“That skinny one with the long neck.”
“Look.” I point at a pigeon whose head is tilted, and it looks worried.
We all say at the same time, “C-3PO.” We crack up.
A pigeon flaps off its perch, landing next to another bird. “Have you met Chewbacca and Han Solo?” Viva says.
I point to four pigeons calmly perched and looking like they know something we don’t. “They’re totally the Jedi Masters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Stass Allie, Yoda, and Ima-Gun Di.”
A bird swoops past Lonnie’s head. “Remember Paploo, the Ewok who steals the speeder? There he goes.”
“What about those three?” Viva asks.
“Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and Lando Calrissian,” Lonnie says. All three pigeons look up when he says this.
“They know their names,” Viva says. “How many more birds to go?”
“We are not naming fifty-seven birds!” Lonnie says. “I’m not that crazy.”
SOMETHING’S WRONG
“You’re late getting up this morning,” Mom says. She and The Destructor are already awake and eating breakfast when I come into the house.
“Grump—” I stop myself. “Mr. Marney didn’t wake me.”
“Maybe he decided to sleep in,” she says.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to be my alarm clock anymore.”
“Teddy, check on him after you feed the pigeons.”
Lately Grumpy Pigeon Man wakes me up then goes back inside. When I’m done, he comes out and checks my work. But today he doesn’t come out after I’m done, so I go to his house and knock.
I’ve never been inside his house. In fact, no one I know has been in his house. No answer. I knock again. I think about getting Mom but I open the door instead.
“Mr. Marney?” I call. No answer. His kitchen is clean and, like the aviary, very quiet. “Mr. Marney?”
He should be here. He doesn’t go anywhere. That’s why he can always be so grumpy about my family. He’s always around to see what we do wrong.
From the kitchen I can see into the living room. I walk in. There’s only a TV, one chair, and a shelf with trophies lined up like pigeons on their perches.
They have golden birds on them. He’s got about twenty of these. Pigeon Racing Championship trophies. So cool. And I see some medals. They look like army stuff. I’m not surprised this guy was in the army. It makes sense.
“Mr. Marney?” All this quiet gives me the creeps. I’m getting Mom. As I turn to walk out, I see something:
By the chair.
There he is.
A bundle on the floor.
HOSPITAL
The Destructor is under the bed, of course. Grumpy Pigeon Man sleeps. A beeping machine tells us he’s okay. He has a needle in his arm giving him fluids. I know it’s weird but I’m still worried about him.
Strange but true, The Guinness Book of World Records has an entry for the most valuable cracker (really, a cracker). It survived a trip to the South Pole in 1907 with Ernest Shackleton, a famous explorer.
You know that cracker is old and inedible but it’s still valuable. For some reason that cracker reminds me of Grumpy Pigeon Man.
“He’ll be home in a few days,” Mom says. “He doesn’t have any family, so he’ll need our help.” His eyes flutter a little.
“Mom, what would happen to his pigeons if Grumpy Pigeon Man—”
“Mr. Marney,” she says.
“If Mr. Marney weren’t around?”
“I don’t know, but what would’ve happened to him if you weren’t around?”
Grumpy Pigeon Man wakes suddenly and frowns. “Something wrong with the pigeons?”
“No,” I say. “The pigeons are fine.”
“Then what are you doing here, Tent Boy?”
The Destructor’s head pops out from under the bed. “Tent Boy!”
Mom leans over. “Seems like you didn’t eat, Tom.” Who’d have thought Grumpy Pigeon Man had a first name and that it was something normal like Tom?
“Tent Boy! Tent Boy! Tent Boy!” The Destructor sings.
“Stop it,” I say.
Of course Mom ignores The Destructor. “From now on, we’ll be looking in on you twice a day.”
He waves her aside. “Don’t need help.”
“If you want Teddy, then you get the rest of us, too. We’ll be back in the morning to see you.”
