Kung Fooey

by Graham Salisbury

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2011 by Graham Salisbury

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2011 by Jacqueline Rogers

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at

  www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Salisbury, Graham.

  Calvin Coconut : kung fooey / Graham Salisbury ; [illustrations by

  Jacqueline Rogers]. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89796-2 [1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Automobile driving—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Family life—Hawaii—Fiction. 5. Hawaii—Fiction.] I. Rogers, Jacqueline, ill. II. Title.

  III. Title: Kung fooey.

  PZ7.S15225Cadk 2011

  [Fic]—dc22

  2010029415

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Chapter 1: Kung Fu

  Chapter 2: Benny Obi

  Chapter 3: Smoke and Squeal

  Chapter 4: Circling the Park

  Chapter 5: Lizards in the Sun

  Chapter 6: Obake

  Chapter 7: A Clean Car

  Chapter 8: Bugs

  Chapter 9: Student Parking

  Chapter 10: Antlix

  Chapter 11: What?

  Chapter 12: Space Cushion

  Chapter 13: Weird Stuff

  Chapter 14: The Nasty R

  Chapter 15: Rock On!

  Chapter 16: Another Dumb Idea

  Chapter 17: Like a Rock

  About the Authors

  One morning I slid off my top bunk and staggered over to the wall to measure myself. Maybe I’d grown overnight.

  I grabbed a book and pencil, and made a mark.

  “Aaack!”

  My sleepy dog, Streak, leaped off the bottom bunk and ran around the room barking. What’s up? What’s up? What’s up?

  “Aaaaaaaack!” I screamed again.

  I burst out of my room.

  “Mom! Mom!” I shouted, stumbling into the kitchen from my bedroom in the garage. “Something’s wrong!”

  Mom grabbed my shoulders. “Settle down, Calvin, settle down.” Her face was a frown of concern. “Now … what’s wrong?”

  “I’m shrinking, Mom! For real! I measured myself and—”

  “Shrinking.” It wasn’t a question. She raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, Mom, I’m getting smaller, not bigger.”

  My six-year-old sister, Darci, sat frozen at the breakfast counter gaping at me, her spoon dripping milk into her cereal bowl. Stella, the tenth-grader who had come to live with us to help Mom, stood at the kitchen sink with her back to us. She didn’t care that I was shrinking to death. She didn’t even turn around.

  Mom let go and brushed dog hair off my T-shirt. “What makes you think you’re shrinking, Calvin?”

  “Well … I … I, uh …”

  Calm down. Breathe.

  I gulped. “I just measured myself on the wall in my room and I’m … I’m an inch shorter than I was last week. I’m not kidding, Mom, there’s something wrong with me … and … and …”

  Maybe I was dying. Maybe my time was up.

  I took a deep breath.

  Mom tried really hard not to smile. “There must be some mistake, Cal. People don’t just go around getting smaller.”

  Stella spurted out a laugh and staggered away from the sink.

  Mom turned to look at her. “Stella,” she said, and left the word hanging—which was Mom’s way of hinting that laughing at a shrinking person wasn’t very nice.

  Stella bent over, holding her stomach, laughing and laughing.

  “Stop!” I said. “I’m … disappearing, and that’s not funny!”

  Stella’s eyes were wet with tears. She pointed at me, trying to speak, but couldn’t. My shrinking problem was the funniest thing she’d ever heard in her entire life.

  “Well, I am!” I said to her. “You’d be worried, too, if you were getting smaller!”

  Mom studied Stella. “Stella, did you …?”

  Stella tried to stop laughing but burst out again, even louder than before.

  Mom cupped the side of my face with her hand. “I think Stella just got you, sweetie.”

  “Huh?”

  Stella ripped off a paper towel and dabbed at her eyes. Her shoulders bounced as she laughed. “Oh, oh, oh! This is just too good.”

  Mom bent close and whispered, “Stella played a trick. I think she added a line to your measuring chart. You’re not shrinking.”

  “A … what?”

  “An extra line. Above the real mark. So it looks like you shrunk.”

  Heat flushed over my face. I squinted at Stella. “I’ll get you. I’m not kidding. You better watch out.”

  Stella laughed until she choked on her own spit. “Anyone could fool you, Stump. Anyone!”

  “Yeah, well, you drive like an idiot and everyone laughs at you!”

  That wasn’t a very good comeback, but it was all I could think of. Stella was trying to get her driver’s license. She already had her permit. Mom and Stella’s boyfriend, Clarence, were teaching her how to drive.

  “Lame,” she said. “Really, really lame.”

  That was just the beginning of a truly strange day.

  Before lunch at school that day, right in the middle of our silent reading time in Mr. Purdy’s class, this new kid walked in with Mrs. Leonard, the principal.

  I looked up.

  Whoa!

  I stopped breathing.

  The whole class did.

  The new kid looked us over, his eyes scrunched.

  His black hair was long on top and shaved on the sides. He wore baggy black pants bunched at the top of shiny black army boots. An untucked, unbuttoned long-sleeved shirt hung over an army-colored T-shirt, and hanging over the T-shirt was a chain with a red-eyed black skull.

