TJ and the Quiz Kids

by Hazel Hutchins

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to look after them while you’re gone?” I asked.

  “Not this time, thank you, TJ,” said Gran. “A friend is coming in.”

  “Where exactly is Belize?” I asked, trying to see around Max. “Is it really rain forest?”

  “Max, kindly move your butt so I can show TJ where I’m going,” said Gran.

  Cats never do what you tell them to do, even if they can hear. It was only when Gran began to pull the map out from beneath him that he rolled over as if he’d meant to do it all along.

  “Central America,” said Gran, pointing. “And yes, there are rain forests. I still can’t quite believe I’m going. My friend Gladys is paying my airfare. Her sister’s been helping set up a school in a small village, and Gladys wants to visit, but she’s afraid to travel alone.”

  “Forty-five-year-old Gladys is nervous, so she’s taking along your seventy-two-year-old grandmother,” said Dad, smiling.

  It sounded weird but we both knew Gran, so it made perfect sense.

  “TJ, I’d like to borrow that great big suitcase, the one your mom packed all your clothes and stuffed animals and toys into when you were little and used to come for a visit,” said Gran. “Do you still have it?”

  “I think so,” I said. “But I thought you used a backpack.”

  “I do. The suitcase is for the clothing and school supplies for the kids at the new school. We have a list of what they need so we can be sure to bring the right things. We’ll see the rain forest and then we’ll help out at the school.”

  I was right. No beach-sitting for Gran.

  “But I’m really sorry that I’ll miss you and Seymour on Quiz Kids,” said Gran.

  Dad looked up from rummaging for a tape measure in his toolbox.

  “TJ, are you on the Quiz Kids team?” he asked. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I guess I forgot,” I said. It’s easy to forget something you don’t want to think about. “How did you find out, Gran?”

  “I saw the list of team members on the local cable announcements,” said Gran. “I think your vice-principal has a relative at the station.”

  So much for my idea about the other school being behind the TV broadcast. And I didn’t know they were going to advertise ahead of time! Maybe I should have read the permission slip before I forged my mom’s signature.

  “That’s neat, TJ,” said Dad.

  “Are you excited?” asked Gran.

  “I’m just the backup,” I said. “Seymour’s the one who’s really going to be on the team.”

  Gran looked at me in a funny sort of way. Before she could say anything, however, there was a mad skittering sound in the kitchen. Kink was chasing Dad’s measuring tape.

  “We’ll figure this by the square foot because that’s the way the tiles come,” said Dad. “The kitchen is ten feet square. The tiles are ten dollars a square foot.”

  “One hundred dollars,” I said. “That’s got to be good.”

  “Not quite,” said Dad. “Ten feet square means ten feet long and ten feet wide, like a giant chessboard but with two extra rows.”

  Right away I knew my mistake.

  “You’ll need one hundred squares,” I said. “That’s a lot more. That’s a thousand dollars.”

  “But installation is free,” said Dad.

  “Which is why I can afford it and still be a world traveler. Amazing!” said Gran. “Run the idea of a chessboard pattern by your mom, TJ. I’m letting her decide on the final design.”

  “I’ll ask her about the suitcase too,” I called as we left.

  At the next stop, Dad had curtain rods to install, a job I could help him with even if all I did was hold things in place. Then it was time to go meet Mom at the shop.

  “Looks like the Jessops are here,” said Dad, pulling into one of our parking spots at the back.

  At first I didn’t know who the Jessops were, and then I spotted the Mafia car. A moment later I spotted the girl with the blue eyes. She was sitting on some steps just down from our back entrance, wearing jeans and a T-shirt and looking totally bored. Beside her was Froo Froo, panting away happily with a goofy dog-grin on his face.

  “You can bring him inside if you like,” called Dad as he climbed out of the truck.

  “I’d better not,” sighed the girl. “He’s in Mom’s bad books. He ate her new shoes this morning.”

  Dad nodded and headed into the back of the store. I was about to follow, but the girl pointed toward the open window of the truck.