The Destructor slides out from under the bed, cupping his hand in Mom’s and singing down the hall. “Tent Boy! Tent Boy! Tent Boy!”
I wonder how long I’ve got until Grace hears this.
GIANT SQUID
Out of the blue my parents remember the alarm clock that I needed months ago. It figures the only time they decide to help me out with this job is now that Grumpy Pigeon Man is sick.
“He’s been waking you up all these months,” Mom says, as we leave the hospital. “That was fine. He hired you. He needed to wake you up. But everything is different now. Mr. Marney needs our help and that means we have to help you.”
When she says, “We have to help you,” she doesn’t mean she’s buying me an alarm clock, even though that’s what I need.
She means she’ll wake me up by yelling out her bedroom window.
I tell Lonnie and Viva what’s going on.
Viva looks at Lonnie. “You said she’d wake Teddy the same day a giant squid was finally found in its natural environment.”
Lonnie says, “I did say that. Do you think they found one today?”
“Strange but true,” I say, “I am wondering the same thing.”
THEY FOUND ONE
As I’m leaving for school the next day Mom calls out to me. She’s reading the paper, of course. “Teddy! Listen to this! A new world record was broken.” She reads, “The giant squid has finally been filmed in its natural habitat!”
Strange but true, I fell over right then and there.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Just in shock.”
“Did you know the eyeball of the giant squid is as big as a human head?”
I shake my head. The eyeball is weird, but really, the fact that they filmed a squid is weirder.
FAMILY DINNER
We’re all at the table, but Caitlin and Casey are the only ones doing the talking. It’s their last week of collecting trash but they still have a lot to say about it.
“We collected three barrels from the school grounds this morning,” Caitlin says.
“Could we talk about something else?” Sharon asks.
“It seems like you two learned from this.” Dad smiles.
“Definitely,” Caitlin says. “For one thing everyone makes trash.”
“For another thing,” Casey says, “everyone wants their trash picked up.”
“So we’re starting a business,” Caitlin says, “collecting trash on bikes.”
“Because we can’t drive yet,” Casey adds.
Then they say together, “We’re calling it: Trash Trikes.”
Everything gets quiet. It hasn’t been this quiet since I showed them the picture of Tom Leppard, the most tattooed senior citizen. The guy is completely covered in leopard-spot tattoos. And I do mean completely covered. On top of that, he’s old, which is cool because it shows that old people can break records, but like I said, it really silences a crowd.
FAMILY DINNER PART 2
Silence never lasts long in my family.
“I think it’s great,” Mom says. “You’re helping the planet and making money.”
Sharon throws down her napkin. “Besides me, is there no one normal in this family?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maggie asks.
“Your running is a little over the top,” Sharon says.
“You sing all the time,” I say.
“That’s normal,” she says.
“Not the way you do it,” Grace snorts.
Of course, instead of getting mad at Grace, Sharon’s eyes get all small at me. “At least I don’
t try breaking a world record every five minutes, obsess over pigeons, and, if you haven’t noticed, live in a tent.”
The Destructor, who is eating, as usual, in his cat box under the table, chooses that moment to shout, “Tent Boy! Tent Boy! Tent Boy!”
“Zip it,” I say and kick him.
“Teddy, don’t kick Jake. Jake, don’t call your brother Tent Boy,” Dad says.
“Tent Boy?” Grace’s eyes light up. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because,” The Destructor hollers, “Grumpy Pigeon Man did!”
Mom says, “Jake, his name is Mr. Marney.” But she looks straight at me.
“Tent Boy,” Grace giggles between bites of food.
Sharon throws down her napkin. “Our family is nuts!”
I bury my head in my hand. Stupid Destructor, now I’ll be Tent Boy forever!
WINTER HOLIDAYS
During math, Ms. Raffeli wants us to show all the ways we know how to make the number 2,312.
It is not going well. There is a buzz in the classroom that reminds me of what it must have sounded like when the magicians Penn and Teller magically made appear the most living creatures in a magic performance: 80,000 bees on TV.
