by Nancy Krulik
For Ian, who loves shooting hoops—NK
For Mom and Dad—AB
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Penguin Young Readers Group
An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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Text copyright © 2016 by Nancy Krulik. Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Aaron Blecha. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC. Printed in the USA.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Ebook ISBN 9780515156461
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Contents
Dedication
Copyright
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
About the Author and Illustrator
“Pass it!” Julianna shouted as George Brown dribbled the basketball down the court. “I’m open!”
But George didn’t pass the ball. He just kept dribbling down the court. Finally, he stopped near the basket . . . aimed . . . and shot!
The basketball soared through the air.
It bounced off the backboard with a thud.
It swirled around and around the rim.
It teetered. It tottered.
And then . . .
Plop. The ball fell to the ground without going through the hoop.
“Oh man!” George groaned. “I was sure I was gonna sink that one.”
“That’s what you get for being a ball-hog,” Julianna told him.
“Why didn’t you pass?” Coach Hooper asked George. “Julianna had a clear shot.”
George shrugged. “I wanted to be the one to score,” he replied.
“It doesn’t matter which player scores,” Coach Hooper told him. “Remember, there is no i in team.” George rolled his eyes. Coach Hooper said that same thing every practice.
“I think you could all use some more shooting practice,” Coach Hooper told the team. “Our first game is Saturday afternoon. I want the Fighting Ferrets to come out on top.”
“How about a game of horse?” Julianna asked the coach. “That’s a really fun way to practice shooting.”
George groaned. He hated playing horse. The whole point of the game was for every player to make the exact same shot the first player had made. That was no problem for Julianna. She was one of the best players in the Beaver Brook Junior Basketball League and could make any kind of shot—a layup, a free throw, even a jump shot.
But George wasn’t as sure of a shot as Julianna. And every time he missed the basket, he got another letter in the word horse. George always felt rotten when he missed that fifth shot and got the letter e, because that meant he was out.
“Why don’t you go first, Julianna?” Coach Hooper passed her the ball.
“Sure thing, Coach!” Julianna dribbled the ball three times as she ran toward the basket. Then she grabbed it with two hands and took her shot.
The ball banked off the backboard, and fell right through the net.
“Nice shot!” Coach Hooper exclaimed excitedly. “Now it’s your turn, Alex. See if you can copy exactly what Julianna just did.”
Alex grabbed the ball and dribbled three times as he ran toward the basket. Then he grabbed it with two hands and . . .
George couldn’t watch anymore. Not because he was worried his best friend might miss the shot. George couldn’t watch because he was too worried about what was going on inside his belly to think about anything else.
There were bubbles dribbling around inside of George. Hundreds of them. They were bouncing up and down and all around.
Gulp. That could only mean one thing. The magical super burp was back. And that was ba-a-ad! Because whenever the burp appeared, it brought trouble.
The bubble trouble had all started when George and his family first moved to Beaver Brook. George’s dad was in the army, so the family moved around a lot. George had had plenty of experience at being the new kid in school. So he’d expected the first day in his new school to stink. First days always did. But this first day was the stinkiest.
In his old school, George had been the class clown. He was always pulling pranks and making jokes. But George had promised himself that things were going to be different at Edith B. Sugarman Elementary School. No more pranks. No more squishing red Jell-O between his teeth and telling everyone it was blood. No more trouble.
Unfortunately, being the well-behaved kid in a new school also meant that George was the new kid with no new friends. No one at Edith B. Sugarman Elementary School even seemed to notice him. It was like he was invisible.
That night, George’s parents took him to Ernie’s Ice Cream Emporium just to cheer him up. While they were sitting outside and George was finishing his root beer float, a shooting star flashed across the sky. So George made a wish.
I want to make kids laugh—but not get into trouble.
Unfortunately, the star was gone before George could finish the wish. So only half came true—the first half.
A minute later, George had a funny feeling in his belly. It was like there were hundreds of tiny bubbles bouncing around in there. The bubbles hopped up and down and all around. They ping-ponged their way into his chest, and bing-bonged their way up into his throat. And then . . .
George let out a big burp. A huge burp. A SUPER burp!
The super burp was loud, and it was magic.
