by Nancy Krulik
George Brown,
CLASS CLOWN
Hey!
Who Stole
the Toilet?
For Amanda, who for some reason
really likes camping—with or without
indoor plumbing!—NK
For Maria—Mum away from Mom—AB
GROSSET & DUNLAP
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Text copyright © 2012 by Nancy Krulik. Illustrations copyright © 2012
by Aaron Blecha. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Printed in the U.S.A.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011031483
ISBN: 978-1-101-56712-8 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
George Brown,
CLASS CLOWN
Hey!
Who Stole
the Toilet?
by Nancy Krulik
illustrated by Aaron Blecha
Grosset & Dunlap
An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Chapter 1
“Tzee. Tzee. Tzooooo!”
It was Sunday morning. The Beaver Scouts had gathered at Beaver Brook Park for their weekly meeting. But nobody was paying attention to the troop leader. Instead, the scouts were shooting one another funny looks. Why was George Brown squeaking and squawking?
“Tzee. Tzee. Tzooooo!” George squawked again.
“Cut it out!” Louie covered his ears. “Is that what you call singing?”
Louie’s two best friends, Max and Mike, both started to laugh.
“I’m not singing,” George told Louie.
“Tell me about it,” Louie said. “It sounds like two cats fighting.”
“Yeah, cats,” Mike agreed.
“In a big fight,” Max said. “With claws and everything.”
“I happen to be calling,” George explained.
“Yeah right,” Louie said. “How do you call someone without a phone?”
“Like this,” George told him. “Tzee. Tzee. Tzooooo!”
The Beaver Scout troop leader, Mr. Buttonwood, ducked down as two yellow, brown, and white birds flew overhead.
“Tzee. Tzee. Tzooooo!” the birds called back to George.
“Okay, George,” Troop Leader Buttonwood said with a laugh. “Enough with the birdcalls!”
“You really sounded like a bird!” Alex, George’s best friend, told him.
“Yep,” George said proudly. “It’s the call of the warbler. And it’s the sound we’re going to hear coming out of my birdhouse when I hang it under that tree over there.” George held up a rectangular box made of wood. It had a hole in the front. He had built the birdhouse to earn his Carpentry badge. “I brought the kind of seed warblers like to eat, too.”
“How do you know what warblers like to eat?” Louie asked him. “Do you speak warbler?”
“He was just talking warbler,” Max told Louie. “Don’t you remember?”
“Yeah. Tzee. Tzee. Tzooooo,” Mike added.
Louie scowled. Mike stopped tzee-tzee- tzooing.
“I know about things like birdseed because I work at Mr. Furstman’s pet shop,” George told Louie.
Louie didn’t answer. Instead, he showed the scouts a huge birdhouse. Actually it looked like a bird apartment building. It had four floors and sixteen little tiny rooms.
“Wow,” George blurted out. He couldn’t help it.
“No way he made that,” Chris whispered to Alex and George. “He must have bought it.”
“I made this all by myself,” Louie told the other boys.
“Well, with the help of my big brother, Sam,” he added.
“More like with the help of the guy his dad paid to help Sam help Louie,” George whispered. Alex and Chris laughed.
“This is a house for purple marlins,” Louie continued. “I’m going to put it on my front lawn.”
“You don’t want to hang it here in the park and share it with everyone else in our town?” Troop Leader Buttonwood asked.
“No,” Louie said.
“He’s being selfish,” Chris said.
“Nah, he’s just being Louie,” George said.
“It’s a really cool birdhouse.” Max complimented Louie.
“Yeah,” Mike agreed. “You should get an extra badge for having the best one.”
“This isn’t a competition, boys,” Troop Leader Buttonwood told them. “Scouting is about being the best person you can be.”
“I’m definitely the best,” Louie said. “Just like Sam. When he was in the Beaver Scouts he had so many badges he had to get a second sash. Sam got almost every badge there is. The only one he’s missing is the Explorer badge.”
“And you boys are all going to earn a lot of badges during our camping trip next weekend,” Troop Leader Buttonwood told the boys. “The campground is right near the Bahka Wahka Ocka River, so you’ll have a chance to earn your Canoeing badges. And we’re going to earn Hiking badges, too. And, of course, you will get your Cooking badges after we make meals over an open fire.”
“We’re going to have so much fun,” George said excitedly. He’d never been on an overnight campout before.
