by Tom Birdseye
My ears must be full of orange juice.
“Say what, Ben?”
“I said, I think it’s a great idea. You can do it. You’re the best banana-eater I’ve ever known. You could eat five bananas in one sitting when you were in the first grade. You can break that record if you try.”
“You really think so, Ben?”
“Yep, I sure do,” he says with a grin.
He really does think I can do it. My friend Ben believes in me. I can be a hero, not a Hostess Twinkie target. I can be famous, not just another fifth-grade kid. I can be …
“But you know what you need, Arlo?”
There’s always a catch.
“No, what do I need?” I ask.
“You need a trainer,” he informs me. “That’s what you need. You know, like the pros have. Trainers help athletes get ready to break records.”
Ben is pointing to his brand-new three-ring notebook. It’s got a clear plastic cover on it with a picture underneath. The picture is of a football player catching a touchdown pass.
“This guy,” Ben says, “had a trainer help him get ready to catch touchdown passes like that. That’s what you need, Arlo, a trainer … and I have just the right person in mind.”
“Who?” I ask. Maybe he knows somebody I don’t know.
“Me!” he says with a big grin on his face.
“You?”
“Yeah, me. I, Ben Hamilton, will train you, Arlo Moore, to break the world banana-eating record. We’ll use the Positive Brain Approach.”
This sounds fishy to me. “The what?”
“The Positive Brain Approach. It’s a way to get really good at something. I heard about it from Charlie Swink. He uses it to train for baseball season.”
Wow. Charlie Swink is the best Little League baseball player in Seagrove. This Positive Brain Approach must be good.
“How does it work, Ben?”
“It’s pretty simple … but it’s kinda weird.”
Ben is looking at the ceiling of the bus. He always looks up when he’s trying to think of the best way to explain something.
“How is it weird?” I ask.
“Well … you have to sorta talk to yourself to make it work.”
No problem. I do that all the time.
“What do you say to yourself?” I ask.
Ben is still looking at the ceiling. “Actually, you don’t really talk to yourself … you … well, you chant to yourself,” he says.
I don’t understand. “Chant?”
“Yeah, chant.”
“What’s a chant?” I want to know. I’m looking at the ceiling, too. I start doing that when I sit next to Ben.
“Charlie Swink says it’s something you say to yourself over and over and over again,” he answers.
“Are you sure Charlie does this, Ben?”
He answers quickly. “Yeah, I’d swear to it on a stack of pancakes. He told me about it last spring.”
Ben has stopped looking at the ceiling. I’m glad. My neck was starting to hurt.
“OK. What do you chant to yourself?” I ask.
“All you do is chant: I can, I can, I can, I can. You say it over and over to yourself. And while you’re chanting, you imagine yourself eating bananas just like a record-breaker would.”
“Really, Ben? That’s it? That’s all there is to it?”
“Yep. It’s the Positive Brain Approach. Charlie Swink calls it the PBA. He says it trains your brain to believe you can do anything you say you can. And if your brain believes it, then you’ll probably do it!”
I’m not so sure about this.
Ben looks me right in the eye. “Give it a try, Arlo. What have you got to lose?”
If he he only knew how much I’ve got to lose: a supreme pizza, six banana splits, and my pride.
“OK, Ben. I’ll try,” I say as we pull into the driveway of Lincoln Elementary.
His eyes light up. “Great! We’ll meet after school to set up your training schedule. Remember, Arlo: I can, I can, I can, I can …”
“OK, Ben. I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”
Look out, Guinness Book of World Records, the chanting banana-eater is on his way. I can, I can, I can, I can …
CHAPTER 8
“Welcome to the fifth grade.”
—MR. DAYTON
Room 11 of Lincoln Elementary School is blue. The walls are made of concrete block. They’ve probably been painted twenty-three different times in twenty-three different colors. The colors are always very pale: pale green, pale orange, pale yellow, pale purple, pale pale.
