Scab for Treasurer? (Secrets of a Lab Rat) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Trudi Trueit knew she’d found her life’s passion after writing (and directing) her first play in fourth grade. Since then, she’s been a newspaper journalist, television news reporter and anchor, media specialist, freelance writer, and is now a children’s book author. She has published more than forty fiction and nonfiction titles for young readers and lives near Seattle, Washington.

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Scab for Treasurer?

CHAPTER
1

Missy Malone Is an Alien . . . Pass It On

Scab, please remove the number two pencil from your nose,” says Miss Sweetandsour. “You know what to do.”

I know what to do, all right. I just don’t want to do it.



I am supposed to stand up, which is dumb because in two seconds I will have to sit right back down again. Miss Sweeten is giving me that squished up lemon face—the one that earned her the nickname Miss Sweetandsour. I have no choice but to obey my teacher. I blow the pencil out of my left nostril. There’s a wet glob of tan snot on the eraser. I get to my feet. I stand to the left of my desk and try not to look at Missy Malone, who is standing to the right of my desk. I snap my wrist to zing the snot chunk in her direction. Too gooey. Won’t budge.

* DID YOU EVER WONDER . . . *

WHY TEACHERS MAKE US USE NUMBER TWO PENCILS?

What happened to all the number one pencils? Are they extinct? Shouldn’t someone be protecting them? SAVE THE NUMBER ONE PENCILS!

Every Friday our teacher makes us play Fly Around the World. It’s a math flash card game. Miss Sweetandsour goes through a stack of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division flash cards. She flips one up for the champion and the challenger to do in their heads. Whichever kid shouts out the right answer first gets to be the champion and “fly on” to the next challenger. The idea is to see how many kids you can beat as you move around the classroom.

I hate the game. Not because I don’t like math (I do), but because I never win. That’s the problem. Nobody ever wins, except Missy Malone. She flies around the world, yelling out the answers before her challengers even finish reading the cards. It’s no wonder my friends and I call her Never Missy. She sits in front of me so I am usually her first victim. Never Missy has already beaten me once today and is back to whip my butt again. For her, the game is Fly Around the World. For the rest of us, it is Crash and Burn.

Never Missy smells like burned onion rings. She stares at me through brown bangs so shiny, they look wet. She smirks. Two little dimples appear on each side of her mouth. Easy target, she is thinking. She is right. I hate that she is right.

My hands are sweaty. So are my armpits. The meatballs I had for lunch are wrestling in my stomach. Miss Sweetandsour is shuffling her flash cards.

Leaning back, I look for my best friend. Doyle Ferguson is in the far front corner by the cubby rack. We’re so far apart he might as well be in Antarctica. When I see him, I cross my eyes, scrunch my nose, and point to Never Missy’s back. Doyle pulls his mouth all the way back with both thumbs. He sticks his tongue out and waggles it. We both think Never Missy is a space alien—and not in a good way, either. Her mustard-onion-chili breath can peel the paint off your bike. She wears tiny paper party-favor umbrellas in her hair. She never takes off her puffy, purple jacket. Never. We think it’s because Never Missy doesn’t want anybody to see the slimy green tentacles she’s got hiding under there.

“Scab? Missy?” Miss Sweetandsour is ready.

I wipe my sticky hands on the sides of my jeans. This is it. This time I am going to beat Never Missy. I know, I know, I say it every Friday afternoon, but today I mean it. My heart beats faster. One teriyaki meatball leaps into my throat. The card comes up. For a second I think the meatball will too.

IS SOMEONE IN YOUR CLASS * AN ALIEN? *

DOES THE KID CLEAN OUT HIS/HER DESK EVERY day? Aliens are not freaks.

Does the kid always have food stuck in his/her teeth? Aliens don’t use dental floss.

Does the kid have a poodle? Poodles can speak Martian, Klingon, and French.

Does the kid wear a big coat? Aliens have to hide all tentacles, tails, giant suckers, and ray guns, or the principal won’t let them come to school.

If you answered yes to most of the above questions, you probably know an alien. Don’t panic! Act like nothing is wrong and you probably won’t get your guts sucked out through your skull.

I see white. And two black lines. It’s eleven times—

“Forty-four!” shouts Never Missy.

Bug spit!

“Correct,” says Miss Sweetandsour. “Four times eleven is forty-four.”

I want to see the instant replay. Never Missy has to be cheating. Nobody could read the card that fast. Nobody human, that is.

“Excellent, Missy,” says Miss Sweetandsour. She makes a mark on her notepad. “You may fly on.”

Meaning, of course, that I crash and burn. See? Isn’t this about as fun as getting a baby tooth yanked?

Never Missy flicks back her stringy bangs. She glances at me and says what she says to everyone she blows out of the sky with her math missiles. “Vroom, vroom, sor-reeeeee.”

She doesn’t sound “vroom, vroom, sorry.” She sounds “vroom, vroom, happy.”

“Like I care,” I say, crumpling into my seat.

I don’t even have the pencil back in my nose before Never Missy has crushed Cloey Zittle behind me.

“Fifty-six!” Followed by, “Vroom, vroom, sorreeeeee.”

Cloey lets out a whimper.

On and on and on Never Missy flies, “vroom-vroom-sorry”-ing her way around the room.

“Fourteen! Sixty-three! Seven!”

* SCAB’S TIP #32 *

NEVER EAT TWENTY-TWO fried chicken nuggets dipped in ranch dressing and two helpings of potato salad before your first airplane trip, or it is likely to be your last airplane trip.

She’s picking off kids left and right. It’s enough to make you airsick. I should know. I hurled on an airplane once, and not in a barf bag either. My twin, Isabelle, was sitting next to me. My parents had to buy her a new T-shirt. And jeans. And socks. And shoes. My sister now refuses to sit anywhere near me on a plane.

“Zero!” shouts Never Missy. Down goes my second best friend, Will Greenleaf. “Vroom, vroom, sor-reeeeee.”

Some kids have their heads on their desks. Others are slumped so far down you can barely see the tops of their heads. Meggie Kornblum is— Is she crying? Aw, geez, this is ugly. Miss Sweetandsour doesn’t seem to notice. Or care. She simply makes another mark on her pad as Never Missy soars swiftly down one row and up the next.

When it’s Doyle’s turn, he takes his time getting up. He glances at the clock. I know what he’s planning. He figures if he goes slower than a caterpillar the bell will ring first. Nice try. We still have five minutes until the end of the day—plenty of time for Never Missy to blow through another row. Doyle glances my way.

I throw my fist in the air to say Don’t give up.

He makes a fist to reply I won’t.

“Doyle. Missy. Ready?” asks Miss Sweetandsour.

Doyle hunches forward like he’s the center facing off at the start of a hockey game. His eyes narrow. His cheeks glow. He’s waiting for Miss Sweetandsour to drop the puck. I look away. I can’t watch—

“Nine!”

At least it was quick—whoa! That wasn’t Never...