The Terrible Two

by Mac Barnett

  Miles stood up. Was this really it? Would he really be leaving unpunished?

  “Why are you lollygagging?” Barkin shouted. “Go!”

  Chapter

  23

  NILES SPARKS WAS WAITING on the other side of Barkin’s door.

  “You are one slippery customer,” said Niles. “That visual-aid business was inspired.”

  “How’d you hear that?”

  Niles produced a drinking glass from behind his back. “Old-fashioned listening device,” he said.

  “Does that really work?” Miles asked.

  “Try it.”

  Miles held the tumbler up to the door and pressed his ear against the bottom.

  “Yes, but I didn’t cancel class,” Ms. Shandy was saying. “I just had the students continue their presentations down on the lower field instead of in a classroom full of crickets.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand that,” said Barkin. “It’s just that you must know we Barkins are sensitive to even the appearance of an interruption in instruction. And I think you’ll find I’m being very open-minded. I mean, if my father had seen your students all gathered under that oak tree in the middle of a school day!”

  Miles handed back the glass. “Neat,” he said, trying to not express how neat he actually found it.

  The two boys headed down the hallway.

  “This time you actually did come up with a really good prank,” Niles said.

  “Gee, thanks,” said Miles.

  “I mean it.”

  “How’d you know I was going to do it?”

  Niles stopped.

  “How’d you know I was going to switch the shoe boxes?” Miles asked.

  “I saw you changing out of those wingtips in the parking lot before school all last week,” said Niles. “It was pretty easy to figure out why you’d have a pair of shoes exactly like mine, if you didn’t want to wear them. Although you should really give wingtips a chance. Once they’re broken in, they actually conform to your foot and—”

  “But how—”

  “You took the crickets when you switched the shoe boxes. Then I swapped your diorama for mine while you weren’t paying attention. What were you doing, just looking down at your desk? Let me guess: picturing me up there with that Barkin diorama?”

  Miles didn’t say anything.

  “Something I’ve learned,” said Niles. “You can’t celebrate a prank before it’s over.”

  Miles couldn’t tell whether he was angrier at himself or at Niles. Probably Niles.

  “Oh great. Expert advice from Dr. Expert.” It wasn’t a great line, but he was very angry.

  “Miles, this is like a magician revealing the secrets behind his tricks. I’m only telling you this stuff because I respect your talent for improvisation. That’s why the Terrible Two is a great—”

  “Oh please. You know, Niles, it’s easy to sit there and tear everything down. But it’s another thing to actually create something.”

  “What?”

  “Seems to me this prank war’s been pretty one-sided. I keep coming up with pranks, you keep foiling them. Big deal. Why should I want to team up with you? Because you figured out how to park a car at the top of some steps once? Great. Ooooh. Wow. You’ve been playing defense for the last six weeks. If you’re such a great prankster, then bring it.”

  “OK,” Niles said, and walked off.

  Miles went to clean up some crickets.

  Chapter

  24

  MILES MURPHY WAS LOSING SLEEP. He was eating less. Lately people had been saying his face looked a little gray.

  “Your face looks a little gray,” Holly said when she saw Miles in the hall. “Are you all right?”

  Miles Murphy was not all right. For the past two months he’d been anticipating an attack that had never come. He hadn’t even been able to enjoy his winter break because he was worried Niles was going to prank him at the mall, or in his house, or when he was hiding from Josh Barkin behind a mailbox. Now that school was back in session, nowhere was safe. They’d been back for three weeks and Niles still hadn’t pranked him—probably because of Miles’s tireless vigilance. It was a kind of victory, but it felt awful.

  Holly walked down the hallway with no hesitation. She rounded corners, waved to kids, smiled at teachers, drummed on lockers as she passed them. She had energy. Charisma.

  Miles, meanwhile, kept a step or two behind Holly. He had to. Miles Murphy was at DEFCON 5. Or DEFCON 1. Whichever DEFCON was the most alert, most serious DEFCON. (It was DEFCON 1, a fact Ms. Shandy had mentioned in social studies last Tuesday. But lately Miles hadn’t been paying much attention in class, an all-consuming, single-minded readiness being the hallmark of DEFCON 1.)