  “Is your deranged cat in there?”

  I turned back.

  “He’s not deranged! He was afraid, that’s all. And we don’t usually travel with a cat. It was an accident.”

  “Oh,” said the girl. I should have gone inside then, but something about that “oh” bugged me.

  “And in case you haven’t noticed, your dog isn’t exactly small and helpless,” I added.

  “He’s big, but he’s still a puppy,” said the girl, putting an arm around him. “He can get in trouble really fast.”

  “A puppy? He’s monster-size!”

  “He grew a little bigger than he was supposed to, but it’s not his fault!” the girl said. “I keep telling M—”

  “Is that why you gave him a goofy name like Froo Froo? Because you thought he’d be small?” I asked.

  “It’s not goofy; it’s entirely appropriate,” said the girl. “It’s short for Fruitful Foresters’ Fancy the Third. His parents are both pedigreed. He’s even entered in the dog show next month. I won’t actually take him in the ring, of course. The trainer does that.”

  Deranged, entirely appropriate, pedigreed—it was almost like she spoke a different language. I guess it went with the Mafia car, the huge house and the dog trainer.

  “Maybe the dog trainer could teach him not to chase cats,” I said.

  “Maybe you could train your cat not to be vicious,” said the girl.

  “T-Rex isn’t vicious!” I insisted.

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized what I’d done. Oh no.

  “T-Rex?” asked the girl, her eyes growing wide. “You’re making fun of me because I shorten my dog’s name to Froo Froo, but you actually named your cat T-Rex?”

  Just then the back door opened, and a woman in a red suit stepped out. Saved!

  “Hi, Mom,” I said. “You look great.”

  Mom dresses up at the shop because it’s more professional for the new business. Dad and I have a pact to tell her how nice she looks to build up her self-confidence, kind of like what Gran does with Killer. Mom sees right through us, but she plays along.

  “Thanks, TJ,” she said. She turned to the girl with the dog. “Elizabeth, your mother has gone to the drugstore. She won’t be long. I’ve brought water for Frooie.”

  “Thank you,” said Elizabeth.

  The phone in the shop began to ring. Mom handed me the container and went back inside. Elizabeth looked at me in a puzzled sort of way.

  “Rita’s your mom?” she asked.

  I nodded as I set down the water. Frooie—anything was better than Froo Froo—went for it immediately. Big dog, big mouth, big tongue. Glop, glop, glop. I remembered one of Seymour’s amazing facts…well not exactly amazing, but definitely interesting. I crouched down to get a better look.

  “Rooms by Rita—it’s a nice store, and some of your mom’s ideas are extremely creative,” said Elizabeth. “My mom doesn’t hire anyone unless they’re highly recommended.”

  Highly recommended? Extremely creative? Yup, we spoke a different language.

  “I guess you go out in that old truck with the workman to check up on jobs and repor…” Elizabeth stopped in mid-sentence. “What are you doing?”

  “The animal books are right—dogs drink backward,” I said. “Cats lap forward, plus they have bumpy things on their tongues that help hold the water, but dogs bend their tongues backward. They kind of drop water wildly onto the bottom of their mouths.”


  Frooie had stopped just long enough for me to explain the facts to Elizabeth. Now he put his head down again. Glop glop glop.

  “Like that,” I said as water went sloshing everywhere.

  “You’re nuts,” said Elizabeth.

  “It’s true!” I said.

  “It might be true, but the back alley is a disgusting place to crawl around in,” said Elizabeth.

  Now that she mentioned it, I was practically eye-to-eye with the greasy napkins and squished French fries from the restaurant garbage down the alley. It smelled too. Gross.

  “I better go inside,” I said.

  “Thank your mom again for the water,” said Elizabeth.

  The store was cool and welcoming. Mom had just hung up the phone.

  “Everything all right, TJ?” she asked.

  “Sure. Great,” I answered. “Gran thinks her kitchen floor should be done in red and black squares so the cats can play chess on it. And she’d like to borrow our big suitcase.”

