AAAARGH!!! (13 page)

fell to the

floor.

Needless to say, she felt great being on the ground again. But this was no time to stick around and celebrate. It was, however, a time to run out of the room, stumble down the stairs, and race outside.

It was also a time to bump into TJ, who was coming back from the beach, and to scream to her, “PLEASE! I promise I won’t tell anyone! Just don’t kidnap me to your planet or turn me into a toad!”

And with that friendly farewell, Elizabeth turned and continued running for her life.

The following morning, bright and early, Chad was out on his surfboard. He’d made his decision . . . or Doug had worn him down until he’d made it. There’s something about 2:00 a.m. calls that can do that. . . .

And if 2:00 a.m. calls don’t work, there’s always

2:49 a.m. calls,

3:10 a.m. calls,

3:51 a.m. calls,

4:07 a.m. calls,

4:45 a.m. calls,

5:06 a.m. calls,

and . . . well, let’s just say Doug can be pretty persistent.

By 7:12 a.m., Chad had finally agreed to try out the new board. Unfortunately, all the listening to Doug’s talking (and
sniff-sniff-
ing) had worn him out. He was so tired, he could barely stand. But it didn’t matter. Once they sealed his cast in a giant plastic bag and put on his wet suit, everything was automatic. All Chad had to do was stand up (with the help of a metal brace running down his legs and powerful magnets attached to the board) and let Doug do all the work.

It was beautiful.

Well, it was beautiful after the first thermonuclear explosion, the six trips to the ER, and a visit by the USS
Kitty Hawk
to stop what they thought was a national invasion.

(Okay, that’s another exaggeration—there were only
three
trips to the ER.)

Anyway, by the end of the day, all of the kinks were worked out. There was little doubt that tomorrow Chad Steel would be able to shut down all the competition and become a major winner. Now, if he could just shut down all the guilty thoughts that said he was a major loser. Actually, his thoughts weren’t really calling him a loser. They were calling him something else. A word starting with
C H E A
, ending in
T E R
, and without many letters in between.

TJ’s Saturday was about the same as Chad’s . . . but without the cool beach, beautiful ocean, or occasional visit by aircraft carriers.

However, she did have plenty of crumpled papers to keep her company, since crumpled papers are what you get when you try 2,121 times to start an essay that you’re clueless about how to write. That’s right; she’d also given in to the dark side in a major, Darth Vader kind of way. (It was either that or fail English as a UFO alien vampire witch—something she doubted would be all that attractive to the Chad Steels of the world.)

Of course the writing might have been easier if she didn’t have two time-traveling goofballs floating cross-legged at opposite ends of her desk.

“This is really torked, Your Babe-ness.”

“Herby, please,” she said, running her hands through her hair. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Perhaps you should concentrate on telling Miss Grumpaton the truth, instead of attempting to cover it up,” Tuna suggested.

“And get an F on the book report?” TJ snapped. “No way.”

Tuna frowned. A moment of silence passed before he finally cleared his throat. “Hmm . . .”

TJ tried to ignore him.

He tried a little louder.
“Hmm . . .”

Again she ignored him.

“HMM . . .”

“All right!” She tossed her pencil on the desk. “What is it, Tuna?”

“Oh, was I disturbing you?” he asked innocently.

She arched an eyebrow.

“It certainly wasn’t my intention.”

She arched the other eyebrow. (When it comes to eyebrows, TJ is ambidextrous.)

Finally Tuna spoke. “It seems rather odd—how cheating to eliminate extra work has only brought you more work. When, in reality, there would have been less work if you had hadn’t cheated.”

“You mean if
we
hadn’t cheated,” she corrected. “Remember, you’re the ones who got me into this mess.”

“That’s totally right, Your Dude-ness,” Herby agreed. “And we want to be the ones to get you out.”

“Not this time,” she said returning to her work. Then, hesitating, she looked back to him. “Unless you want to help me write the essay.”

“Really?” Herby chirped excitedly. “That would be so outloopish! We could transport some super genius here to your room, and—”

“Ahem,” Tuna said, trying to get his attention.

“—he could write something stupenderous, and, and—”

“AHEM,”
Tuna repeated.

Herby glanced over to see Tuna shaking his head.

Herby suddenly caught on and sighed, “And that would be cheating again, wouldn’t it?”

Tuna nodded. “And cheating is bad because . . . ?” He waited for Herby to answer.

Herby scrunched his face into a frown.

Tuna repeated the question a little slower. “And cheating is bad because . . . ?”

Herby’s face brightened. “Because it’s cheating!”

Tuna dropped his head into his hands and slowly shook it.

Suddenly there was a

at the door, followed by Dorie’s squeaky little voice. “TJ?”

“What is it, Squid?” TJ called.

“When are we going to the beach?”

“The beach?”

“You said we were going swimming today, remember?”

TJ’s heart sank. “I’m sorry, Dorie. But I’ve got way too much homework to do.”

“But . . . you promised.”

The disappointment in her sister’s voice made TJ feel even worse. “Yeah, I know I promised. Maybe later. Okay?”

“Okay.” It was obvious Dorie was trying to sound hopeful. But it was also obvious she’d failed miserably. And then, just before she walked away, there was a faint scraping sound.

