The Squirting Donuts

by David A. Adler

  Copyright © 2014 by David A. Adler

  Cover and internal design © 2014 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Regina Flath

  Cover illustration © Regina Flath

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  www.jabberwockykids.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  One: Marshmallow on Whole Wheat

  Two: The Jelly Hypodermic

  Three: Adventure on Clover Street

  Four: Room for Butter Pecan

  Five: Two Shots of Jelly

  Six: Everyone Knows About Calvin

  Seven: Best Friends

  Eight: Dad’s Good News

  Nine: A Real Great Week

  A sneak peek at Danny’s Doodle’s: The Dog Biscuit Breakfast

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  For my ever-lovely wife Renée

  I’m warning you. I’m about to say two mean and nasty words.

  If I say them at school, kids shudder and run away. If I say them at home, my sister Karen says I should be punished for talking dirty.

  Are you ready?

  Here are the two words:

  Mrs. Cakel.

  She’s my teacher and she’s super mean and nasty.

  She makes lunch checks. She won’t let any of us have soda, hard candy, cherries, or pomegranate juice. She says that’s so we eat nutritious lunches and don’t get red stains on our clothes.

  She won’t let Annie Abrams wear her favorite yellow headband.

  “It’s not becoming,” she told Annie.

  There are so many rules in our class that my friend Calvin Waffle tells me, “It’s lucky she lets us breathe.” But he doesn’t tell that to Mrs. Cakel. You can’t tell her anything.

  Everyone is afraid of her.

  At parent-teacher conferences—you know, when the teacher tells parents what’s wrong with their kids—she told my mother not to slouch, to sit up straight. She told her not to mumble. And do you know what? Mom sat up and spoke up. And Mom is not a fourth-grade student. She’s a chemical engineer. I don’t know exactly what she does, just that she works in a laboratory and has to wear a large white coat.

  Dad was also at school that night.

  “I didn’t talk to your teacher. I didn’t ask her anything,” Dad told me later. “I was afraid to.”

  I tell you. Everyone is afraid of that woman.

  Once our principal, Mr. Telfer, walked into class and he was chewing gum. It was a medicated gum to help him stop smoking. Mrs. Cakel pointed to the big NO sign that lists all the things we’re not allowed to do in our class.

  Then she held a garbage can under Mr. Telfer’s chin and made him spit out the gum. She did that in front of our entire class.

  And he’s the principal!

  It’s Monday morning. I sit by my desk and copy the work on the board. It’s easy. When it’s done, I doodle. That’s what I do when I’m bored. That’s pretty much what I always do. I love to doodle.

  Mrs. Cakel tells us to take out our homework. We had lots this weekend and now she’s checking it. I take mine out of my book bag.

  Jason’s Lawn Care?

  Spring cleanup???

  This is not my homework. It’s the bill from the gardener.

  I think about this morning. I had Sugar Flakes for breakfast and they tasted like toothpaste. I was tasting toothpaste. I hadn’t rinsed enough when I brushed my teeth so I went back to the bathroom, only Karen was in there. I think she does her homework in the bathroom, or tries to make herself look normal, or something that could take forever.

  I waited.

  She finally came out, smiled, patted her hair, and went downstairs.

  I went in, rinsed, and rushed to eat the flakes that no longer tasted like toothpaste but were really soggy. I grabbed my homework and my lunch and hurried out.

  My lunch!

  I reach in my desk, take out my lunch bag, and look inside. Lipstick? Mineral body lotion? Face powder? Eyeliner? What is this stuff? Where are my sandwich, pretzels, and apple?

  This morning I took all the wrong stuff. I bet right now Mom is sending my homework to the gardener and putting my sandwich in the medicine cabinet.

  Here comes Mrs. Cakel.

  She’ll get bogey-eyed when I tell her I don’t have my homework. She’ll make me copy all the H and W words in the dictionary.

  “H and W are for homework,” she’ll tell me. “Once you copy those words maybe you’ll remember to do yours.”

  She’ll make me stay in class during lunch and do my homework, and the worst part is, she’ll be in the room with me. How could I eat looking at her? I’ll lose my appetite.

  Oh! That’s right. I don’t have a lunch. All I have is lipstick, lotion, powder, and eyeliner.

  She stands by my desk.

  “I did my homework,” I say, “but I left it at home.”

  “Bring it in tomorrow,” she says and walks to Greg. He sits behind me.

  Huh? Who said that?

  It gets worse, or better. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad when Mrs. Cakel is nice. I’m not sure it’s Mrs. Cakel.

  She is teaching us about the American Revolution—you know, when George Washington and the Continental Army fought the British. She asks my friend Calvin Waffle, “Who fired the first shots at Lexington and Concord?”

  “Not me,” Calvin answers. “I don’t even have a gun.”

  That’s it, I think. She’s going to explode.

  I hold my hands over my ears. But she doesn’t yell. She just calls on my friend Douglas Miller and asks him.

  “The British fired the first shots,” Douglas answers. “They had lots of guns and fancy red uniforms.”