Suddenly George lost control of his arms and legs. It was like they had minds of their own. His hands grabbed straws and stuck them up his nose like a walrus. His feet jumped up on the table and started dancing the hokey pokey. Everyone at Ernie’s Emporium started laughing. The laughing sounded great—just like the old days. Unfortunately, the sound of his parents yelling at him for misbehaving also sounded a whole lot like the old days.
The magical super burp came back lots of times after that. And every time it did, George got in trouble.
Bing-bong. Right now, the bubbles were beating on his bladder and leaping over his lungs.
Ping-pong. The bubbles trampled their way onto George’s tongue.
Gling-glong. They gathered around his gums.
And then . . .
Bubble bubble. George was in trouble.
“Dude, no!” Alex shouted.
Dude, yes! The magical super burp was on the loose. Whatever the burp wanted to do, George had to do. And right now, what the burp wanted to do was play horse.
But not the basketball ki
nd of horse. The next thing George knew, he was galloping around the court. Like a real horse.
“George! What are you doing?” Coach Hooper shouted. “Get back in line. You have to wait your turn.”
Magical super burps don’t like waiting. They like playing. And neighing.
“Neigh! Neigh!” George shouted.
“George, cut it out,” Julianna insisted. “You’re ruining the game.”
“Neigh! Neigh!” George shouted again. He galloped faster and faster around the court like a wild horse on the prairie.
Some of the other kids on the team started to laugh. They thought George was hilarious.
But Coach Hooper sure didn’t.
“George, basketball is serious business,” he said. “Practice is over in ten minutes. And we haven’t worked on dribbling yet.”
That was all the burp had to hear! The next thing George knew, he was galloping across the court at top speed. His feet stopped right in front of Coach Hooper.
George looked up, opened his mouth, and then . . . he let a big dribble of ooey gooey spit drool out of his mouth. The spit ran over his lips, down his chin, and right onto Coach Hooper’s brand-new white high-tops!
“That’s what I call dribbling!” said a tall, skinny kid named Nick, laughing.
George opened his mouth a little wider and dribbled out a longer string of ooey gooey drool. He dribbled. And dribbled. And . . .
Pop! Just then, George felt something burst in the bottom of his belly. Then all the air rushed out of him. The magical super burp was gone!
But George was still there, with a glob of drool on his chin.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” Coach Hooper asked him.
George opened his mouth to say, “I’m sorry.” And that’s exactly what came out.
Coach Hooper took a deep breath. “George, I think you’re done for the day. You better go home now.”
George didn’t argue. It was better to leave before Coach got any angrier.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
George turned and headed for the door. What a rotten practice. This day couldn’t get any worse.
Or could it?
Just as George reached the door to the gym, he saw something really horrible. Someone he disliked almost as much as he hated the magical super burp.
Louie Farley.
George wondered how long he’d been standing there.
“I feel sorry for your team,” Louie said as George walked toward him. “They won’t win any games with a loser like you around.”
George frowned. Obviously, Louie had been there long enough to see everything.
“The Fighting Ferrets are winners,” George insisted. “We’re going to pulverize you Legal Eagles when we play you.”
“You wanna bet?” Louie asked him.
“Sure,” George replied.
“Great,” Louie said with grin. “Let’s make it a bet for something really good.”
George gulped. Louie was rich. He could afford to bet for something good. But George didn’t have a lot of money—all he had was his allowance and the cash he made by working at Mr. Furstman’s pet shop on Saturday mornings.
“How about the loser has to be the winner’s butler for an entire week?” Louie suggested.
Phew. Louie wasn’t betting anything that cost money. That was a relief.
“Okay,” George said. “It’s a bet.”
“Great!” Louie exclaimed. “We play you guys a week from Sunday. And you’re not just gonna lose. You’re gonna lose so bad, you’ll scream for mercy!”
“You mean you don’t know what a butler is, but you bet anyway?” Alex asked George later that day while the boys were talking on the phone. “Are you nuts?”
George gulped. “Is a butler something bad?” he asked nervously.
“Only if you lose,” Alex told him. “A butler is a guy who does whatever his boss asks him to do. If you lose, Louie can make you do whatever he wants.”
George gulped. “Oh man,” he groaned. “I should have known Louie would come up with something really mean. We really gotta beat the Eagles. Having to be Louie’s butler would be a real pain in my butt!”
“No kidding,” Alex agreed. “We’ll work extra hard at practice this week so that doesn’t happen.”
“Thanks,” George said.
