Charlie Bumpers vs. the Really Nice Gnome

by Bill Harley

  “Leave the rabbit alone, you wacko,” I whispered.

  “It’s my job,” Alex said. “I’m in charge of Killer.”

  “Just make sure you close the cage,” I said.

  “Okay, okay.” Alex closed the cage, then ran off on his crazy legs.

  Off to the side I saw Dashawn in his Prince’s costume. His crown was sitting to one side on his head and he was frowning.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “My stomach feels weird.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “I feel the same way.”

  Dashawn tried to smile, but he looked really nervous.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “You’ll do great.”

  He nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Everyone in positions!” Mrs. Burke said. “I’ll say a few words and then Ellen can introduce the play. Break a leg, class!”

  All the kids in the first scene walked on the stage. Trevor David, the King, lay down across a couple of chairs with a blanket over him. Taleea Dawson, the Queen, stood next to him. The King’s Advisors took their places on one side of the chairs with the Wise Woman, Lydia Berman, on the other. We could hear Mrs. Burke talking in front of the curtain.

  “Welcome, everyone, to our play, The Sorcerer’s Castle. We’re so glad you’re here. We’ve worked very hard together and I think you’re going to enjoy yourselves. Now, let the show begin!”

  The colored lights were shining down on the stage and everything looked really amazing. Fancy orchestra music was playing on the loud speaker.

  It made me excited. And even more nervous.

  I really didn’t want to mess up in front of all those people.

  I peeked out and saw Tommy and Matt sitting next to each other in the front row. Mabel was on the other side of Matt. I couldn’t see my parents— they must have been further back.

  Tracy Hazlett was sitting in the front row, too. The egg roll in my stomach did a somersault.

  When Ellen Holmes went out in front of the curtain, everyone got quiet. “Once upon a time,” she said in a loud voice, “in the land of Gorlandia, the King had fallen ill. No one knew what to do.”

  Alexandra pulled the curtain, and everyone applauded. The play had started.

  I couldn’t really see the action on the stage, but I could hear everything. When the Wise Woman mentioned the Magic Rabbit, I knew that the Prince and Princess were supposed to make their entrance.

  “Dashawn!” Samantha said. “Hurry up. It’s our turn!”

  Dashawn the Prince just stood there holding his stomach. “I can’t,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered. “Go ahead.”

  “I mean, I feel like—”

  And then he turned his head away from me and threw up on the floor.

  18

  No Idea What to Say

  Four or five other kids were standing around, and they all screamed and took a step back. Dashawn didn’t seem to know what to do. Mrs. Burke was on the other side of the stage. I looked around and spotted the box where Mr. Turchin puts lost stuff. I ran over, grabbed an old T-shirt from the box, and handed it to Dashawn so he could wipe his face.

  Samantha had already gone on stage without him. She turned back and whispered, “Dashawn, hurry up!”

  I heard some people in the audience laughing.

  I patted Dashawn on the back. “You’re okay,” I said. “You can do it. Go out and say, ‘I’ll do whatever I can to save my father.’”

  Dashawn nodded, handed me the shirt, then wobbled out onto the stage next to Samantha.

  I was left holding an old T-shirt with Dashawn’s dinner on it. It was like holding a bag of Ginger’s call of nature. You just had to do your job and move on. I dropped it in the corner and watched the play.

  Dashawn went over and put his hand on Trevor’s head.

  Please don’t throw up on him, I thought.

  “I’ll do whatever I can to save my father,” Dashawn said, then covered his mouth.

  Samantha opened her arms like she was an opera singer or something. “So will I!” she crowed.

  Some more people laughed. I could see Samantha was a little surprised.

  But the show went on.

  Everyone backstage was avoiding the place where Dashawn had thrown up. Even Mrs. Berman wouldn’t go near it. People on that side had no way to get on stage. Someone had to do something. I scooted down the steps at the side of the stage. My dad’s shorts started to slip down, so I pulled them back up over the pillow.

