by Theo Baker
DR. MEHAT: . . . which leads me to my final question. We consider family support to be a vital ingredient for success at the institute. Mr. and Mrs. Zipzer, how would you describe the Zipzer family and home life?
STAN ZIPZER: Loving, warm, scientific. Has Emily told you we bought her a lizard?
DR. MEHAT: At length.
ROSA ZIPZER: And don’t forget, Stan, we like to do things together as a family. We know it’s not nice if we leave someone out. Because we don’t hurt the ones we love.
STAN ZIPZER: Although sometimes people get hurt by accident. You know, through bad luck. Strange things happen in this wondrous universe of ours, and no one’s really to blame. People get hurt accidentally all the time. I’m very interested in accidents. . . . Perhaps Emily could study them at the institute.
DR. MEHAT: If she’s accepted, of course.
STAN ZIPZER: Of course, Meera.
ROSA ZIPZER: Accidentally?! You mean like accidentally losing my arm in a salami-mincing machine?
EMILY ZIPZER: Just the bottom half, Mom. Below the midhumerus.
STAN ZIPZER: Don’t get upset, love, you’ll damage your stitches. And you’ll need both arms to hold the flowers I’m going to buy you . . . I mean, the ones I’ve already bought you.
ROSA ZIPZER: Oh, let go of me. I don’t want to hold your hand, Stan. You baboon ape! Dr. Mehat knows I don’t have a prosthetic arm.
EMILY ZIPZER: I’m coming to the same conclusion. My parents have been lying to me. Dr. Mehat, do you see how dysfunctional my home life is? That’s why I need to be accepted at the institute. I need to be somewhere where my scientific gifts are appreciated.
STAN ZIPZER: We bought you that freaky lizard!
ROSA ZIPZER: How could you both lie to me?
STAN ZIPZER: Meera, I mean, Dr. Mehat, Your Grace, would you mind . . . er . . . can we redo this interview?
DR. MEHAT: No.
ROSA ZIPZER: I suppose you’d leave me out of that one, too?
STAN ZIPZER: Rosa, love, Emily just . . . we . . . just . . . I . . . just . . . thought it would be better if the two of us . . . if me and Em. Science isn’t your thing, you know.
ROSA ZIPZER: So what?
EMILY ZIPZER: I didn’t want you to make a scene, like you did at back-to-school night with my home-ec teacher.
ROSA ZIPZER: She was trying to tell me how to make minestrone! Me? Minestrone! I could make minestrone with baboon meat and it’d still be better than your silly teacher’s recipe.
EMILY ZIPZER: I tried to avoid this happening, and by trying to avoid it, it happened. This is quite ironic.
ROSA ZIPZER: Tonight I think I’ll try out a new recipe with lizard meat.
EMILY ZIPZER: No, Mommy, please! Don’t hurt her!
DR. MEHAT: Fascinating. The familial behavior is fascinating. . . .
The knight flipped up his visor. It was Mr. Love.
“Ah, it’s Prince John,” the photographer said.
“No, no, no,” Mr. Love said. “Maybe if you’d studied in school, you’d know that it was Richard the Lionheart who fought in the Crusades.”
“You were in the Crusades?” the photographer asked.
“Yes, see here. The red cross on my shield, the red cross on the hilt of my sword. Was Richard left-handed or right-handed? I don’t want to hold my sword in the wrong hand.”
“Come on, Mr. Love,” I said. “I just need one second to take my photo. The last one wasn’t actually me. Some kid was pretending to be my identical twin —”
“No deal, Mr. Zipzer. The photographer and I will need this remaining time to get my picture just right. Now” — he tried to unsheathe his sword — “get back to class.”
But I wasn’t going anywhere, and I was so frustrated that I tore a piece of paper to shreds in Frankie’s pocket.
“Why are you still here, Henry?” Mr. Love asked.
“I’m just, uh, super interested in photography. Thought I’d watch how it’s done,” I said.
I don’t mean to be vain, but that was perhaps the best possible thing I could have said at that moment because, one, I created a believable excuse for hanging around. Two, I made Mr. Love think I was interested in something sort of school-related. And three, I formed an unspoken allegiance with the photographer, based on our shared love of photography.
“Well, Henry,” Mr. Love said, still trying to force the sword out of its sheath, “a knighted king needs a squire. Get my crown from that table there, and then you can help me with my armaments.”
FLASH. The photographer took a picture.
“Hey!” Mr. Love shouted. “I wasn’t ready.”
“But I was. I’m only paid till three, you know.”
“I’ll pay you overtime, for as long as it takes.”
