Snarf Attack, Underfoodle, and the Secret of Life

by Mary Amato

  “I know what you mean,” I whispered. We were quiet for a few seconds.

  “Hey Pooky Waddles,” he whispered.

  “Yes, Onion-head?” I whispered back.

  “We found a hidden treasure, didn’t we?”

  “Yep.”

  Even though it was too dark to see him, I could hear my brother grin.

  “Guess what else?” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “You saved someone from doom!”

  “I did?”

  “You saved me from Doom! Get it?”

  Orville started to laugh.

  Then the kissing machine threw open the door, and we all screamed.

  The End

  ONE

  What’s Cookin’?

  If you’re like me, Wilbur Riot, you hate falling asleep. So here is Riot Brother Rule #7: Stay awake as long as possible.

  One night in February, I was following my own rule. It was bedtime. I was staying awake as long as possible by playing The Frying Pan Game with my brother Orville.

  To play The Frying Pan Game, you imagine that your bed is a giant frying pan. You act like food frying in the pan, and your brother has to guess what kind of food you are.

  It was my turn. I stretched myself out on my bed and lay very still. Then I flipped over onto my stomach.

  “A dead shark?” Orville whispered.

  “NO!”

  I flipped again.

  “Pigs’ feet?”

  “NO!”

  “Naked mole-rat brains?”

  “I’m a pancake, Orville! What’s wrong with you? I looked exactly like one!”

  Orville grinned. “I thought you looked exactly like fried pigs’ feet.”

  “Ha. Ha. Your turn.”

  Orville oozed onto his bed, wiggling his arms and legs.

  “Noodles?”

  “Nope.”

  “Green beans?”

  “Nope.”

  “I give up.”

  Orville oozed some more. “I’m snot!” He started cracking up. “Who wants fried snot?” He wiggled over to my bed.

  “Yuck! Go slime yourself!”

  Mom appeared in the doorway. “Enough with the sliming. Go to sleep.”

  “How can we go to sleep if we don’t know where it is?” I argued.

  Orville giggled.

  “Very funny,” Mom said. “It’s time to fall asleep.”

  “Fall asleep? Do Orville and I really fall when we sleep?”

  “Good night!” Orville rolled out of bed and landed on the floor with a thud. I started cracking up.

  “Get back in bed, Orville. Close your eyes, Wilbur.”

  “But how can I close my eyes? Eyes don’t really close—”

  “Close your eyelids, Wilbur! And no more laughing, Orville.”

  “Okay, no more laughing!” Orville threw himself onto his bed, closed his eyelids, and sang loudly: “On top of Old Smokey, all covered with snot, I dropped my poor mother. She screamed a whole lot!”

  We both howled.

  “You two are incorrigible.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “I think it’s a kind of cardboard,” Orville said.

  Mom laughed and turned out the light. “Good night!”

  She stood outside the door, so we had to be quiet. I stared at the ceiling and practiced flaring my nostrils.

  Flaring your nostrils is on The Riot Brother Top Ten List of Important Things to Be Able to Do with Your Face. You will find the complete list in The Official Riot Brother Handbook that I plan to publish in the near future.

  Why, you ask, is being able to flare your nostrils so important?

  Don’t ask. It just is.

  Anyway, I must have worn myself out practicing. As I heard my mom walking down the stairs, I felt myself falling asleep.

  “Oh no!” I thought to myself. “I don’t want to be falling asleep!”

  A moment passed.

  Then, this strange feeling came over me—or rather it came under me. My bed turned into a giant frying pan, and my room turned into the sea. “Either I’m in a giant frying pan floating on the sea,” I thought to myself, “or else I’m dreaming.”

  Above me, the face of a huge naked mole-rat wearing a chef hat appeared. He grinned and flipped me with a monster-sized spatula. Up I flew, sailing toward the clouds. Whee! I’m a bird! I’m a plane! Oh! No whee! I’m falling!

