King Karl Page 5

  ‘Is that you?’ said Karl. ‘You must have got my letter. Is the fleece cape in royal purple too much trouble? You can substitute with normal purple. No problem. I don’t want to be a bother.’

  Simone giggled.

  Stanley sang, ‘Batmobile lost a wheel. Joker ran away! Hey!’

  ‘Now, Stanley, don’t be rude,’ said Karl. ‘Santa, come out. I want to show you my sea monkeys. I taught them how to cha-cha!’

  The sea monkeys! Of course!

  Simone snorted again. Molly elbowed me in the ribs.

  ‘You CAN talk!’ said Karl. ‘I knew it. How else can you count cha-cha steps? Can you all talk?’ asked Karl.

  I looked at Molly. Molly looked at Simone.

  ‘Yes!’ squeaked Molly.

  ‘You bet!’ chirped Simone.

  Karl started clapping.

  ‘I want you do something, Karl,’ I said. ‘I want you to um … sing … um …’

  My mind went blank. I couldn’t think of a song!

  ‘“Frère Jacques”? As a round?’ said Karl.

  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Karl, for being so weird!

  ‘Yes!’ I said. ‘Sing “Frère Jacques” as a round with us!’

  Karl cheered. ‘This is the happiest day of my life!’

  Okay, that’s too weird.

  ‘You go first,’ said Karl. ‘No. Wait. I’ll go first. Unless you want to go first. Do you want to go first?’

  I squeaked, ‘You go first, Karl.’

  Karl began singing. ‘Frère Jacques, frère Jacques.’

  We sang together until Karl fell back to sleep.

  It only took an hour.

  CHAPTER 24

  The next morning I came downstairs to see Memaw and Bob watching Memaw’s second favourite show on the Black-and-White channel.

  It’s about this freaky dog that’s always saving this kid named Brandon who’s always getting stuck in mines and clothes dryers.

  In every episode Jack runs to get help from someone who happens to speak fluent dog.

  And in every episode, Brandon is saved before the mine collapses or someone plugs in the dryer.

  ‘Brandon is saved! Now I can start my day!’ Memaw cheered.

  I said, ‘I’m happy for you.’

  Memaw eyed me. ‘What is it now?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Memaw shot me her you-will-tell-me-everything-or-I-will-force-you-to-go-underwear-shopping-even-though-I-said-I-never-would look.

  I confessed. ‘The BASS test is today!’

  ‘Stupid testing,’ said Memaw as she shook her head. ‘They say Albert Einstein said, “Everyone’s a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”’

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but I’d heard of Einstein. We learned about him in science class.

  I said, ‘It’s not that big a deal. If I show my work, I’ll do fine.’

  ‘You know Einstein never showed his work,’ said Memaw.

  ‘Huh?

  ‘E equals MC squared?’

  I said, ‘I don’t think they’ll let me skip the test because Mr Einstein didn’t show his work.’

  Memaw sighed. ‘I know, sweetie. It isn’t fair. When life gives you beetroots, you make beetroot juice. Then you choke it down and try not to barf.’

  What?

  ‘Come here and give Bob and me a big squeeze.’

  CHAPTER 25

  I stared deep into Ms Kapezki’s eyes as I stood outside the classroom.

  ‘Are you ready for the BASS test, sunshine?’ she asked.

  I nodded. She hugged me and I lost all sense of time and space.

  When she released me to the light, she said, ‘Remember, sugar, the work you are showing is the work your silly-willy brain is seeing.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Now, go kick this test’s butt! Remember, EASY KAPEZKI!’

  I smiled and walked into the classroom. I was confident. I had this. Absolutely NOTHING could stop me.

  Mr Wickler is my examiner? Seriously? Not fair!

  ‘Good luck today,’ he said.

  Yeah, right. Like he wants me to do well. I took a deep breath. I told myself to relax. I still had this. And I did. Right up until …

  I was doomed. Again.

