My Worst Frenemy

by Marcus Emerson

  All heads turned toward Carlyle’s robot.

  Finally, I stopped. Through the fog of pine scented cologne, I watched as Calypso tried to wobble away from the manly musk of lumberjacks.

  But the robot couldn’t move fast enough. The cloud of cologne drifted slowly around it. And then the sneezing fit started. Over and over, Calypso sneezed. And each sneeze grew stronger than the last.

  ‘No!’ Carlyle said. ‘You can’t get my robot wet! That’s cheating! She’ll short circuit! I mean, it’ll short circuit!’

  With a final, super strong sneeze, Calypso doubled over, sending its head flying through the ring. It rolled to a stop at the bottom of the staircase.

  Dr Tenderfoot stared at the robot’s head on the floor in front of him. When he looked back at Calypso, he pressed his lips to one side of his face and shook his head slowly.

  Calypso was still in the ring. The robot’s body was intact, blinking with colourful lights. On top of the robot’s shoulders was another head, but it wasn’t a robot.

  It was Olive. Olive dressed in a robot costume.

  Slug gasped. ‘Olive’s been turned into a machine!’

  Gidget sighed heavily, shaking her head. ‘It’s a costume, dude … How are we even related?’

  Slug’s eyebrows furrowed a bit as he breathed through his mouth. ‘Oh, that makes more sense.’

  Olive sat in the centre of the ring, shocked. But her frown flipped into a smile because what else can you do when you get caught cheating? And then she sneezed one final time. It was strong enough that she tipped over and fell to the ground.

  The rest of the robot costume peeled apart. Olive had been moving the robot using the tricycle I had seen in the science lab.

  Dr Tenderfoot didn’t waste a second with accusations or speeches about cheating and disappointment. He pointed at Hup-Hup, and announced, ‘We have our winner, ladies and gentlemen!’

  ‘Why couldn’t you hold your sneezes back?’ Carlyle said angrily.

  Olive was rolling around on the floor, stuck in her robot costume. ‘Because I’m human! He sprayed that garbage all over and made me sneeze like crazy! Gag! So gross!’

  ‘Well, thanks to your dumb allergies, we lost!’ Carlyle said.

  ‘Don’t you dare blame me for this!’ Olive said. ‘This was your idea! And because of that, we’re out a million bucks!’

  ‘A million dollars?’ Dr Tenderfoot said into the mic. ‘There’s no way that ridiculous costume cost a million dollars to make.’

  Carlyle glared at the man with the moustache. ‘No, ye scurvy-infested fool! The million-dollar prize for the winner of the competition!’

  The crowd fell silent.

  ‘Scurvy-infested fool?’ Dr Tenderfoot repeated.

  ‘Oh, snap!’ Slug whispered. ‘Carlyle’s finished!’

  ‘Whoops,’ Carlyle said.

  Tenderfoot didn’t say anything else to Carlyle after that. He just waved his hand at Principal Davis, who understood immediately that he was supposed to remove the pirate from the room.

  Olive wiggled around to free herself from her costume. It took nearly a minute and everyone watched in awkward silence.

  Finally, she managed to get it off. She was still sneezing every few seconds. Then she looked at Wyatt with soft eyes. ‘Hey, babe! Looks like we won, huh?’

  Wyatt scrunched his nose, shocked that Olive was trying to switch sides again. Principal Davis shouted for her to get to the library doors.

  A bunch of students covered their mouths and said, ‘Ohhhhhhhhhh!’

  Dr Tenderfoot continued quickly. ‘Would the leader of the real winning team please come to the staircase?’

  Zoe patted my back, nudging me forward. It was a little embarrassing, but in a good way.

  But as I started for the staircase, Wyatt grabbed my elbow, pulling me back. He peeled out past me, running at full speed until he got to Dr Tenderfoot’s side, halfway up the stairs.

  ‘What’s he …’ I said.

  Wyatt pointed his fingers at the crowd, and then grabbed the microphone from Dr Tenderfoot, but not without a small struggle from the man with a moustache.

  Naomi stood next to me, and together we watched as Wyatt did his usual ‘Wyatt’ thing.

