by Steve Cotler
He reached out to pat us on our backs. But since I was wearing my backpack, and it had Goon’s book inside, I sort of spun out of his reach and stuck out my hand.
“It’s been a pleasure to work on this with you, Mr. Hernandes.”
We shook. Then Georgie and I left the museum.
“Something’s weird,” I said as we walked to our bikes. “He checked the signature. Did you see that?”
“Yeah. So?”
“That means he probably looked before, too,” I continued.
I was onto something, but before I could figure out what was bothering me, Georgie yelled, “Race you home!”
I should’ve stopped right then and looked at the book in my backpack, but I didn’t. Georgie had challenged me, so I stood up on my pedals and pumped hard.
Georgie was five bike lengths ahead, but I am much faster than he is, so I began gaining on him. But after a few blocks I started thinking about how the messes we’d been in were just about cleaned up, and how that was way more important than if I beat him. So I pedaled just hard enough to stay the same distance behind all the way home.
“I win!” Georgie shouted as we pulled up in front of my house.
We were both out of breath.
“Georgie,” I panted. “This has been an excellent day. I think our problems are almost over.”
Boy, was I wrong!
*
Just as I was starting this thirteenth chapter, Granpa looked over my shoulder and said, “Most hotels don’t have a thirteenth floor because lots of people think thirteen’s an unlucky number.”
I’m not superstitious, but what could it hurt to be like those hotels and leave this chapter out?
If you are superstitious, please go to my website and tell me how.
*
* Triskaidekaphobia (tris-kai-deck-uh-FOH-bee-uh) means fear of the number thirteen.
I had the Harry Potter book in my backpack. My next problem was how to get it back onto Goon’s bookshelf.
Once we got to my house, Georgie and I raced upstairs. As usual, Goon’s door was shut, but we could hear her talking to someone on her phone.
We went into my room. “Like last time,” I said softly, “we just wait for Goon to go to the bathroom.” I looked at my shelf of games. “How about Yahtzee?”
We sat on my bed, playing Yahtzee with my door wide open so I could keep an eye on Goon’s room. An hour later we got bored, so we began what turned out to be a super-long game of Monopoly. Georgie and I each went to the bathroom once. Goon never left her room.
“Your sister must have a bladder the size of a basketball,” Georgie muttered.
“That’s it, Georgie!” I said, jumping up from the bed and knocking over three of Georgie’s Monopoly hotels. “I know what to do. Watch Goon’s door. I’ll be right back.”
I raced down to the kitchen, got milk from the fridge, frozen strawberries and mango chunks and vanilla ice cream from the freezer, and whipped up a blender full of fruit smoothies. I took a sip … DEE-LISH! I’d made a little mess, but when I gave a small glassful to Mom, she said she’d clean up. I poured the rest into a couple of huge glasses, stuck two straws in one and one in the other, and walked back upstairs. (It is way too risky to run with full glasses of deliciousness.)
I handed Georgie the glass with two straws. “Don’t drink it all. I’ll be right back.”
Then I knocked on Goon’s door. I could hear her inside, still chattering on her phone. She didn’t respond, so I yelled, “I made strawberry-mango smoothies for Mom and me and Georgie … and I had some left over! If you want it, open your door.”
A moment later her door opened, and she stuck out a hand while continuing her phone conversation. “… a picture of me and Drew at the park. What? No way! Gary is absolutely not cuter than Drew! Barf!” She took the glass without even looking at me and closed her door.
I was lucky Goon hadn’t taken longer to open her door. Georgie had already sucked down half our smoothie.
“No matter how big her bladder is,” I said, pulling our supposed-to-be-shared glass away from Georgie the Hog, “it won’t be long now.” I took a big drink through my straw.
Sure enough, about ten minutes later (I had passed Go twice and Georgie had just landed on my Marvin Gardens hotel!), Goon came out of her room (still on her phone) and went into the bathroom.
“Now!” I said, grabbing the book from my backpack and scooting across the hall.
