Splat! Another Messy Sunday

by Lin Oliver

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Penguin Young Readers Group

  An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Lin Oliver. Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Samantha Kallis. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC. Manufactured in China.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-399-54286-2

  Version_1

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  About the Painting

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Prologue

  Oh, hi there. I’m Tiger Brooks. I think we might have met before.

  I’m here to tell you a story you’re probably not going to believe. But trust me, it’s all true. Even the parts that don’t seem true. I know because it happened to me.

  It started when my friend Luna Lopez and I paid a visit to our neighbor Viola Dots. She’s the—well, let’s just say unusual woman who lives next door with her butler, a talking orange pig named Chives. I know what you’re thinking. A talking orange pig—that’s a hard one to believe.

  But wait, there’s more. Viola has this magical, fantastic picture frame in her house. What? You’re not sure magical picture frames actually exist? Well, neither was I until I fell into one. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Viola’s frame hangs on the wall in her living room. It looks like one of those fancy golden frames you’d see in a museum. And it has a gold clock on the front. When the clock on the frame strikes four, the painting inside opens up and sucks you in.

  That sounds exciting, but it hasn’t worked out too well for Viola Dots. Her son, David, was sucked into a painting fifty years ago and has been lost ever since. The only thing she got in return was Chives, who came flying straight out of some old painting and into her living room.

  Mrs. Dots is pretty old now and still misses David like crazy, which is why Luna and I agreed to help her. Every week she paints another painting to put in the frame. And every week, we travel into the frame to look for David.

  This would be totally fun except for one little detail: If we’re not back from inside the painting in exactly one hour, we’ll be stuck. That’s right. We would have to stay in the world of art forever.

  That’s a good thing if you’re trying to get out of doing your homework. But if you care about ever returning home, it’s not so good.

  I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me. It’s a pretty wild story. So read it for yourself, and then you tell me.

  Do you really think there is such a thing as a fantastic frame?

  Chapter 1

  Come on, Luna! I thought. Where are you?

  Our wooden front porch groaned as I paced back and forth. I checked the time on my Batman watch. Luna had agreed to meet me at exactly fifteen minutes to four, but she was late. We had promised Viola Dots that we’d be at her house on time. If we were even one minute late, the magic wasn’t going to work.

  Luna Lopez, you’re going to ruin everything!

  I heard footsteps coming from inside our duplex. “Luna!” I called out. “It’s about time!”

  “It’s not Luna,” an annoying little voice said. “It’s me, Maggie. I came to play with you.”

  Can someone please tell me why little sisters always show up at exactly the wrong time?

  “I can’t play with you now, squirt,” I told Maggie. I tried to herd her back into the house, but the little pest wasn’t budging.

  “Why can’t you?” Maggie stomped her foot on the porch, which made her sneakers light up. “Are you and your new girlfriend going to visit the orange pig with the funny hat?”

  I had to put an end to this conversation right now. The orange pig was a secret—only Luna and I could know he actually existed.

  “Listen up, Maggie,” I said. “Number one, Luna is not my girlfriend. She is a girl who happens to be a new friend. And number two, there’s no such thing as an orange pig. Didn’t they teach you that in preschool?”

  Maggie burst out laughing. I didn’t think I had said anything funny.

  “Tiger, you said number two.” She giggled. “I’m going to tell Mommy you’re using bathroom words.”

  “Be my guest,” I said. “Go tell Mom.” I figured at least that would get her back into the house.

  As Maggie turned and ran inside, I could hear her chanting, “Mommy, Tiger said number two. Tiger said number two.”

  That’s four-year-olds for you. Their brains are only half-baked.

  I checked my watch again. Time was running out.

  Luckily, I heard Luna’s footsteps clopping down the stairs. We just moved into a duplex that our families share. Luna lives in the upstairs part. This time, I knew it was her because her shoes clomp when she walks.

  “Hi, Tiger,” she said, like she wasn’t even late at all. “My grandma made us horchata.” She handed me a plastic cup with a frothy white liquid in it. “It’s like a cinnamon toast milkshake, minus the brain freeze.”

  “We don’t have time for refreshments,” I said.

  “Just taste it. It’s my grandpa Arturo’s recipe.”

  I took a sip. It was delicious.

  “Your grandpa Arturo knows his stuff,” I said. “But we have to hurry. The fantastic frame kicks in at four exactly, and we promised Viola we’d be there. She’s counting on us.”

  “Okay, okay. We can drink while we walk.”

  Luna grabbed a flowered hat from a chair on the porch and popped it on her head. She loves to make crazy-looking hats, and this one definitely was. We raced down our driveway and headed to Viola’s house. It was a crumbling old place next door to ours, with peeling blue paint and an overgrown lawn. The house was covered in cobwebs and had a spooky lookout tower on top.

