by Nancy Krulik
Before Louie could brag some more, Sage plopped her tray down on the table and squeezed in between George and Julianna. She shot George a goofy smile.
“I’m happy the Ferrets won the game last Saturday, Georgie,” she said. “It was so smart of you to psych the other team out like that.”
Louie gave Sage a funny look. So did George. He had no idea what she was talking about.
“Who else but Georgie would drop his shorts just to make the other team laugh?” Sage continued. “They couldn’t play at all after that.”
George felt his face turn red. Dropping his shorts had been really embarrassing.
“Well, he won’t be able to psych me out,” Louie told Sage. “Farleys can’t be psyched out.”
“Yeah,” Max said. “Farleys are never the psychees.”
“Exactly,” Mike agreed. “Farleys are always the psychos . . .” He stopped for a minute. “No. That can’t be right.”
George laughed so hard, he snorted.
Chris elbowed him in the side. “Don’t snort. Alex told some third-grader that there’s a rule against snorting in school.”
“And you definitely don’t want to be put on report,” Julianna said. “I heard that Principal McKeon is making everyone who is on report stay after school this afternoon to paint the playground equipment. That would mean missing basketball practice.”
George knew what Julianna meant. Coach Hooper had his own rules. And one of the rules was that anyone who missed a practice had to sit on the bench during the next game.
“Well, I’m getting myself another slice of pizza,” Louie said. “Our team’s got practice this afternoon, too. And I’m going to need a lot of energy to score all those points.”
“You better hurry,” Max told him. “Pizza goes fast around here.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Louie replied. “I’m faster than anyone.”
Louie reached down and popped the wheels out of the bottom of his wheelie sneakers. Then he jumped up and started roller-skating across the cafeteria.
Louie skated on one foot.
He skated on the other foot.
He turned around and skated backward.
And then . . .
Bam! Louie skated right into Alex.
Slam! Alex landed right on his rear end.
Wham! Louie fell on top of Alex.
“That’s it!” Alex shouted angrily from underneath a pile of Louie. “You’re on report.”
“No way!” Louie told him. “They didn’t even have wheelie sneakers back when that rule book was written. So there can’t be a rule against them.”
“No, but there is a rule about walking backward,” Alex told him. “And about tackling someone. So you’re on report twice.”
Louie stared at Alex in disbelief. “You can’t put me on report!” he insisted. “Farleys don’t go on report.”
“Now they do,” Alex told him.
As Alex started writing Louie’s name in his notebook, George and Chris walked past them on their way to the playground.
“Guess you won’t be going to your team practice today,” George said to Louie as he passed by.
Louie shot him an angry look.
George smiled back at him. “Just so you know,” he said. “I like my shoelaces double-knotted.”
“There is no way I am missing practice to paint playground equipment,” Louie growled as he stormed onto the playground with Max and Mike a few minutes after George and Chris. “I need to work on my layups. And besides, Farleys don’t paint.”
“You’re gonna paint,” George told him. “Just like everyone else who was put on report.”
“I’m not like everyone else,” Louie said.
George laughed. He couldn’t argue with that. There was no one quite like Louie.
“It’s too bad this didn’t happen next week,” Louie said with a frown. “Then I could have had my butler take the punishment for me.” He smiled pointedly at George.
“Not gonna happen,” George said. “I’m not going to lose this bet.”
Louie thought for a minute. “I don’t have to wait to get a butler,” he said happily. “I’m rich. I’ll just pay someone to take my punishment for me.”
“You can’t do that,” Chris said.
“There isn’t anything a Farley can’t do,” Louie told him. He turned to Max and Mike. “Which one of you guys wants to earn some cash and take my punishment?”
“I’ll do it,” Max told Louie.
“No way,” Mike said. “I’ll do it. I’m a great painter.”
“Oh yeah?” Max asked him. “What have you ever painted?”
George turned to Chris. “I don’t feel like spending my recess listening to this,” he said. “You want to go see what Julianna’s doing?”
“Definitely,” Chris agreed. “I think she said something about playing four-square during recess today.”
“Four-square is cool,” George said. “Who else is playing?”
“I don’t know,” Chris told him. “But I know who isn’t playing.” He pointed to a nearby oak tree. Alex was standing there, with his notebook in hand.
“Your shirt is buttoned wrong,” George heard Alex say. “That’s against the dress code. I’m putting you on report.”
“I’ll fix it,” the second-grader said.
“Too late,” Alex told him. “You’re already in the book.”
George shook his head. “Alex’s report list must be ten pages long by now,” he told Chris.
“We’re lucky he hasn’t done it to us,” Chris said.
“We’re his best friends,” George told him. “No guy would ever put his best friends on report.”
“That’s true,” Chris agreed.
“Hey, you guys, we have two open squares,” Julianna called to Chris and George. “Come on. Let’s play.”