  Holly pointed to a sign on the wall.

  The rest of the wall was taken up by a campaign poster: a huge black-and-white photograph of Josh Barkin and his father. The poster was festooned with crepe-paper bunting. Above Josh’s head was his slogan.

  “I’ll bet you he stole those streamers from the art room,” Holly said. “And he gets the good real estate, next to the drinking fountain. I had to put mine by the teacher bathroom.”

  She pointed to another poster down the hall.

  She shrugged. “But hey, someone’s got to fight the power.”

  They continued down the hall.

  “Good morning, Alice,” Holly said to Alice.

  “Hey, Scotty,” Holly said to a kid presumably named Scotty.

  They rounded a corner and there he was.

  “Hi, Niles.”

  “Hi, Holly! Hi, Miles!”

  Miles should have looked away. But Niles caught Miles’s eye and smiled. Miles’s stomach, already sensitive after weeks of a mostly fruit-snack diet, gurgled and churned. Niles’s smile was basically an ordinary smile—innocent and sunny, typical of Niles’s School Helper mask. But there was something else, something at the corners of Niles’s eyes. Confidence. Mischief. Danger. For weeks this smile had been inducing fear and anger and nausea in Miles. In the middle of class, Niles would turn to Miles and smile. After school, as Miles crossed the parking lot, Niles would wave and smile. At night, Niles’s smiling face appeared in Miles’s dreams (except in his dreams Niles’s head was covered in coarse blond bristles, and he had little red eyes that flashed, and also the dreams took place in the dairy aisle of the supermarket—it was weird). Niles smiled everywhere.

  Niles knew Miles hated the smile, and Miles knew Niles knew, and Niles knew Miles knew Niles knew—and somehow all this knowledge was folded back into the smile. The smile was an omen. A portent. The smile meant a prank was coming. Sometimes, late at night, Miles wondered if the smile was the prank. But in the mornings, when the sun came through his window, Miles knew he’d never get off that easy.

  Chapter

  25

  HOLLY AND MILES STOPPED in front of Miles’s new locker, #336. Stuart was entering the combination to the locker below, which was Miles’s old locker, #337.

  “Hey,” said Holly, “when did you get an upper locker?”

  “We TRADED,” Stuart announced.

  “Why would anyone trade—”

  Behind Stuart’s crouching back, Miles cut Holly off by sawing silently at his neck.

  “I KNOW!” Stuart said. “WHY would anyone want an UPPER LOCKER?”

  Holly arched an eyebrow. Everyone wanted an upper locker. Miles wanted an upper locker. And, in pretty much the only highlight of the last month or so, he’d tricked Stuart into giving his up.

  It was your standard Tom Sawyering: Before lunch one Tuesday, Miles had kneeled in front of his locker and pulled a coin from his pocket.

  “Hey, look at that,” Miles said. “A quarter.”

  “WHAT?” said Stuart. “You just FOUND a QUARTER?”

  “Yeah. Oh, look at that. It’s a bicentennial quarter.”

  Miles held up the quarter and showed Stuart the drumming man on the back.

  “WOW! Aren’t those quarters worth even MORE than NORMAL QUA
RTERS?”

  “Yeah,” said Miles. “About two dollars, I think.”

  Stuart just looked at the quarter and gasped.

  “I find stuff like this on the floor all the time,” Miles said. “People are always dropping stuff. It’s one reason I love having a lower locker.”

  “What do you mean ONE reason?”

  “Well, you don’t have to lift your books into your locker this way. That can lead to injury, you know. Sort of an achy tingling running through your forearm?”

  “MY forearm has been ACHING!” Stuart said. “Is that BAD?”

  “Could be. Could be tendonitis. Or carpal tunnel.”

  “Aw MAN!”

  “You probably don’t have carpal tunnel.” Miles pocketed the quarter. “But you never know.”

  Stuart was looking a little nervous. Time to clinch it.

  “Plus a lower locker keeps your lunch fresh and cool. You know—because heat rises.”

  “I wish I had a LOWER locker.”

  “Whoa, whoa, Stuart. I’m not going to trade with you.”

  “PLEASE trade with me!”

