by Guy Bass
“Anything for my other-dimensional twin,” said Dinkin with a grin. “But do me a favor, if anyone calls you Dinkin, just pretend to be me, will you? It’ll, uh, make it more daring!”
Danger grinned a wide, thrill-seeking grin. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Dinkin Dings.”
One minute and eleven seconds later, Danger was dressed in Dinkin’s school uniform. Except for his glasses, it was impossible to tell them apart.
“So what are you going to do while I’m being you?” asked Danger as he straightened his tie.
“I’m going to do what I always do,” replied Dinkin. “Hide and panic.”
A moment later, the door swung open. Dinkin dived behind it as his mother poked her head into the room and came face- to-face with Danger.
“Oh good, you’re up,” began Dinkin’s mom. “And dressed for school already! What a good boy!
Oh, Dinkin, I like this new you!”
“What do you mean, new me?” said Danger. “I’m not a new me. I’m the old me! I’m Dinkin! Dinkin Dings, from this dimension! Now, what’s for breakfast?” he said, ushering Dinkin’s mom out of the room. Dinkin breathed a sigh of relief and slumped to the floor. He stayed in his room, waiting for his plan to fall apart. But at 8:22 he heard the bus pull up outside his house and crept to the window. Sure enough, Danger raced out of the house and bounded fearlessly on board. Dinkin laughed in joyful disbelief! He’d gotten out of going to school!
And he hadn’t even needed to chain himself to the bed!
THE PERFECT PLAN
Time spent on inventions: 2 hours, 2 minutes
Time spent worrying: 1 hour, 6 minutes
Time before The Perfect Plan turns out to be less than perfect: 3 hours, 17 minutes
Dinkin couldn’t believe it—a day off from school. It was The Perfect Plan! Maybe Danger would have such a good time that he’d want to go everyday! Dinkin would never have to face school ever again. The possibility made the idea of an open doorway to Dimension 9 in his bedroom a lot more bearable. Dinkin waited quietly for his mom and dad to go to work so that he could leave his room, but by then he was too nervous to go anywhere in an empty house full of who-knows-what hidden horrors. It was one hour and six minutes later when he finally got up the courage to collect everything he needed for a day’s inventing. Before long, Dinkin was in his stride. By lunchtime he had:
1) Mixed up a fresh batch of Bully-B-Gone spray (made up of equal parts rotten eggs, vinegar, toilet water, liquid soap, furniture polish, Tabasco sauce, and his mom’s least favorite perfume, all mixed up together in his mom’s least favorite perfume bottle)
2) Re-tuned the television so that it didn’t pick up any channels, reducing the risk of mind control by 37.65%
3) Drawn up blueprints for his all-new, all-indestructible Fortress of Absolute, Total, and Utter Protection (this time with extra-thick cardboard)
Not only that, but he recorded forty-six existing fears and discovered sixty-one new terrors. He was halfway through listing the top ten most terrifying sandwich fillings when he heard the front door open.
“Dinkin? Dinkin?” came the cry. It was his mother. Dinkin scrambled to his feet and looked for a place to hide. He’d almost squeezed himself into the cabinet under the sink when his mother spotted him.
“What are you doing back home?” she cried, dragging him out by his pajamas. “I’ve been worried sick about you! The school called to say you’d run away!”
“What? I mean, no! I mean, yes, but . . . I thought I was at school!” said Dinkin, panicking on at least three levels. Why wasn’t Danger still at school? Where had he gone?
“Dinkin, I’ve told you a hundred times: You can’t just run away from school whenever you feel like it! I had to leave Mrs. Oldengray to look after the shop, and you know how useless she is—she’ll have probably burned the whole place down by now!” said Mrs. Dings. Dinkin pictured Mrs. Oldengray (who smelled like dust and was so ancient that Dinkin was sure she was mostly ghostly) standing in the middle of his mom’s flower shop, laughing manically with a lit match in her hand. He had just started to panic about it when his mother interrupted. “Well, you’re going straight back! Where’s your uniform? Put it on this instant!”
