Lice Check

by Nancy Krulik

  “I’m definitely going to stop by your dad’s booth after I visit my dad’s architect station,” Chris said. “He’s showing kids how bridges are built.”

  “I’ll be at your dad’s booth,” Julianna assured George. “Right after I help my parents demonstrate how to play the Yoruba triple drum they brought back from their trip to Africa.”

  “What do your parents do?” George asked Julianna. “All I know is that they’re away a lot and your grandma stays with you.”

  “They’re anthropologists,” Julianna said. “They go all over the world and study how people live. Wait until you see the Mahakala mask they brought home from the Himalayan mountains. It’s got bloodred eyes and it’s really spooky.”

  Just then, Mike walked over to where George and his friends were standing. “I’m going over to Louie’s dad’s booth,” he told them. “I’ll get to learn all about law and eat chocolate.”

  “Chocolate?” Chris asked. “What does that have to do with law?”

  “Mr. Farley keeps a jar of candy on his big desk,” Mike said. “So Louie brought candy to school. You guys should stop by.”

  George gave Mike a look. “Are you kidding? Do you really think I’m going to sign in at Louie’s dad’s booth?”

  Mike shrugged. “Louie said to come over here. So I came over here.”

  As Mike walked away, George nervously fingered his ring. “No way can my dad beat free chocolate,” he said. “Everyone’s going to stop by Mr. Farley’s booth. Stick a fork in me. I’m done.”

  “There are plenty of kids at your dad’s booth already,” Julianna said. “Look.”

  George turned toward his dad’s booth. There were kids jumping over orange cones and wiggling on their bellies under nets. They looked like they were having fun.

  “Come on,” Alex said. “Let’s go do the obstacle course at your dad’s booth.”

  “Okay,” George agreed. He didn’t say anything about visiting Alex’s mom’s booth. He figured she probably didn’t want to see him for a while after what had happened in her office. Besides, George didn’t want to see any more toothbrushes for a while—maybe in a bit, but not now. He hadn’t even brushed his teeth this morning. He just ate a mint so he didn’t have stinky morning breath.

  George turned and looked around the gym. Louie was standing right out in front of his dad’s booth, handing out lots and lots of chocolate bars. And not fun-size chocolate bars, either. The big ones. Oh man. “It’s gonna be a long day,” George muttered under his breath. “Real long.”

  “Okay, where should we go next?” Julianna asked after they had gone through George’s dad’s obstacle course; stopped, dropped, and rolled at Max’s dad’s firefighter booth; and flossed their teeth at Alex’s mom’s booth (even though George was embarrassed to see her again!).

  But before the kids could decide what to do, Sage came running over in her bare feet.

  “Where are your shoes?” George asked her.

  “I’ve been helping out at my parents’ yoga-studio booth,” Sage explained. “You don’t wear shoes when you do yoga.”

  George looked over to the corner of the gym where Sage’s parents were teaching yoga. A bunch of kids were standing on one leg and twisting their arms together like pretzels.

  “I went to your dad’s booth, Georgie,” Sage assured him. “I signed my name really, really big on the sign-in sheet. Now you have to come try yoga at my parents’ booth.”

  George didn’t really want to do yoga. But it was only fair. “Okay,” George said.

  “I’ll go, too,” Alex agreed.

  “Me three,” Chris said.

  “We’ll all go,” Julianna said.

  Ruff! Ruff! Just then, the kids heard a dog barking.

  “That’s weird,” Chris said. “Dogs aren’t allowed in school. Not even for Career Day.”

  Ruff! Ruff!

  “That’s not a real dog,” Sage said. “It’s a recording. Mike’s dad is demonstrating how he can identify the breed of a dog by its bark.”

  “Golden retriever,” Mike’s dad said.

  “Right again, Dad,” Mike told him. The kids at the booth all clapped.

  “What does being a mailman have to do with dogs?” George wondered aloud.

  “He says he’s been chased by so many dogs, he can recognize them by their barks,” Sage explained. “Mailmen really have to watch out for dogs.”

  Aarf. Aarf.

