity to do makeup projects. The only thing was … “They’re due by Friday, Max.” I’d spent the last two weeks researching scientific urban legends and had finally handed in my paper the day before. “Shouldn’t you be nearly done by now?”

  Max growled at me. Actually growled. “Yeah, well, it seems I have to pull together a project real quick,” he muttered, grabbing the femur off the counter and jabbing it into my ribs again. “I was trying to teach my sister’s hamster to squeak when I rang a bell, but there was an … accident.”

  Don’t ask. Don’t ask. “That’s too bad, Max.”

  He shoved a sausagey finger into my nose. Ugh. His fingernails were filthy. “So I figured you could give me your project,” he said. “Or else.”

  If this had happened a few weeks ago, I would have peed my pants in terror. Now, all I felt was annoyed … and kind of relieved that I had an easy answer for him. “Oh, too bad, Max. I turned my project in yesterday.”

  Max’s dark eyes turned black for a second as fury flashed across his face. But he quickly recovered, giving me a slow grin. “Oh, that’s too bad, Buttrock. I guess that means I need something I can pull into a project really fast. Maybe a new scientific discovery, something nobody’s ever seen before? Hmmm …”

  I didn’t like where this was going. “If you’re talking about the Toddlians, Max, you already tried to use them as your science project, and it was a disaster, remember?”

  Max glared at me. “It was a disaster because your nerdy friend stole them before we could show them to Mr. Katcher,” he hissed. He meant Lucy, my homeschooled neighbor and sort-of assistant in caring for the Toddlians. Man, his breath was terrible. “If he actually saw them, I know I’d get an A. Plus …” He grinned that smarmy grin again. “I’d get the pleasure of playing with your little bug people some more. Hey—do you think they’d squeal when I rang a bell? I bet I could make ’em. HA!”

  Gulp. I hadn’t been scared of Max five minutes ago, but now my heart was pounding in my chest. He might be a stupid bully—but I totally believed he was capable of hurting the Toddlians. Heck, I’d seen him do it.

  “You can’t have them,” I said pointedly, then feinted left and tried to make a break for my desk.

  But Max blocked my escape with the plastic bone. “Not so fast, bug boy. If you won’t give ’em to me, I’m comin’ to collect.”

  Don’t be afraid of him. Don’t be afraid. He’s not going to just come to my house and take them, right? He’s just a bully with bad breath. “Collect?” I asked, and it came out in a squeaky tone that probably sounded a lot like Max’s sister’s poor hamster.

  He pressed his forehead into mine and spat, “Sleep with one eye open, Buttrock. I know where you live, and I’m gonna tear your tiny friends limb from little limb.”

  Max gave me one last thump and hooked the femur back to the rest of the leg just as Mr. Katcher and the rest of the kids came through the door.

  I beat it to the back of the lab, taking my seat next to Duddy, who was chatting with Ernie Buchenwald. It was still weird to think that my best bud and Ernie were friends. Back in elementary school, Ernie had been our nemesis. But then he and Duddy had done their science project together and bonded over a shared passion for ants.

  “’Thup, Todd?” Ernie greeted me, nodding his orange-Brillo-topped head at me. Ernie wore the Mother of All Retainers, and as he nodded a bit of drool dripped down onto Duddy’s desk.

  Duddy signaled toward Max with a nod. “You okay?” he whispered. “What did that meathead want?”

  “Nothing,” I muttered. I didn’t want to get into it, and besides, I refused to believe that Max could actually sneak into my house and steal the Toddlians.

  Duddy mimicked Max’s glare, then crossed his eyes and said, “Durrrr.”

  “HAW HAW HAW,” Ernie laughed. Just then the bell rang, and Mr. Katcher hopped up onto his cluttered desk, shooting Ernie a warning look that sent him scuttling back to his desk at the end of our row. Mr. Katcher picked up a big beaker full of a light brown foamy liquid and drank it down. Was that his coffee?

  “Today, my future Nobel Prize winners,” he said, setting down the near-empty beaker, “we’re going to talk about volume. Not volume as in how many decibels can I turn up my heavy metal before my eardrums rupture”—he jumped off the desk and played an air guitar while banging his head—“but volume as in how much salted caramel latte did Mr. Katcher just drink?” He wriggled his eyebrows and twisted one end of his brown mustache like a cartoon villain.

