Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
About the Authors
GROSSET & DUNLAP
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Text copyright © 2009 by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver Productions, Inc. Illustrations copyright © 2009 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. S.A.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009010173
eISBN : 978-1-101-14946-1
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For Stacey with love.—H.W.
For Jan Platt . . . my generous, brave
and darling friend.—L.O.
CHAPTER 1
“I’m not moving! And neither are my underpants, so put them right back in the drawer where they belong, Mom. Please!”
My parents were in my room, moving all my stuff around like I wasn’t even there. They had already emptied out the drawer with my Mets sweatshirt collection and were cramming perfectly good Mets gear into the drawer with my boxer shorts, which were already squeezed in next to my pajamas. Can you believe that?
“Hank,” my mom answered without even looking up. “We’re not asking you to move. We’re just asking you to move over.”
“The baby is due very soon, Hank,” my dad chimed in. “And he has to sleep somewhere. It’s perfectly obvious that we only have a three bedroom apartment.”
“Fine,” I said. “Then let the little ankle-biter sleep in Emily’s room. Or better yet, why don’t we move Emily out, all the way to Aunt Maxine’s on Long Island? Then the baby will have his own room, and he’ll be the happiest little guy in New York. Or if that doesn’t work, I’m sure Katherine will be happy to make room for him in her glass cage.”
“It makes much more sense for you two brothers to share a room and let Emily have her own room,” my dad said.
“Maybe that makes sense to you, Dad, but not to me.”
“Hank, honey. I can hear you’re upset.” My mom tousled my hair like she always does, but this time it didn’t help at all. “You’re going to be the big brother. Just think, the new baby is going to look up to you and admire you and learn so many things from you.”
My mom had been saying that line for the past six months, and I stopped believing it four and a half months ago. I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten a new baby in your house, but if you have, then you know parents will say almost anything to convince you that its arrival is going to be the greatest thing since the invention of video games. But we big brothers and sisters know better, don’t we?
I immediately went to my desk and opened the bottom drawer on the left. I think it was the left. If it wasn’t the left, then it was definitely the right. It had to be one of the two. Anyway, I reached in, moved my baseball glove aside, lifted my New York Rangers signed hockey puck off my collection of slightly dented ping-pong balls, and finally found what I was looking for. It was the pink, rubberized nose clip I used when I was learning to do backflips in my diving class at the pool at the Y. I put it on my nose, and turned around to face my parents.
“What is the purpose of that?” my dad asked in a very irritated voice, which unfortunately for me, is not an unusual voice for him.
“Let’s be honest, folks,” I answered, sounding like I had the worst stuffy nose in the entire history of colds and the flu. “The main thing this baby is going to do in my room is stink it up. I’ve been around diapers a time or two, and they don’t exactly smell like perfume.”
“Stop being ridiculous and take that nose clip off,” my dad said. Stanley Zipzer is not big on humor, nose clip related or otherwise. “We have a lot to accomplish here, Hank.”
“Please try to understand how I’m feeling, Dad,” I reasoned. “Having a new baby was not exactly my idea. No one asked my opinion.”
“Hank, honey,” my mom began, but I wasn’t done yet. I opened my mouth and more words came pouring out.
“Listen, Mom. It’s not fair. I’m the one who has to move all my stuff and cut my room in half. And for what? I’ve never even met this kid. How do I know I’m going to like him?”
“Everybody loves their brothers and sisters,” my mom said.
“Oh, really? Have they met Emily, lizard girl from Mars?”
“I don’t like your attitude, Hank.” My dad was getting really annoyed. “This is getting downright silly. The baby is moving in with you, and that’s final.”
“Stanley,” my mom said to him. “Could Hank and I have a minute together? Just the two of us?”
“Sure,” my dad answered. “I can get back to my crossword puzzle. I only need three more downs and two acrosses.”
Checking to see that he had his mechanical pencil tucked snuggly behind his ear, he made a beeline for his swivel recliner chair in the living room, where he spends many happy hours filling in such exciting clues as a seven-letter synonym for toenail clippings.
My mom patted the bed. “Come sit next to me, honey. I think we need to have a talk.”
Uh-oh. Here it comes, Hank. She’s going to talk about feelings, and you know what that means. Tears. Or at least wet eyes . . . hers. Happens every time.
“Are you feeling worried about the new baby?” she asked, sounding like she was going to cry already, and we hadn’t even started talking.
