by Mary Amato
“Swat-a-Lot! You forgot? We invented it after your birthday party last year.”
As soon as I blew up a balloon, Orville remembered. We kneeled on our beds and put our socks on our hands. The important thing is to make your socks dangle. This gives you good swattage-ability. The object of the game is to see how long you can swat the balloon back and forth to each other without you or the balloon touching the ground.
“Ready or not, here I swat!” I threw a balloon into the air and, with my dangling right-handed sock, swatted it over to Orville.
He returned the balloon, putting a cottony spin on it. Low and inside.
“Sweet swat!” I cried, diving to the foot of my bed. I swatted it up and over his head.
“Great Scott! What a shot!” he replied, and jumped up to get it.
We counted each swat.
“We’re up to eight. Keep it coming, Orville!” I shouted as I nailed a curve.
Nine . . . ten . . . eleven . . .
Orville’s hit was high and outside—oh no! A left-handed swat would be required! I grabbed my bedpost and leaned out. With a mighty swing, I reached out with my left . . . and got it!
“Twelve!”
Orville returned with a fly.
Mom walked in and caught it. “That’s enough, boys! Get to bed right now!”
“But it’s not even bedtime and—”
“No buts about it!”
Sadly we pulled our socks off our hands.
“April fool!” Mom said. Then she tickled our bare tootsies. And that was really . . .
The End
P.S. We snuck Slobber under Mom’s pillow. So we got an extra laugh when we heard her scream at her bedtime! Just remember, slobber is what goes on top of a pillow, and Slobber is what goes under a pillow.
ONE
Winkin’ and Blinkin’
Orville and I were in the backyard playing Eyeballs Are Falling one Saturday morning when—
I bet you want me to stop right here and tell you how to play Eyeballs Are Falling.
Well, you’ll just have to wait because Orville and I were right in the middle of our game.
I had our big old cup of eyeballs in my hands, and I was shaking those eyeballs all around. And then I yelled, “Eyeballs are falling!” and I tossed them out of the cup onto the ground. They tumbled and rolled this way and that. Some of them landed with the eyeballs facing the dirt. Some of them landed with the eyeballs staring back at me. I got to keep all the eyeballs that were facing up. “Five!” I said as I plucked out my keepers.
Orville scooped up the remaining eyeballs and put them back in the cup. It was his turn.
Where can you get a whole cupful of real eyeballs to play with, you ask? Well, that’s a slimy and disgusting question. We don’t use real eyeballs! We use rocks, of course, and we draw the eyes on with markers. We invented this game when we were the only kids at a party for grown-ups. The party was in a backyard which was big enough to play soccer in, but everybody just stood around in the middle of all that beautiful grass talking and staring at each other’s eyeballs. So we found a bunch of rocks and turned them into eyeballs and made up this game.
Anyway, back to the story. It was Orville’s turn. He tossed. Eight eyeballs stared up at him! He raised an eyebrow and laughed his evil laugh: “Moi-ha-ha. I must now collect my eyeballs!”
“That gives me an idea for a mission!” I said. We had been racking our brains all morning trying to come up with a good one.
“We’re going to collect eyeballs?” Orville asked.
“No. We’re going to become mad scientists!” I laughed my evil laugh. “Mee-he-he.”
“Not too shabby, Wilbur.”
“Thank you, Orville. Let’s get going. We’ve got a lot of mad scientisting to do.”
“But I’m winning. . . .”
“My point exactly.”
TWO
The Good Thing About Getting a Tomato Thrown in Your Face
Question: What is the first thing a mad scientist needs?
Answer: Breakfast.
“Let’s plan our mad scientist experiments and eat at the same time,” I suggested. “But we have to keep quiet so Mom doesn’t hear.”
“Let’s eat in our secret Riot Brother Hideout!”
“Great idea, Orville. But there’s only one problem. We don’t have one.”
“Then let’s pick a place that Mom wouldn’t suspect.”
