My Dog's a Scaredy-Cat Read online

  I didn’t even have time to laugh, because just then I heard Emily calling me from across in the school yard. I looked around and saw her on the handball court where the fourth-graders were lining up. She and Robert were leading the pack in their flu-germ costumes. They both waved at me, looking really proud of themselves. Geeky as they were, you have to give them credit for bravery and originality. There wasn’t another flu germ on the playground, except maybe the real ones living in Luke Whitman’s nose.

  Suddenly, Emily and Robert bolted out of line and ran up to the little stage that had been set up with a microphone for Principal Love.

  “Hi, everyone,” Emily yelled into the microphone. “We’re flu germs.”

  “Don’t come too close,” Robert added, “or you’ll catch us! Get it? Catch us!”

  Then he snorted his geeky hippo laugh into the microphone. The microphone made it sound way geekier than it is in real life, if that’s possible.

  “You two are disgusting!” McKelty shouted out. “You make me sick. Get it? Flu germs make me sick!”

  A bunch of kids laughed. Emily looked really hurt, and poor Robert just looked confused. I felt red-hot anger rise up from the bottom of my tablecloth all the way past my butt chair and into my head. Who did that McKelty think he was? I mean, it’s one thing if he wanted to embarrass me in front of everyone. But only a total bully would pick on Emily and Robert.

  I spun around and started over to him. I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. But I was stopped dead in my tracks by Frankie.

  “Ow!” he said. “Watch it, Zip.”

  My tabletop had butted him right in the head and gotten caught in the face mask of his football helmet. He was going as Tiki Barber, his favorite player on the New York Giants. But in the war between my tabletop and his football helmet, the helmet won. As he disconnected his face mask from the cardboard, a chunk of my table collapsed under me. I watched helplessly as the plastic bottle with the candle slid down the tabletop and onto the playground. Ryan Shimozato came running by and stepped on it. I heard it crunch beneath his foot.

  “Sorry, dude,” he said. “I didn’t mean to break your . . . uh . . . whatever this is.”

  At that moment, Principal Love stepped up to the microphone.

  “Attention, students. I now declare the PS 87 Halloween Day Parade officially open. As I always say, a parade is an occasion for parading.”

  Principal Love likes to say everything twice. I looked down at the smashed bottle and waited.

  “So join me now,” he went on, “as I lead you into the world of celebratory spirits and marauding goblins. Yes, a parade is an occasion for parading.”

  Bingo! There it was.

  He waved his banner, which was black with orange pumpkins on it. Then he leaned into the microphone and let out what he thought was a scary laugh. It turns out it was actually very scary, because it caused so much screeching feedback over the loudspeaker that a bunch of the kindergartners started to cry.

  Principal Love wasn’t even aware that he had frightened the little kids half to death. He just set off marching around the playground, waving the banner. A lot of kids lined up to follow him. Pretty soon, we were all marching in a circle, with the teachers and the parents of the little kids surrounding us and applauding as we marched.

  I had to pull myself together to try to march with confidence. True, I had gotten off to a bad start. The garlic-scented olive oil had spilled, the breadsticks had turned to dust, the candlestick was crunched, and my tabletop was definitely drooping. But I reminded myself that I was the only Italian table in the parade. So I put my shoulders back, held my chin up, and took off with confidence . . . until . . .

  . . . I marched past the kindergarten teachers, Mr. Zilke and Ms. Warner.

  “I wonder who’s eating garlic bread?” Mr. Zilke said.

  “Boy, that’s a strong smell,” Ms. Warner agreed. “Smells like someone took a bath in garlic cloves.”

  As I walked by, I saw them both hold their noses. That didn’t help my confidence any. Call me crazy, but I don’t like to think I stink so bad that people have to hold their noses around me.

  I noticed that many of the neighbors who were looking through the chain-link fence were pointing at me and laughing. And not necessarily in a good way.

  Why hadn’t I listened to Frankie and Ashley? They had tried to warn me that this wouldn’t work out. Sometimes I really hate my brain for not being able to listen when smart people are giving me good advice.

