The World's Greatest Underachiever and the Crunchy Pickle Disaster Read online

  My mum was really happy when she got back from work. She was so filled with her salami dreams that she seemed to have forgotten all about my report. She could hardly wait until the next day. She said she had a feeling Mr Gristediano was going to give her a big order. If he did, she promised to take us all on a holiday somewhere. She suggested a weekend in Vermont. My dad wanted to go fly-fishing in Canada. I voted for Costa Rica, because I’ve always wanted to see a real rainforest. Besides, I figured that if they found out about my report and got really mad, I could hide in the rain forest and live on bananas. Maybe a monkey family would adopt me. Emily said she wasn’t going anywhere there weren’t crocodiles. I suggested we leave Emily at home.

  We ate tuna-melts and chicken noodle soup for dinner.

  “So, when will we find out Mr Gristediano’s decision?” I asked.

  “Carlos is delivering the trays of salami to him tomorrow morning,” my mum said. “Mr Gristediano is having all his managers over for a tasting party. If they like it, we should hear straight away.”

  “They have to like it,” I said. “I’m sure you and Papa Pete came up with a great recipe.”

  “Actually,” my mum said, “I have a little secret. Don’t tell Papa Pete this, but I went back to my first version of soy salami. I thought his had way too much garlic.”

  I stopped eating.

  “You don’t mean that original batch of salami,” I said. “The one you were making when I was there at about, say, three-thirty-five?”

  “Yes,” my mum said. “That’s the one. That’s the winner. I asked Carlos to roll it up and put it in the fridge. He’ll slice it tomorrow morning and deliver the platter first thing.”

  Oh no. That was the batch of salami with the special ingredient – my school report. I reached for a glass of water and gulped it down all at once.

  “Is anything wrong, honey?” my mum asked.

  “Wrong?” I asked. “What could possibly be wrong?”

  “May I be excused?” I asked, trying to sound calm, which I wasn’t.

  “Don’t you want dessert?” my mum asked. “I made carrot pudding.”

  “Wow, Mum,” I said. “You really know how to use those vegetables. It’s hard to say no to carrot pudding, but I’ve got to run, if you know what I mean.” I glanced towards the bathroom. Parents never say no to the bathroom.

  “Of course, darling,” my mum said.

  I shot out of my chair like a rocket and ran down the hall. My socks had no traction on the wooden floors, and I went flying like a speed skater right through the bathroom door. I landed on my backside, wedged between the toilet and the bath. I pulled myself up and turned on the cold water in the sink. I had to splash my face with cold water to stop my cheeks from twitching, which they do when I panic.

  I needed to think clearly. Too many thoughts were running through my head all at once. Why hadn’t I just told my parents that I’d got a lousy report in the first place? Why did Robert have to throw my report in the meat grinder? What was he thinking? What’s wrong with just a regular bin? Would it be against the law for Robert to do a normal thing for once in his life?

  I splashed more water on my face. My cheeks had pretty much stopped twitching, except for the right one, which still moved every now and then.

  Lying is hard, I thought. You have to keep everything straight, and that’s hard for me normally. Then I had a radical idea. Maybe I should just tell my parents the whole truth – that I’m not cut out for school. That no matter how hard I try, I’m just never going to make it as a student. My mum would be sad and my dad would be mad, but I’d tell them, “Hey, you’ve got Emily. She’s brilliant. I’m wired differently, and my wires are crossed.”

  Just thinking about that made my cheeks start twitching all over again. The cold water wasn’t helping. I needed a clear head to sort this all out. I slipped out of the bathroom, went to the telephone and dialled Frankie’s number. His dad answered.

  “Hello, Dr Townsend,” I said. “This is Hank. May I talk to Frankie?”

  “He’s just finishing dinner,” Dr Townsend said. “Can he call you back?”

  “Normally he could,” I said, “but I have an emergency here. Not the kind with an ambulance or anything. It’s the kind that could wait, but shouldn’t.”

  “That sounds important, Hank,” said Dr Townsend. “Hold on.”