  We were almost at the front gate when a hand reached out and snatched my horchata. I turned to see a boy with bleached blond hair and braces. Before I realized that he was at least a head taller than me, I blurted out, “Hey, you! Give that back!”

  “Take it easy, shrimp,” the kid said. “I just want a sip.”

  The kid tilted the cup back and drained the whole thing in one awful gulp. Crunching my ice in his mouth, he put the cup on the ground and squashed it under his foot. Then he handed the squashed cup back to me.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to the new guy?” the boy asked Luna.

  “This creep is Cooper Starr,” Luna said. “He thinks he’s great.”

  “That’s why everyone calls me Super Cooper.” The boy grinned, showing off his mouth full of braces.

  “He lives on our street,” Luna explained. “He’s a very rude boy with a very small imagination.”

  “Hey, shrimp,” Cooper said, givin
g me an annoying poke. “Why do you want to be friends with her? Everyone knows Luna Lopez has bugs. Don’t you, Luna-Bug?”

  Luna got right in his face. “I don’t have bugs!”

  He leaned in close and picked a speck of something from one of the flowers on her hat.

  “Gross! It’s a bug! They’re crawling all over you!” He jumped back and laughed like a donkey, showing off his squiggly metal teeth.

  “Don’t talk to her that way!” I said.

  “Come on, Tiger.” Luna grabbed my arm. “We’re late. Let’s go.”

  “Your name’s Tiger?” Cooper snorted. “What’s your last name? Lion?”

  “It’s Tiger Brooks,” I said.

  “This is too good,” he howled. “Luna-Bug has a friend, and his name is Tiger! Let me see your spots, Tiger.”

  “Leopards have spots,” I pointed out. “Tigers have stripes.”

  I checked my Batman watch. We had five minutes to get to Viola’s.

  “If you hang out with Luna, you’ll get Luna-Bug germs!” Cooper warned.

  He let out another one of his donkey laughs. I felt bad for Luna. I had only known her for a week, since we moved into the neighborhood. She was a major chatterbox and did have some strange habits, but one thing was for sure: She was a nice person.

  “Who are you to laugh at her?” I said to Cooper. “Your mouth looks like a circuit board.”

  From the stupid look that flashed across Cooper’s face, I knew he had no idea what a circuit board was. Being a science guy, I’ve known about circuit boards ever since I took my first one apart. That was before I even got to kindergarten.

  Cooper moved closer, blocking our way into Viola’s yard. To my surprise, Luna sprang into action. She yanked off her hat. With her long black hair flying, she shoved the flowers in Cooper’s face.

  “Buggy-buggy-buggy-buggy!” she screamed at him.

  He jumped back, pawing at his face and yelled, “Get ’em off me!”

  Luna grabbed my arm and said, “Run like the wind!”

  We pushed on Viola’s creaky gate and ran up the overgrown path to the spidery door. I slammed the paintbrush door knocker like my life depended on it. Inside, we heard running hoofsteps. I could hear a voice saying, “No, Madame! It’s too dangerous! I won’t let you go!”

  I looked back. Cooper had figured out the bugs were all in his mind and was shoving the squeaky gate open to come after us.

  My heart was racing. I pounded the door knocker again.

  Suddenly, the door swung open, and I was face-to-face with a bright orange pig. He looked frazzled and his bow tie was crooked.

  “Chives,” I said. “Is everything okay?”

  He pulled Luna and me inside and slammed the door.

  “We must hurry,” he whispered. “We don’t have a minute to lose.”

  Chapter 2

  I could tell something was wrong. Chives was Viola Dots’s butler, and he took his job very seriously. He was a formal kind of pig, not the kind to go around with his bow tie crooked.

  “Come at once,” Chives said, breathing hard. “Madame Dots is on a dangerous course of action, and she won’t take no for an answer.”

  “Okay, but there’s a kid outside following us,” I told Chives.

  Quickly, he opened the door a crack and looked out.

  “I’ve seen that boy many times,” he said, frowning. “He’s a scoundrel and a bully. Like all bullies, he’s a coward. He’ll get frightened and run away.”

  “Why would he run away?”

  “All the kids in the neighborhood are scared of Viola Dots,” Luna explained. “They think she’s a crazy old witch.”

  “Chives!” Viola’s shrill voice drifted in from the living room. “What’s taking so long? I need you! My bustle won’t snap!”

  “What’s a bustle?” Luna asked.

  “You’ll see soon enough,” Chives answered.

  He headed quickly into the living room, and we followed.

  “Don’t just stand there like statues!” Viola barked without looking up. “Come in.”

  She was bent over and fiddling with something under her dress. I could see her legs, which were as white as cotton. My eyes decided to look away. Luckily, they found their way to the painting in the golden frame.

  It was the same painting Chives and I had put there the week before. It showed a park by a river. People dressed in old-fashioned fancy clothes were strolling and relaxing. There were kids and dogs and sailboats, and even a monkey. I’m not much of an art person, but even I could tell it was a special painting.