Some night I’d like to sneak into this school and paint all of the walls bright colors. I’d splash big buckets of fire-engine red and pumpkin orange and neon green on the concrete block. I’d make the walls into big blobs of bright paint all running together into a rainbow of color.
The teachers and our principal, Mrs. Caldwell, would walk in the next morning and be dazzled by the color. They’d be so dazzled that they would put root beer in the drinking fountain. And they’d serve hot dogs, hamburgers, and pizza for lunch. And they’d let us out for three-hour recesses. And they’d say, “Spelling? Math? Grammar? What on earth are those things?” And we would do strange experiments turning frogs into werewolves and slugs into beans. And after another long recess, the color-dazzled teachers would send us home.
“Pssst … Hey, Arlo.”
“Huh?” Oh, it’s Ben.
“Over here. Here’s an empty seat.”
But today, the first day of school at Lincoln Elementary, the walls of room 11 are pale blue.
Ben has found us two seats on the far side of the room where we have a great view of the playground. From here we can sit and watch the crows just like last year. The crows sit on the telephone wires and look down on the playground. If anybody drops a piece of food, they fly down and eat it. I’ll take them some bread crust every day at lunch and watch them eat it after recess. I wonder if there is a champion crow. A crow who can eat bread crust on the playground faster than any other crow in the world.
Everyone is being quiet. For some reason, even kids who are loud and into trouble the rest of the year are very quiet and nice on the first day of school. Maybe their parents put some strange medicine in their eggs. They probably bought it at the drugstore. A man with thick glasses and no suntan smiled and handed them a bottle of brown liquid. It had a label on it. It said:
Zip Lip Quiet Syrup—Mix with breakfast on
the first day of school.
Dosage—Three drops per child.
Guaranteed to keep kids quiet or your money back.
As I look around the room I see lots of familiar faces. There’s Timothy. He’s the one who kicked the soccer ball right through the window of the girls’ bathroom last year. Mrs. Hammond said he did it on purpose.
And there’s Dawn. She always wears socks that don’t match.
And there’s Eric. He threw his peanut butter and jelly sandwich all the way across the cafeteria in the first grade. It hit the wall with a splat and slid all the way to the floor. Boy, what a throwing arm.
And that man there … that’s got to be our teacher, Mr. Dayton. He’s new at Lincoln Elementary. No one knows anything about him. All the Zip-Lip-Quiet-Syrup kids in room 11 are watching Mr. Dayton’s back as he writes on the blackboard with yellow chalk:
Welcome to Room 11!
Fifth Grade
Mr. Jim Dayton—Head Cook
and Chief Bottle Washer
“Good morning! As you can see, my name is Mr. Dayton. Welcome to the fifth grade.”
Wow, what a mustache. His mustache must stick out two inches on either side of his mouth.
“I would like to start off this morning by calling the roll,” he says. “Please answer ‘Here’ and raise your hand when I call your name. That way, I can begin to learn who you are.”
I wonder how long it took to grow that thing. He looks pretty young for a teacher. I’ll bet he started it ten years ago, or maybe twenty,
or maybe even when he was a baby.
“Brendan Allen.”
“Here.”
Yep. I have standing before me the man who was the first baby in the world to be born with a mustache. He’s probably in the Guinness Book of World Records.
“Shannon Douglas.”
“Here.”
I’ll bet his mom and dad were so proud. They probably have a photo album full of pictures of him in his diapers and mustache.
“Guy Duncan.”
“Here.”
I’ll bet he smoked cigars when he was in the first grade. And he always had to pay adult prices to get into the movie.
“Eric Galluci.”
“Here.”
“Dawn Gunther.”
“Here.”
“Benjamin Hamilton.”
“Here.”
And by the time he was twelve, he would get his mustache hairs caught in between his teeth.
“Steven Kenny.”
“Here.”
And he shampoos it every night and brushes it in the morning.
“Elliot La Bay.”
“Here.”
“Christa Lovejoy.”
“Here.”
And when the wind blows really hard, I’ll bet his mustache tickles his ears.
“Laura McNeil.”
