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

by Alan Silberberg

  “Yeah, earlier today. At school,” Craz admitted. “But I was positive it was all just a sugar-fueled mirage. I mean, I do have an overactive imagination. And come on. He was wearing a dress.”

  “Actually it was a smock,” Boyd T. Boone said. “Big difference. Hey, who wants a hairnet?”

  He pulled a mesh lunch-lady hairnet out of his coat pocket and handed it to Matt, who was still trying to get his head around having the strange cartoonist as their driver.

  Boyd T. Boone spun the wheel to the left, and the van squealed onto Midland Street, barely avoiding a head-on collision with a Volkswagen. “Nothing like the open road to clear one’s sinuses,” he said as he turned on the radio. “So, what’ll it be? Classic rock or oldies?”

  Matt snapped the radio off. “How about we skip the music and you tell us what’s going on!”

  Boyd T. Boone consulted his clipboard. “Well, what’s going on is, first we stop at Three-Five-Six Magnolia Avenue, where we drop off a filing cabinet for a Mr. Peter H. Figgins, and then, if I’m not mistaken, it’s just a short two blocks to your house, where someone finally has himself a brand-new drawing table.” He winked at Matt.

  “That’s not what I mean,” Matt snapped, getting more upset. “The pen. The bag of money. . . . You!”

  “Yes, it can be a little overwhelming. But you’ll get used to it.” Boyd T. Boone nodded, then leaned toward the boys. “Mine really is the best cartooning kit available. One of a kind, wouldn’t you say?”

  Craz reached into his backpack and pulled out the two cartoons Matt had drawn. “Totally!” Craz held up the “Cartoon Kings” comic. “Pretty sweet. I mean, Matt drew it, and then BAM! A bag full of money . . . for free!”

  “That is pretty sweet,” Boyd T. Boone agreed as he swerved in and out of the traffic.

  Matt jumped in. “Okay. Let’s just say the pen is magic.” He suddenly felt silly for even saying that out loud. Magic? He didn’t believe in that stuff. “How come it only worked once? With the money in my locker?”

  Boyd T. Boone signaled right but turned left. For a great cartoonist, he was a terrible driver. “If I simply told you the answer, it would take away all the fun of figuring it out.” He leaned toward the boys. “But I will say, the pen does have its special qualities. And don’t forget the ink. That stuff is pretty potent!”

  “Stop sign!” Craz yelled, pointing out the front window at the fast-approaching busy intersection.

  Boyd slammed on the brakes, making the van skid to a stop. “Well, that was fun,” he said, his cheeks flushed and his eyes wide open.

  Craz held up the place mat. “We also drew my stupid brother as an old man. But it didn’t work. He didn’t turn old.”

  Boyd eased the van back into traffic. “Of course he didn’t.”

  Matt was confused. “But I used the same pen. The same ink . . .”

  Boyd T. Boone lifted one eyebrow suggestively. “Maybe something happened with one cartoon that didn’t happen with the other.”

  The boys looked at each other, trying to remember.

  “Maybe it’s the paper,” said Craz. “Matt made the first cartoon on regular paper but the Hank cartoon was drawn on a dirty place mat. Is that it?”

  “In my experience,” Boyd T. Boone said with a little shrug, “paper is paper.”

  Matt was thinking. “Okay. I drew the first cartoon at home . . . brought it to school . . . then what?”

  “Then we wanted to show it to Skip,” Craz added. “But first—”

  “We made a copy. In the teachers’ lounge.” Matt turned to Craz. “Did anything weird happen there?”

  Boyd T. Boone kept his eyes on the road, but a sly smile snuck onto his face.

  “Wait a second,” said Craz. “There was this bright flash of light from the copy machine. Is that when the cartoon got real?”

  “We have a winner!” Boyd T. Boone shouted a little too loudly. “First you use the pen and the ink. But then you have to make a copy!”

  Craz gave himself a thumbs-up for getting the right answer, but Matt was still trying to put the pieces together.

  “But what does copying the cartoon have to do with making the magic happen?”

