“A little?” Matt almost smiled. “I could use some of that nutty side.” He paused, then looked at Craz. “I’m going to miss that.”
“We did make a pretty good team,” Craz said. “Batman and Robin . . . if Batman was always messing things up and Robin was afraid of his own shadow.”
Matt laughed. “Yeah, just like that. Hey,” he added, trying to sound cheery. “Maybe it won’t be so bad over there. You can still make up weird stories, right?”
Craz nodded. “Yup. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even run into some kid who likes to doodle.”
They tried to smile. It was really hard.
One of the movers walked out of the garage carrying a tall box of garden tools—rakes, shovels, a hose. The garage was the last thing to be packed, and then it really was over.
“I was thinking that the only good thing about moving to Shanghai is that I don’t have to hand in that lame Treasure Island research paper for Mrs. Bentz,” Craz said. “Looks like you’re on your own for that one.”
“Stupid assignment,” Matt said, remembering it was due tomorrow. “And it was your fault too. You left the cartoon in the copier for her to find.”
“Hey, don’t blame me. You were the one who drew it.”
Another mover wheeled Craz’s rocket bike past the boys and into the van just as Mr. and Mrs. Crazinski came out the front door and locked the house for the last time. They walked toward their car parked on the street.
“So . . . ,” Matt said.
“Right . . . ,” said Craz.
Mr. Crazinski honked the horn. It was time.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Craz said, “but I kept the copy of that first magic cartoon. Even though the cartooning kit made the mess we’re in, we had fun, right?” He reached into his backpack and pulled out the copy of the “Cartoon Kings” comic.
Matt looked at the cartoon that had showed them the power of the pen and the ink. “Yeah, we had lots of fun.”
“You can have the original. Once you hand in the paper, I’m sure Mrs. Bentz will give it back.”
“Larry! Let’s go!” Mrs. Crazinski yelled from the car.
Craz nodded to Matt, who gave him a little salute.
Matt watched the best friend he ever had walk away. He almost felt like crying but refused to let it happen. Instead he took his mind off what was happening by thinking again about the cartooning kit and the wonderful day when they first found out about the magic. He closed his eyes and pictured the “Cartoon Kings” comic and smiled. He let his mind wander from panel to panel, past the goofy way he’d drawn the two of them, past the image of the bag of money, past the drawings of the pen and the ink . . .
The PEN AND THE INK!
“Craz!” Matt shouted just as the car door closed and the car started to pull away from the curb. “I think I can fix this!”
Craz rolled down the window. “How?”
He watched out the back window as Matt ran up the metal ramp and into the moving van. A second later he reappeared sitting unsteadily atop Craz’s rocket-powered bike.
“Just trust me, okay?” Matt yelled as he adjusted the helmet. He took a deep breath and started pedaling awkwardly down the street. And once he was sure he wasn’t going to fall over, he flipped the red switch above the water bottle and held on for the ride of his life.
50
WILD RIDE
“WHOOOOOOAAAA!”
Matt couldn’t help but scream as the rocket bike zigzagged wildly down the street. His face felt stretched by the force of the ride, and he had to use every ounce of strength and concentration to keep from crashing into other moving objects—and there were a lot of those. Pedestrians. Cars. Barking dogs that tried to chase after him but quickly got lost in his dust.
“Hold. On. Tight,” he said aloud as the bike bounced over bumps and dodged potholes. He knew he had to be careful if he wanted to make his plan work. He had to arrive at school in one piece, not in an ambulance.
The solution to their ink problem had been at the school all along. Matt had drawn a bottle of ink and the pen in the very first cartoon he and Craz had made. And now the original of that cartoon was locked inside Mrs. Bentz’s desk. He only had to make a copy of it, and then he’d have more ink and another pen.
“Look out! Please! Out of the way!” Matt was approaching a stop sign and realized he didn’t actually know how to safely stop the bike without flying over the handlebars.
