The green movement was the best thing that ever happened to my parents, because we were suddenly walking everywhere to “save the Earth” instead of to save three dollars on gas.
Recycled toilet paper is very green. I’m not sure why anyone would want used toilet paper.
I knew I had to have a Ziptuk E300S, but convincing my parents to buy me one would be impossible because A) They cost a lot of money and B) They cost a lot of money. Even though I had practically memorized the E300S’s brochures and commercials, I wasn’t going to try to talk my parents into it.
But then, last week, Mr. Tupkin gave us a truly mind-melting test. It was on George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. We were supposed to know what each of them contributed to America’s independence.
I actually did study. Or at least I tried to. I Googled (looked up stuff on the Internet) “Fathers of the U.S.” and found some pretty interesting facts.
Thomas Jefferson brought French fries to America.
George Washington only had one tooth.
I guess it wasn’t too surprising that none of those little nuggets of information appeared on the test, and my grade was another D.
After the bell rang, Mr. Tupkin announced that a few of us needed to do some extra work to catch up. The few of us turned out to be just me.
“You nearly failed another test, Mr. Rifkind. “You must relearn the material, and take it again. For it is history that teaches us the future.”
“I see what you’re saying, Mr. Tupkin, about the past and the future and barely passing the test and all,” I said. “But last night was super tricky for studying. You may not know this, but I share a room with a pair of teething toddlers. So I went to Arnie’s house to study for the test, but we got slightly distracted by RavenCave. Seeing as how we’re trying to get to Level Thirteen . . .”
Sadly, the words fell on deaf ears. (Literally, Mr. Tupkin is deaf in one ear.) He loaded me up with four hours of homework and three textbooks that weigh about six pounds each.
How kids lug home books these days. Weight Limit: 15 pounds. Daily Homework: 45 pounds.
Normally, I would’ve wanted to throw up. But then I realized this just might be a good thing. All those extra books could be my chance to get what I needed most in the world besides my own room.
As soon as I got home from school I yelled for my dad. “Dad! I think I dislocated my shoulder!”
“Let me see!” he said, running into the kitchen.
“Here, grab my backpack first.”
I threw the backpack in my dad’s direction. Clonk! It landed so hard on the kitchen floor it might as well have been full of bricks.
“Hal! This backpack is way too heavy for you.”
“I know! I better get a Ziptuk E300S scooter. The brochure says it’s a totally wireless transporter that intuitively moves where my body tells it to.”
“Yes, I agree. What did you say?”
My dad is a little on the slow side. But I could see the wheels spinning in his head while he was trying to come up with a solution. Which, when it comes to my dad, is not usually a good thing. ’Cause the other habit he has is coming up with these crazy money-saving schemes and tricks.
Finally, after an eternity, he looked at me like he had just invented bread. “Son, you do need a transporter that’s easy to move. I’ll be right back.”
Just as I was picturing the pangs of jealousy I’d be seeing in the other kids at school, and thinking that once I got the Ziptuk’s handling down, I might give Arnie a ride, I looked up to see my dad stroll into the kitchen. He was wheeling a squeaky blue metal cart.
“You’re in luck!” my dad said. “Mrs. Cavanaugh finally moved to the retirement community. She won’t be needing this beauty anymore. The wheels turn fine and the squeaks are barely audible. I got it for a song.”
“Don’t you think I might look a little ridiculous pushing a cart that one-hundred-year-old ladies use to carry fruit?”
“I’m going to insist you take it to school whenever you have lots of homework, Hal. Like you said, you don’t want to risk a shoulder injury, or a slipped disc, or one of those pesky groin pulls. . . .”
“Dad. Think about what the other kids will say.”
“Safety first,” he said. “Bad backs run in our family and this will protect you. I don’t want you to end up all hunched over like some of your relatives.”
In the end, I agreed to take the cart to school. Mostly because when my dad gets an idea in his head, there’s no changing his mind. Plus, I figured, maybe if I gave in on something, he would too. Like giving me my own room sometime in the next decade.
The next day, Arnie helped me pull the cart from my house to school. I’m pretty lucky to have him as a friend. We’ve known each other since we were little kids, I mean really little. Like, our moms have pictures of us together in the bathtub when we were three.
I guess that’s the main reason I stick with him. That, and if I’m not nice to him, he might put those bathtub pictures up on the Internet.
After a few days of dragging the cart around the halls of middle school, I started to get used to my new nickname, Cartboy. About half the kids call me that now, especially Arnie’s older brother, Garth, and his eighth-grade buddies.
Which brings me to the question I’ve been meaning to ask you. Seeing as how you live in the future, do you happen to have a time machine handy? Something that could zap me out of here? Get me to a different place? Anywhere far from Stowfield?
If so, would you mind beaming me up?
Because between my dad, Mr. Tupkin, and the eighth-graders at Stowfield, I don’t see how I’m going to make it through sixth grade.
Milestones in Transportation
Sports
Dear Alien/Person/Possible Humanoid/Robot:
One thing about living in the future that must be fantastic is that you probably have highly developed techniques for staying awake in history class. Like, maybe you can inject history facts directly into your brain so you don’t have to memorize them.
