Phineas L. MacGuire . . . Blasts Off!

by Frances O'Roark Dowell

  PHINEAS L. MACGUIRE …

  Atheneum Books for Young Readers • An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division • 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com • This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. • Text copyright © 2008 by Frances O’Roark Dowell • Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Preston McDaniels • All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. • Book design by Sonia Chaghatzbanian and Michael McCartney • The text for this book is set in GarthGraphic. • The illustrations for this book were rendered in pencil. • Manufactured in the United States of America • 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 • Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data • Dowell, Frances O’Roark. • Phineas L. MacGuire … blasts off! / Frances O’Roark Dowell; illustrated by Preston McDaniels. —1st ed. • p. cm. • Summary: Hoping to earn money to attend Space Camp, fourth-grade science whiz Phineas MacGuire gets a job as a dog walker, then enlists the aid of his friends Ben and Aretha to help with experiments using the dog’s “slobber.” • ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-2689-4 • ISBN-10: 1-4169-2689-5 eISBN-13: 978-1-4424-2394-7 • [1. Moneymaking projects—Fiction. 2. Science—Experiments—Fiction. 3. Dogs—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Friendship—Fiction.] I. McDaniels, Preston, ill. II. Title. • PZ7.D75455Phb 2008 • [Fic]—dc22 • 2007030162

  Other books by Frances O’Roark Dowell

  Phineas L. MacGuire … Erupts!

  Phineas L. MacGuire … Gets Slimed!

  Dovey Coe

  Where I’d Like to Be

  The Secret Language of Girls

  Chicken Boy

  Shooting the Moon

  To Spencer Graham, Sam Loyack, and Aidan Paul—great friends, smart guys

  —F. O. D.

  The author would like to thank

  the following people for their support,

  wisdom and joie de vivre: Caitlyn Dlouhy;

  Kiley Fitzsimmons; Amy Graham; Danielle Paul;

  Tom, Kathryn, and Megan Harris; and Clifton,

  Jack, and Will Dowell. She would like to thank

  T. J. Mukundan for his insights about Space Camp.

  PHINEAS L. MACGUIRE …

  BLASTS OFF!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  chapter one

  My name is Phineas Listerman

  MacGuire.

  Feel free to call me Mac.

  Some people even call me Big Mac, since I’m tall for my age.

  I don’t mind being called Phin or Phineas. I had a soccer coach last year who only called me MacGuire.

  I thought that was sort of cool.

  He never called me Listerman, in case you were wondering.

  No one calls me Listerman. Not unless they want to get seriously slimed.

  I am a scientist. In fact, I am probably the best fourth-grade scientist in all of Woodbrook Elementary School. I am an expert in the following areas of scientific inquiry:

  1. All molds and fungi, particularly slime molds of every variety

  2. Volcanoes and other things that explode

  3. Bug identification

  Up until yesterday I had no idea that I was a potential scientific genius when it came to astronomy, which is, if you didn’t know, the study of planets and stars and everything up in space.

  Don’t get me wrong. I have read at least sixty-seven astronomy books and am famous for having eaten a board book about the planets when I was two.

  It’s just astronomy wasn’t one of my big things.

  Until I heard about Space Camp.

  It all started with Stacey Windham, and Share and Stare.

  You would think that as a scientist, I would know five hundred times as much about space as Stacey Windham, a bossy girl in my class who thinks she is the queen and has never once shown any interest in anything besides being mean to people.

  So how did she know that there are earthquakes on Mars before I did?

  Except on Mars they’re called Mars-quakes.

  You’d think I would have heard about that.

  “Some scientists think that Mars at one time had titanic plates in it, just like Earth does,” Stacey reported for Share and Stare yesterday morning. Share and Stare is what Mrs. Tuttle, our teacher, has instead of Show and Tell. For Share and Stare you have to bring something that’s connected to what we’re studying at school. We have just started a unit on space, and Stacey waved an article torn out of a magazine while she talked.

  “I’m interested in titanic plates because I have seen the movie Titanic four times,” Stacey continued. “Even though it is rated PG-13.”

  A bunch of girls gasped. I raised my hand. Stacey nodded at me like she was the teacher.

  “I think you mean ‘tectonic plates,’” I informed her. “Tectonic plates are what shift around and cause earthquakes.”

  “Well, I’ve still seen Titanic four times. And it’s rated PG-13.” Stacey sneered at me. “I bet you’ve never seen one single PG-13 movie.”

  Half of my classmates waved their hands in the air. “Oooh! I have! I have!”

  Later I asked Stacey where she’d found the article, and she showed me a copy of a magazine called Astronomy. “It’s my dad’s,” she said. “He has a telescope. Except he’s always too busy to use it. Sometimes when I have a slumber party, we use it for spying on the people who live across the street.”

  I sighed. Leave it to Stacey Windham to take a perfectly good scientific tool like a telescope and use it for evil.

