by Lenore Look
“Alvin’s going to slay a scary dragon,” said Anibelly, who was following me.
“You look pretty scary,” said Flea. “I can’t see your face at all.”
I puffed out my chain mail.
“Grrrrrrr,” I growled, remembering Bucky’s advice—Show no fear. “Grrrrrr.”
“Flea said she’s here to help you set world records,” said my gunggung.
World records?
I thought she wanted to talk to me.
Flea held up a mermaid stopwatch and a bag of M&M’s.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“You can’t set a world record without a stopwatch,” said Flea.
“I know that,” I said.
“Did you also know that the most M&M’s eaten in one minute using chopsticks is thirty-eight?” asked Flea.
“That’s a world record?” I said.
“Yup,” said Flea.
“I thought world records are supposed to be hard and dangerous,” I said.
“They could be fun too,” said Flea. “We should do some fun ones first—as a warm-up.”
I blinked at Flea.
Then I blinked at her bag of M&M’s.
I love M&M’s.
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t want to sound too excited. But inside, I was jumping up and down … just like Anibelly.
“Me too?” said Anibelly. “I’m better with chopsticks than Alvin.”
“Sure,” said Flea.
So then we all gave it a try, even my gunggung.
M&M’s spun and rolled. Chopsticks clicked and clacked. It was terrific!
I ate five M&M’s. Flea ate three. Anibelly ate six. And my gunggung was terrific—he ate nineteen!
“That’s thirty-three between all of us!” said Flea. “We’re almost there on the first try!”
I nodded.
Miracle in a Jar tasted horrible.
The insides of my cheeks turned into sandpaper with little pieces of M&M’s sticking to them.
I blinked at Flea again.
Then I blinked at the M&M’s.
Flea didn’t look like she was trying to talk to me. So I popped a couple of M&M’s into my mouth with my fingers.
Then I turned and ran out the door. Flea and Anibelly and Lucy rushed out close behind. We ran around the yard full speed ahead. Leaves flew. Anibelly squealed. Chain mail shifted. The fall air smelled like rotten apples and Miracle in a Jar.
“Time for deep knee bends,” said Flea, catching her breath.
“The most deep knee bends done in one minute is fifty-five.”
“Watch me,” I said. I put down Anibelly’s sword. I puffed out my chain mail.
“Me too!” said Anibelly.
“Owwwwooooo!” said Lucy. She stretched into her downward-dog pose.
“One … two … three …,” I puffed, going up and down. “Hey, this is SO easy!”
“Yup,” said Flea.
“Which would you say is more important,” I huffed, “being a scientist or being a world record setter?”
“Well, a scientist can go into outer space,” said Flea. “That’s pretty important.
“And a record setter …,” Flea continued, “shows what can be done if you don’t give up. That’s super-important.”
“You’re right,” I said, breathless and feeling super-important.
“One, two, buckle my shoe,” said Anibelly, also going up and down. “Three, four, shut the door.”
“You have to go much faster, Alvin,” said Flea. “Like Anibelly.”
Oooh. It really curdled my tofu.
So I went faster.
My breath puffed out like car exhaust. The air was cool, but my chain mail was beginning to feel like an electric fence. The gladiator pieces didn’t help either. So I took off the gladiator stuff, but I kept the chain mail on, just in case.
I huffed and puffed.
“That’s much better,” said Flea, clicking her mermaid stopwatch.
“One … two …” Fireworks exploded inside my brain. “Three … six …” Flaming swords sliced my thighs. Everything hurt.
“C’mon, Alvin, you can do it!” said Flea. “Faster!”
“Thirty-eight … sixty-one …” I stopped.
Was Flea still trying to talk to me?
Was this death by deep knee bends?
My knees locked.
My legs turned into bamboo sticks.
“No, I can’t!” I cried. “And you can’t make me!”
Flea clicked off her stopwatch.
“Setting world records was your idea,” she said.
“I thought you came over to talk to me,” I said, using the secret code.