  I splashed into the sea and plunged down. A hundred sharks were swimming toward me, their nostrils flaring. Wait a minute! Do sharks have nostrils? I looked around. Where is an undersea library when you need one? Yuck—the sharks’ nostrils were filled with snot! They were coming closer—

  A snorgling noise filled the room.

  I sat up in my bed, thinking that I had been sprayed with shark snot. Then I realized I was safe in my bed.

  The noise came again. Maybe I wasn’t safe. The noise was real!

  I listened. The snorgling came every few seconds.

  It was clearly the sound of wild pig feet clawing through the wall by Orville’s bed.

  I turned on the bedside lamp. “Wake up, Orville,” I whispered. “Wild pig attack!”

  “What?” Orville sat up, and the snorgling stopped.

  “Either a wild pig was busting the wall or else you were snoring.”

  Orville looked at the wall. “It was probably me. I’ll try to wait until you fall asleep before I snore again, Wilbur.”

  “Thank you, Orville. For a third grader, you can be very thoughtful. Tomorrow, you may pick our mission.”

  “You’re kidding?” His eyes got huge.

  “As long as you don’t pick capturing a bank robber or finding a hidden treasure because we’ve already done those.”

  “Right!” Orville said. “I’ll think up a good one!”

  “Excellent!” I said and turned off the light.

  TWO

  Snow Business

  “I’ve got one.” Orville jumped out of bed and turned on the light.

  In case you were wondering: exactly one minute had passed since I had turned off the light.

  “Let’s overthrow a king!” he said.

  I nodded. “Not too shabby, Orville. But it has to be a bad king. People don’t overthrow good kings.”

  “Right!”

  “And we both get to share the throne!”

  “We can be king brothers!”

  “There’s only one tiny problem, Orville.”

  “What’s that, Wilbur?”

  “Tomorrow is a school day. It may be difficult to overthrow a king and go to school at the same time.”

  Orville nodded. “We need a Snow Day.”

  I jumped out of bed. “Let’s do The Secret Snow Day Ceremony.”

  “Bingo bongo!” Orville said.

  What is The Secret Snow Day Ceremony, you ask?

  I’ll tell you. But don’t tell anybody else. You do The Secret Snow Day Ceremony at night when you want to make it snow. Here’s how:

  1. Put your pajamas on backward.

  2. Put white socks on your hands.

  3. Wave your socky hands up high and chant: “Snow, Snow, do not stop. Pretty please with whipped cream on top!”

  4. Throw your pillow in the air like a giant snowball and try to catch it with your head three times.

  5. Go to sleep upside down.

  We did all these things. After a few minutes of lying upside down in the darkness, Orville whispered: “Are you still awake?”

  “Yes.” I tried to scratch an itch on my nose with my sock.

  “Wilbur, did this work the last time we tried it?”

  “I don’t remember,” I said.

  “Maybe we should do something more.”

  An idea leaped into my brain so fast it almost missed. “Let’s make the ground outside white and when Mom opens the shades, she’ll think it snowed.”

  Orville grinned. “And since she’s the principal, she’ll call off school.”

  How would we
do it? We came up with some excellent possibilities.

  Unfortunately, we could foresee a few tiny problems.

  TINY PROBLEMS

  1. What if owls, bats, raccoons, and possums eat all the popcorn before morning?

  2. What if the flour mixes with dew and turns to papier-mâché?

  3. What if clowns steal the sheets to make a new circus tent?

  Tiny problems can lead to even bigger problems.

  EVEN BIGGER

  PROBLEMS

  1. What if the owls, bats, raccoons, and possums eat too much, and their stomachs burst, and we have to clean up the yard?

  2. What if the mailman comes just as the sun begins to shine, and the papier-mâché dries, and his feet get permanently stuck on our lawn?

  3. What if the clowns later feel so guilty about stealing the sheets that they stop clowning around and the circus goes out of business?

  Even bigger problems can lead to GIGANTIC problems.

  “We need a new plan,” I said.

