“Ohhhhhhhh, nooooooooo, Orville! We CAN’T use Sally for our test!” said Myron. He could see the wheels turning in my big, smart, nearly-exploding brainiac brain.
“But we’d be helping Sally have fun! She’d LOVE it!” I exclaimed. “It’s BRILLIANT!”
Myron knew he couldn’t win an argument with me. So pretty soon we were stealing Sally from her crib when she was napping, and making a tiny methane backpack for her to hold our fuel.
We planned to poke a little hole in it and the pressure would send her into space—IF the Mooey Pooey Machine had worked!
“But how are we going to get her back from up there?” Myron pointed to the sky.
“Oh, yeah, there’s that. I guess we should make sure we can get her back out of the sky,” I said. “We’ll make a long tether and stick it on Sally with a bunch of velcro so she doesn’t get away. We’ll pull her back down with the tether. GENIUS!” I said.
Myron looked worried.
We found a bunch of rope and bungee cords in the barn and we strung them all together. Then we stuck one end on Sally with a roll of velcro.
Next, we made an airtight backpack out of some of my mom’s exercise pants and we pumped it full of methane from the Mooey Pooey Machine.
I strapped it to Sally and attached one end of the rope. Myron held onto the other end. “Don’t let go of your end, Myron, or she’ll end up on Mars!”
Since Sally was so little, we didn’t think we’d need to light a fire to ignite the gas.
A small hole in the backpack would release enough gas to send her flying.
So I poked a little hole, and counted …
Sally Snodgrass took off! She squealed like a pig as she got smaller and smaller and smaller.
Just then, Raunchy Ralphie popped up out of nowhere. “I’ve been looking for you two!” he said, shaking his fist and charging toward us.
As he was about to grab me, I escaped! All he had left of me was the waistband of my tightie whities. He yanked as hard as he could!
“YOOOOOOOOOOOW!” Everything got pinched really hard before I could pull loose and blast off like a shooting star!
Myron was ahead of me already. We were both panting and out of breath when we met up at my house.
“That was close!” Myron said.
Just then, we heard a siren in the distance. It got closer…and closer…until we remembered: SALLY SNODGRASS!
We ran back to Myron’s house and got there just in time to see a fireman using a ladder to get Sally from the tallest tree I ever saw.
She was all covered with everything that could stick to velcro. She had so many leaves and twigs and papers on her you could hardly tell she was a kid!
Then Principal Snodgrass pulled up in his car.
Yikes!
“ORRRVILLLLLLLLE ORRRBIIIIIIIIIT!”
His jaw was grinding back and forth like crazy! He grabbed me by the arm and you could practically see daggers coming out of his eyeballs.
“You boys are SUSPENDED!”
Science with Orville
Lesson 3
QUESTIONS:
(a) If Mooey eats 8 bushels of Brussels sprouts a day, how many bushels will she eat in a month?
(b) If Ralphie gives me wedgies every day for 7 weeks, how many wedgies will Ralphie give me?
(c) If Myron picks up 5 of Mooey’s poo every day for 40 days straight, how many poos will Myron pick up?
ANSWERS:
(a) Trick question! Some months have 30 days and some have 31. February only has 28 unless it’s a leap year!
(b) Another trick question! That depends entirely on how many wedgies he gives me each day.
(c) 200. What????? You were expecting another trick question??? Fooled you!
Chapter 7
The Mooey Ship
We met at Myron’s house on Monday when we were suspended from school for the day.
I hadn’t seen Mooey much in a few days so I was happy to see her.
Besides, I wanted to make sure she was getting enough to eat. We’d need LOTS of her poo to fuel the spaceship! Brussels sprouts IN, fuel OUT!
“Let’s check on the Brussels sprouts,” I told Myron. We went out into the field and I did some math. I was happy to be able to do math because I sort of missed school!
Any week now, Myron’s dad was going to pick the Brussels sprouts and ship them off. And nothing could fuel Mooey like Brussels sprouts!