  When Frankie got on the phone, I blurted it out: “Emergency meeting. Basement. Now. Pass it on.”

  I slammed down the phone, ran to my room and pulled on my shoes. There was something else I needed, but I couldn’t remember what it was. It had just been on my mind and now it was under it. I looked around, hoping it would come to me. I don’t have time for forgetting now. Then, thank goodness, I saw my sweatshirt hanging on the back of my chair. That was it – my sweatshirt. I knew I wanted to take it, because the basement where our clubhouse is can get cold in November.

  “I’m going downstairs to Frankie’s,” I called to my parents.

  “I’ll come with you,” my mum said.

  “You will? No! I mean, why?”

  “It’s yoga class night,” my mum said. Frankie’s mum holds her yoga classes in their living room.

  “Oh, right.”

  “We’re going to learn a new position. It’s called the cobra.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” I said. “Don’t bite yourself.”

  My mum laughed. I thought about what a nice, cheerful person she is and for a minute considered telling her about my marks right then and there. Maybe she’d be really sweet and understanding. Then my dad walked into the room.

  “I’m going play Scrabble with Emily,” my dad said. “Hank, why don’t you join us?”

  Right, me play Scrabble – the guy who got a D in spelling would play Scrabble with a girl genius and a crossword-puzzle nut. Sometimes I think my father doesn’t have any idea who I am. Any thought I had of telling my parents about my marks went right out the window.

  I escaped into the hall and pushed the lift button. It always takes a while to get up to the tenth floor. When it landed, I pulled the door open and was face to face with our neighbour, Mrs Fink.

  “Why, thank you, Hank.” She smiled as she got out and I noticed with relief that she was wearing her false teeth, which she doesn’t always do. “You’re growing into such a gentleman.”

  My mother came into the hall just as Mrs Fink stepped out of the lift.

  “Hello, Randi,” Mrs Fink said. Uh-oh. This was bad timing, because Mrs Fink’s “Hello, Randi” usually turns into a forty-five-minute conversation about what eating spicy food does to her digestion. I had a crisis on my hands, and there was no time now for intestine talk.

  “Mum, you don’t want to be late for class,” I said, pulling her into the lift. “The cobra is waiting.”

  As we were travelling down to the fourth floor, my mum looked at me funny.

  “You seem nervous tonight,” she said. “Is anything going on?”

  “Nope,” I said, not looking her in the eye.

  She pointed to a spot on her hand and smiled. “I know you like the back of my hand, mister,” she said. “Something’s cooking.”

  Thank goodness the lift jerked to a stop on Frankie’s floor and I didn’t have to answer her. Frankie yanked the door open and was about to say something to me, when he saw my mum. Instead, he just gestured politely to his front door.

  “Go right in, Mrs Z.,” he said. “There’s great karma in there.” You can always count on Frankie to be cool in a hot situation.

  After my mum was out, he jumped into the lift with me. I pushed the B button about ten times, as if that would get us to the basement faster.

  “Is Ashley coming?” I asked.

  “On her way,” he said.

  Finally, we reached the basement. As we walked out of the lift, I could tell that someone had just finished doing laundry. It was warm and the air smelled like soapsuds and bleach. We passed the laundry room and went into the storage room that we u
se as our clubhouse. Ashley was waiting with a chocolate-chip cookie for me and an oatmeal-pecan one for Frankie.

  “What’s the big emergency?” she asked.

  I dropped myself into one of the sofas that line the wall of our clubhouse.

  “You’re not going to believe this. You know the batch of soy salami that Robert dropped my school report into?”

  “Tell me not to think what I’m thinking,” said Frankie, “because what I’m thinking is a bad, bad think.”

  “I can’t, Frankie, because I think I’m thinking what you’re thinking.”

  “Will you guys stop thinking and talk to me?” screamed Ashley.

  “My mum decided to send her original batch of salami to Mr Gristediano tomorrow,” I said.

  “I think I’m starting to think what you’re thinking,” Ashley said. She twirled her long ponytail around in her fingers, the way she does when she’s worried. When she wears pigtails, she twirls both of them, one with each hand.

