Elrod McBugle on the Loose

by Jeff Strand

  "I hope not…but yeah."

  "Mr. Botkin will be addressing the eighth graders in the assembly room for a while. Is there someone else I can have discipline you? Perhaps the assistant principal?"

  "You could have the janitor beat me with a mop."

  The secretary smiled, then suddenly realized that she probably shouldn't be smiling at smart remarks made by juvenile delinquents. "I'll have Mr. Clark give you a good talking to," she said. "And no more drawing comics during class, understand?"

  "I understand." As I glanced down at her desk, I realized that the piece of paper she used to take phone messages had the sides completely covered with random cartoon doodles, one of which was a surprisingly accurate drawing of Mr. Botkin, providing he were an eight-tentacled alien. She hurriedly shoved the paper into a file.

  Ms. Webster entered the office, brandishing my comic as if it contained plans to assassinate the President with Silly Putty. I hoped it didn't get shown around to many people, since it was drawn quickly and was far from my best work. If I'd known it was going to have an actual audience I would have done a better job with the shading.

  Thirty-nine seconds later I was sitting in Mr. Clark's office. The assistant principal was a large man, and by "large" I mean "Oh my gosh I hope he doesn't stomp me under his big toe like an aphid" large. The man could have been a professional wrestler if he'd been into spandex.

  "Starting a bit early, aren't we?" asked Mr. Clark. "What's your name?"

  "Elrod McBugle."

  Mr. Clark looked thoughtful. "Hmmm...I think I knew an Elrod McBugle back in 'Nam." His thoughtful look changed to a look of merely thinking. "Then again, maybe not. What seems to be the problem?"

  Ms. Webster handed over the comic. "This young man was disrupting home room with this."

  Mr. Clark glanced at the comic, glanced up at Ms. Webster, glanced back at the comic for comparison, glanced at Ms. Webster again, then glanced at me. "Thank you, Ms. Webster," he said. "The problem will be taken care of."

  With a satisfied nod Ms. Webster left. Mr. Clark spent a few more moments reading the comic, his mouth occasionally trying to curl up into a smile but being squashed back down before it could successfully complete the task. Then he regarded me with a stern eye. "Mr. McBugle, I'm afraid I must inform you that you are no longer in elementary school. Drawing during class is unacceptable. You are here to learn."

  "Yes, sir," I said.

  "Because it's still the first hour of this school year, there will be no punishment. But consider this your official warning. Am I understood?"

  "Yes, sir," I repeated.

  "Good. On another note, here at Greenwater Junior High we like to encourage students to reach their maximum potential and productively use their various talents. Are you enrolled in any art classes?"

  I shook my head.

  "It's definitely something to consider for your elective next semester. I'm going to keep these drawings, because I don't want them to be of any further distraction to you. Now go back to home room, and I don't want to see you in here again."

  I tried to think of something more creative to say than "Yes, sir," but all I could think of was "Yeah, sir," which didn't sound right. "Yes, sir," I said, standing up and walking out of his office.

  I gave the secretary a light wave as I passed her and headed out into the hallway. I'd only taken about ten steps before I realized that I was no longer carrying Quincy, my imaginary friend who lives in my right index fingernail (which is why I never clip it).

  No, I'm kidding. Quincy is my pen. It's a regular old black pen covered with little notches I make every time I successfully throw a paper airplane that hits Scoopy in the nostril and sticks. I've been doing this for about a year now. "Hey, Scoopy, look over here!" I say.

  "Huh? What?" he replies.

  There's a mighty swish, and suddenly poor Scoopy has a paper airplane sticking out of his nose. Yes, it's immature, and I'm not proud of this action any more than I'm proud of passing off hamster pellets as vitamins. Also, you should never try it. Paper airplanes are dangerous. You can put out somebody's eye, or knock out a tooth, or put a hole right through their head if you throw it hard enough and/or have special attachments. Only a person like me, who has spent countless hours practicing to perfect the art of paper airplane nostril lodging, should try this. And really, even I shouldn't be doing it, because it's so deeply stupid.