  Tonight at dinner I asked my mom if we could get a subscription to Astronomy magazine. She gave me her best I Spend Ten Zillion Dollars a Year on Stuff for You Already look and shook her head. “You get plenty of magazines.” She listed them on her fingers: “National Geographic Kids, Scientific American, Ranger Rick …”

  “To be honest, I think I’m getting kind of old for Ranger Rick. Maybe we could trade that subscription for one to Astronomy.”

  “Too old for Ranger Rick?” My mom looked stunned. “I read Ranger Rick until I was twelve years old. You’re never too old for Ranger Rick!”

  My stepdad, Lyle, grabbed another piece of pizza from the box on the middle of the table. “You know, I saw something in the paper the other day about a Space Camp they have down in Alabama. I think it’s connected to NASA. The kids do a lot of stuff on Mars exploration.”

  I nearly jumped out of my chair. It was like every cell in my body got electrified at the same time. All of the sudden I knew that my life should revolve around the study of astronomy, space, and all things beyond Earth’s atmosphere. “Space Camp? Mars exploration? I need to go there immediately!”

  “It’s pretty expensive,” Lyle told me through a mouth full of pizza. “And pretty far away.”

  “I could save up for it! I’ve already got twenty-nine dollars saved up for a chemistry set. I could use it for Space Camp instead.”

  My mom looked doubtful. “I don’t know, honey. I think you’re a little young for a sleepaway camp. Maybe when you’re eleven. Besides, I don�
�t think we can afford to send you to camp this year. The minivan’s almost too pooped to pop. It’s about time to buy a new one.”

  Leave it to my mom to put minivans before scientific knowledge.

  “What if I pay for everything myself?”

  My mom still looked doubtful. “If you saved up enough money for Space Camp—and a round-trip plane ticket—then maybe I’d consider it. Maybe.”

  I ran around to the other side of the table and hugged my mom. Well, it wasn’t really a hug. It was more bumping my shoulder against her shoulder.

  We scientists are not big huggers as a rule.

  But my mom smiled anyway.

  She knows a scientific hug when she gets one.

  chapter two

  It turns out that a week at Space Camp costs $799.

  Or in other words, three and a half years’ worth of allowances.

  And that’s not counting a round-trip plane ticket.

  Houston, we have a problem.

  “What you need, Mac, is a job,” Aretha Timmons told me at recess. I am normally allergic to girls, but for some reason my immune system can tolerate Aretha Timmons. I think this is because she is a fellow scientist. Plus, she never wears purple.

  Purple makes me break out in hives.

  So do girls, for that matter.

  I don’t even want to think about what a purple girl would do to my immune system.

  Aretha, being a fellow scientist, was the first person I discussed my Space Camp problem with. She is probably the smartest person in Mrs. Tuttle’s fourth-grade class besides me, and rumor has it she has saved every allowance and birthday-card dollar she has ever received in her entire life.

  Aretha leaned back on the swing she was sitting on. “I mean, if you want to go to camp over spring break, you’ve got five months until registration is due, right? Seven hundred and ninety-nine dollars sounds like a lot, but divide it up into small increments, like fifty dollars a week, and suddenly it’s a do-able sum.”

  “How does a nine-year-old make fifty dollars a week?” I shook my head sadly. “It’s just not going to happen.”

  “First thing,” Aretha said, holding up a finger, “make a list of your marketable skills. Number two, devise a list of jobs that require your marketable skills. Match the two, and you’re on your way to fifty dollars a week.”

  “You could also sell all your stuff. I bet you’d get five thousand bucks for all your stuff, like your bed and everything.”

  This came from Ben, who was kneeling in the dirt beside the swing set and making a sculpture out of gravel and sticks.

  It appeared to be a Star Wars X-wing starfighter, but it might also have been a lopsided birthday cake with a cat taking a nap on top of it.

  Sometimes with Ben you have to ask.

  Aretha rolled her eyes. “Who’s going to pay five thousand dollars for Mac’s bed? Is it a golden bed? A bed encrusted with diamonds and rubies?”

  “Not just his bed,” Ben replied. “His clothes and toys and everything. Plus, his slime mold collection. His slime mold collection alone might get him five hundred. I mean, it’s awesome.”

  I tried to look modest about my slime mold, but Ben was right. If you are looking for the slime mold genius of the universe, well, I’m pretty much it. I had three shelves of mold growing in my bedroom. I’d never thought about their monetary value before, but maybe Ben was on to something.

  That slime mold could be worth big bucks.

  The problem was, I couldn’t sell it in a million years.

  The psychological devastation would be too much.

  I am very attached to my slime mold.

  “First, let me point out that most of Mac’s stuff isn’t actually Mac’s stuff,” Aretha said. “The slime mold, yes. The bed? The dresser? The desk? No way. That is the official property of Mac’s parents. Put ’em on sale, go to jail.”

  I don’t think my parents would really send me to jail for selling my furniture.

  But they might put me in the longest time-out in history.