“My . . . my uniform?” whimpered Dinkin, looking down at his pajamas. He couldn’t tell his mom that his dimensional double was wearing his uniform—and had gone to school—in his place. She’d never believe him! He had to come up with something that didn’t sound too farfetched or ridiculous. Finally, he said, “It was eaten!”
“Eaten?”
“Eaten! Nibbled to nothingness by mutant moths from the moon!” said Dinkin.
“Well, it’s a good thing I bought you a spare set then, isn’t it?” growled Mrs. Dings, marching Dinkin to her bedroom. She reached into her closet and pulled out a brand-new school uniform. Dinkin’s mother had gotten into the habit of buying two of everything as Dinkin often became convinced that certain items of clothing were “out to get him.”
“Now put these on—you are going back to school. I want you ready in five minutes.”
Four minutes and fifty-eight seconds later, Dinkin was in his mom’s car, complete with his spare school bag slung over his shoulder. As they pulled up outside the school, Dinkin was kicking himself for trusting Danger.
“And I don’t want to get another call from the school,” said Mrs. Dings, ushering Dinkin out of the car. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Mom,” said Dinkin as Mrs. Dings led him into school and down the hall to his classroom. All of 5D giggled at the sight of Dinkin being steered to his desk by his mother.
“Dinkin Dings, how nice of you to rejoin us,” said Ms. Feebleback, clearly not happy to see him.
“Sorry about this,” said Mrs. Dings. “I made Dinkin promise he’d sit tight for the rest of the day.”
“Let’s hope so. I don’t know what got into him earlier . . . ,” said Ms. Feebleback. “And you might want to stop by the principal on your way out—he’s not too happy about the fire department having to come.”
“The fire department?” said Dinkin and Mrs. Dings together. Mrs. Dings put her head in her hands, then shot Dinkin an incredibly stern look through her fingers.
“We’ll talk about this at home,” she said through gritted teeth, and left.
“Hey, Dinkin! What happened to your funny glasses?” asked Misty Spittle, spraying Dinkin with saliva.
“Duh, they’re probably still on the roof!” said Talbot Toploft.
“The roof? What roof?” squeaked Dinkin in terror.
“Duh, the school roof! Don’t you remember?” said Talbot Toploft.
“Wait, he was—I mean, I was on the school roof?” whispered Dinkin, fear gripping him. “I mean, of course I remember . . . but just remind me—what was I doing on the school roof?”
“Cartwheels, mostly,” sprayed Misty Spittle. “And then you tried pole vaulting off the roof into a tree with a TV antenna. It was pretty exciting actually, especially when the fire department showed up to get you down . . . ”
The fire department?! thought Dinkin, rocking back and forth in unbridled terror. How could he have been so stupid as to trust Danger? All he’d done was get Dinkin in trouble! Even worse, he had no idea where Danger was now, or what daring deeds he was doing in Dinkin’s name! He had to find him, but there was no way Ms. Feebleback would let him out of her sight now. He was debating whether to try crawling under the desks when a ball of scrunched-up paper hit him in the head. He looked around to see Boris Wack (the biggest boy in class 5D) staring at him with an angry look on his face and clenching his enormous fists. Dinkin picked up the piece of paper and opened it.
On it was written:
“AAH!” screamed Dinkin as quietly as he could. A death threat! And a badly spelled one at that! He looked again, and noticed something on the other side of the paper. Shaking with fear, he turned it over.
“AAAAAAH!” screamed Dinkin, much more loudly than before. Danger
had challenged Boris Wack to a fight!
“Dinkin Dings!” screeched Ms. Feebleback. “I have officially run out of patience with you! I don’t want to hear another peep out of you for the rest of the day! Is that clear?”
“But—,” began Dinkin.
“Not a peep!” Dinkin put his hand over his mouth and sat in terrified silence as he felt Boris’s vengeful stare burning into the back of his head. Finally, he checked his watch.
2:04.
He had one hour and twenty-six minutes to live.