It’s possible that was louder but not by much. No one can focus on anything because of the holidays coming up.
Ms. Raffeli finally puts us out of our misery and brings us together on the rug.
“All right,” she says, her eyebrows shooting up. “It’s going to be a long month if we don’t get this out of the way. I don’t normally talk about religion or religious celebrations in the class but I find the month of December especially tiring if we don’t.” She grabs her marker and writes on chart paper. “The best-known celebrations in our country are Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa, but there are other holidays too. For Buddhists it’s Bodhi Day, and for pagans it’s the Yule, which is celebrated on the winter solstice. Depending on their calendars, Muslims sometimes celebrate Eid al-Adha and Hindus celebrate Diwali.” She writes all of these names on the paper.
“In this classroom, we have students who celebrate almost all of these holidays. Each one is wonderful and important. I want you to come up one by one and write your name next to the holiday your family celebrates.”
We go up and put our names next to where they belong. And Ms. Raffeli is right. Nearly every single holiday gets filled up.
Viva writes her name in two places. Hanukkah and Christmas. She shrugs and says, “My mom is Jewish and my dad is Christian.”
“You are so lucky,” I say. And I really think she is. She’s an only child and she gets two holidays.
WINTER IN THE TENT
We had our first big storm. Two feet of snow packed around the tent. Inside it’s dry and once I slide in my sleeping bag I’m warm.
The hardest part is climbing out of my sleeping bag and into my boots. In The Guinness Book of World Records they say the coldest inhabited place on Earth is Oymyakon, Siberia, in Russia, at –90 degrees Fahrenheit. They must live in sleeping bags.
As I lie there, I can’t help thinking about the olden days and how people got along without indoor plumbing. The problem with school is that they never answer the questions we want answered, like where did they go to the bathroom when it was below freezing? How did they go to the bathroom when it was so cold? And really, what did they use for toilet paper? When I ask Ms. Raffeli she does the tallest roller-coaster thing with her eyebrows.
Clearly, she doesn’t know the answers either.
THE WEIRDNESS OF LONNIE’S BROTHER
After our family dinner last night, I feel like taking a break from them so I persuade Lonnie to go to his house after school even though it’s a longer walk in the cold and Jerome is probably home.
“I’d rather deal with the wrath of your brother.”
Lonnie agrees but only because something strange is going on with Jerome. “He’s not around much. And he’s distracted. He’s not beating me up.”
As it happens he is at home when we get there. I prepare for a punch to my arm, his usual greeting. But instead he says, “Hey, Teddy. How are you doing?”
I don’t know what to say back. I’m still clenched tight waiting for the punch.
“How’s your family?” he asks.
Now I’m really confused but somehow mumble, “Crazy as ever.”
“Crazy as ever,” he repeats and laughs like I made some sort of joke. “I’ll see you both later.” And he walks out of the room.
“That was weird,” I say.
Lonnie shakes his head. “You can say that again.”
MORE WEIRDNESS
“Weird,” Viva says.
“Weird,” I say.
“Weird,” Lonnie says. The pigeons coo as if they agree with us.
We’re sitting on buckets in the aviary. “I know I should be happy, but Jerome is acting crazy.”
“I’d be careful,” I say.
“Jerome stays late at school, says he has stuff to do, but never says what it is.”
“What do your parents think?” Viva asks.
“Whatever they think they’re not telling me. They keep saying I should be happy that Jerome has found something constructive to do and to let him have his privacy.”
“So weird,” Viva says.
“So weird,” I say.
“So weird,” Lonnie says.
Paploo flies down, landing at our feet and bobbing his head in agreement.
AND NOW GRUMPY PIGEON MAN IS ACTING WEIRD
Grumpy Pigeon Man seems healthy but he’s acting as weird as Jerome. He hasn’t come out to visit his birds once since getting home from the hospital.
