Waiting for Aunt Ursula to read her list of rules makes me feel like I’m that guy.
AUNT URSULA’S RULES
1. Dinner is eaten at seven o’clock. (Too late if you ask me.)
2. Beds are made immediately after waking. (What if I make it after breakfast?)
3. Chairs are always pushed in. (Then you just have to pull them out again.)
4. Napkins must be used, instead of sleeves. (Why make more laundry?)
5. Every morning drink a glass of prune juice. (You’re joking. Prune juice? Never.)
6. Eat everything on your plate. (As long as you cook it.)
7. If you are asked to do something, you do it. (Depends what it is.)
8. Quiet time is scheduled every afternoon. And is expected to be quiet. (Luckily, I’ve got the pigeons.)
I’M NOT DONE
I know this because we all stand up to leave and she says, “I’m not done.”
We sit down.
“These rules,” she says, pointing to the ones she’s just presented, “will help this family to be more civilized. But there are three other rules that are essential.”
She pulls out a second poster, and I can’t help wondering when she had time to make all these posters.
1. Children should be productive.
2. Children should be useful.
3. Children should be calm and quiet.
I don’t know what children Aunt Ursula knows, but clearly they are nothing like us!
AUNT URSULA NEEDS HELP
The next morning, as usual, no one is awake when I get back from feeding the pigeons. I’m reading the list of rules Aunt Ursula taped to the fridge and eating toast when she comes in with Peanut cradled in her arms.
“Good morning.” I wave. Peanut bursts into barks.
“Oh, Teddy!” She puts her hand to her heart. “You scared me. Do you always get up this early?”
I tell her about feeding the pigeons.
“The pigeons. That’s what I’ve been smelling. Now it makes sense. Horrible.”
As Aunt Ursula opens and closes a drawer, I sniff myself. I don’t smell pigeons, but if I did smell like pigeons, it wouldn’t be horrible. Just like them, it would be sweet.
“I was hoping those birds would be gone.” She opens and closes another drawer, and then a cabinet.
“Can I help you?”
“Could you find me the tea?”
There’s something about the way she says this that makes me feel so sad for her. I suddenly realize what Aunt Ursula is doing for us, and how she’s left her own orderly home, with all her rules, to come live with nine people, which even I know is not easy. And all she wants is a cup of tea, and she can’t even find it. She probably drinks one every morning before her prune juice (number five on her list), which my parents have not bought for her yet.
“Sit down,” I say. “I’ll make it for you.” I pull over a chair, climbing up on it and then onto the counter.
“Teddy, your feet are on the counter.”
“It’s the only way I can reach it. It’s a really tall cabinet.”
She stands up and adds one more rule onto her list, and then says, “No feet on the counter.”
“But number seven is if you’re asked to do something, do it.”
“Technically, I didn’t ask you,” Aunt Ursula says. “But fine. After this one time, we will find a new place for the tea.”
I grab as many different teas as we have and pass them down to her.
And then, still standing on the counter, I pick the prettiest teacup and saucer, because she’s the kind of person who would like that. I hop down.
Peanut barks again. “Shh, Peanut. He’s helping me.”
I have to admit, it’s nice to hear her say that.
SMARTY PANTS VERSUS PEANUT
“Thank you.” Aunt Ursula raises her cup to sip the tea. Strange but true, I suddenly feel like everything will be all right, which must be how Kevin Shelley felt when he broke 46 toilet seats with his head in one minute and survived. I smile and settle into my seat just as Smarty Pants walks into the room.
Peanut takes one look at Smarty Pants and growls. Smarty Pants takes one look at Peanut and hisses.
Aunt Ursula says, “Peanut usually loves cats.”
“Really?” I ask. “Peanut doesn’t seem to love anything but you.” Suddenly Peanut propels himself out of Aunt Ursula’s arms and straight at Smarty Pants. Smarty Pants leaps out of the way, but Peanut is close behind.