We had breakfast in the bathtub. While Orville munched on an apple, I wrote our mission in the Secret Riot Brother Mission Book.
Orville stopped in mid-chew. “So what do mad scientists do?”
I grabbed the apple and took a bite. “They morph stuff together to create new creatures. For example, we could morph you with a cockroach and then you’d have six legs and those freaky antennae sticking out of your head.”
“I don’t like cockroaches. I’d rather be morphed with something I like. How about a cheetah?” He grabbed the apple back.
“Be reasonable, Orville. Where are we going to find a cheetah?” While Orville finished the apple, I made some sketches of morphs.
SCIENTIFIC SKETCHES BY WILBUR
Orville morphed with a Cat
Orville morphed with a Gnat
Orville morphed with a Rat
“Cool,” Orville said. “But what if the cat or gnat or rat doesn’t want to be morphed?”
“Good point, O-bro. How about we morph you with an object so you can become something useful?”
Orville morphed with a Baseball Bat
Orville morphed with a Doormat
Then I made a sketch of a Morphing Machine.
“Perhaps I’ll let you go first,” Orville said.
“Perhaps we should let a friend go first,” I suggested. “Let’s find a victim—I mean, a volunteer. But first we must put on our mad scientist outfits.”
I found white shirts in Mom’s closet that looked like lab coats, and we put those on.
“Now for the gel!” I said.
“Gel?” Orville asked.
I pulled him into the bathroom and slathered gel on his hair to make it stick up. “Mad scientists always look as if they’ve just been zapped with superconducto-currents. See?”
It was a good thing our mission wasn’t just to look like mad scientists, because the story would have been over right then and there.
We ran over to Jonathan Kemp’s house. We could hear their new puppy yelping and jumping on the door. “Remember, we have to keep our mission a secret,” I whispered. “So let’s just ask him if he wants to come over and play.”
Tiffany, Jonathan’s two-year-old sister, opened the door, with the puppy jumping at her feet.
“Hi!” we said. “Can Jonathan—”
Tiffany took one look at us and screamed. “MOMMY!” The puppy ran. Tiffany ran, too.
A moment later, Mrs. Kemp peeked through the window, holding a frying pan. Then she came to the door. “Oh, it’s you two. Tiffany, the bad guys are just Wilbur and Orville, see? Sorry guys, Jonathan is getting a haircut. Looks like you two could use haircuts, too!”
We tried Margaret’s house next. Luckily she answered.
“You guys look . . . a little crazier than usual,” she said.
“Want to come over and play?” I asked.
“Yeah, we don’t think we will give you any permanent brain damage,” Orville added helpfully.
“Uh—I think I value my life too much,” Margaret said. “Maybe next time.”
Orville and I headed home. “Perhaps we shouldn’t experiment with intelligent beings,” I said.
At that very moment, we passed Goliath Hyke’s house.
We stopped. I looked at Orville. Orville looked at me. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.
He nodded. We knocked on the door and backed up. You don’t just stand in Goliath Hyke’s doorway and ask him over to play if you value your life.
Nobody answered. We were about to leave when Goliath stuck his he
ad out a window. “What do you guys think it is . . . Halloween?” he bellowed.
“Hi, Goliath, old buddy, we’re just wondering if you’d like to—”
A bright red object came flying out the window right at us. Quickly I held up my hands and caught it.
A tomato.
(Note: When you catch a tomato, try not to grip it hard in your fingers or it will explode and then your white lab coat will no longer be very white.)
“Gee thanks,” I said, wiping slimy seeds off my arm.
“Does that mean you don’t want to play?” Orville called out.
Goliath threw something else at Orville. It bounced off Orville’s forehead and landed on the ground with a thunk. An apple.
“No thanks!” Orville called. “I already ate one today.”
