by Mac Barnett
“Aw MAN!” said Stuart. “Now I think I had my EYES CLOSED the WHOLE TIME.”
“We’ll try one more. Say ‘Muenster.’”
“Looks good,” said Mr. Yeager.
“COOL!” said Stuart.
“Next.”
“Next.”
“Next.”
“Next.”
“Can I have your order form?” asked Mr. Yeager.
“I don’t have an order form,” said Holly Rash.
“Did you forget it at home?”
“No. I don’t really like having my picture taken.”
“Then why did you wait in line?”
“I have to get one,” said Holly. “I’m the class president.”
“Next.”
“Next.”
“Muenster!” said Niles. “Instead of just ‘cheese!’ That’s very good, Mr. Yeager. I remember when you made that joke last year, and I think it might have been even funnier this time around. You know, I always say that’s the mark of a good joke: It gets a laugh no matter how many times you hear it.”
“Uh-huh,” said Mr. Yeager.
You may notice that Niles Sparks looks very different from when we last saw him. Notice the tie. Notice the well-combed hair. Notice the sash adorning his torso that says SCHOOL HELPER. That’s because who Niles was at school—school picture day or not—was a very different person from who he truly was.
You already know that Niles Sparks was a prankster. He loved reading about pranks, thinking about pranks, and dreaming about pranks. But what you don’t know (unless you’ve read The Terrible Two, in which case, hello again and feel free to skip the rest of this sentence) is that Niles Sparks avoided suspicion by pretending to be someone else.
“You’ll notice I put all my activities on my order form, Mr. Yeager.” Niles indicated a neatly written list in the lower right corner of the sheet. “School Helper, of course, but also captain of the safety patrol, lieutenant of the safety patrol, well, technically all the officers of the safety patrol, really the only member of the safety patrol besides Miles, who’s just a cadet, although I’m urging him to show more initiative! I’m also president of the student behavior committee, chair of LADs, which is an organization I invented to ensure—”
“This is really more of a thing for whoever runs your yearbook,” said Mr. Yeager. He popped a piece of gum in his mouth and gave Niles a tired look.
Niles knew the tired look Mr. Yeager was giving him right now. It was the look that said, “There’s one of these kids at every school.” What Niles understood was that people love to put things—songs and books and other people—into categories. There are so many books, and so many songs, and so many people in the world, and most of them are peculiar in one way or another. But it’s a lot of work thinking about peculiar things, and so most people just sort the world into categories—“loud songs” or “funny books”—and then they don’t have to think about these things anymore. Niles Sparks didn’t want people thinking about him—he believed the best pranksters were invisible. And so every school day, Niles played the kiss-up, the toady, the persnickety twerp.
“Is that nicotine gum, Mr. Yeager?” asked Niles. “Congratulations on quitting smoking! I hope I wasn’t too hard on you last year, but I also hope that I had something to do with your decision to get healthy! You might be interested to know that you were part of what inspired me to start Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy’s first Student Anti-Smoking Society, which I’ve listed on my order form in the lower right-hand—”
“Next!”
“Get your hands away from me, Josh,” Miles said. “You’re sick.”
“No, I’m not!” Josh said, then coughed.
“Josh!” said Ms. Shandy. “No bunny ears.”
Josh Barkin patted Miles Murphy’s head and turned to their homeroom teacher.
“Sorry, Ms. Shandy, but I think there’s been a misunderstanding. You know how my dad, your boss, hates when students have mussed-up hair in their school pictures. I was just trying to fix the new kid’s hair.”
“I’ve been here for a year, Josh.” It was exactly what the new kid would say. And even though Miles Murphy had been in Yawnee Valley for a year, he was still the new kid. When students talked about the field trip four years ago, or the pageant in kindergarten, or the time Coach O. did that dance at that one assembly, Miles had no idea what they were talking about. Maybe Miles was less new than he was twelve months ago, but when you’re the new kid at school you stay the new kid until one day a newer kid comes, or you graduate with the rest of your class. And that was fine. Miles wanted to be the new kid for as long as possible. He wore “new kid” as a disguise. It explained why he spent so much time hanging out with a kid like Niles Sparks, and it obscured the fact that he was half of a pranking duo.
“Shut up, nimbus,” said Josh. It was exactly what Josh would say, because he was always saying it.