  Ben started constructing a battle droid out of acorns. “Well, if selling his furniture is out of the question, maybe there’s something else he can sell.” Ben looked up at me. “You could have a lemonade stand.”

  “I’d have to sell a lot of lemonade to make seven hundred ninety-nine dollars,” I told him.

  Aretha checked her watch. Her watch isn’t just a watch, it is a weather station. It has a hygrometer, which lets you know how much moisture is in the air, a thermometer, and a barometric pressure tendency arrow.

  It also tells the time, but who cares?

  “I would love to sit here and come up with ideas for Mac,” she told us, “but in three minutes and forty-eight seconds I have a meeting with Principal Patino about the Read to Win pizza party.”

  Aretha is our class president and is often called to the principal’s office for important meetings about pizza and whether or not the Girl Scouts should be able to sell cookies in the cafeteria during recess.

  Ben, believe it or not, is our class vice president, but he is hardly ever called to the principal’s office for important meetings.

  He gets called there for other stuff, however.

  Aretha stood up and turned to me. “Like you, Mac, I am a scientific thinker, but I am also an advocate of positive thinking. If you tell yourself that there is a solution to your problem, you will find the solution. If you need a way to make money, tell yourself that you will find a way. Say this every morning when you wake up, and every night before you go to bed. The power of positive thinking is very strong.” She held up her wrist. “That’s how I got this watch.”

  “What? You just thought positively about it and—poof!—one day the watch appeared?” Ben asked her.

  Aretha looked down her nose at Ben and squinted.

  She does not appreciate sarcasm.

  “No, Mr. Ben Robbins, that is not how it happened. What happened was I saw this watch, I wanted this watch, and I told myself I would get this watch. I thought about it positively for two weeks, and then, with no prompting from me whatsoever, my father offered me a reward if I got straight As two marking periods in a row. That’s when I knew I had this watch in the bag, thanks to the power of positive thinking.”

  “I’ll try it,” I told Aretha, feeling doubtful. “Anything’s worth a try.”

  All afternoon I tried to think positively. I will find a way to make money, I repeated about two thousand times in my head. I will find a way to make money for Space Camp. But the whole time I was being Mr. Positive, I felt sort of weird. I respect Aretha as a scientist, but this was not the most scientific method I had ever heard of.

  But here’s the funny thing: It worked.

  chapter three

  Here are just a few reasons I think Mars is a scientifically fascinating place:

  1. Mars has the biggest volcano in the whole solar system. It’s called Olympus Mons. It’s bigger than Mount Everest. It sort of makes me jealous that Mars has such a big volcano, if you want to know the truth, especially since Earth is a much bigger planet. It’s not really fair that Earth’s volcanoes are so puny compared to Olympus Mons.

  2. Mars has two moons, Deimos and Phobos. They look like potatoes that have been sitting in the kitchen cabinet for too long. One of my goals is to be the first astronaut to walk on Deimos and Phobos. Deimos is only nine miles long. I could probably walk across it in a few hours, which would make my mom happy. She is always telling me to get more exercise.

  3. It takes six months to get to Mars from Earth, even though Mars is the next planet over from Earth. If you look at a poster of the solar system, you’d think it would take maybe a few days to get to Mars, depending on how fast your spaceship was going. Traveling through space for six months would be like a dream come true for me.

  4. One Mars year equals 687 Earth days. That means it takes 687 days for Mars to orbit the sun. So a year on Mars would pretty much be like two years on Earth. I figure there must be some wa
y to use all that extra time to my advantage. I could finally reread the entire Mysteries of Planet Zindar series, from book one to book forty-three, for example, or memorize the periodic table of chemical elements, which I have been meaning to do for some time now.

  I was thinking about these interesting facts on the bus home from school in between my positive-thinking thoughts about making money to go to Space Camp. I was also thinking how awesome it would be to go to Space Camp and hang out with other kids who liked to contemplate interesting Mars facts. Aretha Timmons is not uninterested in the solar system, but she is more fascinated by things like bacteria and horrible diseases. If you don’t catch her in the right mood, she will give a planet like Mars about four seconds of her attention before she changes the subject.

  I have tried to get Ben, who is my best friend and smarter than anybody realizes, including Ben, more interested in science, but he is pretty happy just to be a genius artist. Sometimes he will do scientific research when he needs to know something for a comic book he’s drawing, and he does have a healthy interest in slime mold.

  I could not be best friends with somebody who didn’t have a healthy interest in slime mold.

  Between the positive-thinking thoughts and the Mars thoughts, I wasn’t paying very much attention when the bus pulled up to my stop. I got off the bus and took two steps toward my house.

  At which time I was pulverized by a force larger than life.

  This force is otherwise known as Lemon Drop, the world’s biggest Labrador retriever, who belongs to my approximately eight-thousand-year-old neighbor, Mrs. McClosky. Lemon Drop knocked me down, slobbered all over my best Museum of Life and Science T-shirt, the green one with the picture of the lunar module on it, and practically strangled me with his leash as he planted wet goopy dog kisses all over my face.