  I had no idea what kind of high-powered caffeine was in that stuff, but I hoped the Toddlians never got hold of any.

  Mr. Katcher pulled out a two-liter container of Mountain Dew from under his desk, shook it hard, and asked, “Which of you young geniuses cares to tell me how many milliliters are in this? Correct answer gets the prize.”

  Hands shot up all over the room. Mr. Katcher’s mustache danced as he consulted his clipboard. At last he said, “Miss Driscoll, would you honor us with your answer?”

  We all turned to look at Charity Driscoll, and my heart felt like it squeezed into my throat. As she nodded her head, causing her long, golden-brown hair to ripple like a shiny waterfall, I totally forgave her for not stopping by the deli this morning, robbing me of the chance to try and chat her up. Charity had moved with her family from Florida a week before, and she was by far the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.

  Charity slid gracefully out of her seat in the front row and turned to face the class. “One liter equals one thousand milliliters, therefore that two-liter contains two thousand milliliters.” Even her voice was sweet as honey. I could have listened to it all day …

  Mr. Katcher handed the bottle to her and bowed. “Well done, Miss Driscoll.” He coughed. “Er, be careful opening that up, okay?”

  Charity gave him a big smile and handed the two-liter back. “That’s okay, Mr. Katcher. I prefer Dr Pepper.”

  My mouth dropped open, but I quickly slammed it shut before anyone saw me catching flies. What were the chances? I preferred Dr Pepper too! Maybe we could have talked about that if she’d stopped by Dale’s that morning. Not that I ever seemed to know what to say to her. I’d probably just have stood there like a goggle-eyed mouth breather, as usual.

  I watched her now, my heart pounding. If only I could get her to look at me with those aqua eyes. They were the same blue as the Fernsopian pool that Varusa the Lizard Queen rose out of in Dragon Sensei.

  But I wasn’t alone in my crush on Charity. While Mr. Katcher stepped into his office to get a bunch more beakers, two other admirers leaned over to try their lines on her.

  Max, flexing a bicep: “Hey, Char-Char, how many milliwhatevers are in this baby?”

  Rudy Reyes, a freckled kid who usually kept to himself, suddenly dropped to one knee. “Liters of Dew—you have two—one for me, one for you. Come now, baby, why be shy? In my bag is an extra MoonPie! Eat lunch with me?”r />
  The whole class groaned at that, but even these lame-o lines made my heart sink. These guys might have tanked, but at least they were brave enough to talk to Charity. What kind of chance did I have? I couldn’t string two words together when she was around.

  Jordan Pelinski, who was famous for eating and then puking up an entire one-pound bag of Skittles at Cub Scout camp, had just finished serenading Charity with “My Girl” when Mr. Katcher came back into the room, his arms overflowing with tubes and beakers. “Let’s get to the business at hand, shall we, ladies and gents? Speaking of hands, lend me some.”

  A couple of kids helped him set the containers on a table and fill them with water. Charity offered to drip drops of food coloring into the beakers. Her hair gleamed in the morning sunlight like liquid gold. Oooh, that’s nice. That would be a good line to use on her, if I ever muster the guts.

  Charity finished her job and walked slowly toward her desk. Was she looking at me? Before I could do anything stupid, like wink at her, I heard Paul Mosely chuckle behind me. Oh, of course. She’d been aiming that smile at him. After all, he was only the best basketball player in sixth grade, and had straight white teeth with no braces, like something out of a toothpaste commercial.

  I felt myself crumple a little bit and had to look away. Who am I kidding? Charity could get any guy at Wakefield Middle School. She would never give me a second glance. I’d have to do a lot more than bump into Charity at a bagel shop or the mall to get her attention.

  I glanced across the aisle to my best friend, wondering if Duddy might hold the answer to my romantic woes. After all, he thought I was pretty cool. (And before the Toddlians, he might have been the only one to think that besides my immediate family.) He was wiggling a triangle-folded note at me, his blond bowl-cut bangs quivering as he gave me a mini Saki Salute. I couldn’t help smiling. Duddy might not know what I wanted, but he always knew what I needed. Distraction. The signal meant that he thought we should do a little Dragon Sensei duel on paper.

