Judy Moody

by Megan McDonald

  Who’s Who

  A Bad Mood

  Roar!

  Two Heads Are Better Than One

  My Favorite Pet

  My Smelly Pet

  Doctor Judy Moody

  The T.P. Club

  The Worst Thing Ever

  Definitely the Worst Thing Ever

  The Funniest Thing Ever

  The Me Collage

  Band-Aids and Ice Cream

  10 Things You May Not Know About Megan McDonald

  10 Things You May Not Know About Peter H. Reynolds

  Judy Moody did not want to give up summer. She did not feel like brushing her hair every day. She did not feel like memorizing spelling words. And she did not want to sit next to Frank Pearl, who ate paste, in class.

  Judy Moody was in a mood.

  Not a good mood. A bad mood. A mad-face mood. Even the smell of her new Grouchy pencils could not get her out of bed.

  “First day of school!” sang her mother. “Shake a leg and get dressed.”

  Judy Moody slunk down under the covers and put a pillow over her head.

  “Judy? Did you hear me?”

  “ROAR!” said Judy.

  She would have to get used to a new desk and a new classroom. Her new desk would not have an armadillo sticker with her name on it, like her old one last year. Her new classroom would not have a porcupine named Roger.

  And with her luck, she’d get stuck sitting in the first row, where Mr. Todd could see every time she tried to pass a note to her best friend, Rocky.

  Mom poked her head inside Judy’s room again. “And think about brushing that hair, okay?”

  One of the worst things about the first day of school was that everybody came back from summer wearing new T-shirts that said DISNEY WORLD or SEA WORLD or JAMESTOWN: Home of Pocahontas. Judy searched her top drawer and her bottom drawer and even her underwear drawer. She could not find one shirt with words.

  She wore her tiger-striped pajama pants on the bottom and a plain old no-words T-shirt on top.

  “She’s wearing pajamas!” said her brother, Stink, when she came downstairs. “You can’t wear pajamas to school!”

  Stink thought he knew everything now that he was starting second grade. Judy glared at him with one of her famous troll-eyes stares.

  “Judy can change after breakfast,” Mom said.

  “I made sunny-side-up eggs for the first day of school,” said Dad. “There’s squishy bread for dipping.”

  There was nothing sunny about Judy’s egg — the yellow middle was broken. Judy slid her wobbly egg into the napkin on her lap, and fed it to Mouse, their cat, under the table.

  “Summer is over, and I didn’t even go anywhere,” said Judy.

  “You went to Gramma Lou’s,” said Mom.

  “But that was right here in boring old Virginia. And I didn’t get to eat hot dogs and ride a roller coaster or see a whale,” said Judy.

  “You rode a bumper car,” said Mom.

  “Baby cars. At the mall,” Judy said.

  “You went fishing and ate shark,” said Dad.

  “She ate a shark?” asked Stink.

  “I ate a shark?” asked Judy.

  “Yes,” said Dad. “Remember the fish we bought at the market when we couldn’t catch any?”

  “I ate a shark!” said Judy Moody.

  Judy Moody ran back to her room and peeled off her shirt. She took out a fat marker and drew a big-mouthed shark with lots of teeth. I ATE A SHARK, she wrote in all capitals.

  Judy ran out the door to the bus. She didn’t wait for Stink. She didn’t wait for kisses from Dad or hugs from Mom. She was in a hurry to show Rocky her new T-shirt with words.

  She almost forgot her bad mood until she saw Rocky practicing card tricks at the bus stop. He was wearing a giant-sized blue and white T-shirt with fancy letters and a picture of the Loch Ness Monster roller coaster.

  “Like my new T-shirt?” he asked. “I got it at Busch Gardens.”

  “No,” said Judy Moody, even though she secretly liked the shirt.

  “I like your shark,” said Rocky. When Judy didn’t say anything, he asked, “Are you in a bad mood or something?”

  “Or something,” said Judy Moody.

  When Judy Moody arrived in third grade, her teacher, Mr. Todd, stood by the door, welcoming everyone. “Hello there, Judy.”

  “Hello, Mr. Toad,” said Judy. She cracked herself up.

