Super Burp! #1

by Krulik, Nancy;Blecha, Aaron

  Now George was totally confused. Was he supposed to turn to the left? Or was he supposed to turn all the way around?

  Since George wasn’t sure what to do, he did both. He spun around to the left, and then . . .

  Thud. George tripped and landed right on his butt.

  “Oomph!” George groaned.

  Some kids started laughing.

  Mrs. Kelly came over. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  George looked down at his untied shoe. “Yeah,” he said. “I just tripped over my shoelace.”

  George wished the kids would stop laughing. George didn’t want Mrs. Kelly to think he’d been making fun of square dancing.

  But Mrs. Kelly wasn’t angry. In fact, she gave George a big, gummy smile. “It’s okay,” she assured him.

  “Maybe I should just sit out and watch,” George suggested hopefully. “So I don’t mess things up for everyone else. I could learn a lot by watching.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Kelly said. “Just tie your shoelace and get ready to do-si-do.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Kelly,” George said. He stood up and got ready to do-si-do one more time.

  A few moments later, the kids were dancing again. “Eee-hah!” Mrs. Kelly kept shouting and stomping her foot. “Swing your partner ’round and ’round. Don’t let those feet leave the ground.”

  George tried his hardest not to fall again. Boy, Edith B. Sugarman Elementary School was definitely a strange place.

  Chapter 4

  It was amazing how hungry do-si-doing and allemanding could make a kid. George was starving by lunchtime.

  His mom had packed a bag lunch, but he also had money for a snack. So he followed Julianna to the food line, and got dessert. All that was left was a block of Jell-O with whipped cream on top.

  George carried his tray to where the kids in class 401 were sitting. They were talking and kidding around, just the way the kids at George’s old school used to. The only difference was that nobody here was shouting, “Hey, George, over here. I saved you a seat.”

  Since all the boys were on one side of the long cafeteria table, George walked over and started to sit at the end next to Louie, the kid with the cool sneakers. But a boy with red hair and freckles pushed him aside.

  “Sorry, New Kid,” the kid with red hair said. “I always sit on Louie’s left at lunch. Right, Louie?”

  “Right, Mike,” Louie told him.

  “And I always get to sit on his right,” a tall, skinny kid with brown hair said. “Right, Louie?”

  Louie nodded. He turned to George. “Why don’t you go sit next to your buddy?” Louie pointed to where all the girls were sitting.

  There was nothing else for George to do. He sat down next to Julianna.

  Julianna was eating a slice of cafeteria pizza. It didn’t look too bad. But the girl who sat down on his other side—George heard Julianna call her Sage—had a giant-sized plate of vegetables. Before taking a bite, she sprinkled on a whole packet of pepper.

  “Hey, Louie, want to play killer ball at recess?” the kid with red hair asked.

  “What’s killer ball?” George asked.

  “It’s this amazing game Louie made up,” Mike said.

  “Cool!” George said, hoping someone would say, “We’ll teach you how to play.” But no one did.

  As the kids talked about who was on which team for killer ball, George sat quietly drinking his milk and finishing the baloney sandwich his mom had made him. George stared at his Jell-O.

  Ooh. That dessert looked so good. But not to eat. What George really, really wanted was to shove the whole block of Jell-O into his mouth, chew, and then slide the chewed-up red slime through spaces between his teeth until it dribbled down his chin.

  George finished off the whipped cream, then balanced the Jell-O on his fork and was all ready to cram it in. But he stopped. George reminded himself that he was trying to stay out of trouble. So he dumped the Jell-O back on his plate and watched the girl next to him pour another packet of pepper onto her mountain of carrots.

  George couldn’t believe it. What kind of kid liked pepper?

  Apparently, Carrot Girl was that kind of kid. She was already opening up a third packet of pepper when a kid returning a tray bumped her arm. Pepper flew onto George’s tray.

  “Ah-choo!”

  The pepper made George sneeze. Two times. And the second sneeze was a big, wet one. George could feel two ropes of snot hanging from his nose. Quickly, he wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  But it was too late. Louie had already seen the whole thing. “How am I supposed to eat when I have to look at New Kid snot?” he asked.

  George was about to say sorry, but he didn’t get the chance. He sneezed again. Two ropes of snot flew out of his nose and shot across the table—right onto Louie’s tray.

  “Ooh, gross,” the girls all said. But they were laughing. So was everybody else, except Louie. Sage was laughing so hard, she looked like she was going to choke on her carrots.

  Teachers never liked when there was too much laughing in school. A few giggles were okay. But not this kind of laughing. George wished the kids would stop before the grown-ups heard them.

  But the cafeteria lady had already seen the commotion. And she was on her way over to George’s table.

  Uh-oh. Cafeteria ladies hated him.

  “What’s the problem here?” the cafeteria lady asked.

  “The problem is my tray,” Louie said. “It’s got New Kid snot all over it.” Louie pointed to George. “He thinks that’s funny.”

  George couldn’t believe it! Louie was making it sound like George had snotted on his tray on purpose. But he hadn’t. He’d just sneezed.

