by Tom Birdseye
She almost started crying when she read the paragraph about “potentially dangerous” things. Then she went home and locked herself in the bathroom. Mom thought she might be getting sick, or maybe something terrible had happened at school to make her so depressed. That’s one of the reasons Mom dropped us off at Papa Dietro’s Pizza Parlor to pick up a pizza for tonight, and then went to get some ice cream for dessert. Mom can’t read Kerry’s mind as well as mine, but she knows that nothing cheers her up faster than one of Papa Dietro’s super-supreme deluxe pizzas without anchovies, and vanilla ice cream for dessert.
Standing here at the counter, waiting to pay the cashier, I noticed the price went up another $1.25. I’m glad Mom gave me the money to pay for this. Training for a world record is expensive. It takes all of my weekly allowance. I can’t afford pizza, now or later.
“Pssst, hey, Arlo,” Kerry whispers.
“Huh? What, Kerry?”
“Look over in the corner,” she says, obviously feeling better already.
Speaking of pizza, who should appear? None other than my big brother, John. And he’s got Michelle with him. She sure is pretty. Dad says she has “sparkle.” I think that means he likes her. Maybe he thinks she can do something about John. Somebody needs to do something about John, that’s for sure.
“Arlo, let’s go over and say hello,” Kerry whispers. She can’t resist spying on John.
“Let him alone, Kerry. He doesn’t want you snooping around.”
“But Arlo, he might need some help,” she says, sipping a Coke.
When Kerry says “help,” what she really means is a hard time.
“He doesn’t need your help, Kerry. Believe me. He can botch things on his own.”
“But we should at least go over and say hello. He is our brother, you know. C’mon, Arlo.”
Why am I so easily led astray?
“OK, Kerry, but just to say hello. And don’t ask any dumb questions or talk too much.”
“Dumb questions? Talk too much? Me?”
“So, Arlo, how’s the banana-eating going?” John asks.
“Arlo is doing great,” Kerry answers for me. “You should see him eat those bananas. Pow, pow, pow. They just fly into his mouth.”
“It’s going OK,” I add quietly, wishing Kerry would shut up.
John and Michelle look at each other and smile. I think I see the “sparkle” Dad talks about. It’s in her eyes. But why waste sparkle on John? That is one of the great mysteries in my life.
“You only have a couple of weeks before your world-record attempt, don’t you?” Michelle asks. “Are you going to be ready, Arlo?”
“He’ll be ready,” Kerry blurts out. “I’ll be ready, too.”
What’s this? Has she already forgotten about the gum?
“Ready for what?” John asks.
Kerry replies matter-of-factly. “I’m going to spit melon seeds for a world record.”
“Melon seeds?” John asks.
“Melon seeds?” Michelle asks.
“Melon seeds?” I ask.
Kerry is grinning from ear to ear. “Yep, melon seeds. They don’t have gum-chewing records in the Guinness Book of World Records, but they do have melon-seed-spitting records: sixty-five feet, four inches!”
That’s twice the length of room 11 at Lincoln Elementary School. I’ll bet that’s as long as 150 hot dogs laid out end to end.
“Kerry, do you know how far that is?” I ask.
“Sure, I know,” she says, looking at me as if that’s the stupidest question I could have possibly thought of. “No problem. I can do it. You’ve always said I had a powerful mouth, right?”
John and Michelle are both giggling.
“Well, yeah,” I admit, “but—”
“So what better way to use a powerful mouth than for spitting melon seeds for a new world record?” Kerry says with a smile.
“But Kerry—”
“I’ll be famous!”
“But Kerry—”
“I’ll be in the Guinness Book of World Records!”
“But Kerry—”
“I’ll be a hero, an idol, a tribute to my school, my city, my state, my country, the world! Just like you, Arlo.”
Kerry has lost contact with reality. I am an experienced banana-eater. She hasn’t trained. She hasn’t put in the years of practice. She doesn’t understand the dedication, sacrifice, and pain it takes to be a hero. I, Xexus of Zoidtron, have special powers. I understand these things. I can be famous. I can break the world record. I will use PBA and my superalien powers. I will show everyone who’s king. This honor belongs to me—and me alone, not Kerry.