NO! Her door was locked. I slumped back to my room and plopped onto the bed so hard I messed up the entire Monopoly board. I was winning, but I didn’t care. I sat there for a moment, then got up, walked over to my window, and looked out into my backyard. Because it was a warmish day, my window was open a few inches. I could smell autumn. It’s a leafy sort of smell.
“It looks like we’re out of ideas,” I muttered.
Sometimes ideas just pop into my head without my doing anything.
Goon poked her head out the bathroom door and yelled, “Hey, Mom! Could you bring me some shampoo? We’re out, and I want to wash my hair.”
I spun around. “Georgie! I’ve got a plan. Follow me!” I shoved the book into my backpack, put it on, and ran down the stairs. Georgie was right behind. We passed Mom coming up the stairs with the shampoo.
“Where are you going?” she asked me.
“It’s such a nice day … we’re playing outside. Bye.”
Once we were in my backyard, Georgie asked, “What’s the plan?”
I pointed up to Goon’s bedroom window. Just like I figured, on this warm day it was partially open like mine was. “Let’s get your dad’s ladder. I’m going in!”
Two minutes later, Georgie and I came out of his garage carrying an aluminum extension ladder. Those are the kind that you slide one part of to make them longer. We toted it through the won’t-close gate and into my yard.
“We have to be really quiet,” I said as we leaned it up against the back of my house. “No banging against the walls.”
Georgie pulled on the rope that extends the ladder until it reached Goon’s window.
“You hold it steady while I go up,” I said. I looked around to see if anyone was watching, then climbed up to the second floor. I am absolutely not scared of heights. I have climbed trees taller than the top of my house.
Hooked onto the side of Goon’s window was a giant circular spiderweb. In the middle was a fat spider that had just caught a fat fly. She (I’m just guessing it was female) was wrapping spider silk around her prey, spinning it around and around with her legs. I felt sorry for the fly.
“What are you looking at?” Georgie whispered.
“Cool spider,” I replied, pointing at it.
“What are you boys doing?” It was Ms. D, calling from Georgie’s back door.
“Looking at a cool spider!” Georgie yelled back.
“For a science report,” I whispered down to Georgie. (It wasn’t exactly a lie. Maybe I will do a report on spiders.)
“For a science report!” Georgie yelled to Ms. D.
“Research, huh? Good job. But be careful.” She went back into the house.
Goon’s window was open a few inches, so I lifted the screen away from the window (to be honest, I think I sort of broke something getting it off) and motioned for Georgie. He scampered up the ladder and took the screen from me. I raised the window and pulled myself into her room. I had just taken the book out of my backpack and slid it onto her shelf exactly where I had taken the other one from when the door started to unlock! I motioned frantically for Georgie to put the window back the way it was. Then I dashed into Goon’s closet and pulled the door shut.
It was dark. I heard Goon’s footsteps. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it. And I was thinking so hard I could almost hear my own thoughts. What if Goon needs some clothes? What if she stays in her room until dinner?
I stood there in the dark listening to her moving around. Then her hair dryer came on. I was trapped. A few minutes later it w
ent off. Goon began singing to herself. Then her cell rang.
“Hi,” she said. “Sure. I finished drying my hair. Uh-huh. Come over now.”
Oh, great! I thought. In a few minutes one of her friends will be here, and I’ll be trapped for hours. I really wish I hadn’t drunk such a big smoothie.
“Okay,” Goon said, “But hurry up. You can help me do my fingernails. I don’t know. Sort of pinkish, purplish. Or maybe greenish, bluish. Hold on, Jasmine’s calling on the other line.”
Call her! That’s it! Silently I dug my phone out of my backpack and dialed my home. The house phone started ringing.
Granpa answered, “Hello.”
“Granpa,” I whispered very softly, “would you ask Junie—”
“Hello!” Granpa repeated. “I can’t hear you.”
“Granpa?” I whispered. “Would you ask Junie—”
“Can’t hear you. Call back.” Then he hung up.