  “How about we sneak around and tape white paper on all the windows?” Orville suggested. “In the morning, when Mom opens the shades she’ll see white and think it snowed.”

  To tell you the truth, I knew it wasn’t going to work. But the sneaking part sounded fun.

  “Let’s get to work!” I said.

  THREE

  You Won’t

  Believe This

  When we ran downstairs in the morning, the shades were still down everywhere, except in the dining room where our mom was reading the newspaper. That shade was up, and the white paper we had taped on the window was there.

  Last night, in the dark, the white paper looked like a blanket of snow. Now, the white paper looked like white paper. It couldn’t have possibly fooled her.

  Mom looked up from her newspaper. “Good morning, boys! Guess what?”

  “It snowed?” Orville asked hopefully.

  “Yes!”

  Our mouths dropped open. The paper trick worked!

  “School is officially canceled!”

  Orville looked at me. I looked at Orville.

  I gave him a Don’t-Give-Our-Secret-Away look. But my insides were dancing and shouting: We tricked her! We tricked her!

  Calmly, I turned to Mom. “What a surprise!”

  “I know you want to play in the snow,” she said. “But you have to eat breakfast first.”

  “Oh, we don’t want to play in the snow,” I said.

  Orville looked surprised. “I do!”

  “No, you don’t,” I whispered. “We have to overthrow a king, remember?”

  “But I’d rather play in the snow.”

  I pulled Orville into the bathroom and lifted up the shade. “Orville, there isn’t any snow! We tricked her.”

  Orville looked at the white paper taped on the window. “I forgot.”

  We walked back into the dining room.

  “We don’t want to play in the snow,” Orville said.

  Mom stared at us. “Something strange happened last night, didn’t it?”

  We froze. Did she know about the paper?

  She leaned forward and looked at us suspiciously. “You’re aliens from Mars. And you’ve kidnapped my real children! The real Wilbur and Orville wouldn’t want to stay inside on a Snow Day.”

  Orville and I looked at each other with relief. “Ha! Ha! Ha!” We laughed.

  “Now I know you’re aliens! My boys never laugh at my jokes.”

  “Ha! Ha! Ha!” We laughed even louder.

  “Wilbur,” Orville whispered after we stopped laughing. “What exactly does it mean to overthrow a king?”

  “It was your idea.”

  “I know. But just because it was my idea doesn’t mean I understand it.”

  “It means to kick the bad king out and take his place as a good king.”

  “But how do we do the overthrowing? Do we need some kind of overthrowing machine?”

  For a minute, I was stumped. I hadn’t thought about how we were going to actually do the overthrowing. A machine sounded handy. “I’ve got it!” I said. “Let’s invent a catapult with a chair attached to it. We’ll give it to the king and say: ‘Here is your new throne, Your Majesty.’ And when the king sits in the chair . . . Whoosh!! He’ll go flying! We’ll call it The King Flinger.”

  “Or we can put mashed potatoes in the chair and fling them into his face!” Orville grinned. “We can call it The Thing to Fling Things at the King with a Zing!”

  “Not too shabby,” I said. “How about The Flinger for short?”

  FOUR

  Flinging

  Unfortunately, you weren’t in our basement to see the actual making of The Flinger. But you can see our official sketches. We modeled it after the teeter-totter. The idea was that when one of us jumped on the end, the king would fly off the throne.

  After we finished, we wanted to test it. “I get to be the king,” Orville said.

  “I should be the king,” I argued. “I’m older.”

  “I’m lighter. I’ll fly better.”

  I hate it when Orville is right.

  I pretended to take off a pretend hat. “Your Majesty, may it pleaseth you. We have brought you a new throne.”

  Orville frowned. “You dirtbag! Why would I wanteth a new throne? My old throne is fine!”

  “Your Majesty, you needeth a new throne because you have such a . . . kingly bottom. Your royal rear is worth a thousand dirtbags!”

  “You’re right, O Lowly Servant. I have the finest bottom in all the land.” Orville stuck out his rear and sang: “O everyone loves my fine, fine bottom!” He hopped into the chair, and I climbed up onto the washing machine.