“I think it could take a while,” the photographer said. “Have you considered that the photo might look better with the visor down?”
“No,” Mr. Love barked. He gave his sword a final yank. It came free with such force that it sent him spiraling into the chair, knocking it over. He fell on his butt — the only place not armored. “I need a hand here, Henry! And where’s my crown?”
“I was so close.” I sighed, and moped over to pick up Mr. Love’s crown. Then, from down the hall, came the echoing sound of two people yelling.
“Shouldn’t you check that out?” I hollered to Mr. Love.
But Mr. Love was in no position to help. He had become a metallic human pretzel. He would impale himself on his own sword if he wasn’t careful.
I crept down the hall to the room where the yelling was coming from. There was a glass window in the door and I peeked through it. What I saw made me immediately duck down again, out of view.
Mom and Dad were in there. Both of them were standing up, arguing nose to nose, their chairs overturned. Emily was still seated, but she’d made herself about as small as a ferret. At the other end of the room, a smartly dressed woman was rapidly taking notes.
“Hey, Zipzer man! You made it back. What are you doing on the floor?”
I turned and saw Frankie and Ashley jogging up to me. I sidled along the wall, doing my best spider impression, until I was out of view of the window.
“You actually did it,” Frankie said, inspecting my new uniform. “And with three minutes to spare. Did you get the photo taken?”
“Nope. Mr. Love — or should I say, Prince John — over there stole my thunder.” I had failed in my mission.
“What’s going on in there?” Ashley motioned to the window.
“Oh, nothing,” I said. “Just my parents ruining Emily’s life.”
Frankie looked through the little window. “Why is your dad shirtless?”
“Who cares?” I said, and started to head away from all the misery. “Let’s get out of here and go play video games or something.”
“Wait a minute,” Frankie said. “You can’t give up now.”
“Yeah,” said Ashley. “Not after all this. Plus, we’ve still got” — she checked her watch — “two whole minutes before the photographer is done.”
“It’s useless,” I said. “Mr. Love won’t let me. He’s too determined to get the perfect picture.”
Ashley grinned. “And what does Mr. Love adore even more than himself?”
“Um,” I said, not following. “Yogurt?”
Ashley rolled her eyes. “No, Hank. Being a hero.” She pointed at the classroom where my parents’ yells could be heard at full volume.
“I already tried that,” I said. “He ignored me.”
But Ashley was smiling. “Watch and learn, child.” She took off down the hall toward the photographer’s booth.
Frankie and I just looked at each other, shrugged, and then followed Ashley. We had about a minute and a half.
Ashley broke into a sprint as she neared the photographer. Mr. Love had managed to get himself and his suit of armor up off the floor and was trying out different action poses with his sword, sound effects included.
“Mr. Love! M
r. Love! Come quick, there’s an emergency!” Ashley cried as she reached them.
“Not now, Miss Wong,” Mr. Love said, straightening his helmet. “Surely you can see I’m in the middle of something. Find another teacher.”
“Don’t you hear what’s going on?” Ashley asked, motioning down the hall where the sound of my parents’ arguing echoed out of the classroom. “The Zipzers are at war and you’re the only teacher who’s not afraid of them!”
“Hmm,” Mr. Love said, glancing toward my parents’ voices.
“Sounds pretty ugly,” the photographer said.
Mr. Love sighed dramatically. “Very well,” he said to Ashley, before turning to the photographer. “It seems my presence is required elsewhere. This shouldn’t last more than a king’s moment.”
“Want me to hold that sword?” Frankie asked.
“A king never hands over his sword,” Mr. Love said, standing up. In his suit of armor, he shuffled down the hall, clanging every step as he followed Ashley toward the screaming. She flashed me a thumbs-up as they left the hall.
I looked at the photographer, who was eyeing the clock on the wall. It was officially eight seconds till three o’clock. If I’d had to put up with Mr. Love trying to take a perfect picture all day, I’d be counting the seconds, too.
“You should get out of here while you have a chance,” I said to him. “Before Mr. Love comes back dressed in a toga. You could be here all night.”
“But, Hank,” Frankie said. “Your picture!”
“There’s always next year,” I said. I smiled at the photographer and turned around to face another year of living with a weird school photo.
“Hold on, kid,” the photographer called. “You’re the one that got grape soda’d, right?”
I nodded.
“That’s a tough break,” he said. “Come on, sit down.” He motioned to the chair in front of his camera.
Frankie gaped.
I gasped.
All I could mutter was a weak “Really?”
“Yeah, I owe you kids one for getting that principal out of my hair. Anyway, a good guy like you should have a photo he can be proud of.”