  I must be in some alternate universe. Up is down. Big is small. Vinegar is sweet and so is Mrs. Cakel.

  I’m right-handed, so I try doodling with my left hand. It comes out as just scribbles. If I was in a true alternate universe, my left-hand doodles would look to me like my right-hand doodles. I look up. There it is: the ceiling. In an alternate universe, I would look up and see the floor. I’m not the one in an alternate universe. Mrs. Cakel is.

  Now, I bet, when she looks in a mirror, she sees Mrs. Herman, my kindergarten teacher. Nothing ever upset Mrs. Herman.

  The bell rings. It’s time for lunch. I buy a container of milk. Then I tell Calvin, Annie, and Douglas about my lunch of lipstick, lotion, powder, and eyeliner, and they each give me something to eat.

  Annie gives me celery sticks. Douglas gives me some of his pressed fruit roll. And Calvin gives me half of his marshmallow-banana-carrot-on-whole-wheat-bread sandwich.

  I look at the whole wheat with white marshm
allow ooze dripping out.

  “Do you like this stuff?” I ask.

  Calvin shakes his head. He doesn’t.

  “Why don’t you ask your mother to make you something else for lunch?”

  “She doesn’t make my lunch,” he answers. “I do.”

  I wonder why Calvin would make a lunch for himself that he knows he won’t like. There’s probably no good answer to that question. It’s just hard to explain Calvin Waffle.

  I bite into the sandwich. The marshmallow and banana are sweet. The carrots give it a crispy crunch. Those parts are good, but I don’t like the bread.

  I try not to think about what I’m eating. I think about Mrs. Cakel.

  “Something is wrong,” I say. “Something is bothering Mrs. Cakel.”

  “Yeah, she’s all sweet and lovey,” Douglas says. “She’s acting like Mrs. Herman.”

  Calvin doesn’t know about Mrs. Herman. He just moved here with his mother. He told me his father is on some spying mission. That’s right. He says his father is a spy, but I’m not sure that’s true.

  Douglas tells Calvin about Mrs. Herman.

  “She gave us animal crackers for snack, and the first time I got a horse cracker, I threw it on the floor and stepped on it. I didn’t like horses.”

  “You also stepped on the moose,” Annie says.

  “That’s because I thought they were horses with horns.”

  “And do you know what Mrs. Herman did?” Douglas asked.

  Calvin shook his head. He didn’t know.

  “She hugged me and said she was sorry. And from then on, she made sure I never got a horse cookie for snack.”

  “Now Mrs. Cakel is acting like that,” I say, “and it’s not normal.”

  “Maybe it’s not really her,” Annie says. “Maybe she’s her twin sister. Maybe the two of them are exactly the same but opposite. Maybe they’re mirror twins.”

  “No, it’s her,” Douglas says. “She knows all our names. She knows all those things about George Washington, that his father’s name was Augustine and his mother’s was Mary. She knows all about his wife and his stepchildren. Only a real teacher knows that stuff.”

  “I’m used to the old Mrs. Cakel,” I say. “We’ve got to get back our mean and nasty teacher.”

  “Why?” Calvin asks.

  “Yeah, why?” Annie says. “She’s being nice. Teachers should be nice.”

  I take another bite of my Calvin sandwich. I get mostly bread and marshmallow.

  Annie chews her noisy celery.

  “Maybe she’ll suddenly explode,” Douglas says, spinning his apple on the table. “Maybe all this nice stuff will be too much for her.”

  Calvin has a rice cake in a small plastic sandwich bag for dessert. He puts it flat on the table, punches it again and again until it’s a bag of rice crumbs. Then he pours the crumbs into his mouth.

  “You’re right,” Annie says. “Something is wrong with Mrs. Cakel. Maybe we should help her, but not right now. First let’s enjoy a vacation from mean.”

  Calvin brushes rice cake crumbs off his shirt and pants.

  “We could slouch, mumble, and send notes,” Douglas says, “but I still can’t chew gum. My dentist says that’s bad for my teeth.”

  “It would be nice not to have so many rules,” I say, “but what will happen to her nickname ‘No, No, No Cakel’?”

  “We could call her ‘Chew, Chew Cakel,’ or ‘Mumble, Bumble Cakel,’” Calvin says. “We could call her whatever we want and she’ll just say, ‘That’s nice.’”

  “No,” Annie says and shakes her head. “We’ve got to help that woman.”

  “Yes!” Calvin says a bit too loud.

  He stands, points to the cafeteria ceiling, and declares, “This calls for the Great Waffle!”

  Douglas says, “I want mine with maple syrup.”

  “I’m not joking,” Calvin says and sits down. “We can’t help her until we find out what’s wrong, and for that we’ll have to do some spy work. And I’m the one who knows about spy work.”

  He smiles.

  “But before we help her,” Calvin says, “I’ll have some fun. This afternoon I’m going to see how many of Cakel’s No things I can get away with.”