I could have really used those injections today.
Mr. Tupkin went on for thirty-five minutes about colonies and declarations and proclamations and stuff.
“In the 1700s, many colonists living in this country wanted to break away from British rule,” he said. “For them, the need for freedom was the most important thing in the world. So important, they were willing to trade their lives for it.”
He walked toward the back of the classroom and stopped dangerously close to my desk. “For your time-capsule journals, I want you to describe what you think is the most important thing happening in the world today. How about you, Mr. Rifkind? Do you know the most important thing happening in the world?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Superb. What is it?”
“Sports.”
Once again, Mr. Tupkin turned straight from me to Cindy Shano.
“Cindy, how about you?”
“I would say the United Nations’ efforts to achieve peace throughout the world.”
If you have ever been to a Yankees–Red Sox game, you know that peace throughout the world is not possible.
“Good answer,” said Mr. Tupkin. As he walked back to his desk, he shot me a look. “That should have been your answer, Mr. Rifkind.”
It’s not that I don’t think world peace is important. I do. I just don’t see how Mr. Tupkin and Cindy Shano could overlook these riveting statistics:
• The Philadelphia Eaqles (best football team in the world), for the first time in like ninety years, are undefeated.
• If the Philadelphia Flyers (best hockey team in the world) trade Riley Cote, they have a decent shot at the cup.
• The Phillies (best baseball team in the world) are two and one in the series.
My favorite sport is baseball, which I love to play. But there are other sports at Stowfield that are very popular too.
1. Being chased by guys who are bigger than you.
&
nbsp; 2. Getting gum off your locker that was put there by guys who are bigger than you.
3. Doing stuff you don’t want to do because guys bigger than you said to do it.
By guys who are bigger than you, I’m pretty much talking about Garth and his buddies Ryan Horner and Warren the Wedgiemeister. The guys doing the running would be Arnie and me.
Just about every time we sit down in Arnie’s basement to play RavenCave, either Ryan or Garth opens the door and yells down the stairs, “Go get us some sodas, dipwads.” Whenever Garth and his friends tell Arnie and me to do something, it usually leaves one option: do it, or else.
The worst one of Garth’s friends, by far, is Ryan Horner. And if you’re worse than Warren the Wedgiemeister, a heartless savage known for giving sixth-graders up to five wedgies a day, that’s saying a lot.
The wedgie: as popular today as it ever was. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s alive and well in your time too.
Ryan knows how hard Arnie and I have been trying to reach Level 13 of RavenCave, and that the key is getting Susie to find the scythe. He stands over us and says, “I’ll tell you where the scythe is if you get me a Gatorade.” He’s done it a million times.
Arnie and I made the pact to find the scythe together on the first day of school. Since then, we have looked in every corner of the cave. Behind the stalagmites. Inside the treasure chest. On the bottom of the lake.
It’s just about killing us. The other thing that’s just about killing us is the fact that Ryan Horner constantly rubs it in our faces that he’s found the scythe and we haven’t.
I’m not surprised the scythe is shaped like a question mark. Because that thing is nowhere to be found.
But as soon as we bring Ryan the Gatorade, he just laughs, and says something like, “Should’ve gotten it faster.”
So Arnie and I were pretty shocked when this afternoon, Ryan came down to the basement and asked us in this nice voice we had never heard before, “Do you guys want to play baseball?”
“You mean, like, you want us to be the bases?” Arnie asked.
“Ha, that’s cute. No, we just need you and Cartboy to round out the teams.”
“No tricks?” I asked.
“Nah. C’mon. We’re in the backyard.”
Garth, the Wedgiemeister, and a bunch of their friends were waiting. We divided up the teams, but before we got started, Garth said, “There’s just one rule.” He looked at Arnie and me. “Newcomers have to get the ball from the neighbor’s yard if it goes in.”
“That’s not what we agreed to . . .”
“Keep your lid on, Cartboy, it hardly ever happens.”
“Yeah, Wolfie never bites,” said Ryan with a weird smile. “Well, hardly ever.”
Arnie was up at bat first, and while he was busy missing every pitch, I stood in the outfield wondering who Wolfie was.
After Arnie struck out, the Wedgiemeister walked up to the plate. He took a swing and ka-boom! The ball went over the fence.
“Get it, Cartboy!” shouted Ryan. “He’s running home.”
I hopped the fence into the neighbor’s yard. And that’s when I got my first look at Wolfie.
“Nice, Wolfie. Good boy,” I whispered, trying to get close to the ball.
“Grrrrr!”
“Good boy. Everything’s okay.”
“Rowwwf!”
Suddenly, Wolfie opened his massive jaw and lunged at me. I grabbed the ball and made it back over the fence just as the rabid beast took a chunk out of my shoe.
“I quit,” I said.
“You mean you don’t want your turn hitting?” Garth held up a shiny new bat. “Just one more out and you’re up.”
I had to admit, that bat did look good. I was dying to do some hitting.
“All right. But I’m not going over that fence again.”
Garth was up at bat next. The first pitch came and he swung hard. Strike! He missed. The second pitch came, he swung, and crack!
