The Dead Disco Raccoon
Page 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Michael Rex
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rex, Michael, author, illustrator.
The dead disco raccoon / written and illustrated by Michael Rex.
p. cm. — (Icky Ricky ; #3)
“A Stepping Stone Book.”
Summary: “Icky Ricky has a lot of explaining to do—why he cleaned a house with a leaf blower, why he’s storing money in his armpit, and why he let a stuffed dead raccoon drive his soapbox car.” —Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-307-93171-9 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-0-375-97103-7 (lib. bdg.) —
ISBN 978-0-307-97540-9 (ebook)
[1. Behavior—Fiction. 2. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.R32875Ded 2014 [E]—dc23 2013022708
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
To John and Michelle, Two Radical Sheep!
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1. The Hottest Day There Ever Was
2. The Amazing Day Ricky Met Gus! (Part 1)
3. The Terrifying Cat Apocalypse
4. The Amazing Day Ricky Met Gus! (Part 2)
5. The Incredible Driving Raccoon
6. The Amazing Day Ricky Met Gus! (Part 3)
About the Author
TWEEEEEEEEEET! went the lifeguard’s whistle at the town pool.
“Freeze!” said the lifeguard. “Who’s under here?” He pulled a towel off a boy’s head. It was Icky Ricky.
“Ricky!” the lifeguard said. “What the heck is going on here? Why is your towel on your head, and what’s that brown stuff all over you?”
“It’s ice cream,” said Ricky.
“Why do you have ice cream all over you?” asked the lifeguard.
“Oh,” said Ricky, “that’s because no one loves Moogy!”
“Who?” asked the lifeguard.
“Moogy,” said Ricky. “Nobody loves him. It’s really sad.”
“Ricky,” said the lifeguard, “talk to me in plain English.”
“Sure,” said Ricky.…
It all started this morning. It was, like, one hundred degrees out, so Gus and Stew met me at the pool.
First we had a diving contest. Gus did a wicked Atomic Belly Flop. It was awesome.
Stew did a Triple Booyah. That’s where you yell “booyah!” while spinning three times.
I did my famous Backward Electrocuted-Man Flip.
Then we remembered what day it was! It was the day we could see if we could get our twenty-dollar bill back. We had found twenty dollars in the pool and took it to the lost and found. They said if no one asked for it in three weeks, we could have it. And the three weeks were over today. No one had come for it, so they gave us the money!
“What are we going to spend the money on?” asked Gus.
“A scuba suit?” said Stew.
“A helicopter?” said Gus.
But then I said, “Dudes. It’s only twenty dollars.” Then I had my best idea of the day. “Who wants to go to Cool Monkey for ice cream?”
Stew and Gus were like, “Yes!”
Then I asked where we should put the money to keep it safe.
“Just put it in your pocket,” said Stew.
I told them that my bathing suit didn’t have any pockets. None of us had pockets.
“I don’t want to lose it. We need to put it someplace really, really safe,” I said. “Someplace so horrible, no one would dare steal it.”
“What about your armpit?” said Stew. We laughed.
“Yeah! Your armpit!” Gus said. “It’s all stinky and sweaty and only you would put your hand in there!”
“Yes!” I said. “The Armpit Bank! No one would steal it from there! But which armpit should I use?”
Gus said, “Let’s see which one is worse.”
I lifted my arms. Gus and Stew smelled my left pit and my right pit.
“They’re about the same,” said Stew.
“Okay!” I said. “Then I’ll use my right armpit.”
I folded up the twenty-dollar bill and stuck it in my armpit. Then I pressed my arm tight against my body to keep the money safe. When I raised my arm, it stayed there. I guess the sweat was kind of like glue or something.
It was almost noon, and the sun was right above us. We left the pool and ran to Cool Monkey. It was freezing inside. The air conditioner must have been on, like, one hundred degrees below zero.
I was looking at all the ice cream flavors. Then I saw a big, giant ice cream cake. It said “Happy Birthday, Moogy!” on it. I asked the girl who worked there why they were selling a birthday cake that already had a name on it. She told us that someone had ordered it but never picked it up.
“Poor Moogy,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Gus, “I wonder why Moogy never got his cake.”
“Moogy could be a girl,” said Stew.
“Nah,” I said. “ ‘Moogy’ is written in blue. He’s a boy.”
“He’s a boy who had a really cruddy birthday,” said Gus. “Because nobody picked up his cake.”
“Maybe he was a really bad kid,” I said. “Like he lit matches and swore all the time.”
“Or maybe he rolled a bowling ball down a street,” said Gus.
“Or he put a weasel in someone’s car,” said Stew.
“Maybe,” I said, “he’s really mean and smashed stuff.”