I picked up the poor bruised apple. An idea was beginning to sprout in my brain. “Orville, we’ve got our volunteers right here! If we blend seeds from one plant with seeds from another and pour the mixture in the ground, we could grow morphed fruits and veggies. A tomato morphed with a green pepper could make a peppery green tomato. We could call it a peppato. An apple morphed with a raspberry could make cute little apple-flavored raspberries. We could call them raspapples. A watermelon morphed with a grape could make a huge grape-flavored watermelon. We could call that a grapelon.”
“A brilliant idea, Wilbur. Hey, Goliath!” Orville called out. “Got any watermelons?”
I pulled Orville away.
“But I like watermelon,” Orville complained.
“Do you like it on your head?”
Orville patted the top of his head. “Good point, Wilbur.”
It’s not every day one brother gets the chance to save another from flying fruit.
THREE
What’s Growing in Your Backyard?
Our mom was in the garden pulling weeds around the daffodils when we arrived home from Goliath’s Fortress of Fruit.
“Hey, we’d like to do a little planting ourselves,” I said.
She looked at us as if we had mushed tomatoes in our brains rather than on our coats. “Since when do you guys like working in the garden?”
Orville pulled me aside and whispered, “Yeah, are you nuts? I don’t want to work in the garden. Besides, we have a mission to accomplish.”
I pulled Orville farther aside and whispered, “We’re not really gardening. . . . We’re experimenting by planting seed mixtures, remember? Grapelons? Raspapples?”
Orville nodded. “Oh yeah, I forgot!”
Before Mom could give us any weed-related chores, we ran inside and raided the refrigerator for fruits and veggies.
In pots and pans and bowls, we mushed together every seedy thing we had, and then we took those mixtures into the backyard. We dug little holes, poured the various mixtures in, and covered them up again with dirt.
After we filled the last hole, Orville and I sat down and stared at the ground.
“How long does it take for stuff to grow?” Orville asked.
“I don’t know.”
A little breeze ruffled the highest leaves on our cherry tree. Otherwise the day was very still.
Orville sighed. “Well, if it doesn’t work, at least there’s a bright side.”
“What’s the bright side?”
“We just provided a whole bunch of worms with gourmet smoothies!”
“How true, Orville. I bet if worms had lips, they’d be licking those lips right now.”
Orville nodded and licked his lips. “I like worms, but if you ever morph me with a worm, Wilbur, leave me my lips, okay?”
“Sure thing, O-bro. Lips are great. They are very important if you want to make funny faces.” I sucked my cheeks in and wiggled my lips like a fish.
“Yeah.” He made giant lips by folding his bottom lip over and sticking his tongue over his top lip.
We practiced sneering for a while by lifting one corner of our top lips, which is always worth doing, and then Orville stopped. “Wilbur,” he said, “do you have the feeling that we are being watched?”
I looked around. All the eyeballs from our game this morning were in a pile in the dirt nearby, staring at us like we were the crazy ones.
I sneered at Orville. Orville sneered at me. “Are you prepared to lose?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Ha! Let the game begin!”
FOUR
Let Those Dishes Get Stinky
Mom dragged us into the kitchen and pointed at the pile of dirty pots and bowls. “Okay, what is this?”
Orville looked at our poor old mother and then he looked at me. “Mom is getting so old she doesn’t even remember what dirty dishes are.” He sighed. “That’s so sad.” Then he added in a whisper, “Maybe we should experiment with her brain.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “I know what dirty dishes are, Orville. I meant, why is the kitchen so messy?”
He grinned. “Well, why didn’t you say so? It’s messy because we’re mad—”
He was about to give away our mission, so I elbowed him. “We’re just mad . . . because someone left dirty dishes in the sink, aren’t we, Orville?” I gave him the secret Riot Brother wink.
Orville got it and looked suitably horrified. “Yes, we are mad! I can’t imagine who has done such a dirtifying thing.”
Mom put her hands on her hips. “I can imagine! And I can imagine just who is going to clean it up right now.”
“Who?” Orville asked.
