King Karl Read online

  TO MUM:

  WHO NEVER SAID,

  ‘CUT YOUR HAIR AND

  GET A REAL JOB.’

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Cast List

  Note from Nick on Food

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  CAST LIST

  NOTE FROM NICK ON FOOD

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘That’s stupid,’ Molly said into my earpiece. ‘They should be called Robosquids.’

  ‘They’re Squidbots!’ I said. ‘Because that’s what they’re called in NanoNerd #83: ‘Time Waits for No Squid’. Now, do you want to play or not?’

  ‘I want to find out what Karl is up to, but he’s taking a nap, and this is only slightly less boring. So we just blast the Robosquids?’

  NanoNerd: Squidpocalypse is a simple online game. All you have to do is blast squidbots before they blast you. I play with people from all over the world.

  And Molly.

  ‘I told you this was a stupid game,’ said Molly.

  Molly’s a friend. Sort of. We’re both in Safety Patrol with Karl at Emily Dickinson Middle School (EMDS for short). It should be called the Freak Patrol.

  Our guidance counsellor, Dr Daniels, made us all join Safety Patrol because she said we had ‘peer allergies’ and needed to fit in. At first, we thought it was lame. We did stuff like try to make sure sixth-graders didn’t drown in the water fountains.

  But it got better. We helped some kids and actually became sort of heroes for a few weeks. Now it’s pretty cool. Well, not that cool. Okay, it’s still pretty lame. But we do get out of lessons a lot.

  And there’s the snacks.

  The beret Karl wears has a nannycam that broadcasts to a private website. We call it the Beret-Cam. He started out wearing it for undercover Safety Patrol stuff, but now he wears it all the time. Molly and I watch the feed on my phone. That’s how we learned Karl got an invitation to join MLEZ.

  MLEZ used to be Emily (they sound the same). Emily is this made-up thing kids at EDMS have used for years to explain the mysteries of middle school.

  Like it’s the ghost of Emily Dickinson, or something. But it’s not.

  Emily became real when it became MLEZ: the name on Karl’s invitation. That’s when we figured out that MLEZ was Emily, and she or he or it had been secretly helping Safety Patrol behind the scenes.

  Like the time I was helping this bully Roy (now retired) get his stuffed pig back after MLEZ released a pet python named Willy that stampeded the Science Fair.

  MLEZ did stuff that was so crazy, it was like it controlled the school. And now MLEZ wants Karl. Seriously, Karl? I don’t even want to think about what he’d do if he were part of some group that ran the school.

  It’s all pretty strange. But Molly and I will figure it out. It’s like Memaw says: ‘A walrus riding a bike is weird until you find out his monster truck is at the garage.’

  ‘See if Karl’s awake yet?’ asked Molly into my earpiece.

  I checked the Beret-Cam.

  ‘Yeah, he’s dressing up Stanley as Abe Lincoln.’ (Stanley is Karl’s pet parakeet.)

  ‘Of course he is,’ said Molly.

  ‘Nick?’

  I turned around to see Mum and Memaw standing at my door. I whispered to Molly, ‘I gotta go.’

  ‘He’s stretching them out,’ said Memaw. ‘And we just bought them!’

  ‘It’s those comic books and video games,’ said Memaw. ‘He thinks he’s NanoSnot.’

  ‘NanoNerd!’ I said. ‘His suit is called a NanoBot.’

  ‘NanoSnot was born without a spleen,’ said Memaw.

  ‘Nick! Stop yelling at your grandmother,’ said Mum.

  Memaw turned to Mum. ‘If you ask me, the child’s hopped up on the glue guns.’

  Mum eyed Memaw. ‘Glue guns?’

  Memaw continued, ‘You know, from all the NanoTots he eats.’

  ‘NanoPops,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, you mean glutens,’ said Mum.

  ‘That too,’ said Memaw.

  First, I eat only two and a half boxes of NanoPops per week and second, I don’t have a problem with gluten. I’m not like Oscar Hernandez at school who can eat only three things.

  Lucky guy.

  ‘Nick, is everything okay?’ asked Mum.

  ‘I’m fine!’ I said.

  Memaw said, ‘He’s getting to that age.’

  ‘What age?’ asked Mum.

  ‘The too-old-to-go-underwear-shopping-with-his-grandmother age.’

  ‘Mother, he’s growing up.’ Mum turned to me. ‘Now, honey, I don’t care if you play NanoJock, but let’s give your underwear a break.’

  I slid the underwear off my head. ‘Fine,’ I said.

  ‘Remember,’ said Mum, ‘if you ever need to talk, I’m here.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  ‘Love you,’ said Mum.

