Tabloidology

by Chris McMahen

  “It looks like the Fall Fair Fundraiser might make a bit of money after all,” Martin said.

  “I have to admit, things are looking up,” Ms. Baumgartner replied.

  They were out of cakes at the Cake Walk, and the crowd was leaving the room grumbling about not finding any more diamonds. After all the excitement in the Cake Walk, there wasn’t much interest in the games in the gym. All that changed when the front doors of the school swung open and in walked the town’s mayor.

  “Show me the Dunk Tank,” Mayor Wainwright ordered.

  “What’s going on?” people asked as Mayor Wainwright strode down the hall to the gym. The town’s mayor had never visited the school before, let alone come to the Fall Fair Fundraiser. As he walked through the doors of the gym, he threw off his long coat. Underneath, Mayor Wainwright was wearing his swimsuit and an Upland Green School T-shirt. He snapped his fingers, and Wally Lumkowski climbed out of the Dunk Tank. The mayor took his place on the seat high above the water.

  As word of the mayor’s arrival spread, dozens of people streamed into the gym. Shocked to see their mayor sitting in the Dunk Tank, no one knew what to do. Would it be proper to try to dunk him? Everyone stood around, waiting, watching.

  Then Mayor Wainwright shouted, “Hey, you! Mr. Brent Parker! The way you throw a baseball, you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn! You couldn’t dunk me if you bought a million-dollars worth of tickets!”

  “Oh yeah?” Mr. Parker replied. “Just watch me!” He bought a handful of tickets, stepped up and took aim at the Dunk Tank target, launching ball after ball. It turned out that Mayor Wainwright was right when he said Mr. Parker couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. After spending $27.50 on tickets, he finally hit the target, and Mayor Wainwright plummeted into the water with a great SPLOOSH!

  The crowd cheered, and immediately a long lineup of adults formed, everyone wanting to take a crack at dunking the mayor. With each whack of the baseball against the target, and with each sploosh of the mayor in the Dunk Tank, the crowd cheered. Anyone who managed to dunk Mayor Wainwright became an instant hero.

  While the adults were all having fun at the Dunk Tank, it wasn’t half as much fun for the kids. “This is so boring. It’s not fair,” Tina Montgomery said to her friend, Alexis Smith. “The adults get to have all the fun while we just stand around here getting bored.”

  Trixi leaned toward Tina and whispered, “Hey, Tina. Why don’t you go and try the Fish Pond. I’m sure you’ll catch a great prize.”

  “You’ve obviously never tried the Fish Pond,” Tina replied. “Do you have any idea how lame the prizes are? It’s just for little kids.”

  But Tina’s friend, Alexis, said, “Ah, why not? Anything’s better than standing around being bored.” Alexis headed over to the Fish Pond, bought a ticket and lowered her fishing line behind the cardboard. She felt a tug as her prize was hooked to the end of her line.

  “I can’t believe you’re actually doing this,” Tina said. “I outgrew the Fish Pond in grade one.”

  But as Alexis pulled her line out of the Fish Pond and saw what dangled on the end of her line, she let out a scream that caused all heads in the gym to turn her way.

  “Is it…is it, like, for real?” Tina said.

  “Yeah! It’s for real!” Alexis said.

  “Are you sure? It’s probably some cheapo-plastic thing that doesn’t even work,” Tina said.

  “No, it’s not! It’s for real! My uncle’s got a watch just like this, only this one’s solid gold!”

  Word travelled quickly throughout the gym that the Fish Pond wasn’t your average cardboard fishing hole. A huge lineup suddenly formed, stretching across the gym. No one figured they were too old for the Fish Pond when solid gold watches were swimming around in it.

  Between the Dunk Tank and the Fish Pond, the gym was one great big moneymaker for the Fall Fair Fundraiser. Trixi and Martin had never seen Ms. Baumgartner smile so wide.

  Amid the moneymaking mayhem in the gym, Martin managed to get the principal’s attention. “Excuse me, Ms. Baumgartner, but how do you think the auction’s going?”

  “Terribly,” Ms. Baumgartner replied, still grinning. “But who cares? Everyone’s here in the gym spending their life savings trying to dunk the mayor or catch a gold watch! There’s no one left to bid at the auction!”

  “Maybe we should check it out, just in case,” Martin said. “I read somewhere that a special visitor would be coming to the auction.”