  “That painting is called A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” Chives whispered. “That’s in Paris, you know. Quite the masterpiece. The original was painted by Georges Seurat in 1884.”

  “This is no time for an art lesson, Chives,” Viola snarled. “The clock is ticking. We have precisely two minutes before it strikes four.”

  It hit me that Viola was dressed just like the woman in the painting. She was wearing a fancy, old-fashioned gray dress that stuck way out in back. On her head was a black hat covered in red flowers. She even had an umbrella.

  “I’m ready,” she said, adjusting the back of her dress.

  “You’re not going with us, are you?” I asked her. I know that was a rude thing to say, but I couldn’t help it. Having Viola along would ruin the fun.

  “Indeed I am,” she said. “I finally got this bustle on, no thanks to my pig butler.”

  So that’s what a bustle was. A pillow kind of thing that you put under your dress to make your butt stick out.

  “Wow, you look amazing, Mrs. Dots,” Luna said, running up to her. “I love your clothes. Can I borrow some of this stuff for dress up?”

  “Certainly not!” Viola gave one final tug to her rump pillow.

  “Mrs. Dots, no offense, but why do you want your butt to look big?” I asked.

  “Tsk,” Chives said. “Mind your manners, Master Tiger. That’s not a question one asks a lady.”

  “It’s quite rude,” Viola agreed, “but it’s an intelligent question. I always answer intelligent questions. Look at the painting carefully, young man. You’ll notice that many of the ladies are wearing bustles. It was the fashion back then.”

  I studied the picture. It was true, especially for the tall woman in front. Her butt was the size of a small planet. My eyes drifted down to the clock on the bottom of the frame.

  Oh no.

  I checked my Batman watch, just to be sure. It said 3:59. This was no time to be standing around talking about rear ends.

  “We have to get ready!” I cried. “It’s almost here—the hour of power!”

  It was approaching fast—the hour when the painting in the fantastic frame would swallow us up into its world, with only an hour to get home again.

  Viola hurried to the painting and stood directly in front of it. “I’m going to go in with you children,” she declared.

  “Madame, it’s too dangerous,” Chives said. “Remember your advanced age.”

  “Nonsense, Chives! David is lost inside that frame. He’s spent years drifting from painting to painting. He is my only son. I must bring him home.”

  “I understand how you feel, Mrs. Dots,” Luna said. “But we promised you last week that we would help you find David. And we will.”

  “We’re strong,” I said. “We can travel into the painting. Please don’t risk your life.”

  “Let me remind you children that you saw David last week in the jungle painting,” Viola said, “yet you failed to bring him back. So now I must try. I’m going with you to convince David to come home.”

  As Viola spoke, I heard a loud ticktock and saw the big hand on the clock strike twelve. It was four o’clock exactly. The hour of power was about to begin. Would the room suddenly start to shake? Would I be knocked off my feet and swept away? I wasn’t sure. My heart raced as I waited for something big to happen.

  Immediately, I noticed faraway sounds drifting into the
room. First came the sound of water, maybe a river lapping at the shores. Splish, splash, splish, splash. Then came a dog barking. Arf, arf, arf. I heard laughter, followed by the pitter-patter of footsteps on a soft surface.

  Nothing sounded normal. It was as if the sounds were trying to squeeze into the giant living room through a very small hole.

  “This is it!” Viola said. “The hour of power.”

  With a wild look in her eye, she grabbed both of Luna’s hands and pulled her toward the painting.

  “Here we come, David!” she cried.

  We heard a rip, like paper being torn in two. Then I saw it: a small hole in the bottom of the painting, right next to the black dog. The barking grew louder. ARF, ARF, ARF! The water lapped closer and closer. SPLISH, SPLASH. SPLISH, SPLASH. The footsteps echoed in my ears. A woman laughed loudly.

  I felt myself being tugged toward the golden frame, as if some invisible force was pulling me into the painting. Luna was next to me, with Viola’s hands still clutching hers tightly.

  “Let go of her hands, Luna!” I cried. “She shouldn’t come with us.”

  “I can’t,” Luna called back. “She’s too strong.”

  Nothing could be done to stop us. It was happening. The painting was opening up.

  “I can feel it!” Viola screamed. “The painting is pulling me in!”

  She was right. Within seconds, the three of us were nose to nose with the painting, staring at the French people parading around the island in their fancy clothes.

  Up close, I noticed that all the people in the painting were made of small dots of color. In fact, everything in the scene was made of dots. Nothing was solid. The people, the boats, the trees, and the animals were all made with tiny spots of paint, blurring together to make one big picture.

  The hole in the painting grew wider and wider. Luna was the first to get pulled in. I saw her head disappear into the opening. Viola Dots never let go of Luna’s hands. Her head and her shoulders followed Luna into the painting. From inside, I heard her scream with terror and joy.