The Terrible Two Get Worse

by Mac Barnett

  For days, for weeks, for months, everything went exactly as everyone expected. There were no surprises. It had been 81 school days since the last prank.

  One Saturday, Miles and Niles were not in the prank lab. They were in the driveway in front of Miles’s house, sitting on skateboards. By shifting their hips, they could make the skateboards roll back and forth, and for an hour they’d been swaying like buoys on the pavement.

  They’d been doing that a lot these days.

  “You know what Wednesday is?” Miles asked.

  Niles knew what Wednesday was. Miles knew what Wednesday was. Ms. Shandy had a giant calendar on a bulletin board in her classroom, and they’d been watching it coming for three weeks now. Ms. Shandy’s calendar marked due dates for research papers, test days, holidays. All through March, Miles and Niles had been looking toward the end of the month, and the beginning of the next.

  April 1.

  April Fools’ Day.

  The official holiday of pranksters, Feast Day of the International Order of Disorder, and the one-year anniversary of the first prank ever pulled by the Terrible Two, which was also the greatest prank Yawnee Valley had ever seen.

  “It’s April Fools’ Day,” said Miles.

  “I know,” said Niles.

  “So,” said Miles.

  “So,” said Niles.

  They swayed back and forth.

  “Got any ideas?” Miles asked.

  “Honestly? I haven’t really been thinking about it.”

  It was terrifying to hear those words come out of Niles’s mouth.

  The truth was, Miles hadn’t really been thinking about it either—lately he’d been lacking inspiration. But he’d comforted himself by imagining that Niles’s brain had continued to buzz and hum, planning, theorizing, philosophizing. When he saw Niles making his weird faraway look, Miles was sure he was cooking up pranks. Or at least he had hoped Niles was. But now he knew. And the knowledge that Niles’s head had been as empty as his own these past few months filled Miles with a retroactive dread.

  The wheels of the skateboards grumbled as they ground up loose gravel.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Miles asked.

  “OK,” said Niles.

  It was something Miles had been wondering for a long time.

  “Were you a prankster first, or a kiss-up?”

  Niles stopped moving.

  “A kiss-up.”

  Miles nodded.

  “I mean,” said Niles, “I guess I was sort of a born kiss-up. My mom and dad were both kiss-ups, or I think you would have probably called them kiss-ups. They’re both really smart. Like, really smart. And so they always expected me to be really smart. And when I was really smart, it was just sort of like, yep, that’s how it’s supposed to be. When I bring home my report card, they just smile and nod.”

  “Man,” said Miles. “When I get more than three As, my mom takes me out for ice cream.”

  “Yeah,” said Niles.

  “Sometimes it seems like she feels bad about it. She says, ‘I shouldn’t be bribing you to do well in school.’ But we go anyway. Part of it is I think she just really likes ice cream. Still, the one time I got straight As she went nuts. I got to pick what we had for dinner for a week. It was weird—when I went to her work, the other people there were congratulating me, so I could tell she’d been talking about it to pretty much everybody.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry,” said Miles. “That’s probably not helping.”

  “No, it’s OK. I’m fine about it.”

  They sat some more.

  “But my parents aren’t really like that,” Niles said. “If I messed up, it was a national crisis. But if I did something good, nobody really cared. It was just the way the world was supposed to be—everything in the right order. So I tried to do better and better—safety patrol, volunteering, School Helper—all that stuff. But . . .”

  “No ice cream.”

  “No ice cream.”

  “Well,” said Miles, “when my mom feels bad about bribing me, she always says excellence should be its own reward.”

  “Yeah, I don’t really believe that.”

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  “I mean,” said Niles, “it seems like excellence should get you something. But I was just this weird kid who wore a suit and a sash and didn’t have any friends.”

  “That’s definitely what I thought when I first met you.”

  “I’ve always loved books,” Niles said. “And my favorite books were books about pranksters. And books about how to do pranks. And how to make secret codes, and how to sneak around. From the time I was really little, I was always dreaming up pranks. I used to sit on my bed and imagine how I’d booby-trap my room. When I was six I asked for a bucket for Christmas, so I could fill it up with water and hook up a trip wire so it would spill on whoever came into my room.”

  Miles smiled. “Such a classic.”

  “Yeah. But nobody really ever came to my room.”

  “Oh,” said Miles. “Right.”

  “It’s OK,” said Niles. “I was too afraid to set it up anyway. I never really did any pranks. I just thought about them all the time. I was afraid if I ever actually pulled a prank, I’d get in huge trouble. But then I realized: All those years of excellence had gotten me something. They’d gotten me lots of things: complete access to the school, the trust of Principal Barkin, and total cover. I was above suspicion.”

  “Right!” said Miles.

  “I was perfectly positioned to pull all those pranks I’d been thinking of for years. So last year I decided I’d finally do it. And on the first day of school, I parked Barkin’s car on the top of the stairs.”

  Miles fell off his skateboard on purpose. “What! Niles, that was your first prank?”

  Niles smiled. “Yeah!”