  CHAPTER 2

  The next day before school Molly and I watched Karl from down the hall.

  I said, ‘What I want to know is where did Karl find an Abe Lincoln hat that tiny?’

  ‘This is Karl we’re talking about, right?’ Molly replied.

  Molly shook her head. ‘I can’t believe MLEZ wants Karl, but they don’t want us.’

  ‘Or at least me,’ I said. ‘I mean, I believed in MLEZ before anyone did.’

  Molly glared at me. ‘It’s not a competition.’

  ‘Of course it isn’t. They want Karl!’

  Molly sighed. ‘Eventually Karl will lead us to MLEZ.’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ve been following him for two weeks.’ When he’s not in the bathroom …

  … or reading to his sea monkeys …

  … or teaching Stanley the Gettysburg Address …

  … or working on his Stanley-powered toothbrush for the annual Schoolseum (where classrooms become minimuseums).

  ‘Check on the Beret-Cam one last time before the bell rings,’ said Molly.

  I pulled out my phone just as …

  It was Mr Wickler, my maths teacher. ‘You know the rules,’ he said. ‘No operating mobile devices during school hours.’

  ‘But class hasn’t start—’

  CHAPTER 3

  I’m a maths ninja. One second there’s a problem. The next second …

  … there’s an answer.

  I didn’t used to be good at maths, but then one day everything clicked and I knew the answers—without showing my work. Not because I was hiding my work. Just because there was no work to show.

  It’s weird, but I always get the right answer. And somehow I can even help other kids get the right answers. It’s always been cool with everyone. Everyone except Mr Wickler: the worst teacher in school.

  There are only a few really bad teachers at Emily Dickinson Middle Sc
hool.

  But the worst by far is Wickler.

  ‘X equals two,’ I said without getting up.

  Mr Wickler shook his head. ‘That is not the complete answer, Mr Ramsey.’

  ‘It’s the only answer there is,’ I said.

  The right answer is never enough for him. He has to make me go to the board and show the work I don’t need to show.

  ‘Once again, Mr Ramsey declines to show us his work,’ said Mr Wickler. ‘As I’ve informed him many times, maths is not about the destination. It’s about the …

  That makes zero sense. Why take seventeen thousand light years from Earth to Oomzotz VII when you can use a wormhole?

  ‘I’ll show you my work,’ I said as I got up and walked to the board.

  ‘Mr Ramsey dares to fight against the tide!’ said Mr Wickler. ‘And for that, he will be rewarded!’

  Mr Wickler wrote out a hall pass to Dr Daniels’s office and handed it to me.

  CHAPTER 4

  I’ve made the journey to Dr Daniels’s office lots of times. It’s a long way. And I make it longer every time I do it.

  As I looked for more places to stall, I rounded a corner and ran into Mr Dupree.

  He smiled. ‘Journey’s end, I see.’

  Mr Dupree is the school janitor, Safety Patrol advisor, and all around weird hippie dude.

  I said, ‘How did you know …’

  Mr Dupree likes to quote this guy Shakespeare who lived, like, a million years ago and sort of spoke English, but not really. He does it mostly to confuse and annoy everyone.

  ‘Whatever,’ I said.

  ‘Mr Wickler again?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Still not showing your work?’

  I shrugged again.

  ‘As long as you get the right answer, what difference does it make, right?’

  I said, ‘That’s what I thought!’

  ‘Nick, you and I are a lot alike.’

  Groan. I knew exactly what was coming next.

  ‘Did I ever tell you about the time I was a roller-coaster test rider?’ asked Mr Dupree.

  Double groan.

  He continued. ‘I tested all the big coasters …

  ‘One day I was testing the new Stomach Pumper at Land-O-Screams. The Stomach Pumper was the biggest and fastest coaster of its day.

  ‘My first ride went fine except for one thing.

  ‘A coaster splash should be big, but not too big. It should soak the riders, not drown them. I told the engineer he needed to lower the splash-approach angle.

  ‘He disagreed. He thought the splash angle should be raised. He showed me his calculations. When I wouldn’t budge, he said, “If you’re so certain, show me your work!”

  ‘But I couldn’t. I wasn’t an engineer. I just knew from experience.

  ‘Then, against my advice, he raised the angle. He said, “You want to see my work? Watch.”

  ‘He tested the coaster himself. And we all got to see his work.’

  Like most of Mr Dupree’s stories, this one made zero sense. I started to make my that’s-so-lame face when Dr Daniels walked up.

  She looked at the hall pass in my hand. ‘Not again, Nick.’

  That’s what she said. What she meant was:

  I shrugged.

  She didn’t scream. But I could tell she wanted to.

  Instead she sighed and said, ‘Come with me.’