“Yeah, like pumpkins at Halloween!” said Gus.
“And snowmen in the winter!” said Stew.
Then we all started laughing, and the girl was like, “Do you want to buy it?”
I said, “Buy what?”
“Duh, the cake,” she said, and we all kept laughing. “It’s only fifteen dollars.”
We all said “yes” at once!
I peeled the twenty-dollar bill from the Armpit Bank and gave it to the girl. She made a really odd face and held it away from her like a stinky diaper.
We took the cake and went outside. We were going to sit down and eat it right there, but I said that it was a huge cake. And that maybe we should share it with everyone at the pool. Gus and Stew said that was an awesome idea, so we headed back to the pool.
It was really, really hot. We were sweating like pigs just walking down the street. Then the cake started to melt. We walked faster. The ice cream dripped out of the box and down my arm.
I was like, “Guys! We’re not going to get to the pool before this melts. We need to eat it now.”
They agreed. We had forgotten to ask for spoons, so we just started grabbing chunks with our hands and stuffing them in our mouths.
The ice cream was squishy and melty and running all over us. It dripped and oozed down our bodies. A big piece fell on the ground, but I picked it up and ate it. It was only in the dirt for four seconds, so I didn’t break the five-second rule.
A bee started buzzing around us. Then another and an
other. They tried to land on us and eat the ice cream.
I told Gus and Stew to stand still. “Don’t swat at the bees,” I said. “They only sting if they get angry.”
More bees and some other bugs came. So we stood there, frozen, for like a half hour. A group of older kids walked by. They pointed at us and started laughing.
“Hey, Gus, does this remind you of the day we met?” I whispered.
“Yeah, it does,” said Gus.
“What happened?” asked Stew.
“I’ll tell you about it some other time,” I whispered.
The older kids walked away, still laughing.
“We can’t just stand here all day,” Stew whispered.
“Yeah, let’s walk to the pool, very slowly,” whispered Gus.
I said, “Yeah, baby steps,” in my quietest voice.
So we walked the rest of the way in slow motion.
“You know,” I whispered, “maybe Moogy wasn’t a bad kid. Maybe something just went wrong on the day of his birthday. Maybe he had no friends to come to the party.”
“Or maybe his parents didn’t have enough money to get the cake,” said Gus.
“Or they forgot where the ice cream store was,” said Stew.
Then I said, “Or they forgot they ordered the cake.”
We kept coming up with more reasons. Maybe his parents just forgot to pick the cake up or maybe they forgot it was his birthday or maybe they forgot they even had a kid.
“Man,” Gus said, “Moogy’s parents are lame.”
“Poor little kid,” said Stew.
I was getting really sad thinking about Moogy.
Stew said, “Are you crying?”
I said, “No way! I’ve just got ice cream in my eyes.”
“I’m not crying, either,” said Stew. “It’s just ice cream.”
Gus admitted that some ice cream had gotten in his eyes, too. We started to rub the ice cream out of our eyes. The bees got mad and buzzed again. We forgot to stay still and swung our arms all over. Then we saw we were close to the pool.
We ran really fast. Some of the bees and bugs followed us. We threw our towels over our heads and kept going. And then I had my best idea of the day!
“Guys! When we get to the pool, jump right into the water!” I screamed. “The bees and bugs will go away, and we’ll clean the ice cream off!”
We ran as fast as we could through the entrance and right to the pool! Then all of a sudden, we heard a whistle blow, and someone yelled, “ADULT SWIM! All kids out of the pool!”
We were like, “Ahhhh!”
“To the showers!” I yelled.
We ran to the bathroom. We thought we were going into the men’s bathroom. But since we had towels over our heads, we ran into the women’s bathroom by mistake and people were screaming and stuff.
A lady threw a roll of toilet paper at us. We turned around and ran out. Then we ran through the sandbox, under the Ping-Pong table, and across the shuffleboard lanes!
“And that’s when you stopped us,” Ricky said. “You see? It all makes sense!”
“Um … yeah,” said the lifeguard. “It makes total sense. I’m glad you didn’t jump into the pool with all that ice cream on you.”
“Yeah,” said Ricky. “It would have been a major waste.”
“Now go to the showers in the men’s room and get cleaned up before you go swimming,” said the lifeguard.
“Sure,” said Ricky. He ran his finger across his belly and scooped up a blob of melted mess. “But first I’m going to have some more ice cream!”
ICKY RICKY’S POETRY CHILL BREAK #1
Don’t tell anyone, but I like poems. Not the mushy kind where you talk about how your heart feels while watching a sunset, but cool ones. I like limericks because they are funny.
There once was a kid named Gus.
He made arm farts on the bus.
On his hand he spit,
Put his palm in his pit,
And the sound, it created a fuss!