I stuck my butt in the chair lightning-fast, before the guy had a chance to change his mind.
“Gimme a smile,” the photographer said.
“Wait!” Frankie dashed over to me and ruffled his hand through my greasy, sticky hair. “You gotta at least look like yourself.” He surveyed his work and nodded, then looked at the gunk in his hand and wrinkled his nose. “Dude, you really need to shower.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, straightening Emily’s tie. I shoved Frankie out of the way.
“Ready?” the photographer asked.
I nodded. “Cheese!” I cried, and flashed a perfect, million-dollar smile.
FLASH!
Emily and Dad had to make Mom breakfast for the next two weeks. Dad also had to give her a hand massage every evening. Plus, he had to buy new clothes, more appropriately fitting ones, all picked out by Mom. And she threw out his lucky sweater.
With all the tension from the disastrous interview with the institute, I was having a pretty easy go of it at home. For once I wasn’t the one in trouble! And steadfast Katherine the lizard kept her lizard mouth shut. She never once mentioned that I had poured liquid soap all over Emily’s dentist-recommended hypersonic toothbrush.
Actually, I was doing pretty well with my parents. My school photo came a week ago and it wasn’t bad at all. It was pretty good. It wasn’t amazing, but it looked like what I normally see in the mirror. Not weird, not perfection, just . . . me. And that was OK.
I thought I’d proved to my family that I could do something right in school, even if that something right only lasted for a fraction of a second. Even if it did take three uniforms and a coordinated team effort to get rid of Mr. Love to achieve it.
I stared at the photo in admiration as Mom put it on the shelf.
“Looking smart, Hank,” she said, plopping down next to me on the sofa. “How’s it coming in there?” she shouted through to the kitchen. “I’m starving!”
Dad and Emily were sweating over the open flame, sleeves rolled up, bickering between themselves. Just then the mail slipped through the slot.
Emily abandoned Mom’s eggs and dashed for the door. She tore through the stack of mail, tossing aside everything until her fingers landed on a big manila envelope. She ripped it open with her teeth. And they called me the wild one.
“It’s from the institute!” she cried.
“Now, Em,” Mom said, “there’s always next year, sweetie. So don’t take it too —”
“I got in!” Emily screamed.
“What?” Mom sat up. “How?”
“Let’s see,” Emily said. “Here, it begins, ‘Dear Emily, We are delighted to offer you a spot. . . . You were one of the strongest candidates we interviewed this year.’ And there’s more about how I should feel proud of myself and expect to win Nobel prizes in twenty years, and here’s the best bit: ‘Out of all the candidates, we feel you would benefit the most from spending time in a less chaotic and more nurturing environment.’”
“Charming,” Mom said with a frown.
“That’s what it says, Mom. Should I read it again?”
“No,” Mom said, picking up the rest of the mail. She sorted through it. “Here’s a letter from school. Oh, it’s from Mr. Love. . . . Hmm.”
“He’s an odd one,” said my dad from the kitchen, “although I did like his sword.”
“You can tell him in person,” Mom said. “He wants us to come in. He wants to offer us his services as a . . . ‘crisis de-escalation expert’?” She looked at my dad and smiled sweetly.
“I wonder what gave him that impression, dear?” My dad laughed nervously, his eyes darting for the door.
My mom continued in her scary-calm mom voice. “Or maybe now’s a good time for you and me, Stan, to continue our discussion about why it’s wrong to lie to your spouse and take off your shirt at our children’s school?”
“Not really in the right headspace for that kind of discussion at the moment, dear. Maybe after lunch?”
My mom flared her nostrils. “Maybe now.”
From the kitchen, Emily snickered.
“You’re part of this discussion, too, Emily.” Mom patted the couch next to her. Both Emily and my dad looked at me with pleading eyes.
I smirked at them, savoring the feeling of someone else in our home being in hot water for once.
I kicked my feet up and smiled at my school portrait. I was going to enjoy this moment. I’d earned it. I yawned big, stretched my arms out wide, and knocked over something solid and hard on the coffee table. It was mom’s glass of tomato juice, the red liquid streaming over all of the day’s important mail, before pooling on the carpet.
Then over the screams of my family, I bolted for my room at top speed, the future’s fastest man on Mars.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either
products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
This book is based on the television series Hank Zipzer
produced by Kindle Entertainment
in association with DHX Media Ltd.
Based on the screenplay “Camera Calamity,” written by Joe Williams.
Reproductions © 2015 DHX Hank Zipzer Productions Limited
Copyright © 2015 by Walker Books Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First U.S. electronic edition 2020
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
This book was typeset in OpenDyslexic.
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