by Michael Fry
Karl are up to something.”
Maybe he is Emily.
“I know you’re anxious to start Safety Patrol. But
you’re not ready yet. You just need to be patient.”
No, he’s not Emily.
“Speaking of patience, did I ever tell you
about the time I was down in Antarctica,
training penguins to ski jump for the Olympics?”
No. He’s 100 percent not Emily. He’s just
seriously weird.
“Did you know there’s no Olympic
participation restriction based on species?”
“Another lie that tells the truth?” I said as I
turned back to the field.
“Have you figured that one out yet?” asked
Mr. Dupree.
I didn’t get a chance to answer because
just then I spotted a new hairdo parting the
gathering below.
I got to the field, pushed through the crowd,
and popped out just in time to hear Memaw say,
“I’m looking for a very rude Roy person who’s
been text-threatening me.”
Roy was confused. “Wait. You’re the one who’s
been threatening me?”
“Threatening you? You’re the one who wants
to rip out my spleen!” said Memaw.
Roy shook his head. “You can’t be Max.”
I jumped between Memaw and Roy. “No! Stop!
I’m Max!”
“You?” said Roy.
“You?” whispered Memaw.
“You!” shouted Becky.
Karl turned to the crowd and pointed to me.
“Him.”
Memaw grabbed me. “You’re the Max that’s
been bullying this boy?”
I nodded.
Memaw’s whole
body sagged. Like
when all the air
leaks out of one of
those balloons you
see at car dealers.
A girl yelled, “What’s going on here?”
Everyone turned to watch the Peer Mediation
Club emerge from the crowd.
I looked at Roy. Roy looked at me. We might
be mortal enemies, but there was one thing we
could agree on: there was no universe, alternate
or otherwise, where we would take our war to
the Peer Mediation Club.
But before we could tell the bossy girls to take
a hike, dozens of cell phones started buzzing at
once.
Everyone checked their phones.
“It says, ‘Look up!’” yelled Karl.
And everybody did. Even Roy.
That’s when one of Roy’s three brain cells
decided to randomly click on and he stopped
looking up and started looking around.
While everyone was still staring at the sky,
Roy grabbed me with one hand and Karl’s rolling
suitcase backpack with the other. Before I even
realized what was happening, Roy had pulled
me to the edge of the crowd and started dumping
Karl’s stuff out of the backpack.
He dumped and dumped and dumped and
dumped.
Then he stuffed me in the backpack along
with one of Karl’s seven tuna pouches and took
off.
I figured Roy must really like tuna.
I figured wrong.
Chapter 33
We bounced along for what seemed like
forever, then suddenly stopped. Roy opened the
backpack and I quickly figured out the tuna
wasn’t for him.
It was the Cat Dumpster! Roy was going to
smear me with tuna and feed me to the cats!
Seriously, I’d rather have my spleen ripped
out.
“Get out!” ordered Roy.
I struggled to stand, then immediately fell
over.
I pointed to my legs. “Log legs.”
Roy moved toward me. I raised my hands and
ducked.
Roy reached past me and grabbed the tuna
pouch. “It was you in the tree house in that
stupid disguise.”
I nodded.
“Where’s Oinkdexter?”
“I don’t have him.”
Roy started to rip open the tuna pouch. “If
you don’t tell me where he is, you’re going in the
Dumpster with this on your head.”
“I really don’t have him. Molly does. And I
don’t know where!”
I looked up. The Dumpster was now buried in
an army of cats, every one of them staring right
at me.
I turned back to Roy. “Please. I really don’t
know! If I did know, I would tell you. I would!”
Roy ripped open the tuna pouch.
“NO!” I screamed.
Roy grabbed me as hundreds of cats licked
their lips in anticipation. Then just as Roy raised
the tuna pouch over my head . . .
It was Roy’s phone. He looked at the screen
and gasped. He dropped the phone, fell back
against the Dumpster, and slid slowly to the
ground. The cats instantly attacked the open
tuna pouch still clutched in his hand.
I picked up the phone. It was a text to Roy,
from Molly.
Molly: You stop bullying us or the pig gets it!
There was a picture attached.
It was Karl’s science fair project, “Will It
Twist?” He and Molly were threatening to tear
Oinkdexter apart.
