Scab for Treasurer? Page 6

  “GO!”

  The next minute of my life is a blur of screaming kids, weird smells, and even weirder tastes. It goes something like this:

  Slithery, soupy gel.

  Water.

  Fishy slime with a sugary aftertaste.

  More water.

  Whoa! That is stinky cheese. Stuck in throat. Help!

  Water. Water. Water.

  Something with a fish head. Was that an eyeball?

  “Eat it, Scab!”

  “You can do it!” The chanting sounds miles away.

  Gloppy leaves in sour milk.

  Squishy, chewy blobs. Burned pie crust.

  Water.

  Za-zing! Lemon!

  Stringy, stinky orange mess. Raw pumpkin goo is the worst. Lewis is a toad.

  Water. Water.

  “Eat, eat, eat!”

  Crispy—no wait, slippery.

  Slithery fish wrapped in crunchy.

  Ka-chunk! Ech—bitter. My eyes sting. Garlic, of course.

  Ouch! My tooth hits something hard. Gravel?

  I open my eyes wider to see a rust-brown rectangle stuffed with red and green chunks. Carlton’s fruitcake. Wow, it is old. That’s when it hits me. I am at the final plastic container. I’m finished!

  Doyle throws my arm into the air. “The Human Vacuum has done it!”

  My class cheers. Henry bangs his shoulder into mine. Alec shakes my hand. Other kids push in to ruffle my hair and congratulate me. I feel like a rock star.

  “Good job, Scab,” says Cloey. “Are you all right?”

  I am still working on Carlton’s fossilized fruitcake, so the best I can do is pat my stomach and give her a thumbs-up.

  “Vote Scab,” cries Doyle as kids leave. “Don’t forget to vote Scab for president this afternoon. You’re voting for Scab, aren’t you, Cloey?”

  “You bet—”

  “Stop!”

  I scan the cafeteria for Mrs. Zaff or Mr. Huckabee, the principal, but don’t see any—

  Wuh-oh.

  A purple blob is coming this way. For the first time today, my stomach tightens.

  “I have something for the Human Vacuum!” shouts Never Missy, pushing against the tide of kids.

  Doyle steps in to block her. “You’re too late.”

  “He’s right. It’s all over,” says Cloey, smoothing down a sunflower on her sweater.

  “Scab’s finished,” says Doyle, trying to shoo her away.

  Gasping, she looks at them. Then she looks at me. “So you won’t do it? You won’t eat what I brought?” Her voice sounds funny. Her r’s sound like w’s. Her cheeks are puffy. And pink. Never Missy is sick.

  “Sorry,” I say, though I’m really not.

  “Some daredevil you are.” She unzips her coat.

  I jump back. I figure this is it. Eight (or more) slimy green tentacles are going to shoot out, grab me, and hurl me across the room. But that’s not what happens. Instead, Never Missy takes a sandwich bag out of her inside pocket. She holds it up. I see a bunch of tiny, wrinkled, red tomatoes inside.

  “See? They’re not so bad,” she lisps. “They’re kind of cute, I think. I’ll even eat one first, if you want.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? The stunt is over,” says Doyle firmly.

  “Fine,” says Never Missy. “I’ll just tell our class that you guys lied.”

  “Have you flipped your gourd?” asks my best friend. “Nobody lied.”

  “You said the Human Vacuum could eat anything.”

  “You were supposed to sign up like everybody else and you were supposed to get here on time,” he snaps. “And what’s with the Daffy Duck impression anyway?”

  “It’s okay, Doyle,” I say. “I’m not afraid of your tomatoes, Missy. I’ll eat them.”

  “That’s better,” she says, though it comes out. “Thath betta.”

  “The stunt’s not over!” Lewis shouts, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Come back, everybody. Scab’s going to eat more stuff. Come back!”

  “Scab,” Doyle hisses. “You’ve already got enough votes to win the election. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, especially her. . . .”

  But he’s talking to himself. My eyes are locked onto Never Missy’s. And hers onto mine. She sits down at table four with a carton of milk and her sandwich bag. I take the seat across from her. I do not blink. Neither does she. Kids cluster around us. Now that most everyone in the cafeteria has finished eating, the crowd is even bigger than it was during my original stunt. Okay by me. I can eat anything, anytime, in front of anyone. Mind over matter, right?

