My Dog's a Scaredy-Cat Read online

  “For your information, time management and I happen to be very good friends,” I shot back at her. “I can manage my time any time I want to.”

  “Oh really? Is that why just today we got another note from Ms. Adolf saying you were missing homework assignments?”

  Emily, Emily, Emily! Why do you have a mouth if all you’re going to use it for is to rat me out to Mom and Dad?

  I was hoping no one had noticed that note. I had left it on the table in the entry hall but slid most of it under the flower vase my mom keeps there.

  Thanks, Emily, for pointing it out to everyone. Miss Rat Mouth strikes again!

  “At least I don’t choose to spend my time making pus pockets,” I answered. I had to get tough with her if she was going to bring up Ms. Adolf in front of my dad. “And speaking of pus pockets—Robert, it’s always good to see you.”

  I turned, stomped off into my room, and slammed the door.

  About one-third of a second later, the door to my room blasted open. I think you can probably guess who was standing there.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said, without looking up.

  “We’re not finished, Hank,” he said.

  “I know. I know. Homework first. Costume later.”

  “You’ll thank me for this one day,” my dad said.

  I’ve learned something in my almost eleven years as Hank Zipzer. When a grown-up tells you that you’ll thank them one day for this, it means you are about to have to do something you really, really hate. I pulled my math workbook from my backpack and wondered when the day would actually come that I’d be thanking my dad for making me do long division. When I was ninety-two? Or sixty-six?

  One thing I knew for sure, it wasn’t going to be tonight.

  CHAPTER 3

  I DID MY HOMEWORK in record time. I’m not going to say much more about it, because we all know that doing homework was invented by King Boring of Boringville, which is found just on the outskirts of I-Can’t-Find-the-Answers-in-My-Brainville. I’ll bet you’ve visited there yourself.

  But since I know you’re probably curious, though, I’ll give you a few of my tips on how I manage to finish homework in record time.

  HANK ZIPZER’S TOP-TEN TIPS FOR GETTING YOUR HOMEWORK DONE REALLY, REALLY FAST

  1. If it’s math homework, skip the odd problems and only do the even ones. Tell your teacher that you’re allergic to odd problems and when you do them your scalp itches like crazy.

  2. If they’re short-answer questions, take the directions seriously and give short answers. As in one word.

  3. If they’re multiple-choice questions, don’t stress yourself out worrying about which answer is right. Take your best shot and move on.

  4. If you have to write a paragraph, remember that there’s no law that says it has to make sense.

  5. If you have to write an essay, well, sorry, but there’s no quick way around that. Once, I told Ms. Adolf that I couldn’t write the essay because I had so many ideas for it, I couldn’t decide which one to write. (She didn’t buy it, but, hey, that doesn’t mean it won’t work for you.)

  6. About extra credit problems . . . leave those to the brainiacs like Heather Payne. You don’t know her yet, but you’ll read all about her in Chapter 16.

  7. See number 10.

  8. See number 10.

  9. See number 10.

  10. There’s nothing wrong with skipping a few questions. See numbers 7 to 9 as examples.

  CHAPTER 4

  WITH THE HELP OF HANK’S TOP-TEN TIPS, I finished my homework and got to the good stuff—my costume. My mom was a champ and helped me cut up her red-and-white checkered tablecloth. While we were cutting the tabletop out of cardboard, she made one of her famous Randi Zipzer suggestions.

  “Hank, sweetie,” she said, eyeing the glass of breadsticks I was planning to put on the tabletop. “Those white-flour breadsticks are so not body friendly. Let me give you some whole grain, flaxseed-infused, toasted crisps instead.”

  My mom never gives up trying to change the world, one healthy food at a time. She believes in health food like I believe in the Mets. All the way. Do or die. Till the very end. Like last week in our deli, the Crunchy Pickle, she introduced liverwurst made from broccoli instead of liver. Personally, I wouldn’t eat liverwurst no matter what it’s made from. But let me warn you—if you ever find yourself inside the door of the Crunchy Pickle, I suggest you run as fast as you can away from the brocci-wurst. The smell of it has been known to separate a human nose from its face. In fact, the alley in back of our deli is filled with separated noses bouncing around on their tips.