  Mr. Katcher’s back was still turned to us, so Duddy slid the note to me with his shoe. He’d drawn Mongee-Poo, Koi Boy’s green monkey sidekick, hurling a flaming poo grenade. The bubble coming out of his mouth said, “hoo hoo hi-yah! hahaha, oora, i’m gonna poo ya!” That was straight out of the latest episode of Dragon Sensei, “The Poo’s on You!,” in which Koi Boy and Mongee-Poo take revenge on pretty much every villain in the entire series.

  I shot Duddy a thumbs-up then scribbled Emperor Oora, Giant Salamander of All Evilness, saying, “Face it, Koi Boy, Fernsopi shall be mine! You and your foul, furry friend here should return to that clown who calls himself the Dragon Sensei and—” That’s as far as I got before a hairy hand snatched the paper out from under my pen.

  Mr. Katcher cleared his throat. “Hmm. A green primate and some sort of robed reptile. Gentlemen, what is this?” He read the note in a deadpan voice. Even I have to admit, it did sound stupid.

  Max sure thought so. He nearly busted a gut guffawing. When he finally caught his breath he said, “I know what it is, Mr. Katcher! It’s from Dragon Sensor, that baby anime junk Buttrock and Scanlon are always playing! HOO HOO HI-YAH HAHAHA!”

  The rest of the class cracked up. Whether they really thought it was funny or were just afraid of Max, I didn’t know. I did know that Charity whirled around in her seat, staring at me with wide eyes.

  Great. I’d finally gotten her to realize that I exist, only to horrify her with my dorkdom.

  My face felt like lava, and I seriously considered faking sick so I could spend the rest of the day holed up at home, wallowing in my stupidity. But that was the way of wusses, and if I’d learned anything lately, it was to face my humiliation head on.

  Mr. Katcher let us off with a lecture but said the next note would land us in KP. KP was short for Katcher Patrol and was a million times worse than detention. You had to clean all the tools and trays from dissection, scrub out moldy petri dishes, clean up Camo the chameleon’s lizard poop, and do whatever other disgusting jobs Mr. Katcher felt like making you do.

  We measured the colored water in the beakers for the rest of the hour. When the bell rang, I tried to slink out of the room without running into Charity, but being the talented klutz that I am, I dropped my Dragon Sensei notebook right beside her desk. As I grabbed it I couldn’t help glancing at her.

  She was looking right at me, her head tilted and eyebrows raised. There was a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. I stood there, frozen, until she gave me a little nod. That broke the spell. I stumbled into the hallway half-embarrassed, half-enraptured.

  She’d nodded. At me!

  Did that mean I might actually have a chance?

  CHAPTER 3

  I grabbed my tray of chicken wads and tots and scooted onto the bench across the table from Duddy and Ernie. Duddy was all riled up about something and gulped down a mouthful of food, then chased it with chocolate milk.

  “Todd! Didja hear the—buuuuuurp—news?” He was so excited he didn’t even laugh at his own burp, which was very unlike Duddy.

  I stabbed a chicken wad and drowned it in ketchup. “No, Dudster. I have no—wait! Have they released the Lizard Queen action figure?” I’d gotten my mom to agree to drive me to the mall the second it came out, in exchange for handling my sister Daisy’s baths for a week, so if it was out, I definitely wanted to know.

  Duddy shook his head. “No! Three spots just opened up on the swim team!” He waited for my reaction.

  “Uhhhh … okay.” I just raised an eyebrow. “You have a chocolate mustache.”

  Duddy licked off the mustache and tried again. “Tell him, Ernie.”

  I looked over at our former nemesis. “What’s going on with the swim team?”

  Ernie cleared his throat, putting down his liverwurst-and-onion sandwich. “Ith called the WAVETH, acthually,” he said, nearly knocking me over with his terrible-smelling breath.

  “The WAVES?” I tried to breathe through my mouth as I chomped on a tot.

