by Luke Sharpe
Like me, Manny brings his own lunch to school every day. He takes out a turkey sandwich in the shape of what can only be described as someone’s foot. There are little pieces of cheese on what should be the foot’s toenails. I guess that makes sense—Manny’s mom, Dr. Reyes, is a podiatrist, and sometimes she takes her job a little too seriously. Or maybe she gets a KICK out of it?
The rest of our friends buy their lunch in the cafeteria. They sit with trays of food in front of them.
“How was everyone’s summer?” I ask, a typical first-day-back-at-school question.
“I made some serious cash mowing lawns,” says Peter. “I’m saving up to get a really awesome mountain bike. It will be the cooooolest!”
If you ask Peter, everything he has or does is the “cooooolest!”
“I had a pretty good time at camp. Then I had to work at my family’s fancy restaurant,” Allison says. “I spent a lot of my summer saying stuff like, ‘Would you like the elite set of silverware or the royal set of silverware, sir?’ ”
We all laugh.
Timothy pokes at whatever is on his tray. “I ran every day,” he says. “This year I’m going to make the school track team. Did you know that it takes five hundred twenty-five steps to go around the track one time? I counted.”
Oh yeah. Timothy’s hobby is counting steps.
Told you I have some interesting friends.
“I worked with my mom this summer at Right Next Door,” Samantha says cheerfully.
Right Next Door is our local online newspaper. Samantha’s mom, Kathy Jenkins, is the main editor and staff writer. She isn’t always factual, though. In fact, Kathy Jenkins has written some pretty nasty (untrue!) stuff about Manny and me.
“I was a lifeguard at the community pool,” Petula says. “That’s how I got this perfect tan!”
She holds out her arm so all of us can inspect what must be Petula’s perfect tan.
“One time, while on the job, I jumped in after a dog leaped off the diving board!” Petula continues. “On second thought, maybe that was Peter!”
Everyone at the table laughs. Peter was a bit obnoxious at Petula’s pool party this summer. He kept doing these MONSTER CANNONBALLS off the diving board and splashing everyone. The first time it was kinda funny, but by the fourth time it was, well, annoying.
“Ha-ha, very funny,” Peter says. “But if you can’t tell the difference between me and a dog—”
“Oh, I can tell,” Petula says. “A dog spills less food on the floor when he eats!”
Again, everyone laughs.
“How about you, Clayton?” I ask. “What’d you do?
Clayton Harris is president of the Fillmore Middle School Inventors Club, a club I started. I was happy to hand it over to Clayton, though. Being a kid inventor and keeping up with schoolwork is hard—and it looks like it’s going to get a lot harder.
“Well, Billy, I’m glad you asked,” Clayton replies. “I started work on ten new inventions, which I hope to complete with the help of my fellow Inventors Club members.”
“Ten! Wow!” I say, a little jealous that Clayton had a way more productive summer than I did.
“Yep, including a CHOCOLATE MILK LOCATOR, an AUTOMATIC TABLE CLEARER, and a HOMEWORK ORGANIZER,” Clayton explains.
That last one sounds like something I could use right now!
As I eat my peanut-butter-and-jelly-stuffed pickles, I glance around at the food on everyone’s tray. Cafeteria food is notoriously bad no matter what school you go to (one of the reasons I like to bring to my own lunch every day—even if Dad does make it), but the stuff on everyone’s plates today looks downright nasty.
Just as I’m about to ask what the weird-looking food is, Petula blurts out proudly:
“You know, my aunt is the new director of Cafeteria Services.”
So she’s the one responsible for serving up a plate full of something that looks like it just crawled out from under a rock. And now that Petula says it, I remember her mentioning it at her pool party. The food there was super . . . um, “creative”—detox health shakes, creamy kale salad, and some seriously mysterious mystery meat!
And now this!
“My aunt went to Fillmore when she was growing up,” Petula continues. “She is sooooo cool! Look at what she did here. She used food coloring to make the chicken fingers match our school colors! How awesome is that?”
Wait. Hold up. CHICKEN FINGERS? Those gross green hunks of twisted stuff are supposed to be CHICKEN FINGERS?!
