No Girls Allowed (Dogs Okay) Read online

  SMART TIMES TEN

  SCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAB!”

  That’s my sister, Isabelle. She must have found the hunk of cheddar cheese I stuck in her underwear drawer. It’s been there for two and a half days. Remind me to write that down in my inventor’s notebook. It’s my latest experiment to see how long it takes your sister to find cheese hidden in her underwear drawer.

  Isabelle and I are twins. But we are nothing alike. Isabelle is smart times ten. She speaks German. She can say the alphabet backward in less than five seconds. She likes to use big words. It’s enough to make you kotzen. That’s German for “puke.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales

  are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product

  of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,

  living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALADDIN

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Text copyright © 2009 by Trudi Strain True it

  Illustrations copyright © 2009 by Jim Paillot

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ALADDIN and related logo are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Karin Paprocki

  The text of this book was set in Minister Light.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Aladdin edition February 2009

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  True it, Trudi Strain.

  No girls allowed (dogs okay) / by Trudi True it.

  p. cm.—(Secrets of a lab rat ; #1)

  Summary: Fearless nine-year-old “Scab” McNally tries to get his twin sister’s help in convincing their

  parents to let them get a dog, but when he embarrasses her in school with a particularly obnoxious

  invention, it looks like he has lost her cooperation forever.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-7592-2

  ISBN-10: 1-4169-7592-6

  eISBN: 978-1-4391-5347-5

  [1. Twins—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 3. Behavior—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction.]

  I. Title. II. Series: True it, Trudi. Secrets of a lab rat ; #1.

  PZ7.T78124 No 2009

  [Fic]—22

  2008022329

  For Austin,

  and every boy who loves a dog.

  Or wants to.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am so very grateful to Liesa Abrams, an absolute joy of an editor, who saw into Scab’s heart. And mine. Thanks to my agent, Rosemary Stimola, for her wise guidance, faith in me, and determination to find the right home for Scab. I am indebted to the delightfully talented Jim Paillot for somehow reading my mind. Thanks also to my family—my parents (a quirky girl’s best friends), Jennifer (sister, champion, and a heck of a publicist), Lori Dru (protective big sis) and brother, Dean, for teaching me early on the value of a good adventure, and a fully stocked first aid kit. A special nod goes to the young people who inspire me: Marie, Austin, Trina, Bailey, and Carter—I adore you. And, finally, with love to William, whose smile I live for.

  CHAPTER

  1

  This Chapter Has Nothing to Do with My Pants

  I’m kicking the leg of the chair outside the vice principal’s office. I’m snapping my fingers while kicking the leg of the chair outside the vice principal’s office. I’m sounding like a whistling firecracker while snapping my fingers while—

  “Scab McNally!”

  I stop. Then I start again. This time I kick lightly so Mrs. Lipwart doesn’t bark at me. That’s not her real name. But who can remember her real name with that pink, knobby thing on her top lip? Whenever Mrs. Lipwart gets mad, the knob changes color. I can make it turn purple.

  BEWARE!

  MRS. BRACKEN FIRES SPIT rockets at you through her front teeth. Three-two-one, blastoff!

  Mr. Corbett’s onion-ring dragon breath will melt off your eyebrows.

  Whatever the cafeteria served for lunch yesterday is still stuck in Mr. Bell’s beard today.

  Ms. Jablinski has only one eyebrow—the left one; see Mr. Corbett.

  “Pssst!”

  My best friend, Doyle Ferguson, is outside in the hall. I knew he wouldn’t forget me. We’re both in Miss Sweetandsour’s fourth-grade class. That’s not her real name either. It’s just Miss Sweeten. But she can turn sour in a flash if you flick a gooey snotball at Cloey Zittle. Ka-zing!

  Doyle edges closer. “How—?”

  “Wart!”

  He drops. When Mrs. Lipwart goes into the copy room, I wave him in. Doyle crawls toward me. He looks like a lizard in his green jacket. “How long you in for?” he asks.

