Pennybaker School Is Revolting, стр. 33
It was a pretty reasonable plan. So reasonable, in fact, some might say we should have started with it and forgotten all about the costumes and the spirit-leader thing. So we waited. And we waited. And we waited. Chip sang the periodic table song. And then sang it again backward. And again in French. And just when he asked if I’d like to hear him sing it in pig Latin while doing a handstand, the doors opened, and Prairie High fans began to stream out. I could tell by the way their heads hung low that the team hadn’t won the game.
Chip and I slid around to the side of the building and peeked around the corner, watching for Mr. Faboo. Just when we thought he wouldn’t be coming at all, the door opened and out he came, walking with the same referee who’d kicked us out.
“In three,” Chip whispered. “One—”
But I didn’t wait for him to finish. I darted out from behind the school and made a beeline for the pioneer.
“Caught you!” I yelled as I reached up to grab Mr. Faboo’s fake beard. Only it didn’t come off. And it wasn’t fake. And the pioneer who yelled “Ouch!” and jumped back, rubbing his cheek, wasn’t Mr. Faboo at all.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“I thought I told you two to leave,” the referee said.
“Technically,” Chip said, pointing one finger in the air as he slowly sauntered toward us, “you told us to leave the game. But there was no game going on out here.”
“I should call the police,” the referee said.
“Please don’t,” I said. “We didn’t mean to hurt anyone. We were just looking for Mr. Faboo, and we thought the pioneer was him.”
“Who?” the pioneer asked. He was still rubbing his cheek.
“Mr. Faboo. Our history teacher.” I pointed to Chip. “He said Mr. Faboo is a mascot here.”
The referee and the pioneer exchanged glances. “Oh,” they said in unison. “Francis.”
“Who?” Chip asked, at the same time that I said, “His name is Francis Faboo?”
“He’s the football mascot,” the pioneer said. “Football season’s over. We won’t see him again until August.”
I gave Chip a death glare. “Football mascot?” I repeated.
Chip shrugged. “I thought every sport was the same.” The one thing Chip wasn’t smart about was sports—so why had I trusted him to lead us to Prairie High? Because I wasn’t smart at remembering what going on adventures with Chip was like.
“So do you know where he is?” I asked.
The pioneer shook his head.
I could feel my shoulders sag. Mrs. Mason pulled up to the curb and gave a short honk. “Sorry I pulled your beard,” I said. “And sorry I messed up the cupie,” I said to the ref.
“Let’s go, Thomas,” Chip said.
I turned away from the pioneer and the referee. “And I’m sorry I ever listened to you,” I said. But Chip either didn’t hear me or didn’t care.
TRICK #22
THE TIME MACHINE PROPOSAL
Thanks to Boone County being a pretty small town, by the time we got to school the next day, pretty much everyone knew all about the Prairie High basketball game. Kids snickered when we walked by, and a couple of guys asked if their sisters could borrow some clothes from us.
It was humiliating, sure, but I was too busy trying to figure out a quick-change trick to worry about it.
I hadn’t asked her yet, and I wasn’t yet sure what I was going to use to bribe her into it, but I had this great idea that somehow Erma could be the one dancing with Sissy Cork, and make it look like it was me. The illusion was called Metamorphosis, and was created by the great Harry Houdini himself. Grandpa Rudy used to talk about Jonathan and Charlotte Pendragon, two magicians who were so quick at Metamorphosis, they got into the Guinness Book of World Records.
The way it worked was a magician would usually stuff himself into some kind of bag and then hop into a trunk, and his assistant would lock the trunk with a padlock. Then the assistant would jump up onto the trunk, hold a curtain over herself for a second or two, and out would pop the magician. Grandpa Rudy’s videos of the Pendragons were really impressive. I’d never tried it before—mostly because I didn’t have a trunk, other than Grandpa Rudy’s magic trunk, which kind of smelled a little, so I didn’t love the idea of being locked inside it—but surely there had to be a way to figure out how to use it to get out of dancing.
“Hey, look, it’s our famous cheerleader,” Colton cried when I walked into the lunchroom that day. “Show us how to do the splits, Thomas.”
“Do a backflip!” Buckley added.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I mumbled, slouching up to the table with my tray. I sat very gingerly. Chip occupied the space between the other two, happily eating his yogurt parfait. He didn’t seem to mind being teased at all.
“So, Thomas,” Chip said after I got settled. “I have another lead.”
“Oh, really?” I asked, taking a big bite out of my burger. “I can’t wait to hear how I’m going to be humiliated next.”
“Oh, c’mon dere,” Wesley said, trying on his Southern voice to practice for his Oklahoma audition. “It cain’t be all dat bad now, cain it?” He pretended to lob a loogie into a spittoon.
“I don’t know, Wesley. You try going out in public in a dress and tell me how bad it is.”
“Edna Turnblad,” he said in what I’d heard him refer to as his Baltimore voice. I’d forgotten that he’d played the role of the main character’s mother in Hairspray last summer. “One of my best roles.”
“Actually,” Chip said, “I was thinking maybe all of you fellows would like to join us this time.”
Buckley and Colton burst