  “I didn’t mean with Gran,” said Mom. “I meant with Elizabeth.”

  I shrugged in my best casual manner.

  “Oh that. Sure,” I said. “She says thanks for the water. We were just talking about cats and dogs and stuff.”

  “Good,” said Mom. “The Jessop job is important. Well, I’d better take over from your dad. He doesn’t like to be out front in his work clothes.”

  Work clothes. Workman. My brain began to search backward. It didn’t like what it came up with. Trust a girl who lived in a big fancy house to think every-one’s dad dressed in a business suit and drove a shiny new car!

  I opened the back door. Elizabeth’s mother and Frooie were already in the car, and Elizabeth was just climbing in herself.

  “He’s my dad! He owns the business too! I travel with him because I like traveling with him!” I called. “And Mr. G. doesn’t need anyone to check up on him!”

  I don’t know if she heard. The door on the Mafia car closed with an expensive shwunk, the motor purred to life and they were gone.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Splash!” said Seymour.

  He was standing on the back of the sofa in our living room. He’d just opened his hands to release an invisible object, and now he was pointing down at the carpet.

  “I just dropped a cannonball into the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean,” he explained. “Now we’ll see how long it takes to reach the bottom.”

  He climbed down and settled on the cushions. When Seymour starts acting weird, it’s best just to ignore him.

  It was Sunday afternoon and we were hanging out at my house. I’d surrounded myself with Quiz Kids notes and I was trying to memorize the oceans in order of their size: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, Arctic. I wanted to be able to answer at least a few of the questions next time we had a practice!

  Seymour, on the other hand, was surrounded by books he’d found at the library. He couldn’t help sharing what he discovered.

  “Listen to this,” he said. “People lose taste buds as they get older. No wonder adults like broccoli.”

  I was still trying to memorize: Pacific, Atlantic…

  “This is neat,” said Seymour. “House-flies can change direction four times in a single second.”

  Pacific, Atlantic, Southern, Indian…or was it Indian, Southern?

  “Hurricane speed!” said Seymour. “That’s how fast the wind from a sneeze can travel. Hurricane speed!”

  I gave up on oceans and switched to continents: Asia, Africa…

  “Geckos can’t blink, so they wipe their eyes with their tongues,” said Seymour. “Wow. I can’t even touch my nose with my tongue.”

  I didn’t have to look at him to know that he was trying. Maybe I’d try planets instead. Jupiter, Saturn…

  “I didn’t know this!” said Seymour. “The Eiffel Tower is taller in hot weather.”

  At least that fact related to something in the file folders—metal expands when heated. The Eiffel tower is made of iron, and iron is a metal. I flipped to the stack of science notes. The scientific symbol for iron is Fe and that brought me to the entire periodic table, which we hadn’t even studied. Now my head hurt.

  “How can anyone remember all this stuff?” I asked.

  “I’ve got a book about that too,” said Seymour, shuffling through his pile. He brought out a book with a giant brain and the words YOUR AMAZING MEMORY on the cover. As soon as he opened the book, he found things to be amazed about. “Guess why telephone numbers are seven digits.”

  “No idea,” I said.

  “Because that’s how many things a person can remember at a time—between five and nine. Most people max out at seven.”

  “That’s not right,” I said. “Even I can remember more than seven things. And you were talking the other day about brains holding more than umpteen encyclopedias…”

  “That was long-term memory. Five to nine items is short-term memory; the book says to try it with a shopping list. I’ll make one up. Apples, oranges, grapes, carrots, lettuce, celery…”

  I began to repeat after Seymour, but almost immediately he frowned and shook his head.

  “Hang on. Even I can’t remember. I’ll use one of the tricks from the book—association.”

  He looked at the cats.

  “Alaska, your head is an apple,” he said. “T-Rex, your head is an orange. The coffee table is covered in grape vines,” he continued. “There’s a giant carrot growing out the top. An even more giant rabbit is trying to pull it out but he’s having trouble because he’s rolling around on a huge lettuce. The rabbit has ears like celery sticks.”

