The Awesome, Almost 100% True Adventures of Matt & Craz

by Alan Silberberg

  For Craz, math was a disaster. Science—a black hole of learning. And Craz was doing so poorly in French that his teacher had given up and just made him read Dr. Seuss’s Le Chat au Chapeau every day. But if Matt was wild about cartooning, Craz loved writing stories. Making stuff up was something he was good at, so English class should’ve been a no-brainer.

  Sadly, when you have an English teacher as dull and mean as Mrs. Bentz, even your favorite subject can turn into prison time. Edna Bentz was shaped like an ostrich egg (something Matt had captured perfectly). Her wide eyes seemed to look in separate directions, and she had a voice that could grate potatoes.

  “All the way in, Long John stood by the steersman and conned the ship. He knew the passage like the palm of his hand,” Mrs. Bentz recited flatly. As usual she was reading from her favorite book, Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. They’d been studying that book all year with painful page-by-page scrutiny, and to be honest the whole class was sea-sick of it. It didn’t help that Mrs. Bentz’s nasal, monotone voice made each word a painful experience, and since she insisted on being the only one to read aloud, it was all any of the kids could do to actually listen.

  “And what was Mr. Stevenson implying with his imagery of the wide-open seas? Anyone? Someone?”

  But no one bothered to raise a hand. The kids all knew there was no point in trying to make a point. Mrs. Bentz would shoot down any thoughtful or creative idea, making sure her students learned that learning, in her class, meant listening—not thinking. And so while each student did their best to avoid eye contact, Mrs. Bentz waited in silence, took a deep breath and finally continued.

  “It’s not like I enjoy reading this,” she lied. And then, licking her plump finger to turn a page in the well-worn book, she said, “Well, I suppose if no one wants to join the discussion, I might as well continue.” The whole class groaned in response and did their best to block out her voice until the bell rang.

  6

  THE LANTERN

  “AWESOME JOB, MATT,” CRAZ SAID AS HE LOOKED over the finished cartoon. “You did it again, my friend.”

  Matt stood by his locker, beaming. He’d been up until four in the morning creating the finished comic based on the idea that he and Craz had come up with. “I gotta admit I wasn’t sold at first. But I think this is the one, Craz. ‘Nano-Second Newton’ is going to blow Turkle away. He’ll have to print it, right?”

  “Yup,” Craz replied as he slid the comic strip back into the manila envelope that they would take down to the Lantern office. “This time we’re golden.”

  The school newspaper office was located in the basement, sandwiched between the janitor’s supply closet and the dark and stinky boys’ bathroom that only the desperate kids used. The Lantern logo was stenciled on the opaque glass door, an image of an old-time lantern with a beam of light shining out. Also stenciled in bold black letters was the editor’s name: Skip P. Turkle.

  IT WAS WEDNESDAY LUNCHTIME, SO SKIP TURKLE was having his editorial meeting for Thursday’s Lantern edition. Since becoming editor at the beginning of the year, Turkle had actually done a great job. The school paper used to only come out once a month. It had been a two-page snore fest that pretty much listed whatever Principal Droon wanted the students to know—who made honor roll, what was for lunch, the lamest jokes ever. But thanks to Turkle, the Lantern now had actual sections like sports, entertainment, news, and of course comics. And it wasn’t just one issue a month. The Lantern now came out every Tuesday and Thursday and was staffed by a dozen kids who loved writing and reporting as much as they hated Skip Turkle. The truth was, Turkle was good with the paper—and bad with people. Really bad.

  “Come on, Skip. It’s a good story.” Debbie Dewey stood by the editor’s wide desk, waving a sheet of paper. Debbie was a nice enough eighth grader who liked writing human-interest stories. “Mrs. Millman was voted Teacher of the Year.”

  “Get real, Dewey,” Skip said dismissively. “So she’s a good teacher. Bore me now. N.N.”

  Debbie sat back down in defeat. She knew that once Skip gave you the dreaded “double N,” you had zero chance of convincing him to run your story. “N.N.” stood for “not news,” and Skip handed it out like breath mints, which was something he could sure make good use of.