“Yes, but this trip is going to be hard work, too. Camping separate
s the men from the boys!” Troop Leader Buttonwood reminded everyone.
George looked around. The only boy he wanted to be separated from was Louie.
“The first rule of camping is to be prepared. Here’s what you need to bring.” Troop Leader Buttonwood started to pull a pile of papers out of his backpack.
“Whoops!” Troop Leader Buttonwood shouted as a big wind came and blew the papers out of his hand. “The packing lists!”
The troop leader took off trying to catch the lists. But as soon as he grabbed one paper, another blew farther away. Then his scout leader’s hat blew off his head and landed in a tree.
Troop Leader Buttonwood reached up to grab his hat. Bam. He slammed his head into a low-lying branch.
“I’m okay,” Troop Leader Buttonwood told the boys as he rubbed a lump growing on his forehead. “I meant to do that—to show you how important it is to watch out for low-lying branches when we’re in the woods.”
“I guess he wasn’t prepared for that wind,” George said.
“Well, I’m prepared to earn a lot of badges,” Louie said. He looked over at George and laughed. “It’s too bad they don’t give out a badge for acting goofy,” he said. “You’d get that one for sure.”
George looked down at the ground. He didn’t even answer Louie. What could he say? It was the truth. George did act goofy—a lot. But it wasn’t his fault. Not at all.
It was all the fault of a stupid magic super burp.
It all started when George and his family first moved to Beaver Brook. George’s dad was in the army, so the family moved around a lot. George had plenty of experience at being the new kid in school. So he’d expected the first day in his new school to stink. First days always did. But this first day was the stinkiest.
In his old school, George had been the class clown. He was always pulling pranks and making jokes. But George had promised himself that things were going to be different at Edith B. Sugarman Elementary School. No more pranks. No more squishing red Jell-O between his teeth and telling everyone it was blood. No more imitating teachers behind their backs. No more trouble.
Unfortunately, being the well-behaved kid in a new school also meant that George was the new kid with no new friends. No one at Edith B. Sugarman Elementary School even seemed to know he was alive—except for Louie, who seemed to hate him from the minute they met.
After that terrible, rotten first day, George’s parents took him out to Ernie’s Ice Cream Emporium to cheer him up. While they were sitting outside and George was finishing his root beer float, a shooting star flashed across the sky. So George made a wish.
I want to make kids laugh—but not get into trouble.
Unfortunately, the star was gone before George could finish the wish. So only half came true—the first half.
A minute later, George had a funny feeling in his belly. It was like there were hundreds of tiny bubbles bouncing around in there. The bubbles hopped up and down and all around. They ping-ponged their way into his chest and bing-bonged their way up into his throat. And then…
George let out a big burp. A huge burp. A SUPER burp!
The super burp was loud, and it was magic.
Suddenly George’s arms and legs started going crazy. It was like he had lost control of them. His hands grabbed straws and stuck them up his nose like a walrus. His feet jumped up on the table and started dancing the hokey pokey. Everyone at Ernie’s started laughing. The laughing sounded great—just like the old days. Unfortunately, his parents yelling at him also sounded a whole lot like the old days.
The magical super burps came back lots of times after that. And even though Alex was trying really hard to help George squelch those belches once and for all, so far Alex hadn’t been able to find a cure. And so the burps just kept on bubbling, and the trouble just kept on coming.
Like the time the magical super burp made George start dancing up the down escalator at Mabel’s Department Store. Or the day it made him skateboard right into a bucket of papier-mâché goo in the art room. Or the time the burp made him bounce so high on a trampoline that his tighty whities got caught on a tree branch on the way down. Ouch. Talk about the world’s worst wedgie!
George was really worried about what might happen if the magical super burp followed him into the woods for the campout. The idea of the super burp going wild in the wild was just too frightening to think about.
Chapter 2
“Okay, soldier. Now that we’ve got the tent set up, it’s time for mess.”
George grinned. He knew what mess meant. It meant food. And George was pretty hungry. He had asked his dad if they could have a practice campout. That way George would be prepared for the real one with the Beaver Scouts.
“Come on, soldier,” George’s dad said. “Let’s get these burgers on the grill.”
As George’s dad starting grilling, George split apart buns, topping each side with a slice of cheese. It was fun camping with his dad—even if it was only in the backyard.
Suddenly the walkie-talkie in George’s pocket started to buzz. Actually, it was only his mom’s cell phone. But for today, George and his dad were calling it a walkie-talkie. George looked at the caller ID. It was his mom calling George from inside the house.