  Here’s a tip for you to remember next time you’re in a parade: You shouldn’t be thinking about other things while you’re marching, especially when you’re wearing a large, almost square tabletop.

  Boom!

  I hadn’t noticed that the line had stopped while I kept marching. The boom I’m referring to was me crashing into Principal Love’s balding head.

  “Oww!” he screamed as he dropped the school banner and fell face-first into the punch bowl that was waiting for everybody at the end of the parade. Without going into detail, let me just say that when he came up for air, he was shouting my name.

  “Mr. Zipzer!” he gargled. “Your costume is a menace!”

  “It’s stupid, too!” McKelty yelled.

  “And smelly,” Joelle added.

  “But it was a great idea,” I said.

  “Do us all a favor, Zipzer,” McKelty said. “Next time you get a bright idea, just remember, it’s probably really stupid like everything else you do.”

  For once, I had to admit that maybe McKelty was right.

  Halloween was all about gushing blood and gory guts.

  And me? Well, I was all about stinky olive oil and broken breadsticks.

  I looked over at McKelty, who was still laughing at me. And all I wanted was to disappear.

  CHAPTER 8

  NINE HALLOWEEN THINGS I SHOULD HAVE GONE AS

  1. A nine-foot-tall emperor penguin that looks friendly but when it wraps its wings around McKelty it would squeeze him like the slimy fish that he is.

  2. The ghoul from Zeon whose claws shoot out slime that would harden around McKelty and glue him to the playground where the kindergartners would use him as a jungle gym.

  3. A giant eyeball that squirts out eyeball gel, and when it lands on McKelty removes every hair from his head. Everyone would call him Eyeball Head for the rest of his life. (Come to think of it, that name is probably too nice for him.)

  4. A walking hand that is trained to pinch McKelty in the butt twenty-four/seven.

  5. A crazed bowling ball that would follow McKelty around and knock him down every three-and-a-half minutes. It would give new meaning to the word “strike.”

  6. A zombie that lives in McKelty’s closet and howls every time he opens it up. Wait a minute. The smell of McKelty’s old gym socks would probably drive that zombie out of there and back to Zombieland forever.

  7. Ms. Adolf in her all-gray outfit, who constantly gives McKelty a spelling test of really long words he’s never heard of before, like cornucopia or epiphany.

  8. I could keep going forever, but then I’d never get to tell you what happened next, so I’ll stop now. Okay, maybe just one more, because these feel so good I don’t really want to stop.

  9. A human vacuum cleaner that would suck McKelty up and put him in a bag filled with carpet dust and iguana droppings. (Oh, Hank Zipzer, you are on fire! It’s moments like these when I really love my brain.)

  CHAPTER 9

  IN CASE YOU COULDN’T TELL from that list, I was boiling mad at Nick McKelty. He had no right to make fun of my costume. He had no right to make fun of my sister. He had no right to make fun of me. And most of all, he had no right to call me stupid in front of the whole school and neighborhood.

  And I told all that to my grandpa, Papa Pete, as he walked me home from school that day. I’m really lucky to have a grandpa who understands when I’m mad and lets me spew it all out and doesn’t tell me to watch my language and not use angry words.
r />   “Who is he to make me feel like a jerk in front of everyone in the whole school?” I said to Papa Pete as we headed to Harvey’s, our favorite pizza stop at the corner of Broadway and 78th. “He’s just a big bully who thinks it’s cool to make fun of everyone else.”

  “That’s what bullies do,” Papa Pete said. “They attack first. And think later.”

  “Not in McKelty’s case,” I said. “He never thinks at all.”

  We crossed the street and walked by the West Side Bagel Shop and Wonder Nails Salon, which meant that we were only a couple of doors away from Harvey’s. I could feel my nose being attacked by the delicious smell of pizza pie, my favorite smell in the whole wide world.

  “Papa Pete, I would never think of making someone else feel so bad all the time.”

  “That’s because you have a good heart,” Papa Pete said. “And you care about other people’s feelings. Maybe your learning challenges have helped with that.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks, right in front of the glass door to Harvey’s. No one, and I mean no one, had ever even hinted that my learning challenges could be good for anything except frustrating me.