“What I’m feelin
g worried about, Mom, is that I’m going to wind up living in the basement . . . or at least, visiting most of my stuff there.”
“Adding a new member to our family will bring us all closer together, honey, even if it means making a few small sacrifices.”
“So my small sacrifices are losing half my room, and never seeing you and Dad again because you’re going to be busy feeding and burping and changing and pinching and cooing and . . .”
“I see where this is going, Hank,” she said, taking my hand in hers. “You’re concerned that you won’t have as much time with us, that we’ll be distracted by the baby. I understand your fears. And I have a promise and a suggestion. Which do you want to start with?”
“Let’s go with the promise. It sounds promising.”
Despite the serious tone going on in the room, I took a moment to crack myself up. I do enjoy the old Zipzer attitude, even under pressure.
“Well,” my mom said when I had finished laughing. “I promise you that even after the baby comes, I will . . . let me rephrase that . . . we will be there for you no matter what, for whatever you need.”
I have to admit, that did feel pretty good. I wasn’t positive she could keep that promise, but my mom was starting to get wet from her tears, so I thought I better move right along to the suggestion. I just nodded my head like I was agreeing.
“Now for the suggestion part,” my mom said. “How about if Dad takes you on a special trip for a few days?”
“Like now?”
“Like this weekend.”
“Wow, Mom. That sounds cool. Wait a minute. Will my room be here when I get back?”
“Of course. If you guys go away, it will give me time to get ready for the baby. But more important, it will give you, your Dad, and your sister some special time together before the baby comes.”
Wait another minute. Did she slip in the sister word? When did Emily get a ticket for this trip?
“Why do we have to take her?” I complained. “Emily doesn’t need as much special time as I do.”
“And why is that, honey?”
“Because she’s happy spending time with just herself and her lizard pal. I’d be surprised if she even notices the new baby, unless he has 188 sharp teeth and scales.”
“The baby is going to change everybody’s lives, Hank,” my mom said with a smile. “Even Emily’s. But one thing is for sure, we’ll all be the better for it.”
I wasn’t so sure of that. But I decided not to argue with her about it. I mean, she was really, really pregnant and everything.
Besides, I was getting a cool weekend trip out of it. Worse things could happen.
CHAPTER 2
Five minutes after my mom left my room, my dad came in and handed me a piece of lined, yellow notebook paper.
“Your mom told me about the trip,” he said, “so I made you a list.”
I snatched the paper from his hand, thinking he had made a list of all the cool destinations we could choose for our trip. This was going to be fun to read.
What was I thinking? Stanley Zipzer does not make fun lists.
What it turned out to be was a list of warm clothing, like my long underwear and my parka. I guess he could see I was kind of disappointed.
“It’s a packing list,” my dad said. “You know. Of things you should pack.”
“Dad, not that this isn’t a great list or anything, and I really like your penmanship, but where am I wearing this stuff?”
“No questions allowed,” my dad said. “It’s a surprise.”
“Just tell me, Dad. Is it a cool place?”
“Extremely, Hank.”
Wow. My mind immediately went into overdrive. What kind of trip could my father have in mind? Remember, he didn’t think it was just a regular cool place but an extremely cool place. To find out, we’d have to venture inside Stanley Zipzer’s head. Come with me now and I’ll take you there. I know it sounds scary, but don’t worry. I’m going to stay with you for the entire tour.
TEN PLACES STANELY ZIPZER’S BRAIN
THINKS WOULD MAKE A COOL TRIP
1. A visit inside the world’s largest mechanical pencil to see how it works. (Wow, that would be really dangerous. I mean, we could be rubbed out by the world’s largest eraser.)
2. A field trip to visit the “Dad’s School of Boring Lectures About Why Homework Should be Done Neatly and for At Least Twenty-Seven Hours a Day.” (Holy macaroni, rash bumps are sprouting all over my upper arm just thinking about it.)
3. A spa just for dads where the only thing they do all day is fall asleep in a recliner in front of the television while scratching their butts and snoring. (Count me out on that one. All I have to do is hike into the living room and I’m on that trip.)
4. A crossword puzzle convention where you do nothing but work on crossword puzzles and eat pretzels that are shaped like all twenty-six letters of the alphabet. (With my reading problems, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the B pretzels and the D pretzels because I get them so confused.)
I don’t know about you, but I’m not having a whole lot of fun here inside Stanley Zipzer’s brain, so please follow me to the nearest exit and don’t touch any of the furniture. (Phew! I’m glad to be out of there. I’m used to my brain, which is pretty disorganized and scattered, but at least I have fun in there!)
