There it was again, just when I thought I had stopped thinking about it. Obviously, I had mutant moths on the brain.
“Is Frankie still mad at you?” Emily asked.
“Big time.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Emily was trying to be nice. “Katherine and I are very good listeners, aren’t we, Kathy?” She nuzzled Katherine.
“That’s OK,” I said. “You and Katherine go to sleep. She needs her beauty rest.”
Emily started to leave, then she turned round. “I think Katherine would like a nuzzle from you,” she said. “It would make her feel loved.”
Oh brother, the things a guy has to do to get a little privacy around here. I reached out and gave Katherine a pat on the head. She hissed and flashed her teeth at me again. That’s gratitude for you.
I decided to take the cable box into my room, so I could work on it in private. I disconnected the box from the TV, which wasn’t hard. I took it into my room and sat down. I noticed that there were four screws holding the top to the bottom. I unscrewed them and put them on the floor.
No, Hank, I thought. You are going to lose these if you leave them here and then you’ll never be able to put the box back together again.
I got up and put all four screws in a little plastic box I keep in my desk drawer. I usually keep my special clear marbles in there, but I took those out and put them into another compartment.
I jiggled the top of the cable box and it came off very easily. Wow, things were going well.
When I lifted the top off, the inside was not at all what I had expected. It was jammed with circuit boards and microchips and lots of wires tangled up together. I took everything out of the box and separated the pieces, lying all the parts down on my rug. There sure were a lot of parts. I got so involved in taking the box apart and inspecting every single piece that I lost all track of time. The next time I looked up, two hours had gone by. That happens to me a lot. Either I can’t focus at all or I focus so hard I shut everything else out.
Suddenly, I heard a toilet flush, then footsteps. They were coming towards my room!
“Hank?” my dad whispered from the hall. “What are you doing up?”
I had to do something fast. I knew he’d come in and my dad is not the kind of person who would be happy to see his cable box in a million pieces on my floor. I don’t know your dad, but I’ll bet he’s not that kind of person, either.
I flung myself down on the rug so my body covered all the parts. I heard a couple of things crunch under my butt. There was no time to check them out. I barely had enough time to hit the ground before my dad opened the door.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, in a very casual voice, like I always stay up until midnight on a school night lying around on my rug. “What’s up?”
“You are,” he said. “Go to bed.”
“Thanks for the suggestion,” I said, “but I’m not all that sleepy.”
“Head on pillow, Hank. Now.”
“OK, Dad. I’ll be in bed in one second.”
He clicked the door shut. I could tell he was standing outside, waiting for my light to go off. I scooped up all the parts of the cable box.
“N-O-W,” came my father’s voice, as he spelled out the word. When my father spells out words, that is a clue he means business.
“Right N-O-W, Dad,” I spelled back.
I opened my desk drawer and quickly tossed all the pieces in. Chips, circuits, wires and other parts scattered everywhere. I kicked the top and bottom of the cable box under my bed and hopped under the covers just as my dad turned the doorknob and stuck his head inside.
“Sleep fast,” he whispered. “It’s late.”
“I’m trying, Dad, but someone keeps opening my door.”
He left, and I tried to close my eyes, but all I could see in my head were the bits and pieces of the cable box crammed in my top drawer. I had a bad feeling that box was never going to come together in the same way again.
I must have finally fallen asleep, because my dad’s voice woke me early the next morning.
“Out of bed, Hank. Breakfast in five,” he called, knocking on my door.
Usually, it takes several warnings to get me out of bed, but I jumped up and yelled back, “I’m way ahead of you, Dad.” I went to my desk drawer and pulled it open. Nothing had changed overnight. The chips and circuit boards and wires were lying exactly asI had left them the night before. How come in fairy tales, magic elves arrive in the night and put everything back the way it was? I ask you, where are those elves when a guy needs them?
