Tippy Toler and the Fully Baked Magic Show

by Julia & Marty Kramer

Tippy Toler and the Fully Baked Magic Show

  Book 1

  by Julia Kramer and Marty Kramer

  Illustrations by Julia Kramer

  Copyright 2011 Julia Kramer and Marty Kramer

  For Jennifer and G Money

  Legal stuff

  This book is a work of fiction. That means the authors made all this stuff up. If you think the names, characters, places, and actions describe real people, places, or activities, you’re wrong about that.

  You’re not allowed to reproduce any part of this book in any way unless you have permission from the authors.

  Book 2, Tippy Toler and the Super-Angry Eggs, will be available August 10, 2011

  For more Tippy books and other fun stuff,

  visit TippyToler.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 – A little green surprise

  Chapter 2 - A muffin with legs can be a real problem

  Chapter 3 - You can’t buy much dog food with $1.33

  Chapter 4 - Cats don’t understand English

  Chapter 5 - Hee-haw, little puppy

  Chapter 6 - This could use a little something

  Chapter 7 - Half-baked lemonade

  Made-In-The-Shade Lemonade

  Chapter 8 - Abracadabra … ish

  Chapter 9 - Not all tricks are magic

  Chapter 10 - Check it out!

  Chapter 11 - What did we do?

  Chapter 12 - You can do the banana trick

  Chapter 13 - I see … I saw

  Chapter 14 - Will it help if I stand on my head?

  Want to know how to make a secret message like this?

  Chapter 15 - Most of the time, grape juice belongs in a cup

  Chapter 16 - Being sick as a dog is bad, but I know something worse

  Chapter 17 - You may think you know what you saw, but I’m not sure you really saw what you think you saw

  Chapter 18 - Showtime!

  Chapter 19 - A curious return

  Chapter 20 - That’s a lot of moolah!

  Chapter 21 - Something doesn’t add up here

  Chapter 22 - Anonymous is a rich guy after all

  Chapter 23 - The return of an old friend who isn’t very old

  Pssst! Wanna know a secret?

  About the authors

  CHAPTER 1

  A little green surprise

  Get this … there are rules out there you’ve never heard of. And here’s the worst part. Even though no one told you about them, you still get in trouble if you break one of these secret rules. At least that’s what happened to me.

  You would think if it was SO important to not allow turtles in the house, somebody would mention it. I mean, I was only four … how was I supposed to know? I saw the little greenish-brown guy outside the front window of our house. So I opened the door. He scuffed right over our welcome mat into our house. My little brother crawled over to investigate.

  “Tur-ta!” my little brother chirped.

  The turtle and my baby brother scooched toward each other until those two crawlers were face to face. My brother squealed, and the turtle sucked his head into his shell. That made my brother giggle. When the turtle peeked his head back out, my brother blew on him. The turtle’s head disappeared into the shell again. More giggles. My mother called out from the kitchen, “Everything OK in there?”

  “Buddy Boy’s just laughing,” I said.

  Buddy Boy is my brother’s real name. Well, it’s the name I really call him anyway. My parents named him something else.

  “What’s he laughing about?” asked my mother.

  “He’s playing with a turtle.”

  “Oh, good,” Mom called.

  The turtle and my brother kept playing peek-a-boo until Buddy Boy was laughing so hard, he turned red as ketchup. My mom came into the room and said, “How cute! I don’t remember that toy—who gave it to us?”

  Then my brother blew on the turtle once more. Then the turtle disappeared into its shell again. Then my mom screamed. And that’s how I learned the no-turtles-in-the-house rule.

  CHAPTER 2

  A muffin with legs can be a real problem

  Now that I’m older, I’m not the kind of girl who lets turtles into the house. But I still sometimes break rules I’ve never heard of. And I still get in trouble. Even though it’s not my fault. I mean, Don’t let turtles into the house, and Don’t let puppies into the house are two TOTALLY different rules, right?