  “Don’t know yet. Are you coming over today if I’m not—?” I pretend to choke myself.

  “Can’t. We’re taking Oscar for his shots.”

  My throat tightens for real. Oscar is his new wiener dog. I’ve wanted a dog my whole life. But every time I ask, and I ask a lot, my parents say the same thing.

  “Someday, Squiggle Bear,” says my mom, “when you’re older.”

  “Someday,” says my dad, “when you show you can be responsible for a pet.”

  I’ll be ten in two months and nine days. That’s double digits! How much more responsible can I get? By the way, you did not hear my mom call me Squiggle Bear.

  “You could come with us to the vet,” offers Doyle.

  SCAB’S TIP #19

  WHEN FLICKING A SNOT-ball, twist your wrist for turbo speed and maximum sticking power!

  I nod toward the vice principal’s door. “What if I’m—?”

  “You won’t. You’ll get out of it.”

  He’s right. I’ll wriggle my way out of trouble. I always do. Doyle knows me from the bones out. And I know him from the bones out too. We met at summer day camp when we were seven. I got 148 mosquito bites in four days at camp. We counted them. The best part is that 148 red, oozing, swollen bites equals 148 scabs—scabs that you have to scratch and pick at until you peel off every last brown crusty covering. Oh, yeah! After that, Doyle started calling me Scab, and the nickname stuck. That’s another reason why he’s my best friend. If it weren’t for him, people would be calling me by my real name! Sorry, my real name is top secret. You’ll have to get special clearance if you want to know it.

  “Doyle Ferguson!”

  Bug spit! The lip knob has caught us. “Get back to the lunchroom this instant,” snaps Mrs. Lipwart, “unless you’d like to join Mr. McNally here.”

  Doyle spins on his stomach and squirms out of the office. Mrs. Lipwart starts stapling papers. Ka-chunk. Ka-chunk. I go back to softly kicking the leg of the chair outside the vice principal’s office. Mr. Huckabee likes to make you wait. He thinks the longer you wait, the more scared you’ll be when he calls you in. Not me. I don’t scare easily.

  TOP SECRET:

  SCAB’S REAL NAME!

  ARE YOU A TEACHER? ACCESS DENIED.

  Are you a doctor? Access denied.

  Are you an adult? Access denied.

  Are you a kid with a name you hate too? Access allowed.

  My real name is Salvatore Wallingford McNally. Kids were calling me Sally McNally from the second I stepped onto the playground. What were my parents thinking? Spit-swear you’ll never tell anyone my name and destroy this top-secret info immediately! If you could eat it, I’d really appreciate it. Put some chocolate syrup or peanut butte
r on the page or something. Thanks.

  MY MOST DANGEROUS STUNTS

  Going down Kamikaze Hill at eighty miles per hour my first time on a snowboard. Where are the brakes?

  Letting a tarantula crawl over my face at the zoo. It made my sister pass out!

  Hanging upside down on a broken roller coaster for five and a half hours. All the blood rushes to your head. Cool!

  Flying ten feet, nine inches off Alec Ichikawa’s Super Colossal Dirt Bike Ramp. A new world record!

  Not crying once while getting five stitches in my knee after I flew off Alec’s Super Colossal Dirt Bike Ramp.

  “Ka-chunk,” I sing with the stapler. “Ka-chunk, ka-chunk. Your feet smell like a skunk.”

  Mr. Huckabee’s bald head appears. It’s extra shiny today. I’ll bet he uses car wax on it. He tells me to come inside.

  “Scab, what is proper behavior during an assembly?”

  “Don’t smack anybody, even if Lewis Pigford smacks you first.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Don’t jump around like a frog, even if you gotta pee.”

  “No. Well, yes, that’s true, but—”

  “I got in trouble for that last time, though I didn’t have to pee.”

