“You’re such a slob.”
I turn around. Francis is shaking his head in
disgust.
He rolls his eyes. “No, I was talking to the drink-
ing fountain,” he says. Then he mutters something
about “the messiest kid at P.S. 38.”
Just a little background here: P.S. 38 is our middle
school. Francis is my best friend. And, yeah,
I’m a little messy. So what?
Francis starts to swing his notebook at me, then
stops himself. He doesn’t want any teachers to
catch him clocking me in the head. Around here,
assault with a three-ring binder is worth at least
a couple of detentions. And Francis never gets
detention. EVER.
See? The detention lady doesn’t even know his
NAME. That says it all.
People think it’s
weird that Francis
and I are so tight,
and do you know
what? They’ve got
a point. He and
I are total oppo-
sites. Here’s what
I mean:
Okay, here’s an FYI: Francis isn’t really this much
of a weenie. I think I wrote this study guide back
when I was annoyed with him for hanging air
fresheners in our tree house. Anyway, read on.
Maybe the neatness thing
should have gone at the
TOP of the list. I’ve known
Francis since kindergar-
ten, and he’s ALWAYS been
Captain Tidypants. Back
then, he wouldn’t even play
in the sandbox without a
package of wet wipes.
Oh, brother. “What’s the big deal about a crooked
poster?” I ask him.
“It looks sloppy,” he answers, frowning. “It detracts
from the hallway’s overall feng shui.”
“Hilarious, Teddy,” I grumble, rubbing the bump
on my head. “You’ve still got it . . .”
Great. Science with Mr. Galvin. Ever sit through
a late-night infomercial for one of those useless
kitchen appliances? That’s what science is like—
except you can’t change the channel.
“Nicely done, Gina,” Mr. Galvin says. She flashes
her usual smirk.
“Francis, great job,” he says next. I look over, and
Francis holds up his packet so I can see it.
An A! No big surprise there. But it’s good news
just the same, because Francis and I did the
homework together. So if HE got an A . . .
Huh? “See me at my desk”? Where’s my “nicely
done”? Where’s my “great job”?
“Uh . . . okay,” I say a little nervously. No, a LOT
nervously.
“This is, without a doubt,” he announces,
his voice rising . . .
I hear snickering behind
me. Nice of him to broad-
cast that little nugget to
the entire class. Couldn’t he have chewed me
out in PRIVATE?
Whatever. I’m not going down without a fight.
“I couldn’t even READ your
answers!” Mr. Galvin goes
on. He’s in full-blown rant
mode now. “Your HANDWRITING is completely
ILLEGIBLE! . . .”
He flips my packet over.
Whoops. Didn’t realize I’d started my latest comic
masterpiece on the back of my science homework.
“You like mysteries?” he asks,
pushing my homework across
his desktop.
Yikes, did THIS ever blow up in my face. Three
minutes ago I thought I had an A. Now I’m practi-
cally getting expelled.
Mr. Galvin’s voice follows me as I shuffle back to
my seat. “I want that assignment on my desk
tomorrow, completely redone.”
It’s a note from Francis. I sneak a quick peek
at Mr. Galvin, who’s busy showing Mary Ellen
Popowski how to light a Bunsen burner without
setting her hair on fire. The coast is clear.
Yeah, I know: You can’t read it. You’re not
SUPPOSED to. Francis and I spend a lot of time
making sure that NOBODY can. What good is
having a secret code if half the world knows
what it means?
Well . . . all right, just so you can follow along,
I’ll let you see the key. BUT DON’T SHOW IT TO
ANYBODY ELSE!
I write back:
Good ol’ Francis.
Finally the bell rings, and we file out. That’s the
only thing I like about science: It feels great when
it’s over.
“. . . Which is exactly why we should go to the
meeting!” Francis says. “Let’s make a Chronicle
that’s MEMORABLE for a change!”
Yeah. For all the wrong reasons.
What a train wreck. There were more mistakes
than Chad has freckles. I started to count them,
but I got bored when I hit triple digits.
“You know why all that stuff went wrong,
don’t you?” Francis asks.
“Sure,” Teddy and I answer together . . .
Nick Blonsky was the Chronicle editor last year.
I could have told you he’d screw up. Anyone who
spends that much time with his finger up his
nose doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
“Who’s gonna be the editor THIS year?” I ask.
“Well, whoever it is,” Francis says as we walk into
the meeting . . .