  Miles lay on his back and looked up at the sky. “Holy crow. Niles.”

  “What?”

  “You’re wrong, man.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Niles, you’re not a born kiss-up. You’re a born prankster.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. And Niles.” Miles turned and looked at his friend. “We have to keep pranking until we beat Barkin.”

  Chapter

  19

  DURING MORNING BREAK on April 1, the Terrible Two stood in the basement of Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy. Miles had a lunch bag so heavy he held it from the bottom. Niles carried a small cage that once belonged to his hamster, which escaped and had vanished when he was in second grade.

  In front of them was a large red door with peeling paint and block letters.

  For now at least, the coast was clear. Miles had made a mixture of sour cream, raw eggs, and pea soup the night before—he’d brought it to school and poured it on the playground, by the swings, at the beginning of recess. Gus had emerged with a bag of sawdust and a broom. Phase One: Fake Vomit was complete. They had at least seven minutes before Gus returned. It was time to initiate Phase Two.

  Niles produced an enormous ring from his pocket—the copied master set of keys was the crowning accomplishment of his stint as School Helper.

  “They may take my sash, but they’ll never take my keys,” he said.

  He began trying keys one by one, fitting each one into the lock and giving it a little wiggle.

  Nope.

  Nope.

  Yep.

  The mechanical room was vast and dusty. It smelled of oil. The air was old—it hung above them and tasted stale in their mouths. Nobody but Gus had breathed in here for the last thirty years. The room was still and mostly quiet. Occasionally there was a clang or a rumble. Two hot-water tanks towered like sentries by the door. Pipes of many sizes crisscrossed overhead. On the back wall, a row of circuits twinkled. In the middle of the room was a great metal block.

  That was it.

  The furnace.

  The boys approached with something like reverence. The furnace was taller than th
ey were and ran half the length of the room. Niles ran his hand against the metal and was surprised to find it was cool. Somewhere within this machine was an infernal blaze that pumped heat to the school’s twenty-two classrooms.

  Niles pulled out some diagrams he’d copied from a book at the library.

  “OK,” he said. “Well, I thought this would make more sense when we were in the room.”

  Miles looked over Niles’s shoulder, then at the furnace. “I think it actually makes less sense now that we’re in the room.”

  “Yeah,” said Niles. “That might be true.”

  They stared at the diagrams for a few more seconds.

  “Well,” said Niles, “I guess we should look for this lever.”

  They slowly walked around the furnace in opposite directions.

  “Hey!” said Miles. “Is this it?”

  He was pointing at a recessed lever at the head of the machine. Niles checked it against the diagram. “Yeah! I think it is.”

  “You think?”

  “I mean, it is.”

  “What if I pull this and the whole thing explodes?” said Miles.

  “I don’t think that’s really how furnaces work,” said Niles.

  “Yeah,” said Miles. “It would be cool, though.”

  Miles pulled down on the lever and an inspection panel swung open, revealing a wall of buttons, tubes, and wires. Niles could now hear a muffled roar. And through a little round window down near the ground, Niles could make out the flicker of an orange flame.

  “All right,” he said. “We’re almost in. We just open that little panel and then it’s go time.”

  “Ready the vessel,” said Miles.

  Niles put the hamster cage on the ground.

  “Vessel is ready,” said Niles. “Apply protective gear layer one.”

  They clipped wooden clothespins to their noses.

  “Pour the cheese,” said Niles.

  “Pouring the cheese,” said Miles.

  He dumped four pounds of Limburger into the cage.

  “Apply protective gear layer two.”

  The Terrible Two donned safety goggles and oven mitts.

  “Let’s go.”

  Niles pulled a small lever and a panel the size of an oven door swung open.

  The roar of the furnace was loud now, and hot air blasted their faces and blew back their hair. Niles studied the coils in front of him, which snaked up to a metal grate.

  “That’s it. The air handler.”

  Niles placed the cage on top of the grate.

  He checked their handiwork against a drawing he’d made himself.

  “We good?” Miles asked.

  “We’re good,” Niles said.

  The soft cheese had already begun to melt, running goopily on the cage’s metal bottom.

  It occurred to Niles that he had not yet smelled Limburger cheese. He removed his clothespin, just for a second.

  It was worse than he thought.

  The bell rang.

  “Happy April Fools’ Day,” said Miles.

  “Happy April Fools’ Day,” said Niles.

  Chapter

  20

  THE STENCH HIT IN MATH CLASS. At first it was faint—a pungent trace Niles could taste at the edges of each breath. He looked up from his worksheet and caught Miles’s eye. Soon the funk was filling the classroom. The heat pouring in was fetid and moldy, aggressively moist. The scent searched out your nostrils and curled inside, burning your nose. Room 18 smelled of swamps and death. Which meant the whole school was filled with this evil air. Niles gagged. It was wonderful.

  He waited for someone to say something.

  The class continued to fill out their worksheets.

  Many kids had covered their noses with sweatshirt sleeves. Some pinched their noses closed. But everyone kept doing math.

  Niles looked at Miles, who shrugged and shook his head.