I imagined the punishment that would come down on me if my dad saw that mess. My dad always says the punishment should fit the crime, and I had a horrible feeling my punishment for taking away his television would be that he’d take away mine, whenever it was finally working again.
“No TV for a month,” he’d say. Or maybe even, “No TV for a year.” My head span! I had to get that cable box fixed before he found out about it.
I was safe for a while, because no one in my family turns on the TV until the night-time. But at six-thirty every night, my Dad watches the nightly news, followed by Hollywood Squares. I’m not too good at maths, but I figured I had something like twelve hours to get our cable up and running.
But how?
I didn’t need magic elves. I needed Frankie Townsend. If anyone could put that box back together, it was Frankie. He is a boy genius with electronic stuff. I happen to know first-hand that he’s had a subscription to Popular Electronics since he was eight years old. And he reads it too. Cover to cover.
I thought about my situation at breakfast. I had to find a way to apologize to Frankie so that he’d accept it. I needed him to help me fix the cable box by the time my father plopped in his chair and flicked on the nightly news.
After breakfast, I raced into my room to get my backpack, but before I left, I took out a piece of paper.
“KEEP OUT!” I wrote. “SIENSE PROJECT IN PROGRES.”
I don’t think I spelled too many of the words correctly, but it got the message across, just in case my dad or anyone else felt like snooping.
I taped the sign on my door and closed it tight. I considered pointing out the sign to my dad, but I really didn’t need to. My dad is a major-league sign reader. All you have to do is walk down Amsterdam Avenue with him and he will read every sign he sees – out loud.
“ ’ Harvey’s Pizza – a dollar a slice.’ ‘Kim’s Korean Market, fresh roses today.’ ‘Big Apple Laundrette, Free Dry with Wash.’ ‘Manhattan Bagels, two free when you buy a dozen.’ ” His sign-reading habit was great when I was a little guy and couldn’t read. But now that I’m older, it’s pretty annoying. And now Emily’s starting to do it, too. Maybe there’s a gene for annoying oral sign reading. I hope I don’t pass it on to my kids.
“I’ll meet you downstairs, Dad,” I called.
He was walking us to school, but I wanted to get down there early and see if I could talk to Frankie before we set out.
When I got to the lobby, only Ashley and Robert were there.
“Where’s Frankie?” I asked. “We’ve got to talk. I’m going to buzz his flat.”
“Hank,” Ashley said, stopping me from going back inside. “Frankie already left. He didn’t want to walk with us.”
“He’s still that mad?” I gulped.
“I don’t know,” Ashley answered. “He just took off with his dad.”
“Listen, Ashley, we’ve got to figure out how to get Frankie to talk to me again.”
“Give him a day or two, he’ll get over it,” she said.
“I don’t have that much time,” I said. “I need him now. He’s got to help me fix my cable box – by tonight.”
“I can fix a cable box,” said Robert.
“Can you really?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he said. “Call the cable company and ask for a new one.” Then he laughed.
Great, now Robert was developing a sense of humour. Just when I
needed him to be the nerd he’s always been, he’s turned into Captain Wisecrack.
“Actually,” he said, “anyone can get a new box. My mum just got one for the TV in her room.”
It was the perfect solution. I’d call the cable company straight after school and ask them to bring over a new box.
My dad and Emily arrived downstairs with Cheerio on a lead. When it’s my dad’s day to walk us to school, he always brings Cheerio along for the exercise. He likes to sniff the pavement and kerbs – Cheerio, that is, not my dad.
We headed down Amsterdam Avenue, and I was already feeling much better. It’s great when you find a solution to a problem. It’s like someone has lifted a huge sack of potatoes off your back.
“Robert,” I whispered. “You’re an all right guy, even if you do wear a white shirt and tie to school every day.”
He reached out with his scrawny little arm and threw me a fake punch in the arm. Man, is that kid weak.
“By the way, Hank,” he said, “it costs fifty-eight dollars.”