  “Oh, really? Who?” Ms. Baumgartner said. But Martin was already leading her down the hall toward the front door.

  Through the glass doors, they could see the outline of a car—a very, very long, dark, shiny stretch limo—pulling right up to the door. Two muscle-bound men wearing black suits and dark glasses jumped out, glanced around suspiciously and then opened one of the rear doors.

  Out of the back of the limousine stepped a tall slim man in a golf shirt, plaid pants and white shoes. Handing a briefcase to one of his bodyguards, he breezed through the front door of the school and headed straight for the music room.

  Ms. Baumgartner’s jaw dropped. “Is that who I think it is?”

  “It sure is, Ms. Baumgartner,” Martin said. “None other than multi-gajillionaire Howie ‘The Hound’ Barker! Take three guesses what’s in that briefcase, and the first two guesses don’t count!”

  Ms. Baumgartner didn’t need to take a guess. She scrambled down to the music room, arriving just in time to hear the auctioneer say, “We have item number seven, a pair of hand-knit slippers, made with loving and tender care by Mrs. Olive Broom. We’ll start the bidding at two dollars. Do I hear two dollars? Two dollars for these beautiful, one-of-a-kind slippers!”

  “Five thousand dollars!” called a voice from the back of the room.

  The auctioneer chuckled and said, “Sorry, sir. For a minute, I thought you said five thousand dollars.”

  “That’s exactly what I said. Five thousand dollars!”

  “Listen, sir. I’ve got an auction to run here. I don’t have time for jokers like you!” the auctioneer said.

  “I bid five thousand dollars!” Howie Barker shouted.

  “Okay, then.” The auctioneer banged his gavel, and said, “Sold! To the man who owes the school five thousand dollars!”

  A bodyguard brought the briefcase to the front of the room, popped it open and handed the auctioneer five thick bundles of cash.

  “That’s…that’s…like…real money!” the auctioneer said. He handed over the pink knitted slippers, which the bodyguard placed carefully in the briefcase. He snapped it shut and headed to the back of the room.

  The auctioneer, who made his living with fast talking, was left speechless.

  “Excuse me, but I think we’d better get on with the auction!” Martin said.

  “Right! The auction!” the auctioneer said, still shaking his head in disbelief. “Okay, then. Item number eight. A pair of hand-carved chopsticks made by Byron Williams. We’ll start the bidding at…”

  “Eight thousand dollars!” Martin shouted.

  “Are you kidding me, kid? You actually have—?”

  “Ten thousand!” Howie Barker shouted.

  The auctioneer’s head jerked back and forth from Martin to Howie Barker and back to Martin again. “Are you crazy? Are you loco? Ten thousand dollars for a pair of lousy hand-carved chopsticks! You must be out of your mind!”

  “Twelve thousand!” Howie Barker shouted.

  Martin jumped up on the platform, took the gavel from the auctioneer, banged it on the podium and said, “Sold to the man with the matching bodyguards!” Once again, one of the bodyguards hustled to the front of the room and handed over twelve stacks of bills, while the auctioneer handed over the spindly wooden chopsticks.

  Without another word, Howier Barker and his two bodyguards breezed out the back door of the music room to their awaiting limo.

  “Not a bad price for some slippers and a pair of chopsticks,” Martin said to
Ms. Baumgartner. “I hate to think of what he would have paid for the pizza.”

  At 9:00 pm, Trixi and Martin stood outside the office and watched the waterlogged mayor slosh his way down the hall, headed for home. Their dabbers all dry, the Bingo players scuttled out of the school and back onto their bus. The fishing rods were put away for another year, and the last few remaining people trudged home without a penny left in their pockets. The last person out of the gym was Mrs. Green, staggering under the weight of a bulging garbage bag full of money.

  “Do you need a hand with that, Mrs. Green?” Martin said.

  “That would be wonderful, Martin. Usually, I can carry the money we make from the games in the gym in a small grocery bag. But not this year.”

  Trixi and Martin each grabbed one side of the garbage bag and shuffled down the hall toward the office. Mrs. Bryson was lugging an enormous bag of money from the Cake Walk, while Mr. Quigley was dragging a bag with each hand down the hall from the Bingo room.

  Ms. Baumgartner stood at the office door, clapping. “You can just leave it on the floor for now,” she said. “First I have to clean off my desk, and then we can count it there.”

  Outside the school, Trixi couldn’t contain herself.