  “Class, please hang your backpacks on the hooks and put your lunches in the cubbies,” said Mr. Todd.

  Judy Moody looked around the classroom. “Do you have a porcupine named Roger?” Judy asked Mr. Todd.

  “No, but we have a turtle named Tucson. Do you like turtles?”

  She liked turtles! But she caught herself just in time. “No. I like toads.” Judy cracked up again.

  “Rocky, your seat is over by the window, and Judy, yours is right up front,” said Mr. Todd.

  “I knew it,” said Judy. She surveyed her new front-row desk. It didn’t have an armadillo sticker with her name on it.

  Guess Who sat across the aisle from her. Frank Eats-Paste Pearl. He glanced at Judy sideways, then bent his thumb all the way back, touching his wrist. Judy rolled her tongue like a hot dog back at him.

  “You like sharks too?” he asked, passing her a small white envelope with her name on it.

  Ever since they had danced the Maypole together in kindergarten, this boy would not leave her alone. In first grade, Frank Pearl sent her five valentines. In second grade, he gave her a cupcake on Halloween, on Thanksgiving, and on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Now, on the first day of third grade, he gave her a birthday party invitation. Judy checked the date inside — his birthday was not for three weeks! Even a real shark would not scare him off.

  “Can I look inside your desk?” asked Judy. He moved to one side. No sign of paste.

  Mr. Todd stood in front of the class. GINO’S EXTRA-CHEESE PIZZA was printed in large letters on the board.

  “Are we having extra-cheese pizza for lunch?” Judy asked.

  “For Spelling.” Mr. Todd held his finger to his lips like it was a secret. “You’ll see.”

  Then he said, “Okay! Third grade! Listen up! We’re going to try something different to kick off the year, as a way of getting to know one another. This year, each of you will make your own Me collage. All about YOU. You can draw or cut out pictures and paste things to your collage that tell the class what makes you YOU.”

  A Me collage! It sounded fun to Judy, but she didn’t say so.

  “We don’t have to draw a map of our family, then?” asked Jessica Finch.

  “I’m passing out a list of ideas for things you might include, like your family. I’m also giving everyone a folder for collecting the things you want to put on your collage. We’ll work on these as we have time over the next month. At the end of September, you’ll each get a chance to tell the class about YOU.”

  All through Language Arts and Social Studies, Judy thought about one thing — herself. Judy Moody, star of her own Me collage. Maybe third grade wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Okay, everybody. Time for Spelling.”

  “Yuck. Spelling,” Judy said under her breath, remembering her bad mood.

  “Yuck. Spelling,” Frank Pearl agreed. Judy squinched her eyebrows at him.

  “Take out a piece of paper and write down five spelling words you can find hidden in the words on the board, GINO’S EXTRA-CHEESE PIZZA.”

  “Cool Spelling, huh?” said a note passed to Judy by Frank.

  “No,” she wrote back on her hand, flashing it at him.

  Judy took out her brand-new package of Grouchy pencils with mad faces on them. GROUCHY pencils — for completely impossible moods, said the package. Ever see a pencil that looks
like it got up on the wrong side of the bed?

  Perfect. The new Grouchy pencil helped her think. She found the words TREE, TEXAS, and TAXI hidden in Mr. Todd’s spelling on the board. But instead she wrote down 1)NO 2)NO 3)NO 4)NO 5)NO.

  “Who would like to tell the class five words they came up with?” asked Mr. Todd.

  Judy’s hand shot up.

  “Judy?”

  “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!” said Judy.

  “That’s one word. I need four more. Come up and write them on the board.”

  Judy Moody did not write TREE, TEXAS, and TAXI. Instead she wrote RAT and GNAT.

  “How about BRAT?” called Rocky.

  “There’s no B,” said Frank Pearl.

  TIGER, wrote Judy.

  “One more word,” said Mr. Todd.

  SPIT, wrote Judy.

  “Can you use any of those words in a sentence, Judy?” asked Mr. Todd.

  “The tiger spit on the rat and the gnat.”

  The whole class cracked up. Frank laughed so hard he snorted.