“I did,” said Flea.
“Do you still want to talk to me?” I asked.
“Yup,” said Flea. “But I wanted to do something fun first, then talk.”
I gasped. Flea was talking in code! Worse, I understood it!
I blinked at Flea. She’s from a long line of pirates, and pirates, as everyone knows, are dangerous even if they look like fun.
Leaves swirled all around me.
I didn’t feel so good.
“Alvin’s going to throw up!” cried Anibelly. “Alvin’s going to throw up!”
i never did find out what it was that Flea wanted to talk to me about.
Lucky for me, she left after I threw up.
Then my mom came home.
“AAAAALVIN!” my mom shrieked when she saw me in the bathroom, where GungGung had already started the water for my bath. “WHAAAAT HAPPENED TO YOU?”
She dropped to her knees. She peeled off my clothes.
“You poor thing,” said my mom. “Just look at you!”
My mom is SO sweet.
She took out the biggest, softest towels. She fetched my bathrobe and my slippers. She tested the water. And just as she was about to drop me in the bath, she touched my face.
“What’s this on your face?” she asked. “You look like a cake covered in buttercream frosting.…”
I blinked.
My mom blinked.
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.
I don’t think I need to tell you how busted I got for using up all my mom’s expensive face cream in tiny jars. I got busted so bad that my mom didn’t need to kill me, I already wished I were dead. Calvin got busted too; he got grounded from experimenting with anything that belonged to my mom.
Worse, I got even more busted for explaining that I needed to make myself headless to scare Flea, who wanted to talk to me.
The look on my mom’s face was not good. She definitely needed a Miracle in a Jar.
Then my dad came home.
And we got busted all over again. “Boys,” said my dad. “A gentleman never messes with a lady’s things.”
“Sorry, Dad,” said Calvin.
“Yeah, Dad,” I peeped.
“Are you having trouble coming up with a science project?” my dad asked Calvin.
“Kind of,” said Calvin.
“Well, come with me,” said my dad. “I’ve got just the remedy for that.”
Calvin and I followed my dad out to the garage, where—surprise, surprise—my dad handed over to Calvin an old microscope set, safety goggles and a spiffy white lab coat that said “Junior Scientist” on the chest.
“I had hours of fun with this when I was about your age,” said my dad. “Maybe it’ll inspire you to do some interesting experiments too … and keep you out of trouble.”
“Wow,” said Calvin. He slipped right into the white lab coat and rolled up his sleeves. “I didn’t expect to get a white lab coat,” he said.
I blinked.
I hadn’t expected Calvin to get a white lab coat either.
Then my dad looked at me.
If Calvin got a prize for getting busted, it looked like I was about to get one too! After all, I needed something spectacular to keep me out of trouble, didn’t I?
“Alvin,” said my dad.
I stepped closer.
My dad put his hands on my shoulders. He was saving the best for last, I was sure of it. What could be better than a white lab coat? A Deluxe Indian Chief outfit!
I closed my eyes. I could almost feel the headdress tickling down my back.
“A gentleman would call or go in person to make things right,” said my dad. “The sooner the better.”
I blinked.
Then I blinked back tears.
That was it? No prize for me?
Calvin hurried off with his loot. Getting busted is the best spectator sport at our house, but when it’s over it’s over. You don’t want to hang around, just in case.
“What’s the matter, son?” my dad asked.
I sniffed.
I wiped away a tear.
Through the garage window I could hear Anibelly in the kitchen getting out the pots and pans to help my mom start dinner while singing at the top of her lungs, “Lalalalalalalala.”
Then it all came gushing out: how scared I was of a girl who wanted to talk to me for no good reason; how I’d made the same girl mad at me, which meant that lightning was going to strike me dead any minute now. How hard it was to set a world record. How a Deluxe Indian Chief outfit would solve all my problems. How nothing was going right. How everything was falling apart.
My dad listened. He held all my words in his ears. He wiped my tears. Then he held me. We were quiet for a very, very long time.