Every day I knock on his door. “Not ready,” he says, or “Too tired,” or “No,” and just in case I didn’t read him loud and clear, he slams his door.
Mom cooks meals for him and Grace brings them over. At first, Grace refused but Mom said if she wanted to avoid ending up in a tent like me she’d do it. Grace agreed.
Pigeons are very social and even recognize people. I read that in the book from the library. Of course, they know Grumpy Pigeon Man, and they must miss him, which is surprising since he’s so grumpy. I guess pigeons don’t care about grumpiness. But I can’t figure out why he won’t come. It makes no sense. These birds are what he loves the most; you’d think he’d want to see them. Or at least be sure I’m still doing my job right.
And then, I wonder why I care. Why would I want him back? It’s a lot more peaceful without him grouching at me.
Strange but true, Grumpy Pigeon Man not visiting his pigeons is weirder than Donald Gorske, who ate 20,500 Big Macs by the time he was thirty-three years old.
That’s a lot of hamburgers. He must have loved hamburgers, but I know Grumpy Pigeon Man loves his birds more.
OUT OF IDEAS
All this weirdness and cold has slowed down my record breaking. I can’t even think of a good one to try. Maybe I’ll never get in that book.
That thought weighs me down just like how David Huxley must have felt pulling a Boeing 747-400 plane 298.5 feet in 1 minute 27.7 seconds. Totally by himself.
Why can’t I do something like that?
CHRISTMAS TRADITION
Some people think that with so many kids in my family, Christmas must be huge and fantastic. They think I must get a pile of presents. Nothing is further from the truth. In my family, we draw one name out of a hat and give that person a present. My parents give each of us one additional present.
I got Grace this year. I was thinking of giving her padded shoes so when she slams on my feet it wouldn’t hurt as much, but I couldn’t find anything like that.
Grace opens the present I gave her. It’s a book on photography. I think she actually likes it.
“Thanks, Tent Boy,” she says.
I flinch. The present I really want is for her to stop calling me that. As soon as I find my present I know it’s not from her and I don’t have to wonder who it is from. The wrapping says it all. There’s
only one kid who would use a whole roll of Scotch tape. When I finally get to the bottom of it he’s given me five boxes of paper clips.
“Thanks,” I say. I don’t sound enthusiastic.
“Tell Teddy why you gave him paper clips,” Mom says. She looks real excited.
“So you can beat the world record!” Jake crows.
“He wants you to break a world record,” she repeats.
“The only paper clip record is a chain that stretched for 22.25 miles. I’m going to need a lot more to break that record.”
Christmas is saved slightly by my parents, who give me an alarm clock. Now that, I needed.
CHRISTMAS TRADITION PART 2
It’s our year to have Christmas dinner at our house. By the time all of my relatives arrive, we’ll be forty-three people.
On top of that, Mom invited Viva and her mom and dad because this is their first year here and they don’t have any family. Lonnie’s away in Florida or his family would be here, too.
“I can’t believe you invited Viva’s family.” I think this idea is about as good as being the fastest person to push an orange for one mile with your nose. (You know I don’t think that’s a good idea.) “Her parents will never let her come here again. I’m not even certain she’ll ever want to come here again.”
“They’re going to love it!” Mom says, beating potatoes into mash. “And it’s good timing. They leave tomorrow for a big ski trip. I invited Mr. Marney but he said he had plans.”
“Of course he said that, Mom. Really? Who would want to be here?”
“What a terrible thing to say, Teddy.” She hands me the bowl. “Here, beat these potatoes.” She goes to the stove and lifts the lid on every pot, then slams them down. “We have a lovely family. I don’t want to hear any more of this.”
I hate to admit it but I kind of wish Grumpy Pigeon Man had agreed to come to dinner. I know he’s lying about having plans. Where would he go? He doesn’t have anyone else but us. And if he came over maybe I could stop thinking about how he hasn’t visited his pigeons.
Teddy Mars Book #1 Page 7