by Nancy Krulik
“It’s new,” Alex told him. “It’s a magazine about the latest findings on all the gross stuff in the human body. Like boogers, earwax, poop—”
“And burps,” George said, finishing his sentence.
“Exactly.” Alex nodded. “Maybe there will be something about how to stop burps in the first issue.”
“I sure hope so,” George said. “Because I don’t know where or when the burp is going to turn up next.”
George walked into the classroom and sat down at his desk. He looked up at the chalkboard. His teacher, Mrs. Kelly, had written something in big letters: George frowned. I hope it doesn’t turn up then, he thought to himself. That would be a total disaster.
“The stuffed dog I won at Quazy Quarters takes up half my room,” Julianna told Alex, Chris, and George as they sat down at the lunch table later that day. “My mom said next time I have to get something smaller.”
“They have a mini gum-ball machine you can get with one hundred twenty tickets,” Alex suggested.
“That gum-ball machine is cool,” George agreed. “How come you’ve never won one of those?”
“I had enough tickets, but my mom only lets me chew sugarless,” Alex said. “Do you know how hard it is to find sugarless gum balls?”
Just then, Louie, Max, and Mike sat down across the table from George and his buddies.
“Do you want to come over to my house after school today?” Max asked Louie.
“Hey, I was going to ask him that,” Mike told Max.
“Too bad. I asked him first,” Max told Mike. “So I win.”
“He wins?” George whispered to Chris, who was sitting next to him. “If Louie’s the prize, I’d rather lose.”
Chris laughed so hard, he swallowed wrong. Milk squirted out of his nose.
“Stop arguing, you guys,” Louie told Max and Mike. “I’m not hanging out with either of you after school.”
Max and Mike stared at Louie. They looked scared.
“You’re hanging out with someone else?” Max asked nervously.
“You can’t,” Mike said. “You always hang out with us.”
“I’m not hanging out with anyone,” Louie told them. “I’m spending the afternoon picking out my outfit for picture day.”
“But picture day is a week away,” Mike said.
“I don’t even know which of my T-shirts will be clean a week from now,” Max added.
“What’s the big deal about picture day, anyway?” Mike asked Louie.
George was thinking the exact same thing as Mike. But George didn’t say anything. He didn’t want Louie to know he was listening to his conversation. That would make Louie think George was interested in what Louie and his friends were saying. Which he was not. Well, not really, anyway.
Louie looked at Mike with surprise. “You’re kidding, right?” he asked. “Picture day is a huge deal. It’s the day when history is made!”
Now George couldn’t even pretend not to be paying attention to Louie’s conversation. He had to hear this one. “How is picture day making history?” he asked Louie.
Louie gave George a snobby smile. “Well, it’s probably not for you,” Louie told him. “But the picture I take next week will wind up in the history books.”
Everyone stared at him.
“What are you talking about?” Julianna asked.
“When I’m rich and famous, people are going to write books about me,” Louie explained. “And they’re going to want to put pictures of my life in the books, so my millions of fans can see what I looked like as a kid.”
George laughed so hard, he snorted. “Good one, Louie,” he said.
Louie glared at him.
“Oh,” George said suddenly. “You were serious. I thought you were making a joke.”
“Why would I joke about being rich and famous?” Louie said. “Of course that’s what I’m going to be when I grow up. Think about it. I’m just a kid and I’m already rich and famous.”
“You totally are,” Mike agreed. He stopped for a minute and thought. “But how?”
“I’m famous because I star in my own webcast, Life with Louie,” Louie pointed out. “And as for being rich—well, you guys have seen my house.”
George thought about pointing out that the house belonged to his parents and no one but a few fourth-graders at Edith B. Sugarman Elementary School ever watched Life with Louie webcasts, but he didn’t. It would only get him into an argument with Louie. And the new, improved George didn’t get into arguments when he could help it.
“I think Louie’s right,” Sage piped up, suddenly joining the conversation. “It is important to look good in pictures.” She turned to George. “Do you think my pink dress would look nice in the class picture, Georgie?”
George rolled his eyes. He’d barely noticed that Sage was sitting at the table. But then again, George spent a lot of time trying not to notice Sage. He really hated when she called him Georgie and batted her eyelashes up and down at him. It was just plain creepy.
Still, Sage wasn’t totally wrong. And neither was Louie. A picture was forever. And years from now, George hoped his classmates would remember him as a…well…um…actually, George wasn’t sure what he wanted to be remembered as. He just knew it was going to be something a whole lot cooler than being Louie Farley.
Rrrriinnnggg!
That night, while George was doing his homework, the phone rang. He jumped up and ran into the hall to get the call.
“Hello?” he said.
“Dude! You’re not going to believe this!” Alex exclaimed.
George laughed. Alex was so excited, he forgot to say hello.
“What happened?” George asked.
“I measured my ABC gum ball this afternoon, and it is even bigger than I had thought. It’s bigger than any ABC gum ball ever!” Alex was talking so fast, the words sounded all strung together.
But George understood what Alex was saying. And what it meant. “You broke the record!” George shouted excitedly. “You have to let the people at the Schminess Book of World Records know!”