“You can’t do it,” I tell her.
She turns and faces me. There is not even a hint of a smile on her face.
“Why?” she asks with her hands on her hips.
“You don’t have the powers. You just can’t.”
“Can’t?”
“Right, you can’t do it,” I repeat.
“Can’t?”
Kerry must be having trouble with her bionic ears.
“Yes, I can, Arlo, you turkey!”
She’s not, however, having trouble with her bionic mouth.
“Quiet, Kerry,” I say, looking around to see if people are watching.
“Don’t tell me to be quiet! Don’t tell me I can’t!” She glares at me.
Everyone is looking over at us. John keeps saying, “ssh, ssh.” Michelle looks embarrassed.
“I can do it, Arlo! Do you hear me?”
Kerry has gone off the deep end of the bathtub. She hasn’t done this since she was in kindergarten and Mrs. De Witt told her she couldn’t color the giraffe purple. It had to be yellow and brown.
“Yes, Kerry,” I say, “everyone in Papa Dietro’s can hear you.”
“I can do it!”
She’s banging on John and Michelle’s table.
“I’m going to be famous!”
Their Cokes and pizza are jumping around on the bouncing table like they’re made of rubber.
“I …!”
Bang, bang. There’s no stopping her now.
“CAN …!”
Bang, bang. She just has to get this out of her system.
“DO IT!”
Bang, bang—splash. John and Michelle now have a twelve-inch supreme pizza topped with eight ounces of Coca-Cola and all of the ice from Michelle’s cup.
And John is mad. “Now see what you’ve done, Arlo!”
“Me?” I ask. “What do you mean, John?”
“You got her all worked up,” he fumes.
“She got herself worked up,” I fume back.
“But you started it. You and all this world-record baloney. You’re both crazy,” he says, pointing at us. Michelle is wiping off the pizza with napkins. “Neither one of you can break a world record.”
“But John—” I say.
“And you’re going to buy me two supreme pizzas when you lose the bet. The second one to replace this soggy thing,” he says, standing up. “C’mon, Michelle. Let’s get out of here. You’ve probably seen enough of my strange family.”
I beg to be heard. “But John—”
I wonder if there’s a world record for eating your own words.
CHAPTER 15
“Crows are patient.”
—ARLO MOORE
Today is Monday, September 12. Room 11 is getting ready for SSR. Mr. Dayton says SSR stands for Sustained Silent Reading. Sustained means we don’t stop reading for twenty minutes. Silent means there is no talking—as in absolutely no talking. And Reading means that that’s what we do—read. We do SSR right after recess. Mr. Dayton says it helps to calm us down and get us used to being back in the classroom.
I think we should change it to SSE—Sustained Silent Eating—as in quietly eating bananas. I have twelve more days left to train for the big event.
Speaking of bananas, where is my banana? Oh, no. I left it out on the playground. It’s in my backpack with my Guinness Book of
World Records and my leftover tuna sandwich. I must go to the rescue.
“Mr. Dayton?”
“Yes, Arlo.”
“May I go out and get my backpack?” I ask. “I left it behind the soccer goal. It has my SSR book in it.”
“OK, Arlo, but be quick about it,” he says, loosening his tie. “We start SSR in two minutes.”
“I will. Thanks, Mr. Dayton.”
Under my Guinness Book of World Records, I find the remains of my tuna fish sandwich. Partly eaten, it lies near death in the bottom of my backpack. I think I hear it calling to me. In its last dying breath, it begs to be fed to the crows. Anything but the garbage can. I’ll grant my faithful sandwich its last wish. With great ceremony, I lift it from my backpack and place it on the ground.
“Pssst … Hey, Arlo.” It’s Ben.
“Huh?”
“The crows, look at the crows.”
From the window of room 11, I can see the crows. They have seen my tuna sandwich. They swoop down from the telephone wires, one by one, gliding onto the soccer field. They walk around the sandwich, eyeing it. I think they’re not sure if it’s alive or dead. Crows are patient. They’ll make sure before they eat.