“Listen, I gotta go,” Alex said. “I still have to finish the social studies homework for tomorrow. And then I have to polish the buckle on my school safety monitor belt.”
George didn’t understand why Alex wanted to be a school safety monitor. Behaving in school was a hard enough job. Making sure everyone else behaved had to be even harder.
“You really like being a safety monitor?” George asked his best friend.
“The safety patrol is important,” Alex told him. “We make sure everybody follows the rules.”
“Rules are a pain in the neck,” George muttered.
“Maybe,” Alex said. “But imagine what would happen if we didn’t have any.”
Actually, that didn’t seem so bad to George. But he didn’t say that. Instead he said, “I gotta get on that social studies assignment, too. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See ya,” Alex said.
As soon as he hung up the phone, George turned on his computer and got ready to do his homework. But before he could start, he spotted an invitation from Louie in his e-mail. That was strange. Louie usually didn’t invite George to anything—unless Louie’s mother made him.
George looked more closely at the e-mail. It was an invitation to a special edition of a Life with Louie webcast. And Louie had sent it out to everyone in the whole school. Now it made sense. Louie wanted everyone to watch his dopey show. Being the center of attention was what he did best.
The webcasts were usually pretty dumb. But George figured watching Louie make a fool of himself was better than social studies. So he clicked the link.
And a moment later, there was Louie. His webcast had already started.
“And then he drooled all over his coach’s sneakers . . .”
George couldn’t believe his ears. Louie was broadcasting a special edition of Life with Louie just so he could make fun of George.
What kind of jerk would do something like that?
A Louie Farley kind of jerk. That’s what kind.
“I feel bad for the Ferrets,” Louie continued. “With a super loser like George on their team, they’re never gonna win games. I am predicting right now that my team, the Legal Eagles, will be the Beaver Brook Junior Basketball League champs this year.”
George clicked off his computer and buried his head in his hands. By now everyone was probably laughing about George Brown, Town Loser.
Nothing could cheer George up. Except maybe a handful of his mom’s homemade chocolate-chip cookies. So George got up and headed into the kitchen.
“Hello there, soldier,” George’s dad greeted him. He was sitting at the kitchen table, looking at some kind of book.
“Hi,” George said sadly.
“What’s wrong?” his dad asked him.
“Nothing,” George answered. There really wasn’t anything else he could say. George had never told his parents about the problems the super burp caused him. They probably wouldn’t have believed him even if he did. George wouldn’t have believed there was such a thing as a super burp, either—if it didn’t keep getting him in trouble.
Alex was the only other person who knew about the burp. George hadn’t even told him about it. Alex was just so smart that he had figured it out. And he’d promised to keep it secret.
“What are you looking at?” George asked his dad. He was trying to change the subject.
“A photo album,” his dad answered. “I’m looking at pictures of me when I played junior league basketball.”
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“You were on a basketball team?” George asked, surprised.
“Yep,” his dad replied. “I was just a year older than you are now. Here, take a look. See if you can find me.”
George stared at the team picture in the photo album, trying to figure out which of the kids was his dad. Finally, he spotted a kid with short hair and ears that stuck out like a monkey’s.
“Is that you?” he asked, pointing to the kid in the picture.
“Yup,” his dad said. “I haven’t changed that much, have I?”
“Well, you’re taller,” George said. It was so weird seeing his dad look like that. Whenever George thought of his dad as a kid, he just pictured him with a big grown-up head on a little kid body.
“Check out this one,” George’s dad said, turning the page. “I’m making a jump shot.”
George started cracking up. His dad had really skinny legs with knobby knees. And his tongue was hanging out of the side of his mouth.
“Okay, so my form wasn’t that great,” his dad said with a laugh.
Looking at the photos gave George an idea. “Can I borrow your camera?” he asked his dad. “I want to take pictures of my team at the next practice.”
“Sure,” his dad said. “You never know. Maybe someday you’ll want to show your kid what you looked like when you played in the junior basketball league.”
George didn’t know what to say to that. It was hard to imagine himself as a grown-up dad. In fact, whenever he tried, all he could picture was his fourth-grade-size kid head on a big grown-up body.
Now that was weird.
But not as weird as being a fourth-grade-size kid with a giant super burp following him around everywhere he went.
George sure wished he could get rid of that burp. And soon. Because if the super burp got him in any more trouble like it had today, there would be plenty of pictures of fourth-grade George around—on wanted posters.