“What does?”
“The cable box. Actually, fifty-eight dollars and forty cents.”
“Robert, why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“But I only have ten dollars,” I said. “That means I’m thirty-eight dollars and forty cents short.”
“Make that forty-eight dollars and forty cents,” Robert said.
In case you haven’t noticed, my maths isn’t any better than my spelling.
This was not looking good for the future of my television privileges.
When we reached SCHOOL, I saw Frankie standing outside on the steps. I went charging up to him and launched into my apology.
“Frankie! Listen, I’ve been thinking about what happened and I’ve got to tell you that—”
Before I could even finish my sentence, Nick McKelty appeared on the steps next to us. Nick McKelty doesn’t care if you’re in the middle of an apology. He just blurts out whatever he has to say, which is usually something loud and obnoxious. Correction. It is always something loud and obnoxious.
“Hey, Townsend,” he shouted at Frankie, not paying even the slightest attention to me. “What did you think of The Mutant Moth That Ate Toledo. Was I right or was I right?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Frankie answered, giving me a dark stare. “I missed it.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t see it?” McKelty said, his big mouth hanging open in surprise. “The part where the moth ate the policeman’s guts and grew to the size of a block of flats was awesome. A total gross-out.”
“I wish I had seen it,” Frankie said quietly, staring at me until I thought his brown eyes were going to pop out of their sockets. “Someone I know was supposed to tape it for me.”
McKelty, who is generally not the brightest bulb in the lamp, put two and two together for the first time in his life.
“Hey, sounds like Zipzer screwed up again.” He smirked. “What did you do, Zipper Face? Forget what the ‘On’ button looks like?”
I must have looked like someone punched me in the stomach. McKelty saw me flinch. He could tell he had found a sore spot, and now he was going to go for the knockout.
“Yeah, those ‘On’ and ‘Off’ buttons are really hard to push,” he said, putting his huge face right up to mine. His breath smelled like a dragon’s, one who had eaten six onions for breakfast.
“Back off, McKelty.” I could only take so much. “This is none of your business.”
McKelty grinned, and I noticed he still had some of his breakfast lodged in that big space between his two front teeth. I’m guessing it was waffles, but I couldn’t entirely rule out cinnamon toast.
“Did I tell you girls that my dad is getting the original poster of The Mutant Moth movie for me,” he bragged. “Not a copy, either, but the only one they ever made.”
There it was. The McKelty Factor at work. That guy exaggerates everything. We call it truth times one hundred.
“And did I mention that it’s signed by the moth himself?” he said, blasting me with another giant dose of his dragon breath.
“What’d he do, sign it in wing dust?” I shot back.
Frankie laughed. That was a good sign.
“You’re funny, Zipzer,” said Nick. “Retarded, but funny.”
Ordinarily, if he hadn’t been so mad at me, Frankie would have jumped to my defence. But he didn’t say a word. He just pulled his Yankees hat down over his eyes, so he wouldn’t have to look at me. McKelty sensed that Frankie wasn’t talking, so he fired off another insult.
“Listen, zippety zipper man. Maybe you can come over sometime and I’ll teach you how to work a video. Oh, and when we’re done, I’ll teach you how to tie your shoelaces. I remember you had trouble with that in primary school. You were never too bright, were you, pal?”
“That’s enough, McKelty,” Frankie said.
Yes! Frankie had spoken! I hoped that meant he wasn’t mad any more.
Before I could find out, Mr Love came out onto the steps. Actually, I heard him before I saw him appear. You can’t mistake the squeak, squeak, squeak of his Velcro trainers. He’s the only grown man I know who wears white Velcro trainers with a navy blue suit and tie. Maybe he had trouble learning to tie his shoes in kindergarten like I did.
Mr Love started to gather up the kids who were still standing around.
“Everybody inside,” he said in his voice that sounds like he’s on the public address system, even without a microphone. “You know what I always say – a classroom without students is like a bird without a song.”
