Leon groped about in the dark and found his backpack. He removed Fathead and gave him a squeeze. “Oh, yeah?” he said bitterly. “Well, maybe I’ll knock the thtuffing out of you!”
All at once Leon froze in place. His head cleared. His hands began to shake. And soon he started to laugh.
“Eureka!” he cried out in the dark. “Eureka! Eureka! Eureka!”
EIGHTEEN
A Key Variable
Leon had to wait until after gym to announce his discovery to P.W. and Lily-Matisse. “I know what’s wrong with Fathead,” he told his two best friends.
“What?” said Lily-Matisse.
“Yeah,” said P.W. “Spill the beans.”
“It’s not beans that need spilling,” Leon said excitedly. “It’s stuffing.”
“What are you talking about?” said Lily-Matisse.
“Fathead’s stuffing—that’s what’s causing the problems.”
“No way,” said P.W. “I checked the measurements. They’re perfect.”
“You don’t get it,” said Leon. “It’s not the amount of stuffing, it’s what the stuffing’s made of.”
“Huh?” said P.W.
“Eh?” said Lily-Matisse.
“It’s simple,” said Leon. “Spitting images need more than special spit. They need special stuffing, too. Think about it. If the Hag doll used Miss Hagmeyer’s panty hose, it only makes sense that Fathead has to be stuffed with—”
“Something that comes from Lumpkin!” Lily-Matisse exclaimed.
“Yup,” said Leon.
“We’ve been total morons!” said P.W. “How did you figure it out?”
“That’s the funny thing,” said Leon. “Lumpkin told me.”
“Lumpkin?” said P.W.
Leon nodded. “It was after school, when he threatened to knock the thtuffing out of me.”
“The stuffing must be the energy source,” said Lily-Matisse. “It acts like the potato battery that makes the clock tick.”
“And spit is the conductor!” added P.W.
“Bingo,” said Leon.
“Question,” said Lily-Matisse. “How are we supposed to get hold of a pair of Lumpkin’s underwear?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Leon. “I’m figuring that the stuffing doesn’t have to be underwear. It just has to be a piece of clothing that comes from the person you’re trying to control. So here’s the question: What piece of clothing do you guys think of when you think of Henry Lumpkin?”
“The army jacket!” P.W. and Lily-Matisse both shouted.
“Jinx!” they both shouted again.
“Exactly,” said Leon. “If we get our hands on his jacket, we’ll be all set.”
“And how are we going to do that?” said Lily-Matisse.
“We could steal it,” P.W. suggested. “We stole the coach’s spit when we needed it last year.”
“That’s a really dumb idea, even for you,” said Lily-Matisse. “When have you ever seen Lumpkin not wearing his jacket?”
“I suppose you have a better suggestion,” P.W. said testily.
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Okay, then,” said P.W. “Let’s hear it.”
“Fine,” said Lily-Matisse. “My plan is simple. We wait. After all, the jacket is already supertight on him. Eventually he’ll have to shed it like a snake sheds its skin.”
“You want us to wait around for Lumpkin to grow?” said P.W.
“Like I said, it’s already tight on him.”
“And how are we going to get the skin once he sheds it?” P.W. demanded. “You think he’s going to leave his jacket behind for us to pick up?”
“Guys,” Leon interjected. “Can we be practical about this? We can’t go stealing Lumpkin’s army jacket, and we can’t wait for him to grow out of it either.”
“All I know is we better act fast,” said P.W. “It’s just a matter of time before he tests out his Howlitzer.”
“Agreed,” said Leon. “But there’s only one way to get that jacket. Lumpkin has to give it to us—willingly.”
“He’ll never do that,” said P.W. “Not in a gazillion years.”
“He will if we’ve got something he wants even more than the jacket,” said Leon.
“You mean a swap?” said P.W.
“Yup.”
“What do we have that Lumpkin would want?” asked Lily-Matisse.
“That’s the part I haven’t figured out,” Leon admitted. “We have to figure out what Lumpkin is into.”