Smarty Pants tears past me and bounds up onto the kitchen table, with Peanut following. Smarty Pants knocks over the tea, which spills down Aunt Ursula’s nightgown. Peanut runs through my toast as Smarty Pants leaps on top of the fridge. Peanut, who cannot jump that high, is left popping up in the air like he’s trying to break the record for most pogo-stick jumps in one minute (266).
Aunt Ursula scoops up Peanut. “There should be a rule about cats,” she says.
I admit, I’m sorry that our lovely moment passed so quickly, but for some reason I’m not surprised.
DON’T EVEN ASK
After that hectic morning, I’m happy to be at school working on my memory box. Lonnie, Viva, and I are all working with clay. I’m putting the finishing touches on the dog I made to represent the inventor’s fair project we did this year. Lonnie is making Yoda. Viva has finished our lunch table and the trash cans and is working on models of us three. She’s already done me, and I can say I’m not looking so good. When I ask her why I’m covered in dripping white stuff, she says, “It’s so I can remember all the times you got pooed on by the pigeons.”
I make a face. “Couldn’t you make me holding a Guinness Book of World Records?”
“Too boring.”
“Hey, how did the first day with Aunt Ursula go?” Lonnie asks.
“Complicated,” I say.
Viva looks up. “How?”
“She’s nice, but she doesn’t like anything—when we eat, what we drink, when we go to bed—she doesn’t even like Smarty Pants.”
“She must like something,” Lonnie says
I place the dog in my memory box. “She likes rules, naps, and the tea I made for her this morning.”
“She likes Peanut.” Viva smiles.
I’m quiet for a minute as I think about how anyone could like Peanut!
Lonnie stops drawing. “When does your mom start work?”
“I don’t know.” Thinking about it makes me feel like the largest orchestra in the world (7,224 musicians) is playing in my stomach.
Then Viva asks, “How about world records? Do you think she likes that?”
“I think sometimes it’s best not to even ask,” I say. “And this is one of those times.”
And we all promise that our rule is that Aunt Ursula will never find out about our record-breaking habit.
STRONGEST FORCE IN THE UNIVERSE
Today, when Lonnie, Viva, and I walk into the kitchen, none of us can believe what we see. The Destructor is sitting at the table. Let me repeat: sitting at the table!
In my book, that comes pretty close to breaking a world record. Peanut is sitting at his feet.
“Guess what?” The Destructor asks. “Never mind, I’ll tell you. Peanut likes me!” He reaches down and gives Peanut a treat. Peanut gobbles it up, then looks at me and growls.
“Where’s Mom?”
Aunt Ursula walks in. Her face is covered in brown mud. “Hello, Teddy. Oh, you brought your friends over. Excuse my appearance—you’re never too old for a little exfoliating—but I thought there would be some rule about asking if guests could come over.”
The Destructor shakes his head. “Lonnie and Viva aren’t guests. They’re more like cousins.”
“Where’s Mom?” I repeat.
“She had a training to go to before she starts her job,” Aunt Ursula says.
My heart sinks as I’m reminded of life without Mom. When will I ever see her?
Then I look at The Destructor. He’s still sitting
in the chair. If Mom is away at a training then that means Aunt Ursula did that.
I lean over to her and whisper, “How’d you get him to sit at the table?”
“My little secret,” she whispers back. “Next, we’ll get him out of his tin cans.” And she smiles.
In The Guinness Book of World Records they explain that there are four fundamental forces in the universe: gravitational, electromagnetic, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear. Out of those four, the most powerful is strong nuclear. In fact, it’s the force that holds atoms together.
If Aunt Ursula could get The Destructor out of his tin cans, she would definitely beat that record to become the most powerful force in the universe.
I pause to think about this, then burst out laughing.
There’s no way she can ever be that strong.
CUPCAKES
“I understand you’re hungry when you get home.” She takes down a plate full of cupcakes.
“Aren’t they funny-looking?” The Destructor says. The cupcakes look like bugs. Each one is green and has lots of eyes made out of icing and antennae made from cucumber peels.