  I got the idea—make up a wild story and fix it in place with objects around the room. I wasn’t sure how it was going to help me with oceans.

  “Oops!” said Seymour. “It’s been ten minutes. I’d better check on the cannonball.”

  He jumped on the sofa with such an explosion of energy that apples and oranges—or rather cats—flew off in different directions. Once more, Seymour pretended to be in the middle of the ocean. He leaned out over the armrest, also known as the ship’s rail, shaded his eyes against the glare of the water and peered down, down into the Mariana Trench.

  “It hasn’t hit the bottom yet,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Ten minutes is a long time to be falling, even if it is through water.”

  “Not even close,” said Seymour. He sat on the carpet and picked up the memory book.

  “There are competitions for memory. Some people can memorize forty or fifty entire decks of playing cards, all in order.”

  “I can’t even remember the oceans in order of size!” I said.

  “Pete Attwater Ignores Sneaky Aardvarks,” said Seymour. He set down the memory book and picked up one with a giant insect on the cover. “Did you know some soldier ants explode to defend their colonies?”

  I was still thinking about oceans. “Pete” was Pacific, “Attwater” was Atlantic. That was easy to remember. Pete owned the corner grocery store—Attwater’s Emporium.

  “Oh wow! It takes eighty thousand bees gathering nectar while flying the equivalent of three times around the world to make one jar of honey!” read Seymour.

  “Ignores” was Indian. “Sneaky” was Southern. “Aardvarks” was Arctic. Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, Arctic. Yes!

  “Chameleons can move their eyes in two different directions at the same time,” said Seymour. He stretched his arms sideways and tried to see both of his hands at once.

  “Have you got one for the continents?” I asked.

  “Nope,” said Seymour. “Make up your own. But planet is the Greek word for wanderer.”

  “How did you know I was trying to memorize planets too?”

  Seymour just looked at me. Of course. They were standard questions. Everyone would be memorizing them.

  “The cannonball should be on the bottom now,” I said.

  Seymour jumped up on the sofa again and once mor
e shaded his eyes. “Nope,” he said. “It’s still…”

  He froze in mid-sentence.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Shhhh!” said Seymour. He dropped down with his ear right against the carpet. He crawled to the wood floor of the dining room, listening all the way. He’d left the ocean book open, and I saw a quick fact.

  “The longest anyone has ever stayed underwater without breathing is nine minutes,” I said. “Tell me when you need rescuing.”

  “No…there’s really something down there.”

  “In the basement?” I asked.

  “In the floor,” said Seymour.

  “No, there isn’t,” I said.

  “Yup, there is. Listen,” said Seymour.

  I couldn’t help it. I knew I was probably getting sucked in, but I lay on my stomach with my ear to the floor anyway. Seymour was right. It was a very faint sound, but it was definitely something.

  “How could there be something in the floor?” asked Seymour.

  I’d been on enough renovation projects with Dad and Mr. G. to know the answer to that one. “Floor joists,” I said. “Boards are put together in triangles and V-shapes to make the floor strong. There’s space in between the floor of the living room and the ceiling of the basement.”

  “Maybe it’s full of…exploding ants!” said Seymour.

  I looked around the room.

  “I wonder where the cats are,” I said.

  We found Alaska asleep among the clean towels in the closet—burrowing into warm soft places is a big attraction for Alaska—but we couldn’t find T-Rex.

  “Secret weapon time,” said Seymour.

  The best way to find a cat is to open a tin of salmon. As soon as I set the can on the counter I felt Alaska brushing my legs. Of course, if T-Rex was really in the floor joists, he might have missed the delicate clink of the can on the counter. I pierced the tin with the opener and began to turn the knob. Seymour was lying on the dining room floor, listening.

  “He’s on the move,” said Seymour. “This way. No, this way. No! Back toward the front door.”