“Hmm, let’s see.” P.W. began counting on his fingers. “There’s military stuff. Beating kids to a pulp. Sloppy joes. What else? Hot fudge sundaes. Beating kids to a pulp and—hmm, anything else?—oh, yeah, beating kids to a pulp.”
“How about an autographed picture of some famous war hero?” Lily-Matisse suggested.
“Not good enough,” said Leon. “The jacket is way too important. We need something one-hundred-percent irresistible.”
“Wait a minute!” P.W. cried out. “I got it. The perfect bait.”
“What?” said Lily-Matisse skeptically.
“Let me do some checking first,” said P.W. “I’ll supply the details tomorrow.”
The next day P.W. came to school looking like he’d won the lottery. “I know how we’ll get Lumpkin to shed his army jacket. Take a look-see.” He pulled a printout from his binder. “I found this online.”
Leon and Lily-Matisse glanced down.
“Another army jacket?” said Leon.
“Not just any army jacket,” P.W. said. “We’re talking a vintage World War II M42HBT Check out the special pockets and the anti-gas flap.”
Lily-Matisse tittered.
“Get serious,” said P.W. “It doesn’t protect against that kind of gas. Anyway, this is what I’m thinking. Suppose Leon comes to school wearing one of these babies, say in an extra-extra-extra-large?”
Leon caught on immediately. “Lumpkin would flip!”
“He might consider a swap,” Lily-Matisse allowed.
“Consider a swap?” said P.W. “Are you kidding? He’d force Leon to swap.”
“Where can we get one of these jackets?” Leon asked.
“The address is at the bottom of the printout,” said P.W. “Captain Frank’s Army and Navy Surplus. It’s the only place in town that sells the M42HBT. I called Captain Frank and had him put one aside.”
“Excellent,” said Leon.
“Uh, P.W.?” said Lily-Matisse.
“Yeah?”
“Question.” Lily-Matisse tapped the printout. “Did you notice the price?”
“Geez!” Leon exclaimed. “A hundred and fifty-nine ninety-nine! Where are we going to get that kind of money?”
“Hey,” P.W. snapped. “I can’t come up with all the answers. At least we know what we need.”
“Knowing what we need is one thing,” said Leon. “Getting it is something else.”
“How much do you have saved?” P.W. asked.
“Nothing,” said Leon.
“Ditto,” said Lily-Matisse.
“Double ditto,” P.W. said. “What’s your allowance?”
“I get ten dollars every two weeks,” said Leon.
“I get three bucks a week, when I remember to take out the restaurant garbage,” P.W. said.
“My mom doesn’t believe in allowance,” Lily-Matisse said irritably. “But sometimes she pays me when I help out around the art studio.”
“If we pool all our allowance money starting right now, I guesstimate it’ll take us about…” P.W. paused, “twenty weeks to save up for the jacket, give or take a couple of days.”
“Twenty weeks of noogies?” Leon moaned. “Twenty weeks of Lumpkin Dunkin’s, blood bracelets, and wedgies? No way! I’ll never survive.”
“Then we’ll just have to speed things up,” said Lily-Matisse.
That very afternoon the three fifth graders told their parents they were available for odd jobs, so long as the odd jobs paid cash.
Lily-Matisse did her part by cleaning up around the school art studio. She scraped clay off the pottery wheel, washed brushes, and reorganized the crayon cart.
Leon’s odd jobs were the oddest of all. He restocked the diaper shelf, fed the piranhas in 302, and took Rambo out for his daily constitutional (but only on a sturdy, short leash).
And when their parents asked why they needed the extra pocket money, the three fifth graders stuck to the same brief but satisfactory story. “It’s for an after-school science project.”
NINETEEN
All-Chips- All-the-Time
Over the next few months, Mr. Sparks had his fifth graders burning chips and boiling chips, measuring, magnifying, and mashing chips. He even had them flying chips—or more precisely, he had them flying chip bags. After an aerodynamics workshop that focused on the design of foil kites, he took his students to the park and gave them a four-word assignment:
“Go fly a kite!”