  “I think you’re missing—”

  “See, my teacher thought I had to pee and she got mad that I didn’t go before we got to the assembly because we’d all made a special bathroom stop. But I had on these new pants my mom made me wear for the school picture and—”

  “Scab—”

  “I guess they had wool in them or something because I got these little red bumps all over my legs and I was itching like crazy—”

  “SCAB!”

  “What?”

  “I am not interested in your pants.”

  I slump down. Well, he started it.

  “I was talking about your . . . uh . . . performance at the assembly.”

  Why didn’t he say so in the first place? Right now, I ought to be having a contest with Will Greenleaf to see who can toss the most Tater Tots into Cloey Zittle’s hood. Will is my second best friend, after Doyle. The three of us go fishing together every Saturday.

  Teachers have their own secret code. It’s not easy to crack, but I am getting pretty good at it.

  “I hear you were making noise while the orchestra was playing.”

  “No,” I say. It wasn’t “noise.”

  It was music. My music. I can arm-fart the national anthem.

  “Your teacher says you were disruptive.”

  My armpit was in tune, which is more than I can say for my sister and the rest of the violins. Squeeeeeeeeak! Try “The Star-Mangled Banner.”

  CRACKING THE TEACHER CODE

  WHAT YOUR TEACHER SAYS

  WHAT YOUR TEACHER REALLY MEANS

  Your drawing is interesting.

  It looks like a furball my cat barfed up.

  Be courteous to your neighbor.

  Poke one more person with that ruler and your butt is fried.

  Do your best work.

  What you turned in last week was pretty stinky.

  Please take this note home to your parents.

  You’re in big trouble now.

  People, let’s use our inside voices.

  SHUT UP!

  “Scab, if you can’t be considerate, you’ll have to go to the time-out room during school assemblies. Do you want that?”

  “No.”

  “I want nothing less than your best behavior at the next assembly . . .”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see something outside the window. “Uh-huh.”

  “. . . and I expect you to be cooperative, quiet, and respectful . . .”

  It’s a dog! In the park across the street, a collie is chasing a tennis ball. He grabs it, turns, and runs to a lady in white pants. She throws the ball again. The dog zips between two maple trees to get it. As he runs, his rusty brown–and-white fur waves in the wind. I bet his fur is soft. I bet it is so soft. I’d give anything to be on the other side of this window. Mr. Huckabee is still jabbering. “. . . part of growing up is being aware of your actions and how they affect others. You can’t always do what you want to do when you want to do it. Do you see that, Scab?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Outside, the lady drops to her knees. She wraps her arms around the collie’s neck. He licks her cheek with a big, pink, wet tongue. She laughs. She looks so happy.

  My heart hurts.

  That’s what I want. I want a dog to love.

  I want a dog to love me back.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Scab’s Lab, Part 1

  SCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAB!”

  That’s my sister, Isabelle. She must have found the hunk of cheddar cheese I stuck in her underwear drawer. It’s been there for two and a half days. Remind me to write that down in my inventor’s notebook. It’s my latest experiment to see how long it takes your sister to find cheese hidden in her underwear drawer.

  Isabelle and I are twins. But we are nothing alike. Isabelle is smart times ten. She speaks German. She can say the alphabet backward in less than five seconds. She likes to use big words. It’s enough to make you kotzen. That’s German for “puke.”

  My sister got moved up a grade this year. She’s in the fifth grade instead of the fourth with me. Miss Sweetandsour says I would do better in school too if I “applied myself.” I don’t know exactly what that means, but it sounds about as fun as a flu shot. My lab is a mess, but I like it that way. Isabelle freaks out if there’s even a pine needle on her floor. My sister is a nervous person. Doyle says she is “wound pretty tight.” Getting someone like Isabelle to unwind could take a lot of cheese.

  “Scaaaaaaaab!”

  She’s close. I grab the spray bottle off my desk, hold it up, and squeeze the trigger. I sneak into my cave and slide the door shut.

  “I know you’re in here—gross, what is this goop on the floor?”