  Ernie nodded. “Yeah, the Wakefield WAVETH. It thtandth for thomething. Erm … We Are … Very Excellent … Thwimmers. Or thomething.”

  I had to laugh. “Ernie, come on.”

  Duddy broke in. “Listen, though! Ernie knows what he’s talking about. The swimmers who got kicked off were Ernie himself and some seventh grade girl named Cassandra and her friend Francesca—least I think that’s what he said.”

  “That’th right.” Ernie adjusted his retainer with his tongue. “Cattttttthhhhhaaaandra ith amathing. The’th like …” He looked off toward the window, and his eyes went soft. I glanced at Duddy, but he was watching Ernie intently. “Imathine the prettieth girl you’ve ever theen.”

  The prettiest girl you’ve ever seen. I thought of Charity’s golden-waterfall hair and pool-blue eyes. Was Cassandra as pretty as Charity? Was that even possible? “So you like her?” I asked. It was weird to think about Ernie Buchenwald, former Swirlie Overlord and Not Super-Sensitive Guy, having a crush on anyone.

  But now he sighed pensively. “Ith not juth a cruth. I think Catttttthhhaaaandra ith my thoul mate.”

  “Your thoul—eh, soul mate?” I echoed. This time I caught Duddy’s eye, and he shot me an I can’t believe it either look.

  “Ern, get to the part about the WAVES,” he prodded.

  Ernie chuckled, sending little bits of liverwurst flying everywhere. “Well, it wath delightful. Catttttthhaaaandra really bringth out my playful thide. What we did wath, we put Palmolive dith thoap in the pool filterth, and the entire pool building wath filled with thudth!” He made a big mountain with his hands, smiling dreamily. “It wath awethome.”

  That actually sounded kind of cool. “Man, I wish I’d been there!”

  Ernie nodded. “It wath all Cattttthaaaandra’th idea.” He took a sip of milk and then sighed. “The’th a real firecracker.”

  Duddy looked at me. “So whaddaya wanna do?”

  “About what?”

  “The swim team!”<
br />
  I just looked at him. “What’s there to do?”

  “Try out! Duh!”

  I snorted. “Are you kidding? It’s not like either one of us is the next Michael Phelps. I hate to break this to ya, Dudman, but we aren’t exactly jock material.”

  Duddy puffed out his practically nonexistent chest. “Speak for yourself, Butroche. But seriously, there’s this real old rule at WMS that if you go out for a sport you don’t have to take gym.”

  He had my attention. “Yeah?”

  Ernie nodded. “Yeah. It’th true. It’th the one bad thing about getting kicked off. Catttthhhaaaaandra’th trying to get uth on the badminton team tho we can thtill thkip gym.”

  Duddy poked my shoulder. “It gets even better, Todd. You get to take fun electives instead, like art and drama and stuff.”

  I took a swig of milk. No gym? That meant no more shower-time humiliation, no more Icy Hot in my undies … Just last week Max had used gym class as an opportunity to give me the mother of all supersonic wedgies. I was still raw from the rash.

  I nodded at Duddy. “You had me at no more gym.”

  Duddy grinned. “Great! Plus, Madame Dauphinee, the French teacher, makes crêpes for the entire team after every meet, whether they win or lose!” He pumped his fist in the air. “Vive la France!”

  “Uh, did you say she makes ‘creeps’ for everyone?” I’d had enough of those, thank you very much.

  Ernie chuckled, showering us with more liverwurst. “Not creepth … craaapeth! You never had one? They’re like thin pancaketh thmothered in awethome thauthe!”

  I sucked a Jell-O square through my straw and smiled, squirting red goo between my teeth. “Gentlemen, you’ve sold me. We have to do this!”

  “Awesome! It’s on!” Duddy and I high-fived each other, and then Ernie. Suddenly Duddy frowned, like something had just occurred to him. “Um, Todd, can you swim?”

  “Of course I can!” But Duddy was nodding really slowly, and it set something off in my brain. I had tons of pictures of the Dudster and me at the beach as kids, and in each one, Duddy was wearing bright orange inflatable “swimmies” on each arm. “Dud—you can swim too, right?”