  “No way. It’s not an even trade. I love my lower locker.”

  “PLEASE.”

  “Maybe . . .” Miles started. “No.”

  “WHAT?”

  “I was going to say, maybe if you gave me your fruit snacks for a week, but—”

  “What about A MONTH?”

  And that’s how Miles got an upper locker. He looked forward to telling the story to Holly as soon as Stuart left. But Stuart was having trouble with the combination.

  “Um, Miles,” said Stuart. “What’s the last number again?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Oh YEAH!” Stuart turned the dial to the left. The metal door swung open.

  “I don’t remember ANY of THIS!” Stuart said.

  There was a springing sound and a muffled “Oof” from Stuart as a pie flew from his locker and into his face.

  This is what Stuart saw in his locker:

  “WHAT the WHAT the WHAT!” Stuart pulled the aluminum pie tin from his face and began to wipe off whipped cream. “That was CRAZY!”

  Miles bent down and peered into Stuart’s locker. The catapult was impressive. Brilliant, even. The whole prank combined classic styling—a good old pie in the face—with an innovative pie-delivery system. Only Niles Sparks could have dreamed up the contraption in locker #337. But there was one problem: Niles Sparks had gotten the wrong locker.

  “Ha, ha!” Miles said. (He actually said, “Ha, ha!”) “He didn’t know we switched!”

  Niles hadn’t known about the locker switch. He’d been too busy planning and building and smiling, and he’d missed a crucial detail. Here was a little pranking rule for Niles Sparks: Don’t miss crucial details! After a long streak of thwarted pranks, Miles was now the thwarter! He’d thwarted Niles just as Niles had thwarted him! Well, technically he’d benefited from an oversight—it wasn’t exactly an active thwarting. But a thwart was a thwart!

  Stuart picked off a maraschino cherry stuck above his left eyebrow and popped it in his mouth. “YUM! It’s like a SHIRLEY TEMPLE!”

  Miles felt a pang of sympathy for Stuart, collateral damage in the prank war. But then again, he seemed to be enjoying that cherry.

  The commotion attracted a crowd, and the crowd attracted Barkin.

  “Make way for me, make way for me!” Barkin said. He plowed through the mob and surveyed the situation.

  Stuart: Creamed.

  Miles: Nearby.

  Himself: ON THE CASE.

  “Stuart,” said Barkin, “you’re covered in whipped cream.”

  “I KNOW!” said Stuart. “There’s a PIE-FLINGING machine in my LOCKER!”

  “Is there really?” asked Barkin, getting purplish. He examined the inside of Stuart’s locker.

  “My, my, Barry,” the principal muttered to himself. “A catapult.”

  He pulled a pair of latex gloves from his Principal Pack. “Let’s look for clues, shall we?”

  Miles already knew what Barkin would find: nothing. Niles may have made one mistake, but he wasn’t going to make two.

  “Nothing,” Barkin said, after some careful poking and prodding. “But the investigation will continue!”

  Miles pretended Barkin wasn’t staring right at him.

  Barkin continued to stare right at him.

  The bell rang.

  Principal Barkin snapped to purple-faced attention. “Get to class, everybody! That bell means you’re late! Don’t think I will hesitate to give sixty-two students detentions at once. I would welcome the chance to hold that world record!”

  As the crowd dispersed, Miles glimpsed Niles looking on. Niles looked lost. Dismayed. Thwarted.

  And for the first time in three weeks, Miles was the one smiling. He grinned at Niles and went to his locker, his upper locker, to grab his math book. Maybe he would have pizza for lunch today. Yes, that sounded pretty good.

  He swung open his locker door. “LOOK at all those CHERRIES!” Stuart said. “It’s like your LOCKER is a SHIRLEY TEMPLE FACTORY!”

  Miles hoped Barkin wasn’t still staring right at him.

  He was.

  “I didn’t do it,” said Miles.

  “Strike three!” said Principal Barkin.

  Chapter

  26

  PRINCIPAL BARKIN WAS RELAXED. He sat back in his chair. His face was not purple or even deep red—it was face colored. Miles took this as a very bad sign.

  “I think maybe I was framed,” Miles said.

  “You were framed,” said Barkin. “And who, Miles Murphy, would frame you?”

