by David Lubar
wasn’t happy being around so
many of them — especially when
more and more kept coming.
“Libby,” I said as the mice
began to form a second layer,
“that’s enough.”
She didn’t hear me over the squeaking.
One mouse doesn’t make much noise, but
when you fill a room with mice, the squeaks
become a roar.
“LIBBY!” I shouted. “THAT’S ENOUGH!”
She took the straw from her lips.
“Enough?”
“Yeah. The mice can’t stay,” I said.
“Why not?” Libby asked.
“Umm . . . The mice have to get to the
cheese shop before it closes.” It was nice to
know I could think quickly when I
was almost up to my ears in mice.
“Let them go. Okay?”
“Okay.” She opened the front door. “Shoo.
Go away,” she said. Then she went to her
room. I guess all that marching had tired her
out. The mice ran outside and scattered in
all directions.
But they had left behind a terrible mouse
mess.
That’s when Mom walked in. “Ed, what
happened to the floor?” she asked.
“I . . .Libby. . .the mice. . .” Unlike Derwin,
I had a lot fewer than a thousand words, and
none of them seemed to fit together. I sighed
and said, “I’ll get the broom.”
It took so long to sweep the floor clean
that I was late for the party. Mom had
already dropped Derwin off there. I grabbed
my bathing suit and hurried out.
Q
uentin One
I was half a block from home when I heard
someone behind me call, “Hi, Ed!”
It was my friend Quentin One. I had
three friends named Quentin, so I called
them Quentin One, Quentin
Two, and Quentin Three.
“Are you going to the
party?” I asked.
“Sure. Want a ride?”
Quentin asked as he
coasted past me on his
bike.
“No thanks.” The last time we’d tried
that, we’d crashed.
“I’ll see you there,” he said, giving me a
wave.
I was about to wave back. Then I realized
that, even though Quentin was pedaling
away, somehow he was still facing me. I
hadn’t seen him turn around.
“What in the world . . . ?”
I thought about all the strange things that
had happened since I’d found the coin. Could
all this strangeness be connected to it?
By the time I reached the hotel, I knew
what I had to do. I pulled the coin from my
pocket and flipped it into the bushes. Then I
went inside, hoping things would be back to
normal.
Moose
Moose is the biggest kid in our class. He’s
also the smartest kid I know.
He always finds unusual ways
to solve problems.
The party was nicely
normal at first. We swam,
splashed, and ate snacks.
chapter
6
SHAKING UP
IS
HARD TO DO
After a while, Quentin One climbed out of
the pool. He headed for the locker room.
Just then, Quentin Two came in, hopping
toward the pool on his pogo stick. He
looked a lot like Quentin One. I guess he
also looked like Quentin Three. I’d never
noticed that before.
Quentin Two hopped over to me and said,
“Hey, I saw you drop this. I’ll bet you’re glad
you didn’t lose it.” He stopped hopping and
held out the coin.
“Thanks.” I was afraid
to take it. But I was
more afraid not to take
it. I put it in the pocket
of my bathing suit.
Moose and I sat by
the side of the pool, drinking cherry cola.
Most of the kids had brought blow-up rafts or
float tubes. They were bobbing on the water
like a bunch of Halloween apples.
“I wish we had rafts,” I told Moose.
“It would be nice,” he said.
“It’s your
birthday,” I said. “I’m sure
someone would let you borrow a raft.”
“But then they wouldn’t have one,”
Moose said. “There has to be a better
answer.”
Just then, Derwin walked past us, draining
the last of his soda. He let out a loud burp.
“I got it! What a great idea!” Moose leaped
up and grabbed Derwin. “Drink this,” he said,
handing his soda to my brother.
Derwin slugged the soda right down:
Gulp!
Gulp! Gulp!
“Give him yours,” Moose said.
“I’m still thirsty,” I said.
“Just give it to him,” Moose told me.
“Quick, before he burps again.”
“Yeah,” Derwin said. “Just give it to me.”
I handed over my soda. I didn’t know what
the rush was, but
I really couldn’t
turn Moose down
on his birthday.