“You and your brother!”
I looked at the pile of dirty pots. “Mom, if children were meant to wash dishes, sinks would be lower,” I argued.
“Honey, that’s why footstools were invented.” She pushed a stool over to me with her foot and left the kitchen without even waiting to hear the rest of my argument. I didn’t have one, but it would have been nice of her to wait.
“I’m thinking we should morph her with a footstool and sell her to someone with very stinky feet,” Orville muttered.
“I heard that,” Mom called.
I whispered, “We should morph her with something that doesn’t have ears.” Orville squeezed in next to me on the stool and squirted dishwashing soap into the sink. We watched the sink fill up with soap-bubbly water, and then we swished our hands around in the warm foam.
“It’s a crying shame that this beautiful water has to be polluted with dirty dishes,” he said.
I nodded. “Maybe while we wait for the fruitmorphs to grow, we should do a mad scientist experiment to invent something you can cook and eat without any dishes.”
“Food you cook in your mouth,” Orville said.
“I’ve got it! How about we experiment with macaroni and cheese to make it boil in your mouth? No pots! No plates! No microwave! You don’t even need a fork!”
Orville started yelling hooray and blowing foam in the air until Mom called out from the living room, “Sounds like you’re having way too much fun in there!”
“Shhh. Remember Riot Brother Rule Number Twenty-three. If you’re having fun when you’re supposed to be doing a chore, do it quietly so the grown-ups won’t get suspicious.”
“Hooray!” Orville whispered, and put a glob of foam on the end of his nose.
“Come on, these dirty dishes aren’t going anywhere. Let’s design an eye-catching box before we experiment with the macaroni.”
Maybe you can’t judge a book by the cover, but you sure can judge mac and cheese by the box. And ours looked gooooooooooooood.
“Let’s make a TV commercial to go with it!” I suggested. We set up the movie camera. “Hold up our box and pretend you’re eating the most delicious thing in the world,” I told Orville. “Action!”
While Orville chewed, I filmed a close-up of his mouth and made up these lines on the spot, which I said in a very fun, TV-guy voice. “Why do grown-ups say you can’t talk with your mouth full? Orville and I do it all the time. Sometimes the food falls out and lands on the floor, but isn’t that why brooms were invented? I mean, think about the poor
brooms of the world. What if they had nothing to clean up? They’d be miserable. So, do the brooms of the world a favor; sit down at the family table and talk with your mouth open.” Orville grabbed a broom and started dancing with it. “But NOT when you’re eating The Riot Brothers’ Make-in-Your-Mouth Macaroni and Cheese!” He threw the broom aside. “When you’re eating our newest creation, you won’t want to miss a bite!” He kept his mouth closed, grinned, and rubbed his tummy.
“CUT!” I said. “It’s a take!”
“Wow! That was fun,” Orville said. “But now I’m hungry. Let’s try our experiment.”
Just then Mom walked in. Unfortunately for us, in addition to having big ears, our mom also has lousy timing and a really sensitive nose. “I smell dirty dishes,” she said.
“We’ll do them soon.”
“You’ll do them now.”
“But we’re being creative, Mom,” Orville said. “You always like it when we’re creative.”
“I feel a saying coming on,” I said.
“Oh great,” Mom said. I think she really loves my sayings.
I cleared my throat. “Dishes stinking in your sink prove your child knows how to think.”
“How true,” Orville said. “And it rhymes, too!”
“Your sayings should be made into bumper stickers, Wilbur,” Mom said.
“What a great idea!” I exclaimed.
“I was just kidding, Wilbur. Get a sponge and get busy.”
“Mom, not only are we going to wash the dishes, but after our secret experiment is over, we will be able to serve you a delicious dinner that will require no cleaning up whatsoever.”
“I guess it’s my lucky day,” she said. Sometimes, she actually says something that makes sense.
FIVE
Meet Mr. Huffy and Mr. Spitter