Then my dad said to me, “I can’t help you with most of those problems, son, but maybe I can help you with one.”
“Which one, Dad?”
“The most important one,” said my dad.
“The most important one?” I sniffed.
“Yup,” said my dad, taking my hand in his. I love it when my dad holds my hand. I love it more than anything.
Then we followed Anibelly’s singing back into the house.
it was thundering like crazy after dinner.
Lightning filled our windows.
Rain hit our house like a shower of bullets in a video game.
Usually my dad gets it right when he helps me. It’s one of his talents. But this time he got it all wrong. He wasn’t even close. This wasn’t the help that I had in mind:
Then I read it to Calvin.
“You’re going to need a lot of practice or you won’t even get past hello,” said Calvin.
“Hello?” I said.
“You gotta say hello when you’re talking on the phone,” piped up Anibelly, who was curled up on my bed with a book. “Everyone knows that.”
Gulp. Bucky had mentioned telephone skills but we had skipped them on the fast track.
It was homework time, but I didn’t have any homework except to practice my handwriting, which I had already done. Calvin was in his white lab coat and should have been working on his science fair project, but instead he was in the bathroom adjusting his safety goggles in the mirror for a very long time.
“Luckily, it doesn’t say you can’t vomit … or carry your PDK,” said Calvin. Then he reached into his white lab coat pocket and pulled out a stopwatch.
“Wow,” I said. “Did that come with your lab coat?”
“Sure did,” said Calvin, showing it off.
“What are you going to do with it?” I asked.
“Something scientific … like … time the seconds between the lightning and the thunder,” he said, running over to the window.
“Can I help?” I asked.
“Nope,” said Calvin. “Don’t need your help. Besides, don’t you need to call that girl and apologize?”
“What girl?”
“If you don’t square your crimes,” Calvin warned, “THOU ART ONLY MARKED FOR THE HOT VENGEANCE AND THE ROD OF HEAVEN.”
I gasped. It was the worst Shakespearean curse in the world! My dad has a whole collection of them in a tin can, and they’re all scary, but this one meant I would D-I-E.
“Okay!” I said. “But I need to practice first. Will you help me?”
“I’ll help you,” said Anibelly, popping off my bed. “I’ll be the girl … and you call me.”
I gripped my list and faced Anibelly.
I blinked.
Anibelly blinked.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Anibelly.
“I don’t know what your ring tone is,” I said.
“Lalalalalalalala,” sang Anibelly.
“Owwwwooooo!” sang Lucy.
“Are you sure that’s a ring tone?” I asked.
“Just say hello,” said Anibelly, tapping her Hokey Pokey toe.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” said Anibelly cheerfully.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, went Calvin’s stopwatch.
“You have to say something after hello,” said Anibelly.
I squeezed my eyes shut tight. That’s what happens when I’m thinking. My eyes shut. It keeps my thoughts from escaping and getting lost.
But the problem was I didn’t have any thoughts. Not one. Only tick, tick, tick, tick, tick …
I blinked.
“I have to say something?” I asked.
Calvin came over. He wrote something on his clipboard. “It took you two minutes and five seconds to say hello,” he said.
“Oh,” I said.
“Try it again,” said Calvin, “and I’ll time you to see if you can do it faster.”
Tick, tick, tick, tick …
Practicing calling a girl was harder than slicing apples in midair with a samurai sword! I couldn’t get past hello.
When I finally got past hello and said, “THIS IS ALVIN!” Calvin said that it took three minutes, forty-nine seconds.
He wrote it on his clipboard, like this:
3:49
which was fine. But then Anibelly said that I was too loud, which meant that I broke Rule Number 4, “Use your indoor voice,” and Rule Number 5, “Don’t scream.”
By the time I got past hello and “THIS IS ALVIN!” and said, “I’D LIKE TO SPEAK TO FLEA!” I was wearing a scary mask and twirling Anibelly’s samurai sword above my head. How the mask got on my face and how the sword got in my hand, I’ll never know. It was a weapon, and it wasn’t even concealed, which meant that I’d broken Rules Number 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, and knocked a few things off the wall, just like that.