Derwin gulped
my soda so fast,
it was like seeing
bathwater vanish
down the drain of
a tub.
Moose clamped a hand over Derwin’s
mouth. Then he grabbed the back of his
bathing suit. He lifted him up and started
shaking him like he was
one of those cool
rattly things they
use to make music
in Mexican bands.
Maracas — that’s it.
Shake, shake, shake.
MARACAS
“Whatever you do, keep your mouth
closed,” Moose said as he gave Derwin a
final shake.
Derwin’s mouth was shut tight. He started
to swell with gas. He held his breath as Moose
tossed him in the pool. Then Moose jumped
onto Derwin. My brother bobbed a bit, but
he had enough gas in his stomach to keep
floating.
It worked great.
Until Derwin burped, that is.
The moment he opened his mouth, he shot
out from under Moose like a flyaway balloon.
He made it halfway across the bottom of
the pool before he ran out of gas.
“Are you all right?” I asked when Derwin
popped to the surface.
“Sure. That was fun,” he said as he climbed
out of the pool. “Let’s do it again.”
Moose tapped me
on the shoulder.
“Your turn to float,”
he said. But I
couldn’t stay.
“Can you walk
Derwin home?”
I asked Moose.
“Sure,” he said.
I left the hotel. I needed to find out why
everything became so strange the moment I
found that coin. And I knew the perfect place
to get some answers. . . .
“Can I help you?” Mr. Sage asked when I
walked into the New Curiosity Shop.
“I hope so.” I pulled the coin from
my
pocket and handed it to him. “Can you tell
me anything about this?”
chapter
7
CURIOUS
AN
SWERS
“The Silver Center? I’ve heard stories
about this coin, but I never believed the coin
was real,” he said. “Oh, dear. Was it this faded
when you found it?” He held the coin up for
me to see.
“No,” I said. “It looked brand-new.” The
face of the coin reminded me of the really
worn Buffalo nickel that
my uncle gave me last
year. I added “fading
coin” to my list of
strange experiences.
“There isn’t much time,” he said. “You
need to give this coin to the Stranger.”
“I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,” I
said.
“Not that kind of stranger,” Mr. Sage said.
“This is a special meaning of Stranger. If you
don’t give this to the Stranger before the
words fade away, the world will lose all its
strangeness.”
Einstein
Picasso
“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing,” I
said. If there was no strangeness, I’d be more
like everyone else. I liked that idea.
“It would be terrible,”
he said. “Think of all
the great people
who seem strange.
Remember the
brilliant scientist
Albert Einstein?
And the amazing
artist Pablo Picasso?
“They were both quite strange. Our greatest
artworks and inventions happened because
someone had a strange idea or saw a
strange sight. Without strangeness,
the world would be terribly dull.”
“But things are really strange
right now,” I said. “Too strange.”
“That should start to settle down
once you give the Stranger the
coin,” Mr. Sage said.
“Maybe you should find this
Stranger,” I said.
He handed the coin back to me. “No. You
found the coin. Or the coin found you. Either
way, the job is yours.”
“But I still don’t know what to do,” I said.
“Let your experiences guide you,” Mr.
Sage said. “A task this important would never
fall into the hands of someone who couldn’t
handle it.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said. I headed out.
This was awful. I hadn’t learned a thing. And
I sure didn’t agree with him that strangeness
was important. On top of that, he’d given me
a job I didn’t know how to do.
Wait!
I didn’t need to know who I was looking
for! If I gave the coin to every person I met,
one of them would have to be the Stranger.
Mr. Sage didn’t say I’d only get one chance.
As soon as I got home, I handed the coin to
Derwin. “Can you hold on to this for me?”
“Sure,” he said. “Hey, Moose said we
should go over and see all his presents.”
“We?” I asked.
“Of course! You know everything’s more
fun when I’m around,” Derwin said.
“I guess you can come.” He could be a pest
at times, but he was kind of fun.
We headed toward Moose’s house. We
were almost there when Derwin screamed,
“Ouch! It’s hot.” He pointed at his pocket.
“Help! Take it back!”
I pulled the coin from Derwin’s pocket. It
felt cold.