  Never Missy opens the bag. Gently, she takes out one of the miniature tomatoes. She holds it by its little green stem. I do not blink. She smiles at me. I do not smile back. Never Missy pops the thing in her mouth. She chews several times then swallows. I watch her face. Her gray eyes get a little teary, but that’s it. No squished-up nose. No puckered mouth. No horrible scream. Never Missy reaches for her milk and takes a long drink. “Easy,” she says, her voice a bit hoarse. She slides the bag toward me. “Easy as can be.”

  I gulp some water. I reach into the bag. I take out the teeniest, wrinkliest tomato I can find. I hold it by its stem so I can get a good look at—

  Isabelle! My sister is standing directly behind Never Missy. Isabelle is slowly shaking her head. Her mouth is forming a word. Noooooo.

  Never Missy sighs. “You going to eat it, Scab, or talk to it?”

  I open my mouth. My sister covers her eyes. I place the shriveled tomato on my tongue. A second after I sink my teeth into it I know I have made a mistake. My tongue, my throat, my nostrils—everything from the neck up starts to burn.

  Fire! My entire face is on fire. I’ve never felt pain like this before, not even when I shut the car door on my thumb when I was six. I can’t talk. I can’t yell. Has my tongue fallen out yet? I am sure it is nothing but a charred black blob. I am gagging. Doyle starts pounding my back. He hits me so hard the tomato flies out of my mouth. Thank goodness. I chug water from my bottle, but can’t put out the flames.

  “Owwwwww!” Forget my mind. My matter is screaming. And so is someone else.

  “Ewwwww!” I hear the shriek a second before Cloey races past the table. That’s when I spot my half-chewed tomato. It’s stuck to the middle of a 3-D sunflower on the front of Cloey’s sweater. “Get it off!” she shouts. “Somebody get Scab’s spewage off me!”

  CHAPTER

  11

  Same Old Chair, Same Old Place

  Back and forth. Back and forth. I swing my legs. Back and forth.

  I make sure not to kick anything, flick anything, or lick anything. Mrs. Lipwart, the school secretary, has got her eye on me. The pink knobby thing growing out of her top lip is watching me, too. It’s about the size of our TV satellite dish. When she gets mad, the knobby thing turns red. When she gets really mad, it starts throbbing. You do not want to be around when that happens.

  I am sitting outside the principal’s office in my favorite chair. It’s next to the white plastic table in the corner with the big cactus and a stack of magazines. I’m holding a pink detention slip. Thank you, Mrs. Zaff and Cloey, the girl with the colossal lungs. I rip the corners off the slip so it looks like a stop sign.

  Lunch recess is almost over. I will probably be stuck here waiting for the principal for most of the afternoon. At least I won’t have to be in Room 242 when Never Missy wins the election. I rip a photo of a woman in a long dress out of one of the magazines—well, most of her. I leave her head. I am about to stick the headless girl onto the front of the cactus when I hear, “Pssst!”

  It’s Doyle. He’s outside in the hall. Nobody is supposed to be in the building during lunch recess. If Mrs. Lipwart catches him, he’ll get one of these little slips for himself.

  “Your ears are glowing,” he whispers.

  “My tongue hurts. It feels like I ate a stingy jellyfish instead of a tomato.”

  “That was no tomato. That was a chili pepp
er.”

  “A pepper?”

  “Yep. It’s called a Red Savina. Isabelle says it’s one of the hottest chili peppers in the world.”

  “No kidding?” I perk up. “Sweet! I, Scab McNally, the Human Vacuum, ate one of the hottest chili peppers in the world.”

  “Noooooo,” says my best friend. “You, Scab McNally, the Human Vacuum, spit out one of the hottest chili peppers in the world onto the new sweater of one of the loudest girls in the world.”

  Oh, yeah. I tip my chair back until my head hits the wall. “Is Cloey all right?”

  “Yep. Your sister is helping her wash off her sweater.”

  “I can’t figure it out. Never Missy ate that hot pepper like it was candy.”

  “Must be an alien thing,” says Doyle.

  “It isn’t good, is it?”