For the following lab, he brought in an old shoebox. “I played with these when I was your age,” he said, giving the box a shake. He made the class guess the contents and, after a dozen wrong answers, he removed the items, one by one: a plastic nose … a hand … a foot… another hand.
“It’s a Mr. Potato Head!” Flossy Parmigiano cried out.
“Excellent deduction,” said Mr. Sparks.
“Nanny got me the special anniversary version,” Antoinette Brede informed the class.
“How very fortunate you are,” said Mr. Sparks while he took out some plastic accessories. When the shoebox was empty, Henry Lumpkin said, “Hey, news flash, Mr. Sparks. Someone swiped the head.”
“News flash, Henry. Mr. Potato Head didn’t come with a head when I was a kid. The toy maker expected us to supply our own.”
Mr. Sparks reached into his satchel and produced a very large baking potato. “Observe,” he said, jabbing some face parts into the spud.
“What do you think?” he asked the class.
The response was unanimous: Booooorrrring!
Mr. Sparks inspected the potato head. “Maybe you’re right,” he admitted. After careful deliberation, he applied a black wig. “How’s this?”
“Now it looks like Miss Hagmeyer,” said P.W.
The entire class cracked up—all except Flossy Parmigiano. “I don’t get it,” she said.
“Neither do I,” said Mr. Sparks.
“That’s because you two weren’t here last year,” said Antoinette Brede.
“And you don’t know what we know,” added Thomas Warchowski.
“What don’t we know?” Flossy Parmigiano demanded.
“That the Hag wears fake hair!” hollered Henry Lumpkin.
“Henry!” said Mr. Sparks. “Her name is Miss Hagmeyer. And what scientific proof do you have to back up this ridiculous hypothesis?”
“She pulled her wig off in class,” said Thomas Warchowski.
“All of us saw it!” said Lumpkin. “Talk about gruesome!”
“It’s attached with Velcro,” said Antoinette Brede. “Three strips, all in a row.”
“Well, perhaps we should forgo the wig,” Mr. Sparks said judiciously.
Leon, P.W., and Lily-Matisse remained unusually quiet on the subject of Miss Hagmeyer and her removable hair. They knew what the others did not: that their fourth-grade teacher had flashed her scalp in class because of the spitting image Leon had controlled.
“How about this?” said Mr. Sparks, after adding a pipe and glasses.
The whole class approved.
“This fellow does look thoughtful,” said Mr. Sparks. “Very much the scientist. We’ll call him Professor Spud.”
“What’s Professor Spud supposed to be teaching us about?” asked Antoinette Brede.
“Rot and mold,” said Mr. Sparks as he placed the potato on the filing cabinet beside his desk. “Plus, I hope the Professor will help develop your skills in data collection. I want all of you to keep a photographic record of the changes he undergoes during the next few months.”
“I don’t have a camera,” P.W. pointed out.
“Me neither,” said Thomas Warchowski.
“I do,” said Antoinette Brede. “Nanny got me one with all sorts of special lenses.”
“That’s dandy, Antoinette. But don’t bother bringing it to class. You won’t need it.”
“Why not?”
“Ah,” Mr. Sparks said with a smirk. “I’m delighted you asked.” He held up an empty potato chip can. “Time to study optics.”
For the remainder of the lab, Mr. Sparks demonstrated how to turn empty potato chip cans into fully functioning pinhole cameras, explaining as he went along how the upside-down backward image on the bottom of the can resembled the image that hit the back of the eye. “Today’s project will also come in handy during our field trip next week,” Mr. Sparks said at the end of class.
“Where are we going?” asked Lily-Matisse. “It’s not mentioned on any of the handouts.”
“To a research center specializing in globuli solaniani,” Mr. Sparks replied.
“Globuli what?” sputtered Lumpkin.
Mr. Sparks sidestepped the question. “For those of you who haven’t given me trip waivers, tell your folks to bring them in on Parents’ Night.”
“When’s that?”
Mr. Sparks sighed. “Next Tuesday,” he said, his voice turning curiously glum.
“You don’t sound all that psyched to see our parents,” said Flossy Parmigiano. “Not that I can blame you.”