  “Are you in a bad mood today?” asked Mr. Todd.

  “ROAR,” said Judy Moody.

  “That’s too bad,” said Mr. Todd. “I was just about to ask who wants to go down to the office and pick up the pizza. It’s a welcome-back surprise.”

  “Pizza? Pizza! For real?” The room buzzed with excitement.

  Judy Moody wanted to be the one to pick up the pizza. She wanted to be the one to open the box. She wanted to be the one who got to keep the little three-legged plastic table that kept the box top from sticking to the pizza.

  “So. Who would like to pick up the pizza today?” asked Mr. Todd.

  “Me!” yelled Judy. “Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!” everyone shouted at once, waving their hands like windmills in the air.

  Rocky raised his hand without saying a word.

  “Rocky, would you like to pick up the pizza?”

  “Sure!” said Rocky.

  “Luck-y!” Judy said.

  When Rocky came back with the pizza, the class grew quiet, everyone chewing teeny-weeny cheesy squares of Gino’s pizza and listening to Mr. Todd read them a chapter from a book about a pepperoni pizza–eating dog.

  When he finished reading, Judy asked, “Mr. Todd, can I look at your little pizza table?”

  “That does look like a miniature table, Judy. I never thought of it that way.”

  “I collect them,” said Judy Moody. She didn’t really collect them — yet. So far, she had collections of twenty-seven dead moths, a handful of old scabs, a dozen fancy toothpicks, hundreds of designer Band-Aids (she needed the box tops), a box of body parts (from dolls!) including three Barbie heads, and four unused erasers shaped like baseballs.

  “Tell you what,” said Mr. Todd. “If you think you can come to third grade in a good mood tomorrow, it’s yours. Do you think you can agree to that?”

  “Yes, Mr. Todd,” said Judy. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!”

  Judy was teaching Mouse to walk on two legs when the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  All she heard was air.

  “Hello?” Judy asked the air.

  “Hello, Judy? Are you allowed to come to my party?” a voice asked. A Frank Pearl voice. It had only been two days since he gave her the invitation.

  “Wrong number,” said Judy, hanging up. She dangled her new pizza table from a string in front of Mouse’s nose.

  The phone rang again. “Hello? Is this the Moodys’?”

  “Not now, Frank. I’m in the middle of an important experiment.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  The phone rang a third time.

  “The experiment’s not over yet,” Judy yelled into the phone.

  “What experiment?” asked Rocky.

  “Never mind,” said Judy.

  “Let’s go to Vic’s,” said Rocky. “I want to get something for my Me collage.” Vic’s was the Mini Mart down the hill where they had cool prizes in the jawbreaker machine, like tattoos that wash off and magic tricks.

  “Let me ask,” said Judy.

  “Mom, can I go to Vic’s with Rocky?”

  “Sure,” said Mom.

  “Sure!” said Judy, tossing Mouse the pizza table.

  “I’m going too,” said Stink.

  “No, you’re not,” Judy told him.

  “You and Rocky can take him along,” said Mom, giving her one of those looks.

  “But he doesn’t know about crossing through China and Japan on the way,” Judy said. Only best friends knew that the first speed bump on the way was crossing into China, the second, Japan.

  “I’m sure you could teach him,” Mom said.

  “Teach me,” said Stink.

  “Meet me at the manhole,” Judy said back into the phone. The manhole was exactly halfway between Judy’s front door and Rocky’s. Over the summer they had measured it with a very long ball of string.

  She ran out the door. Stink ran out the door after her.

  Rocky had a dollar. Judy had a dollar. Stink had six pennies.

  “If we put our money together, we can buy eight jawbreakers,” said Rocky.

  “Two heads are better than one,” Judy laughed. “Get it?” She unscrunched the dollar bill from her pocket and pointed to George Washington’s head.

  “I’ve got six heads,” said Stink, showing his pennies.

  “That’s because you’re a monster! Get it?” Judy and Rocky cracked up.

  Stink did not have enough money for even one jawbreaker. “You’ll break your mouth if you try to eat eight jawbreakers,” said Stink. “I could eat at least two for you.”

  “It’s for the prizes,” Judy told him.