  That’s what I was thinking last month when I saw the furry little dog outside our house. He looked like a muffin with eyes, ears, and legs. I figured that since Umpy lived in our house when he was a puppy, we didn’t have a no-puppies-in-the-house rule. Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you can’t use logic when it comes to rules, as you will soon see.

  When I opened the door, the puppy ran straight past me into the den. Seconds later, my Mom shouted, “Tipitina Louise!” That’s my “in-trouble” name. Usually, she calls me my nickname like everyone else does: Tippy. It rhymes with “zippy,” which I usually am. And when you put it together with my last name, it kinda sounds like you’re saying tippy toes. Tippy Toler … see?

  “What is this animal doing in our house?” my mom asked when I came into the den. What it was doing in our house right then was chewing the foam cover on one of our stereo speakers. But I decided to keep that information to myself. My mother continued: “I thought I made our rules very clear years ago when you let that turtle in here,” she said.

  “You did,” I answered. “No turtles in the house. But, as I’m sure you know, this is no turtle.” There. I had explained my point clearly and was waiting on her apology. For some reason, though, my mother just frowned. “This is a puppy,” I went on. I figured she needed a little help untangling all this. “A really cute puppy. You didn’t say anything about really cute puppies.”

  “And I didn’t say anything about alligators or yaks, either.”

  “We have a no-yak rule, too? How am I supposed to keep up with all this? Is there a list somewhere?”

  “I’ll make it simple,” my mother said. “Do not let ANY animals in the house. Ever.”

  “Not even Umpy? Or Umpy?” My cat and dog have the same name ’cause I named them when I was just learning how to talk. Well, they already had other names, but I still call them Umpy. I also have a stuffed kangaroo named Umpy and an elephant named Ed. (Yeah, I know ... he just didn’t look like an Umpy.)

  “Yes, we have an Umpy exception,” stated my mother. “But no other animals. Are we clear?” She popped her eyes open wide, waiting for my answer.

  “Clear,” I said.

  “Good,” she answered.

  She could tell by looking at me that my part of the conversation wasn’t quite over. So she gave me a look that meant I should get out with it. And I did. “What if I name this puppy Little Umpy?” I asked. “Can we keep him?”

  My mother sighed deeply. And that’s when she told me about the animal shelter.

  CHAPTER 3

  You can’t buy much dog food with $1.33

  The animal shelter is a kinda good place with some bad parts thrown in. It made me happy at first because there are lots of cats and dogs there. The problem is that none of them have families. And my mom wouldn’t let me take any of them home! I know … what’s her deal, right? It’s even worse than you think! We went there to drop off the lost puppy I had let into our house.

  Puppy Pup, as I had named the little guy, acted super jittery at the shelter. I tried to calm him down by petting him. I regret to inform you that this was not a good idea. You see, if you’re petting a puppy, you can’t really hold him with both hands. And if you can
’t hold him with both hands, he can squirt out of your lap. And if he does that, he’ll probably scramble all over the place like a monkey on roller skates.

  Puppy Pup jumped on a chair, skittered up on the counter, and hopped onto a stack of dog-food bags. When he vaulted off, the top bag tumbled to the ground. It hit a water bowl on the ground, then cracked open and spilled all over the place.

  “Oh, no!” said the woman who worked there.

  “He didn’t mean to,” I said. “He’s just a nervous puppy.”

  “I know. It’s just that we need every bag of food we’ve got.”

  “I can sweep up this food. I’m an excellent sweeper.”

  “Thanks, but the food’s all wet and …”

  “Buy more food!” suggested Buddy Boy. I have to say, that little dude can come up with some surprisingly smart ideas now and then.

  “We’re running so, sooo low on funds,” said the woman.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Don’t you have enough money to feed the dogs and cats?”

  The woman explained how they get their money from nice people who want to help the lost dogs and cats. But there are many more dogs and cats than they can afford at the shelter.

  I dug into my pockets. “Here,” I said. It’s only a dollar and 33 cents. But you can have it.”

  “Every bit helps,” said the woman. “Thank you.”