“Let’s just say I prefer fifth graders to the parents of fifth graders,” Mr. Sparks confessed.
Everyone knew the field trip involved potato chips. But how? That question drove Leon, P.W., and Lily-Matisse nuts. They were determined to discover the meaning of globuli solaniani before they boarded the school bus.
“Remember at carnival last year, how they had curly fries at the banquet?” said P.W.
“What about it?” said Lily-Matisse.
“They called them something funny.”
“Solana tuberosa in modo crispus fricta,” said Leon.
Lily-Matisse and P.W. both gave him funny looks.
“Hey, what can I say?” said Leon. “I know my chips and fries.”
They went to the library and looked up the phrase in various dictionaries. None referred to globuli solaniani.
“Maybe I should check with my mom,” said Lily-Matisse. “She could’ve heard something in the teachers’ lounge.”
The next day, at recess, Lily-Matisse updated Leon and P.W. on the results of her inquiry. “Mom was useless, field trip-wise,” she said. “But she did have some dirt about Sparks. He’s in trouble. People are complaining about the chip experiments.”
“What people?” Leon said angrily.
“Well, the cook, for starters. Mom told me he’s bummed that the fifth graders keep asking him for chips, chips, and more chips. Mom says he’s used to his curly fries getting all the attention.”
“That is so lame,” said Leon.
“Well, it’s not just the cook. The janitor’s also peeved.”
“Cranky Hankey?” P.W. rolled his eyes. “He’s always peeved.”
“Maybe,” said Lily-Matisse. “But just so you know, he’s grumbling about crumbs and chip bags littering the halls.”
P.W. frowned. “That’s totally bogus. We used the bags for kites.”
“And for book covers on our lab journals,” Leon noted.
“Plus,” said P.W., “Sparks had us turn the empty chip cans into pinhole cameras.”
“Hey, you don’t have to convince me,” said Lily-Matisse. “I’m just telling you what my mom said. Besides, the cook and Cranky aren’t the real problem. The real problem is the parents.”
“There’s a surprise,” said P.W.
“A bunch of parent
s think the all-chips-all-the-time experiments are a total joke,” said Lily-Matisse.
“Bull chips!” exclaimed P.W.
“You think that’s bad,” said Lily-Matisse. “It gets worse. Birdwhistle called Sparks into her office.”
“Sparks got Birdcaged?” said Leon.
Lily-Matisse nodded gravely. “Mom thinks he might be on some kind of probation. Birdwhistle will be checking out how he does during Parents’ Night.”
“That’s why he looked so miserable when he mentioned it in class,” said Leon.
“I feel sorry for Sparks,” said P.W.
“Ditto,” said Lily-Matisse.
“Double ditto,” said Leon.
TWENTY
Parents’ Night
Mr. Sparks sat on the edge of his desk. He smiled at the parents as they filed into the lab. Only a few of them smiled back. Some even squinted and scowled, treating the science teacher like some toxic slide sample stuck under the lens of a microscope.
Lily-Matisse’s mom stopped by to give him some professional advice. “Stand tough,” whispered Regina Jasprow. “If you don’t, these parents will devour you like snack food.”
The feeding frenzy the art teacher predicted started before Mr. Sparks even had a chance to make an introduction.
“Potahto chips?” a matronly figure queried harshly. She had a very large bosom festooned with a fat rope of pearls and a diamond brooch shaped in a B.
Mr. Sparks felt as if he’d been caught eating peas with a knife. “Mrs. Brede, is it?”
“It most certainly is,” the woman affirmed. “Tell us, Mr. Sparks. How on earth can potahto chips educate my Antoinette?”
“Yeah, Teach!” a burly man with a crew cut chimed in. “Henry Lumpkin, Sr., here. Answer the lady. What’s the deal with the junk food?”
Mrs. Brede glowered. She had no patience for interruptions, even when they confirmed her own views. “As I was attempting to say, Mr. Sparks, how can you justify an entire year devoted to a substance of such questionable nutritional value?”
Leon and the Champion Chip Page 9