But I’m not feeling so patient. I can’t wait any longer for my banana. This is SSR, not SSE, so I’ll have to be sneaky. I’ll have to read and eat at the same time.
Slowly, I reach into my desk and gently undo the clasp on my backpack. Very carefully, I raise the flap just enough to slip my hand in. I check the room to see if anyone is watching. Mr. Dayton’s mustache is twitching as he reads. My fellow fifth-graders are reading silently for twenty sustained minutes. Now is the time for action.
Gently I probe. With the hands of a pro, I seek out the golden, delicious fruit. Bingo, I’ve struck pay dirt. Once again, I check the room for safety. Looking carefully at my Guinness Book of World Records, I slowly pull my practice banana from my desk. Success. I will dine on banana and watch the crows.
The crows have decided it’s time to eat. I agree. They’re hopping around, pulling bits and pieces of the deceased sandwich apart. I’m performing the ultimate banana feat. I’m peeling my banana with my right hand—and I’m left-handed.
The crows jump in at the sandwich, fight for a piece, and fly a few feet away to eat. They’re always trying to outdo each other, sneak a piece when no one is looking, or steal a bit from another crow. What a weird way to eat.
Luckily, no one is jumping at my banana. I don’t have to fight for a piece. All I have to do is peel my banana with one hand. No problem for an expert. Ah … finished.
Carefully, I break off a piece. Raising my Guinness Book of World Records from my desk toward my face, I smoothly pop my piece of wonderful banana goodness into my mouth and chew, chew, chew, swallow. Not bad. I’m getting faster all the time.
“Excuse me, Arlo, but are you eating?”
Aiyee! It’s Mr. Dayton.
“Uh … well … I … yes … yes sir, Mr. Dayton, I am,” I stammer, caught in the act.
“Bananas have a strong odor, Arlo,” he says, standing beside my desk, looking down at me. “I could smell it all the way up at my desk.”
I shift in my chair and wish I could just run away. I feel like a bug trapped in a jar. “You could? Really?” I ask.
“Yes. It’s not hard for a banana-lover to smell his favorite fruit.”
Do I detect a smile under that mustache? “Are you a banana-lover, Mr. Dayton?”
“Yes,” he replies, “but I don’t eat them during SSR. It’s Sustained Silent Reading, not Sustained Silent Eating.”
Good grief, I think he can read my mind, just like Mom.
“This won’t happen again, will it, Arlo?” he continues, his mustache twitching.
“No sir,” I assure him.
Whew, saved by the understanding of one banana-lover for another.
“Oh, Arlo,” Mr. Dayton says.
He’s probably changed his mind. I’m about to be sent to Mrs. Caldwell’s office.
“Yes, Mr. Dayton?”
“This world-record business, it’s just for fun, right?” he asks with raised eyebrows.
“Well, yes sir, but—”
“Good, good. I just wanted to be sure. As long as you’ve got the right attitude, I wish you all the luck in the world,” he says as he turns to go back to his desk.
“Thanks, Mr. Dayton.” I sigh with relief.
I can, I can, I can, I can …
CHAPTER 16
“What are friends for?”
—MURRAY WALLACE
Sophie Zacker thinks I’ve gone insane. She was the only person in the hall when I quietly snuck out of room 11. She’s the only person who saw me slink into the boys’ bathroom with two bananas sticking out of my pockets. She stopped and watched me go. Then she went on to her classroom.
Lucky for me, she’s the quietest kid in all of Lincoln Elementary School. She won’t tell anybody about my secret banana practice place. She never tells anybody about anything.
So now I’m hiding in stall number 1 of the boys’ bathroom. Stall number 1 is right by the wall. I picked it on purpose. It has several advantages over stalls number 2, 3, or 4. First, it’s in the corner of the bathroom. Some kids even forget that stall number 1 is here because it’s in the corner and behind the bathroom door when it opens. That’s good.
Another advantage of stall number 1 is that it has a wall on one side. If someone is going to peek underneath at you (which happens a lot), he can only do it from one side. This cuts the chances in half of someone looking under stall number 1 and catching me practicing my banana-eating. I like those odds.