  “Just everything,” Boyd T. Boone responded. “The only way to spread your comics to other eyeballs is to make copies, right? That’s the way this all works. Once your original comic gets duplicated, whatever you draw will actually happen. That’s cartooning the Boyd T. Boone way. Pretty great, right?”

  The van came to a surprisingly easy stop at a red light that was opposite a bus stop where Hank stood waiting for his bus ride home. He was still wearing the dirty apron and stained pants from the mess he’d made at the Shack. Craz looked out at his older brother. Hank, as usual, looked pathetic.

  “So if I made a copy of this cartoon,” Craz asked, waving the “Old Man Hank” place mat, “my brother would turn into a grandpa?”

  “Yup.” The light changed to green, and Boyd shot into the passing lane. “Wrinkles and all.”

  “Stop the van!” Craz shouted.

  Boyd T. Boone obeyed the order and jammed the van into an empty parking space on the side of the street. Excited, Craz threw the door open and jumped out onto the sidewalk.

  “What are you doing?” yelled Matt.

  “Finishing what we started,” Craz said with a grin. “Copy-Copy is a block away. Come on!”

  Matt turned to the cartoonist behind the wheel. “Just wait here, okay?”

  “Fine and dandy,” Boyd T. Boone said. “But mind if I help myself?” He lifted the Sweet-Treats bag of candy and licked his lips. “I’m a sucker for nut clusters.”

  “Go to town, dude.” Matt slammed the door and took off after Craz.

  18

  BRAINSTORM

  THE BOYS ARRIVED OUT OF BREATH AT THE copy shop. Craz clutched the “Old Man Hank” drawing.

  “Closing up in five minutes, fellas,” Mr. Hupt called from the back of the store, where he was trying to clear a paper jam on one of the big copiers that did huge printing jobs, like restaurant menus and calendars. Easy jobs were handled by the self-serve machine up front.

  Matt dug a dime out from his pants pocket. “What if it doesn’t work?”

  “What if it does?” asked Craz as he placed the drawing facedown onto the copier’s glass. He closed the lid and took the dime from Matt. “Here goes nothing.”

  Craz dropped the dime into the coin slot and then hit the green copy button. First came the familiar sound of the machine warming up, and then the whoosh of the scanner traveling beneath the glass, accompanied by the blast of light from under the lid.

  “Wait for it,” said Craz just before the second, brighter flash filled the room with an audible Pop.

  Matt couldn’t help but gasp. “Was that it?” he asked as the copy of the cartoon fell into the tray.

  Craz lifted the copy machine lid and grabbed the original. “Let’s go find out!”

  They ran outside, hoping to find Hank transformed into a bent-over senior citizen, but rounding the corner, all they saw was the bus pulling away from the stop. Hank was already on the bus.

  “Not fair!” Craz cried. “I have to know if it worked!”

  Matt grabbed his friend by the shoulder. “I don’t think you have to worry. Look.”

  Sure enough, as the bus passed by, they saw the off-balance figure of an old man wearing the food-stained apron ricocheting from seat to seat like a pinball. Hank was eighty years old. At least.

  It was only a glimpse, but enough proof to give both boys a sense that they could do anything.

  All they had to do was draw.

  “So now what?” asked Matt as the bus disappeared around the corner. “Do w
e just leave Hank like that?”

  “No way,” Craz said. “My parents would freak if that geezer walked in the door for dinner. Maybe we should, you know, just doodle him back to normal?”

  “No problem!” Matt took the pen from his shirt pocket, then did a quick cartoon in his sketchbook. They ran back into Copy-Copy and spent another dime making sure Hank became young again.

  Craz and Matt raced back to the delivery van, excited that the pen had actually worked. The code was cracked. All it took was a copier.

  “I wish we could’ve seen his face when he turned back into a kid,” said Craz. “Had to be priceless.”

  “Unbelievable,” Matt said as he twirled the pen in his fingers. “We are so going to rule our school!”

  “Forget school,” said Craz. “Let’s rule the world!”

  They ran up to the Easel & Brush van and opened the door to get in.

  “Took you long enough,” the man behind the wheel said.

  Matt’s jaw dropped. “But you’re not . . .”