  “How would my learning challenges help me with anything?”

  “Well, Hankie,” Papa Pete said, smiling at me from below his furry mustache, “you are very well aware of how difficult things can be, and because you know that about yourself, it makes you sensitive to how other people are feeling. That’s a lesson you can’t learn in a book.”

  Papa Pete gave my shoulder a big squeeze with one hand, then opened the door to Harvey’s with the other one.

  I thought about what he’d said as I slid onto a stool and breathed in the wonderful smell of Parmesan, tomato, and pepperoni all sizzling in the oven. Papa Pete did have a point. Not to brag, but a lot of people tell me I’m a pretty nice guy. Frankie and Ashley always say that I’m a good friend. And my mom says that I have a kind streak as wide as the whole Atlantic Ocean.

  Wow. Maybe if I had been born with a perfect brain, I’d be cranky like Ms. Adolf. Or mean like Nick McKelty.

  I made a mental note to think about that more sometime when my stomach wasn’t screaming out for pizza.

  I did a three-sixty spin on the shiny silver stool—it’s part of my Harvey’s tradition before ordering my usual: a slice of pizza with mushrooms and extra cheese. But before I could even order, Harvey came up and brought me a really gooey slice loaded with mushrooms and extra cheese. The great thing about having a neighborhood pizza place is that they know what you want before you even say it.

  “Thanks, Harvey,” I said.

  “I’ll be right back with your Sprite,” he said to me. “And your coffee,” he said to Papa Pete, who had already helped himself to a crumb donut they keep on a cake plate on the counter.

  I took a bite of my pizza, but before I could even swallow it, I had an idea that was so powerful I had to blurt it out loud with my mouth full, even though this is not allowed in the Zipzer family.

  “I really want to scare Nick McKelty out of his socks,” I said, spitting a few crust crumbs out into the air in front of me.

  “Getting even, are you?” Papa Pete said.

  “I just want to prove to that guy that I’m not the wimp he thinks I am.”

  “Don’t you know that on your own?”

  “The only thing I know is that the guy made fun of me and of Emily, too. And the other kids laughed, so they must’ve agreed with him.”

  “Not necessarily. Maybe they just thought he was funny.”

  “Listen, Papa Pete,” I said, pulling a long string of cheese off my lower lip and popping it into my mouth. “McKelty thinks I’m a wimp, and I think I acted like one. That makes me feel bad.”

  Papa Pete took a sip of his coffee. He looked at me and nodded. Then he put his hand on my head and tousled my hair like he used to do when I was little. He doesn’t do that so much now that I put gel in my hair.

  “Feeling bad is not good,” he said. “Feeling good is good. Eating pizza is good. Bowling three strikes in a row is good. Having a fun Halloween is good.”

  “So far, this Halloween hasn’t been much fun,” I told Papa Pete.

  Papa Pete took a big bite of his crumb donut. He can polish off a donut in two bites. He chewed for a moment, took another sip of coffee to wash it down, and then turned to me.

  “Why don’t you build a haunted house?” he suggested. “The best Halloween I can remember was when your mother and her sister, your aunt Maxine, built a haunted house in the garage. The neighborhood kids came from blocks around to see it.”

  Papa Pete described how they put wet grapes in a bowl and told the kids they were eyeballs. I thought to myself, Hank, you could do that.

  He told me how they boiled spaghetti until it was mush and told the kids it was ghoul brains. I thought to myself, Hank, you could do that.

  When he described how they had their dog, Annie, howl into a tape recorder until she sounded like a ghost living in the subway tunnels of New York, I thought to myself, Hank, Cheerio could do that.

  My mind raced as my mouth chewed.

  Sure, we didn’t have a garage to use for a haunted house. But we had a living room and sheets we could use to make walls. And I could turn out all the living-room lights to make it dark and creepy. Wait! My parents even had that black light they used for a sixties party once that makes everything white glow in the dark.

  This was it! This was how I could turn the most awful Halloween ever into the most amazing Halloween of my life.