  I took a deep breath and spilled out the whole ugly truth.

  “It’s bad, guys,” I said. “The salami that is being delivered at ten-thirty tomorrow morning is the very same one that has my report mushed and squished in it.”

  “Maybe it’s not so bad,” Ashley said, trying to sound upbeat. “Maybe the paper was ground up into tiny little bitsy bits and you can’t even tell it’s in there.”

  “Ashweena,” said Frankie, “there’s no way all that paper could get lost in the salami. We’re talking a manila envelope, a report and a letter written on legal-size paper. I assume it was legal size. It’s got to be. When you have so many nasty things to say, you use legal size.”

  I put my head in my hands.

  “I’m sure the whole batch is ruined,” I said. “Now my mum will lose the sale. Her hopes and dreams for the future of lunch meats will go right down the drain and it will be all my fault.”

  This was a total nightmare. I was single-handedly putting The Crunchy Pickle out of business. And I was still in trouble. Ms Adolf was going to want to see a signed report from my parents. Where was that supposed to come from? I’d have to Scotch tape twenty slices of salami together, and even then, you’d have to be really good at reading meat to decipher it.

  “I am such a loser,” I said, to no one in particular.

  Frankie flopped down next to me.

  “Snap out of it, Zip,” he said. “You’re not going to just sit there and let this happen. That’s not the Hank Zipzer I know. Breathe, Zip. Let the oxygen flow to promote thinking.”

  “There’s no way out of this,” I said. “It’s not like we can just find our way over to Mr Gristediano’s flat – wherever that is – and happen to arrive just as Carlos is delivering the tray and bump into him so the salami goes all over the street and gets eaten by a dog and has to be replaced by a new batch.”

  “Actually, why not?” came a familiar, uninvited voice from the door.

  We whipped around and there he was – Robert.

  “When Napoleon invaded Russia, he took the shortest route – through France,” said Robert.

  “Who is Napoleon?” I snapped.

  “He’s dead,” said Robert. “But when he wasn’t, he was a very short French general.”

  “Great, Robert. What does a short, dead French general have to do with a platter of soy salami that is polluted with my rotten report?”

  “I was just using him as an example of basic military strategy,” Robert said. “Napoleon knew that the simplest plans are always the best.”

  “The boy may have a point,” said Frankie, getting up off the sofa and starting to pace. “We cut off the delivery. We seize the polluted salami. We destroy it. We replace it with a good batch.”

  Frankie was excited now.

  “Do you really think this could work?” I asked.

  “We’re going to make it work,” Frankie said. “And we’ll make it work with style. Don’t forget, Zip, we are the Magik 3.”

  “So?”

  “So that means we add our own magic touch to this plan, to make sure your mum gets the biggest order possible.”

  “You mean we get to do our magic show?” Ashley asked.

  “I think we should pretend we are the entertainment, sent by The Crunchy Pickle to perform feats of magic for the guests as they munch,” Frankie said.

  “Cool,” said Ashley. “I’ll do my cherry stem trick.”

  “Let’s hold that for another performance, Ashweena,” answered Frankie. “The way I see this performance, we’ll cover the salami tray with my cape. True, my cape may smell like salami for a couple of months after, but I’m willing to make the sacrifice. Once we’re in Mr Gristediano’s flat, we’ll gather everyone around and Zengawii! I’ll pull off my cape and the salami will appear.”

  “Then we just sit back and wait for the big order to come in,” Ashley said.

  “I love it,” I said.

  Ashley gave Frankie a high five. Even Robert nodded with approval.

  “You tell your pal Napoleon that he’s got nothing on me,” Frankie said to Robert.

  “Actually, I would tell him but, as I already pointed out, he’s dead,” Robert reminded us.

  “It’s a brilliant plan,” said Ashley. “Don’t you think so, Hank?”

  I didn’t know if it was a brilliant plan or not. But I did know one thing. It was our best shot. It was our only shot.

  We couldn’t leave anything to chance. There was no room for mistakes.