  Leaning back in his chair, Skip draped his feet on his desk and cracked his knuckles, knowing that at least half of his staff had repeatedly begged him not to. “Diesel, what do you have for tomorrow?”

  Staff cartoonist Diesel McKenzie rose from his seat and walked up to the editorial desk. Short and lean, McKenzie was a miniature version of a good-looking kid. With dark brown eyes and hair that knew exactly where to go, he had a killer smile and teeth worth every cent his orthodontist was paid. His physical shortage was helped by his confidence, which seemed to add at least two inches to his challenged height.

  “Here you go, boss,” McKenzie said as he tossed a horizontal sheet of paper across the desk. “How do you like my latest Little Big Shots?”

  Diesel did occasional editorial cartoons, but Little Big Shots was the comic strip that he’d been drawing for the Lantern since Skip Turkle had taken over as editor. It was a well-drawn three-panel comic featuring an oddball assortment of little kids who acted much older than they really were. It wasn’t particularly funny, and it was never shocking or mean. No one complained about it. No one raved about it. It was the kind of cartoon someone’s parents would clip out and put on the refrigerator, which made a kid like Diesel grin with the satisfaction of a job well done.

  Turkle looked over the pen-and-ink comic and started nodding excitedly. “Good stuff, Diesel. Real good.”

  MATT AND CRAZ STOOD OUTSIDE THE LANTERN office door rehearsing what they wanted to say. Well, not exactly what they wanted to say, but what they thought they should say. What they wanted to say was, “Listen up, Turkle. Your gigantic ego is out of control, and it’s time you stopped keeping our funny cartoons out of your brain-dead rag of a paper.”

  Craz knew they couldn’t really say anything like that. What they should say would have to be much less—what was the word?—truthful!

  “Ready?” asked Craz.

  “Does it matter? Let’s just do this.” Matt gave his friend a thumbs-up.

  Craz nodded and then gripped the doorknob, took a deep breath, and plastered a big smile onto his face as he pushed the door open.

  “Look what seeped out of the janitor’s closet,” Turkle said before they could even step inside.

  The boys stood in the cramped newspaper office, uncomfortable and already on the spot.

  Diesel piped up like a tiny squirrel. “You two really are gluttons for punishment, aren’t you?” And then, seeing the manila envelope in Matt’s hand, he said “Look, Skip. He’s got another lame cartoon with him.”

  The envelope Matt was holding felt like it was starting to glow red-hot. Matt was seething on the inside, but he slid the envelope onto Skip Turkle’s desk. “Just a new idea we came up with. Hope you like it.” Matt smiled nervously and even laughed a little to make up for how uncomfortable he felt.

  Diesel bounced up and down on his tiptoes, watching Skip’s face to see what he would do. There’s only room for one cartoonist on the Lantern, he thought. And that cartoonist is me!

  Craz hummed a silent tune and Matt chewed a hangnail off his thumb while they waited for Skip Turkle to react.

  Turkle cracked his knuckles (again) and reached for the envelope. “New idea, huh?” He held the envelope in his open palm as if trying to guess what was inside. “We could always use some new ideas around here. Isn’t that right, guys?”

  The rest of the Lantern staff didn’t know what to say. They were used to jus
t going along with Turkle, but they also knew Turkle hated anything that Matt and Craz came up with.

  Craz fidgeted some more. “Anyway, just wanted to see what you thought,” he said. “Take your time.”

  Turkle slid his nail under the envelope clasp. “Why take my time when we can all use a good laugh now?”

  Caught off guard, Matt said, “Now? Sure, now’s good. And this cartoon is funny. Really funny!”

  Diesel McKenzie’s eyes began to water, which only happened when he was nervous. The rest of the staff sat quietly watching, wondering what their boss was going to do.

  Skip Turkle reached into the envelope and slowly pulled out the crisp new drawing. Several writers leaned forward to try to get a peek but were stopped by Turkle’s mean glare.

