Pennybaker School Is Revolting, стр. 13
Chip tumbled out of the school, pushed along by a tide of laughing friends. They were having the time of their lives. With Chip Mason. I wondered if they had ever seen him sing opera into a slice of pizza. Or woken up with him crouching on their windowsill watching them sleep.
No, for real. He really did that.
“Thank you for waiting for me, Mrs. Fallgrout,” Chip said as he climbed into Mom’s car.
“You’re always welcome, Chip,” Mom said. “We aren’t in any sort of hurry, are we, Thomas?”
I clenched my teeth. I wasn’t going to say anything to the statue-polishing nameplate thief. For all I cared, he could talk to the back of my head.
“Thomas?” Mom prompted. I still said nothing. “Thomas, why are you being rude?”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Fallgrout,” Chip said. “He’s probably just working on his ballroom dance in his head. We all are.”
“Do you like to dance, Chip?” Mom asked, and for the whole ride home, I got to hear all about some guy named Vaslav Nijinsky, who was arguably the best male dancer of the twentieth century. And then I got to hear about Chip’s assortment of dancing socks. He had one pair for every type of dance—and two for polka, because polka dancing made his feet extra sweaty.
When we finally got home, Mom pulled into the driveway and paused so Chip could get out. I stared straight ahead, unmoving.
“Are you going with him?” Mom finally asked.
“No,” I said. “I have a magic trick to work on.”
Mom looked skeptical, and I didn’t blame her. Normally I would take off with Chip and we would plan our afternoon activities, which might include riding our bikes or hanging out by the creek or eating cheese and crackers on his front porch.
Ever since Chip and I became friends, after-school time got a lot more interesting and fun.
But today I was mad at him. And, okay, fine, I was kind of hurt, too. Wesley and the guys were my friends first. It was one thing to be friends. It was another to steal someone’s life. He was stealing mine.
And, worse, he was doing it without me.
“I found it.” Chip’s fist slithered over the seat and opened up, something shiny resting on the palm. It was my nameplate. “I searched all through the dirt Byron had swept up. I even shined it a little. Watch.” He angled the metal plaque until the sunlight caught it and bounced a beam right into my eyes. “Direct hit, human,” he said in a robotic voice. “You are now my pet.” We both cracked up as he dropped the tag into my lap. “Sorry I stole your job. I was just trying to help you out.”
And that was why it was hard to stay mad at Chip for very long. And probably why everybody at Pennybaker already loved him.
“It’s okay, Chip. No hard feelings.”
TRICK #8
SLEIGHT OF SISTER
After dinner, I locked myself in my room to work on my newest plan for getting out of dancing with Sissy Cork: a smoke screen.
I pulled out Grandpa Rudy’s trunk and opened it. Inside were smoke cartridges. Ten of them, to be exact. I’d never used one before, mostly because I was a little bit afraid to. Grandpa Rudy didn’t use them often, and I didn’t have a great idea of how they were supposed to work.
I turned the package of cartridges over. The instructions were old and kind of worn off, but I knew the basics of using a smoke cartridge to make it look like your hand was smoking so something could disappear in a poof of smoke. Which was kind of cool. Especially since disappearing was exactly what I wanted to do.
If I could make a coin disappear in a poof with one cartridge, maybe I could make myself disappear with ten. And if I did it at just the right time—say, right before we started our dumb dance, for instance—maybe it would cause enough of a distraction to give me time to get out of the gym.
I was still trying to read the instructions when Erma bounded through my door. I dropped the package and winced, half expecting the poof of smoke to happen right there in my bedroom.
“Jeez, Erma, haven’t you ever heard of knocking?” I picked up the packet. “I’m busy.”
She ignored me. “I have good news!” she said.
“The circus accepted your application and you’re leaving tomorrow?”
“Very funny, but no.” She hopped onto my bed and began jumping up and down—something she knew I hated, because it made my blankets all rumply and because it made Mom mad, and I always got yelled at for the things Erma did that made Mom mad. Especially when they happened in my territory. Mom never believed that Erma could be a diabolical infiltrator.
“Stop it.”
She ignored me. “I’m going to your schoo-ool,” she sang as she continued to jump.
I dropped the smoke cartridge package again. “What?”
“Mom talked to the coach and told her that I’ve been dancing my whole life, and the coach wants me to come in and help teach a class. I’ll be helping the students who are struggling. And one of those students is you! Isn’t that cool?”
No. That was not cool. That was so opposite of cool, there wasn’t even a word for it. It was like uncool with thirty-five “un”s in front of it. Erma teaching me to dance? Uncool. Erma teaching me to dance in my own school, in front of all the guys and the girls?
Horrifying.
“No way.”
“Yep. I start tomorrow.” She squealed a little and jumped higher.
“No way. Mom!” I hollered, stuffing the smoke cartridges back into the trunk and slamming it shut. Suddenly, figuring out a way to escape dancing just got a lot harder.
“She’s busy,” Erma said.
“Busy doing what?”
“I don’t know. She and Dad are cutting branches