  “That’s disgusting,” the cafeteria lady told George. “Today you can stay here with me during recess, so we can go over some of the cafeteria rules.”

  “But—” George started to explain. The cafeteria lady didn’t stick around to listen.

  As she walked away, George stared at Louie. “It was an accident. You know that!”

  Louie smiled at him. “I was just trying to help.”

  “Huh?” George said. Since when was squealing on someone helping?

  “Now you can find out everything there is to know about the cafeteria,” Louie explained. Then he got up and headed toward the door. “Okay, guys. Time for killer ball.”

  George frowned as he watched Louie. “Next time, don’t do me any favors.”

  Chapter 5

  Walking home from school was really, really lonely. “Just me, myself, and I,” George said. There was no one else to talk to.

  Later, when his mom asked how everything went, George said, “Okay.” But his mom probably could tell it hadn’t been the greatest day of his life because after dinner his parents took him out for a special first-day-of-school treat. They went to a place called Ernie’s Ice Cream Emporium. It was the biggest ice cream parlor George had ever seen. It took up half the block!

  Ernie’s was a really cool place. Outside, there were small, metal tables set up. Each had a cheery, red and white striped umbrella that was open even though it was nighttime and it wasn’t raining. Inside, there were booths with bright red, leather benches.

  “Can we sit outside?” George asked. “I want to be able to see the sky.”

  That wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was Louie. When they had gotten out of the car, George had spotted him walking inside with a bunch of older guys.

  “So, how’d it go?” his dad asked as they sat down at a table.

  The last thing George wanted was a long talk about trying to “adjust.” He just wanted to enjoy his ice cream. So he was glad that before he could answer, a girl in a black sweater and a red and white polka-dot skirt roller-skated up to the table. George smiled in spite of himself. Roller-skating waitresses? Cool!

  “Hi,” the waitress greeted George’s family. “What can I get for you, folks?”

  George knew exactly what he wanted. It was the same thing he always
wanted when he was bummed out. “I’ll have a root beer float,” he said. “With two scoops of chocolate ice cream.”

  “I’ll have vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce,” George’s mother said.

  “A double rocky road sundae for me,” his dad added. “With three cherries.”

  “Okay, I’ll get your order for you right away,” the waitress promised.

  As the waitress skated off, George began to feel a little better. There was nothing a root beer float couldn’t cure.

  And his parents didn’t ask any more questions, either. His mom was talking about her store—ordering glass beads, needlepoint kits, and patterns for knitting afghans. George didn’t even know what an afghan was. He didn’t want to find out.

  As his mom and dad talked, George sneaked another look inside Ernie’s. Louie was sitting in a window booth with the three older boys. One of them looked a lot like Louie, only taller. Maybe it was his brother.

  George couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was clear that it was funny because they were all laughing really, really hard. Just the way George’s friends at his old school used to laugh whenever George said something funny. Which was pretty much all the time.

  But that was the old George. The new George didn’t joke around like that. Of course, the new George didn’t have any friends, either.

  “It’s not fun not being funny,” he whispered to himself.

  Just then, the waitress skated over to George’s table with the tray of ice cream. “Here you go,” she said as she placed a huge mug of root beer and chocolate ice cream on the table. Then she passed his mom and dad their sundaes.

  “Thanks,” George said. “I really needed this.”

  He wrapped his lips around the straw and took a huge gulp of the fizzy, sweet root beer. “Yum!”

  Just then, George’s dad poked him. “Whoa!” he shouted. “Look up, son!”

  George did, just in time to see a bright yellow star shoot across the night sky.

  “It’s a shooting star! Quick! Make a wish,” his mom said. “And make it a good one because wishes on shooting stars come true.”

  George thought for a moment. “I want to make kids laugh but not get into trouble.” he whispered. That wasn’t such a big wish. It was the kind of wish that could come true, maybe.

  George took another big gulp of his root beer float. And then another. He couldn’t drink that root beer fast enough.

  He was slurping up the last bit of it through a straw when, suddenly, George began to hear strange gurgling noises coming from the bottom of his belly. It felt like there were hundreds of tiny bubbles bouncing around in there.

  The bubbles bounced up and down and all around. They ping-ponged their way from his belly to his chest, and bing-bonged their way up into his throat. And then . . .

  George let out a loud burp. He’d burped plenty of times before, but never one like this. The burp was so loud, it made the table shake. It was so loud, his parents clapped their hands over their ears.

  The super burp was so loud that everyone sitting outside—and inside—Ernie’s stopped talking and stared at George. Then they started to laugh. Hearing people laugh sounded just like the old days.

  Then something else really strange happened. Suddenly George’s hands reached across the table and grabbed two straws from the container.

  It was like his hands had a mind of their own. George had no control over them. He watched as his hands shoved the straws up his nose. Then he jumped up on the table. It was like he was an old-fashioned puppet and someone had yanked him onto the table by his strings.

  The next thing he knew, George’s hands were clapping together, pretending they were flippers.