  You could hear ants scratching out their homework over by the lunch boxes. You could hear our pet centipede Manly Stanley’s hundred legs sliding to a halt in his sandy resort. You could hear the classroom clock ticking.

  Mrs. Leonard waved to Mr. Purdy.

  Mr. Purdy closed the book he was reading over his finger and stood. “Good morning, Mrs. Leonard. Who do we have here?”

  Mrs. Leonard smiled. “This is Benny Obi, Mr. Purdy, a new student who will be in your class.”

  Mrs. Leonard nudged the kid toward the front of the room.

  The new kid took one step and stopped.

  Mrs. Leonard put a hand on his shoulder. “Benny’s family just moved to Kailua from Hilo. Hilo is on the Big Island, children. I’m sure you will all welcome Benny and show him around our school. Am I right?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Leonard,” everyone said.

  Everyone but me.

  I was still trying to figure out what I was looking at.

  Mr. Purdy tucked his book under his arm and walked over to Mrs. Leonard and the new kid. “Welcome to fourth-grade boot camp, Benny.”

  The kid looked up at M
r. Purdy.

  Mr. Purdy grinned, as if he was waiting for the kid to say something like, Boot camp? Cool. I like it.

  But he didn’t.

  Mrs. Leonard nudged him toward our gaping faces. “Tell the class something about yourself, Benny.”

  The new kid’s squinty eyes dared anyone to make even a peep.

  “I know kung fu,” he said.

  Yow.

  Mr. Purdy pointed to the one vacant desk in our classroom. It was in the back row, right next to my friend Julio Reyes, who lived on the same street as me.

  “Sit there, Benny. If you have any questions just ask Julio.”

  Benny gave Julio a sideways glance.

  Julio stared at his desk.

  Benny slid into his seat and sat stone still. A lizard on the wall.

  Mrs. Leonard sighed and left.

  Julio didn’t say a word. Just sat looking like he’d accidentally swallowed a fly that had flown into his mouth.

  The rest of the morning was eerily quiet. Benny Obi was like a firecracker with a fuse that had burned down to the powder but hadn’t gone off … and no one wanted to check it because it might explode in your face.

  After lunch, I was lounging on the grass near our classroom with my friends Julio, Willy Wolf, Rubin Tomioka, and Maya Medeiros. The sun was breathing its hot breath down our necks, but who cared? We had bigger stuff to deal with. The new kid was giving us the creeps.

  And Julio had to sit next to him.

  Which put him in a bad mood.

  “How come Mr. Purdy put that new kid next to me? What did I do?”

  Willy shook his head. “He sure is strange.”

  “Like from another planet,” Rubin added.

  “Look,” Maya said, pointing with her chin toward the cafeteria.

  We all turned. Benny Obi was leaning against the wall in the shade. Alone. Wearing dark glasses with mirror lenses.

  “Looks like a cop,” Rubin said.

  Maya squinted in the sun. “Stands out, doesn’t he?”

  Julio humphed. “He wants to stand out. He’s in love with himself.”

  I spurted out a laugh. “In love with himself?”

  “Look at him,” Julio spat. “Thinks he’s a movie star. Who wears dark glasses at school?”

  “Tito.”

  Julio snorted. “Two of a kind.”

  Tito Andrade was a sixth grader, a bully who gave us a hard time and stole stuff from us. He also thought every girl on the planet was in love with him.

  I picked up a pebble and tossed it. “Maybe the new kid’s nice, Julio. Who knows? He just got here. Give him a chance.”

  Julio glared at me. “You better watch your mouth.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I know kung fu.”

  We all cracked up. What a line: I know kung fu.

  I shook my head. Kung fu is a serious martial art, not something you go around bragging about.

  Maya slapped my arm.

  “Shhh! He’s coming.”

  We went silent as Benny Obi strolled over to us.

  He stood with his hands in the pockets of his baggy black pants. “This where you folks hang out?”

  For a few seconds, no one spoke.

  “Well, is it?”

  “Uh … not really,” I finally said. “We, uh, we sit all over the place.”

  Benny Obi nodded.

  “Who’s the kid got Coconut for a last name? I heard he was in our class and he’s related to Little Johnny Coconut, the singer in Las Vegas.”

  Everyone turned to me.

  “That’s … my dad,” I said.

  In Benny’s glasses I could see the mirror image of us sitting around looking back at him.

  Benny thought for a moment. “How come he’s there and you’re here?”

  Mind your own business, I wanted to say. “He and my mom got divorced.”

  Benny bit his lower lip and looked down. “Mines, too.”

  He squatted and sat on his heels with his arms over his knees. “You guys ever seen a human skull?”

  Wow. What kind of a question was that?

  Everyone shook their head.

  “Well, I have,” Benny said. “I found it in a lava tube. Up by the volcano. Secret place I discovered. You ever been in a lava tube? You can’t go in unless you have a ball of string. If you don’t have string to lead you back out, you could get lost and never come out and you could die of starvation. You know how long it takes for your body to rot? You ever thought of how it might feel to have rats and mongooses eat you alive?”

  What?

  No one answered.