  “That was great! No, it wasn’t! It was more than great! It was terrific! No, it wasn’t! It was more than terrific! It was fantastic! No, it wasn’t! It was more than fantastic!” she shouted, pirouetting along the sidewalk. “It was…it was… an A-plus, A-okay, super-colossal, mega-gnarly, not-half-bad, like-wow, peacherina, knock-out, rip-snortin’, hunky-dory, killer-diller, bees-knees HUUUUMDINGER!”

  But Martin trudged along the walkway like he was wearing lead underwear.

  “I agree that the Fall Fair Fundraiser was a success,” he said. “And I suppose we achieved what we set out to accomplish, but…”

  “But what?” Trixi said. She grabbed Martin by the chin and pulled his head up so they were eye to eye. “Can’t you get it through that goopy gunky brain of yours that we are now heroes? Everything happened tonight because of us! We did it!

  Before she went to Photocopy Heaven, Gwennie came through for us big time!”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Yeah, but WHAT?” Trixi said.

  “Maybe you know we’re heroes, and I know we’re heroes, but does Ms. Baumgartner know we’re heroes? If she still thinks you’re a troublemaking pain and my newspaper is a doomed money-loser, it doesn’t matter what we think. You’ll still be washing school buses on Saturday mornings, and I still won’t have my newspaper back.”

  “Don’t you worry your little head, Marty!” Trixi said. “It’s mission accomplished!”

  Martin wasn’t so sure.

  SEVENTEEN

  AAt school the next morning, Martin arrived early and headed straight for his locker. In spite of last night’s wild Fall Fair Fundraiser, everything looked normal. There was no evidence of stampeding Bingo players, pulverized cakes or water-logged mayors, and the stacks of money had been safely stashed away in the school’s safe. When the bell rang for the start of the day, everything seemed perfectly ho-hum.

  Moments after Martin settled into his seat in class, Ms. Baumgartner came on the pa. Her voice sounded louder and more harsh than normal. “Trixi Wilder and Martin Wettmore! To my office. Immediately!”

  This didn’t sound good. Martin slumped over in his desk, his forehead resting on his math book. Now what? he thought. Maybe she found out about the extra special edition of the newspaper. Maybe she didn’t care that it helped the school raise thousands of dollars for the library. Maybe Ms. Baumgartner was being her usual unfair self.

  “Martin!” his teacher said. “You heard the announcement. Down to the office. Immediately!”

  When Trixi heard the announcement, she walked to the nearest wall and thumped her forehead three times. Then, she looked toward the ceiling and shouted, “I don’t believe it! I really don’t believe it! I knew I never should have listened to that Martin Wettmore! Doing good never pays!”

  “Trixi!” her teacher said. “You heard the announcement. Down to the office. Immediately!”

  Trixi and Martin arrived at the principal’s office at the same time and sat in their usual small, yellow, plastic chairs. Trixi looked at the ceiling, while Martin looked at the floor. Ms. Baumgartner was out in the office talking to Mrs. Sledge.

  “She’s probably keeping us waiting on purpose just to torture us,” Trixi whispered.

  “Mr. Pen phoned today,” Mrs. Sledge was saying. “He has a new job, so he’ll be unable to service our new photocopier.”

  “Maybe she found out about our late night visit to the photocopy room, and now she’ll blame us for destroying the photocopier,” Martin whispered.

  “A new job?” Ms. Baumgartner said. “Wherever did Mr.

  Pen get a new job?”

  “He told me he was going to be repairing photocopiers at the offices of the Science Fiction Writers of Canada.”

  The principal whirled about and marched into her office. She was all business, handing Martin and Trixi each a sheet of paper, then walking behind her desk and sitting down.

  “Ms. Baumgartner! I can explain everything!” Martin said. “We were only trying to help! Honest!”

  “It was all Martin’s idea!” Trixi said.

  “It wasn’t just me!” Martin said. “You helped!”

  “Forget it! It was your idea all along!” Trixi stood up, and Martin stood to face her.

  “You’re nothing but a big pain, Trixi!”

  “Oh yeah? What about you? You are the most…”

  “ENOUGH! SIT! BOTH OF YOU!” Ms. Baumgartner said. “I don’t want to hear any more arguing. As far as I’m concerned, you’re both equally responsible.”