A line drive right over the fence.
“Get it, Cartboy! Go!”
This time, I didn’t need to hop over the fence. Because Ryan picked me up and tossed me over.
I tried to get back over the fence, but halfway up I got stuck. I fell back into Wolfie’s pen and waited to die. I probably would have if Arnie hadn’t come to help me. He distracted Wolfie with a baseball, and I managed to make it out of there with my pants and one shoe. I don’t know what happened to my shirt. I think Wolfie swallowed it.
Arnie and I ran all the way to my house without looking back once. We burst through the door and into the kitchen, where my mom was feeding the twins.
“Hal, your clothes are ripped to shreds! What have you been doing?”
What could I say?
“Sports.”
Before my mom could say anything else, Arnie and I ran into the tiny room I share with the twins.
“Man, that Ryan Horner is a creep,” I said as I grabbed some new clothes. “Seriously, we are never trusting him again.”
“Never,” said Arnie. “Are you okay?”
“I’m pretty sure I need to change my underwear. But otherwise, I’m fine. Thanks for the rescue, Arn.”
Arnie and I decided to go into my tiny backyard and play catch by ourselves. But first, we gave each other a manpat. It’s this high-five/ backslap/fist-pound combo we invented to show each other some support.
I might not have many friends, but I’m lucky I have a good one.
Sports On Earth
Fame
Dear ?
These days, getting famous is pretty easy. Everybody has a chance. All you need is a camera and an idea. It could be weird or cute or smart or dangerous. Or just plain dumb. As long as something about your idea makes people want to watch it. And send it to their friends.
Thanks to something called YouTube, they can.
Cindy Shano taped her dog “singing” “Happy Birthday.” It got ten million views.
It doesn’t hurt that everyone can watch You-Tube on their cell phones too. Practically every time I look at Arnie, he’s watching something on his phone. It’s his favorite thing in the world, especially since he got a custom purple plaid case. If you asked Arnie to give up his leg or his phone, he’d probably go with the leg.
With all this fame everywhere, it’s hard to resist the temptation to get in on the action. Even though I can’t act or sing, and shake like Jell-O when I even get near a stage, I let Arnie convince me to try out for the fall play.
“C’mon, Hal,” Arnie said. “The whole school will be watching. You’ll be able to get any girl you want to go to the middle school dance with you after this.”
What Arnie can never seem to remember is that I have no plans to go to the middle school dance. I am never going to the middle school dance. I’ve told him this a thousand times. I’d rather be trapped in a meat locker with the Wedgiemeister than go to the middle school dance.
“Besides,” said Arnie, “Mr. Tupkin is directing it this year.”
I didn’t have to think it over for long to realize trying out for the school play might not be such a bad idea after all. If I did land a role, two things could happen.
1. I’d get on Mr. Tupkin’s good side.
2. My mom would be so impressed, I would be able to negotiate extra video-game time. Maybe, if I got the lead, she’d up me to twenty-five whole minutes on the weekends.
MINUTES CURRENTLY ALLOWED
TO PLAY RAVENCAVE:
15
MINUTES IT TAKES TO POWER UP SYSTEM:
6
MINUTES OF REAL PLAYING TIME:
9
The play was The Wind in the Willows, and open auditions were one Friday after school. I don’t know if you and your classmates or alien buddies are still performing this play in the future, but right now, it’s considered a “timeless classic.”
As far as I can tell, it’s about a bunch of rodents who talk like the Queen of England. There was only one good role—the fine, good-natured Mole
.
Mole had morals, dignity, grace, and a costume that didn’t crush your kiwis. He dared to leave the underground for the sake of adventure and some fresh air.
A real mole. I am not sure if this is the back or the front.
Of course, Arnie and I both wanted to be Mole badly. Arnie to get girls, both of us to reach Level 13.
Arnie’s parents are pretty stingy with the video-game playing too, so no matter whose house we’re at, our RavenCave time is limited. The fact that his mom and my mom are best friends doesn’t help either. They sit around drinking coffee and talking about how video games “corrupt a boy’s brain.”
I thought I had a decent shot at the role of Mole. I have small ears, brown hair, and when I’m watching wrestling on television, I like to burrow under my Snuggie. (It’s a blanket that’s all the rage right now. It has sleeves. Yep, sleeves.)
It turned out Ryan Horner wanted the role of Mole even worse than Arnie or me. And it was pretty obvious why. Ryan was dying to ask Jamie Levitt to the dance, and she just loves the sensitive actor types.
Only one thing was for sure: auditions would be a clawing, gnawing rat fight to the death.
Arnie and I started rehearsing, memorizing Mole’s lines, trying to get the edge. We figured we would much rather see one of us get to be Mole than Ryan Horner.
But way before the audition, Ryan suddenly started acting extremely moley, especially when Mr. Tupkin was around.
Other kids couldn’t tell, but Arnie and I spotted Ryan’s cheating ways a mile away: eating a burger in the cafeteria by nibbling tiny circular bites all the way around. Wearing a fur vest, “because he was chilly.” Constantly digging for stuff in his locker.
Cartboy and the Time Capsule Page 2