TJ turned and saw a squished piece of pizza sliding under her door. “What’s that?” she called.

“Pizza from last night,” Dorie said. “I snucked it home ’cause I knew you’d want some.”

If TJ was feeling bad before, she was feeling downright miserable now.

“I’ll see you later,” Dorie said.

“Yeah,” TJ sighed. “Later.”

With that, Dorie’s little footsteps turned and faded as they headed down the hall.

TJ closed her eyes. But she had work to do. So she reopened them, ignored the heaviness in her chest, and returned to writing.

TIME TRAVEL LOG:

Malibu, California, October 23

Begin Transmission:

Sometimes even major babes must learn the hard way.

End Transmission

The surf meet was quite a production. Chad guessed there were over a thousand people scattered up and down the beach—along with food vendors, T-shirt sellers, volleyball players, and a local TV crew, which of course meant Hesper Breakahart and her posse were there, pretending to cheer Chad on (while making sure they were always in front of the cameras).

The surfboard had performed flawlessly—no problems, no surprises, no nuclear holocausts. Chad had made it through all the qualifying rounds and now he was about to begin the finals.

“It’s gonna be incredible!” Doug said, gulping down a soda. “You’re going to
(sniff-sniff)
shut them all down and become regional champ.”
(BURP!
—Doug never passed up the opportunity to try out new bodily sound effects.)

Chad grinned. “You think so?”

“We know so,” Naomi said. “And after that
(click, clack)
we’re off to the national
(crunch)
championships!”

Chad nodded as he looked out over the water. He still felt bad about cheating, but not nearly as bad since he was winning. Suddenly something caught his attention. “Hey, isn’t that the new kid’s sister?”

“Who?” Doug
sniff-
ed.

“Where?” Naomi
click-
ed.

“Out there, wading in the surf. She’s pretty young. Somebody should be with her.”

Doug spotted her and shrugged. “She’ll be fine. I’m sure TJ’s around to—”

He was interrupted by the PA announcement:

“Let’s go,” Doug said.

Chad continued looking after the little sister. “Yeah, but—”

“Don’t worry,” Naomi said. “She’ll be fine. You need to focus all your concentration on winning this meet.”

Reluctantly, Chad nodded. He picked up his board and, with Doug’s help, limped toward the water.

That same morning, TJ decided not to go to church with her family. She had two reasons:

1. She was lost in an avalanche of crumpled papers.

2. She figured God might work something into the pastor’s sermon to remind her she shouldn’t be doing what she was doing. (He can be tricky that way.)

But as she was about to discover, God has plenty of other ways to make a point.

It all started with Dad dropping Dorie off after church and going out to lunch with Violet. Part of his
quality family time
routine was having a date with each of his daughters once a week. That was cool.

What was not cool was TJ’s turning on the local TV station and seeing Chad in the competition. She’d hoped he would be more honest than that. Then again, how could she blame him? Wasn’t she being just as dishonest?

(See what I mean about God being tricky? And if you think that’s something, hang on. He was just warming up.)

Truth be told, it was kinda fun to see Chad on TV.

More truth be told, it was
not
kinda fun seeing Hesper Breakahart and all her wannabes posing for the cameras in their super-expensive, super-sheer, super-are-those-really-swimsuits-or-are-they-wearing-dental-floss? swimwear. It was even less than not kinda fun when TJ caught a glimpse of a child splashing and playing at the water’s edge. A child who looked exactly like . . .

“Dorie!” TJ cried. Obviously, her sister had sneaked off and gone to the beach on her own. “Tuna! Herby!”

Immediately the boys

into her room from their place in the attic.

“We gotta save Dorie!” TJ shouted. “She’s at the beach by herself and she can’t swim!”

“Say no more,” Herby said. He reached for the trusty Swiss Army Knife, pulled out a blade, and they

right to the

. . . well, it was supposed to be the beach. But by the looks of things, they were at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean! (Either that or the whales drifting by had just learned to fly.)

“HERB-BLUB-BLUB-BLUB-Y!” TJ shouted.

Herb-blub-y reached back to his knife and

The good news was they landed on the beach.

The bad news was Long John Silver and his noisy

“Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”

parrot had appeared, too.

The badder news (don’t try that word on Miss Grumpaton) was he was pointing his pistol at a volleyball player who was about to serve.

“Hand over that cannonball, matey, before I blow ye to kingdom come.”

“Cannonball?” the player laughed nervously. “It’s a volleyball!”

The pirate cocked his pistol and growled, “I don’t care what ye naked natives call it. I need more ammo fer me ship.”

“But—”

Suddenly TJ spotted Dorie. “There she is!” She pointed at the little girl, who was already in the surf, being pulled out into the ocean. TJ took off for her, yelling, “Dorie! Dorie!”

Meanwhile, Tuna and Herby both knew they had to get rid of Long John Silver for good. Unfortunately they had separate plans. Unfortunatelier (another word to hide from Miss Grumpaton), they put their plans into action at exactly the same time.

Tuna pulled out the Swiss Army Time Freezer Blade (sold at 23rd-century time-travel stores everywhere) and fired it

at the pirate, the same instant Herby pulled out his 3D Calculator, entered the calculations, and tried to

subtract Long John Silver to 0.

But as usual, the equipment