by Lee Wardlaw
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Epilogue
A GLOSSARY OF CULLEN FU HANSON’S PIDGIN HAWAIIAN ENGLISH
*THE MEANING OF ALOHA:
Acknowledgements
For my newest friend, Jennifer Sagran,
who kept me sane and laughing during grad school. . .
. . . And for my dear friends and fellow fAiRy gOdSiStErS
Thalia Chaltas, Mary Hershey, Valerie Hobbs,
and Robin La Fevers,
who kept my seat warm at home.
DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS•A division of Penguin Young Readers Group • Published by The Penguin Group • Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, • Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland • (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)• Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, • Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, • New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)• Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, • Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa • Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Copyright © 2011 by Lee Wardlaw Jaffurs • All rights reserved • The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content. • Book design by Jasmin Rubero • Text set in Caslon Book BE • Printed in the U.S.A.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wardlaw, Lee, date.
101 ways to bug your friends and enemies / by Lee Wardlaw.
p. cm.
Summary: Steve “Sneeze” Wyatt takes half of his classes at the high school, where he attracts the attention of a bully on the varsity golf team, while at middle school all of his friends seem to be falling in love—including Sneeze, himself.
ISBN : 978-1-101-52939-3
[1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Bullies—Fiction. 3. Middles schools—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction.
5. Schools—Fiction. Inventions—Fiction. 6. Family life—California—Fiction. 7. California—Fiction.] I. Title: One hundred one ways to bug your friends and enemies. II. Title: One hundred and one ways to bug your friends and enemies. III. Title.
PZ7.W2174 Aad 2011
[E]—dc22 2011001161
http://us.penguingroup.com
“ . . . great love and great achievements involve great risk.”
—Dalai Lama
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
—Anaïs Nin
Chapter One
“Stephen J. Wyatt: You’re not peeking, are you?” Hayley’s guiding hand became a boa constrictor squeeze.
“Ow!” I said, rubbing my arm. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Are. You. Peeking.” I could feel her infamous SOS (Squint of Suspicion) searing through the blindfold, searching for guilt in my eyes.
“No! Honest!” I half laughed, half gasped. “Goldie tied this blindfold so tight it’s imbedded in my corneas.” And scraping my chapped nose like a cheese grater, I ached to whimper. But there’s only so much wimpyness a guy likes to admit. Especially in front of G-I-R-L-S.
Goldie’s words dripped with sly glee. “Just a little something I learned at Spy Camp. I call it Goldie’s Knot.”
“Goldie’s not what?” I heard Ace say, his voice filled with Yawn.
“Goldie’s not able to untie it, that’s what,” warned my best friend Hiccup. “Especially if it’s similar to the Gordian Knot of Macedonia. Legends tell of a knot no one could loosen until Alexander the Great—”
“Zat eez so not eenteresting,” Pierre said in his phony French accent.
It was early September, and the six of us—me, Hayley Barker, Hiccup Denardo, Goldie Laux, Pierre Noel, and Ace (who is too cool to have a last name)—were all crammed inside the hot, musty office at Gadabout Golf, the funky miniature golf course Hayley’s dad owns. I work part-time as their mechanic—when I’m not busy inventing, attending class at Jefferson Middle School, or away on vacation, that is.
After road-tripping across California with my parents all summer, this was my first day home. My first half hour home. No sooner had I finished lugging our suitcases into the house than the kitchen phone rang.
“Sneeze.” Hayley stated my nickname in her businesslike tone. “It’s an emergency. Get to Gadabout. Now.”
Hayley’s my Number Two best friend and my boss. So when she says now, I know she really means Get here in twenty minutes or You. Are. Fired. That would be the equivalent of surgically removing my soul with a golf club. So I dropped the receiver, clipped on my tool belt, hollered a hasty good-bye to Mom and Dad, and sped off on my bike—with visions of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (Hole #17) ker-splashing in my head.
Rats! Pisa must’ve toppled into King Arthur’s Moat. I warned Mr. Barker weeks ago that it needed propping, but did he listen . . . ?
Nineteen minutes and thirty-two seconds later, I skidded to a stop at Gadabout’s rusty gates and hustled through the office door.
That’s when I’d been jumped from behind—
“Hey!”
blindfolded—
“Ow!”
spun thrice—
“Whoa!”
and painfully accused of peeking.
“C’mon, guys,” I pleaded now. “What’s going on?”
Pierre snickered through his nose. “Oh-ho-ho-HO! Pleeze to keep on zee—’ow do you say eet?—pantaloons.”
“You’ll find out soon enough!” Goldie said, spinning me again.
I half laughed, half hurled.
“Easy does it,” Hiccup fussed. “Vertigo may induce vomiting.”
“Oh, gag,” Goldie said.
“Exactly,” Hiccup agreed.
Hayley tested the knot knuckling my skull. “Not so fast, Sneeze. If you’re not peeking, how did you know Goldie tied your blindfold? She snuck up on you from behind!”