“I already sent them an e-mail, and they wrote back!” Alex said excitedly. “And the best news is that they’re sending this guy named Harris Faris to my house after school on Thursday. He’s going to do the official Schminess measurement.”
“Wow!” George exclaimed. “So you’re going to be the world-record holder.”
“I hope so. If I measured right,” Alex said. “Anyway, since you’ve helped me make this gum ball possible, do you want to come over on Thursday and wait for the Schminess guy with me?”
“Definitely,” George assured his best friend. “I’ll even chew one more piece before I get there. We’ll stick it on for good luck!”
George was really happy for Alex. But as he hung up the phone, he also started to feel kind of rotten. Alex was really making history. Not just imagining it, the way Louie was. Alex was going to be remembered for something really, really cool.
But George hadn’t done anything cool. He hadn’t done anything he would be remembered for.
George shook his head. Snap out of it, he told himself. You’re getting as jealous as Louie.
Gulp. Thinking he was anything like Louie Farley was the most rotten thought ever. World-record rotten. George promised himself right then and there that he was never going to be jealous again—at least not if he could help it.
Which was a lot easier said than done.
“Nice varsity jacket,” Chris said to George on the school playground the next morning. “Whose is it?”
“It’s mine,” George said proudly.
Alex gave him a funny look. “Yours?” he asked. “Isn’t it a little big?”
Actually, the jacket wasn’t a little big—it was huge. The sleeves hung down to George’s knees. It looked more like a varsity dress than a varsity jacket.
“I didn’t know you played varsity football for the Ripdale Rockets,” Chris said. “I didn’t even know you ever lived in Ripdale.”
George frowned. “Well, I didn’t actually live there. Or play football. My dad did. But he gave me the jacket. So it’s mine. I think it makes me look like a real jock.”
“It does,” Chris agreed. “I wish my dad had a varsity jacket he could give me to wear. But he wasn’t on any sports teams in high school. He was in the school plays.”
“My dad was on the chess team,” Alex said. “You don’t get a varsity jacket for that, either.”
“You guys don’t need jackets,” George told his friends. He looked at Chris. “Everyone knows you’re the fourth-grade artist.”
“That’s true,” Chris agreed.
“And, Alex, you’re the school’s science whiz,” George continued. “No one will ever forget that. But I’m not the fourth-grade anything—at least I wasn’t until today. But now I’m the school jock, like my dad was. That’s why I need a varsity jacket. I’m going to wear this jacket every day from now on.”
“I never thought of you as a jock,” Alex said slowly.
“I’m the catcher on the fourth-grade baseball team,” George reminded him.
“Maybe you should wear your baseball uniform for the class picture,” Chris suggested.
“Nah. A varsity jacket is way cooler,” he told Chris. “And jocks are always way cool.”
“George, please come to the board and show us how to solve this long-division problem,” Mrs. Kelly said when the kids were all seated in the classroom later that morning.
George got up and walked to the board. He didn’t feel all that cool anymore. In fact, he was really hot under the varsity jacket. A big glob of sweat was building up on his forehead. His armpits were starting to stink. But there was no way George was taking off his jacket. Jocks wore their varsity jackets everywhere.
George picked up the chalk and started to write on the board.
“Five hundred ninety-two divided by twenty-three,” George said out loud as he began to write on the board. “Okay. First, you have to figure out how many times twenty-three goes into…”
Whoops. The chalk slipped through his slippery, sweaty fingers and landed on the floor. “Sorry,” George said as he bent down to pick up the chalk.
Bam! George banged his head on the board as he stood up.
Louie started laughing. “Good thing there’s nothing in his head,” he joked.
Mike and Max both laughed, too. But they stopped when Mrs. Kelly shot them a look.
“Are you okay?” Mrs. Kelly asked George.
“Sure,” George answered. He stood with his back to the board and flashed his teacher a smile. “I’m tough.” He flexed his muscles and turned to finish the math problem.
But it was gone.
“Hey, where’d the problem go?” George asked.
Now everyone was laughing.
“Check the back of your jacket,” Louie said. He was laughing the hardest.
George turned his head around as far as it would go and looked down. Sure enough, there was chalk all over the back of his dad’s varsity jacket. He’d erased the whole thing when he’d turned to show Mrs. Kelly how tough he was.
“George, why don’t you sit down?” Mrs. Kelly said. “I’ll write another problem on the board and give someone else a try. How about you, Louie?”
Louie smiled smugly as he walked up to the board. “I’ll show you how it’s done,” he told George.
George frowned. He knew how long division was done. He was great at long division. But he wasn’t going to be able to prove that today.
Man, being a jock was tougher than it looked.
“You want to play a game of killer ball?” Louie asked George that afternoon at recess. He stared at George’s dad’s varsity jacket. “Come on, Mr. Jock. Show us what you got.”
Normally, George would find something else to do rather than play killer ball. It was a game Louie had made up that was sort of like dodgeball, only meaner. George hated it.
But Louie had made today’s game sound like a dare. And if George said no to a dare, Louie would never let him hear the end of it.
“Sure, I guess,” George said warily. He looked over at Chris and Alex. They nodded. Phew. At least George would have his friends on his team.