“Was that a trick coin?” he asked.
“I’m afraid so,” I said as I put it back in my
pocket.
When we got to Moose’s house, his older
brother, Mouse, answered the door.
chapter
8
NEED A
LIFT?
Everyone calls him “Mouse” because he’s
nowhere near as big as Moose. Mouse. doesn’t
come up with wild ideas like Moose, but he’s
stronger than Moose and he loves to talk.
There was a huge package on Moose’s
front porch.
“Moose,” Mouse called, “you got something.”
Moose came to the porch. “Oofff!” he said
as he lifted the package.
Derwin looked at Moose and said, “I wish
I was as strong as you.”
“What about me?” Mouse said. “I’m
stronger than Moose. I can lift anything.”
He grabbed Moose by the legs and lifted both
him and the package straight up.
“I’ll bet you can’t lift yourself,” I said.
“Sure I can,” Mouse said. He put his
brother down, squatted, and jammed his
hands behind his knees.
“Stop!” I said. “I was joking.”
“Oofff!” Mouse grunted as he lifted.
“Wow.” That was about all I could say as I
watched Mouse lift himself up in the air.
“Let go,” I told him.
“I can’t,” Mouse said. “If I let go, I’ll fall
and get hurt.”
He was five feet up, and still rising.
Moose rushed under his brother and held
out his arms. “Just let go,” he said. “We’ll
catch you.”
Mouse shook his head.
I leaped up and tried
to grab Mouse’s
feet, but he
was too high.
“I know,”
Derwin said. He
ran to the garage,
and came back with a
piece of rope. “Catch!”
he called to Mouse as
he threw one end of the rope up in the air.
Mouse caught the rope with his teeth.
Derwin, holding on to the other end, started
to rise. Mouse was now lifting both of them
into the air.
“Help me!” Derwin shouted.
Moose and I grabbed
the rope right above
Derwin’s hands
and started pulling.
It was a real battle,
but between us,
we managed to get
Derwin all the way
down, and Mouse
close to the ground.
“Thanks,” Mouse said.
This was one time when good manners
were a bad idea. When Mouse spoke, the rope
fell out of his mouth. I guess that startled
him, because he lifted himself even harder
and shot right back up.
Derwin threw him the rope again, and
Mouse chomped his teeth on it just like he
did before. We all pulled. When Mouse was
almost down, I warned him, “Don’t say
anything this time.”
“I won’t,” he said.
Out came the rope. Up went Mouse.
We tried again. This time, I looked at
Moose, and Moose looked at Derwin, and
Derwin looked at me. Then we all looked
up at Mouse and shouted, “Don’t open your
mouth, Mouse!”
That worked. We got him back down.
Once his feet were on the ground, he finally
stopped lifting. Mouse wasn’t as smart as
Moose, but he did learn things s
ooner or
later.
Moose opened the heavy package. It was
a set of barbells.
I didn’t stay long. I had too much to think
about. As I walked home, I touched the coin.
I still didn’t know who to give it to. And I
didn’t like the idea that Mouse and Derwin
could have gotten hurt today. Strangeness
could be dangerous.
I checked the coin again right before bed.
The words were almost totally faded. If I
wanted to let the world lose all its strangeness,
I wouldn’t have long to wait. But if I was going
to find the Stranger, I had to do it soon.
A strange sound woke me Sunday morning.
I looked across at my five goldfish. Each
one swam to the bottom,
picked up a piece of gravel
in its mouth, and spat it
out — hard — at the glass
sides of the bowl.
chapter
9
DIG DOG
It looked like
they were trying
to break free.
When I have
a tough problem
to solve, I like
to sit under the old
apple tree in the
backyard and think.
So I headed out back.
PING!
PING!
PING!
PING!
PING!
Rex and Willow
were there. I watched
Rex dig a hole. When
he was finished, he
used his teeth to
grab Willow by the
scruff of the neck. I
expected her to hiss
and scratch. But she purred so loudly, I could
hear her from halfway across the yard.
Rex dropped Willow in the hole.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He ignored me, turned around, and kicked
the dirt back in.