Chapter 1 – Pooped Out
Yeah, I’m one of the cool kids. But I don’t think I’m cool. Really. It’s just that all the other kids at Jayno Adams Elementary School think so. I guess it’s ‘cause I’m tall. Kids call me “Morning” as a nickname ‘cause my initials are A.M. That’s cool. Anyway, I hang with the cool kids. Like Austin Michaels, he’s my best friend. I tell people he’s like a brother to me. They always laugh. And we play, I mean hang, with mostly cool girls like Sydney Lock. And Callie Stone. They are way cool.
But cool won’t help you against Bigfoot.
Okay, I know you don’t believe we saw Bigfoot. But we did. This is what happened:
It was Saturday and we were having our annual school fair. You know, bouncy house, face painting and the other usual stuff. Our school backs up to a humongous woods and that woods borders a marshland and another state forest. So it’s like really wild and we used to climb over the fence at recess and dare each other to play hide-and-seek. The fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Buckley, caught us once and we missed a week of recess. Anyway, it’s spooky in there and my grandpa told me about hobos that used to sleep there. I didn’t know what a hobo was. It was some dirty, stinky homeless man who would ride the trains for free and beg for food and then steal chickens and stuff from farmers. I told Austin and Sydney and Callie about the hobos and then I would yell, “Hobo!” and everybody would run for safety.
Anyway, we were at the school fair and the four of us decided it was pretty lame and we headed for the fence intending to mess around in the woods a while.
Sydney was the first one over and she took off running like a horse and yelling, “Not it!” Then she stumbled and fell smack into something that was brown and gooey and smelled really, really bad.
The thing about Sydney is you never see her not smiling. This was probably like the first time I ever saw her without a grin on her face.
“Eeuuy,” Callie said when she reached her. Austin and I just stared and covered our mouths and noses.
Sydney got up and looked around for some big leaves to wipe herself off with. The leaves she used just crumbled and she ended up smearing the brown stuff on her shirt and legs even more.
Callie handed her some wet wipes she kept in her back pocket. You could always count on Callie for a tissue or a bandaid or anything.
“Don’t just stand there, Morning,” Sydney said to me. “Move.”
I didn’t get why she was telling me to move until I followed her eyes down to my feet and saw that I was standing on her cell phone. I had ignored the wobbly feel of the hard object along with the equally wobbly feel of the larger rocks I had been balancing on.
“Sorry.” I picked it up and handed it over. She checked and of course it didn’t work. Our parents had this rule that at least one of us had to have a cell on us when we weren’t home. No problem. Usually we all had them with us. Except at school. Jayno Adams’ new principal was mean about it. No cells phones at school! It was just habit that we didn’t bring them to school so I, for one, didn’t even think of grabbing mine to come to the fair.
Syd gave me a smile and was cool about the phone. I mean, really, why get your panties in a bunch? The brown stuff that was drying on her legs was more panty-bunchable. I really wanted to get my nose out of the whiff zone.
“What do ya think that stuff is?” Austin was curious. He kept staring at the enormous dung pile. “It’s more loose and puddly than dog doo. There aren’t any cows in the woods, I don’t think, so it’s not a cowpie. What kind of animal leaves a turd that big and wet?” Austin was our resident expert on the types and colors of droppings. I once saw him scrape white bird droppings off a fence post with his fingernail and sniff it. He claimed he was making sure it wasn’t bat poop. Like who cares?
“Maybe it’s from Bigfoot,” Callie offered. She’s probably the most timid and easily scared of the four of us. This is where I should have made some growling, scary sound and gotten everybody freaked out and running back to the fair. So I guess it’s my fault that instead of going back and having a normal day we went deeper into the woods.
“It’s a quest!” Sydney turned and started leaping over logs and ferns and leading us followers on. “Let’s find Mr. Bigfoot Poopy Pants.”
I don’t believe that girl. Most girls would have been horrified to have a soda spilled on their clothes let alone some you-know-what. I couldn’t imagine Callie or me or Austin in her place.
So, we followed her. And let me tell you, we could have followed her blindfolded, just by smelling her. It seemed like that stuff was getting stinkier as it dried. I swear I could see lines of scent waving back from her like in a cartoon.
And here we go, off to find Mr. Bigfoot Poopy Pants. Brother! If one of the not-cool kids had said that, well, we would have been rolling our eyes. But Sydney’s funny.
I half smiled to myself, but then I frowned as it seemed like the forest got darker around us. We all stopped at the same instant. We couldn’t believe our eyes!
Adventures in Reading Page 22