Let's Do A Thing! (Victor Shmud, Total Expert #1)

Home > Other > Let's Do A Thing! (Victor Shmud, Total Expert #1) > Page 1
Let's Do A Thing! (Victor Shmud, Total Expert #1) Page 1

by Jim Benton




  VICTOR SHMUD

  TOTal

  expeRT

  Let’s Do a Thing!

  DON’T MISS

  THESE OTHER

  Jim Benton

  TITLES:

  Franny K. Stein #1–7

  Dear Dumb Diary Year One #1–12

  Dear Dumb Diary Year Two #1–6

  AND DON’T MISS . . .

  Dear Dumb Diary, Deluxe:

  Dumbness Is a Dish Best Served Cold

  VICTOR SHMUD

  TOTal

  expeRT

  Let’s Do a Thing!

  BOOK ONE

  SCHOLASTIC INC.

  JIM BENTON

  Copyright © 2017 by Jim Benton

  This book is being published simultaneously in hardcover by Scholastic Press.

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.,

  Publishers since 1920

  .

  scholastic

  ,

  scholastic

  press

  ,

  and associated logos are trademarks and/or

  registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any

  responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright

  Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted,

  downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced

  into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any

  means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented,

  without the express written permission of the publisher. For information

  regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention:

  Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are

  either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any

  resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events,

  or locales is entirely coincidental.

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-93285-1

  First printing 2017

  Book design by Jim Benton

  Thanks to

  Kristen LeClerc,

  Abby

  McAden, Yaffa Jaskoll,

  and

  Kerianne

  Okie

  Never, ever, ever lose your

  confidence.

  Table of Contents

  1.

  HELLO, VICTOR

  1

  2.

  SHMUD AT SCHOOL

  7

  3.

  YO, WHERE’S MY CHICKEN?

  13

  4.

  THING DOING

  18

  5.

  SAFE AND EFFECTIVE WHEN USED

  AS DIRECTED

  25

  6.

  SPACED OUT

  32

  7.

  POOF

  40

  8.

  THE GROOGLINGS

  44

  9.

  THE FRAPPLETONIANS

  50

  10.

  YOU SHOULD HAVE THAT SPOT

  LOOKED AT

  61

  11

  .

  ALWAYS REMEMBER TO FORGET

  72

  12.

  THERE’S GOOD NEWS AND THERE'S BAD

  NEWS (THE BAD NEWS IS THAT THERE

  REALLY ISN’T ANY GOOD NEWS)

  80

  13.

  THE BEAUTY THAT IS NOZZLEBURP

  88

  14

  .

  IT’S NOT EASY BEING BEAUTIFUL

  94

  15

  .

  MOPPING UP

  99

  16

  .

  ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME

  TO AN END

  105

  VICTOR SHMUD

  TOTal

  expeRT

  Let’s Do a Thing!

  > Chapter 1

  HELLO VICTOR

  Victor Shmud lived with his parents in a

  house with trees and bushes outside, but

  none of those things you see in front of

  houses sometimes, like little statues or

  birdbaths or things like that.

  > Victor always thought their house would

  look better with a thing out front, and he

  felt that anybody walking past could tell

  right away that there was a space right

  there that needed a thing in it.

  Victor’s room was always messy, because

  even though he had decided to be many

  things in his life, like a Knuckle Doctor, a

  Hunter of Ghost Bears, and The Guy at the

  Restaurant Who Puts the Sugar in Those

  Little Envelopes, he hadn’t decided to be A

  Guy Who Cleans Up Bedrooms yet.

  It actually wasn’t even on the list.

  Victor rolled out of bed and checked his

  computer—the highly advanced Electro-

  Brain Three Million—which he had created

  by writing

  ElEctro-Brain

  thrEE

  Million

  on

  the side of a cardboard box, back when

  he was a Computer Scientist a couple of

  weeks ago.

  The Electro-Brain Three Million didn’t

  work as well as other computers for email

  and going online, but it was square-

  shaped, and Victor believed that this was a

  good start.

  > Victor looked down at Dumpylumps, the

  tiny duck that had been by his side since he

  was a baby.

  “What are you?” Victor asked. “A chicken

  or something?”

  “Quack,” said Dumpylumps.

  “You should have that cough looked at,”

  Victor said. “As an Expert Bird Veterinarian,

  I need to tell you that healthy chickens

  don’t make noises like that.”