Mr Love says things that almost make sense, but then when you think about them, don’t make any sense at all. What’s even worse is that he likes to say these things twice.
“Mr Zipzer,” he said, pointing at me. “Are you on your way to class?”
Before I could answer, Nick butted right in. “I am, sir, and I’m looking forward to school today.”
The one true thing you can say about Nick McKelty is that he never, ever misses an opportunity to suck up.
Mr Love gave Nick a friendly slap on the back. “Yes, indeed, a classroom without students is like a bird without a song.”
Frankie and I bolted for the door and headed upstairs, trying like crazy not to have to walk with Nick McKelty. It wasn’t a problem, though. He was hanging back with Mr Love, trying to score a few extra points.
“Nick’s probably telling him how much he enjoys his announcements on the loudspeaker,” I said.
Frankie almost laughed as we took off up the stairs.
“Does this mean we’re OK again?” I asked.
“I’m thinking about it,” Frankie said.
“Well, can you think about it fast, because I’m calling an emergency meeting after school. Four o’clock, in the clubhouse. I really need you there.”
“What’s up?” Frankie asked.
“I can’t even begin to explain to you what a pickle I’ve got myself into.”
“Give me a hint.” I had made him curious at least.
“Imagine your cable box.”
“Got it.”
“Now imagine it in, let’s say, fifty pieces.”
“Got it.”
“I got it, too. And it’s under my bed.”
“You didn’t.”
“Oh yes I did.”
“Zip, is there anything you don’t screw up?” Frankie said as he reached the top of the stairs.
Ouch.
Before I could say anything more, we were outside our classroom. Ms Adolf was waiting by the door.
Some teachers say good morning when you come in. Some even read you a chapter of a story before you get to work. But not Ms Adolf. No, she believes in getting right down to business.
As soon as the bell rang, she took off the silver key she wears on a cord round her neck and unlocked her desk drawer. Inside that drawer is where she keeps her register, which is her favourite thing in the world. Ms Adolf took
out her register, a red pencil and – you guessed it – got right down to business.
“Pupils,” she said. “Today your science project topics are due. Who would like to go first?”
Heather Payne’s hand shot up in the air.
“Me! Me!” she begged. She waved her hand right under Ms Adolf’s nose and grunted, “Me! Me!” another seven or eight times. Heather can’t stand it if she doesn’t go first. I bet there’s someone like that in your class, too.
Heather said for her project she would be taking photographs to show the effects of regular flossing on gum disease. Personally, I’d rather repeat fourth grade twenty times than take pictures of gum disease. But I guess that’s why Heather Payne got straight As on her last school report and I got three Ds.
Hector Ruiz said he was going to build a rainforest out of toothpicks, plastic flowers and real leaves. Kim Paulson was going to study nail varnish and its drying time in various climates. Ms Adolf raised an eyebrow, but agreed to it when Kim explained how she planned to relate nail varnish drying to the evaporation cycle. Frankie was going to build a radio from a kit he had sent away for from an ad in Popular Electronics. Ashley was planning to make a model of the human kidney from kitchen sponges. Luke Whitman was going to do his project on tarantulas. He owns one named Mel. Mel has very hairy legs.
Then came my turn.
“Originally, I was going to study the tummy-sliding habits of penguins,” I began, “because penguins look so extremely cute when they slide on their stomachs.”
Everyone in the class laughed, even though I was totally serious.
“However, I’ve changed my mind,” I went on.
“That was a wise decision, Henry,” said Ms Adolf. She always calls me Henry, even though I’ve begged her to call me Hank. Ms Adolf doesn’t approve of nicknames.
“I plan to invent a device that will help slow readers follow the written words on the television screen as they speed along their merry way.”
I paused to let the full, wonderful effect of my idea seep into Ms Adolf’s brain.
The World's Greatest Underachiever and the Mutant Moth Page 5