George looked at the four-square court. Sage was holding a big red ball and standing in the first square. Julianna was in the second square.
Ordinarily George wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with Sage at recess. But he had no choice. You need four kids to play four-square. And Alex was busy being a safety monitor. Sage was going to have to do.
“Come on, Georgie,” Sage said. She did that weird blinking-her-eyelashes-up-and-down thing again.
George rolled his eyes. He hated when Sage called him Georgie.
“Just serve the ball,” he said as he stepped into the third square, and Chris took his place in the fourth.
“Whatever you say, Georgie.” Sage bounced the ball once in her square and then hit it into Julianna’s square.
Julianna let the ball bounce and then hit it into Chris’s square.
Chris let the ball bounce and then hit it back to Sage.
George wasn’t sure where Sage hit the ball next. He wasn’t paying any attention to where on the court the big red ball was bouncing. He couldn’t. He was too busy focusing on the bouncing that was going on inside his stomach.
There were bubbles in there. Hundreds of them. And they were all on the move!
Ding-doing. Already the bubbles were clip-clopping their way through his colon and inching up through his intestines.
The bubbles leaped over his larynx. They tickled his tonsils.
George shut his mouth, tight. He couldn’t let the burp escape.
But the bubbles kept coming. They gathered on his gums. And twisted around his teeth. And then . . .
Uh-oh. The magical super burp was in charge now. George had to do whatever it wanted to do. And what the burp wanted to do was bounce!
The next thing George knew, he was bouncing up and down like a brown-haired, brown-eyed, burping pogo stick.
Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.
George bounced right out of his square.
Bounce. Bounce. B
ounce.
He bounced past the big oak tree and around the swings.
“George, what are you doing?” Julianna said.
Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.
George bounced his way through the line of first-graders waiting to go down the slide. The kids scattered like ants, trying to get out of his way.
“George, please don’t bounce near the little kids,” his teacher, Mrs. Kelly, called from across the playground. “You’re liable to step on one of them.”
George wanted to stop bouncing. He really did. But he wasn’t in charge anymore. The burp was. And what the burp wanted to do was . . .
Stop bouncing!
George was amazed. The burp had actually listened to his teacher.
The next thing George knew, his feet started running. But George had no idea where he was running. All he knew was that he couldn’t stop.
At least not until he reached the huge garbage dumpster near the back of the school cafeteria.
Now George wasn’t running anymore. He was climbing—right up the side of the stinky, smelly dumpster.
When he reached the top, George opened his mouth and shouted, “DIVE-BOMB!”
The next thing he knew, George was diving headfirst into a big pile of rotting lettuce, spoiled milk, stale bread, and last week’s tuna surprise. Yuck!
“Surprise!” George shouted as he threw a handful of smelly tuna up in the air. “It’s flying fish!”
The teachers on the playground all came running.
“George, what are you doing?” Mrs. Kelly asked him. “Get out of there right now.”
George wanted to get out of there. He really did. Who wouldn’t want to get out of a stinky, smelly dumpster?
The burp. That’s who. Burps love stinky, smelly stuff.
George picked up a handful of lettuce and . . .
Pop! Suddenly he felt something burst in his belly. All the air rushed out of him. The super burp was gone.
But George was still there. With spoiled milk up his nose and tuna surprise down his pants.
Alex came running over. He watched as George stood up and looked over the edge of the dumpster.
“Boy, am I glad to see you,” George said to his best pal. “Can you help me climb out of this thing?”
But Alex didn’t help George. Instead, he took out his notebook and began to write.
“Littering is against the rules,” Alex said, pointing to the globs of tuna surprise George had thrown onto the ground. “I’m putting you on report.”
“Dude, I had to put you on report,” Alex insisted at the end of the school day. “You broke a lot of rules.”
George yanked angrily on the bottom of his too-short T-shirt. Principal McKeon had made him change out of his garbage-covered clothes so he wouldn’t stink up the classroom. Now he was wearing clothing from the lost and found. Nothing he had on actually fit.
“It wasn’t my fault.” George looked around to make sure no one else was listening. Then he whispered, “It was the fault of the you-know-what.”
“I can’t put a burp on report,” Alex whispered back so only George could hear.
“But I’m not going to be able to go to practice.” George wasn’t whispering anymore. He was too upset to keep his voice down any longer. “Coach is going to put in one of the kids from the bench on Sunday. Like Paulie Wurmer. All that kid does is stand there and pick his nose.”
“Paulie might play better than you think,” Alex said. “Especially if his allergies aren’t bad on game day.”
George could feel his face getting hot. He couldn’t believe Alex. “You’re missing the point,” George told him. “I would never do this to you. I would never put my best friend on report.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Alex agreed.
“Exactly,” George said. “Because I’m—”
“Because you’re not a safety monitor,” Alex interrupted.
George was really mad now. Alex wasn’t getting it.