The camera clicked. The flash flashed.
“Next.”
“How about you show us that pretty smile, dear?” said Mr. Yeager.
“Dear?” said Ms. Shandy.
“Here’s my card,” said Mr. Yeager. “In case you ever need a photographer.”
“I won’t,” said Ms. Shandy. “Bye.”
“OK,” said Mr. Yeager, fiddling with the backdrop. “Would the students who ordered Executive Gray please line up.”
Only Josh stepped forward.
Josh put on a khaki cap he’d taken to wearing ever since coming back from camp. He had several bars and service ribbons fastened to the front of his shirt, which Miles and Niles suspected he’d bought at a military surplus store rather than earning.
“My dad, who is the principal of this school, is willing to pay for a more dignified portrait,” Josh said to nobody in particular. (He was the last student to get his picture taken, and most of the class was milling around by the trophy case, dribbling basketballs Coach B. had specifically asked them not to dribble.) “Really this is more of a historic document, when you think about it, since one day I’ll be principal of this school, just like my father, and his father, and his father before him. And also the father before him too.” Josh counted on his fingers. “Plus one more. Five fathers. Forefathers. Five forefathers. Get it?” Mr. Yeager got it, but he did not laugh. “My dad says Executive Gray is the background of Barkins, because in his day they didn’t even have color choices, and before that, pictures were black-and-white, so everything was sort of—”
Josh started coughing again.
Mr. Yeager backed away a bit. “Are you sick?”
“No!” Josh said. “Barkins don’t get sick!”
“OK,” said Mr. Yeager. “Because you sound sick.”
“Shows what you know. A Barkin has never taken a sick day in the history of Yawnee Valley. My father, his father, all my five forefathers . . .” Josh paused for a laugh that never came. “They all graduated with perfect attendance records. And I will too. It’s quite simple: When you have the immune system of a future principal—”
“All right, let’s do this,” said Mr. Yeager.
Miles and Niles weren’t even in the room to see their first prank of the day go off. They were on the way to a supply closet to carry out a safety patrol equipment check. One of the advantages of being on the safety patrol was always getting to miss class for equipment checks, strategy meetings, and traffic duty. Another advantage was unfettered access to the safety patrol supply closet, which was mostly full of stop signs and hard hats but also contained several canisters of reflective paint, which is meant to be sprayed on patrol equipment. It goes on clear but catches the light of oncoming headlights to ensure that crossing guards are visible to drivers. It also glows eerily when illuminated by, say, a camera flash, and is particularly effective against dark backgrounds. And so earlier that day, while Mr. Yeager was taking a cigarette break after photographing the first-graders (alas, he was having trouble quitting), Miles and Niles had snuck into the gym (they were suppo
sed to be planning a bake sale for LADs) and doctored one of the backgrounds (you probably know which one). Anyone bumptious enough to pay for Executive Gray would find, when their school pictures came back, that they’d been visited by an uninvited guest.
Verily, it was a golden age of pranking.
And like any golden age, nobody knew it was happening until it was over.
Chapter
4
YAWNEE VALLEY SCIENCE and Letters Academy had a school picture day tradition that went back five principals. Each year the whole student body, the faculty, and the staff would assemble on the lawn in front of the school. Principal Barkin (in Yawnee Valley, there had always been a Principal Barkin) would take his place at the front of the group. Then everyone would tilt their heads toward a photographer standing on the gymnasium roof, who would snap a picture that would hang in the halls forever.
Here is the picture from 1883:
(The cow was not a student, but it frequently grazed on the grounds.)
From 1937:
Look, it’s Jimmy Barkin! Known to his students as “the smiling principal” and to his family as “the family shame.”
And 1972:
That’s Current Principal Barry Barkin, then a student, standing next to his father, Former Principal Bertrand Barkin, then a principal, right there in the front row!
• • •
After lunch the school bell rang three times, which was the signal for everyone to gather.
“OK, EVERYONE!” Principal Barkin was shouting into a megaphone. “CLUMP UP! LET’S CLUMP UP! I WANT EVERYBODY CLUMPED THIS INSTANT, SO WE CAN GET BACK TO CLASS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. AND WHILE WE ARE CLUMPING, I WOULD LIKE TO REMIND TEACHERS TO PLEASE TALK A LITTLE BIT FASTER THIS AFTERNOON TO MAKE UP FOR THE INSTRUCTIONAL TIME WE ARE LOSING BY TAKING THIS PHOTOGRAPH.”