  Doyle lifts a shoulder. He doesn’t want to say what we both already know. That’s the problem with daredevil stunts. If you succeed, you’re a hero. If you don’t, well . . . . you can forget about becoming class president anytime this century.

  “Treasurer is still open,” Doyle says meekly.

  I groan.

  “Mr. Ferguson!”

  Bug spit! We’ve been caught by the Wart.

  I move like lightning to get my chair on all four legs.

  “I’m scramming, Mrs. L.!” shouts Doyle.

  * PEPPER POWER *

  THE RED SAVINA HABANERO IS FIFTY TIMES HOTTER than the jalapeño pepper. According to my Guinness Book of World Records, the Bhut Jolokia is the hottest pepper in the world. It’s almost twice as hot as the Red Savina!

  We knock knuckles and he takes off.

  I finish pinning the headless girl to the cactus. I give her a chocolate cupcake to hold that is three times bigger than she is. I also give her Brad Pitt’s head. I go through the whole stack of magazines. No sports. No comics. No reptiles. You’d think Mrs. Lipwart would have something here for me. After all, I spend more time in this chair than anybody. A piece of paper falls out of one of the magazines. Aw, geez. It’s Never Missy’s handout. I start to make it into a paper airplane, but I can’t help myself. I read it.

  If you ignore all those dumb happy faces, some of Never Missy’s ideas really aren’t so bad. Wouldn’t you know it? Bug spit!

  * NEVER MISSY'S HANDOUT *

  GREETINGS! I AM MISSY MALNE AND I WANT TO be YUR next class president. Why do I want to be YUR president? I would like to make our classroom better. In fact, I would like to make our whole school better. How will I do this? Here are some of the things I want to accomplish as YUR president:

  Update our fourth-grade web page.

  Get more students to volunteer for math tutoring club. (The younger kids need our help!)

  Organize a fundraiser (with the PTA) to buy new flowers for the courtyard.

  Bring more guest speakers to our class, especially authors and artists!

  Make sure none of our playground equipment is missing or broken. (I hate flat four-square balls.)

  Get rid of the weird, green, chunky salad dressing in the cafeteria once and for all.

  By the way, I was treasurer last year in Mrs. Lange’s class and I never missed a single student council meeting. I also went to leadership camp last summer. So please vote for ME, Missy Malne, and I will work super hard for YU!

  I go back to folding Never Missy’s handout into a paper airplane. I wait for Mrs. Lipwart to go into the nurse’s office before I launch the plane. It flies across the check-in desk and does one loop before smashing into the bulletin board. The plane drops onto Mrs. Lipwart’s desk. Oops. When she comes back I am lying on my back across the row of chairs. My eyes are closed.

  “Nice plane, Mr. McNally,” I hear. “I’m sure Mr. Huckabee will enjoy it as much as I do.”

  I let out a little snore. I guess I take a real nap because when I open my eyes Never Missy is standing over me. Her hair is almost touching my chin.

  “You alive?” Never Missy’s voice sounds a little more normal.

  I quickly sit up. She is holding out a carton of milk with a straw in it.

  “What is it—poison?”

  “It will help with the burning.”

  “Burning? What burning. I feel great.”

  She sits down next to me. I want to move over, but then I’d be sitting on the cactus. I’m stuck here in this corner. For now.

  Never Missy whistles. “I’ve never seen anybody’s face get that red that fast.”

  I adjust Brad Pitt’s head.

  She clears her throat. “Sorry about the peppers, Scab. I didn’t realize they were superspicy hot. I’ve never eaten one before either. My mom buys them at the farmer’s market downtown to make her chili at our restaurant. She calls it her five-alarm chili. Get it? It’s so hot, like a five-alarm fire?”

  “Yeah, I get it.” I didn’t know Never Missy’s family owned a restaurant.

  “I am sorry,” she says quietly—not at all the way she says it when we play Fly Around the World. I glance at her. Never Missy’s gray eyes are soft and watery. When she holds out the milk again, I take it. I sip a little, then wait and sip some more. She is right. It cools my aching taste buds.

  I start to ask. “So how did you—?”

  “Miss Malone!” The Wart again.

  Never Missy pops to her feet.

  “Don’t you have something for me?”