  Anyway, the second time I hit Scoopy (he had a terrible cold, and it was not a pretty sight) I decided to keep track of my victories, so I started cutting notches into a black pen that I happened to be carrying. I named the pen Quincy, after my friend Quincy Hagglin, who I occasionally saw writing with a black pen, though he used blue ones as well.

  Where was I going with this...?

  Ummmmm...

  Oh yeah, I left Quincy in Mr. Clark's office. So I turned around and went back into the main office, where Mr. Clark was standing next to a teacher, holding my comic up for him to see.

  "I swear, I had to practically bite my face in half to keep from laughing," he said. "I mean, doesn't that look just like her? I should get this thing framed and hang it up in my—"

  He looked over and saw me standing there. He immediately crumpled up my comic and tossed it into the wastebasket. "Was there something else you needed?" he asked, sternly.

  "I forgot my pen in your office."

  "Oh. Well, go ahead and get it."

  "Yes, sir."

  I went into his office and grabbed Quincy off the floor where I'd dropped him, then walked back out.

  "Remember, that pen is for schoolwork, not for drawing during class," said Mr. Clark.

  "Yeah, sir. I mean, yes, sir."

  I left the office, returned to home room, and completed my first day of school without any further trouble.

  Except for the little thing that happened in Home Economics, but part of that wasn't my fault.

  And the medium-sized thing that happened in Social Studies, but that wasp should never have been flying around in the first place.

  And the...well, you get the idea.

  Chapter Two Quiz

  1. Who is Quincy? Have you ever named a pen Quincy?

  2. Who is Mr. Clark? Have you ever known somebody named Mr. Clark? Did you like him? Did he ever eat anything weird?

  3. Have you ever wrestled a giant squid? Describe the experience in terms of how squishy the squid felt.

  Chapter Three

  HAVING STUDY HALL first period sounded like a good idea, but, like mayonnaise-flavored chewing gum, it wasn't. The whole point of having it first thing in the morning was to give me a chance to do a quick review for the day's tests and quizzes, or check my homework to make sure it was done correctly and to the best of my ability, or even to—yes, I actually believed I would do this—work ahead.

  Oddly enough, my original study hall plans never involved a frantic rush every day to finish all the stuff I didn't touch the night before.

  I'd be sitting at home, books laid out neatly on my desk, thinking cap on my head, a "learning-is-good" smile on my face, and the little angel on my right shoulder would say "Now, Elrod, it's time to study like a good boy."

  But the little devil on my left shoulder would say "Forget that! You've got study hall first thing in the morning—do it then! Push those books aside and let's play some computer games!"

  Then the little angel would say "No, no, no, that won't do at all. What if it takes you longer than fifty minutes to finish your homework? What then, huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Answer me, McBugle, what then?"

  The little devil would poke me in the side of the head with his mini-pitchfork and say "Then you can do it between classes! It never takes you the full five minutes to get to each one anyway!"

  I'm ashamed to admit it, but that sounded like pretty good logic. I'm so lame.

  Of course, none of the events in this book took place during study hall, so I'm not going to talk about it any more. For right now, I'm going to talk about Advanced English, wh
ich I had third period. It was taught by Mr. Rodriguez, who one fine day in class said:

  "Today, each of you is going to write a letter." He walked to the chalkboard. "It's going to be a letter that makes somebody take action. Hugh, have you ever bought a product that didn't live up to your expectations?"

  "Huh?" asked Scoopy, who'd been in a semi-conscious daze.

  "That's exactly the answer I was looking for," said Mr. Rodriguez. "Elrod, when was the last time you felt ripped off by something you bought?"

  I thought for a moment. "I bought one of those slimy eyeballs from the machines outside Save-U-Lots and there was barely any slime on it. And it had a bunch of air bubbles in it, and it didn't even look like a real eyeball."

  Mr. Rodriguez turned to the chalkboard and wrote defective slimy eyeball on it. "Now, after you realized that this eyeball was not all you hoped it would be, what did you do?"