BULLY-B-GONE
Ingredients in one bottle of
Bully-B-Gone: 7
Amount of Bully-B-Gone used to
repel Boris Wack: 1/2 a bottle
Amount of times Dinkin is called
“Stinkin’ Dings”: 113
One hour and twenty-two minutes of hopeless panicking later, Dinkin suddenly remembered something incredibly important—he’d packed the new bottle of Bully-B-Gone repellent in his bag! He took it out and held it tightly under the desk. Then, with only minutes to go before the bell, he began spraying himself all over. By the time he’d emptied half the bottle on his clothes, everyone in the classroom was holding their nose. Even Roddy Jollify, who had tissues stuffed up his nostrils to stop his nosebleeds, began to feel faint from the smell.
“Ms. Feebleback! Dinkin’s stinky!” cried Misty Spittle, flaring her vast, black-hole nostrils.
“Duh! He’s ‘Stinkin’ Dings’!” laughed Talbot Toploft. Four point four seconds later, the whole class was chanting:
“What’s all this racket? Oh my!” cried Ms. Feebleback, almost fainting as the cloud of Bully-B-Gone reached her. “What is that? It smells like . . . like the end of the world!”
Dinkin watched in relief as the entire class began moving their desks to get away from him. Some were even climbing over one another to try and get away—especially Boris Wack, who, as a fully qualified bully, was more affected by the spray than anyone. He started squealing and flapping his arms, knocking over two chairs and four children in his attempts to escape the stench. Dinkin couldn’t help but smile at the sight, even though he had doomed himself to the nickname “Stinkin’ Dings” for all eternity.
“Dinkin Dings, this is the last straw! Get out of my classroom this very minute!” shouted Ms. Feebleback.
“Are . . . are you sure, Ms. Feebleback? The bell hasn’t rung yet,” said Dinkin nervously.
“Out!” screeched Ms. Feebleback.
Dinkin ran out of the classroom with the “Stinkin’ Dings!” chant ringing in his ears, and didn’t stop running until he was home. He found the key under the mat, opened the door, and closed it behind him. He was safe . . . at least until tomorrow. He was about to make his way into the kitchen when he heard the sound of talking. It was his parents—and Danger. They’d found him! Dinkin tiptoed upstairs and peered over the banister again as Danger followed his parents out of the kitchen and into the hall.
“We’re very disappointed in you, Dinkin,” said Mr. Dings. “Not only because you climbed onto the school roof, and you tried to pole vault with the TV antenna, and the fire department had to get you down.”
“But then,” said Mrs. Dings, shaking with rage, “less than three hours after I find you at home, after I take you all the way back to school, after you promise you’ll behave yourself—I get a call from Mrs. Oldengray in the flower shop to say that she’s seen you riding down the street on the back of a garbage truck!”
“Yeah, that was especially brave,” chortled Danger.
“How on earth did you get out of school? And how did you get into town so quickly? And what . . . and how . . . and why . . . ?” said Mrs. Dings, too enraged to form actual sentences.
“I think what your mother is trying to say, Dink,” sighed Mr. Dings, “is that this is just not acceptable behavior . . . even for you. We’re supposed to be at work—we can’t spend all day chasing after you! Honestly, ever since we gave you those glasses, you’ve been acting even stranger than usual . . . ”
“Oh, so you’d rather I was a complete chicken, like Dinkin?” said Danger.
“What do you mean, ‘like Dinkin’?” replied Mr. Dings.
“I mean, like me!” said Danger quickly.
“Oh, I’ve had enough! Go to your room this instant. We’ll talk about this over dinner,” said Mrs. Dings.
Danger shrugged and began trudging up the stairs. Dinkin hurried back to his bedroom in case his parents were following. But as he looked for a hiding place, he noticed something unsettlingly different about his room. He clamped his hand over his mouth and stifled a scream.
His mirror was missing.
Where had it gone? It was the only way to send Danger home!
“You stink, Dinkin,” said a voice. Dinkin spun around in terror to see Danger in the doorway. “What’s that rotten smell?”