Matt shot through the intersection just as a red sports car screeched to a stop at the corner.
“Matt?” Mr. Worfle shouted as the bike whizzed past him.
Matt saw the blur that was his father and cringed thinking that he had drawn him that fancy car. That was another thing he planned to redraw.
Up ahead a garbage truck started to back out of an alley, and Matt heard the warning beep-beep-beep as the rear end of the truck edged into the street. The school was just a block past the truck, and so he gripped the handlebars tightly and angled the bike toward the space between the end of the truck and a parked car. It was a narrow space that was quickly getting narrower. He almost closed his eyes but knew that was just suicide.
ZOOM! He steered perfectly through the gap. Now the school was straight ahead and coming up fast. Matt decided to cut the rocket engine and glide the rest of the way, but when he flipped the red switch down, the booster didn’t shut off. He tried it again, and this time the red switch broke off in his fingers.
“Not good!” Matt yelled as he rocketed toward his school.
With a bit more skill than he thought possible, Matt aimed the speeding bike around a school bus, whipped into the Kilgore Junior High driveway, and then took a sharp corner and flew around to the back of the school. Speeding past classroom windows, he realized he was doing a pretty decent job steering in and out of the teachers’ parked cars and dodging screaming kids who came outside from the gym. He even kind of liked the ride.
“Uh-oh!”
Still full throttle, the bike jumped the low curb at the edge of the parking lot and landed, skidding, on the football field, where the tires spat out patches of grass and mud clumps as Matt roared down the field toward the huddled Killer Bee squad in the middle of a pregame practice.
“Out of the way!” he screamed. “Can’t stop!”
The Killer Bees broke apart just as Matt shot past the team.
“No way,” Paulie Frick said to his equally stunned teammates. “That kid is pretty cool.”
Matt picked several bugs out of his teeth while he tried to figure out how he was going to stop the bike. And that’s when he saw a row of low bushes about one hundred yards away. Figuring leaves and sticks were softer than pavement, he aimed the bike straight at the shrubs, closed his eyes, and jumped.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
It felt like slow motion as Matt flew through the air, before crashing hard into the middle of the pointy foliage.
His heart was pounding and he had scratches all over his arms and he could swear some itchy leaves were stuck in his underpants, but he felt great. “That was amazing!” he shouted as he pulled himself out of the bushes and brushed himself off. And even with the football team rushing over to pat him on the back and tell him how truly awesome he was, he had a job to do, and he ran off to the side entrance and disappeared inside the school.
51
PEN AND INK
IT WAS THE MIDDLE OF THIRD PERIOD SO THE hallway was empty, which made Matt’s sprint down the corridor a breeze. He was going to fix the problems—he felt it deep inside, and that thought brought a huge smile to his face.
“Watch it!”
Matt heard the cry before he saw the kid carrying a huge stack of purple paper. But it was too lat
e.
WHAM!
The collision sent a cloud of purple pages into the air, which fluttered down all over the hallway. Matt was sprawled on his butt, and it took him a second before he realized who he’d crashed into.
“Cindy? I am so sorry,” he said while trying to help gather up the scattered sheets. “Totally my fault. Totally.” He stuffed a handful of paper into her arms.
“What’s the big rush, Matt? Just flunk a test or something?” She was smiling. She wasn’t mad, not even a little.
“It’s a long story,” he said as he helped Cindy to her feet. “I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
“Promise?”
He grinned. “Yup. I promise. In fact,” he said, and took a deep breath, “you want to maybe do something sometime? You know, a movie or just hang out?”
“Do something, huh?” Cindy looked away and paused long enough for Matt’s stomach to flip over twice. “Sure. Sounds fun.”
“Cool!” Matt said as he picked up the last of the purple sheets and then ran off down the hallway toward Mrs. Bentz’s classroom. Out of breath, Matt got to the door and peered in the window, unprepared for what he saw. Mrs. Bentz was pacing behind her desk, which now was decorated to look like the prow of a boat with a mast made from a broom handle and a white towel stretched to be the sail. She wore wide-legged purple pantaloons with a loose white blouse and had tied a green kerchief around her head.
