A Tale of Two Tails (2 page)

“Nothing will discourage me and Cheerio, Ms. Adolf, from marching to victory.”

“Good, because you will be required to submit a two-page essay on the history and characteristics of your particular pet.”

Whoops. I didn't see that coming.

That made no sense. I mean, why would a pet contest involve an essay? Pets don't write. Or read. And besides, just the word “essay” gives me a rash behind my knees.

But before I could present my argument to her, something unexpected happened. At least, it was unexpected to me.

It sounded like the blast of a trumpet.

“What was that?” I whispered to Frankie. “Did someone bring an instrument into the auditorium?”

Then it happened again. This time it sounded like the entire brass section of an orchestra went crazy.

I looked around to see where the noise was coming from, and then it hit me . . . right in the nose. A smell that made my eyes tear up and the hair inside my nose do jumping jacks. Honestly, I would really like to tell you what it smelled like, but there is nothing on this earth I can think to compare it to. Maybe three-month-old broccoli. No, that smells like fresh perfume compared to this. Garbage that's been wrapped in Nick McKelty's gym socks that haven't been washed for a year and a half. No, that smell is too good for this.

“Hey, Ms. Adolf, your dog just farted,” Luke Whitman yelled.

Everybody cracked up.

“There is nothing funny about gastrointestinal distress in animals,” Ms. Adolf declared. “The expelling of gas is a natural process. It is the body's way of releasing toxins.”

Thank goodness for Principal Love, because he released us into the hall, where there was actual breathable air. We all cleared the room as fast as we could, leaving Ms. Adolf, Pookie Doodle, and a cloud of doggy gas to finish the assembly by themselves.

After our noses recovered from the assembly, Frankie, Ashley, and I went to the cafeteria for lunch. The three of us sat down at our usual table, joining Robert Upchurch, who was already there holding places for us, and started eating the pretty delicious cafeteria mac and cheese. Immediately, we launched into one of my favorite topics these days . . . names for my new baby brother or sister. Did I mention that my mom is pregnant? Well, she is. You can tell because her stomach is starting to look like she swallowed a basketball.

Even though the baby is still several months away, I'd been thinking a lot about names for it. My mom is just weird enough to name the baby something goofy like Rainbow or Sunflower. And my dad could pull something weird out of one of his crossword puzzles, like Claudius, an eight-letter name of a Roman emperor. I can hear it now . . .
Hey, Claudius, your diaper needs changing.

I couldn't have that.

“How about Woodrow for a boy,” Ashley suggested.

“Too stiff,” I said.

“Flopsy for a girl,” Frankie said.

“Too unstiff,” I protested.

“My butt hurts,” said Robert Upchurch.

We all just turned and stared at him.

“Robert,” I said. “Your butt is not the topic.”

“I'm just saying,” Robert said, sliding back and forth on the cafeteria bench next to me, trying to find a comfortable position. “You wouldn't want me not to say.”

“Oh yes, we would,” we all said together.

Robert's butt problem came as no surprise to any of us since Robert is the boniest boy in the fourth grade. He just might be the boniest kid in America.

“Dude, your butt would hurt if you were sitting on sixty-five pillows,” Frankie said. “You got no personal padding.”

“For your information,” Robert said, adjusting his clip-on tie around his pencil-thin neck, “my body mass index is perfectly proportionate with my height and weight and foot size.”

“All the same, Robert, it wouldn't hurt you to eat my leftover macaroni and cheese,” Ashley said, shoving her tray at him.

“No, Robert!” I said, pulling the tray back to our side of the table. “Don't you dare touch that. You know what cheese does to your nose.”

Not to gross you out or anything, but in addition to Robert's butt problem, he also has a mucous problem. Cheese makes his honker drip for weeks. Robert goes through six boxes of Kleenex a day. If there were an Academy Award for nose-blowing, Robert would win three. One for blowing. One for snorting. And one for dripping.

“Uh-oh,” Frankie whispered. “Adolf alert.”

Coming over to our table was Ms. Adolf herself. She was even carrying a grey clipboard to match her all-grey outfit. I guess she must have recovered from Pookie Doodle's stomach eruption, because she wasn't wearing a gas mask.

“I'm here to register anyone who would like to enter the Pet Mascot Competition,” she said to us. “You must provide name of pet, age of pet, species of pet, and history of breed-slash-species in essay form. Spelling counts.”

There were those words again. “Essay” and “spelling.” Both of them make me break out in a rash. I started scratching my elbow in anticipation of the rash that I knew was coming on. But I couldn't let a little itching keep me from entering the contest.

“I'm so glad you came by, Ms. Adolf,” I said, “because one, I'd like to sign up my dog, Cheerio, a very talented dachshund, if I do say so myself. And two, I'd like to be excused from doing the essay.”

She looked at me like I had suddenly started to speak Ancient Egyptian. Her body shook so much I thought her feet were going to shake themselves out of her grey shoes without even untying them.

“Mr. Zipzer,” she said, trying to gain control of herself. “How could you even think such a thing, let alone ask me that question again?”

“Actually, it wasn't that hard, Ms. Adolf. I had the thought and it just came flying out of my mouth.”