  The whole room was putrid. Nobody reacted. How could this be?

  “Stuart,” Niles whispered, “do you smell that?”

  “YEAH,” whispered Stuart. “It smells like FEET.”

  “I bet you could think of a good foot joke to make right now.”

  “Right NOW? I’m doing a WORKSHEET right now.”

  “Holly,” said Niles, “you smell that, right?”

  “Yeah, of course. It’s awful.”

  “I think it’s pretty clear what’s going on, right?”

  “Yeah. A rat must have died in the ducts or something.”

  “No! Today’s April first.”

  “OK . . .”

  “It’s probably an April Fools’ prank!”

  Holly turned to Niles. “Seriously? Last year, maybe. But not with Principal Invincible. People don’t prank at this school anymore.”

  Niles was sweating. The scent was overwhelming.

  “Scotty?” said Niles hopelessly.

  “Niles!” said Ms. Knox. “Quiet down and finish your worksheet.”

  Niles’s vision was blurring, and he didn’t know whether it was the cheese or his desperation. Miles looked horrified.

  “Thank you for your maturity, students,” said Ms. Knox. “It seems something’s wrong with the heater. I know it’s cold outside, but Stuart, would you open the windows?”

  “OK!” said Stuart.

  “I’ll call Principal Barkin and let him know,” said Ms. Knox, “although I daresay he’s already smelled this. I’m sure he’ll put everything in order soon.”

  Stuart fiddled with a latch. The window squeaked. A cold blast of fresh air ran through the classroom.

  “No!” yelled Niles.

  “Niles Sparks!” said Ms. Knox. “What’s gotten into you? You’re not acting like yourself.”

  Niles wanted to stand up on his desk and shout, “I AM NILES SPARKS, ONE HALF OF THE TERRIBLE TWO. IT IS APRIL FOOLS’ DAY, YOU HAVE BEEN PRANKED, AND WE ARE THE ONES WHO PRANKED YOU. PUT DOWN YOUR PENCILS AND LOOK ALIVE.”

  But he didn’t.

  Instead he stayed in his seat and threw up.

  Chapter

  21

  NILES WENT HOME SICK. He was out for the rest of the week. Miles didn’t know what happened. Niles wouldn’t answer the phone. He wouldn’t come to the door.

  “Niles isn’t feeling well” was all Niles’s mom said when Miles biked to his house on Saturday. (Niles’s mom was not too friendly.)

  On Sunday, Miles tried again and got the same answer.

  On Monday, Niles still didn’t come to school.

  During lunch, Miles sat alone on a bench and watched the other kids. There was nobody he wanted to eat with. He was so worried, he didn’t even want to eat.

  What had happened to his best friend? Had Niles snapped? Would he leave school forever? Was he going to transfer to St. Perpetua, or get homeschooled, or move to another town? And even if Niles did come back, would he stop pranking?

  Had Principal Invincible broken Niles’s spirit?

  Was this the end of the Terrible Two?

  Had the story of these two great pranksters come to an end?

  No way, of course not. There are still thirty-eight pages left in this book.

  After school, Miles found a rubber chicken in his locker.

  Miles smiled.

  (Rubber chickens with secret codes were the preferred method of communication between pranksters, or at least this is something Niles always said.)

  He arrived at Niles’s room at 3:42 p.m.

  Niles was standing by the window.

  “What are you wearing?” Miles asked.

  “A toga!” said Niles. “I made it from a bedsheet!”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” Niles said, “we’re going to talk philosophy! The philosophy of pranking.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “Here.” Niles picked up another sheet. “I made one for you too.”

  “I think I’ll pass.”

  “But Miles! Ever since the founding days of the International Order of Disorder, pranks
ters have been meeting to discuss the fundamentals and ethics of pranking.”

  “Wearing togas?”

  “Yes! The practice goes back to ancient times!”

  Miles sighed and draped the sheet over his shoulders.

  “Yours might feel a little funny,” Niles said. “It’s the fitted sheet.”

  Indeed, Miles had to fiddle with the elastic. “OK,” he said.

  “Great! Now here are your laurel leaves.”

  “Is this parsley?”

  “Miles.”

  Miles donned the parsley.

  “You look great,” said Niles. “Now, let’s have a dialogue.”

  “Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”

  “Sure,” said Niles. “But in a dialogue, you ask big questions.”

  “OK,” said Miles. “What the heck are we listening to this time?”

  “The music of Shakespeare’s time, recorded on Elizabethan instruments,” said Niles. “Bigger questions, Miles, ones whose answers aren’t so obvious.”

  Miles rolled his eyes. “Fine. Where have you been all week?”

  “Playing hooky,” said Niles. “It’s been great!”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “That you were fine.”

  “Oh. Yes. I didn’t think of that. Maybe I should have.”

  “Maybe? Definitely.”

  “Why definitely?”

  “Because! I could have helped you!”

  “How?”

  “By asking questions!”

  “Questions like ‘What the heck are we listening to?’”

  “No! Big questions!”

  “Miles,” said Niles, “I needed time alone.”

  “Why?” said Miles.