“Home already?” asked Mom. “How was Jessica’s? Fun?”
“I . . . did you . . . where’s . . . the . . . paper?” Judy asked, out of breath.
“Today’s paper? Right here,” said Dad, pushing it across the table toward Judy.
Judy flipped through the paper madly. But when she got to Section B, all she saw was a giant hole.
“Who cut up the paper? Stink?” she said, shooting him her best stinging-caterpillar eyebrow look.
“Oh, I did,” said Dad. “Here, I tacked it up right here on the fridge.”
He read out loud:
PHANTOM DOLL DOCTOR STRIKES COUNTY HOSPITAL
On Saturday, October 17, Grace Porter, a member of the nursing staff at County General, noticed that several of the dolls that had been donated to the hospital for its Magic Playroom were missing.
“Funny coincidence,” said Mom. “That was the same day we took Frank to the hospital!”
“Ha. Funny,” said Judy, trying to smile. Mom would not find it so funny when she learned that her only daughter was an all-out, true-blue, I-before-E thief.
Dad continued reading:
The missing dolls created quite a stir. Young patients who use the Magic Playroom in the Children’s Wing spent days speculating as to the identity of the doll thief.
“Isn’t that where I found you two?” asked Mom. “The Magic Playroom?” Judy’s mother sounded just like a detective. Jail time.
Curiously, a mysterious package was received a few days later, with all the dolls magically cleaned, scrubbed, fixed, or mended. Each one was tagged, dressed in a hospital gown, and had been properly “doctored” with fancy Band-Aids, slings, and casts.
Dad paused and said, “Hmm. Band-Aids.” Uh-oh, thought Judy. Evidence.
A special doll with a once-broken heart was given to patient Laura Chumsky, who recently underwent the hospital’s twenty-ninth heart transplant. On behalf of Laura Chumsky and all the young patients, the hospital staff would like to thank the anonymous donor, the Phantom Doll Doctor, for this kind contribution.
“It sounds like one of the superheroes in my comics!” Stink said.
“That’s quite a story,” said Dad, grinning.
“Let me see that,” Judy said. She had to see it, had to read it, with her very own eyes. “Phantom Doll Doctor,” she repeated, touching the words in the headline. “Rare!”
“What a thoughtful thing for someone to do,” said Mom.
“Wish I’d thought of it,” said Dad, tacking the article back up on the refrigerator with a pineapple magnet. There it was, front and center in the Moody Hall of Fame.
“Too bad,” said Stink.
“What’s too bad?” said Judy.
“I kind of wanted to see the inside of a jail.”
“Hardee-har-har,” said Judy, nervously glancing at her parents. But they were both grinning proudly. That’s when Judy’s brain began working on a brand-new Judy Moody idea.
She’d make a sign. Maybe set up shop in the garage. Get other kids to give her their broken dolls or old stuffed animals. Or she’d find some at yard sales. She would doctor them up and donate them to more sick kids in the Children’s Wing at the hospital. Some could have Ace bandages, or fancy scars, or tubes for breathing. Maybe even an IV!
And it could all be in secret. The hospital would never know the identity of the Phantom Doll Doctor. The way nobody knew Superman was really Clark Kent, a nice, quiet reporter from the Daily Planet.
Rare!
For the first time in a long time, the once Judy Muddy felt more famous than an elbow.
She, Judy Moody, Phantom Doll Doctor, now felt as famous as Queen Elizabeth, as famous as George Washington, as famous as Superman.
Famouser!
Wouldn’t Elizabeth Blackwell, First Woman Doctor, be proud!
Judy Moody Gets Famous! Page 4