Martin Bridge: Onwards and Upwards!

by Jessica Scott Kerrin

  To Peter and Elliott, along with special thanks to all the people who have reviewed the Martin Bridge books, including Robin Smith of The Horn Book Magazine. Much appreciation! — J.S.K.

  For Puddy, =^..^= — J.K.

  ISBN 978-1-894786-64-5 (ePub)

  Text © 2009 Jessica Scott Kerrin

  Illustrations © 2009 Joseph Kelly

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of Kids Can Press Ltd. or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  This is a work of fiction and any resemblance of characters to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Kids Can Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative; the Ontario Arts Council; the Canada Council for the Arts; and the Government of Canada, through the CBF, for our publishing activity.

  Neither the Publisher nor the Author shall be liable for any damage that may be caused or sustained as a result of conducting the activity in this book without specifically following instructions, or ignoring the cautions contained in the book.

  Published in Canada by

  Kids Can Press Ltd.

  25 Dockside Drive

  Toronto, ON M5A 0B5

  Published in the U.S. by

  Kids Can Press Ltd.

  2250 Military Road

  Tonawanda, NY 14150

  www.kidscanpress.com

  Edited by Debbie Rogosin

  Designed by Julia Naimska

  The art in this book was drawn with graphite and charcoal; shading was added digitally.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Kerrin, Jessica Scott

  Martin Bridge onwards and upwards! / written by Jessica Scott Kerrin ; illustrated by Joseph Kelly.

  ISBN 978-1-55453-160-8 (bound).

  ISBN 978-1-55453-161-5 (pbk.)

  I. Kelly, Joseph II. Title.

  PS8621.E77M366 2009 jC813’.6 C2008-903811-

  Contents

  Keyboard

  Rope

  Build a Marshmallow Catapult!

  An Excerpt from The Lobster Chronicles

  Meet …

  Keyboard

  Cripes, thought Martin as he and his mom rounded the corner to the house of his best friend, Stuart. Stuart’s driveway was blocked by Polar Pete’s ice-cream truck, and the truck had a car sticking out of its side.

  Double cripes! The car belonged to Stuart’s mom, but she wasn’t in it!

  The car doors swung open, and two boys scrambled out.

  It was Stuart and Martin’s other best friend, Alex.

  “Oh, my!” exclaimed Martin’s mom as she pulled over to the curb. “Stay here,” she ordered, and she jumped from the van.

  Martin strained to watch from the window. No one appeared to be hurt. Polar Pete had turned off his musical bells and was checking the damage. And a lot of shouting and finger pointing was going on between Martin’s two friends.

  It wasn’t long before Stuart’s mom dashed out of the house to the scene of the crash. The boys stopped fighting and sheepishly scuffed at the ground.

  Martin’s mom made her way back to the van.

  “What happened?!” Martin demanded as she climbed in.

  “It seems that Alex and Stuart were pretending they were flying in a rocket. One of them accidentally released the gear shift. The car rolled into the street and hit Polar Pete’s truck as he was cruising by.”

  Triple cripes!

  But Martin wasn’t surprised. Alex was always full of harebrained ideas, and he often dragged Martin and Stuart along for the ride.

  “I guess they’re in big trouble,” said Martin.

  “I would think so,” replied his mom matter-of-factly.

  She did a U-turn.

  “So I won’t be playing with them today,” Martin concluded, making no effort to hide his disappointment about how his summer holiday was starting off.

  Martin’s mom was taking a couple of weeks of vacation to putter around the house, but Martin had set more ambitious goals. He and his friends planned to spend every day perfecting their skills at Zip Rideout’s Space Race Game.

  Zip Rideout, Space Cadet, was their favorite cartoon hero.

  “Maybe you could call the boys later and see how they’re doing,” suggested Martin’s mom. “Hey, isn’t that a yard sale?”

  Martin looked out his window and spotted the usual trademarks: a lawn covered with tables that displayed all kinds of potential treasure, along with barely used exercise equipment, outdated computers and antique baby cribs.

  “I love a good yard sale!” sang Martin’s mom as she pulled over.

  They climbed out of the van and made their way to the nearest items.

  It only took a few minutes of sifting through the clutter before Martin’s mom came across an electronic keyboard.

  “Oh, Martin! I’ve always wanted to learn to play.”

  She spotted the seller and called out boldly, “How much for the keyboard?”

  Martin did not stick around for the answer. He quickly disappeared into the milling crowd. Listening to his mom negotiate was excruciating. She was ruthless and could bargain anyone down to almost nothing.

  Take the tape player she had picked up a few weeks ago. As Martin recalled, that conversation had been pure agony.

  “How much for the tape player?”

  “Ten dollars.”

  “Ten dollars!” she had haggled. “But it’s so old! I’ll give you … fifty cents.”

  “Fifty cents? No way. How about eight dollars?”

  “Eight? How about seventy-five cents?”

  “Seventy-five cents? No can do …”

  And on and on.