There once was a dude named Stew.
He had something brown on his shoe.
It turned out to be dirt,
So out loud he did blurt,
“Good thing it’s not doggy doo!”
I once knew a boy named Ricky.
Everything he touched was sticky.
His pockets dripped slop.
His sneakers oozed glop.
And sometimes his nose he did picky!
“Ricky!” shouted his teacher, Ms. Jay, as he and Gus ran out the door of the school. “Where have you been?” she asked. “Why are you wearing a tutu, and why does it say ‘I am an alien!’ on your forehead?”
“Because we never learned any Toilet Magic!” said Ricky.
“I have no idea what that means,” she said. “What have you done to Gus? It’s his first day here! Why does it say ‘I am sick!’ on his head?”
Gus looked very worried, but Ricky started to explain everything.
“It happened like this,” said Ricky.…
It all started during Mr. Kane’s art class. Gus was sitting at my table and not really saying anything. He looked sad, so I tried talking to him.
I said, “How does it feel to be the new kid? Do you like it here?” He didn’t answer. He was painting a guy break-dancing.
“Are you a good dancer?” I asked.
“I guess,” said Gus quietly. He stared at his paper.
Then I said, “You’ll like this school. It’s pretty fun here, once you get to know people. My name is Ricky.”
Gus finally looked up at me. “Ms. Jay says I have to stand up and talk to everyone in class,” he said. “I have to tell them something about myself. I hate getting up in front of people and doing stuff.”
“Why?” I asked.
He leaned in close and said, “Everyone will laugh at me.”
“No, they won’t,” I said. “No one in class is that mean.”
“I bet they will laugh,” said Gus. “I’m really scared. I can’t do it. I feel sick.”
“You don’t look sick,” I said. And then I had my best idea of the day.
“If you want to look sick, you should be green,” I said, and pointed at the paint in front of us.
Gus took his paintbrush and wiped green paint on his cheek. He grinned. I put some paint on his other cheek.
“You need dark circles under your eyes,” I said. I painted blue around his eyes. He started laughing a bit.
“You need spots, too.” I made red spots all over the green paint.
“Stop it, you mean alien!” he said.
He picked up his brush again and smeared gray paint all over my face.
“You need to be foaming at the mouth!” I said. I painted white around his lips.
Gus was like, “Go back to outer space!” He blew glitter onto my face.
Then we went kind of nuts. I poured glue on his head and sprinkled on some glitter. He glued two pencils to my hair. I took a marker and wrote “I am sick!” on his forehead.
And he wrote “I am an alien!” on mine. Gus was really laughing, so I knew he had forgotten about the talk.
Then Mr. Kane saw what we were doing and was like, “Boys! Stop that this instant!” The rest of the class looked at us and was totally silent. Mr. Kane was really mad and said, “Alien boy and sick boy, go to the boys’ room and clean yourselves up! Right now!”
He pointed at the door. We got up and left. Gus looked really upset.
“Great!” he said. “It’s my first day here, I have to talk in front of everybody, and I’m in trouble. This day can’t get any worse!”
“What the heck is happening here?” shouted Ricky’s dad as he opened the kitchen door.
“WHAAAT?” shouted Ricky. “I can’t hear you! The leaf blower is too loud!”
“Then turn it off!” shouted his dad. He stepped into the kitchen. Ricky turned off the leaf blower.
“Ricky,” said his dad slowly, “why do you have a leaf blower inside?”
Ricky’s dad gave him a look. Ricky knew it meant he needed to explain himself.…
Stew came over to play, but I told him I had a job to do. It was time to feed Mrs. Lambert’s cats.
“Who’s Mrs. Lambert?” asked Stew.
“She’s a lady who lives down the street,” I said. “She went away for the night, and she asked me to feed her cats.”
So Stew and I went over to her house. She had left a key hidden under a rock.
Mrs. Lambert has seven cats. Honest. Their names are Sleepy, Dopey, Happy, Grumpy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Todd. Those are really weird names, right? I mean, except for Todd.
When we got inside her house, Stew saw all the cat food cans on the kitchen counter.
“Why do they each have a name written on them?” he asked.
“Because each cat is on a special diet and eats a different food,” I told him.
Well, here’s where things got messed up. We opened all the cans at once and threw the lids in the recycling, because I always recycle. Then we realized we didn’t know which can went to which cat.
I said, “The cats will know what to eat.” Stew said that sounded right.
So we put the cans on the floor. All the cats ran for this one can that must have tasted the best. They started fighting over it.
“Wow! It’s like a wrestling match!” I said.
Todd was the biggest cat, and he won. He ate the food. All the other cats started looking at us and meowing. We pushed the rest of the open cans toward the cats, but they didn’t like them.