  Turkle held the comic in front of him and looked down at it. A slow grin spread across his fat cheeks. It looked like he was enjoying the cartoon, thought Craz.

  But that thought was short-lived. Skip Turkle spun around in his swivel chair, flicked on the paper shredder, and chuckled loudly as the cartoon was turned to confetti.

  “Like I said, we could all use a good laugh. Pretty funny, huh?”

  7

  DRAW BETTER NOW

  THE MICROWAVE HUM MEANT THE PIZZA POCKETSwere almost ready. It had been a long day, and Matt and Craz were both ready to drown their sorrows in hot snack food, and lots of it.

  “Why don’t they make these babies stuffed with chocolate?” Craz asked while he stared at the plate going round and round inside the microwave.

  “Beats me,” said Matt from his seat at the kitchen table. “Maybe that’s what we should do. Come up with new junk food ideas instead of wasting our time making stupid comics.”

  Craz looked over at his friend. Matt sat slumped in his chair, absently doodling on a napkin. He’d been sulking all day since Turkle had paper-shredded their new comic.

  “Diesel and Skip are both total jerks. Like they share the same brain,” Matt said, and then held up the napkin sketch of Diesel and Skip. “What do you think?”

  Craz smiled. “Not bad. But I think you made their brain too big.”

  Matt nodded and then flipped the napkin over and instantly started redoing the cartoon.

  DING! The pizza pockets were done. The timer bell brought Ricky and Foomer into the kitchen, their mouths open and drooling like rabid dogs.

  “Food!” Foomer bellowed as he reached for the plate in Craz’s hands.

  “Nuke your own, Foomer,” said Craz. “Even you could figure out how to do that.”

  Ricky laughed. “Good one, spaz. But I think you give Foomer too much credit.”

  “Yeah,” said Foomer, who swatted dumbly at the plate again, trying in vain to grab one of the piping-hot pizza snacks. “Gimme.”

  Protecting his own plate from his older brother, Matt got up from the table and pulled on Craz’s arm. “Come on, Craz,” Matt said as Ricky tried to block him. “Let’s hit my room.”

  Craz’s face lit up. “Food in your room? Really? This is a special day.”

  MATT’S BEDROOM WAS LIKE ANOTHER PLANET compared to the rest of the Worfle house. It was almost as if his perfectly tidy room had been plucked from a sanitized parallel universe and then dropped into the chaos. His bed wasn’t just made; the bedspread was smooth and tight like it had just had a face-lift. All of Matt’s books were neatly lined up in his bookcases, and there wasn’t one piece of clothing on the floor or dirty dish hidden behind the bureau.

  Craz was always in awe of Matt’s need to keep his stuff organized. Craz knew that in his room it was just a waste of time to put things where they belonged, not that he knew where anything was supposed to go. That’s the upside of sharing a room with two brothers. The downside? Two brothers.

  They sat at the computer watching stupid videos on YouTube. Though Matt had okayed bringing food into his room, he insisted that they obey the No Eating Zone around his computer, which meant Craz had to keep leaping up to grab a bite from his pizza pocket, which sat on the bookcase shelf.

  “Why would anyone record their dog in a tutu?” Craz asked, slurping down a sloppy bite.

  “Better question,” replied Matt, his own plate out of reach. “Why would the dog agree to it?”

  The clip of a Chihuahua dressed in a pink tutu chasing its own tail set to the theme from Star Wars was playing for the third time.

  “Animals are strange.”

  “People are stranger,” said Matt, clicking to another video. This one featured two babies seemingly having a discussion about hot girls. It was pretty ridiculous, which is why it had more than two hundred thousand hits.

  Craz watched the clip for a second time, and his eyes lit up. “This gives me an idea for a new cartoon. ‘Little Baby Big Butt’! What do you think? Talking babies with high IQs who burp and spit up while doing movie reviews and stuff!”

  Matt was hardly excited. “I dunno, man. To be honest, I’m not sure I want to even try again.”

  “Come on, Matt,” Craz said, trying to sound upbeat. “You wouldn’t want things to be easy, would you?”