  That night, I was completely involved in making my costume. I didn’t even take a five-minute break for cereal and milk, one of my favorite nighttime snacks.

  And my mom got really involved in making a costume for Cheerio. Emily and Robert had decided that they wanted him to be a tonsil so they could surround him in their flu-germ costumes. They thought that if he growled at them, it would show how tonsils do battle with flu germs. After I pointed out that no kid in his or her right mind even knows what a tonsil looks like, my mom made a little hat for Cheerio out of cardboard that said “I Am a Tonsil.” When she tried to put it on him, Cheerio ran away and hid under my bed. He’s a smart dog, Cheerio is.

  He’s not going to be anyone’s tonsil.

  When I finally finished my costume, it was way past my bedtime. My dad, who doubles as the Bedtime Police in our house, had fallen asleep in his chair doing a crossword puzzle. He was probably dreaming of a four-letter word for a web-footed bird related to the goose family.

  I’m tempted to describe to you every detail of how I made my costume. But instead, I’m going to let you be surprised at what it looked like.

  Sorry, guys. You’re just going to have to read the next chapter.

  CHAPTER 5

  WHEN I WALKED INTO SCHOOL the next morning, I could feel the buzz in the halls. Everyone was excited about the Halloween parade. It was scheduled for lunch period, to give us all time to eat quickly and change into our Halloween costumes. Then at exactly twelve twenty-five, we were all to line up in the school yard and march around in a circle. The little kids’ parents were invited to come and watch, and a lot of the neighborhood people looked in through the chain-link fence. It was a chance to strut around in your costume and feel proud of being a student at PS 87.

  Everyone in my class was talking before the bell rang.

  “I got the grossest costume,” Nick McKelty bragged, as usual.

  “Mine is grosser,” said Luke Whitman, the king of gross. I’d bet on Luke.

  “We’re twin princesses,” said Katie Sperling and Kim Paulson.

  “That is so lame,” McKelty said, laughing at them.

  That McKelty, he really knows how to charm the girls.

  We could hardly stop talking, even when Ms. Adolf called the class to order.

  The fun-loving Ms. Adolf came to school in a witch’s costume—which, by the way, turned out not to be a costume. It was her everyday outfit. She looks more like a witch than anyone you’ve ever met. I think she is really a witch. At least the part of her that hands out grades and homework. I know that for sure.

  Ms. Adolf did try to get into the Halloween spirit a little bit. Don’t get me wrong. She didn’t really throw herself into it like Mr. Sicilian, the fourth-grade teacher, who dressed up like a hockey player and skated into class on Rollerblades. Nothing that cool for old Ms. Adolf. After the bell rang, she went to her top drawer and took out a big, warty rubber nose that looked like a tree branch. She strapped it to her face just before she rapped on her desk with a ruler and made her festive Halloween announcement.

  “Pupils,” she began, sounding like a person whose nose was covered in green rubber, “in honor of the Halloween parade, I have designed a special morning activity.”

  Wow. For a tiny moment, I had hope that there was going to be candy in our fifth-grade class. I closed my eyes and saw bags of Skittles and Kit Kats and Baby Ruth
s and sour apple gummy bears. My mouth started to water before I could stop it.

  “This morning, we will enjoy a Halloween spelling adventure,” Ms. Adolf went on. “The words on our spelling quiz will all be related to the holiday—such as ghostly, broomstick, vampire, and, yes, cauldron.”

  My mouth dried up as quickly as you can say cauldron. Visions of green gummy bears were replaced by visions of red pencil marks all over my spelling test—with a big red 39 percent at the top of the page.

  Oh, Ms. Adolf, were you born without a fun gene, or is this something you work at?

  My hand shot up into the air.

  “Ms. Adolf, when will we be able to change into our costumes for the Halloween parade?” I asked.

  “Henry, how can you think of a parade when you have the opportunity to participate in a spellfest?” she asked, burning her batlike eyes into my forehead.

  “It’s easy, Ms. Adolf,” I answered. “Because one is fun and the other is torture. Torture—a Halloween word, by the way.”