“Nevermind that, it’s just Bully-B-Gone!” said Dinkin in his most terrified (and enraged) whisper. “Where’s the mirror? What have you done with it?”
“I haven’t done anything with it! Um, I mean, what mirror?” replied Danger, trying to sound innocent.
“My mirror! The doorway to Dimension 9! The only way to send you back to where you came from! It was right there, and now it’s gone!” cried Dinkin.
“I don’t know . . . I guess it must have been stolen by . . . mirror thieves,” said Danger, scratching his head.
“Mirror thieves?” said Dinkin, nervous and a little suspicious.
“Yeah, or something like that,” said Danger with a shrug. “Anyway, it looks like I’m stuck here forever!”
“What? No, you can’t stay!” said Dinkin. “You’ve only been here a day and I’m already in more trouble than I’ve been in all year! We have to find that mirror. We have to send you back to Dimension 9!”
“You worry too much, Dinkin,” Danger said. “This is best for both of us! You get to hide all day in your room, and I get to be extradaring’cause everyone thinks I’m a scaredycat. You’ll see, life is so much better when I’m you!”
“But—you can’t be me! I’m me! I was here first!” cried Dinkin.
“Yeah, well, you’re never going to find that mirror, so there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Danger smugly.
“What do you mean, I’ll never find it? Do you . . . do you know where it is? Be honest!” asked Dinkin.
“Of course not!” said Danger quickly. “I wonder what’s for dinner—I’m starving! You stay here—if you’re lucky, I’ll bring you some leftovers!”
And with that, Danger raced downstairs. Dinkin sat down on his bed and held his stomach as it rumbled with hunger. Three things were suddenly clear:
1. This dimension wasn’t big enough for the two of them.
2. The mirror hadn’t been stolen by “mirror thieves.” Danger had hidden it.
3. He wasn’t going to get any dinner. Dinkin only had one choice: He had to find that mirror and send Danger back.
This was a job for The Frightening Things.
A JOB FOR THE FRIGHTENING THINGS
Risk of waking the duplicate:
6,599 scariness pounds
Time spent looking for Dinkin’s
mirror: 3 hours, 43 minutes
Sheds: 1
Dinkin changed out of his smelly clothes, threw them into his closet, and put on a recently disinfected pair of pajamas. He waited nervously and hungrily in his room as Danger ate his dinner (7:01), tried to watch a show about extreme sports on the broken television (7:45), and attempted to juggle with a carving knife and a barbecue fork (8:27) before Mr. Dings stopped him. Finally (9:23), Danger made his way to bed. Dinkin hid underneath the bed as his mom tucked Danger in.
“We can both see that you’re different, Dinkin,” said Mrs. Dings as she pulled the covers around Danger’s chin. “And it’s not that we’re not happy to see you being a little more . . . bold, but try not to get into any trouble for a while, okay?”
“I’ll try,” said Danger.
>
“And don’t stay up all night talking to those ‘Frightening Things’ of yours,” added Mrs. Dings, kissing Danger on the head.
“You don’t have to worry about The Frightening Things,” said Danger. “They won’t be bothering me anymore. In fact, this is going to be the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a long time.”
Dinkin waited for his mom to leave and then crawled out from under the bed.
“What did you mean about The Frightening Things not bothering you?” he asked as Danger rolled over and closed his eyes.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Danger with a yawn. “Let’s just say it’s probably a good thing your mirror’s . . . gone.”
Hidden, you mean . . . by you! thought Dinkin. He huddled in the corner of the room, listening to the sound of Danger’s snoring. Then, as the clock struck midnight, he stopped huddling and took the Ancient Summoning Parchment out of his pajama pocket. He assumed the Ancient Summoning Position and whispered his quietest Ancient Summoning Chant:“Frightening Things, Frightening Things
Creep from the gloom,
Crawl from the shadows and into my room,
Frightening Things, Frightening Things
Come to my aid,
Save me from danger (and being afraid!).”
Edgar the skeleton was the first to appear. He stumbled out of the closet, waving his arms and screaming.
“AAH! That smell! It smells like the end of the world!”