  > Chapter 2

  SHMUD AT SCHOOL

  Victor walked into the classroom and took

  a seat at the teacher’s desk at the front of

  the room.

  His teacher, Mrs. Nozzleburp, smiled

  sweetly at him, with a smile that had very

  nearly the correct number of teeth in it.

  “Victor,” she said, “you know that this

  desk is for the teacher. The smaller desks

  are for the students.”

  > “Then you better take a seat in one of

  them, Mrs. Nozzleburp—you great big

  beautiful doll—because I’m teaching the

  class today. And if you don’t mind, please

  keep it down. I’m the kind of teacher who

  likes it nice and quiet.”

  Mrs. Nozzleburp raised her eyebrows.

  She was pretty old, and eyebrows were just

  about the heaviest thing she could raise.

  “Very kind of you to offer to teach the

  class, Victor,” she said. “And maybe one day

  I’ll take you up on that.”

  She led him gently to his desk.

  “But today I think I’ll have to go ahead

  and teach the class. It’s kind of a rule that

  the principal has.”

&
nbsp; > For a brief moment, Victor decided to be

  the principal.

  “The principal is like the boss of the

  school,” he whispered to himself, but then

  he began to worry that the principal prob

  -

  ably had to take all the teachers home every

  night and feed them and give them baths

  and put them to bed.

  “That’s too much work,” he whispered.

  “That could mean hundreds of tub toys.”

  Mrs. Nozzleburp taught the class some

  stuff with words and numbers and how they

  were really important for reasons that Victor

  was forgetting as fast as she said them.

  “I’ll bet I’m some kind of Champion

  Forgetter,” he said to himself. And he won

  -

  dered if being able to forget things at

  superhuman speed was useful.

  Suddenly, it was time for recess, and

  Victor asked the question that we all find

  ourselves asking at times.

  > Chapter 3

  YO,

  WHERE’S

  MY

  CHICKEN?

  Dumpylumps was waiting on the play

  -

  ground sitting on the rock that Victor had

  decided was his office.

  “There you are,” Victor said. “Just the

  chicken I needed to speak with.”

  “Quack,” Dumpylumps said, hoping that

  Victor would notice what a very unchicken

  -

  ish thing that was to say.

  > “Here we are, already halfway through

  the morning, and I still haven’t made a

  decision about what thing I’m going to do.”

  Dumpylumps took out his little notebook

  and pretended that he was taking notes on

  what Victor said.

  “I had a career as a teacher very briefly

  earlier this morning, but it turns out that

  it’s a highly competitive field, and I was

  replaced by an older, much more attractive

  teacher.

  “I wonder if the other teachers are jeal

  -

  ous of Mrs. Nozzleburp’s attractiveness,”

  Victor said.

  Dumpylumps shrugged uncomfortably.

  He had never thought of her that way, and

  the entire conversation seemed inappropri

  -

  ate, and probably against one of the rules.

  “Yes

  . . . , ”

  Victor said thoughtfully.

  “Attractiveness!”

  > Dumpylumps pretended to underline

  the word

  attractiveness

  , which he had pre

  -

  tended to write.

  “This seems like a thing I should look

  into,” Victor said boldly.

  Dumpylumps closed his eyes tightly. He

  knew where this was going.

  “LET’S DO A THING!” Victor shouted,

  and he thrust his fist in the air, hoping

  there would be some thunder or light

  -

  ning or something.

  “Ckkaackk,” Dumpylumps said, trying

  to sound like lightning.

  > Chapter 4

  THING

  DOING

  The next morning, Victor marched down the

  stairs with a strong sense of purpose.

  “Mom,” Victor said, “it’s time you knew

  that I’m a Makeover Expert.”

  “You mean like a person who does peo

  -

  ple’s hair and makeup?”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said. “When did you

  become one?”

  “I don’t remember,” Victor said, snipping

  her large scissors in the air. “It began long

  ago. I guess it was probably five or six

  o’clock this morning.”

  “I see,” she said.

  “Mom, look—you’re a vision of glamour

  from head to toe, but if you ever need a

  little dusting off, let me know, and my

  assistant and I will be there to lend our

  expert help.”

  > Dumpylumps nodded. He waved a comb

  at her and winked.