  The class started to laugh—even Heather Payne, who doesn’t laugh out loud until Ms. Adolf laughs first, which is never.

  “Zipperbutt’s just mad because he can’t spell!” shouted Nick McKelty.

  “I can spell the word jerk,” I said to McKelty.

  “Oh yeah? Let’s hear it,” he said, sticking his huge beefy face in front of mine.

  “N-I-C-K,” I said.

  Everyone in the class laughed and clapped at the same time. The one thing you can say about Nick McKelty is that he’s not the most popular guy in the fifth grade. I guess nobody likes a bully. In fact, his only real friend is his girlfriend, Joelle Atkins, who mostly talks to him on her cell phone so she doesn’t have to look at his squiggly teeth all filled with cookie crumbs and wadded-up string cheese.

  Ms. Adolf doesn’t like it when we laugh in class. She clapped her hands together, stomped one of her gray shoes that she wears to go with her all-gray witch clothes, and shouted, “Pupils, control yourselves!”

  When we didn’t stop laughing right away, she got a big red blotch on her neck. That happens when she gets angry. I stared at it. I thought this one was shaped like a pumpkin, but maybe I was just in a Halloween mood.

  “Henry,” Ms. Adolf said, “are you looking for a visit with Principal Love?”

  “He is a very nice human being, and I always enjoy visiting his office, but if it’s okay with you, I think I’ll pass on the invitation,” I said. “Thanks, anyway.”

  Now the class really howled.

  “Zip, she’s going to destroy you,” Frankie whispered from his desk across the aisle. “Knock it off.”

  It’s a funny thing about when I make the class laugh. It makes me feel good, because I’m giving the kids a chuckle and, believe me, there aren’t that many chuckles in a day spent with Ms. Adolf. On the other hand, I know that those chuckles will lead me directly into detention or the principal’s office or worse yet: extra homework.

  “Henry, tonight you’re going to write a paragraph on the usefulness of raising your hand before speaking,” Ms. Adolf said. “Have it on my desk first thing tomorrow morning.”

  AmIamind reader, or what?

  “But, Ms. Adolf, tonight is Halloween,” I protested. “And there is candy in every apartment of our building, just waiting for me to get it and eat it!”

  “Sugar makes the brain soggy,” she said.

  Frankie shot me the look that said “Shut Up Now.” I took his advice. I was about to answer her but stopped myself.

  Ms. Adolf walked up and down the aisles, handing a piece of paper to each of us. The thought of a spelling quiz settled me down right away. For me, nothing takes the fun out of a day like a spelling quiz.

  “Pencils up. Eyes on your own paper,” Ms. Adolf said. And the fun-filled Halloween spelling quiz was underway.

  It seemed like forever until lunch, but it finally came. After we ate, we were allowed to go to the bathroom to change into our costumes.

  I hurried ahead of Frankie so I could grab the first stall and lock the door. I didn’t want anyone to see my costume before it was completely ready. I don’t know much about parades, but I know that you’ve got to make a big entrance if you want to grab the spotlight. I was prepared for that.

  From inside the stall, I could hear the other boys getting ready. They were talking in really excited voices.

  “Can you pass me that bottle of fake blood?” Ryan Shimozato said.

  “That scar is disgusto. Very cool,” his buddy Hector said.

  “Hey, what’d you use for those guts?” Luke Whitman wanted to know.

  How typical. You think Halloween, and you go right to the usual—blood, guts, gore, eyeballs, mummies.

  Not you, Hank. You are a creative thinker.

  As I swung the tablecloth over my head and loaded the breadsticks into the glass in my hand, I felt really good.

  Hank Zipzer, you’ve done it again. Original has got to be your middle name.

  CHAPTER 6

  WHOOPS.

  I’d like to apply to officially change my middle name from Original to WHAT WAS I THINKING?????

  CHAPTER 7

  IT STARTED WHEN I made my entrance. Everyone else was already lined up in the school yard. I came down the stairs alone, feeling great.