  “Yorkshire terrier,” Mike’s dad guessed.

  “Right again,” Mike told his dad. “You’re five for five.”

  The kids in the booth all cheered.

  “Come on, Georgie,” Sage said, pulling him by the elbow. “You’re going to miss doing the eagle pose. It’s my favorite.”

  To get to Sage’s parents’ booth, George had to pass Mr. Farley’s station. Louie’s dad was sitting behind a sign that read Frederick Farley, Esquire. A whole bunch of kids were sitting in chairs, listening to Louie’s dad go on and on about being a lawyer. Well, not listening, really. Most of the kids were sleeping. One of them had a little drool coming out of the side of his mouth.

  But that didn’t matter. George and Louie hadn’t bet that the kids at their dads’ booths would have fun. They just bet that they would show up. And judging by how many kids were walking around the gym with chocolate on their faces, Louie had gotten a lot of people to come to his booth.

  George looked down at his finger. It was such a cool ring. No one else in school had one like it. But it wasn’t the idea of losing the ring that made George so sad. It was losing it to Louie. Because George could always get a new ring. But Louie would never let George forget that he’d lost the bet. And the only thing worse than being called Class Clown would be being called Loser to Louie.

  Huh?

  As George and his friends walked toward Sage’s parents’ yoga station, Louie wheeled his way over to George and held out his hand.

  George wasn’t sure what to do. Was this some sort of trick? Did Louie want to shake his hand? And if he did, why?

  Slowly, George put out his hand, too. Louie grabbed George’s hand. But he didn’t shake. Instead he turned it over and stared at the skeleton ring.

  “I’m just making sure you’re keeping my ring safe,” Louie told George. “Mrs. Kelly said I had to leave my dad’s booth and go to some other people’s stations. But that’s okay, because look how many people are listening to my dad right now.”

  George looked over. Louie was right. Lots more kids were eating chocolate at Mr. Farley’s booth. He looked back to his dad’s booth. There were a lot of kids there, too.

  “You never know, Louie,” George said. “Those sneakers might be mine.”

  “Oh, I do know,” Louie said. “I know I’m going to win.”

  George didn’t like the sound of that. It sounded like Louie had something sneaky up his sleeve—again. But what?

  As Louie wheeled off on his sneakers, Sage took George’s outstretched hand.

  George yanked his hand away, fast.

  But Sage just smiled and did that weird eyelash-fluttering thing she always did when she looked at George. “Come on, Georgie,” she said. “Yoga will make you feel better.”

  But Sage was wrong. Yoga didn’t make George feel better. It made him feel twisted and tangled and all tied up.

  “Breathe in deeply and wrap your right leg over your left,” Sage’s mother said in a calm, gentle voice. “Now wrap your left arm over your right.”

  All the kids at the yoga-center booth wrapped their arms and legs tightly.

  “Whoa!” George exclaimed as his body wobbled back and forth on his one standing leg.

  “Breathe,” Sage’s mother reminded him.

  Was she kidding? George was balancing on one leg, with his arms and legs twisted around each other, and she wanted him to brea
the, too?

  Besides, it was pretty hard to breathe when there was something going on in the bottom of your belly. Something bing-bonging. And zing-zonging.

  The super burp was back! And it didn’t feel like standing still on one leg. It felt like bursting out!

  But there was no way George was going to let that happen! Not here. Not in the middle of Career Day. He had to squelch that burp.

  But it wasn’t going to be easy. The burp had made a career of bursting out at the worst possible times. Already the bubbles were ping-ponging on top of George’s pancreas and ricocheting off his ribs.

  There had to be a way to stop those bubbles. George had to confuse them so they didn’t know which way was up and which way was down. It was the only way he could keep from burping.

  So George started hopping up and down on his one leg that was still touching the ground. Up. Down. Up. Down.

  The bubbles went up and down. Up to his throat, and then down to his kidneys. Then up to his bladder. Then down to his belly. Then . . .

  POP! Suddenly George felt the air rush right out of him. Like someone had popped a balloon in the bottom of his belly. The magic burp was gone. George had squelched the belch!

