Wonkenstein
Page 6
And what if someone who lives nearby—
a sort of big and scary guy—
is blamed for stealing something from
a different neighbor whose son’s a bum.
I looked at Jack and tried to give him the very best stink eye I could.
Well, maybe I could help that bum
and fix the thing that he made wrong.
We could clear that Ogre’s name
and properly place the misplaced blame.
Misunderstandings between friends
are out of style and never in,
like bell-bottoms and mustaches,
Thumb Buddies and real thick glasses.
So to those of you I might have hurt
I hope you know I feel like dirt.
But try and understand that I
am really not an awful guy.
And now, in closing, let me say
the main misunderstanding that’s come my way:
I once thought books were kinda boring;
I thought they caused both sleep and snoring.
It took a monster and a tinker
to show me I was such a stinker,
to make me get up off my rear
and do some things I usually fear.
All those pages of words and letters
actually made my life much better.
So next time you think you understand
or that you’ve got the upper hand,
remember, things are better off
if misunderstandings are all cleared up.
Wonkenstein reached out his hands and pulled on two party poppers to signal the end of my poem. Confetti and tiny streamers flew up, and the crowd went wild.
I couldn’t believe how good I felt. The monster part of Wonkenstein thrashed about in the backpack due to the noise, while the Wonka part cheered along with everyone else.
The judges held up their scores.
I WON! Nelson stormed up and accused me of stealing his moment, but everyone else patted me on the shoulder. The prize was a golden lunch ticket that gave me free school lunches for the rest of the year.
It was nice, but I didn’t do it for the ticket.
I did it for Janae.
CHAPTER 15
THE CLOSET
Most of my friends congratulated me. Only Teddy gave me a hard time.
Jack promised to go with me to apologize to Mr. Pang. At first he said no, but when I told him that it would make us feel better and that he could bring his assault flashlight, he agreed.
My mom hugged me and called me Ribert in front of everyone, but I was too pumped up to be embarrassed. We then went out for celebration ice cream. It was pretty good, but I really just wanted to get home so I could let Wonk out of my backpack. My dad kept saying how proud he was. He also kept winking and making jokes about misunderstandings. When I told him I should probably go home and do homework, he said …
When I got home, I went straight to my room and freed Wonk. He tumbled out of the backpack with a huge grunt. I couldn’t believe how relieved I was. I stood up, and Wonkenstein wrapped his arms around my right leg. I was just about to ask him if he wanted to go with me to Trevor’s house to pay him the five dollars I owed him when I heard …
My heart dropped, and I could feel it fall all the way into my big toe.
I looked over at the closet as the heavy door creaked and opened about an inch. I glanced down at Wonkenstein as he gazed up at me.
Wonkenstein let go of my leg and walked over to the closet. He pulled the closet door open.
In a flash, he slipped in and the door closed behind him with a click. It all happened so fast my brain didn’t really have time to process what was going on.
I stepped over to the closet and took hold of Beardy. The knob turned, and I pulled the door open, expecting to see Wonkenstein. But all I saw was junk—nothing but junk.
I looked around, wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but it was clear they weren’t—Wonkenstein was gone. I could see a large jar of goo from my old lab dripping down over a tall pile of books. There on the top of the books was a copy of Frankenstein, sitting on a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I looked at the books and the goo and all the rest of the mess in the closet, but there was no sign of Wonk.
I closed the closet door and checked under the bed and in my dresser.
When I tried to open the closet door again, it wouldn’t budge. I pulled and pulled, but just like before, it wouldn’t open. I pounded and hollered and kicked, but it was stuck tight. I was yelling about the North Pole when my father came into the room to see what was going on. I told him everything was fine.
My dad left and Tuffin came into my room to tell me it was time for us to play. I spun him around until he was dizzy. For added fun, I instructed him to count until tomorrow.
I then lay down on my bed to read.
CHAPTER 16
KNOCK KNOCK
Life just wasn’t the same without Wonk. I mean, I had wanted him to get back into the closet, but now I missed him. I hadn’t even been able to say good-bye. I knew from what he had said before he went into the closet that he was going to the worlds of the books he had come from.
The day after Wonk disappeared, Trevor and I tried to get the closet open with a bunch of stuff like a crowbar and a shovel, but it didn’t work. We just ended up breaking everything.
Jack and I apologized to Mr. Pang and tried to explain what had happened. He didn’t buy it. Instead, he made us weed his dead flower garden. He also promised that if we ever trespassed again, he would sic Ogre on us. We said okay, but I now knew Ogre really wasn’t somebody to fear.
Every time I went into my room, I wiggled the closet doorknob, hoping it would open and Wonk would be there. It was never open, which meant Wonkenstein was never there. It made me pretty sad. I figured my closet would just stay shut forever. But four nights later, as I was reading, I heard a knock I didn’t recognize.
I thought it was somebody at my bedroom door, so I hollered for them to “come in.” Nobody did. I went back to reading, and I heard a louder, blocky knock.
I got up from my bed and marched to my door. I threw it open, but nobody was there. I walked down the hall and saw that Tuffin was asleep in his room. Libby’s door was shut, and I could hear her talking on the phone. My parents had gone to a movie, so I knew it couldn’t have been them, and Puck was out in the backyard.
I was thinking about how I probably should just go to sleep early and give my mind a rest when I heard a sharp, biting knock coming from my closet.
I spun around and looked at my closet door as my heart beat like crazy.
I moved closer to my closet, reached out, and grabbed Beardy. I turned the knob and heard it click as it opened. The heavy door moved forward, and something sprang out and knocked me over. My head hit the end of my bed as I fell to the floor. Whatever it was was now moving around on top of my dresser. I turned over quickly, expecting to see Wonk. It wasn’t Wonk, and it wasn’t normal! The creature was a little smaller than Wonkenstein but a lot hairier. He looked like a Chewbacca and Harry Potter hybrid. He whispered something about wizards and wars while waving a wand and growling. He then called me by name and informed me that Wonk had sent him. I just stood there and wobbled as he asked …
The only answer I could think of was “the library.”
OBERT SKYE is the author of the two bestselling fantasy adventure series Leven Thumps and The Pillage Trilogy. As a kid, he spent many hours in detention for drawing on his school desks (not advised). It wasn’t all bad—in fifth grade he won ten dollars and tickets to the circus for his drawing of a clown (actually drawn on paper). Today, there are few scraps of paper or surfaces in his life that don’t have ink on them. Wonkenstein brings together Obert’s love of comics and storytelling. He hopes this book will earn him some brownie points (or forgiveness) with his past teachers whose desks he marked up. He lives in Idaho with his family.
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Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
Copyright © 2011 by Obert Skye
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Skye, Obert.
Wonkenstein / Obert Skye. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (The creature from my closet; 1)
“Christy Ottaviano Books.”
Summary: Twelve-year-old Rob has stuffed his closet with old laboratory experiments, unread books, and more, and when a creature emerges from that chaos causing a great deal of trouble, Rob has to do such horrible things as visit a library and speak at a school assembly to set things right again.
ISBN 978-0-8050-9268-4
[1. Monsters—Fiction. 2. Conduct of life—Fiction. 3. Books and reading—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Family life—Fiction. 6. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.S62877Won 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2011004870
First edition—2011
eISBN 9781466845701
First eBook edition: April 2013