  “I paid a dollar-fifty for this tape player,” she had bragged to Martin’s dad when they got home. “Now we can play those old tapes we have boxed in the basement.”

  Martin’s ears burned as he recalled the purchase. Come to think of it, she still hadn’t hauled out those tapes.

  Martin was leafing through a stack of Zip Rideout: Space Cadet comic books at a far table when she found him, the keyboard tucked under her arm.

  “I’m practically stealing this,” she whispered with excitement, her face flushed with the thrill of a good deal. “Do you want me to get those comics for you?” she added generously.

  “No!” said Martin, dropping the comics in haste. “I’m pretty sure I have these ones,” he added as an excuse. “Let’s go.”

  On the way home, Martin’s mom made a detour and stopped by a music store to pick up some beginners’ books.

  “I can’t wait to get started,” she told Martin eagerly.

  Martin thought that music in the house would be nice, but he was still distracted by the accident. He wondered how much trouble his friends were in.

  As soon as he got in the door, Martin called Stuart.

  “Hi, Stuart,” said Martin. “How’s it going?”

  “Couldn’t be worse,” said Stuart miserably.

  “I saw what happened with the ice-cream truck,” admitted Martin. “At least no one was hurt.”

  “True. And Polar Pete’s truck just needs some touch-up paint, so he’ll be making rounds in no time. But there’s a big dent in Mom’s fender, A
lex was sent home and I’m grounded,” lamented Stuart. “I’ve got to think of a way to make it up to my mom.”

  “Maybe you could pay for the damage,” suggested Martin.

  “I don’t have that much money!” Stuart protested.

  “Maybe you could figure out how to earn some,” said Martin.

  Thick silence.

  Finally, Stuart spoke. “You might be on to something. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Martin called Alex next. His heart sank when he learned that Alex had also been grounded. With both friends out of commission, Martin felt like he was being punished, too!

  Plink, plink. Plonk, plonk. Plink, plonk, plunk.

  Martin’s mom had begun to peck away at the keyboard, which was front row center in the living room. It didn’t sound as pleasant as Martin had expected. He went to check it out.

  “I’m starting with ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’” she announced proudly. “How does it sound?”

  Martin’s mom had no sense of rhythm, and the notes were all wrong.

  “Sounds like this keyboard will be in our next yard sale, along with the tape player,” Martin replied.

  He could have been kinder, but having friends who were grounded soured his mood.

  “Very funny,” said his mom, undaunted. “You wait and see. I’ll be playing like a pro in no time.”

  To Martin, it sounded as if she wasn’t going to improve any time soon. And he felt a smidgen of sympathy for Mrs. Baddeck, his school’s music teacher, who listened to beginner musicians all day long.

  No wonder she rubbed her temples a lot.

  “I’m going up to my room,” declared Martin. His mom’s enthusiasm for the keyboard was not infectious.

  Martin thought he might glue the fins on his newest rocket. But the bothersome plinking and plonking drifted upstairs, breaking his concentration.

  He shut his door. It didn’t help. He could still hear his mom struggling with “Twinkle, Twinkle” over and over and over.

  It would be easier to listen to Alex and Stuart bickering over Zip Rideout’s Space Race Game! Martin sprawled on his bed with a pillow over his head. And he hummed Zip’s television theme song to further block her notes from entering his cocoon.

  “I picked up a keyboard at a yard sale today,” Martin’s mom boasted to his dad at dinner. “I’ve been practicing all afternoon.”

  “Yes. All afternoon,” repeated Martin, rolling his eyes.

  “Well, then!” said Martin’s dad jovially. “Can you play something for us? A little music to accompany dinner?”

  Martin’s mom leaped up from the table and bounded into the living room.

  A mangled “Twinkle, Twinkle” wafted back to assault their ears.

  Martin’s dad listened intently, but looked confused.

  “It’s supposed to be ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’” Martin whispered. He hoped that if his dad guessed it quickly, his mom would stop wrestling with the notes and they could eat in peace.

  “‘Twinkle, Twinkle’?” Martin’s dad called out, giving Martin the thumbs-up.

  Martin’s mom returned to the kitchen.

  “No,” she answered. “I was working on ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ earlier, but it was too hard. Now I’m learning ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.’”

  There was an awkward pause, then Martin burst out laughing.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Well,” said Martin’s dad gently, stepping in while Martin recovered. “I think Martin’s trying to tell you that ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ and ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’ are the same tune, just different words.”

  “I know that,” said Martin’s mom, spearing her peas in a way that told them she did not.

  Martin’s dad reached over and patted her hand.

  “Look, you two,” she said, “I may not be the best musician in the world, but I can certainly learn to play a few simple songs. Now, if you’ll excuse me” — she picked up her dishes and rinsed them at the sink — “I have some practicing to do.”

  She disappeared into the living room.

  Plink, plink, plonk went the notes.

  “Maybe she should try a different instrument,” said Martin, covering his ears.

  “Actually, this isn’t her first attempt,” admitted Martin’s dad. “Before you came along, there was the guitar, the trumpet and … oh, yes, the violin.”