  ‘Thank you!’ he said into the microphone. ‘Thank you so very much! It’s been a long journey, but I did it! With the help of my team, of course! But it was mostly me, the team captain! So here I am, ready to claim the prize on behalf of my team!’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Dr Tenderfoot asked.

  ‘Yup,’ Wyatt said. ‘Lay that million bucks on me, Dr Tenderbutt. I’m ready to be so rich that I can literally buy happiness!’

  Dr Tenderfoot looked confused. ‘Who said anything about a million dollars?’

  ‘Uhhhh,’ Wyatt said. ‘It’s not a million bucks? That’s fine. Whatever the prize is, I’ll go ahead and take it now. It’s still a prize greater than I can imagine!’

  ‘It is, young man,’ Dr Tenderfoot said. ‘The prize is …’

  Tenderfoot paused for effect. All the kids in the library fell silent, waiting for him to drop the bomb.

  Even Wyatt was staring, slack-jawed. His eyes grew wider with every nanosecond that passed.

  ‘Victory,’ Dr Tenderfoot said with a calm voice.

  Wyatt dropped the mic, but it was so quiet that everyone could still hear his voice. ‘Victory?’

  ‘Victory is its own reward,’ Tenderfoot said, pinching the end of his moustache.

  ‘That’s nothing,’ Wyatt said. ‘That’s not something greater than I can imagine! Something greater than I can imagine would be a trip to Saturn! It’d be my own island in the Bahamas! It’d be a million bucks!’

  ‘Whoa,’ I said, blown away – but seriously, not at all bothered by what Dr Tenderfoot had said.

  ‘The machine your team built won the competition,’ Dr Tenderfoot explained. ‘You may not think much of it, but look at the other two teams … one cheated, and one completely disappeared. Only your robot remains in the ring. This competition wasn’t as easy as everyone thought it would be, was it?’

  Wyatt didn’t answer.

  ‘So the reward for the winning team,’ Dr Tenderfoot said again, ‘is victory. You’ve overcome great hurdles to get here. Imagine what else you could do.’

  ‘Laaaaame,’ Wyatt sang, but he wasn’t one to miss an opportunity to gloat. He put his hands in the air and waved victoriously.

  The applause from the crowd was slow and awkward at first, but eventually grew into a mighty roar that sounded like it was going to bring down the house. Kids will cheer for anything if enough people are cheering with them.

  And Wyatt ate it up. He put his hands together over his head and pumped them up and down. This was his reward. This was his victory.

  Naomi nudged me with her elbow. ‘You can stop this, you know. You’re the team captain. It should be you up there.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, watching Wyatt. ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘I didn’t think you would,’ Naomi smiled.

  Everyone was cheering loud enough that nobody could hear our conversation.

  ‘Just because Carlyle and Olive were busted doesn’t mean the red and green ninjas are finished,’ I explained. ‘They’ll be back, and I think I’m going to need Wyatt’s help. If I go up there and call him out, he’ll just get angry. Besides, look at him. I think he needs this more than I do.’

  Naomi watched Wyatt overdo it on the staircase. He had started flexing his arms and posing like a body builder.

  I knew I wasn’t going to get in the middle of a family feud between Wyatt and Carlyle, but I couldn’t be sure they would keep me out of it.

  ‘But you’re letting him get away with a lie,’ Naomi said.

  ‘Nah, I don’t see it like that,’ I said. ‘We couldn’t have built Hup-Hup without Wyatt’s help. It doesn’t make a difference whether it’s him or me up there. And as the actual team leader, I’m okay with him taking credit. It’s not a battle worth fight
ing. And right now, with what Carlyle’s done, I think we’ll need as many people on our side as we can get. I have this awful feeling that a war is coming.’

  ‘So you’re cool with all this?’ Naomi asked me. ‘You’re forgiving him?’

  I thought about it for a second. ‘Yeah,’ I said without a doubt. ‘Isn’t that the risk you take whenever you forgive anyone? Either they’ve changed, or they’ll burn you again.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Naomi said. ‘It’s never as black and white as that though. I don’t even think this is about Wyatt, is it?’

  I couldn’t help but smile. ‘If I didn’t let him on our team, I’d be on the path to the dark side.’

  ‘Nerd,’ Naomi rolled her eyes. ‘Such a nerd.’