  “Mr. Turchin!” I called, hoping the people in the audience wouldn’t notice me.

  “What’re you doin’ here, Charlie?” he asked. “Aren’t you the Nice Gnome?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but Dashawn threw up all over the place and I’m afraid everyone else is going to throw up, too.”

  “Be right there.” He slipped out the side door of the gym and disappeared. I’d never seen Mr. Turchin move that fast.

  Just as I turned to go up the stairs, I heard the Squid yell, “There’s Charlie! He’s the Nice Gnome!”

  I just kept going.

  When I got backstage, the next scene had already started. The Prince and Princess were already lost in the woods.

  It was time for the Nice Gnome to show up.

  Samantha shrieked, “We’ll never get out of here!”

  I rushed to the edge of the curtain, stopped to adjust my beard, then took a big breath and walked out on stage.

  Tommy and the Squid applauded. A couple of other people joined in. I looked at the audience, and for a second, I completely freaked out.

  There were a million people out there, and they were all looking at me!

  Maybe I was going to throw up.

  “Excuse me,” I said in my best Nice Gnome voice. As soon as I spoke, something in me calmed down.

  Everything in the scene went almost perfectly. We met the Fox, the only character who spoke in rhyme. Once Robby got one of his lines a little mixed up, but I nodded and he went on.

  By the time we walked off the stage so the crew could change the set, Mr. Turchin had already mopped the place where Dashawn had thrown up. It hardly smelled at all.

  At the beginning of the next scene, Joey Alvares pushed the button for the swampy, creepy sound effects. Samantha and Dashawn and I walked across the stage to go to the swamp. The two of them were supposed to yell when Josh the Slimy Snake of the Swamp slithered out.

  But instead of yelling, Samantha let out a high-pitched scream. Dashawn just stared at her. She’d never done that before. Josh slithered around on stage. Samantha was supposed to say, “A snake! Is it poisonous?”

  She stopped screaming, but then she just stood there and stared out at the audience.

  Then she looked offstage at Mrs. Burke, who was leafing through the script trying to find where we were in the play.

  Samantha started to shake a little. Her bottom lip was trembling and I could tell she was about to cry. For once, Samantha Grunsky had no idea what to say.

  I knew her line, but I was too far away to whisper it to her.

  Dashawn wasn’t going to say anything—he was probably still afraid of what might come out of his mouth.

  Josh was busy being a snake, hissing. But I didn’t think he could hiss forever.

  “All of you are probably wondering,” I blurted out, “if this snake is poisonous. Let’s just ask it. ‘Are you poisonous, O Slimy Snake’?”

  “Yesssss, I am,” Josh said, “but I’ve lost my rattle!” Then he hissed some more.

  Samantha gave a little nod, then said her next line. “Please don’t bite us.”

  And the play went on.

  I don’t think anybody in the audience really knew that anything was wrong.

  When we walked off the stage at the end of the scene, Josh said, “Good job, Charlie!”

  Samantha didn’t say anything. Maybe she was upset that Charlie Bumpers, the idiot gnome, had saved her.

  We got through the desert scene witho
ut a problem, except for when the two ends of the camel got separated. While I was trying to get Tricia and Sarah back together, my beard fell off. I put it back on, but it wouldn’t stay. Suddenly Hector was at my side.

  “Help me, Prince’s Servant,” I said. “My beard is falling off.”

  “Of course, Nice Gnome,” he said. He reattached my beard, then helped the camel get together again. The audience was dying with laughter. When the camel was back in one piece, it bowed and people applauded.

  It was almost time for my big speech, right before the Prince and Princess go away to the Sorcerer’s Castle.

  Dashawn said his line: “But Nice Gnome, you can’t leave us here.”

  Samantha said hers: “Yes, Nice Gnome. We can’t do this without you.”

  And then I said, “I’m sorry, but this is as far …”

  I started again. “This is as far as …”

  Everyone on stage just stared at me. No one knew my lines. Not even Samantha Grunsky, Princess of Everything.