And probably the best advantage of stall number 1 is that the latch on the door works really well. The other stalls have latches that are all the time coming undone. You can be sitting there, minding your own business, and all of a sudden—click, the latch comes undone and the door swings open. Now that can be very embarrassing.
I have nine days left until I make my attempt at a world record. Nine days, that’s all. I’ve been practicing at Ben’s, in the cafeteria, and also secretly at home and in the boys’ bathroom. And I’ve been doing PBA over, and over, and over. It’s getting so I go to sleep doing PBA. And then I wake up doing PBA. I even dream PBA.
Last night I had a weird dream. I dreamed that I walked into a banana factory. There were shiny metal machines everywhere. PBA was blaring out over loudspeakers. A man in a white coat, white pants, white shoes, and a white hat walked up to me. He explained that this was Crystal Murkele’s Banana Corporation. He said that bananas no longer grew on trees and that those machines could produce over 250,000 bananas per day. My job was to be a banana taste-tester. I would put my banana taste buds to work on machine-made bananas twelve hours a day, seven days a week. I could retire from the job when I was eighty-three years old.
He smiled when he finished talking. He had yellow teeth. Then he raised his hand over his head and clicked his fingers three times. With that, all the machines in the factory started wheezing and grinding and churning. Bananas began to pop out everywhere: from chutes, pipes, conveyor belts, glass tubes, and chrome tunnels. Before I could even move, bananas were piling up around my ankles. Within thirty seconds they were knee deep. And less than two minutes later, I had bananas up to my eyeballs.
The man in the white coat smiled at me with his yellow teeth. “Get to work, Arlo,” he said, “and be sure to pick up the peels when you’re finished.”
That dream was so real I woke up with banana taste in my mouth. I even had a couple of banana peels lying on my pillow. I must have fallen asleep right after I did my last timed banana practice.
But now I’m hiding here in stall number 1 of the boys’ bathroom. I want to get in one more banana practice before the school day ends … and I want to do it alone.
So here goes. First, a little Positive Brain Approach, brought to me by shortwave brain train, channel 9.
I can, I can, I can, I can …
&nb
sp; Second, I must change identities. And so I, Arlo Moore, fifth-grade boys’ bathroom outlaw, become Xexus, super banana-eating alien from the planet Zoidtron.
Mission control to Project Bananazap: stand by for blast off. Five, four, three, two, one … Hi yo, banana, away!
I’m taking small bites. With the skill of many hours of practice, I’m hurtling bite-sized banana bits into the outer reaches of my stomach. Faster, Xexus, faster. With a final surge of astro power, I switch into hyperspeed and vanquish the last morsel into the black hole of inner space.
What’s that? Someone is coming into the boys’ bathroom. Quick. I’ve got to stand up on the toilet seat so no one can see my feet under stall number 1. Five, four, three, two, one … blast off.
I’m being very quiet now. Standing on a toilet seat isn’t easy. Not only am I balancing one foot on either side, but I’m also ducking down so my head doesn’t show above the stall. I need to change identities. This is a job for Commando Mucho, top-flight secret spy. Instead of standing on a toilet seat in Lincoln Elementary School, I’m inching my way along a jungle cliff high above the Amazon River. Crocodiles and deadly man-eating piranha fish swim one hundred feet below me in the swirling water.
I creep along the cliff toward the top of a secret banana tree. It’s protected by guards with machine guns and bazookas. They don’t want anyone to learn the secret of these bananas. But I, Commando Mucho, already know of their superpower. These bananas make anyone who eats them world famous.
My mission is to steal three bananas so our scientists can study them and find out how to grow them. Slowly, without breathing, I look around the edge of the cliff.
“Hey, I smell banana.”
Good grief. It’s Murray Wallace.
“Is that you in there, Arlo?”
Oh, no, he’s detected Commando Mucho. I’ve got to make my escape. I’ve got to—aiyee. Splash.
Oh, yuk. I’ve fallen into the toilet. I now have one soaked left foot and shoe. Thank goodness it was flushed.
“It is you, isn’t it, Arlo?” Murray asks.
Rats, I’m caught behind enemy lines.
“Hiding in the bathroom eating bananas, huh? How stupid!”