“WHAT’S GOING ON UP THERE?” screamed my dad from downstairs. “IT’S A LIGHTNING STORM OUTSIDE, BUT INSIDE, IT SOUNDS LIKE A METEORITE STORM!”
“It’s just Alvin, Dad!” screamed Anibelly. “He’s practicing how to talk to a girl.”
Then something huge exploded outside. BOOOOOOOOM!
The house rumbled and shook. Calvin scribbled something on his clipboard.
The good news was that I was getting faster, maybe almost as fast as the thunder following the lightning.
The bad news was that I hadn’t done it for real yet.
Brrrriiiiiiiiiiing. The phone rang.
“AAALVIN … TELEPHONE!” my dad shouted from downstairs.
I froze.
Telephone for me?
Gulp.
Who was it? I wanted to ask my dad, but I couldn’t. My mouth was already full of wood chips.
So I did the only thing I could do. I picked up the phone in my room.
First, I heard the sound of loud breathing.
I waited.
Then the loud breathing got louder … and louder …
Until it burst. “HELLO? HEL-LOOOW! ALVIN! ALVIN! ARE YOU THERE, ALVIN?” It was Flea’s voice, and it was turned up really loud.
I was there, but I couldn’t say so. So I tried Number 1 on the list, “Listen with both ears.” I switched the phone from one ear to the other, very fast. It was really hard trying to listen with both ears, but somehow I managed to do it and I heard her say,
“YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO R.S.V.P. FOR MY PARTY!”
But I did R.S.V.P.! I had done it right there in class where she could see me doing it. And if you asked me, I just didn’t see how doing it over the phone, where sh
e couldn’t see me, would do any good.
I couldn’t do Number 2 on the list—“Look her in the eye.”
But I could do Number 3—I nodded. Then I made fish lips. It was the best I could do for a smile.
“ALVIN? ALVIN?”
So I Resumed Standing Very Promptly again. And I stomped both my feet to prove it.
Oooh. Girls are so annoying. If it weren’t for the cupcakes and the Deluxe Indian Chief outfit waiting for me, I never would have agreed to go.
GET THEE OFF THE PHONE DURING A LIGHTNING STORM, THOU SPLEENY CLAY-BRAINED MEASLE! I wanted to say, but I couldn’t. I’d lost my voice. So I clicked the off button, and that was the end of that.
Then Calvin wrote on his clipboard:
i was still worried about lightning striking me, making me crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, when I popped out of bed the next morning.
But I wasn’t worried for long, on account of it took my clothes 00:05 seconds to jump on me, according to Calvin’s scientific stopwatch. Then it took me 00:01 second to notice that there was a police car in our driveway.
It was the best thing that had ever parked in our driveway! I was speechless.
“C’mon, let’s go!” Calvin said excitedly.
We hurried downstairs. My mom had already left for work and taken Anibelly to day care, and my dad was in the driveway talking to a policeman.
“What happened, Dad?” asked Calvin.
“Looks like the lightning took out our kitchen tree last night,” said my dad.
I gasped.
Sure enough, our kitchen tree, which was also the biggest tree in our yard, was split clean through. Half of it had fallen and smashed a part of the fence into smithereens. The other half was a burnt finger pointing upward at the exact spot in the sky where a finger of lightning had pointed downward to zap it.
Gulp.
Hot vengeance and the rod of Heaven!
“Worst damage I’ve seen in years,” said the policeman, shaking his head. “Normally Concord doesn’t attract lightning like that. You’re lucky it didn’t hit your house, son.” He looked me smack in the eye.
Wow. Yellow tape everywhere. The smell of roast tree and wet leaves. A police car in my driveway. A policeman calling me “son.” It was a regular crime scene! The gang waiting for the school bus at the bottom of my driveway was staring with their mouths wide open.