  A blackberry Fruit Roll-Up. It’s my wormhole to outer space. Next question?

  “Scab, I know you’re in here. When Mom gets home, I’m telling her about the—Ewww!”

  She’s caught a whiff of my new stinky sister-be-gone spray. I made it to keep Isabelle out of my lab when I’m not around. I’ve been working on the spray for a whole month. It’s not perfect. After all, it’s been ten seconds and she’s still here. I’m shooting for five seconds tops.

  Bug spit! I smell fresh air. Isabelle has opened a window. I’d better go out there before she starts snooping through my stuff.

  ISABELLE’S SMELL

  SISTER-BE-GONE SPRAY

  1 cup used bathwater

  1 cup cabbage stew or any slimy soup

  ½ cup vinegar

  1 packet of taco sauce mix

  3 slices of bologna (meat loaf works too)

  8 dandelions

  2 spoonfuls of mayonnaise

  4 Junior Mints

  Mix everything in a blender until there are no more chunks. Pour into empty spray bottle. Spray once in direction of sister. Watch sister scram!

  My sister is holding her nose. “It’s noisome in here.”

  “Huh?”

  “Stinky.”

  “I don’t smell anything weird.”

  “You wouldn’t. I’m telling Mom and Dad about the mustard you put in my cheetah purse.”

  I laugh. That wasn’t an experiment. That was a dare from Doyle.

  “I’m also telling about your arm-farting at the assembly.” She lets go of her nose. “It’s all in my report. It’s printing out now.”

  Double bug spit! My sister takes notes on everything I do. She writes up a news report and turns it in to my parents. Sometimes Isabelle reads it out loud like she is Katie Couric or something.

  I aim my Nerf gun at her and fire. I get off three shots. Two of the yellow balls bounce off her shoulder. The other hits her in the nose. Sweet!

  “I’m putting that in my report.”

  “I don’t care.” I say it like
I mean it, and most of the time I do. But sometimes I wish my sister would say something nice about me in her report. She never will.

  “Hey, Izzy—”

  “I told you not to call me that anymore.”

  SCAB NEWS

  BY ISABELLE C. MCNALLY (A+ STUDENT)

  8:05 a.m.: Scab crossed Larkspur Avenue before the light changed. I told him not to.

  10:13 a.m.: At first recess, Scab went to the big pretzel oak tree with Doyle and Will, which is against school rules. I told him not to.

  11:24 a.m.: Scab stood up during the spring assembly and arm-farted “The Star-Spangled Banner” along with my orchestra. He danced around like a chicken. It was awful!! Miss Sweeten made him go to the vice principal’s office.

  12:19 p.m.: Scab got off without detention. I knew he would. It is this reporter’s opinion that Scab gets away with EVERYTHING.

  3:47 p.m.: Scab ruined my favorite cheetah purse!

  THIS CONCLUDES SCAB NEWS FOR TODAY. ISABELLE CATHERINE McNally reporting.

  P.S. 3:59 p.m.: Scab shot me in the nose with his Nerf gun.

  P.P.S. Scab’s room really smells. I think a rat died in there.

  “Is-a-belle, did you hear? Mom and Dad took out an ad in the Granite Falls Gazette.”

  Her eyes grow. “They did?”

  “We’re trading you for a dog.”

  “Very funny. I want a cat like Laura’s. Princess Bonbon Fancypaws is a white Persian. She is sooooo adorable. She wears a pink collar with a cute little bow. . . .”

  I flip my Seahawks helmet, lean over it, and pretend to retch my guts out.

  “You are such a Pilobolus, Scab. You probably don’t even know what that means, which makes you a dumb Pilobolus.”

  “I know what a pile of buses is.”

  “Puh-LAH-bull-uss.” She sounds it out for me like I’m two. “It’s a type of fungus. I just called you a fungus.”

  Actually, she called me a dumb fungus.

  I grin. “We’re twins, so if I’m a fungus, what are you?”