“I’d say there’s about one hundred bushels of Brussels sprouts here. So if Mooey eats eight bushels a day, she’s good for twelve and a half days. Boy, do I love math!”
Perfect! There were only nine more days until the science fair. I thought maybe we could get her to eat more so she could move it out faster.
We were going to need TONS of poo for the spaceship!’
‘Yeah, let’s have her start exercising more so she’s hungry,” Myron said.
So we taught Mooey how to do jumping jacks and we gave her a jumping rope to use three times a day.
We also coached her to jog circles around the barn.
We even gave her a slogan and put signs all over the barn. Signs like: PROUDLY MADE BY MOOEY and MOOEY REALLY GOES and JUST POO IT. Motivational stuff like that.
She really loved working out!
It took all day to put our spaceship together but when we got done, we found some paint in the barn and painted it a bright orange.
We wanted to make sure everyone would see it when it blasted off. Especially Ralphie!
Now all we had to do was make posters and stuff for the science fair explaining the Mooey Pooey Machine. The posters would show the judges WHY our project was the BEST ever in the history of science fairs!
We decided to make the posters the next day after school.
There was just one week before…
ta…ta…ta…ta!…drum roll please…
…THE ORVILLE AND MYRON HAPPY HILL MOOEY POOEY SCIENCE FAIR VICTORY!!!!!!
I couldn’t wait to get the big, shiny trophy!
Chapter 8
Ralphie’s Doo Doo
Raunchy Ralphie kept spying on Myron and me. Every time we turned around, there was Ralphie!
We knew he was up to no good. But we didn’t know the astronomical shenanigans he was up to.
The next weekend, Myron and I were busy making posters for the science fair. We spent a lot of time on them because we knew that some of the kids who had stupid science fair ideas would make their posters look extra good to distract the judges.
Dumb kids always do that!
We used lots of glitter and glue to make our words sparkle.
It was hard keeping glitter and glue off of my mom’s pots and pans because we mixed it together inside them.
We used the washer and dryer to mix large batches, too. My dad got mad because his underwear turned sparkly and red.
I don’t know why it mattered since he wore pants over them to go to work.
When we got done with the posters, we went out to check on Mooey. It had been a few days since Myron had time to pick up poo and there were piles of it!
My math calculations told me that the spaceship would need at least seventy-three more poos from Mooey to launch to Mooey Ship.
“We’ll pick it up in a few more days, Myron. Mooey doesn’t mind walking around it all.”
Mooey actually had a strange look on her face. Her eyes were sort of crossed and her cheeks were puffed out. She kept passing gas.
A few days went by, and Mooey looked even worse.
Myron showed up at my door the next day after school crying like a baby.
“Orville, I went to pick up the poo and it didn’t smell bad and I got up real close to sniff it and it didn’t even stick to my fingers and I saw that it was rubber doo doo!”
“RALPHIE!!!!!!” we both exclaimed at the same time.
We ran to Myron’s farm and found Mooey moaning and all cross-eyed behind the barn.
There was a big tarp that was covering something and whe
n we pulled it back we saw Ralphie’s work: a giant pile of empty peanut butter jars!
Ralphie had plugged Mooey up with peanut butter!
What’s the opposite of Brussels sprouts? Peanut butter!
Now we were way behind making fuel for the Mooey Ship!
There were just four days left to make enough gas for launching on the day of the science fair.
I wanted to cry. But mostly I wanted to give Ralphie the biggest wedgie in the history of wedgies! I didn’t have time for that…yet.
First, Myron and I had to figure out how to get Mooey going again. And fast!
Chapter 9
Lucy’s Loosey Laxative
During science class the next day, Mrs. Finklehoffer started teaching about the solar system. She didn’t mention my favorite planet Uranus because she knew how much trouble that would cause.
I tried to get her to talk about more useful scientific stuff. Like, for example, a cow’s digestive system. Especially how you get a constipated cow to poo.
I raised my arm and shook my hand as fast as I could shake it.
“Yes, Orville?” said Mrs. Finklehoffer, using that mean voice that means she doesn’t want me to ask a question.