  "When I was at Scoopy's house and he wasn't paying attention, I stuck it in one of his shoes."

  Scoopy looked at me, then down at his shoes.

  "He might not have found it yet," I said.

  "So," said Mr. Rodriguez, "you didn't get your money's worth. Did you consider letting the manufacturer know that you were dissatisfied?"

  I shook my head.

  "Well, that's exactly what we're going to do today. Everyone will write a letter to a company that ripped them off, whether it was a shirt that tore or a frozen pizza that wasn't any good or whatever."

  Jim Horken raised his hand. "Last week I bought a chocolate bar that was all hairy."

  "Don't let them get away with that! We're going to spend the rest of class individually writing letters. Grammar and spelling count. You'll each be responsible for finding the addresses of the companies that you're writing to, and we'll mail these letters on Monday. Then throughout the rest of the term we'll track the responses and see how we did. Any questions?"

  Jim raised his hand again. "How long does it have to be?"

  "As long as it takes to get the point across."

  "You mean like five hundred words?"

  "I mean as long as you need. There's no length requirement on this assignment."

  "All right!"

  "So everyone take a minute to think about what you want to write, and I'll walk around to see how you're doing. If you have any questions, raise your hand."

  Jim raised his hand.

  "Yes, Jim?"

  "Does it have to be a real company?"

  "How exactly would you get a response from a fake company?"

  Jim considered that. "I dunno."

  "You should keep it real," said Mr. Rodriguez.

  "Aw."

  I leaned back in my chair and thought about it for a moment. I honestly didn't care if I got a new slimy eyeball or not...I had about two dozen of them on my desk at home already. My Captain Hocker action figure (with super-spitting action) had both legs pop off minutes after I bought it, but I wasn't certain I wanted to admit to anyone, not even to the manufacturer, that I'd purchased a Captain Hocker action figure a full three years after they'd officially stopped being cool. I saw it at a discount store. I was weak. Don't judge me.

  I cleared my throat and thought about asking if I could go get a drink of water. What I really wanted was a nice apricot-flavored Slurpy Gulp. So thick you almost had to use a spoon, not only was Slurpy Gulp the ultimate taste sensation, it had the best commercials I'd ever seen.

  [Scene: The desert. A lizard scurries over the bleached bones of some long-dead cow. A kid is just standing there.]

  KID: I am so very thirsty, but there is nothing to drink. I guess I will just have to die.

  [He shrugs and lies down in the sand. Some vultures swoop down and land on him. Suddenly an announcer bursts out of a cactus.]

  ANNOUNCER: There's no need to die! All you need is a Slurpy Gulp!

  [He whips out an assortment of Slurpy Gulps in the convenient 16 oz. bottles.]

  ANNOUNCER: There's grape, there's cherry, there's apricot, there's kiwi-strawberry, there's prune, and there's pomegranate! Six flavors in all!

  [He tosses a bottle into the air. The kid's tongue shoots fifteen feet into the air, wraps around the bottle, and yanks it back down to him.]

  KID: Wow, thanks, mister!

  [He twists open the lid and pours some of that thick fruity goodness into his mouth. His stomach begins to gurgle, and then to rumble, and then to bounce around as if something inside were trying to break out.]

  KID: Wow! What a magical fruity taste!

  [The kid's stomach explodes as thousands of brightly-colored fruits burst out, sailing across the sky and forming a rainbow.]

  ANNOUNCER: Slurpy Gulp! The only liquid your body needs!

  CHORUS OF VERY PERKY SINGERS: Whether you want to slurp or you want to gulp, the only thing to drink is...Slurpy Gulp! Yeah!

  [Commercial ends.]

  Yep, that was what I wanted.

  But it didn't fit the assignment, because they put out a perfect product, one that I'd never had any complaints with except that I emptied the bottle before I was ready to quit slurping and gulping.

  Of course, that didn't mean I couldn't make something up. I mean, somewhere in the world there had to be an imperfect bottle. It was only logical. And it wouldn't be outside of the realm of possibility for me to eventually purchase that very bottle. So technically it wouldn't be lying to write a letter of complaint, it would just be looking into the potential future.