  ‘Missing something?’

  I looked up. Mr Wickler was smiling down at me. I knew what those body-snatching alien worms in his head were telling him to say. …

  Mr Wickler wanted me to fail. It explained why he looked so disappointed when I finally showed my work. He was pure evil. He was—

  ‘Here,’ said Mr Wickler as he handed me a pencil. ‘Lucky I had a spare. Good luck.’

  Wait. It must be some sort of trick. The pencil looked okay. It wasn’t one of those cheap ones made from compressed leaves. Could it be? Was Mr Wickler human after all?

  I flipped open my test booklet. First there was a story about colossal squids that are bigger than giant squids but smaller than Arkansas.

  Easy Kapezki.

  The next section was writing. I had to write two pages about a time when I was right. Which was hard, because there were too many good examples to pick just one.

  I wrote about the time Memaw and I were at the supermarket betting on what shoppers would buy.

  There was this dressed-up guy in the crisp aisle. Memaw bet on Organic Sea Salt Crisps. I bet on Mr Saltysnack Supercheesy Bacon-n-Mayo Crisps.

  Way-too-easy Kapezki!

  Next was the maths section, which had a lot of multiple choice and … Oh no … Two show-your-work problems!

  I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to clear my mind.

  I read the first problem to myself. ‘If Sam’s lunch costs $2.25, then how much would he need for five days of lunches?’

  I knew the answer was $11.25, but I also knew I wasn’t finished. So I did what Ms Kapezki taught me: I slowed my work to show my work.

  Super-mega easy Kapezki!

  The second problem was harder. It was an intersecting Venn diagram showing a pizza topping survey of seventy-five people.

  Again, I knew the answer was sixteen. And again I put the picture in my head on the answer sheet: 75 – 59 = 16. I wrote down the answer, but then everything went … wrong.

  I scratched through the work. Then I wrote down: 75 – (29 + 30) = 16. It sort of looked right, but I wasn’t sure.

  ‘One minute left,’ said Mr Wickler.

  I looked up. ‘NO!’

  He said, ‘Is there a problem, Nick?’

  I didn’t answer. I was too busy drawing pizzas as fast as I could. 29 + 30 + X = 75, then 59 + X = 75, add 59 to each side … No. Wait. I’m supposed to subtract—

  Not-so-easy Kapezki.

  CHAPTER 26

  I got the right answer! I did! I just got confused about exactly how I got the right answer. They’ll understand. They’ll give me credit. I’ll get a good score. It won’t be my fault if Boy Toyz doesn’t perform.

  But before I could start thinking about running away to a freak show …

  … I saw Mr Dupree’s mop bucket all alone outside the boys’ toilets. Maybe I couldn’t pass the BASS test, but at least I could return Doris.

  All I had to do was put her down and keep walking, and Mr Dupree would never know who’d returned her.

  I pulled Doris out of my roller backpack, walked over to the mop bucket, put her down, and …

  ‘We thought we could trust you,’ said Alice. ‘We thought you were like us. But you’re not. You’re not doing what I said to do. You don’t really care about MLEZ and keeping the school safe. You just care about yourself.’

  ‘No. You’re wrong,’ I said. ‘I—’

  ‘It’s a good thing we had Plan B!’

  ‘Plan B?’

  I started to inch forward to grab Doris when Mr Dupree burst out of the boys’ toilets.

  ‘I … um … I did … um fine.’ I said. There was only one thing I could do.


  A mini-tsunami of water rushed down the hall straight toward a sixth-grader.

  As Mr Dupree sloshed down the hall to rescue the kid, I turned and grabbed Doris from Alice.

  I needed to get out of there fast. I got up, turned to shove Doris back into my backpack, but …

  And so was Alice.

  I was about to run, when I saw Molly standing at the opposite end of the hall.

  I tried not to think about how my plans never seemed to work. I tried to stay positive. I tried to remember another thing Memaw liked to say.