I redialed. It rang once.
“Hello!” Granpa said loudly.
“Granpa,” I whispered a teeny bit louder. “Would you ask June to come to the phone?”
“June!” Granpa bellowed from downstairs. “Telephone!”
I heard June open her bedroom door. “Who is it?” she yelled.
“Cheesie needs to talk to you!”
“I’m busy!”
I whispered into my phone, “It’s very important.”
“He says it’s very important!”
“Tell him to call my cell!” she screeched angrily.
“I can’t. Granpa, please get her on the phone.”
“Junie!” Granpa yelled even louder. “Come get this phone! I am not your personal answering machine.”
“I’ll call you right back,” Goon said to whichever friend she’d been talking to.
I waited a few seconds until I was sure she’d gone downstairs, then shot out of her closet. Good old Georgie! The window was back the way it had been and her screen was up. I zipped out her door and into my room. Georgie was waiting, slurping the last of our smoothie.
Moments later Goon stomped up the stairs. “Idiot!” she shouted at my closed door, then slammed hers.
I high-fived Georgie.
Mission accomplished.
I was pretty proud of myself. I thought Georgie would be totally happy, too, but after the excitement of our second-story sneaking wore off, he got kind of quiet.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve been looking at this ring we bought.” He had placed the fake ring in the real ring’s black velvet box. “I mean, it looks okay. But do you think I’m really going to get away with this?”
“Maybe,” I replied. What I really meant was no.
“You’re right,” Georgie said.
When you have a best friend, mostly they know what you really mean.
“I’m going to tell my mom the truth,” he said, popping up to his feet.
He didn’t say “Lulu.” That was the first time I ever heard him call her Mom.
I put my arm on his shoulder. “Do you want me to come with you?”
Of course I knew the answer. He nodded.
Ms. D Georgie’s mom was in the kitchen with Joy, Charlotte (Jokie’s wife), and Ava (Fed’s gf). Someone had just baked cookies, and the smell was terrific.
Georgie’s mom smiled when we came in. “Would you boys like some hot cocoa or milk and some cookies?”
“Uh-huh,” Georgie replied in a soft voice, “but could I talk to you privately first?”
Her smile disappeared. “Of course.” She put down her coffee, got up from the table, and opened the door to the dining room.
“Cheesie too,” Georgie mumbled, motioning me to follow.
The three of us went through the dining room into the empty living room.
“Where’re my dad and my brothers?” Georgie asked.
“Upstairs, trying on their fancy duds,” Georgie’s mom said with a small smile. “I’m hoping they’ll look as handsome as you two boys did.”
She sat on the couch and motioned for Georgie to join her. I sat on a big soft chair.
“What’s up, Georgie?” she asked.
Normally I don’t notice anything about what people are wearing (light blue dress with a dark blue apron that had blotches of flour from the cookies on it), so why this time? Maybe because I was really paying attention? I don’t know.
Georgie took a deep breath. “You said I could be the ring bearer. And then Dad told me he trusted me to do it right. So I took the ring.” Georgie opened the black velvet box and held it out to her. A shaft of sunlight slanting in through the window made the fake ring shine brightly.
“Your wedding ring …,” Georgie started to explain, but his voice got caught in his throat. He swallowed. “This isn’t it. I lost the real one. It went down the sewer. So Cheesie and I bought you a new one.”
His mom took the fake ring out of the box.
“Please don’t tell Dad,” Georgie pleaded.
She slipped the ring onto her finger and held her hand up in front of her. “It’s beautiful, Georgie.”
“You’re not mad?” Georgie asked.
“Not at all.” She took the ring off and put it back in the black velvet box. She looked at me, then back at Georgie. “Do you think there’s any chance we could find the other ring … maybe get it out of the sewer?”
I shook my head. So did Georgie.
“We tried,” I said. “We really did.”
She gave Georgie a hug and handed him the black velvet box. “This ring will be perfect. And we don’t have to tell your father. It’ll be our little secret. At least until after the wedding.”