  Benny grinned. “I figure that’s what happened to whoever’s skull that was. Could have been from new times or from old times, somebody lost, trying to find their way out. Or maybe it was a human sacrifice from the olden days. You can’t tell without testing it. They can do that, you know … tell how old bones are. But that was the weird thing. When I found the skull there were no bones. Just the head. Maybe it was obakes.”

  “Ghosts,” Rubin whispered, his eyes wide.

  We looked at each other. We all knew the Japanese word for ghosts. “Bad ghosts,” Benny Obi whispered.

  Then he turned toward the rest of us. I could see my reflection gaping back at me from his glasses.

  I closed my mouth.

  Benny wasn’t done.

  “I know a kid with one and a half legs. Got attacked by a shark. A fisherman caught that shark by accident a couple days later, and when they cut the shark open they found the kid’s leg in the stomach. It was still in pretty good shape, so they found the kid and gave him his leg back. The doctors sewed it on again, but it didn’t work, so they took it off. Now the kid got a fake leg. You ever seen a fake leg? Steel thing with a shoe on the end? If you have long pants on you can’t tell it’s fake. But you can if you got shorts. I guess if you only got half a leg you don’t care, ah? At least you can walk.”

  Benny Obi stopped talking and nodded. Then he went on. “Was me, I wouldn’t care. How’s about you? You ever seen a fake leg?”

  He looked at us, waiting.

  Uh …

  “Well,” I said. “If … if …”

  I had no idea what to say.

  Benny Obi stood and looked down at us. “You guys collect stuff? I collect everything. You name it, I got it. Old books, stamps, coins, rocks, insects, Star Wars figures, Micro Machines, manga—”

  “Manga?” Rubin said. “I got sixty-eight books.”

  “Yeah? I got like two, three hundred, maybe a thousand. I don’t know, I haven’t counted them up.”

  He looked over his shoulder at the playground. “Hey, been nice. Gotta go. See you in class. What’s with the teacher, anyway? He some kind of army guy, or what? What’s with the boot camp? Ain’t that kind of weird?”

  When nobody said anything, Benny Obi shrugged and walked away.

  “Holy bazooks,” I whispered.

  Julio spat. “Would you want to sit next to that?”

  After school I grabbed Darci from her first-grade room, then met up with Julio, Rubin, Willy, and Maya, who were waiting for us under a monkeypod tree. Most days we walked home together. We lived in the same neighborhood, except for Rubin, who lived halfway between us and the school.

  As we headed down the quiet street, Darci tugged on my shirt. “Who’s the boy in the dark glasses? Is he new? I saw you talking to him.”

  Julio snorted. “That’s Captain Strange.”

  “His name is Benny, Darce. He’s—”

  Eeeeeoooop!

  All of us leaped and crashed into each other, trying to get out of the way of the hornblast of a truck bearing down behind us. I ended up in somebody’s hibiscus hedge with Julio and Darci.

  We looked back out.

  It wasn’t a truck.

  Benny Obi lifted his dark glasses as he cruised past us on his silver-and-red bike. A giant air horn was bolted to its handlebar. Benny flicked his eyebrows, dropped his glasses back onto his nose,
and gave the horn another blast.

  Eeeeeoooop!

  “Got it off my uncle,” he called. “Traded him a machete for it.”

  He sailed on by without looking back.

  Me, Julio, and Darci untangled ourselves from the hedge.

  “I’m going to give that guy a wedgie,” Julio said.

  I laughed. “Yeah? How?”

  Julio scowled. “Hire Tito.”

  “That would do it.”

  Rubin peeled off when we got to his street. “Laters,” he said.

  “I know kung fu!” I shouted.

  Rubin cracked up.

  Darci tilted her head. “You don’t know kung fu, Calvin.”

  “Just kidding, Darce. It’s a joke.”

  Back home on our street, Maya and Willy waved and headed to their houses, which were next door to each other.

  When we got to Julio’s, I stopped and cocked my ear.

  Something was in the air. A sound. Distant, but growing louder.

  Boooom. Boooom. Boooom.

  “Clarence,” I said.

  Seconds later, a big pink car with a black stripe down the middle turned onto our street.

  “Stella’s ride,” Julio said.

  Boooom. Boooom.

  We watched as Clarence’s old-time car cruised by in slow motion, gangster music blasting. Stella sat close to Clarence in the front seat.

  Clarence glanced over and nodded. Stella ignored us.

  “Put your junk away,” I said to Julio. “Come to my house.”

  “Why? We got homework.”

  “Later. You don’t want to miss this.”

  “Miss what?”

  I leaned close. “Stella. She’s getting her driver’s license. Clarence is teaching her how to drive.”

  “So?”

  “So she’s a—”

  “Bad driver,” Darci said.

  I nodded. “Worse. More like scary. Come watch. She might practice.”

  Julio grinned. “Be right back.”

  Darci and I waited.

  Down at the end of the street, Clarence pulled into our driveway. The booming radio went off.

  Clarence got out of the car. He was almost as tall as Mom’s boyfriend, Ledward, who was six foot seven. I liked Clarence. He was not only teaching Stella how to drive, he was also teaching Darci and Willy how to swim better.