Aunt Ursula smiles and the mud on her face starts to crumble. “One of my rules: if you’re going to do something, then do it right.”
“That’s a great rule!” The Destructor says.
If last night’s dinner is anything to go on, these should be delicious, but there’s always the chance that was just a fluke, and everything else she makes will be as bad as Dad’s.
“Help yourself,” Aunt Ursula says. “I’m going to wash the mud off my face.”
“Can I watch?” The Destructor asks. He follows Aunt Ursula, who carries Peanut over her shoulder.
Lonnie and Viva grab a cupcake. I wait for them to take bites. Their mouths spread out in huge grins, and then I grab one, too. It’s chocolaty and delicious, and totally the best cupcake I’ve ever had.
Viva says, “If this is what life with Aunt Ursula will be like, maybe you should stop complaining.”
“I don’t know,” I say.
Lonnie says, “In the words of Yoda, ‘You will find only what you bring in.’ So maybe you want to be a little more positive and see how it goes.”
Lonnie has a point. And knowing Lonnie the way I do, I know I should listen to him, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.
RECORDS WE WOULD NEVER DO
Aunt Ursula convinces The Destructor to have quiet time by saying he can help put Peanut’s diaper on.
“I’ll give it one more chance,” he says, “but only because of the diaper.”
Aunt Ursula reminds us to keep our voices down.
“That won’t be hard,” I say. “We’ll be reading.”
After they’re gone, I pull out The Guinness Book of World Records. We’re looking for a record we could break but for some reason we only notice the entries that are too impossible, too dangerous, or just too gross.
Records like:
1. Highest forward flip jump on a pogo stick (9 feet 2 inches).
2. Most coconuts smashed with the elbows in one minute (40).
3. Smallest waist ever (13 inches).
4. Largest playing-card structure (34 feet 1.05 inches long, 9 feet 5.39 inches tall, and 11 feet 7.37 inches wide).
5. Largest number of cockroaches in a coffin (John Lamedica climbed into a coffin with 20,050 cockroaches).
6. Largest scorpion held in the mouth (7 inches long).
This last one really gets to Lonnie, Viva, and me. I mean, putting a scorpion in your mouth is bad enough, but the guy kept it there for eighteen seconds!
If that’s what you have to do to break a record then the three of us are seriously in trouble.
THAT’S WHEN I SEE IT
Just when I’m about to get discouraged, I find the perfect record. It’s so exciting that it’s hard to stay quiet, but I don’t want to wake up Aunt Ursula. So I point and whisper, “Most scoops of ice cream thrown and caught in one minute by a team of two.”
“But we’re three people,” Viva whispers back.
“So what?” I shrug. “We’ll be a team of three people.”
“They tossed and caught twenty-five scoops,” Lonnie reads quietly.
Viva opens the freezer. “You certainly have got enough ice cream.”
“There’s more in the basement,” I say. In my family, we buy everything in bulk.
Personally, I don’t like going down into the basement anymore, and it’s not because of the cobwebs; they’ve always been there. Last month, I went up and down about a million times hiding plastic bags. But it all changed when Grace told me about the zombie that lives down there. She thought this was hilarious, and added a lot of details that I will not repeat.
For the record, I didn’t think it was hilarious, and even after Mom and Dad took me down to prove that the whole thing was made up, it didn’t matter; the story was stuck in my head, and once it’s stuck, there’s no getting it unstuck.
“What will we use?” Lonnie asks, only finding one ice-cream scoop.
I grab a spatula, a ladle, and the ice cream.
Lonnie says, “Remember, we’ve got to be quiet.”
Viva nods.
And I think, this is the best record ever. Nothing could go wrong.
NOT LIKE I PLANNED
Let me start by saying we were really on a roll. Lonnie threw to Viva. Viva threw to me. I threw to Lonnie. We had thrown and caught six scoops of ice cream, which is really good, considering we were using an ice-cream scoop, a spatula, and a ladle.