Students wandered the lawn trying to find their friends. Only half the teachers had made their way outside, and most of those were talking in a smaller clump over by the parking lot.
“ONE CLUMP!” said Principal Barkin. “ONE CLUMP RIGHT HERE ON THE FRONT LAWN. WHY IS IT THAT PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS CLUMPING UNTIL YOU ASK THEM TO CLUMP, WHEN THEY . . . THEY . . . ”
“Scatter?” offered Niles, who was standing to Principal Barkin’s right.
“YES! SCATTER. NO! DO NOT SCATTER. THAT WAS THE END TO MY PREVIOUS SENTENCE, AND NOT AN INSTRUCTION TO SCATTER, WHICH IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING.”
Eventually everyone made their way to the front lawn. Barkin cut through the crowd and took his place at the front.
“Look!” said Stuart. “FLOWERS!”
“Yes.” Barkin smiled. He’d noticed them on his way to work: Last night, on the lawn, a blanket of field violets had bloomed. Field violets! The state flower! And on picture day! Barkin considered it a sign from the universe: This truly would be Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy’s best year. In fact, they were growing right next to the marquee, which read PRINCIPAL BARKIN SEZ: LET’S MAKE THIS OUR BEST YEAR. Sure, the marquee read this every year, but this year the marquee meant it. The violets blanketing the front of the lawn were a confirmation of everything the marquee said! Well, maybe not everything. The marquee also read PRINCIPAL BARKIN SEZ: FRIDAY IS PAJAMA DAY. But Friday was Pajama Day! So, yes! Everything!
“CAREFUL NOT TO DISTURB THE FLOWERS!” Barkin shouted into the megaphone. He couldn’t have students trampling on a sign from the universe. And luckily these flowers had grown right in front of where the students normally stood for the all-school photograph. The universe was giving him the most photogenic sign possible. Yes!
“ALL RIGHT, STUDENTS,” said Barkin. “NO FUNNY FACES. MAKE SURE YOUR HAIR ISN’T MUSSED. THIS IS REALLY MORE OF A HISTORIC DOCUMENT, WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, SO COMPORT YOURSELF WITH DIGNITY AND GRACE AS YOU TILT YOUR HEADS UP TOWARD MR. YEAGER, WHO IS STANDING ON TOP OF OUR GYM.”
“Uh, Barry?” Mr. Yeager cupped his hands in front of his mouth and shouted down at Principal Barkin. “I think there’s something you ought to see.”
“WHAT IS IT?” Principal Barkin pointed his megaphone up at Mr. Yeager.
“Flowers.”
“I CAN SEE THE FLOWERS,” said Principal Barkin. “THEY ARE WILD FIELD VIOLETS, OUR STATE FLOWER, AND THEY ARE A SIGN THAT WE’RE GOING TO HAVE OUR BEST YEAR.”
“OK, but they’re arranged.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”
“Into letters. They’re spelling something out.”
For a moment, a very brief moment, Principal Barkin thought the violets might have spelled out something like BOVINE PRIDE! or YAWNEE VALLEY SCIENCE AND LETTERS ACADEMY: HOME OF ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE. He hoped, in that moment, Mother Nature herself was showing her school spirit.
But the moment died fast.
Principal Barkin realized he was in the middle of a prank.
His fingertips tingled. His face went purple.
“OH. WHAT DOES IT SAY?”
“You should just come up here and look yourself.”
There was no way Barry Barkin was going to climb all the way on top of the gym to read some prankster’s idea of a joke, while all the students and staff stared up at him, an embarrassed purple speck on a rooftop. There was no dignity in it. No power.
“JUST READ IT, DOUG.”
Mr. Yeager scratched his beard. He shouted down: “The flowers say PRINCIPAL BARKIN SEZ: BUNION.”
There were some nervous giggles.
“WHAT?”
“PRINCIPAL BARKIN SEZ: BUNION.”
“I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME, DOUG.”
“That’s HILARIOUS,” said Stuart. “What’s a BUNION?”