Oh, no. NO!!
“GINA?? SHE’S the editor?” Teddy groans.
“Well, what’d you expect?” whispers Francis.
“Gina wants to be in charge of EVERYTHING.”
Bingo. That’s one reason she’s about as popular as
a fire drill during recess. Here are a few others:
And now back to the meeting, starring Pushy
McBossaround.
“OKAY, Gina, we hear you,”
I tell her. “You can lose the
stinkin’ hammer.”
“It’s called a GAVEL, genius . . .”
Nice. Now she’s THREATENING us. Is this a year-
book meeting or a game of Whack-A-Mole?
Gina obviously doesn’t care that nobody’s paying
attention to her, because she launches into some
bragfest about taking the Chronicle in a “new
direction.”
“Sounds good,” I tell the guys. “She can go HER
way . . .”
“Why not?”
Francis nods toward Gina. “Do we really want the
yearbook in HER hands?”
Now THAT’s bad. You
thought a Blonsky-ized
Chronicle was scary? A
Gina-fied one would be
a NIGHTMARE.
“You’re right,” I say. “We can’t just sit here and let
Gina make herself the queen of the yearbook.”
“So what do we do?” Teddy asks.
“Watch,” I whisper. I shoot my hand into the air.
Gina peers at me suspiciously.
“What do YOU want?”
Everyone looks stunned. Especially Francis.
“ME?” he says.
“ExCUSE me,” Gina sputters, her cheeks flushing,
“but I’m ALREADY the editor!”
“Oh, is that right? Was there an election? . . .”
Gina’s face gets redder. “I VOLUNTEERED, if that’s
what you mean,” she growls. “I volunteered FIRST!”
“And Francis volunteered SECOND,” I say. “What’s
the difference?”
Now she’s turning a color I’ve never even SEEN
before. She points the gavel right between my eyes.
“There can’t be TWO editors!” she hisses.
That’s Mrs. Hickson, the school librarian and
yearbook adviser. She’s also the only person who’s
ever sent Gina to detention. And now she’s shooting
down Little Miss Control Freak’s master plan to
take over the Chronicle! HA!
I’m really starting to like this woman.
Uh-oh. Maybe I spoke too soon.
She holds up a book. “Recognize this?”
Sure. I just borrowed it from the library last week.
“Zack Birdwatcher Takes the Cake.” It was really
good. Zack’s this kid who gets a parrot for his
birthday, but the parrot disappears. So then . . .
She flips through it. “Perhaps you’d care to
explain why there are orange smudges on every
single page?”
She frowns. “I see. And
what about this STAIN on
the cover?”
“And look at THIS!” she goes on.
I gulp. It IS pretty beat up. “Uh . . . sometimes
stuff gets a little crumpled in my locker.”
“A LITTLE CRUMPLED? This looks like it went
through a TRASH COMPACTOR,” she shouts.
Wait, aren’t librarians supposed to be QUIET?
Yeah, I know. A couple months ago I had a total
space cadet moment and DREW in a library book.
That went over like a turd in a punch bowl.
“Nate,” she says, “people are different. Some are
neat, and others are messy.”
Yes, and some enjoy listening to grown-ups flap
their gums, and others don’t. Can we move on?
“But when being messy and careless affects other
people or their belongings . . .”
“Problem” sounds so
negative. How about
“lovable quirk”?
“Lecture’s over,” she says, giving me one last hairy
eyeball. “I’ll let you get back to your meeting.”
Francis and Teddy are on one of the computers.
I pull up a chair.
I start to say “nothing,” but who am I kidding?
I can’t keep secrets from the guys. I give them
a recap of my one on one with Ol’ Silent but Deadly.
“No,” I remind him. “You told
me I was a PIG!”
“A SLOB, not a pig,” Francis corrects me.
“Slob. Pig. Let’s compromise!” Teddy says . . .
“Alphabetizing all the portraits,” Francis says.
“Some of these are a RIOT!”
“Here’s Randy!”
“He looks like he’s about
to throw up.”
“You’d throw up, too, if
you looked like Randy.”
“Lights! . . . Camera! . . .
Dee Dee!”
“That smile is so fake.”
“Good thing she flossed
that day.”
“Yikes. Check out the zit
on Artur!”
“Wait, IS that a zit?”
“Um, it’s either a zit or a
small island.”
“Let’s find YOUR picture, Nate!” Francis grins.
“Let’s not,” I answer quickly.
