Judy Moody: Around the World in 8 1/2 Days

by Megan McDonald

  So she, Judy Moody, official card-carrying member of the My-Name-Is-a-Poem Club, would make sure Classes 3T and 3V went around the world in eight days. She, Judy Moody, would DIH. Do. It. Herself.

  Judy stayed up past bedtime reading about Italy and gluing pizza tables together and making up a game for everyone to play. She even made Stink practice the tarantella with her, but he just kept stomping on her feet.

  When she woke up the next morning, she dressed in a red skirt and a green-and-white striped shirt. She even drew Italian flags on her white tights and wore her red shoes from the time she was Dorothy for Halloween.

  “Who are you?” asked Stink. “One of Santa’s elves?”

  “Elf schmelf,” said Judy. “Don’t you know what’s red, white, and green all over?”

  “Markers that got on Mom’s new white carpet?” asked Stink.

  “I hope you’re kidding,” said Mom. “Hmm, let’s see. Red, white, and green. How about that strange spaghetti Dad makes?”

  “I thought you liked my tri-color pasta,” said Dad. “You said it was creative!”

  “It’s creative all right,” said Mom, making a funny face.

  “Well, I hope we’re not having that tonight,” said Judy. “Because I borrowed lots of pasta for my Pasta Shapes Game.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” said Dad. “What’s red, white, and green all over? A Christmas zebra?”

  “No-o!” said Judy. “It has nothing to do with Christmas.”

  “I know!” said Stink. “How about the flag of Bulgaria, Hungary, Mexico, or Madagascar?”

  “Mad-at-what-car? Hello! How about It-a-ly, Stink? The flag of Italy is red, white, and green.”

  “I can’t help it. I didn’t read the I volume of the encyclopedia yet,” said Stink. “Besides, you don’t look like a flag. And I should know. I was a human flag once. . . .”

  “Wow, this must be quite a project,” said Dad.

  “It is,” said Judy. “It took Nellie Bly seventy-two days to go around the world, and she beat the record. Try going around the whole world in just eight days!”

  “So, are you and your friends all patched up now?” asked Mom.

  “It’s still a little rocky,” said Judy. “But after today —”

  “A little Rocky? Get it?” asked Stink.

  “Ha, ha,” said Judy. “Stink, can I borrow your tarantula skeleton to take to school? And your tambourine?”

  “I don’t know,” said Stink. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Stink, don’t be a bratellino. Not today. Please.”

  “Do they have a lot of tarantulas and tambourines in Italy or something?” asked Stink.

  “Or something,” said Judy.

  “No, I mean it,” said Stink.

  “Stink, for a kid who reads the encyclopedia, you sure don’t know a lot of stuff.”

  “I haven’t read the T volume yet either!” said Stink.

  “Well, you better get cracking!” said Judy. “Didn’t you know? In the country of Italy, tarantulas play the tambourine while eating tortellini!”

  When Judy got to school that morning, she bumped into Amy Namey in the hall.

  “I can’t wait to hear about Italy!” said Amy. “We get to come over to your class again. I can’t wait to see your group dance that spider dance!”

  “I’m my group,” said Judy. She stepped inside Class 3T and set the Leaning Tower of Pizza Tables on the shelf by the window. She covered it with an upside-down box so nobody would see it yet.

  “Rocky, did you bring the record? And the record player?” asked Judy.

  “Frank,” said Rocky, “tell Judy I brought the record player.”

  “Yipes stripes! You’re still not talking to me?” asked Judy.

  Rocky zipped his lips.

  “Lipper Zipper,” said Judy, cracking herself up.

  “Huh?” asked Frank.

  “Never mind,” said Judy. “You had to be there. And I was. With Amy Namey. Not you guys!”

  As soon as the bell rang, it was time for Judy’s group to tell about Italy. Judy and Jessica stood up in front of Class 3T and Class 3V.

  “Judy,” asked Mr. Todd, “what about the rest of your group?”

  “C’mon, you guys,” Judy whispered.

  Rocky and Frank came and stood up front. “Um, Rocky’s having trouble with his voice or something,” said Judy. “So I’ll be talking for my group. Frank will hold up the flag of Italy.” Judy handed the flag to Frank.