  “I’ll need to borrow a whole big bag of

  your makeup and hairspray and stuff. There

  are a lot of teachers who are going to be

  thrilled that they finally have somebody

  who understands how gross they are, and

  is willing to help them.”

  “You’ll need to do what you can with

  just the comb,” Mom said, taking the scis

  -

  sors away from him. “That’s really all an

  expert needs anyway.”

  “You’re not completely right, Mom,” he

  said. “And I know that because I also hap

  -

  pen to be an expert on knowing when

  people aren’t completely right.”

  He slipped the comb into his pocket and

  headed off for the kitchen.

  > “Don’t worry about the scissors. I don’t

  need them. I can use common kitchen

  ingredients to make a spectacular beauty

  treatment,” Victor said to Dumpylumps,

  who was at that very moment wondering to

  himself if he should just fly away and never

  come back.

  “Some people have no idea how benefi

  -

  cial mustard can be in a shampoo. You

  know what’s in it?” Victor asked as he com

  -

  bined various items from the refrigerator.

  > “Mustard molecules,” he whispered qui

  -

  etly, as if he was revealing a closely guarded

  secret. “The very essence of beauty.”

  Victor headed off to school with

  Dumpylumps following behind him.

  “It’s really amazing, isn’t it?”

  Dumpylumps nodded. Most things

  amazed him—the universe, invisibility,

  peanut butter.

  “Think about the great things we’ll be

  doing for people today,” Victor said, shak

  -

  ing his little bottle of beauty treatment.

  > Chapter 5

  SAFE AND EFFECTIVE WHEN

  USED AS DIRECTED

  The janitor at Victor’s school was Mr.

  Plumporski, and he was a very hard worker.

  The kids made a lot of messes, and Victor

  made more than his fair share.

  There was that time when Victor was an

  Octopus Wrestler, and Mr. Plumporski had

  to mop up the seawater he spilled.

  And one time he was a Tattoo Artist and

  Mr. Plumporski had to scrub the tattoos

  off everybody.

  > And just last week, when Victor was a

  Wedding Planner and accidentally married

  some of the teachers to each other, it was

  Mr. Plumporski who had to help them get

  unmarried.

  Victor knew he made a lot of work for

  Mr. Plumporski, and he felt it was only

  fair that he treated the janitor to the first

  makeover.

  “Mr. Plumporski, how would you like to

  be beautiful?” Victor asked him as he pulled

  his little bottle from his backpack.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Mr.

  Plumporski said. “I’m already beautiful.”

  Mr. Plumporski posed in several beauti

  -


  ful poses to prove it.

  “That’s true, but this will make you

  beautifuller,” Victor said, and he jumped

  up on the recycling bin and sprinkled

  some of his beauty preparation on Mr.

  Plumporski’s head.

  “It tingles,” Mr. Plumporski said. “And

  beautifuller

  isn’t a word.”

  “We hear new words every single day,

  Mr. Plumporski. Somebody has to make

  them. I happen to be a Licensed Wordmaker.

  It’s what we do.”

  He showed him his official Wordmaker

  license.

  > Mr. Plumporski’s hair started to curl.

  And then his eyebrows, and then his

  mustache.

  “Look!” Victor shouted. “It’s the curly

  hair that you always wanted.”

  “Yeah, I never said I wanted that! When

  will it stop? It’s starting to hurt!”

  “Soon. It will stop soon,” Victor said. “Or

  never. Maybe never. You shouldn’t have put

  so much on.”

  > “You’re the one who put it on me!”

  As Victor and Dumpylumps walked

  away, Mr. Plumporski stuck his head in his

  mop bucket and washed off the beauty

  treatment.

  Victor shook his finger at Dumpylumps.

  “We need to label this stuff so that peo

  -

  ple don’t get overly enthusiastic and use too

  much like Mr. Plumporski did,” Victor said.

  “Not everybody is lucky enough to have a

  mop bucket nearby to dunk their heads in.”

  Dumpylumps nodded.

  “You know, I always felt I’d be pretty

  good with a mop. Write that down as a

  thing I might do someday.”

  > Chapter 6

  SPACED OUT

  Victor stared out the window as Mrs.

  Nozzleburp taught the class about the solar

  system.

  “Victor,” she said gently, “please pay

  attention.”

  “Don’t worry. I heard everything you

 

‹ Prev