  There was a long, awkward silence, with Ms. Baumgartner’s eyes flitting back and forth between the two of them. “Well? Aren’t you going to read what I’ve given you?” she said finally.

  They looked down at the sheets of paper Ms. Baumgartner had handed them. Across the top were the words, the All New Upland Green Examiner. In the top corner was today’s date. Below that was a great big headline:

  FALL FAIR FUNDRAISER RAKES IN RECORD

  AMOUNT OF CASH!

  TWO STUDENTS BECOME INSTANT HEROES!

  On Wednesday night at 8:58 pm, Trixi Wilder was sprawled across the plush pink carpet next to her pink canopy bed. The TV was off, along with her cell phone, satellite radio, cd, dvd and Mp3 players. Trixi wanted no distractions, for she was writing the best story she had ever written in her entire life.

  “Yes! You’ve definitely outdone yourself this time,” she whispered. “This is definitely the best one yet!” Trixi sprang up off the floor and ran across the room to her computer. She typed in the story, checked it once, checked it twice, then checked it once more, just in case, before e-mailing it away. Seconds after she’d clicked Send, she ran to her bedside table, picked up her cell phone and hit the top name on her speed-dial list.

  “Hey, Marty! I sent you the story I did on the juggling club…You got it already? Wow! That was quick. So? How’s it look?” Trixi grabbed a pen and pad of paper and held the phone between her shoulder and her cheek.

  “Oh, yeah. I always get R-E-A-D and R-E-E-D mixed up… Yeah, I guess the spell-checker wouldn’t pick that up. What else?…Those darn apostrophes! So it comes before the s with people’s. I think I get it. Okay, what else?…That’s it? Are you sure? You mean I even spelled discombobulation right? I don’t think my spell-checker had ever heard of the word, so I just kind of sounded it out. That’s amazing. Thanks. Talk to you later.”

  On Wednesday night at 9:37 pm, Martin Wettmore rubbed his eyes. Except for a few phone calls, he’d been staring at his computer screen pretty well nonstop since three thirty that afternoon. Beside Martin’s keyboard was a stack of thirty pages, each covered in his neat precise handwriting. On the bulletin board above his desk was a pile of fifteen photographs printed off a digital camera.

  T
he door to his room flew open, and Razor barged in, lugging his electric guitar and amp.

  “Razor! It’s Wednesday night. My night to work on the paper. Remember?” Martin said.

  “Is it Wednesday already?” Razor said, picking up his guitar and amp. “You got any aliens in your paper this week?”

  “Not so far, but you never know,” Martin said.

  “Hope so. You can never go wrong with aliens,” Razor said as he climbed out the window onto the garage roof.

  “Martin!” It was his mother. “One of Sissy’s dogs just pooped in the hall! It’s your turn to clean it up!”

  “Remember what we agreed? They’re Sissy’s dogs, so if they poop in the hall, she has to clean it up.”

  “But she’s baking dog treats,” his mother said.

  “It’s Wednesday night. It’s my newspaper night. Remember? We talked about this.”

  “Right,” his mother said.

  “And Mom?”

  “What is it, Martin?”

  “After the article on your pickles last week, everyone’s asking me for your recipe.”

  “Sorry, Martin. It’s a family secret. But you can have one of Sissy’s dog-treat recipes if you want.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Martin said. “And there’s something else, Mom,” Martin said. “Internet’s down. I’m trying to send an e-mail and I’m not connecting.”

  “I forgot to tell you. Blinky got hold of the modem and chewed it to pieces.”

  Martin closed his eyes and sighed. Picking up his stack of papers, he carefully walked down the stairs to the phone in the kitchen and dialed a number from memory.

  “Hi, Trixi. It’s me. One of Sissy’s dogs chewed our modem, and I’ve got a couple of things I want to clear up. I interviewed the music teacher today, and I’m working on the article. Do you think I should mention her punk-rock band first, or should I talk about her time as the lead bagpipe player in a country and western band?…Yeah, it makes sense. I’ll play up the punk-rock thing, for sure…And I’m working on that story about the missing garbage cans. It seems really dull, so I’m looking for a different angle. Any suggestions?…Yeah, alien theft sounds good, but only if I say it’s your theory. We have to make that clear…That’s good too. I’ll check with Ms. Baumgartner to see if she’ll put up a reward…Yeah, I’ll drop my part off at your place on my way to school. It’s your turn to copy it, right?…Sounds good. Talk to you later.”