  “Ciao, everybody,” said Judy. “First, Jessica Finch will pass out a Pizza Spelling Test.”

  “Test!?” everybody complained.

  “It’s just for fun,” said Jessica. “And you can do it whenever you want. It’s not like it’s H-O-M-E-W-O-R-K or anything.”

  “Now,” said Judy Moody, “first I’ll tell you a little about Italy. Then we’ll play a game, and I’ll show you a dance. So, Italy sure has some funny-sounding cities. Like Baloney, Italy. And Pizza, Italy.”

  “It’s Ba-LONE-ya,” said Mr. Todd. “And PEE-za, Italy.”

  “Bravo!” said Judy. “In the town of Pizza, there’s this tower, but it’s crooked. So it’s called the Leaning Tower of Pizza.”

  “And guess what?” said Jessica Finch. “If you mess up the letters in THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA, you get WHAT A FOREIGN STONE PILE. It’s called an anagram.”

  “Anyway,” said Judy, “I made a leaning tower to show you what it looks like.”

  “That was our idea!” said Rocky.

  “Rocky, I see you found your voice,” said Mr. Todd.

  “This was Rocky and Frank’s idea,” said Judy. “Voilà!”

  “Voilà is French,” said Jessica Finch. “We learned that last week.”

  “May I present,” said Judy, “the Leaning Tower of Pizza Tables.” She yanked off the box.

  Something was not right! The Leaning Tower of Pizza Tables wasn’t leaning at all. It was melted. What used to be a leaning stack of glued-together pizza tables was now just a great big globby blob of melty plastic.

  “Ahhh!” Everybody pointed and cracked up.

  “I’m melting!” said Rocky in a Wicked-Witch-of-the-West voice.

  “Oh, no!” said Judy. “My Leaning Tower of Pizza Tables. I set it on the shelf . . . over the radiator!”

  “The heat melted them,” said Rocky.

  “We’ll just have to call it the Melted Tower of Pizza,” said Frank.

  “Don’t feel bad,” said Amy Namey. “That’s like what happened to my papier-mâché globe. Globe explode! Remember?”

  “Okay, folks, the show must go on!” said Mr. Todd.

  Judy took out the supplies for the Pasta Shapes Game.

  “Everybody gets their own game board and a little bag with pasta in it,” said Judy, holding up a bag and rattling it. “You match the different kinds of pasta in the bag with the shapes on your board.”

  “Great idea,” said Mr. Todd.

  “That sounds like lots of fun,” said Ms. Valentine.

  “Then write the name of the noodle under it. If you don’t know the name, you can look up at my chart.” Judy held up a piece of cardboard that had pasta shapes glued onto it. Above each kind of pasta was its name.

  Everybody cracked up. “Ha, ha!” Bradley pointed.

  “You’re missing some,” said a kid from the other class.

  “Where’s the elbow macaroni?” somebody asked.

  “And the vermicelli? And the cappellini?” asked Jessica.

  Judy stared at her cardboard. How could she have missed any? She had even stayed up late making sure she had every single last one glued into place.

  She marched over to Rocky and Frank. “Which one of you stole them? Give it.” She held out her hand.

  “I didn’t do anything! Honest!” said Rocky.

  Frank was chewing away on something. And the something was not gum. The something was pasta shapes from her game.

  “You ate them!?” cried Judy.

  “I got hung
ry just standing here being a flag,” mumbled Frank.

  “Eeuw! Use your noodle, Frank,” she said, pointing to her head. “Those noodles were not even cooked!”

  “So?” said Frank. “They still taste good.”

  “Yuck!” said Judy. “They had GLUE on them. I’m going to tell the whole world that you, Frank Pearl, ate glue.”

  “So? Everybody thinks I eat paste anyway.”

  “ROAR-a-lini!” said Judy.

  The Leaning Tower of Pizza Tables had melted. The Pasta Shapes Game had gotten eaten. Getting around the world in eight days was definitely not easy.

  But nothing could wreck the tarantella. Nothing. It had to be perfect. If only she hadn’t forgotten about the practice that day. Now she, Judy Moody, would dance the tarantella alone. Just like her fortune had said.

  Rocky would play the record. Frank would shake the tambourine. And Jessica Finch would clap along.