  “Cripes,” said Martin.

  “I can hear you in there!” Martin’s mom called out.

  But she kept on pecking away.

  And when Martin got up for breakfast the next morning, she had already been practicing for an hour. He poured himself a bowl of Zip Rideout Space Flakes, but added less milk than usual. The extra crunching sound blocked out the killer background noise while he ate.

  Martin called Alex right after breakfast.

  “I thought of a way for Stuart and I to raise money to pay for his mom’s fender,” Alex announced proudly.

  “How?” asked Martin.

  His mom was still banging away, so Martin had to plug one ear with his finger to hear Alex.

  “Remember the time when Curtis borrowed all the neighbors’ water sprinklers?”

  Curtis was Alex’s little brother.

  “Sure,” said Martin. “He arranged them in your backyard to cheer you up when you had the chicken pox.”

  The waterworks had been spectacular.

  But Martin was suspicious. Alex’s enthusiasm had all the makings of yet another crazy scheme.

  “Well, I was thinking that Stuart and I could do the same thing for birthday parties and stuff. Like those flocks of pink flamingos you see on lawns. Only, instead of birds, we’d set up sprinklers. People could hire us to do it as a surprise.”

  Martin did not think neighbors would pay to have surprise sprinklers set up in their front yards. He was about to tell Alex that his idea was all wet, when Alex abruptly changed the subject.

  “What’s that awful racket?” he demanded.

  “My mom. She’s learning how to play the keyboard,” mumbled Martin.

  “Holy cow!” exclaimed Alex. “Will she get any better?”

  “I doubt it,” Martin replied. “She’s been practicing the same song forever. I think she’s getting worse.”

  “Well, I can barely hear you. I’m going to call Stuart and tell him about my sprinkler idea.”

  Alex hung up, and Martin unplugged his ear. The barrage of notes filling the kitchen sounded just as bad to Martin as Alex’s business scheme.

  “Maybe you should take a break!” suggested Martin as he stomped by the living room.

  “No breaks for me,” replied his mom cheerily. “If I don’t keep at it, I’ll never get better.”

  Martin thought that only the last part of her statement was correct.

  “Well, I sure need a break,” he declared, and he escaped to his tree fort with some comics.

  Martin’s mom continued to plod away at the keyboard all day, so Martin had to endure the torture every time he went inside.

  “Hey, Mom! Where’d you put my earplugs?” Martin shouted down from his room that evening after suffering through forty-five minutes of “Chopsticks.”

  Martin owned a pair of earplugs that he wore whenever he watched fireworks.

  “In the bathroom cupboard, top drawer,” she called back. “Am I still that bad?”

  “Yes!” shouted Martin bluntly.

  He knew he was being cruel, but his nerves were absolutely shot. She rarely got more than three or four notes right in a row!

  “Well,” she replied without any apology, “I guess I need to increase my practice time. ‘Onwards and upwards,’ as Zip would say.”

  Martin made no attempt to cover up his groan.

  The next day, from the sanctuary of his tree fort, Martin heard the familiar jingle of ice-cream bells. Polar Pete had returned to making his daily rounds. Martin was only too pleased to rush inside and int
errupt his mom’s playing to ask for some change. He was dying to try Zip Rideout’s new line of ice-cream flavors.

  “What’s that sound?” asked Polar Pete after Martin placed his order for Zip’s Rocky Rocket Ripple.

  “My mom’s learning to play the keyboard,” said Martin glumly. “She picked one up at a yard sale.”

  “Good for her!” exclaimed Polar Pete, handing the ice-cream cone to Martin. “Music brings such happiness.”

  “Not always,” said Martin between licks. “Mom’s music sounds best from my tree fort, where I can barely hear it.”

  “In time she’ll get better,” Polar Pete assured him. “Tell her from me to keep up the hard work.”

  Martin had no intention of conveying Polar Pete’s message to his mom. But it did give Martin an idea. After some searching, he hauled the tape player, a fresh set of batteries and the box of old tapes up to his tree fort.

  The first couple of recordings featured screechy guitars, but then Martin came across a funny song about being a walrus. He drew a picture of one while he played the song over and over. When he was done, he climbed down and called Stuart.

  “I’m going to join Alex in his sprinkler party business,” Stuart informed Martin.

  Martin was about to tell Stuart that no one would be crazy enough to trust Alex with a lot of water, but Stuart cut in.

  “What’s that horrible noise?”

  “My mom. She’s learning to play the keyboard,” Martin grumbled.

  “Ka-boom!” exclaimed Stuart. He always said that when something was about to go wrong.

  Martin had the exact same thought about the sprinkler party partnership, but his mom’s playing forced Stuart to hang up before Martin could tell him “Ka-boom!”

  Martin returned to his tree fort to listen to more tapes. He came across another song he liked — about an octopus’s garden. He drew that, too. Then he came down for his favorite television show, Zip Rideout: Space Cadet. He turned up the volume really loud, forcing his mom to take a break.