  “I’m not what?” asked the driver, a grumpy gray-haired fellow who clearly was not Boyd T. Boone. “Let’s get this show on the road. My fish aren’t going to feed themselves.”

  Craz pulled on Matt’s arm. “Happened before too. Now you see him . . . now you don’t. Just go with it.”

  After first delivering the file cabinet, the driver stopped in front of Matt’s house. “Hope you don’t think I’m lugging that table inside for you,” the cranky driver said. “You’re on your own, buckoes.”

  Matt and Craz didn’t really care. They both had one thing on their mind. Cartooning!

  “Supper in ten minutes,” Matt’s mom said as soon as the boys walked in. “Are you eating with us, Larry?”

  Before Craz could say “Of course,” Matt jumped in. “No time, Mom. Big project due. We already ate, anyway.”

  “But I love your mom’s cooking,” Craz said. “She knows how to not burn things.”

  “Here,” Matt said, pushing the bag of candy at Craz. “Now you have supper.”

  Craz was all smiles.

  The first thing they did was set up the drawing table and rearrange the space in Matt’s room so that the new table could be in easy reach of Matt’s desk, where he had neatly laid out the pen, bottle of ink, and a stack of blank paper.

  “Okay,” said Craz, pacing back and forth. “What do we draw first?”

  “Easy,” said Matt. “I make a comic where we become the cartoonists for the Lantern.”

  Matt grabbed a sheet of paper and lifted the pen.

  “Yeah, that’s one way to go,” Craz carefully said as he grabbed the pen from Matt and held it up like it was something Indiana Jones had just found in a cave of ancient ruins. “I’m thinking maybe we should go bigger.”

  “Bigger?”

  “Sure. Let’s come up with some really wild stuff first!”

  Matt bit his lip. “But the school paper. We could make it happen.”

  Craz spun Matt in his chair. “Plenty of time for that. How about we just let our minds wander a little first? Brainstorm on it.”

  Matt chewed it over. There was no harm in brainstorming. “Anything goes, right?”

  “That’s the brainstorming rule,” said Craz, ready to write down whatever they came up with. “Anything!”

  Craz took a handful of candy, threw it into his mouth, and then as the sweet flavors mingled, he began to let the ideas flow. “Okay. Let’s draw us two new computers! The really pricey kind. With amazingly sick touch screens,” he said.

  “Flying machines,” added Matt, getting into it. “Oh, and how about our own theme park? With no lines to get on the best rides!”

  “Yeah. And a mustache!” Craz touched his upper lip and imagined how cool he’d look with one. “Oooh! How about a huge flat-screen TV and new Wii, PlayStation, and Xboxes? And every game ever made. And awesome snacks! No, a soda machine and a McDonald’s in my bedroom. Wait, I wouldn’t need the soda machine if I had my own Mickey Dees. Scratch the soda and make it an all-you-can-eat bacon buffet!”

  “Bacon buffet?” asked Matt.

  “We said anything goes. And I do love my bacon!”

  They tossed out ideas for an hour. The wilder, the better. And why not? They had a pen that could draw anything they wanted. The sky was the limit, so why not shoot for the moon?

  “My own rocket ship,” Matt said. “That would be twisted!”

  “Do you think the pen works in zero gravity?”

  “Sure. If I draw that it does, it will.”

  The door burst open, and Ricky and Foomer filled the frame. “There you are,” Ricky said, picking at his teeth. “Mom said you have to do the dishes.”

  “Yeah, dishes,” snickered the ever-annoying Foomer.

  “But I didn’t even eat supper,” said Matt. “No fair.”

  “Tough luck, chump.” Ricky grinned. “I’d say ‘Take it up with Mom,’ but she went out. Left me in charge. And I say it’s time to wash the dishes.”

  Ricky high-fived Foomer and then slammed the door shut.

  “No way your mom said to do the dishes. That’s all Ricky.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Matt said, and fumed. “He thinks he’s the boss of me. I wish I could get back at him.”

  The idea hit Craz first. He sat up on the bed. “You can get back at him, Matt!”