  She could not mess this up, or half the third grade would be mad that they did not make it around the world in eight days.

  While everyone finished the Pasta Shapes Game, Mr. Todd pushed desks and stuff over to the corner so Judy would have plenty of room.

  “Okey-dokey,” said Judy. “This morning I am going to dance the tarantella.”

  “The tarantula?” somebody asked.

  “No, not the tarantula,” said Frank.

  “Well, actually, you’re never going to believe it, but I looked it up. Who knew? Tarantella means ‘tarantula.’ For real and absolute positive. My dad told me the dance started a long time ago, before he was even born, around the Middle Ages.” Mr. Todd and Ms. Valentine cracked up.

  Judy held up the tarantula skin in a bag. Everybody squirmed. “EEUW!”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not a real spider. Just the skin or the skeleton of a tarantula. Anyway, this dance is called the Spider Dance. Some people say it started because if you got bitten by a tarantula, then you’d act as crazy as a loon and dance to get all the spider-bite stuff out of your system. A doctor even wrote about it and said this dance was a cure for spider bites.”

  “Interesting,” Mr. Todd said, raising his eyebrows.

  “A spider has eight legs, so usually you need four people,” said Judy, glancing over at Rocky, Frank, and Jessica.

  “Judy,” said Mr. Todd, “why don’t you show us? Then we’ll call on some others to come up and try it with you.”

  “Fantastico!” said Judy. Rocky started the record. Judy faced the third graders. She stretched her hands in the air. Frank started to shake the tambourine. Jessica Finch clapped. Judy took a deep breath. “Nice and easy,” she told herself.

  Da da da, duh da da da,

  Da da da-da-da-da-duh

  Step-hop, slide. Step-hop, slide. Change step. Hop. Skip. Slap knee. Repeat. Buzz turn. Spin in place.

  “One, two, three, and four,” Judy counted to herself. She tried to remember all the steps she practiced. She tried to remember to reverse direction when the music changed. She tried to keep up with the music as it got faster.

  Stephopslide. Stephopslide. Change! Step! Hop! Skip! Slapknee! Repeat!

  Da da da, duh da da da,

  Da da da-da-da-da-duh

  Something was not right! The music was too fast!

  Judy made her feet go faster and faster until her head was dizzy and her hair was in her mouth.

  “Too — puff puff — fast!” she panted. “Slow — puff puff — down!” Huff puff puff.

  But nobody seemed to hear. The music kept going faster and faster. Frank shook the tambourine faster than an earthquake. Judy whirled and twirled, a dizzy dancing dervish. Her feet were moving so fast, she felt like a spider with eight legs.

  The class was clapping and shouting and laughing and pointing. Mr. Todd blinked the lights. Judy spun like a top out of control — a dizzy, dancing, red-white-and-green machine!

  Suddenly, she banged into a desk, tripped over her own foot, and fell in a red, white, and green heap on the floor.

  “Oops. Was it too fast?” Rocky asked innocently.

  “Stupido!” Judy mumbled.

  She, Judy Moody, knew that Rocky and Frank had revved up the tarantella music on purpose.

  It was just plain red, white, and mean.

  The tarantella had turned out to be a big fat flop. Nobody with two legs could dance as fast as a spider with eight legs. Now the third graders would not make it around the world in eight days. And everybody would blame her, even though she had danced her legs off!

  She, Judy Moody, had flunked.

  It was all Rocky and Frank’s fault. Rocky No-Talky and Frank the Prank. The My-Name-Is-NOT-a-Poem Club.

  After Class 3V left the room, Mr. Todd had a private talk with Judy, Rocky, Frank, and Jessica. He talked to them about what it means to work together as a group. He wanted them to work out their differences, to give each other a second chance. He wanted them to be friends again. But most of all, he wanted to give them a second chance.

  “Do I have to have a second chance?” asked Jessica. “Because I think I tried to be a T-E-A-M P-L-A-Y-E-R.”

  “You know,” said Mr. Todd, “in Italy there’s a saying. ‘You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.’”

  “For real?” said Judy.

  “Absolutely,” said Mr. Todd. “Things often go wrong before they go right. It happens all the time.”

  “I’ve heard of ‘break a leg’ but never ‘break an egg,’” said Jessica.