We went back into the kitchen and ate cookies … a lot of cookies!
For any normal adventure, this is exactly where the story would begin to finish up. Here’s what would happen:
1. There’d be a happy wedding where Georgie, the happy ring bearer, would hand over the fake ring, and his happy father and happy new mom would live happily ever after.
2. The next day Georgie and I would participate in the time capsule ceremony at our school, and we’d be on TV with Mayor Raglan and be kind of famous.
3. And then, sometime after that, Goon would find out how I messed up her sneaky steal-the-book plan, and I’d get to laugh at her for the next one hundred years!
But this was a Cheesie adventure, so you can bet nothing was normal.
“Hey, Cheeseman, why the big grin?” my dad asked at dinner that night.
Georgie wasn’t at the table with my family. He’d gone out to a fancy night-before-the-wedding restaurant with his dad and mom and everyone else in his house.
“I’m just excited about Monday,” I said. I wasn’t going to volunteer anything about the lost ring or the book swap.
“Oh, the time capsule,” Dad said.
“Tell everybody what the most valuable item in that capsule is,” Granpa said, poking me with his elbow and giving me a squinty-evil-eye.
Of course I knew what Granpa was hinting at. But I was feeling so happy and relaxed, I decided to have some fun with my answer. “There are two very valuable items in the time capsule,” I said. “And both of them involve this family.”
Mom had a forkful of food halfway to her mouth. “I’m very intrigued,” she said.
I was in such a good mood that I began speaking like I was a TV newscaster. “The item with the highest money value was contributed by Mr. Melvyn Mack of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Mr. Mack, a well-known and generous supporter of museums and archaeology, has donated one million dollars.”
Granpa stood and took a bow. “I wrote a personal check,” he bragged.
“Good plan, Pop,” Dad said. “No one will know how broke you are for a hundred years.”
“And the second item of great value,” I announced, “was suggested by Miss June Mack, vice president of the RLS eighth grade. This lovely young woman is a talented dancer and a dedicated, hardworking, cooperative,
trustworthy, delightful member of the RLS Time Capsule Committee.”
Goon knew I was making fun of her. She gave me a dirty look, but I ignored her and kept talking.
“However, since Miss Mack’s copy of the extraordinarily famous book was unsigned and therefore totally ordinary the Time Capsule Committee included Mrs. DeWitt’s autographed copy instead.”
“You’re wrong,” Goon objected. “My book is signed.”
“No, it isn’t,” I countered, smiling a little.
“Is too,” Goon continued. “I’ll prove it.”
She jumped up from the table and ran upstairs. My smile turned into a huge grin. This was perfect. It would be an excellent Point Battle victory. In a few seconds Goon would let out a hideous shriek when she opened the book and found no signature!
I waited.
No shriek.
And I waited.
No shriek.
And then I heard her coming down the stairs. She still wasn’t shrieking. In fact, she was humming. And when she danced into the dining room holding the Harry Potter book, she spun around once like a ballerina and gracefully dropped into her chair.
She was smiling.
I wasn’t.
Goon opened the book and turned it so everyone could see J. K. Rowling’s signature.
I was stunned.
“It’s signed … see?” She held it right up to my face.
I was super stunned.
“It might not be signed by J. K. Rowling,” she said with a big smirk, “but it’s signed.”
“What do you mean, honey?” Mom asked.
“Well, I knew I’d never get J. K. Rowling to sign my book, so I took a photo of the signature in Mrs. DeWitt’s, and I copied it. I even used the same color pen.”
I was super-duper stunned.
“Interesting,” Dad said.
Goon set the book down on the table. “Maybe it’s not her real signature, but it makes me happy.”
I was so stunned I wasn’t sure I was breathing.
Granpa took a long look. “Darn good work, Junie. Not that I know what K. J. Growling’s signature looks like, but this one looks authentic to me. You may have a career as a counterfeiter in front of you.”