  I looked offstage for Mrs. Burke. She wasn’t where she’d been standing before. I could feel sweat trickling down my back.

  I was all alone. And I was messing up.

  And then I spotted Tommy. He was crouching right below the stage, holding a script. “This is as far as I can go,” he whispered.

  I repeated the line, but I couldn’t remember the next one.

  “You know what you need to know,” Tommy whispered.

  As soon as I’d said that line, I started to remember. “Look at all the friends you have now. They all have special gifts, and they all want to help. I can’t go any farther—my Gnomish nature forbids it. But you will be fine. Just, just …”

  What was next?

  I looked down. Tommy had already gone back to his seat. The audience was quiet, waiting.

  “Just, just …”

  And then I saw my brother Matt pointing to his chest.

  “Heart!” I said. “Just follow your heart! Farewell!”

  Everyone started applauding. Dazed, I bowed and walked off stage.

  19

  Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

  Alex and Joey and Alexandra pushed the Sorcerer’s castle back onto the stage. It was time for the big scene where the Prince and Princess get the Magic Rabbit. I’d finished my part, so I was having fun watching everyone else.

  Sam came over and stood beside me. “I know I’m going to mess up.”

  “No, you aren’t,” I said. “But if you do, just do your laugh a lot.”

  Sam smiled a little. “Okay. Mwa-ha-ha-ha.”

  “Mwa-ha-ha-ha.”

  I gave him a high five and he walked onto the stage.

  No one forgot any lines. Every time Sam did his laugh, the audience laughed, too. He started laughing longer and louder than he should have, but I couldn’t blame him. I whispered his best line to myself as he spoke: “You horrible people! My plans are ruined! My dreams are ruined! I am ruined!”

  Everyone cheered. Sam had done a great job. Cory, one of the Sorcerer’s Assistants, ran around to the other side of the stage. He was supposed to come right back with Killer, the Magic Rabbit.

  But he didn’t.

  The next thing I knew, Cory was next to me holding the cage.

  It was empty.

  “Killer’s gone!”

  Lydia’s mother gasped. “Killer?” She looked around her feet like someone had let loose a rat or snake or something that was going to bite her.

  I looked over at Alex.

  “I guess I didn’t close the cage very well,” he gulped.

  On the other side of the stage, I could see Mrs. Burke and a bunch of kids crawling around on the floor, looking for the rabbit. All the kids on my side joined in the search. “Killer! Killer!” they called out. “Where are you?”

  Everyone on the stage was just standing around, not sure what to do. They needed Cory to come back with the Magic Rabbit.

  “Mwa-ha-ha-ha!” Sam’s laugh was almost a shout now. “Where’s my assistant? Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  Before I could say anything to Cory, he ran out on stage holding the empty cage.

  “The Magic Rabbit is missing!” he said.

  This definitely wasn’t in the script. No one knew what to do.

  “Mwa-ha-ha-ha!” Sam said, but not quite so loud.

  Some kids in the audience started to giggle.

  Then Dashawn said, “You must find the Magic Rabbit, or our father will die.”

  That wasn’t in the script either!

  “Mwa-ha-ha,” Sam said weakly.

  The actors looked at each other, not knowing what else to say.

  Backstage, everyone was still crawling around looking for Killer.

  The play was ruined.

  And then I figured it out.

  I ran to the back of the stage and climbed over the gym mats and the desks and chairs and the preschool slide. I saw the little kindergarten desk where Mrs. Burke had left her salad container. Someone had knocked it off onto the floor.

  And there was Killer, munching away on the spilled salad.

  Very carefully, I lifted the rabbit up and cradled him in my arms. I climbed back over all the stuff and ran to the side of the stage. The scene hadn’t changed. Dashawn and Sam and Cory and everybody else were still standing around and staring at each other.

  Sam made up a line, hoping to find a way to get to the next scene. “If the Rabbit is lost,” he said, “then the King will die. Mwa-ha-ha.”

  I walked out onto the stage holding Killer. Everyone turned and looked at me.