I didn’t get it. “It’s just a stupid stuffed pig,” I
said. “Why do you . . .”
I looked up from the phone. Roy was still
buried in cats fighting over the tuna. He didn’t
flinch. He just stared into space. And looked . . .
wounded.
The Bully in him was gone.
In his place . . .
. . . was a bully I recognized.
Chapter 34
You really think you can get Oinkdexter back?”
Roy asked. We were standing in the first floor
boys’ restroom looking up at the access panel to
the school’s ductwork.
I nodded. “No sweat,” I said.
Actually, I had no idea how much sweat it
would be. Probably a lot of sweat. Probably more
sweat than I could sweat. But I had to help him.
I couldn’t leave him with those Dumpster cats.
Those things can lick the shine off the sun.
“You’re sure they won’t give Oinkdexter back
if I just agree to their terms?” asked Roy.
“I’m sure. If they give him up, what’s to stop
you from just going back to being a bully?” I
explained as I removed the access panel.
“Why are you helping me?” asked Roy.
“So I can look in the mirror.”
“What?”
“Forget it. What about you? What’s so special
about this pig?”
“Oinkdexter smells like my mom.”
“Is your mom not around?”
Roy shook his head no.
I didn’t know what to say about
that, so I didn’t say anything for a few
seconds. Then I took out my phone
and said, “Step one: Beg for help from
someone who hates me.”
Becky hung up on me. I texted her:
Nick: IT’S NOT ABOUT ME! IT’S ABOUT ROY! I need
ur help to get his pig back! Pleez call back!
My phone rang a few s
econds later.
“This is all your fault!” Becky shouted.
“Yeah, but we still need your help,” I pleaded.
“Why are you helping Roy?”
“He asked me to.”
“He asked you for help after everything you’ve
done to him? And after everything he’s done to
you, you said yes?”
“I guess it makes us even,” I said.
There was a long pause, and then: “What do I
need to do?”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding
in. Becky didn’t completely hate me. Just mostly.
“We’ve got a half hour,” I said. “When I text
you, I need you to clear everyone out of the
science fair in the cafetorium.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“You’ve really thought this through.”
“C’mon, just trust me. Please?”
There was another pause, then she finally
said, “Fine.”
I hung up and turned to Roy. “Becky’s in.”
Roy said, “So, we’re going to crawl to the
ceiling of the cafetorium, somehow clear the
science fair, drop down, and grab Oinkdexter.”
“See, no sweat.”
I immediately started to sweat.
Chapter 35
Roy poked his head into the duct and asked
“Are there bugs in here?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe. You’re not scared,
are you?”
Roy and I entered the duct and started
crawling, using my phone as a flashlight.
We passed Dr. Daniels’s office and the main
office. Everything was going perfectly until . . .
. . . my phone went dead. We couldn’t see a
thing.
I thought, Don’t panic. We still have Roy’s
phone.
From behind, I could see a dim light come on.
Roy said, “Um . . . my battery’s almost dead too.”
“We’ll be fine. Just turn it off. It’s just a left,
then a right, then a left again. Just follow me.”
I crawled forward, feeling my way. After a few
feet, I could see light up ahead and hear voices
below. We were over the cafetorium. It was just a
few more feet to the first vent.
“We’re here. You okay, Roy?” I asked.
There was no answer.
“Roy?”
I looked back. Roy wasn’t there.
“ROY!” I yelled.
“What?” said Roy behind me.
I turned and Roy was suddenly in front of me,
on the other side of the vent.
“I never turned my phone back on!” I said.
“You must have seen some light from . . .”
“Emily,” said Roy.
“Not you too,” I said. “You know she’s not
real!”
“No, she’s real. She’s real like Oinkdexter is
real.”
“Oinkdexter is a stuffed pig.”
“Oinkdexter helps me deal with stuff I don’t
understand, just like Emily helps kids deal with
stuff they don’t understand. If it works, it’s real.
And it works.”
I looked at Roy for a few seconds. Then I said,
“You’ve had a lot of therapy, haven’t you, Roy?”
“You have no idea.”
Roy turned on his phone. “Ten minutes till
the deadline. Have you figured out how you’re
going to clear the room?”
“I’m working on it,” I said as I peered
through the grate at the science fair below.