And then I missed a catch and got thwacked in the face with mint chocolate chip.
Because Lonnie was so focused, he didn’t see it happen, but Viva did, and because she did, she looked away from Lonnie, and because she looked away from Lonnie, she got a scoop of ice cream in her face.
Luckily, that’s when Lonnie looked up.
And that’s when we all started laughing, because throwing and catching ice cream is funny, but not catching it is funnier, even if it means we don’t break a record.
I looked at Lonnie and his ice-cream-free face, and clearly, there is only one thing to do.
I scoop out a spatula-ful and throw it. Right at Lonnie, but at that exact moment Lonnie doubles over from laughing so hard, and Aunt Ursula walks in, and the ice cream flies over Lonnie’s laughing body and lands on Aunt Ursula’s face.
If my rule is that Aunt Ursula would never find out about the world records, I can honestly say I have failed.
On the other hand, we might have broken the record for fastest rule to ever be broken.
LUCKILY AND UNLUCKILY
Luckily, Mom sweeps in right then, looks around, gasps, and hustles Aunt Ursula off to the bathroom.
Peanut is forgotten and he runs around the kitchen licking up the ice cream that has dripped everywhere. And even though Lonnie, Viva, and I try to catch him, it’s no good. He scoots around us, licking all the way.
There’s lot of stuff I don’t know. That’s one of the reasons I love The Guinness Book of World Records. But a few things I didn’t know that are not in the book are that some dogs shouldn’t eat ice cream.
Unluckily, if some dogs eat ice cream they get diarrhea, or the runs, as Dad calls it.
Extremely unluckily, Peanut is one of these dogs.
PEANUT VERSUS PIGEONS
Usually, Grumpy Pigeon Man never comes out in the morning, and if he does, he’s in his pajamas. But this morning, he does come out. And he’s dressed and everything. He’s even wearing a tie.
He nods to me.
“Three hundred eighty-seven,” I say.
He picks up a bucket, flips it over, and sits down.
“Three hundred eighty-eight. You going somewhere fancy?” I ask. He is wearing a tie, after all.
“Nope,” he says.
“Three hundred eighty-nine.”
“How’s your family?”
“Pretty good. Three hundred ninety.” I don’t bother telling him about the ice-cream fiasco
yesterday.
“Has your mom started working?”
“Soon,” I say. “Three hundred ninety-one.”
He clears his throat. “How’s Ursula?”
“Three hundred ninety-two. You mean Aunt Ursula?”
He clears his throat again.
“She’s okay, I guess. Three hundred ninety-three. She got The Destructor sitting in a chair. Three hundred ninety-four.”
“I haven’t seen her yet.”
“Three hundred ninety-five. She’s pretty busy. She has a—”
Right then there’s an explosion of barking. And a blur of white streaks across my backyard and up to the aviary. The pigeons fly up, and even though there’s a fence between our yards, and the pigeons are closed in safe and sound, they try to get as far away from the barking as possible.
Grumpy Pigeon Man leaps up and stares through the screen. “What the pigeon feathers is that?”
GRUMPY PIGEON MAN VERSUS PEANUT
“It’s Peanut,” I say. “Four hundred five.”
“It’s a barking rat!”
“Rats don’t bark. Four hundred six.”
“This rat barks!” Grumpy Pigeon Man yells. “It’s a world record, Teddy. The first ever barking rat!”
And the whole time that Grumpy Pigeon Man is yelling, Peanut is barking, which makes me think they have more in common than they know.
“No, it’s a dog. Aunt Ursula has a dog.”
Grumpy Pigeon Man looks surprised. He frowns and says, “I think you should take the food away now.” I didn’t realize I stopped counting. I do what Grumpy Pigeon Man suggests, which ought to make Aunt Ursula happy since one of her rules is to do what people ask you to do.
Peanut is still jumping around the fence, digging in the dirt, and barking his little body off, while Grumpy Pigeon Man has gotten very still.
Teddy Mars Book #3 Page 6