“Here.”
“Arlo Moore.”
He probably pins it back at night so it won’t get sucked up his nose while he sleeps.
“Arlo Moore.”
He can probably even comb it down over his lips and talk without anybody knowing it.
“Arlo Moore … is Arlo Moore present today?”
“Pssst … Hey, Arlo.”
“Oh, sorry. Here.”
Wow, what a mustache.
CHAPTER 9
“That’s got to be the dumbest thing you’ve ever dreamed of.”
—MURRAY WALLACE
I sign my name like this:
I worked a long time on signing it this way. John says it’s not correct cursive. I’m left-handed. What does he expect? Kerry says I’m just trying to show off. I wonder what Mr. Dayton will say. He’s got a pretty fancy mustache. It should be OK for me to have a fancy signature.
I’m putting my fancy signature on the first piece of paper from my new notebook. My name goes in the top right-hand corner. I put the date right under that. And on the top line, in the middle, I’m writing in big letters, “SPELLING.”
This is the first spelling test of the year. Mr. Dayton says he wants to give us this test to find out how well we spell.
“I will say the spelling word, use it in a sentence, and then say the word again,” Mr. Dayton explains. “You will notice that this test begins with very easy words and gets more difficult as we go along. We’ll start off with first-grade words, but I’ll be giving you ninth-grade words at the end of the test.”
OK, I’m ready.
“The first word is up.The airplane flew up in the air. Up.”
Got it. No problem. Up, cup, mup, fup, sup. I must shut up and pay attention.
“Number two is that. Should we go to that store? That.”
Only if they sell bananas. Bananas by the basketful, bananas by the ton, bananas in a great big pile, man that sounds like fun.… that—t-h-a-t. Got it.
“Number three is it. I saw it fly. It.”
Boy, this really is first-grade stuff. I’ll bet I can practice my Positive Brain Approach while I take this test and still do a good job.
“I can, I can, I can, I can …”
I think this PBA is working. I can picture myself eating seventeen bananas in less than two minutes.
“I can, I can, I can, I …”
“Ssh, quiet, Arlo.”
“What? Who said that?”
“Quit mumbling to yourself, bozo-head.”
I should have known. It’s Murray Wallace. He’s always more than happy to let you know how stupid he thinks you are. Not that he’s smart. He’s average: average height, average weight, average brown hair and eyes, and he has an average-size brain. He just thinks he’s better than everyone else. Kerry says he should be nominated for the Nerd of the Year Award. I agree. Lucky me, he’s in Mr. Dayton’s class this year. He’s also sitting right behind me. Lucky, lucky me.
“I hear you’re going to try to break a world record.” Murray leans forward in his seat and whispers. “Eating bananas, isn’t it? That’s got to be the dumbest thing you’ve ever dreamed of, Arlo.”
“Listen, Murray. I happen to be a great banana-eater,” I inform him.
“Sure, and I’m president of the United States.”
I don’t know why, but I always let people like Murray get to me.
“I’m going to eat seventeen bananas in less than two minutes,” I say. “That will put me in the Guinness Book of World Records.”
Murray laughs under his breath.
“No, you won’t Arlo. You can’t eat that fast.”
There’s that word again: can’t.
I speak through tight lips. “I can break the record.”
“No, you can’t. Don’t kid yourself,” Murray says as he leans farther forward in his chair.
“Yes, I can,” I whisper hotly. I’m mad now.
“No, you can’t,” Murray hisses.
“YES, I CAN, MURRAY!”
Oops. Everybody is looking at me. Mr. Dayton has stopped the spelling test. Yikes, I don’t even know what number we’re on.
“What’s the problem back there?” Mr. Dayton asks. “You’re Arlo, aren’t you? Arlo Moore?”
“Yes sir.” Now I’m embarrassed again, not mad.
“You seem to be more interested in talking, or should I say yelling, than in this spelling test.”
Leave it to Murray to get me into trouble. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your bed, Murray Wallace.