  I hadn’t thought about what to say, but then the exact right line came to me. I gave Sam the Buck Meson electron stare and said, “You think the King will die? I DON’T THINK SO!”

  Half of the kids on stage burst into laughter. Samantha looked over like she wanted to strangle me. I heard my brother’s high-pitched cackle. Tommy whooped and shouted, “Buck Meson! I don’t think so!”

  Crystal Medeiros, the Blind Owl, came on and took the cage away from Cory, which was a little hard for her to do with the big owl’s wings attached to her arms. She held out the cage to me and I slipped Killer inside. Then I closed the latch and jiggled it to make sure it was locked.

  I knew I had to get out of the scene so they could finish the play. “I feel weak from being in this evil place,” I said. “I must answer the call of nature.” There was more laughter in the audience. I bowed and headed off the stage.

  Everyone applauded.

  I looked across the stage and saw Mrs. Burke. She was laughing and clapping, too.

  The last scene went really well. The Prince and Princess took the Magic Rabbit back to their Kingdom, and the Magic Rabbit whispered in the Queen’s ear how to make the King a healing tea with the magic tea leaves he had brought. After the King was cured, the Prince and Princess and all the Advisors shouted, “Hurrah! Long live the King!” Alexandra pulled the curtains, and the audience went wild.

  We all arranged ourselves in a line like Mrs. Burke had shown us, and the curtain opened again. We bowed together, then each of us took a bow by ourselves. When it came time for me, I thought the applause seemed a little louder. In the front row, Tommy and Matt both were yelling, “I don’t think so! I don’t think so!”

  I was the Nice Gnome. The Awesome Nice Gnome. It felt pretty good.

  Finally the clapping and cheering died down, and we filed off the stage. All the kids were giving each other high fives. Some of the parents had brought cookies and juice. One smart dad had brought three pizzas. If he’d been really smart, he would’ve brought five. I ate Dashawn’s slice because he said he wasn’t hungry. Kids crowded around the rabbit cage, and Crystal let everyone feed Killer little bits of lettuce from Mrs. Burke’s salad.

  I gave Hector a pat on the back. “You did a great job! You saved my beard, and you didn’t mess up like I did.”

  “You? Mess up?” He grinned. “I don’t think so!”

  Then Sam came over. At the very same time we both said
, “Mwa-ha-ha-ha!”

  And then we realized that someone else was laughing with us. “Mwa-ha-ha-ha!”

  We turned around. It was Mrs. Burke.

  She put one arm around my shoulder and the other one around Sam’s. “My Nice Evil Sorcerer and my Evil Nice Gnome. I’m proud of both of you.”

  And then we all laughed. One more time. Together.

  “MWA-HA-HA-HA!”

  Don’t miss the first book in the

  Charlie Bumpers series—

  Charlie Bumpers vs. the Teacher of the Year.

  And coming up next, the third book—

  Turn the page for a sneak peek …

  1

  Tons of Candy

  “What are you wearing for Halloween?” Tommy asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. There were only twelve days to Halloween, and I hadn’t decided what I wanted to be.

  Tommy Kasten’s my best friend. He and I were leaning against the wall in the gym during recess. It was raining too hard to go outside. There were two different kickball games going, a basketball game, and some kids skipping rope. It was so loud with everyone yelling and screaming, Tommy and I could barely hear ourselves think. For a few minutes we watched everyone else run around.

  Mr. Shuler, our gym teacher was watching, too. I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t like all these kids crowded in his gym.

  “Maybe I’ll go as Mr. Shuler,” I said. “That would be scary.”

  “Ha!” Tommy said. “I’m going as a werewolf. I’ve got some fangs to put in my mouth, and I’m going to glue hair all over my hands and face.”

  “Your mom’s actually going to let you glue hair on yourself?” I asked.

  “I hope so,” Tommy said.

  “That will be great. But I just can’t think of anything this year.”

  “Well, you’d better figure something out pretty soon,” he said. “Don’t forget about the costume contest. The winner gets ten free movie tickets.”

  “I know.”