  “Boys, how about if I give you until tomorrow morning to do your part for our Around-the-World unit?” Mr. Todd said.

  “You mean we could still think up our own Italy project, and bring it in tomorrow morning?” asked Rocky.

  “And then we’d still get to go around the world, even though it took eight and a half days?” asked Frank.

  “I don’t see why not,” said Mr. Todd. “Even Nellie Bly had a lot of things go wrong on her trip around the world.”

  “Yeah, like there was a bad storm and she almost didn’t make it back to America on time,” said Jessica.

  “And McGinty, her monkey, got scared and jumped on a lady’s back!” said Judy. “Everybody said he was bad luck and wanted Nellie to throw him overboard!”

  “That’s right,” said Mr. Todd. “So, what do you say? Sound like a plan?”

  “It’s a plan,” said Rocky and Frank.

  Rocky turned to Judy. “We’re sorry you did all the work and for messing up your dance,” said Rocky. “You were REALLY fast! So fast it looked like you had eight legs!”

  “And we’re sorry for eating your Pasta Shapes Game and for getting mad,” said Frank. “We really messed up.”

  “I messed up, too,” said Judy. “I’m the one who missed our practice. All I could think about was the My-Name-Is-a-Poem Club, and I guess I forgot my old friends.” She held out a hand. Rocky and Frank piled their hands on top of hers.

  “Don’t forget me!” said Jessica, adding her hand to the top of the pile.

  Magnifico! Fantastico! Judy could not wait to tell Amy Namey that Classes 3T and 3V were going to go around the world in eight (and a half) days after all!

  Rocky and Frank had to think up a project. Fast. And Judy and Jessica did not even have to help. Mr. Todd said the boys needed to figure it out all by themselves.

  “So what are you going to do?” Judy asked them.

  “It’s a surprise,” said Frank.

  “It’s a really big scoop,” said Rocky.

  “Well, it better not be the Leaning Tower of Pizza Tables again, because half my collection melted.”

  “It’ll be better,” said Frank.

  “It’ll be big,” said Rocky.

  “It’ll be red, white, and green!” said Rocky and Frank, cracking themselves up.

  “Is it . . . the Grinch . . . on a fire engine?” Jessica guessed.

  “You’ll see,” said Rocky.

  “You’ll see,” said Frank.

  “Break an egg!” said Judy.


  The next morning, Rocky was not on the bus. And Judy was dying to show him the letter and the photo she’d gotten from Nathaniel Daniel in California.

  When Judy got to school, she ran over to Amy’s class.

  “Look what I got!” she told Amy Namey.

  “It’s Bubblegum Alley!” said Amy.

  “Look closer,” Judy said.

  Amy peered at the photo and found the initials JM made out of chewed-up gum.

  “JM for Judy Moody! I’m on the Wall of Gum!” said Judy. “In the Bubblegum Hall of Fame.”

  “Double check!” said Amy.

  “Hey, have you seen Rocky? Or Frank?” Judy asked Jessica Finch when she got to class.

  “Didn’t you hear? The two of them got here super early and they’ve been down in the cafeteria all morning. I can’t wait to find out what they’re up to.” The whole class was buzzing about the big scoop. Rocky and Frank even got to miss Spelling.

  Finally, Rocky and Frank came back upstairs. They told Mr. Todd and Ms. Valentine to bring everybody down to the cafeteria in five minutes.

  “What IS it?” asked Judy, rushing up to Rocky and Frank.

  “We’re not telling!” they said.

  Class 3T and Class 3V walked single file down the hall and down the stairs to the cafeteria. They could smell it before they saw it. Everybody had a seat at one of the lunch tables.

  The project was so big, it would not fit through the door, so the lunch ladies had to help them slide it through the wide window from the kitchen. In came a lunch lady, then Rocky, then Frank, then another lunch lady. They were holding their hands over their heads and carrying the biggest, roundest circle of cardboard Judy had ever seen.

  “YUM!” said Jessica Finch.

  “Smells good!” said Judy.

  “What is it?” everybody asked.

  It took six pushed-together tables just to hold it. They set the cardboard down. On it was the biggest, bubbliest, yummiest, cheesiest pizza in the world.