  On our way back to class, I try to talk Calvin out of his plan to send notes, mumble, chew gum, and whatever. But he just smiles and walks ahead.

  When I get to class, Calvin is already there. He’s walking about and mumbling. Mrs. Cakel is sitting by her desk and guess what? She’s slouching.

  I sit in my seat and watch the two of them.

  Mrs. Cakel doesn’t seem to notice Calvin. She doesn’t seem to notice any of us.

  Calvin sits in his seat and slouches.

  Mrs. Cakel doesn’t react.

  Calvin stands on his seat and pretends to be chewing gum.

  Mrs. Cakel still sits there.

  Calvin tears paper from his spiral notebook, scribbles something on it, folds it into an airplane, and sends it to me.

  I unfold the airplane.

  “Who is that woman?” Calvin wrote.

  I look at her. She has that blank stare look, you know, like she doesn’t see anything even if it’s right in front of her.

  Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong.

  “Do you know where she lives?” Calvin asks on our way home.

  Calvin and I live on the same block so we walk together to and from school.

  I shake my head. I don’t know where Mrs. Cakel lives.

  “That won’t stop us,” Calvin says. “We’ll find her. My father taught me lots of spy tricks.”

  Calvin says his father speaks lots of languages and that right now he is on a secret spy mission for our government. Calvin’s mom told me his dad is a truck driver and one day he went across the state to deliver some furniture and never came back.

  I asked Calvin if that was true.

  “That’s Dad’s cover,” Calvin said. “We say he’s a truck driver so no one will know what he really does.”

  If his being a spy is such a secret, why did he tell me?

  Calvin says, “We can look on the Internet for Mrs. Cakel’s address.”

  “She may not be listed.”

  “We can ask the principal, Mr. Telfer. I don’t think he likes her.”

  “He won’t give us a teacher’s address.”

  “Then I’ll use a spy trick.” He leans close and whispers, “We’ll put a tracking device in her book bag.”

  I look around. There is no one nearby.

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “The trees have ears,” he whispers. This time his voice is even lower. “The sidewalk, street signs, and flowers have ears.”

  That’s a lot of ears.

  “This would be a homemade device,” Calvin whispers. “We’ll fill her book bag with tiny bread crumbs and poke a hole in the bottom of the bag. Then all we have to do is follow the crumby trail.”

  I look at Calvin.

  He’s serious.

  “That’s a Hansel and Gretel device,” I say. “And anyway, she drives to school. There would be no trail. The crumbs would be on the floor of her car.”

  “Oh.”

  We are already on our block, just a few houses away from Calvin’s.

  “Why don’t we just ask my sister where Mrs. Cakel lives? Karen knows lots of personal stuff about our teachers.”

  Calvin’s mom is standing in front of his house. At first she just waves to us. Then she jumps and waves.

  She’s really skinny and has long, curly red hair that is flying up and down. Her pants and shirt have lots of colored stripes and dots. When she jumps, all those colors mix and she looks like a broken kaleidoscope.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” she shouts. “I have something to tell you.”<
br />
  We hurry to Calvin’s front walk.

  “What do I love more than anything?” Calvin’s mother asks.

  “Me,” Calvin answers.

  “Sure. But what do I love to do more than anything?”

  “Word scrambles.”

  “Yeah. Here’s a good one. V-F-W-A-L-L-I-N-F-A-C-E. What’s that? And what’s N-O-A-N-Y-C-H-E-N-D?”

  She talks real slow now and loud and spells out those wacky words letter by letter.

  Calvin and I shake our heads. We don’t know what V-F-W-A-L-L-I-N-F-A-C-E and N-O-A-N-Y-C-H-E-N-D are.

  Mrs. Waffle laughs and says, “That’s you! I just mixed the letters in your names, Calvin Waffle and Danny Cohen. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. You’re both so young, and it’s usually old people who forget their names, like the old man I was once sitting next to in a hotel lobby. I knew his name because it was on his luggage. Someone called out that his room was ready, and he just sat there. ‘Don’t you know your own name?’ I asked him. ‘My name? I don’t even know your name,’ he said.”

  “Mom,” Calvin says. “You have something to tell me.”

  “Yes, when you get old, you should have a bracelet with your name on it so if you forget who you are, you can look at it and know.”

  “Mom, you were waving and jumping because you have something to tell me and I don’t think it’s to wear a bracelet.”

  “Was I waving? Oh, yes I was. I wanted to tell you about my new job at the bakery. You know I love to bake. I’ll be baking bread and cake, and the best thing is I’ll be using the hypodermic.”

  “The what?”

  “You know, the needle. I’ll be the one injecting donuts with jelly. I promise I’ll bring some home for both of you with extra shots of jelly.”

  I love the jelly in those donuts. When I eat one, I always look for the side with the small hole. That’s where most of the jelly is.

  “That’s great, Mom.”

  Calvin gives his mother his schoolbooks and tells her he’s going to my house.

  As we walk, I say, “Your mother is really lucky to have a job doing something she likes.”