“If a cow was constipated, and you needed to get her to go, how would you help her? Like scientifically?” I asked.
The class laughed with a big roar.
“Orville Orbit, what does that have to do with the solar system?”
Her arms flapped up a big gust of wind and blew Myron’s papers off his desk.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot to say that maybe the cow was on Mars or something. Theoretically.”
The class laughed even harder. Raunchy Ralphie laughed so hard he was drooling and holding his side.
“That’s it, Orville!” Mrs. Finklehoffer hollered. “Go see Principal Snodgrass!”
I’d never been kicked out of class for asking a really good question. I hated missing my favorite subject.
I walked as slow as possible to the office.
“Orrrrviiiillllle Orrrbiiiiit,” said Prince Snot Grass, “always a pleasure to see the boy who kidnapped my daughter and almost lost her in space!”
Uh-oh. Now that Prince Snot Grass had a hold of me, I knew I was in for an astronomical amount of torture.
He wrote a long list of things I had to do before going home. It started with scrubbing his floor and ended with cleaning his own private Principal potty. BLEHHHHH.
But every problem has a silver lining. At least that’s what my mom always says whenever she’s not busy ordering do this or that ASAP.
I was cleaning the principal’s potty when I decided to see what kinds of things principals keep there.
I found: two tubes of SuperMan Sticky denture cream, five bottles of Heartless-Heartburn-Help, one dirty Dog-Breath-Be-Gone breath mint, a bloody, old Little Mermaid bandaid, and something that looked like a fuzzy grey rat.
I swatted it with the plunger and it flew off the shelf. I whacked it until it stopped moving, then I picked it up and realized it was…a hairy, lifeless toupee!
Yuck!
I put the rat-hair back on the shelf and found one last miracle: a bottle of Lucy’s Loosey Laxative!
My brain quickly realized that my trip to the office would solve Mooey’s problem! Thank you, Mrs. Finklehoffer!
Myron was waiting for me after school. We went straight to the farm to find Mooey and help her reverse Ralphie’s work.
But when we got there, Mooey was nowhere to be found!
She had been cow-napped!
Science with Orville
Lesson 4
The Digestive System of a cow looks like this:
The cow’s digestive tract consists of the mouth, esophagus, very long small and large intestines, and a four-compartment stomach.
Yes, a four-compartment stomach!
I wonder if Mooey could keep four different kinds of food in the separate compartments.
That’s what I would do if I was a cow. I would put candy in Stomach 1, ice cream in Stomach 2, hot dogs in Stomach 3 and veggies in Stomach 4. Or maybe I’d forget about the veggies and just make Stomach 4 be an overflow stomach for extra ice cream.
What would you do with four stomachs?
Chapter 10
Cow-Napped
The next morning, I woke up feeling SO sad! I always wondered what a black hole in space would feel like.
I felt like I was in a black hole on earth! After all our hard work, we wouldn’t have enough gas for the science fair unless we could find Mooey and get her digesting again… fast!
We knew WHO had taken Mooey. But WHERE did Ralphie take her?
It was Saturday and the science fair was just two days away.
Myron and I searched everywhere for Mooey. We made posters and put them all over the place.
Next, we looked around Ralphie’s house. Ralphie’s sister was playing outside and she let us inside to look under Ralphie’s bed and in his closet.
The only thing there were piles of dirty undies and papers marked up with red circles and big fat F’s.
We looked all over town. We even snuck into Happy Hill to search every classroom.
Principal Snodgrass was there.
He saw us snooping around and collared us. “SCRAM!” he ordered. “You’re trespassing on school property!”
“But we’re looking for our gassy cow!” I begged him, “Pleeeeaaaaase let us search. Maybe she’s in the cafeteria looking for prunes!”
“Orviiiiiiiiilllllllle Orbiiiiiiitttttttt!” he screamed, grinding his little yellow corn teeth.
His three chins shook up a storm.
“One more word out of you and it’s potty-cleaning time again!”