  That gave me an outstanding idea. I announced, “I know someone who has way more than a dollar and 33 cents!” and I smiled up at my mother. Perhaps she didn’t see how sweetly I was looking at her, because she stared back at me with a look like she’d just eaten a rotten pickle. “Well, you do.” I said.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Mom said, and she sat down with the animal-shelter lady to fill out some papers about Puppy Pup. She told me and Buddy Boy that we could look around at the animals. “But don’t go too far,” she warned.

  “Aye-aye, Captain!” I said as I saluted her. “That will be one-thousand percent easy to do!” And it would have been. But I had forgotten how things can get a wee bit tricky when your little brother is with you. Little brothers do things you just never would expect. Like opening a cat’s cage when no one is looking.

  CHAPTER 4

  Cats don’t understand English

  Maybe cats understand French or Russian, but they never learned English. Here’s how I know. We had walked around the corner and saw some kitties in cages. “Don’t you wish we could let all these animals out of their pens?” I said. And before I knew what he was doing, Buddy Boy opened a cage and let one out.

  The fuzzy gray cat inside plopped down to the ground and started to walk away. “Stop right there!” I said. But that meow-er strolled on. I thought maybe she didn’t hear me, so I turned up my volume. “I said freeze, you little puffball!” The kitty pranced away. See? No English. My little brother, though, understood English perfectly. He froze in his tracks.

  “I’m not a puffball,” Buddy Boy said.

  “I was talking to the cat, you little French fry.”

  “Not a French fry, either,” he argued.

  Normally, that’s when I would have called him Captain Pancake or Spaghetti Eddie, but there was no time for fun then. The cat was getting away.

  “Get that cat!” I yelled, and I darted after it.

  What a chase! We followed that ball of fur under benches, over cages, down hallways, and through two open doors. Finally, the kitty dashed into an open door leading to the men’s bathroom. “Gotcha!” I said.

  “You can’t go in there,” Buddy Boy said. He was wrong. I could have used my two feet to walk in there super easy. But Buddy Boy was sort of right, too … on a technicality. I didn’t WANT to go in there. So I told him to go in and flush the cat out. He got a squeamish look on his face. “We can’t flush the kitty,” he said.

  I chuckled. “Not a toilet flush. Just shoo her out towards me … that kind of flush.”

  Buddy Boy got chipper again. “I can do that!”

  I think you’ll be impressed with this … my plan worked. Buddy Boy chased her straight at me and I scooped her up in my arms.

  We took her back to her cage, but my mom and that woman weren’t near there anymore. I started thinking of the best ways to find them. What I didn’t know was that Buddy Boy was working on a plan of his own. “Mommy-Mommy-Mommy!!!” he cried out. You know what? Sometimes the simple ideas work best. My mother came running back in the room, breathing hard.

  “Where were you?” she asked. “Why did you leave this room? What were you thinking?”

  “Which question do you want me to answer first?” I said.

  “I was so worried.”

  I told my mother the whole story. “Honey, you can’t say things like ‘Don’t you wish’ to your brother. It’s too tempting. It’s like you’ve given him permission to actually do something.”

  “Now you tell me,” I said. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the answer my mom was hoping for. I could tell by the way she made her squinty face at me.

  I tried a different approach as we walked back to our car. “I’ll train Buddy Boy better.” That wasn’t quite right either. Then I hit upon just the thing. “I’m sorry?” I said sheepishly. My mother patted me on the head.

  The animals in their cages remind me of a brain teaser. Ready?

  How many onions can you put in an empty box if the box is three feet tall, three feet wide, and three feet long?

  Think about it a minute, then read on!

  Want a hint before I give you the answer? I love giving hints. Here goes … brain teasers sometimes put in stuff that doesn’t really matter. In this one, I could’ve asked about cucumbers or golf balls rather than onions. And the size of the box doesn’t matter either. Focus on the “empty box” part of the question.

  Here it is again: How many onions can you put in an empty box if the box is three feet tall, three feet wide, and three feet long?