  “Look, I’m a walrus,” George shouted.

  A bunch of kids shot up from their seats.

  “Hey, check out that kid,” one of them said. He was laughing, too.

  “George, get down from there!” his mother and father both shouted.

  But George couldn’t get down. He couldn’t stop himself. Goofiness was just bubbling out of him.

  George do-si-doed and allemanded. His parents’ sundaes went flying off the table.

  “George!” his mother shouted. “You just got chocolate sauce all over my new blouse.”

  George stuck his right foot in. He stuck his right foot out. He did the hokey pokey and he turned himself about. And then . . .

  Whoooosh. It felt like a giant bubble popped inside George’s stomach. All the air rushed out of him. And so did the silliness. Suddenly George didn’t feel so funny anymore. He stopped dancing and looked around.

  “What are you doing up there?” his father asked.

  “Um . . . the hokey pokey?” George answered. He didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t sure why he’d jumped up on the table. He certainly hadn’t planned it. It had just happened. Right after he’d let out that giant burp.

  “I’m swearing off root beer floats for good,” he promised himself. “They’re too dangerous.”

  Chapter 6

  George went up to his room as soon as he got home from the ice cream parlor. His parents looked puzzled. He was puzzled, too. Something had come over him—and that was pretty freaky to think about.

  George sat down at his new desk in his new room. His homework assignment stared back at him.

  Homework on his very first day at a new school. That just didn’t seem fair. But there it was. And the right thing to do was work on it.

  That didn’t sound like a whole lot of fun. In fact it sounded kind of boring. George leaned wa-a-ay back in his chair until the two front legs were off the ground. It helped him to think better that way.

  Maybe the assignment didn’t have to be so boring. Maybe George could turn this following directions stuff into something he could have fun with.

  There were three things George loved doing. One was telling jokes. Another was skateboarding. And the third was doing magic tricks.

  George knew skateboarding was out of the question. That wouldn’t be allowed in school. And there weren’t really any directions for how to be a comedian. But a magic trick could work perfectly.

  That was it! George would do a magic trick for his new class.

  The kids would definitely think magic was cool to do. And Mrs. Kelly would be happy because you had to follow a lot of directions to get a magic trick just right.

  George went over to his bookshelf and pulled out one of his magic books. Then he flipped the pages until he found the perfect trick. One he’d never done before.

  After tomorrow, George wasn’t going to be called the new kid anymore. He was going to be the class magician. Things were about to change—magically.

  The next morning, George carried a small carton of eggs to school. The eggs were part of his magic trick. You were supposed to hard-boil them, but George hadn’t had time last night to do that. So he just made sure to hold the eggs really, really carefully. George wanted to make sure that nothing went wrong. Today was going to be a good day. All that weird stuff last night at Ernie’s was history. Forgotten.

  Or maybe not . . . When he got to his classroom, the kid with the braces—Alex—dashed over to him.

  He said, “Man, is it true what you did at Ernie’s last night?”

  George put the eggs on his desk and slipped off his backpack. “Well, I-I-I. Um. Sort of,” he said slowly.

  “Louie told me,” Alex said.

  “He’s telling everyone.”

  Louie had seen him! George looked over at Louie’s desk. Sure enough, he was whispering something to Mike and Max, and pointing at George.

  “It was no big deal,” George said.

  Alex was about to say something else when Mrs. Kelly stood up in the front of the room. “Okay, everyone,” she said. “Let’s take our seats.”

  Phew. George was never so happy to have school start. Maybe by the time he’d done his trick, everyone would be talking about what a good magician he was, and not about last night at Ernie’s. George d
idn’t want to be famous for being the kid with the big burp who danced on tables with straws up his nose. That was the old George.

  Chapter 7

  “You cover the pinecone with peanut butter,” Sage explained to the class in her soft, high voice. “And sprinkle birdseed all over. Then you hang the pinecone on a tree and watch the birds come to feed.”

  George struggled hard not to yawn. Making a birdfeeder thing wasn’t very interesting. Neither was making a Popsicle stick box, or folding a piece of paper into a cat. So far no one had a presentation that was as cool as George’s magic trick was going to be.

  “Very nice, Sage,” Mrs. Kelly said.

  “It really works, too,” Sage said. “I made one and put it in a pine tree. Birds come from all over the place to feed at it.”

  “That must be a wonderful sight to see.” Then Mrs. Kelly said, “Who would like to go next?”

  George raised his hand. So did Louie.

  “Okay, Louie?” Mrs. Kelly said.

  Louie walked to the front of the room. He was carrying an electric guitar.

  “I’m going to play a song I learned last night,” Louie told the class. “I had to follow the directions in my songbook to learn the chords.”

  “What is your song called?” Mrs. Kelly asked.

  “It’s an old rock-and-roll song called ‘Louie, Louie,’” he answered. Then he plugged in the guitar and started to play.

  George hated to admit it, but Louie’s presentation was pretty cool.

  When Louie finished the song, the whole class cheered. Max and Mike stuck their fingers in their mouths and let out loud whistles.