“Actually the island isn’t as rugged as I had imagined,” she was saying to her class. “And who would think that Long John Silver was such a good dancer?”
Matt burst into the room, causing Mrs. Bentz to reach to her side and hold up a cardboard sword that she pointed directly at him.
“Avast ye, lubber!” she shouted. “Stand down, I say!”
Matt had to smirk at the ridiculous sight but had no time to play pirates. “Sorry, Mrs. Bentz, but this is an emergency.” He ran past her, suffering a few jabs of her cardboard sword in the process, and then rushed behind her desk and started opening the drawers.
“Hey! That’s my boat—er, desk,” Mrs. Bentz shouted as she did her best to pull Matt back.
The students totally got into the scuffle, and they started hooting and clapping.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Matt swatted Mrs. Bentz off him and finally managed to open the bottom drawer, where all of her files were stored. He rifled through them until he came to a folder crammed with kid artwork that she had obviously been confiscating over the years. He emptied the folder on the desk.
“Matthew Worfle, I hereby give you a last warning. Cease what you are doing or suffer the consequences!”
Consequences. That was a good one, thought Matt, knowing how much everything affects everything else. Sometimes one small doodle can send your entire world spinning crazily out of control.
“Yes!” Matt spotted the “Cartoon Kings” comic. He grabbed it and turned to his teacher. “Arghhh, you make a fine pirate, Mrs. B!”
She blushed and began to thank Matt for the compliment, but he was already gone.
This time Matt didn’t care who saw him inside the teachers’ lounge. He quickly cut out the image of the ink bottle and magic pen from the original “Cartoon Kings” comic and then slapped the two drawings onto the copy machine.
Even though his heart was racing, he paused. What if this idea didn’t work? Maybe the magic only happened one time with each cartoon, and they’d already copied the original once. If it doesn’t work now, Matt thought, what other options are there?
Sadly he knew that answer. Without Boyd T. Boone’s help he and Craz would be stuck with life just the way it was. For better or worse. And if Craz really did move halfway around the world, it was definitely the worst ever.
Matt closed the lid and pushed the start button. The machine made the familiar whirring noise. A second later the bright flash of light burst out from under the lid. Matt held his breath.
And then came the second flash of light.
Matt turned around, scanning the countertops for the magic pen and ink. Dirty coffee cups, half-eaten bagels, and a newspaper crumpled into a ball were all that he saw. His stomach felt sick until his eyes fell on the long table. There, sticking out from under a year-old fashion magazine, he saw the tip of a pen that looked like it could be his. He ran to the table and quickly lifted up the magazine, revealing a perfect copy of the pen and a full bottle of ink.
“Yes!” Matt felt relaxed for the first time in a couple of days.
Sitting at the table, Matt used the new pen and bottle of ink to draw the cartoon that would put Craz’s family back together and make sure Craz didn’t move away. He was actually nervous and had to start over twice. But he finally felt he’d gotten it right.
Matt placed the cartoon on the copy machine and closed the lid, confident—or at least hopeful—that everything was going to work out fine.
And then he pushed the button and waited for the twin flashes of light that would bring his best friend home.
52
BACK TO NORMAL
THE NEXT DAY BEGAN AS USUAL, WITH CRAZ getting the cold end of the shower and then having to fight over the last piece of burned French toast.
“Hands off, Becca. I put dibs on it.”
“Oh, please,” his sister snapped at him. “You can’t dibs a piece of food.”
“Well, I licked it,” Meagan said. “Does that count?”
“Good ploy, Meg.” Hank was at the sink washing his plate. “And, Larry, can you please clean up your side of our room? I nearly broke a toe on that plastic penguin of yours.”
“My penguin!” Pete shouted as he dumped orange juice on his head. “I want it! Mine! Mine! Mine!”