  Matt sighed. “I could get used to easy.”

  This wasn’t the first time Matt had felt like giving up after a cartoon had gotten rejected, and so Craz launched into one of his pep talks. “Don’t forget, all great artists had to suffer a little. Look at that van Gogh dude.”

  Matt turned around to stare at his friend. “I like both my ears, thank you very much.”

  “Okay. Bad example, but you know what I mean. We can’t give up now. We’re so close.”

  “Close to what? I don’t care about getting printed in the Lantern anymore.” Matt rolled his chair over to the bookcase so that he could grab his pizza pocket. He took a bite and then rolled back to his desk.

  A smile spread on Craz’s lips. He had an idea. “You know what you need, Matt? Something to give you a creative kick in the pants. You always wished you had real cartooning supplies, right?”

  Matt looked at his small desk, which had to double as a drawing table. Sure the surface was neat, but it wasn’t the work space of a cartoonist. And his “supplies” amounted to a stack of cheap white paper and a clear drinking glass that held an assortment of chewed-on plastic pens. It was hardly a professional setup.

  “Yeah, someday, maybe.”

  Craz pushed Matt away from the keyboard. “Not some­day, my friend. Today!” He cleared the YouTube page and opened up Google. Cartoonist supplies, he typed out with greasy fingers. “We’re gonna hook you up, bro!”

  “What are you doing?” asked Matt. “We can’t afford stuff.”

  “No harm in looking,” said Craz, while the list of search results popped onto the screen. “Besides, my grandmother just sent me some birthday cash. Maybe it’s time to invest in our future.”

  The search page showed a long list of entries that linked to various art stores and online sites specifically devoted to cartooning. The screen was full of images of india inks that promised the blackest lines, fancy pen nibs that fit into sleek handcrafted pen shafts, smooth sheets of pearl-white bristol board used by the pros. Clicking through the links was like a fantasy window-shopping trip for Matt, who was used to drawing on scraps of paper meant for the trash, and whose most expensive pen cost two dollars, and that was because it came in a pack of two.

  “I’ve got to admit it would be pretty cool to have some real supplies,” said Matt. “I mean, my cartoons are okay the way they are, but with a real pen like that . . .” He was staring at the Bull’s-eye Elite, a top-rated refillable fountain pen that came with an assortment of different-size drawing nibs. “Who knows what great stuff I could draw?”

  Craz could tell he had gotten his frie
nd excited again. “I think a new pen is exactly what you need. How much is that bad boy?”

  Matt clicked on the price link. He gasped. “One hundred and fifty bucks? For a pen?”

  Craz sank, deflated, onto Matt’s neat bed. “That must be some pen,” he said, knowing that all he had was twenty dollars. He’d figured on spending maybe half of it. But more than a hundred dollars? “That’s out of my league, Matt.”

  “Yeah, that’s just crazy.” Matt exhaled loudly, letting the fantasy go. “It was a nice idea, though.”

  “Hold on,” said Craz. He wasn’t ready to admit defeat. “Maybe we can find something a little less . . . flashy.” He took a bite from his pizza pocket while looking over Matt’s shoulder at a dozen different pens. They couldn’t all cost so much. “Hey, how about that one?”

  Craz pointed at a simple-looking pen that came with one nib point.

  “You mean the purple one, right?” asked Matt, pointing to a pen near the top of the page.

  “No, man. The black one,” said Craz, now leaning over Matt and pointing out the pen he thought would be cheapest. Unfortunately, Craz had totally forgotten about the No Eating Zone, and his pizza pocket was now precariously suspended over Matt’s keyboard.

  Matt smelled it before seeing it happen. While Craz pointed at the computer screen, his pizza pocket gave birth to a chunk of cheesy pineapple, which hung for a second before falling directly onto the space bar. Sauce and pizza goop were everywhere.

  “Craz!” Matt freaked out and reached for some tissues. “That’s what I get for breaking my own rules.” Frantic, he scrubbed the space bar and tried soaking up the wet sauce by jamming the tissue in between the surrounding keys.