  Ready for the answer? Read on!

  OK, I know you were expecting the answer. But are you sure you’re ready for it? I mean, you’re going to kick yourself when you see how easy this is. Alright. I’ll tell you.

  The answer is one onion. As soon as you put one onion in the box, it isn’t empty anymore!

  CHAPTER 5

  Hee-haw, little puppy

  “How much money do you have?” I asked my dad. Sometimes he doesn’t like to talk about money, so I acted as sweet as can be.

  He cocked his head to the left. “Why do you ask, Tippy?”

  “Dad?” I continued. “Don’t you think every dog and cat deserves a good home?”

  “Is this a trick question?”

  “Not unless you say no.”

  “Of course every dog and cat deserves a good home,” he said, “as long as it isn’t our home.”

  “Oh, Daddy, I would never ask to keep all the dogs and cats from the shelter at our house. Silly little Daddy. So … just how much money do you have?”

  “Tippy, I’ve learned better than to answer your questions like that. First tell me why you want to know.”

  I could have just told him. But that wouldn’t work at all. I’ve been studying how my dad works for a long time. So instead of telling him why I was asking the question, I told him to sit back and enjoy the show.

  “Oh, Buddy Boy!” I called out. My little brother bobbed into the room on all fours and barked. “Hello, little puppy wuppy,” I said. That’s when I found out that I should have picked a different actor to play the part of the dog.

  Buddy Boy whispered, “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Whimper,” I whispered back. He tried, but sounded more like an angry donkey than a dog. It was all creaky-ish. Oh, well … the show must go on.

  “Oh, the puppy’s so sad, Dad,” I said. My father crossed his arms. “And he looks so hungry,” I continued. “Don’t you think he’d be happier if he had more food?” Buddy Boy’s angry-donkey whimpers got louder. “What did ya say, little guy? The shelter ran out
of food because they need more money? Oh, that’s awful. If only a rich college professor would give the shelter money, they could buy more food. Then you could be happy.”

  I could tell this wasn’t going so well when my Dad did his famous eye-roll. “First of all, stop that horrible noise,” he said to my brother. Then he turned to me. “Second, I’m not rich. Not even close. But, if you think the shelter needs more money, I do have an idea.”

  “What?! What?!” I screamed. “What is it?! I NEED TO KNOW RIGHT NOW!!”

  My brother barked.

  My Dad said, “You could raise money. With a charity project.”

  “A charity project? Perfect. So … would you like to be the very first person to donate to my charity project for the animal shelter?”

  “No, Tippy. I mean you could do something to make money … like a lemonade stand. We could do some research to find a lemonade recipe that will wow your customers.”

  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a college professor would suggest researching lemonade recipes. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not the kind of girl who has time to stand around swapping recipes when hungry dogs and cats need me. “I have no time for that!” I told him. “I have to call Missy Lane. We have a lemonade stand to run!”

  CHAPTER 6

  This could use a little something

  I went straight to the phone and dialed my very best friend, Missy Lane. I like to say her whole name at once. It sounds like “Miss Elaine”—like she’s a fancy older girl. Even though she’s not.

  I told her all about the animal shelter and the lemonade stand and the dogs and cats that were counting on us. That’s all she had to hear. Missy Lane was on board. Her mom dropped her off at my house 20 minutes later.

  Missy Lane and I went right to the kitchen to stir up a batch of tasty-licious lemonade. My dad said he would supervise, but all he was doing was reading the newspaper and calling out every few minutes, “Everything OK?” That was just fine with me … you don’t need a college degree to figure out how to make lemonade. It’s gotta start with lemons, right?

  We used every single lemon from my fridge and all the lemons Missy Lane brought from her house. We squeezed all the lemon juice into a pitcher. Then Missy Lane tasted it. Not good. I knew because of the look on her face. If there was such a thing as a mouth-puckering contest, she would have won. She could barely squeeze the words out of her crooked lips. “Too sour.”