  But the one thing I hadn’t taken into account when I built my costume was the size of the door to the yard in relation to the size of my tabletop. Let me just sum it up this way. The door was smaller than I would have hoped for. Much smaller. The fact is, I couldn’t fit through it.

  I tried it frontways. No go. I tried it sideways. No go. Finally, I had to slant the tabletop practically straight up and down so I could fit through the door. I turned sideways, held my breath, and squeezed through. But even then, I slammed into the door on the way out and knocked off the left part of the tabletop. Or maybe it was the right part. I can never tell.

  And in this stressful situation, it was impossible. Anyway, whichever side it was, it was hanging down like a bird with a broken wing.

  “Hi, Hank,” said Mason, who was dressed up as a pirate. He’s my little pal from kindergarten. “Is that a cape you’re wearing?”

  “I’m a little busy right now, matey,” I said. “Can we talk later?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I like your cape. But it smells weird.”

  At first, I couldn’t figure out what he meant. Then it hit me. The smell, I mean. As I was trying to squeeze through the door, I had knocked over the bottle of garlic-scented olive oil that was taped onto the tabletop. The olive oil had spilled all over the place. I could now feel it seeping into my T-shirt and running down my arm.

  You know how they say garlic is supposed to keep vampires away? Well, let me tell you, it also works on second-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders. As I walked to the yard, everyone backed away.

  And about the breadsticks. Just as I joined the line of kids in the parade, I bent down to scratch my ankle, and the breadsticks slipped right out of the plastic glass that was taped to the other side of the table.

  Crunch! I stepped on them, at which point they were transformed from breadsticks into bread crumbs. I tried to scrape them up from the asphalt and put them back in the glass. I couldn’t get most of them, but the few I did get looked like ground-up grayish crumbs at the bottom of the glass. Even I have to admit, they lost a little of their Italian appeal.

  “Check out Zipperbutt!” Nick McKelty was the first to yell. “What are you supposed to be, creep?”

  McKelty was decked out in gruesome, top to bottom. He had a bleeding eye pasted to his forehead. He had a bleeding scar pasted to his cheek. He had bleeding bandages wrapped around his arm. He had bleeding knees, bleeding elbows, bleeding toes, bleeding guts. He was, as I had always thought of him, an open, disgusting sore.

  “Unlike yourself,” I said, “I have used my creativity to come up with an original, if smelly, costume.”

  “You stink like a garbage Dumpster,” he said
.

  “For your information, I am a dining table in a great Italian restaurant.”

  “What’s that got to do with Halloween?” the Great Brain asked.

  “I think Hank had a very clever idea,” Ashley spoke up. She was dressed in a dolphin costume, which she had covered with turquoise, gray, and white rhinestones. She waved one of her fins at me and whispered, “If you walk around a little, the air might tone down some of the smell.”

  “An Italian restaurant!” McKelty shouted. I guess the idea had finally seeped through his thick skull into his brain. “That is so lame. Only a kindergartner would think that’s funny.”

  “I’m a kindergartner,” Mason said. “And I don’t think it’s funny.”

  “See that! Not even a dumb five-year-old thinks it’s funny,” McKelty hooted.

  “You’re very mean,” Mason said to McKelty, and ran back to where the kindergartners were gathered.

  “Good riddance,” McKelty hollered after him. Then he turned back to me. “Check me out, Zipperhead. My Halloween costume is cool. Blood and guts. That’s where it’s at.”

  “I think Nick’s costume is the greatest,” Joelle Atkins chimed in. You have to think everything Nick does is the greatest if you want to be his girlfriend, which I can’t imagine anyone but Joelle ever wanting to be.

  “Of course you do,” I said to her. “He’s bleeding everywhere and you’re dressed as a Band-Aid.”

  “I am not a Band-Aid,” she said. “I am a cell phone. Can’t you see the numbers written on my back?”

  Joelle is totally in love with her cell phone. She walks around with it strapped to her wrist at all times, which is weird, because no one ever calls her. I guess she’s hoping someone will. It didn’t surprise me that her costume was a cell phone. She turned around and sure enough, there was a cell-phone number pad constructed on her back.

  “I bet if you dialed her number, there’d be nobody home,” Frankie whispered to me.