Kids, parents, and teachers were everywhere.
There were dozens of exhibits. It was packed.
I couldn’t see how we were going get everyone
out. I was just about to give up when I looked
directly below us and saw the answer staring
straight up at me.
I quickly texted Becky.
Release the python!
I hit send. Nothing happened. I stared at the
phone, “No bars! We don’t have any bars!”
I waved the phone around. It was no use. We
had no signal.
Roy took a deep breath. “I’ll just agree to the
demands,” he said. “Thanks for trying.”
“They’re never going to give you the pig! It’s
their guarantee you’ll keep your promise. There’s
got to be some other way.”
I looked down. Oinkdexter was directly under a
vent farther up the duct. If I only had some string
or some— I instantly saw what I was looking for.
“Wire!” I said.
Several wires lined the duct. I pulled on one.
It wouldn’t give.
Roy said, “I’ll do it.”
He yanked in both directions. The wire came
loose. I quickly coiled it up and made a noose
with one end.
Roy looked at me. “Five more minutes, and
I’m making the deal.”
We quickly crawled to the vent overlooking
Oinkdexter. I lowered the wire.
Roy grabbed my shoulder. “Please be careful.”
I nodded. “I will,” I said.
I looked back down. I slipped the noose
around Oinkdexter’s arm and tightened it. I
looked back up at Roy. “Got him.”
That’s when I felt a yank.
Roy yelled, “She’s got Oinkdexter!”
I turned and looked back down and saw Molly
tugging on the wire and Becky staring up at us.
Before I could say anything, someone
screamed:
A sudden tidal wave of kids and parents fled
the python booth for the exits.
I turned to Roy. “Becky must have gotten the
message! But how?”
When I turned back, Molly and Becky were
gone, overrun by the fleeing crowd.
Roy pointed and yelled, “There! Above the
crowd! Oinkdexter!”
We watched helplessly as Oinkdexter
disappeared into the stampeding mob.
I looked at
Roy. He looked
scared. He
looked more
scared of losing
Oinkdexter than
I’d ever been
scared of him.
Chapter 36
Once the cafetorium cleared, we searched
everywhere for the pig. I finally spotted him
next to the broken mouse cage. But someone else
spotted him too.
“There he is!” Molly and I
shouted at the exact same time.
I looked around for Molly
and found her and Becky under a table. They were
inching toward Oinkdexter. We had to hurry.
But before I could get Roy to lower me down,
he pointed below us and screamed, “SNAKE!”
The sight of Willy sliding toward Oinkdexter
froze Molly and Becky. I knew pythons were
dangerous to mice, not humans, but still, he was
a BIG snake. I would have been scared too, if it
wasn’t for what Roy said next.
“Oinkdexter is all I have left of my mom.”
“She’s gone?”
“Two years ago.”
Suddenly it all made sense. I said, “And he
still smells like her.”
Roy nodded.
I turned and stuck my legs through the grate.
“Lower me down.”
Roy grabbed my wrists and lowered me.
I was still too high above the floor. “Just
drop me!” I yelled. But Roy wasn’t listening. He
suddenly let go of one of my wrists, pointed to
Oinkdexter and yelled:
We fell about a foot and stopped. I looked up.
The duct had fallen through the ceiling. Roy was
stuck in the grate, upside down, holding my arm
with a death grip.
Roy yelled, “It’s got him!”
I yelled, “Drop me—” but my voice was cut off
by a deafening crack as the ceiling gave way and
the duct split open.
We were okay. Roy’s fall was broken by a
watermelon from the “Will It Twist?” exhibit.
And my fall was broken by Roy.
We quickly wiped off the watermelon guts,
stood up, and came face to face with . . . Karl?
Roy reached for Oinkdexter.
Molly grabbed the pig from Karl. “Not so
fast!” she said.
“I promise to stop messing with you guys,”
said Roy. “Just give me Oinkdexter.”
“No way,” said Molly. “The pig is our only
guarantee you’ll keep your promise.”
I looked at Roy. “I told you they wouldn’t give
it up. Let me take care of this.”
I walked Molly, Karl, and Becky a few feet
away so we could talk alone. I explained how
Oinkdexter had a very special smell.
Afterward, we all turned and looked at Roy.
He looked smaller for some reason. Almost