I don’t know about your school, but at my school chicken fingers are the best cafeteria food we have. Why would anyone ruin Chicken Fingers Day? Everyone knows Chicken Fingers Day is the best day of the month! And these chicken fingers, they look, well, like . . . fingers.
Everyone has a pile of them on their trays, but as I eat my own lunch I notice that Petula is the only one actually eating them. The rest of my friends are working hard to eat the rest of the stuff on their plates—slowly sipping on cartons of milk, using their plastic spork to eat purple sorbet. I don’t blame them.
But not Petula. Whether she actually likes the way they taste or she’s eating them out of loyalty to her aunt, she devours one chicken finger after another, until at last lunch is over.
BRIIIIIIING!
The bell rings and we all get up from the table.
“This was fun!” says Peter. “Wanna meet for ice cream after school?”
I think about all the homework I have on day one of the eighth grade. Then I think about the chocolate mint marshmallow cookie-dough swirl I could be eating instead. Magically, all thoughts about my homework DISAPPEAR.
“Sure,” I say. “I’m in!”
Manny nods, followed by the rest of the gang. Even Petula, who seems to have survived her aunt’s chicken fingers, agrees.
The rest of the day goes by smoothly, though I wonder if all the teachers got together and said, “Let’s pull a practical joke on the kids and all give them a ton of homework on the first day!”
When the last bell of the day rings, I hop on my bike and head toward Jansen’s Ice-Cream Shop, which is on my way home anyway. My friends and I squeeze in around a not-quite-big-enough table in the middle of the restaurant. I can barely see Manny over my triple scoop of chocolate mint marshmallow cookie-dough swirl.
We all start talking excitedly—this time about the new movie Zombie Galaxy Battles, which is coming out this week. Celebrity actress Gemma Weston is starring in it, but even though we’re kind of friends, she won’t give away any secrets.
“I heard someone is going to lose a hand in the new movie,” Allison says, then cheerfully licks her strawberry shortcake ice cream.
“A hand? No way. I think someone will lose two hands,” says Peter.
We jump right in. Everyone has their own theories.
Me? I don’t really care. I’m just having a good time.
I shove another spoonful of delicious, chocolate-y ice cream into my mouth and notice that although I’m having a lot of fun, something is a LITTLE STRANGE here. I look around the table and realize what’s strange is . . . Petula.
Petula has a scoop of ice cream in front of her, but she hasn’t eaten a single bite. In fact, she looks a little green.
And Petula, who is one of the chattiest people I know (and that’s a fact—I once timed her talking nonstop for a SOLID HOUR), has not said a single word.
“Are you okay, Petula?” I ask, wiping brown-and-white dribble from my chin.
“Hur,” Petula grunts.
That’s weird.
“How’s your ice cream, Petula?” I ask.
“Hur.” Another grunt.
The group resumes talking for an hour, until it’s time to head home.
As everyone gathers their stuff, I pull Manny aside.
“Does Petula seem a little, I don’t know, STRANGE?” I whisper to him.
Manny shrugs.
“She was fine at lunch—I’m sure everything is okay,” he says. “She migh
t just be stressed because of all of the homework. I know I am.”
Manny? Stressed?
Okay, now I KNOW eighth grade is going to be hard.
LUKE SHARPE is not a millionaire, but he has been trying to invent a machine that can teleport people anywhere in the world since he was eight years old. He has so far been unsuccessful but he has vowed never to give up. When he isn’t working, Luke enjoys Hawaiian pizza and skateboarding. He lives near Chicago with his wife and son (named Billy, of course), their gecko, Eddie, and their aquarium full of exotic fish.
GRAHAM ROSS has grand plans for world domination through his illustrated inventions. Right now he’s having a “ball” hanging out with Billy Sure, the next sure thing! Graham lives in a little log home in the woods with his inventive family, just outside of Merrickville, Canada.
Look for more books about Billy Sure Kid Entrepreneur at your favorite store!
SIMON SPOTLIGHT
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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This Simon Spotlight hardcover edition February 2017
Copyright © 2017 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. Text by Michael Teitelbaum. Illustrations by Graham Ross. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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ISBN 978-1-4814-7907-3 (hc)
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ISBN 978-1-4814-7908-0 (eBook)
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2016940850