  “Eight quarters give us eight chances to win a magic trick,” said Rocky. “I need a new magic trick to paste on my Me collage.”

  “Hey, wait!” said Judy. “I just remembered — I need my dollar to buy Band-Aids.”

  “Band-Aids are boring,” said Stink. “Besides, you have ten million. Dad says we have more Band-Aids in our bathroom than the Red Cross.”

  “But I want to be a doctor,” said Judy. “Like Elizabeth Blackwell, First Woman Doctor! She started her own hospital. She knew how to operate and put together body parts and everything.”

  “Body parts. Yuck!” Stink said.

  “You saved Band-Aid box tops all summer,” said Rocky. “I thought you had enough to send away for that doctor doll.”

  “I did. I already ordered it. Back in July. I’m still waiting for it to come. But now I need a microscope. You can look at blood or scabs or anything with it!”

  Stink asked, “When do we get to China?”

  “We’re still on Jefferson Street, Stink,” Rocky told him.

  “Let’s look for rocks until we get to China,” said Stink.

  “Let’s see who can find the best one,” said Rocky.

  The three of them studied the ground as they walked. Judy found five pink pebbles and a Bazooka Joe comic with a fortune that read: MONEY IS COMING YOUR WAY. Rocky found a blue Lego and a stone with a hole in the middle — a lucky stone!

  “I found a black diamond!” said Stink.

  “That’s just charcoal,” said Judy.

  “It’s just glass,” Rocky said.

  “Wait!” Judy said, crossing her eyes at Rocky. “I think it’s a moon rock! Don’t you, Rocky?”

  “Yes,” said Rocky. “Definitely.”

  “How do you know?” asked Stink.

  “It has craters,” Judy said.

  “How did it get here?” asked Stink.

  “It fell from the sky,” said Judy.

  “Really?” asked Stink.

  “Really,” said Rocky.

  “In my Space Junk magazine, it tells how a moon rock fell from space and left a hole in Arizona once.”

  “And our teacher last year told us how a moon rock hit a dog in Egypt one time. No lie,” Judy told her brother. “You’re lucky. Moon rocks are billions of years old.”

  “Space Junk s
ays moon rocks are dusty on the outside and sparkly on the inside,” said Rocky.

  “There’s only one way to find out for sure if this is a moon rock then,” said Judy. Judy scouted around for a large rock. Then she clobbered Stink’s lump, smashing the moon rock to bits.

  “You smashed it!” said Stink.

  “Look, I think I see a sparkle!” said Rocky.

  “Stink, you found a real moon rock, all right,” Judy said.

  “It’s not a moon rock anymore!” cried Stink.

  “Look at it this way, Stink,” said Judy. “Now you have something better than a moon rock.”

  “What could be better than a moon rock?” asked Stink.

  “Lots and lots of moon dust.” Judy and Rocky fell down laughing.

  “I’m going home,” said Stink. He scraped up handfuls of the smashed rock, filling his pockets with dirt.

  Judy and Rocky laughed the rest of the way to China, ran backward to Japan, then hopped on one foot while patting their heads until they got to Vic’s.

  At Vic’s, they put their George Washington heads together for one small box of Band-Aids, and had enough left over for one jawbreaker each. Neither of them won a magic trick for Rocky’s Me collage. Not even a troll or a miniature comic book or a tattoo.

  “Maybe I could put a jawbreaker on my collage,” said Rocky. “Are you going to stick some Band-Aids on yours?”

  “Hey, good idea,” said Judy.

  “Still a nickel left,” Rocky said. So they bought a gumball and saved it for Stink.

  When they reached Judy’s driveway, Stink ran toward them, his pockets jangling with money. Stink had brown lunch bags lined up on the front steps.

  “Guess what!” called Stink. “I made three dollars! Just since I got home.”

  “No way,” said Judy.

  “Let’s see,” said Rocky.

  Stink emptied his pockets. Rocky counted twelve quarters.

  “What’s in the bags?” asked Judy. “Everybody in the state of Virginia must want it.”

  “Yeah, what are you selling, anyway?” asked Rocky.

  “Moon dust,” said Stink.