  All I had to do was put together the scariest, creepiest haunted house ever. Sure, it would be fun to invite a bunch of kids from my class. But I have to confess, I was thinking of fun second. I was thinking of revenge first!

  Wouldn’t it be great to invite one very special guest and scare him out of his mind?

  You guessed it.

  Nick “The Tick” McKelty.

  Hey, Nick. BOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  CHAPTER 10

  I MADE PAPA PETE RUN all the way home from Harvey’s with me, which is fine with him because he’s in great shape for a guy who’s sixty-nine years old. He is a champion Ping-Pong player, not to mention the best bowler on the Chopped Livers, his league team at McKelty’s Roll ’N Bowl. He even holds the all-time strike record for one night when he bowled four strikes in a row.

  “I’m going to need help building the haunted house,” I told Papa Pete as we pushed open the door to my apartment.

  “You don’t have much time,” Papa Pete said, checking his watch. “It’s almost four o’clock.”

  “I’ll put a sign on the front door that the haunted house opens at seven o’clock. That gives us four hours to put it together.”

  “Hankie, slow down for a minute and concentrate,” Papa Pete said. He held out his arm, pushed up the sleeve of his red running jacket, and pointed to his wristwatch.

  “Look at my watch. Here’s the four, and there’s the seven,” he said, pointing to the numbers. “Now tell me again. How many hours do you have to finish the haunted house?”

  I had to concentrate on slowing my brain down to look at the numbers on his watch. Seven take away four is . . .

  “Three,” I answered. “Right. We have three hours to finish. Thanks, Papa Pete. You know me and numbers. We’re not exactly best friends.”

  Papa Pete just smiled. He never makes me feel bad when I get things wrong. That’s one thing I love about him.

  Cheerio came running out of the bedroom to say hello to us. I could tell he had been asleep because he was still yawning as he trotted out.

  “Great news, boy,” I said, scratching him behind the ears. “We’re going to build a haunted house.”

  He flopped down in front of me and rolled over on his back to get his tummy scratched. He felt all warm, like he always does when he’s been asleep.

  “That may not be such great news for Cheerio,” Papa Pete said. “Dogs don’t really understand about Halloween. The haunted house could s
care him.”

  “Not my Cheerio,” I said, giving him the special Double-Trouble-Tummy-Ear Scratch I had invented just for him. “He’s no scaredy-cat. Are you, boy?”

  Cheerio wagged his tail and seemed really happy. I was sorry that I had to cut our scratchfest short, but time was ticking by and I had a lot to do.

  “So three hours,” I said, jumping to my feet and pulling off my jacket. “That’s enough time, isn’t it, Papa Pete? It’s got to be. That’s all I got.”

  “Maybe you could use a little help from your friends,” Papa Pete said. He sat down at the green desk in the living room and looked for some paper in the drawer.

  “Once again, great idea, Papa Pete,” I said. “I’ll call Ashley and Frankie immediately. Well, not exactly immediately, because I have another call to make immediately.”

  I ran to the phone in the kitchen and pulled out the directory from my school, which my mom leaves on the yellow-tile counter under the phone. I looked up Nick McKelty’s name under the N’s. It wasn’t there.

  Why wouldn’t it be there? I was pretty sure I was spelling his name right. N-I-C-K.

  I tried N-O-C-K and then N-E-C-K, but I still couldn’t find a listing. I was just starting to get really frustrated when I got a brainstorm.

  I bet it’s alphabetized under his last name.

  It’s just like grown-ups to do a crazy thing like that! I flipped through the pages of the directory really fast until I got to the M’s. I looked down the list until I came to it. There it was. McKelty, Nick.

  Way to go, Hankster. You’ve got to think like a grown-up. Put yourself in their place. Put last names first and first names last.

  I could hardly wait to dial that number. I purposely tried to slow my brain down as I read the number. Lots of times, I flip numbers around when I read them. It’s like I don’t see them in the right order.

  Concentrate on the numbers, Hank. Get them right. You don’t want to wind up calling the Central Park Zoo.