Myron and I left school and ran to the police station to file a missing cow report.
A very nice policeman wrote everything down.
“Color of eyes?”
“Brown.”
“Color of hair?”
“Brown.”
“Color of skin?”
“It’s kind of hard to tell since it’s all covered with hair.”
“Distinguishing marks?”
“White spots on her belly and legs, and another near her bun hole.”
The policeman got mad because he thought we were wasting his time joking around, and he kicked us out.
“Don’t come back!” he yelled.
We would never find Mooey in time…or maybe ever.
“Hey, we could use Penelope’s poo instead,” said Myron. “I’ll bet there’s methane in that, too.”
“Forget it, Myron. We’re done. Kaput. Astronomically finished. We’ll just explain to the judges that Raunchy Ralphie stole Mooey. Then we’ll lose the science fair. No trophy for us.”
I wanted to cry. But I tried to be brave for Mooey. I bit my lip to keep from crying.
The moisture from my wet eyes fogged up my space helmet and I could barely see anymore.
I spent the next two days still searching for my Mooey….
…and dreaming about finding a way to give Ralphie the Wedgie Of All Wedgies!
Chapter 11
The Science Fair
Tuesday morning, my mom helped me get my sparkly posters to school for the science fair.
The glitter got all over the seats in her fancy car. But she didn’t even scream at me.
My mom had been really nice ever since I told her about Mooey being gone.
Myron and I met in the parking lot. His dad helped us set up the Mooey Pooey Machine at our table in the auditorium.
At least we could show the judges how it’s supposed to work.
We set up the machine, along with the posters.
But we didn’t bother bringing the spaceship since there wasn’t enough fuel to launch it.
Now the most exciting day of the whole school year was going to be a flop! An astronomical disaster!
The big, shiny trophy would go to some kid who wasn’t nearly as smart as me!
We hadn’t seen Raunchy Ralphie since Mooey went missing. I kept looking out the windows all day thinking he might show up.
But I think he was playing hooky.
After school, all the kids set up their projects in the auditorium.
Myron and I put up our posters and polished the Mooey Pooey Machine so at least it looked shiny and important.
The three judges walked around with Mrs. Finklehoffer looking at all the projects.
There were lots of stupid ideas like:
1) How Moldy Can A Piece Of Bread Get?
(Duh! Supergalactically moldy!)
(2) What Kind Of Music Does My Dog Like Best?
(Holy Pluto! Who cares???)
(3) How Quickly Do Dead Fish Float?
(Didn’t I just ask: Who cares?!!!)
Nothing came close to making a fuel converter and launching a spaceship!
The next best project was by the second smartest kid in the fourth grade—Brittany Spaniel.
Brittany was sooooooooooo SMART that I had a very bad crush on her. My crush was even worse because she had this soft, fluffy hair that reminded me of my first dog, a golden retriever named Sam-I-Am-Farquar-Silly-Billy-Buckeroo-Goldie Norbit.
I LOVED that dog!
Brittany was just like my dog—only smarter, and she didn’t sniff anyone else’s butt which made her nicer. Did I mention she even smelled like lilacs?
Brittany’s project was called Making A Spinning Steel Wool Sparkler. She had all these amazing pictures of bright sparks glowing against a night sky, showing how her awesome sparkler works.
Although she had great posters, they weren’t as glittery as Myron’s and mine.
First, Mrs. Finklehoffer brought the judges down our row and stopped at each project.
Mostly, the judges looked over their glasses like they were super important. The kids were nervous.
I was supernova nervous.
When they got to Myron and me, one of them asked me to explain the Mooey Pooey Machine.
So I said:
We had this cow named Mooey who loves Brussels sprouts and we filled her full of them, and she pooped a lot, and we picked it up and made this machine to turn the poo into fuel and we tested it on the principal’s kid and it worked and then Raunchy Ralphie got jealous and stole our cow and now there’s not enough poo to make fuel and launch our spaceship so we left it at Myron’s house.
Orville Orbit Page 2