  “Whoa!” George was so excited he lost his balance and fell over—right into Alex.

  “Whoops!” Alex cried out, as he slammed into Chris.

  “Watch out!” Chris shouted as he tumbled into Julianna.

  “Wheeee!” Juliana yelled as she plunged into Sage.

  A minute later, the kids were all lying on the floor in a big heap. George opened his mouth to say, “I’m sorry.” And that’s exactly what came out.

  “AAAHHHH! NO!” Suddenly a scream came from across the gym floor.

  George turned around just in time to see Louie leaping up from the barber chair in the middle of Mr. Stubbs’s barber-shop booth.

  “Sorry, Louie,” Mr. Stubbs said. “Thanks for volunteering to be my hair model. But I can’t cut your hair if you have lice.”

  “I can’t have lice,” Louie insisted loudly. “Farleys don’t get lice.”

  George watched as Mr. Farley walked over to where Louie was having his fit. Louie’s dad was scratching at his head, too.

  “Uh-oh,” Mr. Stubbs told Louie’s dad. “Looks like you and your son are going to have to go home and get deloused.”

  That was all anyone in the gym needed to hear. Suddenly, all the kids in Mr. Farley’s booth leaped up from their seats. They couldn’t get out of that booth fast enough.

  A smile broke out across George’s face. There was still an hour of Career Day left. Lots of kids were heading to his dad’s station. And none of those kids would be going to Louie’s dad’s booth anymore. There was no one there to talk to them.

  Now George knew he was going to win the bet.

  Louie knew it, too. He walked over to George. “You cheated,” he said angrily.

  George was blown away. “I cheated?” he asked. “Are you kidding? I’m not the one who paid my friends to get people to come to my dad’s booth. That was you. And you’re the one who bribed people with chocolate.”

  “I didn’t cheat—and you can’t prove it, anyway. But you made sure you wouldn’t get lice when I did,” Louie insisted.

  George didn’t know what to say. How do you argue with something that doesn’t even make sense?

  “A bet’s a bet,” Louie told him grumpily. “The wheelie sneakers are yours.”

  George shook his head. “No thanks,” he said.

  “What?” Louie asked.

  “What?” Mike and Max wondered.

  “What?” Alex, Chris, Sage, and Julianna repeated.

  “I don’t want the sneakers,” George said. “You keep them. I’m canceling the bet.”

  “Yeah, right,” Louie huffed. “What’s the catch?”

  “No catch,” George told him. “The bet’s off.”

  Nurse Cuttaway left her health-care career booth and came over to talk to Louie. “I’m afraid you and your father will have to leave now,” she told him. “We can’t have people with lice in the school building.”

  As Louie walked away, Alex shot George a funny look. “You’re letting him off the hook?” he asked.

  George nodded. “Yeah. Who wants sneakers that smell like Louie’s sweaty feet anyway?”

  “Gotcha,” Alex said with a laugh. “You want to go hear about architecture from Chris’s dad now?”

  “Sure,” George agreed.

  As he walked off with his friends, George grinned. This day had turned out better than he ever thought it would. He’d won the bet and Louie had to leave school to be deloused. Tomorrow was going to be a Louie-free day!

  In fact, only one thing could make this day better: a burp-buster booth at Career Day. Because George would love to meet a burp-buster—and the sooner, the better.

  About the Author

  Nancy Krulik is the author of more than 150 books for children and young adults including three New York Times Best Sellers and the popular Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo books. She lives in New York City with her family, and many of George Brown’s escapades are based on things her own kids have done. (No one delivers a good burp quite like Nancy’s son, Ian!) Nancy’s favorite thing to do is laugh, which comes in pretty handy when you’re trying to write funny books! You can follow Nancy on Twitter @NancyKrulik.

  About the Illustrator

  Aaron Blecha was raised by a school of giant squid in Wisconsin and now lives with his family by the south English seaside. He works as an artist designing funny characters and illustrating humorous books, including the one you’re holding. You can enjoy more of his weird creations at www.monstersquid.com.