“Oh, it’s nothing, Mr. Dayton,” I say, trying to sound pleasant. “Murray and I were just having a little discussion, that’s all.”
Mr. Dayton’s mustache is twitching.
“I see. Well, you and Murray can tell me all about it during our morning recess.”
Murray and I both protest. “But Mr. Dayton—”
“And number twelve is strange,” Mr. Dayton says with a wave of his hand and a firm voice. “The man thought it strange that his pigs couldn’t fly. Strange.”
Number twelve? Good grief.
CHAPTER 10
“I’ve already thought about it enough to turn an apple brown.”
—ARLO MOORE
Standing here on the playground feels good. Kids are running, playing, and screaming. There’s the smell of fresh-mown grass and dust in the air. And I’m about as far away from Murray Wallace as I can get without skipping school.
Murray told Mr. Dayton that I was bothering him during the spelling test. He said that he politely asked me to stop and that I yelled at him. I tried to explain my side of the story, but I was so mad I couldn’t say anything the way I was thinking it.
Mr. Dayton looked at both of us. His giant mustache twitched from side to side. Then he told Murray that he could leave. I thought I was in big trouble, for sure.
But Mr. Dayton wanted to hear my side of the story. So I told him about trying to break a world record by eating seventeen bananas in less than two minutes. And I told him about my bets with Kerry and John. And I even told him about the Positive Brain Approach that Ben and I are using. I told him about Murray, and how mad it makes me that everybody is telling me I can’t break a world record and that it’s stupid that I would even try. I told Mr. Dayton everything. Then I stood there like I’d been caught with my hand stuck in the cookie jar. And I waited.
Mr. Dayton looked at me really hard and twitched his mustache again.
“Arlo,” he said, “I don’t see anything wrong with trying to break a world record.”
I think I probably let out a big sigh then.
“But,” Mr. Dayton said, “I can’t help but wonder why you really want
to do it.”
That seemed a plain fact to me: I want to do it so I can be in the Guinness Book of World Records. I’ll be Arlo Moore, world-famous banana-eater extraordinaire. I’ll be on TV. I’ll be in the movies. I’ll win my bets.
“Arlo,” Mr. Dayton said.
“Yes sir, Mr. Dayton,” I replied.
“Think about why you are doing this. OK?”
That sounded easy enough. I’ve already thought about it enough to turn an apple brown.
“And don’t let this interfere with your schoolwork,” he added.
That didn’t sound easy. But I figured I could manage to pay better attention in class. And if I never talk to Murray the Nerd again, that would be too soon.
CHAPTER 11
“That’s including the skins and seeds.”
—BEN HAMILTON
Lincoln Elementary School’s cafeteria is big enough to hold one hundred and eighty students. It’s Wednesday, hot-dog day, and I’m standing in the middle of the cafeteria looking for an empty seat. There aren’t any.
The Guinness Book of World Records says that Linda Kuerth ate twenty-three hot dogs without rolls in three minutes, ten seconds. All the kids I see around me are eating and talking at the same time. I wonder if Linda Kuerth could talk and eat hot dogs at the same time.
“Over here, Arlo. We can squeeze you in.”
It’s Ben. You can always count on a friend to make room for you.
“Thanks, Ben. I was beginning to think I might have to eat standing up,” I say as I move over to sit down.
“My mom does that,” Ben says matter-of-factly.
“Really?”
“Yeah, she stands by the kitchen counter, reads the paper, and eats a bowl of cereal every morning,” Ben says. “She thinks that eating standing up makes it easier for her to go to work. She sits behind a desk all day.”
“That’s pretty weird, Ben.”
“Yeah, I tried it once and dumped a whole bowl of milk and Super Coated Krinkles on my shoes.”
Super Coated Krinkles, milk, and soggy socks. I can see Ben now.
“Guess what, Arlo?” he asks.
“What?”
“I went to the library and checked out the latest edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.The guy who puts all those records together in the book is named Norris McWhirter. He lives in England. It gives his address and everything. Let’s write him a letter.”
