Fred froths at the mouth as if he’s going to tear Bradley to pieces.
I telescope myself to the fullest height I can manage. “I do lots of stuff like that,” I say with a bully-type face.
Bradley takes a step back. “I wath going to borrow the dog for a couple of dayth,” he says. “I wanted to win that animal conteth at Guthieth. Thikth buckth, you know? I’m tired of pulling the window in and out every night.”
“Thickth!” a voice says behind us. It’s Yulefski, of course. “That’s it! He meant six! It’s the voice I heard in Vinny’s Vegetables. He must have been talking to himself. And the third clue, the hand, the bandage.” She looks as if she’s solved the mystery single-handed.
Sure.
I turn to Bradley.
Zack comes along in time to hear me warn him. “Don’t give us any more trouble,” I say, knees trembling. “Otherwise . . .” I run my finger across my throat. “Toast!”
“Yeah,” Zack says from behind me.
Bradley nods earnestly. “Don’t worry.”
Zack and I finish cleaning the classroom with one detour. We deliver Fred to Steadman, who is overjoyed.
For once, Linny smiles at us. “As Steadman would say, notobado,” she says.
Only one problem is left. We have to read three books that will change our lives in less than a day.
Chapter 24
Mom stands at the front door with K.G. in her arms and Mary leaning against her legs. “Bye-bye,” Mary calls; Mom smiles at us and waves. Pop is smiling, too. He loves the first day of school. K.G. just screams, but that’s all right; she’s looking good.
We head down the street together, Linny, William, Zack, me, and Steadman for the first time. Fred follows until Steadman gives him a “Gozahome.” Fred turns, skinny tail down, and trots back to the front door.
Next to me, Linny smells like perfume. It’s from the A. Ransom Company. Becca gave it to her for an early birthday present. “Everyone is getting some,” Becca says. “Didn’t your mother get the letter? This is the one.”
She waves the letter around.
I look down at it. Kids: Want to look like more than $1,000,000? Different from all the others? Line up from attic to cellar. Try New You Perfume from the A. Ransom Company.
There’s more, but I don’t bother to read the rest. It’s definitely the kidnap letter.
Sheesh.
“Actually, it’s not so bad to go back to school,” Zack says, and yawns.
I yawn, too. We’ve been up all night, reading. Sentence after sentence. Page after page. Amazing. The books we brought home were all about worms.
Everyone else was up all night, too. K.G. sleeps about twenty minutes at a time. Then Mary chimes in. Fred barks whenever anyone goes near Steadman’s door at night. He’s not going to be kidnapped a second time.
But I’m thinking about the worm books. Did they change our lives? Maybe not yet, but soon. We’re entering the worms in the Gussie’s Gym Pet Contest. They squirm, they wiggle. They actually might do backflips.
I think they have a chance at winning.
I look back at Werewolf Woods and the pond. Bradley says it’s a great fishing spot. He’s been scaring everyone away, but because Zack and I are so tough, he’s invited us to go with him.
Maybe we’ll catch something.
Maybe not.
We go to school, happy.
But then . . .
Instead of reading, we have to write what we did during our summer vacation.
Boring.
Actually, we didn’t do anything. We might have to make the whole thing up. A work of fiction, as Sister Appolonia would say.
About the author
Patricia Reilly Giff is the author of many highly acclaimed books for children, including Lily’s Crossing, a Newbery Honor Book and Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book, Pictures of Hollis Woods, a Newbery Honor Book; and Don’t Tell the Girls: A Family Memoir. An avid reader as a child she was also a reading teacher in New York City public schools for twenty years. She writes, “All of my books are based in some way on my personal experiences, or the experiences of members of my family, or the stories kids would tell me in school.” She now lives in Connecticut with her husband Jim.
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