  But it didn’t really help.

  CHAPTER 27

  ‘This isn’t Doris,’ said Mr Dupree.

  But it was the same plunger – the one from my backpack. The same backpack Karl took by mistake. It HAD to be Mr Dupree’s plunger. Unless …

  … Alice handed me a fake plunger! That must have been ‘Plan B!’ She had the real one all along. But … then why take my backpack?

  Mr Dupree inspected the new plunger. Then he looked at me with a I-am-seriously-disappointed-in-you,-young-man look.

  Normally, this would be a must-shrug mument. But the serious look of disappointment on Mr Dupree’s face took all shrug options off the table. He deserved the truth.

  Not that he would believe it.

  ‘WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?’ said Dr Daniels.

  She was standing with her hands on her hips in the I-mean-business-and-I’m-not-kidding stance she learned at online guidance counsellor school.

  Mr Dupree held up Doris. ‘I found my plunger.’

  Dr Daniels looked confused. ‘I didn’t know it was missing.’

  Mr Dupree said, ‘It was. And it’s very important to me. These kids all know how important it is to me. And somehow it ended up in Nick’s backpack.’

  Dr Daniels looked at me. ‘As though you’re not in enough trouble already.’

  What was that supposed to mean?

  Mr Dupree said, ‘Now they’re trying to blame this all on Alice Frektner.’

  ‘Who?’ said Dr. Daniels.

  ‘Plain girl? Blends in?’ said Mr Dupree.

  Dr Daniels shook her head. Then: ‘Oh … OH! Right. I remember Alice. She’s the sweet, shy girl I suggested wear brighter colours.’

  Mr Dupree said, ‘They claim she’s a member of Emily.’

  ‘MLEZ,’ I said.

  ‘That ghost you kids made up to explain things that happen at school you don’t understand?’ said Dr Daniels.

  ‘MLEZ is not a ghost,’ said Molly.

  Dr Daniels stared at Karl for a second before turning back to Mr Dupree. ‘Alice? A mastermind? The girl hardly casts a shadow!’

  ‘Which makes her perfect for the job,’ I said under my breath.

  Mr Dupree added some extra-serious to his already I-am-seriously-disappointed-in-you,-young-man look.

  Dr Daniels nodded. ‘One crisis at a time.’ She held up my BASS answer sheet. ‘First, Nick has to explain this to a BASS test official.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘I showed my work!’

  ‘But not for the answer you gave,’ said Dr Daniels.

  ‘But I put down the right answer!’ I said.

  ‘I know, but they’re not giving you credit, and the scores were tight. We need that answer to get an exemplary school rating.’

  ‘And the Boy Toyz,’ added Molly.

  I said, ‘You’re saying we’re one point short?’

  Dr Daniels nodded again. ‘Yes. And tomorrow night before the Schoolseum, we’re going to meet with the BASS testing official and plead your case.’

  That’s when everyone stared at me and I tried to do what Alice makes look so easy.

  I tried to disappear.

  It’s a lot harder than it looks.

  CHAPTER 28

  I couldn’t sleep. It was one A.M. After staring at the bumps on my ceiling that I swear spelled out ‘loser’, I decided to go downstairs to eat a bowl of NanoPops.

  I didn’t find any NanoPops, but I did find a sleeping monkey, his belly stuffed with my Schoolseum project.

  The fridge door opened behind me. It was Memaw, sitting in her wheelchair, reaching for a leftover slice of mac ’n’ cheese pizza.

  She looked at me. ‘What? I don’t have a problem.’

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  She looked past me to Bob. ‘Oh my.’

  ‘It’s ruined!’ I said.

  Memaw took a bite of her pizza. ‘I’m ’o ’orry, ’ick. ’Ob’s ’ust ’cheivous, ’ough ’e does ’ook ’omfortable.’

  ‘The Schoolseum is tomorrow!’