Ashley was in the middle of a sip of milk, and when she heard my explanation, the milk took a sudden detour and shot out her nose. That happens to her when she drinks through a straw and laughs at the same time.

“Mr. Zipzer, the essay is an essential part of communication, used in our educational system for over two hundred years. I hardly think we're going to stop with you.”

“Well, if you were going to stop with someone, I would have been your guy. Hey, you can't blame me for trying.”

“Oh yes, I can. And let me warn you, Henry, I expect nothing less than perfection. From you and from your elongated dog, whom I seem to remember as rather rambunctious.”

“I would agree with you, Ms. Adolf, if I only knew what that word meant.”

With that remark, Ashley shot another milk missile from her nostril.

“Miss Wong,” Ms. Adolf said, “this is the problem with too much laughter. I suggest you stop laughing and use your napkin immediately.”

While Ashley wiped her face, I took the clipboard from Ms. Adolf and entered my name and Cheerio's name. The third column asked what kind of pet you were entering, and at first, I started to write dachshund, but I stopped short when I realized I had no idea how to spell it. I mean, I was stumped after the
d
. So I just finished it up with a quick
og
and with that, Cheerio was an official contestant.

I handed the clipboard back to Ms. Adolf, who spun on her grey heel and took off to torture another table.

I pushed my tray to the end of the table and cleared a space in front of me. I had business to discuss, and this was no time for dessert, even if it was pineapple upside-down cake.

“Okay, guys,” I said. “Here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking we form Team Cheerio.”

“But if I'm on Team Cheerio, then I can't enter my new tadpole, Boris,” Ashley said. “And that wouldn't be fair to Boris.”

“You can't enter him,” I said. “He's only got one frog leg, and who knows what stage he'll be in for the competition next week. Will he be a one-legged tadpole? Or a three-legged frog? Or in the middle, a two-legged frogpole?”

“Actually, there's no such thing as a frogpole,” Robert chimed in. “In science circles, we know that once the front arms pop out, the amphibian becomes known as a froglet.”

“Thanks for the science lesson, Robert,” I groaned. “It was really . . . what's the word I'm looking for?”

“Boring!” all three of us said in unison.

Ashley twirled her ponytail with her left hand, which she does when she's thinking hard about something. Actually, it could be her right hand. I'm not too good at telling left from right.

“Okay,” she said. “I'll join Team Cheerio, but you have to explain it to my tadpole. I just hope Boris doesn't grow into a froglet resenting me.”

I gave her a high five to welcome her to the team, then turned to Frankie.

“What about you? Are you in?”

“I'm in, Zip. As long as you don't make me do the boring stuff. Something is telling me that you're going to want me and Ashweena to write the essay, and save all the fun stuff for yourself.”

“No way, Frankie. We'll all do everything.”

“Yeah,” Robert piped up. “We'll all pitch in. It'll be really fun, won't it, guys?”

The three of us looked from one to another. No one said anything, but Frankie gave me a look that said,
“This was your idea, Zip. You tell him.”

“I don't know how to break this to you, Robert,” I said, trying to sound all casual. “But one of us at this table is not on the team.”

“Who? Ashley?” he said. “Come on, Hank. Just because she's a girl?”

“Actually, Robert,” Ashley said. “I already am on the team.”

Robert looked from Ashley to Frankie.

“Hey, man,” he said, slapping Frankie on the back with his bony little hand. “I'm sorry you didn't make the team.”

“Actually, Robert, I'm on the team, too,” Frankie said.

Robert looked at me.

“Well, you've got to be on the team, because it's your dog,” he said to me. Then he glanced around the table to see if anyone else was there. Slowly, it dawned on him. For a genius kid, Robert Upchurch can be pretty thick.

“So . . . oh . . . I guess . . . I . . . should be looking for another team, right?”

We all nodded.

The thing about a pest like Robert is that you can't hurt his feelings. He recovered in about two seconds.

“That's fine,” he said, crumbling his napkin up and sticking it into his macaroni dish. “Because actually, my loyalty is to Katherine, that sleek, fascinating iguana that belongs to your sister, Emily.”

“Excellent thought, dude,” Frankie said. “You are definitely the reptile type.”

“Funny you should say that,” Robert said, “because in my dreams, I have a tail that allows me to scratch my scales.”

“Wow, Robert,” I said. “For the first time in my life, I am speechless. I have no idea what to say to that.”

“A thought that cool leaves a lot of people not knowing what to say,” Robert said.

He seemed really happy as he got up from our table and headed over to join Emily, who was just getting into the food line.

He was perfect for her. Only hard-core geeks like the two of them would take being compared to a scaly, bad-tempered lizard as a compliment.

Other kids in the cafeteria signed up, too, so just like that, before the lunch period was even half over, Ms. Adolf's clipboard went from being totally empty to having a whole bunch of full-fledged teams. And I'm happy to say that the Zipzer family represented two of them. Team Cheerio, starring the cutest dachshund in the world. And Team Katherine, starring the Queen of Scales herself.

That would be my sister Emily.

Okay, sorry, I couldn't resist. I'll do that again.

Starring the Queen of Scales herself, Katherine the iguana.