  ‘I’ll see you tonight, Nick,’ said Mr Dupree. ‘Maxine and I have tango practice.’

  Triple groan.

  Mr Dupree and Memaw are dating. Which is gross.

  And weird. And shows ZERO consideration for my needs.

  ‘Nick! I’m waiting,’ whisper-shouted Dr Daniels.

  Mr Dupree said, ‘Now, what did I do with Doris?’

  As I ran after Dr Daniels, I thought, In how many different ways can things NOT go my way?

  CHAPTER 5

  The good thing about being sent to Dr Daniels’s office is that she’s always got some new therapy doll or lame brochures to entertain me.

  The bad thing about being sent to Dr Daniels’s office is that she always wants to fix what isn’t broken.

  ‘Nick, we’ve worked through your problems with being bullied by Roy.

  ‘And we overcame your issues with bullying yourself.

  ‘And now we’re going to get to the bottom of your problems with Mr Wickler.’

  The problem with getting to the bottom of my problems with Mr Wickler is that there is no bottom to my problems with Mr Wickler.

  But I didn’t say all that. I just said, ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Nick, you’re the best in your class at maths. You solve the problems in your head so well, you don’t need to show your work.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing. But …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But on the BASS test, you have to show your work.’

  Quadruple groan! BASS stands for Basic Assessment of Student Skills. I say it stands for Big Attack on Student Smarts. The whole universe stops for eight weeks before the test while all the teachers teach the tests. Nothing normal like class discussion, or cool stuff like blowing things up in science class. Nope, just drill, drill, drill on sample test questions like:

  Who cares? SHE’S BUYING FRUIT!

  ‘Nick, we need you to do your very best on the BASS test so we can get an exemplary rating. You know what happens if we get an exemplary rating?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘We get more resources for the school and a concert right here in the cafetorium by none other than …

  Boy Toyz is this lame boy band. Not my thing. They’re not all that different from Brobot Rebellion or DudeFarm.

  ‘Last year we were only five points short of exemplary. If just a handful of students like you live up to their potential, your scores could make the difference.’

  Great. If it got out that I didn’t do all I could to help make Boy Toyz happen, every girl in this school would hate me forever. Even Becky, my alternate-universe girlfriend and this-universe regular friend, would zap me into dust with her Hate Ray.

  All girls have them, you know.

  Dr Daniels did her best impression of a scary cheerleader. ‘You can do it, Nick! I know it! All you have to do is show your work!’

  CHAPTER 6

  The bell rang as I left Dr Daniels’s office. Students streamed into the halls while I leaned against the wall and stared at my shoes. How can I show my work when I don’t have any work to show?

  I needed help.

  No way.

  ‘Karl got a text.’

  I looked up. It was Molly. She was smiling.

  ‘From MLEZ?’ I asked. ‘Wait. How can you see Karl’s texts? Only my phone gets his Beret-Cam feed, and Mr Wickler took my phone away.’

  ‘Karl sits in front of me in English. He was at the board doing a book report when his phone buzzed.’

  ‘How do you know it was MLEZ?’

  ‘Who else would be texting him? He only gets texts from us and his mum, and she would never let him go to Rocket Park.’

  Rocket Park is this old park near the school that the city hasn’t got around to fun-proofing yet.

  The swings are so tall, you need a parachute to land safely.

  The super-long seesaw could send you flying into Earth’s orbit.

  Best of all, it has one of those really tall rocket ships with lots of rusty sharp edges for climbing and sliding. It’s totally dangerous.

  And totally awesome.

  Except for one thing.

  ‘But what about Arnold?’ I said.

  Molly stared at me. ‘Seriously?’

  According to school legend, guarding this playground/minefield is the scariest, nastiest, foulest creature on Earth.

  Hector Morales was the only one who had ever seen Arnold. He said he saw him come out of Rat Cave next to the park.

  Rat Cave is really a storm sewer. We call it Rat Cave because it sounds better than Rat Sto
rm Sewer.

  No one has ever gone into Rat Cave and come out alive. Mostly because no one has ever gone into Rat Cave. Because … hello? It’s full of rats!

  ‘You’re going with me, right?’ said Molly.

  I took a deep breath. ‘I guess.’

  Yeah, I’ll go. Hector could be exaggerating. Except for those times he claimed his brother was his clone and that cat spit cures warts, he’s totally reliable.

  CHAPTER 7

  When school finished, I got my phone from Mr Wickler (and a lecture on dinosaur times) …

  Weirdo.

  Afterwards I headed straight for Rocket Park to meet Molly. When I got there, I found Molly, but there was no sign of Karl – just some little kid and his mum playing on the swings.