“If I wind up being Louie’s butler, it’s gonna be your fault for putting me on report,” George grumbled.
“Louie’s on report, too,” Alex reminded him. “And you know Principal McKeon isn’t going to let him pay someone to take his punishment. So he’s gonna miss his practice, too.”
Louie walked over to where George and Alex were standing. He gave them both a big smile.
“Yeah, but it won’t matter,” Louie said, butting his way into their conversation. “Our coach isn’t as strict as yours. We don’t have any rules that say if you miss practice, you can’t play in the game.”
Rules.
Boy, did George hate that word. It made him angry just hearing Louie say it.
But George was even more angry with Alex. What kind of a guy got his best friend in trouble, anyway?
A guy who wasn’t George’s best friend anymore. That’s what kind.
“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Alex said as he swung his backpack over his shoulder and headed for the door.
“Not if I see you first,” George muttered under his breath.
“That Alex is a real jerk,” a fifth-grader named Will groaned as he painted the merry-go-round.
“You got that right,” Will’s friend Arnie agreed. “He put me on report for chewing the eraser off my pencil. What kind of a stupid rule is that?”
“He’s the worst,” Will added.
“Alex is nothing but a snitch with a badge,” Arnie said.
George nodded. Alex the Snitch. That pretty much said it all.
“I can’t believe Principal McKeon is letting him get away with this,” Will said.
“I can,” Arnie replied with a groan. “She’s rule-crazy, just like Alex. Man, that kid makes me so mad.”
If George and Alex had still been friends, he probably would have stood up for him. He might have told the other kids that Alex was just doing his job.
But Alex wasn’t George’s friend anymore. So George just stayed there by the ladder that led to the top of the slide, moving his paintbrush up and down.
Just then, George spotted Louie. He was wandering around the playground with a paintbrush in his hand. But he wasn’t painting. He was just pretending to be busy. Typical Louie.
Suddenly, Principal McKeon walked over to Louie. She took him by the hand and dragged him to the swing set. Then she stood there and made him work.
Ordinarily, seeing Louie get in trouble would have brought a smile to George’s face. But not today. Today he was too miserable.
And there was only one person to blame for that: Alex the Snitch.
“George, I’m glad to see that you came to the game even though you’re benched,” Coach Hooper said as George walked into the gym on Sunday afternoon. “That shows real team spirit.”
George frowned. Even though he’d missed the Monday practice, he’d shown up for every other practice all week. He’d hoped that would have been enough to make the coach give in and let him play.
But obviously George was still benched. Coach Hooper was as big a stickler for the rules as Alex was.
George reached into his gym bag and pulled out his dad’s camera. “I figured if I couldn’t play, at least I could be the team photographer,” he said.
“What a great idea,” Coach Hooper exclaimed. “It would be terrific to have some action shots to show at our team banquet.”
“So it’s okay if I walk around the gym during the game to take pictures?” George asked hopefully.
“I don’t see why not,” Coach Hooper said. “Just stay out of the way of the players. And don’t cause any trouble.”
George frowned. Trouble. The one word every adult in town seemed to use when they were talking about him. Stupid super burp.
Just then, Louie Farley came strolling into the gym. Max and Mike followed close behind.
>
“I said I’d carry Louie’s gym bag,” Max said as he yanked at the bag’s handle.
“Well, I got it first,” Mike said, yanking back.
“Well, I’m gonna carry it last,” Max insisted. He pulled hard on the handle.
Riiiipppp.
Just then the bag ripped open. Louie’s gym clothes flew out and landed in a heap on the floor.
Louie spun around angrily. “What happened?” he shouted.
“Max did it,” Mike said.
“Mike did it,” Max said.
“I don’t care who did it,” Louie told them. “Just put my stuff back in the bag.”
As Max and Mike scrambled to put Louie’s shorts, shirt, and sneakers back into what was left of his gym bag, Louie looked at George and smiled.
“So glad you showed up for the game,” Louie said. “Now you can start being my butler as soon as the last whistle blows.”
“Not gonna happen,” George replied. “The Ferrets are gonna destroy the Eagles.”
George was trying to sound really confident. But he wasn’t confident at all. Already Paulie Wurmer was busy blowing his nose into a giant wad of used tissues while the other kids practiced free throws. That was not a good sign.
Julianna must have seen the worried look on George’s face, because she came running over.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “We’ll win this one. I’ve been practicing my three-pointers all week!”
George forced a smile to his face. “That’s great,” he told Julianna. “I feel a lot better now.”
Except he really didn’t. Especially not when he saw Paulie Wurmer trip over his shoelace and land face-first in a pile of used tissues.
“Hey, dude,” Alex said as he walked over to where Julianna and George were talking. “How’s it going?”
George didn’t answer Alex. “I’m going to make sure I get a shot of some of those three-pointers,” he told Julianna. “I’m the team photographer today.”