“You, Alex, and Chris are on one team,” Louie said. “Max, Mike, and I are on the other. Get ready for a game of ultimate killer ball!”
George’s team lined up on one side of the field. Louie’s team lined up on the other. Louie held up the red rubber ball. “We throw first,” he said. With that, Louie let the ball fly, hard—right at George.
George tried to run to the side, but his feet got all tangled in the extra-large varsity football jacket. Wham! George tripped and fell to the ground.
Alex scooped up a ball and threw it at Mike.
Mike caught the ball in midair and passed it off to Louie. Louie sent the ball soaring again.
George started to untangle his feet and stand up. But before he could—slam! George felt the ball bash him right in the stomach.
“You’re out!” Louie laughed.
Whoosh! Suddenly George felt all the air rush out of him, like a balloon popping in his belly. It felt a lot like the end of a super burp. Except George hadn’t burped. He was just out. And the only thing that had popped was his dream of being the famous fourth-grade jock.
“Nice shades, dude,” Alex said as he, Chris, and George met up in the school yard before school on Wednesday.
George lowered his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose and grinned. “Thanks,” he said.
“How come you’re wearing sunglasses when it’s cloudy?” Chris asked.
“I’m wearing them because they’re cool,” George explained. “Rock-star cool.”
“You do kind of look like a rock star,” Chris agreed.
“Thanks,” George replied. “I’m thinking maybe I’ll wear these on picture day. Then if I become a rock star when I grow up, people can look back at our class picture and see that I was always cool.”
“You want to be a musician?” Alex asked. “I didn’t know that.”
“I’m already a musician,” George said. “I played the keyboard with the Runny Noses at the talent show, remember?”
Alex and Chris both laughed.
“How could I forget?” Alex asked.
“How could anyone forget?” Chris added.
George turned red. He knew what his friends were talking about. The super burp had shown up right in the middle of the school talent show. And it had made George dive-bomb off the stage into the audience. George had landed headfirst—in Principal McKeon’s lap!
“Let’s not talk about the talent show,” George said. “That’s old news, anyway.”
“Yeah,” Chris agreed. “Besides, we’ve got new news. Alex, when you get your picture in the Schminess Book of World Records, it will be the biggest thing in the history of our school since Mrs. Kelly was on that TV show, Dance Your Pants Off!”
Wow. Chris was acting like Alex was already famous, and he wasn’t even in the book yet. George frowned—for a minute. But then he stopped and tried to force a smile on his face. If he didn’t stop getting so jealous, he was going to go down in history for breaking a record, too—the record for world’s worst best friend.
Julianna and Sage were standing nearby. Their heads turned when Chris mentioned the Schminess Book of World Records.
“Did I hear you say Alex broke the world record for the world’s biggest ABC gum ball?” Julianna asked Chris excitedly.
“Uh-huh,” Chris told the girls. “A Schminess guy is coming to Alex’s house to take the official measurement tomorrow.”
“How come you didn’t tell the whole class about it when you found out?” Julianna asked Alex.
“I only told these two guys,” Alex explained, looking over at George and Chris. “I kind of didn’t want a whole lot of people to know, just in case things don’t work out.”
“I’m sorry,” Chris said. “I didn’t realize I was talking so loudly.”
&
nbsp; “It’s okay,” Alex assured him. “It was going to come out sooner or later.”
“Can I come to the measuring?” Julianna asked. “I’ll videotape the whole thing for my morning announcements sports broadcast. It’ll be a school-news exclusive!”
“Sure,” Alex told her.
“Are you going to be there, Georgie?” Sage asked. She blinked her eyelashes up and down.
George nodded.
“Then I’ll come, too,” Sage told him. “And maybe I’ll wear sunglasses. Yours are so cute.”
George groaned. Rock stars weren’t supposed to be cute. They were supposed to be cool. Didn’t Sage know anything?
Just then, the bell rang. It was time to go inside.
“Let’s go, rock star,” Alex said to George.
“Right behind you, record breaker,” George said to Alex.
George and Alex walked past Louie, Max, and Mike as they headed into the school. Louie hadn’t said a word about Alex breaking the record, but George was pretty sure he’d heard all about it. After all, his humongous left ear was pointing right toward where Alex had been standing. With ears as big as his, Louie had probably heard every single word.
“Alex isn’t the only one breaking a record,” Louie announced suddenly as the kids walked into the school building. He handed Max his cell phone. “Here,” Louie said. “I want you to videotape me breaking the record for the longest time spent skating backward.”
George laughed. Yep. Louie had heard the other kids talking. And now he wanted in on the action.
Mike looked at Louie and frowned. “How come Max gets to tape you skating?” he asked. “I want to help you break a record, too.”
“You can be the one who tells me when to turn, so I don’t bump into stuff when I’m going backward,” Louie told him. Then he popped the wheels out from the bottoms of his sneakers and started roller-skating backward down the hallway.
“Turn to your left,” Mike told Louie.
Louie turned and kept on skating. “We’ll show this on Life with Louie tonight,” he said. “It will get us record-breaking ratings.”
