by Michael Rex
“Well, they get all shriveled and stuff because they get dried out,” said Stew.
“They’re in the ice for a million years,” said Gus.
“Did they have pockets millions of years ago?” I reached in and pulled the whole thing out at once.
It was a man’s brown raincoat.
“Darn! I really thought it would be an ice man,” said Stew.
Gus took it from me. “It’s still pretty cool,” he said, and he held it by one end. “It’s as hard as a rock.” The ice and water had frozen it stiff.
“It looks like a boogie board!” I said. I grabbed it from Gus, ran across the ice, tossed it down, and jumped on it.
I skidded across the ice and crashed into a snowbank.
“It’s awesome!” I said.
Gus and Stew both tried the ice man boogie board. But after a few runs, it was starting to thaw and didn’t work as well.
“How do you lose a coat?” I said while I was staring at it.
“Seriously,” said Stew. “Was he just walking through the park and thought, ‘Hey, man, I don’t need my coat! I’ll throw it in the pond!’?”
“Or maybe the wind blew it off him,” said Gus. “He was like, ‘I’m glad I got this coat because it’s windy and cold,’ and whoosh, his coat just flew away.”
“Maybe he outgrew it, and was like, ‘I’m too big for this coat. I think I’ll leave it in the pond so someone else can use it!’ ” I said.
We all laughed. The coat had unraveled and was lying flat on the snow.
“This coat couldn’t be too small for anyone,” said Stew. He was right. It was huge.
I looked at the label. “Wow!” I said. “It’s a size XXXXL2.”
“That’s extra, extra, extra, extra large two!” said Stew.
“Does that mean it’s twice as big as an extra, extra, extra, extra large one?” asked Gus.
“I think so,” I said. I picked up the top of the coat and put it on. The sleeves hung down way past my hands. Even over my dad’s jacket, it was huge.
Gus and Stew got under the rest of it.
“It’s like a big costume,” said Gus.
“Yeah,” I said. “I bet we look like a little elephant or something.”
“Or a woolly mammoth,” said Stew.
I pulled the shoulders of the coat up over my head. We stuck my snow shovel and Stew’s broken shovel under my arms. The ends poked out from under the coat like tusks. Stew stood close behind me and wrapped his arms around me, and Gus wrapped his arms around Stew.
“You guys ready?” I asked.
They both said yes.
“Woolly attack mammoth, go!” I screamed, and we started running. We fell a few times, but then we got our legs all moving at the same time. We were getting really good at it, and could go really fast. It must have looked awesome from the outside.
“That’s when you hit me with the snowball,” said Ricky.
“I told you it would be a stupid story,” Mean Dean said to Trent. Trent nodded.
“Anyway,” said Mean Dean, “the truce is over. On the count of three, we’re gonna bean you as hard as we can.” He picked up a large snowball in each hand. Trent did the same.
“One,” he said, “two—”
Gus and Stew jumped out from under the big coat and started hurling snowballs at Mean Dean and Trent.
“We never wait for three!” Icky Ricky said. He grabbed a snowball and joined the fight!
#7: Rock Star!
In your bedroom, shake talcum powder into the air and pretend to put on a smoke-filled rock concert! The person who rocks the hardest wins!
#8: Peanut Butter Freeze
Everyone strikes a pose and freezes for as long as they can. The first person to move gets beaned with peanut butter.
#9: Musical Gus Special Edition
Play loud, fast. music. When the music stops, put water balloons on Gus and sit on him. Everyone wins!
Ricky and Bruno stood in front of Bruno’s parents.
“But why are you covered in a horrible mess?” asked Bruno’s mom. Then she looked around the room again. “And why is that chair crooked?”
Icky Ricky continued his story.
We couldn’t find the micro-stogie. We went back to the statue, and it was really looking lousy. Some of the pieces were missing, so it couldn’t hold its shape.
“He looks like a guy who got nuked and is turning into a mutant,” I said.
“Stop joking!” Bruno said. “If my parents see this, I’m gonna be grounded forever. It’s really valuable!”
“All right!” I said. “I have another idea. Do you have any clay or something?”
“No. Why?” asked Bruno.
“We need to put something on the inside,” I told him. “That way we can glue the pieces to it, and it will hold its shape.”
We thought for a moment, and then I had my best idea of the day!
I took my shoe off, and then my sock. I balled the sock up and wrapped the top around the bottom. I stuffed the sock into the lower half of the statue, and it fit perfectly.