  “My excuse.” Never Missy puts her hands to her puffy cheeks. “I forgot.”

  “You were supposed to check in immediately when you got back from the dentist.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I have a note from my mom.” Never Missy scurries up to the desk.

  I look at the principal’s door. Is Mr. Huckabee ever coming out? Maybe he’s not even in today. I wonder if I should check—

  Dentist?

  The word echoes in my head.

  So that’s where Never Missy was all morning. She didn’t drop out of school. She went to get her teeth cleaned or get a filling or something. It must have been a filling, because she was talking funny at lunch.

  “Oh, man!” I shout out loud. Everything makes sense now. Never Missy ate that hot pepper so easily because she couldn’t taste it. Her mouth was numb!

  What a great stunt!

  Bug spit!

  That is a good trick. I wish I had thought of it.

  When Never Missy comes back, she has a shy grin. She knows I know. I wonder why Mrs. Lipwart doesn’t make her leave the office, but I don’t ask. Never Missy sits down next to me. She unbuttons her coat. I sneak a look. I see a white shirt with blue buttons tucked into a pair of jeans. I see a long silver chain with a turquoise giraffe. Not a slimy green tentacle in sight. I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed.

  Mr. Huckabee’s door opens. His shiny bald head appears. “Scab, come on in.” He sighs. The principal’s sighs are getting longer as the semester goes on.

  Never Missy stands up. She heads for Mr. Huckabee’s office.

  I tap her shoulder. “Where are you going?”

  “Where do you think?”

  The bell rings.

  Two dimples appear on each side of her face. “It’s only fair.”

  CHAPTER

  12

  A Few Election Surprises

  Never Missy and I walk into Room 242 twelve minutes after the bell rings. Our class has already started afternoon silent reading. When everyone sees us, they start whispering.

  “Eyes on your books and mouths closed, please,” says Miss Sweetandsour. She holds her hand out for Never Missy’s hall pass. I wait my turn. I can see Doyle out of the corner of my eye. He’s got a big book with a Komodo dragon on the cover. He’s leaning as far as he can out the side of his desk, trying to get my attention. Doyle wants to know what happened in the principal’s office. He wants to know what in the world I am doing with the enemy. Later, I will explain that I got two days of after-school detention for my stunt. It probably would have been more if Never Missy hadn’t said what she’d said to
Mr. Huckabee.

  “It’s my fault too,” she said. “Scab did the stunt, but I made it worse. Whatever you give Scab, Mr. Huckabee, you should give to me, too.”

  Never Missy got her wish. She told me afterward that it was her first after-school detention ever, but she didn’t sound mad.

  I just realized my leg is twitching. It’s not the detention. Detention I’m used to. What’s bugging me is that I think I am starting to like Never Missy. I hate that I am starting to like Never Missy.

  “Miss Sweeten?” I ask.

  “Yes?”

  Then I say what I knew I’d say the minute Never Missy walked into the principal’s office two steps ahead of me. “I don’t want to run for president anymore.”

  Her eyebrows hit her hairline. “You don’t?”

  THINGS TO DO IN DETENTION

  * (BESIDES YOUR HOMEWORK) *

  Connect your arm freckles with a pen. Mine make a chicken.

  Count the teeny holes in the ceiling tiles (there are 14,307 in our detention room—wait, 14,308—shoot, let me get back to you on that).

  Make a replica of Mrs. Lipwart’s lip wart using the gum on the bottom of your desk.

  Get the attention of a girl on the other side of the room. Rub your face like you’re trying to tell her she’s got something on her face. Then keep shaking your head when she tries to wipe it off.

  I shake my head.

  “Is something wrong, Scab?”

  “No . . . it’s just that . . .” I don’t know how to explain it to her so she will understand. I don’t want her to think I am a quitter. “Remember when you said that we shouldn’t try to buy votes from people? That we should try to earn them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nev—I mean, Missy . . . well, she sort of . . . I guess she . . . she earned my vote. Know what I mean?” I don’t want to look at her, but I do want to look at her. So I take a chance. I look.

  My teacher is . . .

  . . . smiling. Miss Sweetandsour’s green eyes are all soft and crinkly. And they are looking right at me. At me! I can think of only one thing to do. I smile back. It’s better than I ever imagined.