  And maybe the future would hold a whole bunch of free Slurpy Gulp!

  Okay, so, I had to come up with a believable but serious problem that occurred with my drink. Something I found in my drink that I didn't want there. Hypodermic needles and dead rats were overdone...I needed something original.

  A frog? Nah.

  A pair of fingernail clippers? Nah.

  A live rat? Nah.

  Suddenly I had it! A slimy eyeball!

  Yes, I'd purchased a bottle of apricot-flavored Slurpy Gulp, carried it to the shade of my favorite tree with a spring in my step and a song in my heart, unscrewed the cap, took a long, deep drink of the delicious fluid, and realized THERE WAS AN EYEBALL IN MY MOUTH!!! I'd choked on it, but thanks to a self-induced Heimlich Maneuver I hadn't swallowed it. The eyeball had popped out of my mouth and hit a squirrel, who ran off with it to feed its young. I was going to have nightmares for the rest of my life. Probably require hundreds of thousands of dollars in therapy. Drool a lot.

  Unless...they gave me a bunch of free Slurpy Gulp. Because only by drinking bottle after bottle of Slurpy Gulp without an eyeball in it could I erase the trauma from my memory.

  To Whom It May Concern:

  I've enjoyed your product, Slurpy Gulp, for nearly four years now, and have never had any reason for complaint. Until that horrible moment last week when I found an eyeball in my bottle.

  I didn't just find this eyeball—it actually ended up in my mouth. Have you ever tasted an eyeball? I bet you haven't, and I bet you don't want to. They're squishy and gooey and this one had squiggly lines all over it that made my tongue feel weird. And I almost choked on it. Do you know what kind of newspaper headlines people would read if I had choked?

  Greenwater Boy Chokes To Death On Slurpy Gulp Eyeball; "We're All Headed For The Poor House," Says Company Spokesman.

  That wouldn't be very much fun, now would it? I want you to know that last night I dreamed I was running down a long hallway and this giant eyeball was rolling after me, like that boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I woke up screaming, and I got an "D" on my Social Studies test because I was deprived of all that sleep. And now everywhere I go I feel like I'm being watched.

  What I suggest you do is check all of your employees. If any of them are recently missing an eye, you may want to consider asking them where exactly that eye went. If none of them are missing an eye, you may want to start doing surprise inspections just to make sure they aren't carrying around spare eyeballs that they throw into the Slurpy Gulp (at least the
apricot-flavored brand).

  I am not going to sue you, because I don't want to miss any more school than I already have over this tragedy. What I want is as much free Slurpy Gulp as you're willing to give me. You need to regain my trust. You need to make me forget that I had somebody's eyeball right there in my mouth where I could taste it and everything. You need to do what is right.

  Sincerely,

  Elrod McBugle.

  Chapter Three Quiz

  1. Which of these is a real flavor of Slurpy Gulp?

  a. Apricot.

  b. Rice Krispie Treats

  c. Crazy Bob's Armpit Squeezings Delight

  2. Which of the following is an acceptable use for Slurpy Gulp?

  a. Drinking.

  b. Stuffing turkeys.

  c. Filling an aquarium with it, then staring at the aquarium for hours at a time going "Oooooh, pretty!"

  3. If you were a bottle of Slurpy Gulp, you would feel...

  a. Like an idiot.

  b. Like an idiot.

  c. Like an idiot.

  Chapter Four

  "YOU MADE THIS all up," said Mr. Rodriguez, setting my paper on my desk. It was five minutes before the end of class.

  "No, I didn't," I insisted. "I really got a D on my last Social Studies test."

  "You were supposed to use a real incident. You'll have to write a new letter at home." He raised his voice, speaking to the entire class. "Today is Wednesday. By Friday I want all of you to have found the address for the company you're writing to, and I want to see a final draft of your letter. By Monday I want them all neatly typed or printed out on your computers, so they can be mailed."

  "SO WHAT DID you write about?" I asked Scoopy as we walked home.