  A smile slowly spread on Matt’s face. He reached for the pen. “Yeah, I can, can’t I?” He unscrewed the cap and then grabbed a new sheet of paper. “Poor Ricky,” he said, the perfect idea for revenge already forming in his brain.

  19

  TAKE THAT!

  THE CARTOON LOOKED GREAT. NOW ALL MATT and Craz had to do was find someplace to get it copied.

  “Too bad we can’t just make a dupe of it here,” said Matt. “Copy-Copy’s closed, and the library is too far of a walk.”

  Craz looked around Matt’s bedroom. “Hold on,” he said. “Maybe there is a way.”

  Matt watched Craz get off the bed and then reach up to the top shelf of his bookcase where Matt kept his scanner. Craz carried the boxy scanner over to Matt’s desk. “Boyd T. Boone said the magic works when we duplicate the cartoon. He didn’t say it had to be from a copy machine.”

  Craz plugged the scanner into the wall socket and then attached it to Matt’s computer with the USB cord. “A scan is a copy, right?”

  Matt opened the lid and slid the cartoon of Ricky and Foomer onto the glass. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”

  They waited for the scanner to warm up and then pushed the button on the side of the machine. A low whirr sound filled the room, followed by the blink of bright light signaling that the image had been digitized. A second flash of light shot out from beneath the lid.

  “That’s a good sign,” said Craz as he watched the duplicate image of the new cartoon load onto Matt’s computer screen. “Sure looks like a copy to me.”

  In the kitchen Ricky was in the middle of a story about how he’d made his history teacher cry, when he suddenly dropped the bag of corn chips he was feeding on and uncontrollably stood up from the table. “You know what I want to do, Foomer?”

  Foomer, who was now a baboon in a diaper, answered, “Clean the house, bro!”

  “You look weird,” said Ricky, unable to stop himself from putting on his mom’s girliest apron and filling the sink with soapy water. “And why are you a monkey?”

  “Beats me,” said Foomer as he swung from the light fixture and landed feetfirst next to the bananas in the bowl on the counter. “But I sure wish I was vacuuming right now.”

  Matt and Craz snuck out from the bedroom and watched from the hallway while Ricky scrubbed an endless stack of dirty pots and pa
ns and baboon Foomer pushed the vacuum cleaner around the living room while he scratched himself all over.

  “I think I could get real used to this kind of cartooning,” said Matt.

  “I already am,” added Craz. “Come on. I think I know exactly what we need to draw next.”

  They headed back to Matt’s bedroom, where Craz laid out his plan.

  “As great as it would be to draw portable spaceships and kangaroo jumping boots and mind-reading robots, maybe we should concentrate on something we don’t just want but really need.”

  Matt thought hard. “Like getting straight As?”

  “Better than that,” said Craz. “How about making us the perfect Saturday night!”

  Matt tried to picture what Craz wanted. “Craz, I’m not drawing an alien invasion with us as commando jet fighters or something totally nuts like that.”

  “Fine,” Craz said, just slightly disappointed. “But what about a night where you get to hang out with Cindy? Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “Yeah,” Matt admitted. “That would be awesome. But what about you? Who would you want to hang out with?”

  Craz clapped a hand on Matt’s shoulder and smiled. “Oh, I’m sure I can think of someone.”

  20

  GETTING READY

  SATURDAY NIGHT ROLLED AROUND, AND THE boys had cleaned up—well, at least by their standards. Matt wore a shirt that was actually ironed (thank you very much, Foomer!), and Craz had gone back and forth for an hour about whether or not he should wear a cape.

  “Too much?” Craz asked, posing with his hands in the air. “I am so stoked. I want to show off my fan-boy excitement without blasting a spotlight on my inner geek.” He leaned over Matt’s shoulder. “Is the comic finished?”

  “Done!” Matt grabbed the new cartoon. He smiled at the thought that, thanks to the strange, magical cartooning kit, he was finally going to go hang out with Cindy Ockabloom.

  “Way to go, Matt,” Craz said, looking over the cartoon. “And nice job with Captain G-Force. You really nailed the cyborg helmet.”