Teddy’s busting a gut. “Oh, MAN! I’d forgotten
how BAD your picture turned out!”
Yeah, because it didn’t happen to YOU, that’s why.
Trust me, I remember it just FINE. It was another
episode of . . .
Ta-da. There it is: the
lamest picture in the
history of the school.
Maybe in the history
of the UNIVERSE.
“Wow,” Teddy gasps,
picking himself up off
the floor. “And I thought
joining the yearbook committee was going to be
BORING!”
“Shut up,” I grumble.
“Oh, don’t take it so seriously, Nate,” Francis says.
Yeah, he’s right. I just hate looking like such a
dweeb. I’d much rather be . . .
“Candids!” I say to Francis and Teddy as we leave
the yearbook meeting.
“It’s a picture you take of someone when they
don’t know you’re taking it,” Francis explains.
“Now that you mention it,” says Francis, rubbing
his chin in a co-editor-of-the-yearbook sort of way,
“last year’s Chronicle had almost NO candids!”
“Yet another reason it stank on ice,” Teddy says.
Hey, LOOK, everybody:
It’s NICK BLONSKY,
here to share all his
yearbook expertise!
No offense, Nick,
but isn’t that like
the captain of the
“Titanic” offering to
give sailing lessons?
“Oh, it stank, all right,” Teddy tells him.
“Those mistakes weren’t MY fault,” Nick whines.
Ugh. See that? Nick
spits when he talks.
Every time he says a
“P” word, he practically
floods the hallway.
Anybody got a towel?
Nick snorts so hard, he blows a little snot bubble
out of his nose. That’s SO nasty.
“Good LUCK!” he sneers. “There’s no such thing
as a mistake-free yearbook!”
“How nice of him to
offer a few words of encourage-
ment,” Francis says, rolling his eyes.
“What a dorkus maximus,” Teddy grumbles.
“Forget about him, you guys,” I tell them.
You’re probably thinking: WHAT?? Since when
do I go LOOKING for she-who-must-not-be-
named? Especially since she’s been on a total
rampage lately.
“Okay, I’m stumped,” Teddy says. “WHY are we
going to see Mrs. Godfrey?”
“Because she’s in charge of the audiovisual room,”
I explain. “I need to borrow one of
the school’s cameras . . .”
Francis gives me one of those are-you-crazy?
looks.
“Dream ON, Nate! Those cameras are only for
TEACHERS!”
“Uh-huh.” I nod. “Teachers ANNNNND . . .”
“She’ll let YOU borrow a
camera, Francis!” I point
out. “She LIKES you! She
REALLY likes you!”
“No, what she LIKES is the fact that I don’t do
stupid things!” he answers.
“That may have been a mistake,” I admit.
“You’re ALWAYS making ‘mistakes’!” Francis
says, curling his fingers into air quotes. “What if I
put myself on the line and borrow the camera . . .”
Teddy chuckles and gives me a shove. “You DO
have a way with food!”
Francis is still babbling. “The bottom line is:
If you break the camera . . .”
“I’m not going to break it,” I object.
“. . . or ruin it somehow . . .”
“I’m NOT going to
RUIN it!”
Just the THOUGHT of get-
ting in trouble gives Francis
a stress rash. “Listen, that’ll
NEVER happen,” I tell him.
“I SWEAR.”
I guess I should explain what a “secret swear” is.
It’s like a pact between me and Francis. Back in
third grade we were already best friends, but we
wanted to make it official. So we climbed into
Francis’s tree house and wrote this out:
Who knows why we put a skull and crossbones
on it. I guess we were in a pirate phase.
Anyway, I told him my biggest secret, and he told
me his. And, no, I won’t let you know what we said.
We’ve never told anyone.
Not even TEDDY. It’s a
pretty big deal. This sounds kind of cheesy, but
it’s basically saying that you trust someone with
ANYTHING. A secret swear is way more than a
promise. It’s a stone-cold LOCK.
Francis takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says
finally. “I’ll go ask Mrs. Godfrey for the camera.
But stay out of sight, Nate.”
“He’s right,” says Teddy matter-of-factly.
“Mrs. Godfrey hates you.”
Teddy snickers. “Well . . .”
“Don’t answer that,” I say quickly.
From around the corner, we hear a door open.
Mrs. Godfrey’s voice comes floating up the hallway.
A few seconds later, here comes Francis—WITH
the camera!
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