  I laughed and Naomi slugged me in the arm. Great. Now Naomi was in on it too.

  Wyatt was still on the staircase handing out high fives like he invented them. Dr Tenderfoot wasn’t next to him anymore.

  In fact, he was next to me.

  ‘Impressive work, Chase Cooper,’ Dr Tenderfoot said.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, and then waved to the rest of my friends behind me. ‘But I couldn’t have done it without my team.’

  ‘Well, they had a good leader,’ Tenderfoot said. The monocle on his eye reflected the library lights.

  I bit my lip, glancing at Wyatt.

  ‘I’m not talking about that showboat,’ Dr Tenderfoot said. ‘I’m talking about you.’

  I was speechless, even though my mouth was trying to say something.

  ‘Don’t make a thing of it, young man,’ Dr Tenderfoot said. ‘That’s what makes you, you. You don’t need all the …’ He waved his hands at Wyatt and made an annoyed face. ‘Show.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. Then I remembered the blank slips of paper from the beginning of the week. ‘Hey, about the names you picked out of your hat …’

  ‘What about them?’ Tenderfoot’s moustache twitched.

  ‘All the slips of paper were blank,’ I said.

  Dr Tenderfoot took his monocle between his fingers and let it dangle in front of my face. My reflection was wonky on the lens.

  I took it carefully, not wanting to break it.

  Dr Tenderfoot took a slip of paper from his tuxedo pocket, holding it up to me. It was white. Completely blank.

  ‘Look through the glass, m’boy,’ Dr Tenderfoot said with a hint of excitement in his voice.

  I brought the monocle to my eye and looked at the slip of paper he was holding. It wasn’t blank anymore. It was a list of meetings.

  ‘It’s, like, invisible ink or something?’ I asked, my jaw dropping.

  ‘Something like that,’ Dr Tenderfoot said. ‘Because, well … why not? Invisible ink is fun, isn’t it?’

  For the first time, I wasn’t intimidated by Dr Tenderfoot. He might’ve been a genius inventor, but he was still a kid at heart.

  I looked down at the monocle. It was a lot heavier than I would’ve guessed.

  When I looked up to give it back … Dr Tenderfoot was gone.

  He was rushing for the library doors.

  ‘Wait,’ I shouted.

  ‘Keep it!’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I got a million of them!’

  ‘Huh,’ I said, inspecting the monocle once more before stuffing it into my front pocket.

  My friends surrounded me, almost tackling me to the ground. Everyone was there – Zoe, Faith, Gidget, Slug, Brayden, Naomi and Dante. They were excited, celebrating our win, even though there was no prize.

  We spent the rest of the morning playing with Hup-Hup and showing everyone how we made him work.

  Wyatt was still taking all the credit, but it didn’t bother me.

  Was he still the bad guy? Maybe. Maybe not. I think he was stuck somewhere in the middle. I wasn’t sure what his endgame was, but I knew it was something. And with Wyatt’s history, it was something big.

  But we had a deal. We’d leave each other alone after the holiday ninjas had been dealt with. I could only hope he’d keep up his end of the bargain.

  Plus, with the threat of ninjas in the shadows, I’d rather have Wyatt where I could see him, and there in the library, the entire school could see him.

  And no matter how shady he was, he still helped the team build Hup-Hup.

  It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

  Melvin, one of the school reporters, held up a camera and my team huddled around me. ‘Yearbook photo on three! One … two …’

  ‘Chase,’ Naomi said from the end of the group.

  I looked to see what she wanted, but she didn’t say anything. She was making an ugly face at me.

  Without thinking, I made my best ugly face back at her.

  Naomi smiled as her head snapped back toward the camera, which flashed.

  Sighing, I rolled my head back because I knew exactly what happened. Naomi just proved her point and the yearbook was going to have evidence of it.

  Ugly faces were contagious.

  Marcus Emerson is the author of several highly imaginative children’s books, including the 6th Grade Ninja series, the Secret Agent 6th Grader series, Lunchroom Wars and the Adventure Club series. His goal is to create children’s books that are engaging, funny, and inspirational for kids of all ages – even the adults who secretly never grew up.

  Marcus Emerson is currently having the time of his life with his beautiful wife and their amazing children. He still dreams of becoming an astronaut someday and walking on Mars.