  “Your Majesty. I bid you farewell . . .” I jumped onto the end of The Flinger.

  Orville went flying . . . into me!

  “Wwwhhhoooaa!” We screamed and landed with a crash in a pile of empty boxes.

  I pulled a box off my head.

  Riot Brother Rule #8: When you see

  something flinging toward your head, duck.

  “Ouch,” Orville said. He pulled his leg out of the mess and shook his foot, which was jammed into an empty Doodie Diaper Wipe container. Our mom is very crafty. She collects empty diaper wipe boxes to store craft supplies. “I think my foot is stuck forever.”

  Mom walked in. “Don’t tell me. You’re inventing again. What is it?”

  Orville looked at me. I could tell what he was thinking. We love it when our mom says: “Don’t tell me,” because then we can keep our secrets.

  “Wait, let me guess!” Mom said. “You’re inventing a mess?”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” I laughed.

  Orville stuck a Doodie Diaper Wipe box on his other foot and stood up. “We’re inventing new boots!” He shuffled around with the boxes on his feet. “Doodie boots!”

  “Yes!” I said. “See how the plastic containers will protect shoes from the snow!”

  I squashed my feet into Doodie Diaper Wipe boxes. “And they’re so comfortable!”

  “And Doodie cheap!” Orville said. He slid around the basement floor.

  I held out my arms. “You’ve heard of snowboards. Well these are snow boots. You can slide around on the snow with them.”

  Orville did a running slide, falling down at the end. “They’re great for wiping out!”

  “We call them Wipe-Out Boots,” I exclaimed.

  “Doodie Wipe-Out Boots!”

  “Doodie Dude Wipe-Out Boots!”

  Mom laughed. “And what’s this?” She looked at The Flinger.

  “That is a machine for . . . uh . . .”

  “Wait! Let me guess. It’s a machine for throwing snowballs!” she said.

  Orville looked at me. I looked at Orville. “Not too shabby!” we said.

  Mom laughed. “Hey! I finally guessed right!”

  Riot Brother Rule #9:

  Every once in a while,

  let grown-ups think they’re right.

  “Speaking of snow,” sh
e said. “Why don’t you test it outside?”

  Orville and I froze.

  “You can try your new boots, too, but only if you promise to be careful.”

  Mom picked up one side of The Flinger. “I’ll help you carry it out!”

  “No!” I jumped in to take her place. “We can do it by ourselves, right, Orville?”

  Orville looked at me as if I was crazy. “But Wilbur, don’t you remember?” He mouthed the words: “No snow?”

  I made one of my famous Just-Go-Along-With-It faces. “We’d love to play in the snow all by ourselves, wouldn’t we, Orville?”

  Orville nodded, getting it. If Mom went out and discovered there was no snow, we’d be in big trouble. “You stay inside and keep warm, Mom.”

  Quickly we carried The Flinger up the stairs. This is not an easy thing to do when you’re wearing diaper-wipe containers on your feet.

  “Wait!” I cried. I felt a saying coming on.

  Orville balanced on the middle step and listened politely.

  I cleared my throat. “Do not judge a person,” I said, “until you have walked in his diaper-wipe boxes for two moons.”

  “I don’t get it,” Orville said.

  “Wait! I feel another saying coming on.” I cleared my throat. “If you say something and nobody gets it, say something else.”

  “Will you stop saying sayings, Wilbur!”

  “Okay. How about this?” I cleared my throat and made the loudest burp ever.

  Orville laughed.

  “If you say something and nobody gets it, burp.”

  Orville nodded. “Now that’s a good one.”

  FIVE

  Down with

  the King

  We put on our hats, coats, and mittens and carried our machine out the door. I was walking backward, holding onto the chair part.

  The light was blinding.

  Squinting, we set down The Flinger in the snow and—

  Orville looked at me. I looked at Orville. His eyes were huge. “It snowed!” we both screamed.