  He couldn’t rat. “Lots of people.”

  “ ‘Lots of people.’ Miles Murphy, I don’t doubt that lots of people dislike you. But that is because you are a prankster. And now you have just pulled another prank.”

  “I didn’t do it!” said Miles.

  “And how do you explain the evidence?”

  “A coincidence?”

  “Yes, of course! A coincidence! You had a locker full of whipped cream and cherries on the same day Stuart got a face full of whipped cream and cherries. Quite a coincidence! And Stuart’s locker, of course, was until Tuesday your locker, meaning you had the combination. So really, that’s two coincidences! With all these coincidences, Miles Murphy, I’d suggest you hurry out and buy a lottery ticket, except for one thing: Today is your unlucky day.”

  Miles slouched.

  “Another reason I would not suggest you buy a lottery ticket,” Barkin continued, “is that it’s illegal for a kid to buy a lottery ticket, and so I’d never suggest it. Not that the law ever stopped Miles Murphy! It’s also illegal for a kid to drive! And even more illegal for a kid to drive my car! And probably also illegal to park a car at the top of the steps of this school, which I still don’t understand how you did!”

  “I didn’t,” Miles said.

  Barkin chuckled. “Never in all my years as principal has a car blocked the entrance to this school. Never has a swarm of crickets descended on a classroom full of good students, including my son, Josh, who is a great student. Never have I come across a locker booby-trapped with a pie catapult. And you know what else I’d never seen before this year?”

  Barkin extended a surprisingly long index finger. “You, Miles Murphy. Now tell me, is that just another coincidence?”

  “Yes,” Miles said.

  “Miles Murphy, do not interrupt me! That was a rhetorical question! Don’t you even know what a rhetorical question is?”

  Miles didn’t know whether to answer.

  Barkin looked at him expectantly.

  “Yes?” Miles said.

  “And that was a trick question!” Barkin said. “You were doomed whether you answered it or not. A classic Barkin trap!”

  Miles winced.

  Outside in the distance, a cow mooed.

  “Don’t you see, Miles Murphy? You can’t win. In fact, you’ve already lost! The game was ov
er the second you decided to take on a Barkin!”

  The principal pushed back his chair and leapt onto his maroon rug.

  “The Barkins have been principals at Yawnee Valley for five generations! Right now it’s not just me bearing down on you, Miles Murphy. You are feeling the full weight of history on your shoulders. Tango with one Barkin and you tango with all of us!”

  Principal Barkin gestured at a wall of portraits in chintzy frames.

  “There are only four,” Miles said.

  “What?”

  “There are only four portraits. You said there were five generations of Barkin principals.”

  “Yes, well. My grandfather’s portrait was removed.”

  For a moment Principal Barkin lost his momentum.

  Grandpa Jimmy had been a good man. Always making silver dollars “appear” from behind little Barry’s ears. He did the trick every Thanksgiving, the only time Barry’s father let Grandpa Jimmy visit. “What’s that, some dirt behind your ears?” Grandpa Jimmy would say. Then, reaching forward—ta-da!—a silver coin would appear between his grandfather’s fingers. And that wasn’t even the best part. After a ten-minute speech about the serious real-world importance of behind-the-ear hygiene, emphasizing both cleaning philosophy and technique, Grandpa Jimmy would give Barry the coin, so long as he promised to deposit it in his federally insured Little Saver’s College Savings Account. “Compound interest!” Jimmy would say. “That’s the real magic trick!”

  But Grandpa Jimmy had been soft. He’d canceled school in the Blizzard of ’32, besmirching Yawnee Valley’s otherwise perfect school-operation record. Principal Barkin remembered the day his father, Former Principal Barkin, then just Principal Barkin, took over this office. “Take it down,” Bertrand Barkin had said—those were his First Official Words of Principalship. And so Burt, the janitor, had removed the portrait of James “Jimmy” Barkin from the wall. After school, on the way to his dad’s car, Barry saw the painting, its frame cracked, leaning against a green dumpster. He thought about sneaking it home—disobeying his father, stuffing it in the trunk, smuggling it up to his room at night, and hiding it in his closet, behind his blazers.