  Memaw swallowed. ‘We’ll think of something. Remember, every time a tornado rips a roof off, a sun-room is born.’

  Huh?

  ‘What class was your project for?’

  ‘World History.’

  Memaw stared at what was left of my Taj Mahal. After a few seconds she nodded.

  ‘The Cercopes,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  She pulled her smartphone out of her housecoat pocket and handed it me. ‘Look it up. It’s your project!’

  I looked up Cercopes. They’re these freaky-looking monkey mischief-makers from Greek mythology.

  ‘Thanks. I think.’

  ‘Problem solved, then. Now, what are you doing downstairs?’

  ‘Couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘Nightmares?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Were you in your underwear? Was there any flying? Did a giant rabbit named Dave want to wrestle?’

  ‘I didn’t have a nightmare!’

  ‘I guess that’s just me. Doesn’t matter. I know exactly what’s going on.’

  ‘Huh?’

  Memaw shook her head. ‘You couldn’t hide from trouble in your own shadow.’

  Then she told me everything I already knew. …

  Memaw added, ‘Mr Dupree doesn’t think you stole Doris, but he doesn’t believe all this Emily-Alice stuff either.’

  ‘But it’s true!’

  ‘Even so. It’s not your job to fix everything. Your job is to be a good kid and rub my neck when I ask!’

  Bob started snoring.

  Memaw said, ‘You ever see anyone else besides Alice in MLEZ?’

  ‘No, but that’s on purpose so we can’t rat out the other members.’

  ‘Or there aren’t any other members. Why all the secrecy?’

  ‘She says if everyone knew who we were, we couldn’t do what we do.’

  ‘Then why invite you to join?’

  ‘I don’t know. She thought we could help?’

  Memaw smiled. ‘I think she wanted to show you what she was doing. I think she wanted to show everyone what she was doing!’

  Wait. Show?

  ‘You need to put her in a situation where she can’t help but brag. You need to get her to—’

  ‘SHOW HER WORK!’ I cried.

  ‘Yeah. Show her work,’ said Memaw as she grabbed a dish towel, rolled herself over to a snoring Bob, and stood up shakily.

  ‘But how?’ I asked.

  Memaw laid the dish towel across Bob, waking him. ‘This will make a fine toga.’

  ‘I should probably be doing that myself.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll let you take all the credit.’

  Credit? Wait. That’s it!

  CHAPTER 29

  You run. You hide. But no matter what you do, you can’t escape your past. You try to change. You try new underwear. You start saying things like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘I can’t wait to send a thank-you note!’

  But none of it works. Because the past isn’t interested in who you are now. Or who you’re trying to be. Or how it’s really, really going to be different this time. No. The past only cares about who you were. And the past never EVER forgets.

  ‘You have a plan?’ asked Molly.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  It was the next evening at school. Molly, Karl, Becky, Simone and I were standing in the hall waiting for the Schoolseum to start.


  Molly said, ‘Your plans don’t work out very well.’

  ‘Or at all,’ added Simone.

  I said, ‘Hey. We swapped Karl’s and my backpacks the other night, didn’t we?’

  Karl looked confused. ‘Wait. What?’

  Oops.

  Karl gasped. ‘YOU were the sea monkeys! No wonder, when I asked them to sing “Frère Jacques”, they looked at me like I spat in their aquarium.’

  ‘Nick?’ said Dr Daniels from behind me.

  I turned around.

  Perfect Phil used to date my mum. She stopped seeing him after he tried to make me repeat seventh grade for fake bullying because of some stupid Zero Tolerance policy.

  Perfect Phil wasn’t going to care that I got the right answer with the wrong work. He wasn’t going to try to find a way for me to pass the BASS test. Perfect Phil was going to get perfectly even. Which was going to make me …

  Perfectly doomed.

  ‘Let’s go to my office,’ said Dr Daniels.

  I thought, Just this once, could we ALL forget about the past?