Judy Moody, M.D. (9 page)

She drew cartoons on her pillowcase with markers. Frank with a mustache. Rocky with Frankenstein hair. Jessica Finch with a rodent brain. A Stink spider web.

She made a list of all her stuffed animals.

There were more, but writing them all down gave her writer’s cramp on top of bowling-ball tonsils.

She took her own temperature. With the fancy thermometer that beeped. It was not normal. It was not 98.6. Judy’s temperature was 188.8! Judy’s temperature was 00.0! Judy’s temperature was
beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.
She, Judy Moody, had the temperature of an outer-space alien!

She stared at cracks in the ceiling. The Big Dipper. A giant hot dog. A brain (without a pain in it).

She took her temperature again.
Beeeeeeep!
Still 00.0.

“Mouse, stick out your tongue,” she said. She held the thermometer under Mouse’s tongue. Mouse’s temperature was . . . the letter
M
. She tried again. Mouse’s temperature was
ERR
. Mouse’s temperature was not even numbers. Mouse’s temperature was not even human. Mouse the cat was sicker than she, Dr. Judy Moody!

“Poor baby!” said Judy. She fed Mouse an ABC (
Already Been Chewed
) mashed-up banana toast strip. Mouse loved mushed bananas.

She speed-read one book of Stink’s Megazoid books about evil ants from an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter that try to take over the universe.

She read two days of Rex Morgan, M.D., comics Dad saved for her. She read three chapters of a Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, mystery till her eyes felt ker-flooey.

Finally, after about a hundred years, Stink came home from school. After about a hundred more years, he came upstairs and walked right into her room.

“Stink! Worms! Worms are everywhere. You better get out of here.”

“Worms?”

“Germs, Stink. Germs! Didn’t you see the sign?” Judy pointed to the sign she made on the door. “
QUARANTINE
!
That means
STAY AWAY
!”

“Mom said to bring you your homework. Plus I brought other stuff.”

“Like what?”

“A wooden nickel from Rocky. That he got from Suzie the Magic Lady. It has a picture of a rabbit coming out of a hat.”

“I’m mad at him,” said Judy. “In fact, I’m smad. And I’m not going to make up for a nickel. Wooden or not.”

“Here’s a card from Jessica Finch, with a pretend spelling quiz. See?” The card said:

“And you have to look inside for the right answer.” Judy opened the card.

It said:

“I think she meant to put
Your Un-pal, Jessica Finch
.”

“And — da-da da-DA! — a love note from Frank Pearl,” Stink told her.

“Give me that,” said Judy.

“I made you something at school today, too.” Stink took a mashed-up wad of paper out of his backpack.

“A mashed-up wad of paper?” said Judy. “Sank woo very much.”

“N-O! It’s a cootie catcher! I can catch germs with it. See?” Stink jumped up and down, grabbing at air.

“Stink!” said Judy. “Don’t make me waff.”

“Okay, okay. I won’t make you waff. But look. It tells fortunes.” Stink held out the cootie catcher. “Pick a number.”

Judy looked at the cootie catcher. She could not find a number. All she could find were funny-looking words. “It’s French!” said Stink. “We learned French colors and numbers today. Pick one.”

Judy pointed to
quatre
.

“Four,” said Stink. “
Un, deux, trois, quatre.
Now pick a color.”

“If you say so,” said Judy. She pointed to
bleu
. It looked like
blue
with the letters mixed up.

“Blue. B-L-E-U,” said Stink.

“Pick one more color.” Judy pointed to another one.

“Red. R-O-U-G-E,” said Stink. He lifted up the flap.

“Here’s your fortune,” said Stink.
“Il y a un dragon dans mon lit.”

“What’s that mean?” asked Judy. “Your friends are a bunch of cloney baloneys?”

“It means, There’s a dragon in my bed,” Stink told her.

“That’s it? That’s my fortune?”

“It’s that or
My horse is dizzy,
” said Stink. “Those are the only two sentences I learned so far.”

“I know one more,” said Judy.

“You know French?” asked Stink.

“Oui,”
said Judy. She took out her doctor pad. She wrote a prescription for Stink.

She, Judy Moody, was in a mood. A sick-of-being-sick mood. Even her bowling-ball pajamas didn’t cheer her up. They made her think of tonsils. Judy put on her around-the-world postcard pajamas.

Dr. McCavity told Mom that Judy might not feel like herself again for about twelve days.

Twelve days! Her human temperature was rising just thinking about it! Her blood pressure was skyrocketing! Twelve days before she could stop talking like a cat under water. Twelve days before she could learn any new bones or spell
scapula
or stay away from Antarctica.

Twelve more days to feel like Bozo the Clone.

Judy made up a song. “The Twelve Days of Tonsils.”

That’s as far as she got before falling asleep. Again. She slept all through the second day of tonsils.

Tonsils, Day 3: Judy drew an X-ray of her hand; an X-ray of Mouse; an X-ray of Jaws, her Venus flytrap; and one of Ned Bear.