CHAPTER 3
I took my dad’s list and walked into Emily’s room. She was on the floor playing with her iguana, Katherine. And by playing, I mean she was teaching that scaly lizard to peel an orange.
“I hate to interrupt your girly snack time,” I said.
“This is not snack time, Hank.” Even though she was sitting down, Emily’s voice sounded like she was standing over me with her hands on her hips, tapping her foot impatiently. That’s the voice she saves just for me.
“If you had any sense,” she went on, “you’d realize that this is emergency training. In case a volcano erupts and I’m stuck at school, I want Katherine to be able to create her own balanced meals.”
I was about to tell her that the last time a volcano erupted in New York was never, but then I came to my senses and thought: No, Hank, don’t even begin this conversation because it’s going to lead you into Emilyville, which is an even scarier place to hang out than Stanley Zipzer’s brain.
So I got right down to business and waved Dad’s list under Emily’s nose.
“Did you get one of these?” I asked her.
“Of course I did. I’m going on the trip, too, you know. And so is Cheerio.”
“Cheerio is going? You’re kidding me.”
“Hank, I don’t kid.”
As if I didn’t know that. If there’s one thing my sister Emily isn’t, it’s funny.
“Well, I’m glad Cheerio’s coming,” I said to her. “It’s you I’m not so glad about.”
“This trip is for us Zipzer kids,” Emily said. “It’s not just special Hank time.”
“Ease up on the attitude, Em. All I was doing was coming in here to ask if you got the list.”
“Yes, Hank, I did. And I’m already packed.”
“Of course you are. You were born packed.”
“Packing is simply a matter of organizing your thoughts, Hank. I think it’s time you learned to do that.”
My sister Emily is the total opposite of me. I try to be organized and she is. I try to spell and she can. I try to remember where I put my backpack and she does. I think you get the picture. I’m learning challenged and she’s not, which is something she likes to bring up at least fifteen times a day.
I try to be like Emily, all organized and efficient and stuff. But I just can’t pull it off. I wish I could be like her. I want to be like her. Dr. Berger, the school psychologist, has explained to me that my brain is just wired differently. I’ve come to accept that fact. I mean, I have no choice . . . unless I could go in there with a special brain screwdriver and re-wire it. Ouch, I don’t like that thought.
“So, I suppose you�
��re here to ask me to help you pack?” Emily asked.
“No,” I snapped back. “I came in here to ask if you know where we’re going.”
“I don’t, except that Dad said it was someplace extremely cool. So I’m hoping maybe it’s to the regional meeting of the Association for the Protection of Iguanas and Bearded Dragons.”
Remember those left arm bumps from Stanley Zipzer’s brain? They’re back, but this time they’re behind my knees. Call me crazy, but that’s just the way Bearded Dragon conventions affect me.
As for me, I left the room.
But the truth is, I still needed help packing. Maybe for some of you, putting a bunch of stuff in a suitcase is easy, especially if you have a list. But for me, getting more than four items in and still being able to zip up the suitcase is downright hard. And one of those four items is not even my toothbrush.
Once our whole family went on a road trip down south for my dad to compete against the best crossword puzzlers in America. For the entire trip, I had to brush my teeth with my finger because I couldn’t fit my toothbrush into my suitcase. Actually, brushing your teeth with your finger is kind of fun because you get to hear that clean squeak when your finger rubs against your front teeth. (My dentist, Dr. Crumbworthy is not a fan of the technique. He loves the combo of bristles and floss.)
Anyway, I still had the packing problem to deal with. To solve it, I called Frankie Townsend, my best friend, and Ashley Wong, my other best friend. I ask you . . . if your best friends can’t help you pack, who can?
They were in the apartment almost before I hung up the phone. I’m really lucky to have two good friends who are always there to help me out. We went directly into my room.
I dragged down my sports equipment bag from the top shelf of my closet. It was full of stuff left over from who knows when. As I dumped it all on the floor, the baseball that I used when Papa Pete taught me how to pitch rolled out of the bag. Wow, that sucker had been missing for over a year.
Ashley got me organized right away. She is an excellent organizer. She assigned each of us a job. Frankie was to read the list. I was to get the items out that needed to be packed. And Ashley would put them into the suitcase.
Dump Trucks and Dogsleds: I'm on My Way, Mom! Page 1