  It took us more than an hour to work out all the details. Ashley got some paper and wrote down the whole schedule. This is what it looked like:

  FRIDAY NIGHT

  9.00 p.m.: call Papa Pete and ask him to meet us in front of our building at 9.45 a.m. Saturday.

  9.15 p.m.: ask parents if we can take Cheerio for a walk in the park with Papa Pete the next morning.

  9.30 p.m.: phone one another to make any final arrangements.

  SATURDAY MORNING

  9.45 a.m.: meet Papa Pete in front of building. Don’t forget Cheerio!

  9.46 a.m.: walk to The Crunchy Pickle. Arrive before ten o’clock and hide outside.

  10.00 a.m.: Carlos leaves The Crunchy Pickle for his delivery. Follow him to Mr Gristediano’s flat.

  10.20 a.m.: Carlos arrives at Mr Gristediano’s flat. Turn Cheerio loose on him.

  10.21 a.m.: Cheerio runs into Carlos and starts to chew on his trouser leg. Knocks tray out of his hands. Salami spills on ground.

  10.22 a.m.: Cheerio eats salami, with help from neighbouring dogs.

  10.25 a.m.: Carlos goes back to The Crunchy Pickle for a new tray of soy salami, the one that Papa Pete made.

  10.27 a.m.: Frankie puts on cape and we turn into Magik 3.

  10.30 a.m.: go up to Mr Gristediano’s apartment and apologize for the late delivery.

  10.35 a.m.: entertain store managers with magic show while Carlos is getting the new tray.

  11.00 a.m.: Carlos arrives with tray of all new salami.

  11.05 a.m.: smile at all the guests and make sure they love the salami. Tell them how much their order means to The Crunchy Pickle.

  11.10 a.m.: leave Mr Gristediano’s apartment.

  11.25 a.m.: arrive back at our flat. Notice strange smell coming from Cheerio (probably wind from salami).

  11.26 a.m.: open windows.

  11.30 a.m.: wait for the phone call placing the order.

  11.35 a.m.: celebrate!

  I’m telling you, this was a plan that even Napoleon would have been proud of. Now all we had to do was pull it off.

  Papa Pete agreed to meet us in the morning. He was curious to know what all the mystery was about, but I told him I’d fill him in later. He laughed and said he needed a little excitement in his life.

  I woke up early, which is something I don’t usually do on Saturday mornings. At breakfast, my mum and dad were so nervous, wondering whether or not Mr Gristediano would like the salami, that they didn’t pay much attention to where I said I was going. A
s long as I was with Papa Pete, they knew I’d be safe. Frankie, Ashley and Robert had got the go-ahead from their parents, too.

  I had memorized our timetable. At exactly 9.40 a.m., I found Cheerio’s lead and went to the closet to get my coat. It wasn’t in the closet.

  “Has anyone seen my green coat?” I yelled.

  “How many times have I told you, Hank? You have to keep track of your own things,” my father answered from the living room.

  Now is not a good time for a lecture, I thought. I started to run around like a crazy person, looking for my coat. I found it on a chair in the hall, just outside Emily’s room. There was only one slight problem – Katherine was sitting on it, sound asleep.

  “Emily!” I yelled. “Your lizard is on my coat.”

  “Just lift her up,” called Emily from her room. “She won’t bite.”

  “I’m not touching that thing,” I said. “I’ll get warts.”

  Emily marched out of her room. “People say that about frogs, not iguanas,” she said. “And besides, it’s a myth. You don’t catch warts from frogs. Warts are caused by a virus.”

  “Fine,” I said. “You and Robert can discuss that in detail sometime. I’m sure he’d find it fascinating. Now could you please just pick up that reptile and get her off my coat?”

  “I can’t,” said Emily. “I’ve just painted my nails and they’re still wet.” Emily has this habit of painting each of her nails a different colour. She thinks it’s part of her “look”. If that’s her look, I think she should look elsewhere.

  “Emily,” I said. “I’m going to count to three and then tell Mum. One … two…”

  “OK, you don’t have to be so bossy about it,” Emily said, lifting Katherine up and putting her on her shoulder.