“Elementary, my dear Ms. Barker,” I said, trying to sound Sherlockian. I have a tenuous reputation for being a genius (as well as a whiz-kid inventor), and never miss the opportunity to strengthen that rep among the nonbelievers (meaning Goldie and Pierre). “First, I deduced Hiccup was standing to my left, by the cash register, because he wheezes whenever he’s close to—”
“You’re allergic to cash registers?” Goldie asked him.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hic replied.
“—that box of golf pencils,” I finished.
“You’re allergic to pencils?”
“Pencil shavings. They emit an aroma similar to wood smoke. My respiratory system is particularly sensitive to particulate pollution.” Hic chuckled. “No pun intended.”
“No pun taken,” Ace said.
“Oh,” said Goldie, “you’re allergic to camping.”
“’Oo could blame ’im?” Pierre gave an audible shudder. “Camping food eez so ickee! You Americanz ’ave zee culinary skills of zee caveman.”
Hayley snorted. “This from a guy born in Oklahoma, where the official state vegetable is fried okra.”
Pierre is desperate to become a world-famous French chef. That’s why he speaks wis zat fake accent. Pierre would pour wine on his Cheerios and tattoo the entire musical score of the Blue Danube Waltz on his butt if he thought it would make him more français. (And yes, the Blue Danube is actually German, but no one cares enough to enlighten him.)
A whoosh of air sliced past my face. “Oklahoma—bah!” Pierre spat. “Eye ’ave been eensulted! Eye challenge you to zee duel!”
“Give me that,” Hayley instructed. “Sword fighting with the clubs is not tolerated at Gadabout.”
“Second!” I continued. “I knew Pierre was here because I smelled escargot on his breath.”
“What is ess-car-go?” Goldie asked. “A fancy gasoline?”
“A fancy word for ‘snail,’” Hiccup explained.
“Oh, gag.”
“Indeed. Snail Fever is highly infectious, and may surpass malaria—”
Hayley interrupted: “Pierre needing a breath mint doesn’t explain how Sneeze knew Goldie was here.”
“I was getting to that.” I cleared my throat for the grand finale. “Third, Pierre hates miniature golf and Hic has a moat phobia—”
“Moats plus mosquitoes equals malaria,” Hiccup put in.
“—therefore the two of them never come to Gadabout unless something important is afoot. And if something’s afoot, Goldie can’t be tiptoeing far behind. She’s the Snoop with the Scoop, right?”
“Ooo! Gotta jot that down!” I heard her grope for her ever-present notepad. “I’ve been dying to change the name of my Goldie’s Gossip column for the school newspaper. How’s this? Goldie Laux: The Snoop with the Scoop! ”
Hayley expressed her opinion of Goldie and Goldie’s chosen profession with a murmured, “Even better: The Snoop with the Poop.”
Goldie stamped a foot and cuss-sputtered in what might’ve been a Klingon dialect complete with indignant spit.
“Swearing is also not tolerated at Gadabout,” Hayley said coolly. That’s two of the reasons I admire her: She’s adamant about running a “safe, family-friendly” fun center; and she’s too smart to be intimidated by the incoherent profanities of a Hollywood wannabe who thinks stamping a hoof like a petulant pony will send people galloping in mortal fear.
Hayley’s hand clasped mine for two whole warm seconds. “I’m sorry, Steve.” As she let go, the raspy callous on her right index finger (from years of playing mini-golf) snag-tickled my palm. “I guess this wasn’t much of a surprise after all.”
“No. Yes. I mean, Ness!” My hand felt stunned. “What I mean is, I’m surprised I was supposed to be surprised. On the phone you said ‘emergency.’ Which is different from a surprise. Although, emergencies can be surprising.” Gaaaa, I’m dithering! “But Ace was one hundred percent. A surprise, that is. I didn’t know he was here till he yawned.”
Ace yawned again for effect.
“Of course he’s here,” Hayley said. “He wouldn’t miss your party, would he?”
Debatable. Ace is cool. So cool he probably doesn’t even attend his own—
“That’s what this is about?” I asked. “A party—for . . . me?”
“Well, duh,” Goldie said, and with a yank that gave my sore nose carpet burn, the blindfold fell to my feet.
“Surprise!” everyone (except Ace, who is too cool) shouted.
I blinked. My sight shifted from blind to blurry, taking in the familiar “sweetness” of Gadabout’s office, which is built with fake lollipops, gumdrops, and graham crackers to resemble the witch’s gingerbread cottage from Hansel and Gretel.
Despite my nose being clogged with allergy goo (I’m allergic to practically everything except water and air), I managed to snork up the beloved smells of my home away from home: the lemony tang of golf ball washing solution; the oily metal of putters; lily pads fermenting in King Arthur’s murky moat; the plastic putting greens, sepia-scorched from the blazing Southern California sun.
Aaaaaah. It felt great to be home, back to my job, my sanctuary . . .