“It’s a big bony bump on a foot,” said Principal Barkin, quietly, and not into the megaphone.
“Wait, what is it?” asked a kid named Scotty.
“A BIG BONY BUMP ON A FOOT!” Principal Barkin said into the megaphone.
“It SOUNDS like ONION!” said Stuart. “Like you have an ONION on YOUR FOOT!”
Everyone laughed. (It was maybe the first time people had laughed at one of Stuart’s jokes.)
“I DO NOT HAVE AN ONION ON MY FOOT OR A BUNION ON MY FOOT!” said Principal Barkin. “THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I WOULD NEVER SAY BUNION.”
“You just DID!” said Stuart.
“Twice,” said Holly.
“STOP LAUGHING,” said Barkin. (There was more laughing.) “ENOUGH. GUS, DIG UP THE FLOWERS.”
The school janitor hurried off to get a shovel.
Niles approached cautiously. “Um, Principal Barkin?”
“Yes, Niles?” Principal Barkin was glad to see Niles’s serious face and somber eyes. Here was a student who didn’t go in for bunion pranks or onion jokes.
“I’m afraid Gus won’t be able to dig up these flowers.”
“Of course he can, Niles. Gus is a strong man and an excellent digger. Just last week he—”
“I don’t doubt that,” Niles said. “But these are field violets.”
“Yes.”
“The state flower.”
“Niles, I know our state flower. I am a principal. I am filled with pride and knowledge of our state.”
“Well, then you know that it’s illegal to dig up a field violet. They’re protected.”
Principal Barkin became a deeper shade of purple (the color of a field violet, actually).
“OF COURSE I KNEW THAT!” Principal Barkin said. “I JUST FORGOT! GUS, DO NOT DIG UP THESE FLOWERS.”
Gus hurried off to replace the shovel.
Principal Barkin paced furiously. What to do, what to do? Find this prankster, of course, and punish the prankster severely. But what to do now? With a photographer on the roof and the whole school watching?
“Maybe it’s not so bad,” said Miles Murphy, who’d come up to join Niles. “Maybe people will think it’s like Paul Bunyan.”
This was exactly the kind of foolishness that made Principal Barkin wonder why a kid like Niles hung out with a kid like Miles, besides the fact that he’d paired them up as
school buddies last year.
“PAUL BUNYAN? PAUL BUNYAN? THEY’RE NOT EVEN SPELLED THE SAME WAY!”
“We could have a few kids lie on the ground over the I and the O,” Miles said. “Turn them into a Y and an A!”
“Yeah,” said Niles. “We could even have some other kids spell out ‘PAUL’ over there.”
“PRINCIPAL BARKIN SEZ: PAUL BUNYAN? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN, MILES MURPHY?”
Miles shrugged. “I don’t know. But what would you rather be saying in the all-school picture? Bunion? Or Paul Bunyan?”
Barkin stared at Miles. Then he picked up his megaphone. “ALL RIGHT, STUDENTS. LISTEN UP.”
And so:
Chapter
5
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Miles and Niles were summoned to the principal’s office.
Don’t worry: They weren’t in trouble. It was a Monday, which meant it was time for a School Helper Check-In, a weekly meeting Niles had invented as part of the duties of a position Niles had also invented.
“Does he have to be here?” Principal Barkin nodded toward Miles, who stood next to a wastebasket with a pad and pencil in his hand.
“Miles is our School Helper Helper,” said Niles, referring to another position he’d invented. “He takes minutes now, which frees up the minute-taking part of my brain for additional responsibilities.”
“I suppose,” said Principal Barkin.
“Principal Barkin,” said Miles, “a little more than a year ago, you asked Niles to teach me everything he knew about being a great student. And I think we’d both agree that what Niles has to teach could fill up a lifetime. I honestly believe I’ve grown, as a student and human, since you wisely assigned him to be my school buddy.”
Principal Barkin grunted. The kid had a point. It had been a wise decision, one of his many wise decisions, and it was clear that the Miles Murphy standing in his office was a great deal better than the Miles Murphy who’d first walked through these doors last fall. His posture was straighter. His speech was more respectful. Sure, his hair might be a little mussed for Principal Barkin’s liking. And those T-shirts. Principal Barkin wasn’t sure about those T-shirts.