Then I started to glue the pieces onto the sock. It was like the sock was his guts. But there was one problem.
“Do you have any black paint?” I said. “My sock is white. It’s going to show through all the cracks.”
“No,” said Bruno. “But I have another idea.” He ran off and came back with a little round tin can.
“Shoe polish,” he said as he handed it to me. I opened it up, and it was black and almost like paint. Then he handed me a long, thin paintbrush.
“Here! I got this, too,” he said. “My mom uses it to dust in really small places.”
I put some shoe polish on the brush and started to fill in the cracks. A fly landed on the statue and I brushed it away.
“Aaaagh!” screamed Bruno. “That stupid fly is back!” He picked up the flyswatter and tried to hit it. He fell over the coffee table, and his hand landed right on the glue tube.
Glue shot like a rocket from the tip of the tube. It was going to hit the wall, but I jumped forward and the glue shot all over my shirt. None of it got anywhere in the room.
“That was close!” I said. I put the paintbrush down on the edge of the table. The fly landed on it.
Whap! Bruno hit the edge of the brush and it went sailing. It flew toward the wall, but I dove across the table and blocked it. Then I rolled on the ground, and the glue on my shirt picked up the newspapers we had put on the floor.
The fly landed in the open shoe polish can. Whap! Bruno hit the can hard, but the fly got away.
It landed on the clock.
“Aaaagh!” said Bruno. “My parents are going to be home any minute! We gotta clean all this up!”
“Okay!” I said. I grabbed all the newspapers and balled them up tight. Bruno closed the shoe polish and grabbed the brush and ran off to put them away. I stuffed everything into the trash bag Bruno had wanted me to wear. I found the glue cap and tube and chucked them in also.
Bruno came back in. “The room looks perfect,” he said, “except for the statue.”
The fly landed on my face!
Bruno smacked me right in the face and left a big black spot of shoe polish. Then the front door opened, and that’s when you came in.
“I’m sorry, Mom and Dad!” said Bruno. “It’s my fault. Ricky did everything he could to help, but we couldn’t fix it.”
They all looked at the pathetic sculpture. The pieces weren’t lined up. It had black polish smeared all over it. The hands were backward, and it was starting to sag. It was really awful.
“I’m sorry,” said Ricky. “I tried my best.”
“Well,” said Bruno’s mom, “you two need to get busy with your book report.”
“Yeah,” said Ricky.
“Okay,” said Bruno.
The fly buzzed between the boys and Bruno’s parents.
“It’s back!” shouted Bruno, and he started swinging the swatter all over. Bruno’s parents
ran from the room and were back in no time. His mom had her own swatter, and his dad had some paper towels and cleaning spray. Wham! Bam! Crash! Bruno and his mom swung and swatted and missed and swatted again. Bruno’s dad sprayed every spot where the fly had landed and scrubbed it clean in a frenzy.
Finally the fly landed on the statue again and Bruno swung hard. He hit the statue, sending it sailing off the coffee table right into the garbage bag.
Bruno gasped! “I’m sorry!” he said.
“That’s okay,” said Bruno’s dad. He looked at Bruno’s mom. “That’s a shame, dear. I know that was a special statue to you.”
“Me?” said Bruno’s mom. “I thought you liked it. I always thought it was hideous.”
“Really?” said Bruno’s dad. “I think it’s hideous, too. I never said anything because I assumed you loved it.”
“Nope,” said Bruno’s mom.
“But isn’t it valuable?” asked Bruno. “Isn’t it really old?”
“Nah,” said his mother. “I think your grandma won it at a bowling alley in Hackensack.”
The fly landed on the shelf where the bowler dude had originally been. Bruno swatted it quickly.
“Got it!” he shouted. He lifted the swatter, and on the shelf there was a little green-and-black glob that had once been a fly.
“Quick!” shouted Bruno’s mother. “Clean it before it leaves a stain!”
MICHAEL REX is the creator of over thirty books for children, including the number one bestseller Goodnight Goon and the Fangbone! series. He was inspired to create Icky Ricky by his two boys, Declan and Gavin, who are fine young citizens, but very disgusting. Gavin eats ketchup on his cake, and Declan uses a purple marker to color his belly button. Along with the boys, Mr. Rex lives with his wife and their dog, Roxy, in Leonia, New Jersey. Both his wife and the dog are not disgusting at all. Visit him at mikerexbooks.blogspot.com. You won’t get dirty.