The Gordian Knot of Disappointment that had twisted my innards the past two weeks began to fray. Until—
“Surprise,” Hayley repeated, softer this time so only I could hear.
My vision sharpened crystal crisp.
Streamers dangled from the Tootsie Roll rafters. A balloon bouquet bobbed in the listless breeze of the ceiling fan. On a card table, arranged with festive forks, plates, and napkins, stood a cake.
Oh, what a cake! It was baked in the shape of my most ingenious invention: the Nice Alarm, a clock that awakens you not with an annoying bell or buzzer, but with two nice taps on the shoulder. Above it hung a banner, declaring in Hayley’s bold, no-nonsense hand, the same message spelled on the cake in squares of sugar letters:IT’S TIME TO WISH SNEEZE CONGRATULATIONS!
Rats. They don’t know.
Well, duh, Sneeze, I thought, à la Goldie. Of course they don’t know. You haven’t told them yet.
At that, my nose started to tickle.
And tingle.
And itch.
I tried to hold back. Honest, I did. I wince-pinched my tender nostrils and sucked in a breath so hard I practically inhaled a streamer, but—
“AHHHH-CHOOEY!”
A sneeze of titanic proportions typhooned across the Nice Alarm cake.
Chapter Two
“Mon Dieu!” The wail wrenched from Pierre’s mouth.
Goldie pouted. “I am so not eating that.”
Hot embarrassment flooded my cheeks. “Sorry, sorry!” I mopped my nose with a wad of tissues.
“You ee-dee-ot! ’Ave you no self-control?” Pierre looked ready to strangle me. “My cake—she eez ruined!”
Ace glanced over his sunglasses. “Shipwrecked, to be exact.”
Most of the meringue frosting had blown overboard. A few letters clung for dear life to a chocolatey edge. The others, strewn like flotsam and jetsam, now spelled TROUT LASAGNA ZONE.
“Disgust-o-rama!” Goldie whipped out her camera and, paparazzi-style, snapped a few photos. I had the sinking suspicion they’d soon appear in her column with the headline: Sneeze’s Supersonic Snot Scuttles Celebratory Snack.
“Oh, for goodness golf tees!” Hayley’s dangly golf ball earrings quivered. “You two are the rudest, most exasperating, insensitive . . .”
She snatched a cake server and troweled meringue off the table. “This. Is. Salvageable,” she announced, ready to re-slather frosting like mortar. “It might not look pretty, but it’ll taste fine.”
“An unwise decision,” Hiccup warned. “A sternutation of that magnitude travels one hundred miles per hour, expelling forty thousand infectious droplets of—”
“Sacré bleu!” Pierre whispered, clutching his beret at the horror of it all.
Ace arced a dark eyebrow and lounged against Mr. Barker’s desk. “Pierre is snot interested,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My allergies are out of control this week. I’m sneezing triple my daily quota.”
Hiccup sprinted to my side like Medicine Man (MM), the caped superhero who stars in the graphic novels he draws. “Did you say triple?” he asked, grasping my wrist for a pulse.
“Is that seri
ous?”
“I smell world record!” Goldie’s gossipy fingers inched toward her notepad.
Hiccup shook his head. “The World’s Longest Sneezing Fit was set by twelve-year-old Donna Griffiths of Great Britain. Her sneezes came at one-to five-minute intervals for nine hundred seventy-eight consecutive days.”
Ace released a long, low whistle.
Goldie made a frownie face, struggling to compute Donna’s grand total.
Mine wasn’t even close to Donna’s—yet. My only “record” was for how many packets of travel tissue I’d wedged into my tool belt. Fortunately, I hadn’t needed my tools since the Invention Convention®. Unfortunately, after what happened there, I might never need them again . . .
“Serious is an understatement.” Hiccup’s worried, freckled gaze examined me from shaggy hair to straggly sneakers, searching for I-don’t-know-what and I-was-afraid-to-ask. Crusty barnacles? Oozing pustules?
Goldie and Pierre peered at me with morbid fascination.
“’Eez nose! Eet eez even more grotesque than evaire!”
“Ooo, maybe it’s leprosy!”
“Hanson’s Disease,” Hiccup corrected.
“It’s neither,” I snapped. “My schnoz is just chapped from blowing it so much. Now get out of my face, all of you!”
Hic was not deterred. “You passed the moat on your way in. Were you bit by a mosquito? Think, man! Your symptoms could reveal the onset of West Nile virus, posing dangers to pregnant women!”
“As opposed to pregnant men?” Ace asked.
“Get a grip, Hic. Mom is fine. We’re all fine. Honest.” Hiccup has a crush on my mother. When he learned my parents were expecting a baby in December, his puppy love grew into a protective Doberman. Way weird, right? But to a hypochondriac who suspects he’s contracted every disorder from Maple Syrup Urine Disease (after gobbling three dozen pancakes) to Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (the fear of ultra-long words), swooning over my mother-the-scientist isn’t weird at all. Especially since Mom saved him last spring from a terminal case of hiccups. (But that’s another story.)