Mrs. Crazinski dashed into the kitchen with a towel wrapped around her wet hair, looking frantically for her purse. Mr. Crazinski honked the horn to get everyone to hurry up, and Becca grabbed the wrong lunch bag, leaving everyone else to argue over who was going to have to eat the liver sandwich.
The noise was loud, the activity chaotic, and Craz leaned back in his chair wondering how he ever thought he could live without it.
AT SCHOOL THE MORNING WAS A SERIES OF DULL classes that Matt and Craz suffered through just so they could get to lunch period.
“Thanks again, Matt,” Craz said through a huge mouthful of liver.
“No sweat, Craz. You’d do the same for me. Right?”
“Absolutely. Of course if it were me, I’d know how to use the brakes on the bike.” He sighed. “It really blew up when it smashed into the wall?”
“Sorry about that part.” Then Matt smiled. “But I have to admit, it was a pretty awesome ride.”
“I knew you had it in you.” Craz sipped his chocolate milk, anxious to get back to the new project they’d come up with last night, just hours after Craz had been zapped out of his airplane seat and back into his normal messy, overcrowded life.
“Hey,” Craz said, pointing at Matt’s lunch. “You’re eating a Wednesday sandwich. Today is Friday.”
Matt swallowed a bite of roast beef. “Yup. Gotta take some chances, right?”
Skip Turkle plopped down at the lunch table and grabbed one of Craz’s potato chips. “Boys, this is your lucky day,” he said, chewing with his mouth wide open.
“If this was my lucky day, Turkle, you wouldn’t be sitting here.” Matt could still picture the newspaper editor stuck in a blob of alien slime. It made him happy.
“Good one,” Skip said, forcing one of his snortlike laughs before he tried to snag another chip from Craz without success. “Here’s the deal. The Lantern is looking for some fresh blood on the comics page.”
“What about Diesel?” Matt asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Strangest thing. He’s b
een acting all weird the last few days, like he’s afraid of something. Says he’s done cartooning.”
“Just like that?” Craz couldn’t hide the smirk on his face.
Skip shrugged. “Just like that.”
“Funny thing is,” said Craz, “if you’d asked us a week ago, we’d probably have walked on hot coals at the chance. Right, Matt?”
“That’s true,” Matt said. “But we have our own plans now. There are other ways to get our cartoons shown around here.”
Skip laughed. “Right. And how exactly are you two losers going to swing that?”
Just then Len and Sammy came by the table. “Loved the cover idea for your comic book, guys.” Len slapped the full-page cartoon down on the table. “Rocket bicycles . . . killer bees . . . aliens. You’ve got it all!”
“Aliens?” Skip grabbed the comic book cover with the bold title that read Crazy Times Comix. He scoffed at how lame he thought it looked. But when his eyes fell on the drawing of the four familiar creatures from outer space, an inexplicable chill ran down his spine and Skip left the table so quickly that he knocked over his chair.
“That was fun,” said Craz.
“Way fun!” Matt grinned.
AFTER MANAGING TO STAY AWAKE DURING HEALTH class, Craz and Matt walked into English, dreading having to tell Mrs. Bentz they didn’t have their Treasure Island reports. Luckily, Mrs. Bentz hadn’t arrived yet, so they took their seats and were both surprised when Principal Droon entered the room.
“Okay. Settle down. I have an announcement to make.” Principal Droon flicked the lights on and off to get everyone’s attention, like they were in third grade. “That’s better. I’m sorry to tell you that Mrs. Bentz will no longer be teaching you.”
The room erupted in a chorus of shouts and cheers.
Paulie Frick shot his hand into the air. “What happened? Did she crack up? Were we too much for her?”
The class laughed, which didn’t change Principal Droon’s expression from one of patient disgust. “All I know is that she said she was selling her condo to go live on an island somewhere. Not that I can make any sense of that decision.
The Awesome, Almost 100% True Adventures of Matt & Craz Page 16