“Hi,” his mom said. “I just looked out the window and saw that it was getting windy. Do you want me to bring out your jacket?”
“No, Mom,” George said. “I’m fine.”
“How about your slippers?” his mom suggested. “Your feet may get cold.”
“You don’t bring slippers on a camping trip, even if it’s just in the backyard.” George took a deep breath. “I gotta go, Ma,” he said finally.
“Okay,” his mom said. “But you can call later if you need something. Or if you decide you’d rather sleep inside.”
“Soldier, it’s time to pour the bug juice,” George’s dad said as George hung up the phone.
“Roger that,” George answered. He poured two big glasses of bug juice and sat down. The juice was bright red—it looked like it was made of spider blood. Except it wasn’t really. It was actually just sugar and water and red food coloring.
“See? Isn’t living in the great outdoors wonderful?” George’s dad said as he brought over a pile of burgers.
“Definitely,” George agreed. He took a big bite of burger. A glob of ketchup shot out from under the bun and landed on his sweatshirt. George just left it there. He didn’t have to clean it. Soldiers didn’t call dinnertime mess for nothing!
“I think tonight we soldiers better be on the lookout,” George’s dad told him.
“For what?” George asked. “Enemy soldiers?”
George’s dad shook his head. “No. For your mom.” He took a bite of his burger, and a giant glob of mustard shot out and landed on his pants. “She’s liable to come out here and make us use napkins!”
“Did you and your dad have fun last night?” Alex asked the next afternoon as the boys took a table at the Pizza Palace.
“Yeah,” George said. “We had a great time. Real messy!”
Just then Mr. Tarantella, the guy who ran the Pizza Palace, walked over to their table. “Hey, guys,” he said. “So? What’ll it be?”
George looked at the menu. Ordering pizza was serious business. You had to pick just the right toppings. “Um…I think today I’ll have a personal-size pizza with sausage, pepperonis, and meatballs.”
“I’ll just have a plain, personal-size pizza,” Alex said.
“You got it,” Mr. Tarantella told them. “Coming right up.”
“So now you must be really psyched about the scout camping trip,” Alex said.
“I guess,” George said. But he didn’t sound so sure. “I’ve got all my gear ready. I just hope something else doesn’t sneak along with me.”
“You mean sneak out of you,” Alex said. Alex was the only other person in the whole world who knew about the magic super burp. George hadn’t told another soul. He figured people would think he was nuts.
Actually, George hadn’t told Alex about the burp, either. Alex was just so smart that he’d figured it out. “Maybe if I find a cure, it’ll be like a medical breakthrough! I’ll be in the news. Who knows. I could win a Nobel Prize.”
“Alex, I don’t think a whole lot of people are suffering from—from you know whats.” George pointed to his belly. “I’m probably the only person on the planet.”
Alex nodded. “True. Well, even if I don’t get famous, I still want to find a cure for you…last night I read about a new way to get rid of gas,” Alex told George. “It doesn’t sound that hard. All you—”
“Shh…,” George warned. He pointed toward the door. Louie, Max, and Mike had just walked into the Pizza Palace.
“All you have to do is chew each bite of food a hundred times before you swallow,” Alex said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “The food will just slide down. You won’t swallow any air with your food. It’s swallowing air that makes you burp.”
Hmmm. Chewing wasn’t hard to do. It was worth a try, anyway.
“I’ll have a personal pie with extra cheese and anchovies,” George heard Louie say.
Ugh. Now George didn’t feel like he had to burp. He felt like he had to puke. Who would order pizza with hairy fish all over it?
Louie, that’s who. And Max and Mike, too, of course. They copied everything Louie did.
“Hey, guys.” Julianna waved to George and Alex. She was with Sage.
George was kind of surprised to see Julianna with Sage. Julianna was more like one of the guys. And Sage was…well…she was just weird.
“Did you order already?” Julianna asked them.
Sage gave George a huge smile. “Hi, Georgie.”
Grr. George hated when Sage called him that. So he looked away and watched Carlo, the guy behind the counter. It was so cool. First Carlo would take a ball of dough and start rolling it and stretching it out. Then he’d toss the pizza dough up in the air, catch it, and toss it again, turning it into a flat circle. Sometimes Carlo would spin around on his heels and then reach up and catch the dough. Sometimes he would close his eyes. But he never missed. Not once. It was amazing.
