Dodger for Sale Read online

  LASORDA Is money really that important, Mr. Beeks?

  MR. BEEKS Would you be standing here talking to me now if it weren’t?

  At that moment, James turned and walked out of the waiting room. He slammed the door behind him, and Lasorda must have heard the noise, because he and Mr. Beeks stopped talking and stepped out of the office into the waiting room. They shook hands and said they would be in touch. Then Mr. Beeks left.

  “You can come out now, children!” Lasorda said. Lizzie and I both jumped about two feet. Then Lasorda snapped his fingers and the closet door swung open. “Did you two hear that entire conversation?”

  We both nodded. I mean, when an ancient, powerful genie busts you eavesdropping, what are you supposed to do?

  “Good,” Lasorda said. “Very good. Things are going just as I’d planned. I will pay off the leprechauns, and Dodger will still be in my debt. Although I do wish—oh, never mind!”

  “What is it, Lasorda?”

  “Well, it’s just that sometimes I almost find myself wishing that Dodger still worked for me.”

  “Maybe you could talk to him and work something out,” I said.

  “I am the Great Lasorda,” he replied. “I do not just work something out with my former employees.”

  “Hey, do you know who you sound like?” Lizzie asked him.

  He thought for a moment, then flashed a tight, wicked grin. “If you say ‘Mr. Beeks,’ I may have to turn you into a tree or something. Now begone!”

  Jeepers, just a second ago, Lasorda had been acting almost nice. Some people are so moody.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Special Guests

  THE NEXT STUDENT council meeting was a disaster. All week long in class, Mrs. Starsky kept hinting that we would have a special guest. She even took Lizzie, James, Craig, and me aside and warned us to be on our absolute best behavior for the meeting. I guess that made sense based on how much Lizzie and I usually argued with James and Craig, but ever since we had overheard that ugly conversation at Lasorda’s office, I wasn’t really mad at James anymore. I mostly just felt sorry for him. Anyway, we did try to behave at the meeting, but none of us could have known that there would be not one but two special guests.

  Everything started off normally enough. I banged the gavel and called the council to order. Next Mrs. Starsky announced her guest. None of the other kids could believe it—she had gotten the mayor of the town to come to our meeting! Not only that but she promised we could make a presentation at the next town council meeting about why nobody should be allowed to build on the forest. I saw James Beeks mumbling under his breath when Mrs. Starsky said that, and Craig trying to calm him down. I glanced at Lizzie and saw that she wasn’t paying any attention to Beeks and Flynn, because she was messing around with one of the school’s laptop computers. That day for a science lesson, we had been making webcam videos about measurement, but I knew something had gone wrong with the RECORD button on the computer she was using. It was a shame, because the computer had an awesome built-in camera that let you record in any direction just by clicking on the track pad. If she could get the camera working again, it would really help her science grade. I didn’t think she should be working on that right in front of the mayor, though—especially if he had anger issues. What if he got mad at us?

  I forgot all about Lizzie’s computer problem when the mayor walked in. He strode through the door to the front of the classroom and immediately started in on a whole big speech: “It’s great to see you kids taking an interest in our town’s future, because you are the future. … If we all work together, we can accomplish miracles … blah, blah, blah.” I don’t know if it was just because of what Mr. Beeks had said about the mayor, but to me, the guy sounded even more phony than our principal. Except at least she didn’t have a massive bald spot covered by the world’s fakest-looking toupee. Still, he had our attention—until the really bad thing happened. All of a sudden, just as the mayor was saying, “If you apply the lessons of today, we can all have a brighter tomorrow,” I saw a blue head pop around the corner of the doorway.

  Oh, no, I thought. Dodger, don’t do this to me! But then Dodger stuck a sign into the doorway. It said: SNAKS! Jeepers. Was he trying to tell me there were snakes in the room? Ugh, I hate snakes. But I looked around and didn’t see any. Maybe he meant that there were snakes on the way to attack us? But I had never heard of snakes joining into a pack and swarming an elementary school. I shrugged at Dodger, just as the mayor was saying, “And I know you all love our wonderful country, right?”

  Dodger pulled the sign back behind the door for a moment, and I realized the mayor was glaring at me for shrugging at the exact wrong moment. Great, I thought. Now the mayor thinks I don’t love my country. Then Dodger’s sign reappeared, with more words on it:

  YU FORGOT THE SNAKS!

  Oh, I thought. Not snakes—snacks! Dodger was right: I had totally forgotten to bring any snacks for our special guest. What was I going to do now? Dodger had obviously been serious about his thoughts on feeding people at meetings, but I had no idea he would actually show up at this event. Nobody but me and Lizzie could see Dodger or his signs, but if we didn’t do anything, he might start making noise. And believe me, everybody can hear Dodger, even if they can’t see him.

  “Not now!” I hissed. Unfortunately for me, the mayor had just asked, “Will you all pledge to support your town, your state, and our beloved U.S. of A.?” The mayor and everybody else stared at me. “Excuse me, son?” the mayor said. “Did you just say you won’t support your town, your state, or your country?”

  “Um, sorry, sir,” I said. “I was just, uh, talking to someone else.”

  The mayor frowned, shook his head, and continued his speech. Meanwhile, Lizzie was elbowing me. “Get Dodger out of here,” she whispered. I nodded. When Dodger peeked around the door frame again, I tried to shoo him away by gesturing with my hands under my desk.

  Yeah, like Dodger was going to take a hint. Instead of leaving, he wrote another note:

  I WIL JUST THROE THEM 2 YU!

  Yikes! What was I going to do? If Dodger started throwing food to me, I was a dead man. Mrs. Starsky would completely flip out on me, the mayor would go ballistic, Beeks would never let me live it down, and I’d probably get kicked out of student council. Lizzie saw the note, too, and gasped.

  I tuned in to the mayor for a second, and apparently he was reaching the climax of his patriotic speech. “Our flag,” he said, “should always fly from the highest heights! Long may it wave over mountains and rivers, valleys and streams! Long may the Stars and Stripes look down upon us from the blue sky, giving us strength and courage!”

  Oh, brother, I thought. This is exactly what Mr. Beeks said would happen. But what does any of this have to do with saving the field?

  Dodger, meanwhile, was now holding some kind of cream pie. It looked like he was getting ready to lob the pie at me. Lizzie mouthed, No, Dodger. Then she pointed at the floor and said, “On the ground!” That wasn’t a bad idea. At least if Dodger slid the pie on the ground, the kids behind us wouldn’t see it. Plus, that way, I wouldn’t be able to miss, and have the pie splatter everywhere. I reached down below my desk with both hands, preparing for Dodger to slide the pie my way.

  Sadly, the mayor had just asked, “And where does our beautiful flag belong?”

  Oopsie. Major oopsie. The mayor, and everyone else, turned toward Lizzie and me. I was still all bent over so that nobody could see my arms under the desk, and Lizzie was looking over the mayor’s shoulder at Dodger. The mayor started to step over to us. His foot was in the air as he said, “Young lady, I don’t know what is wrong with you and your friend there, but it will stop now! I will not have our country and our flag mocked like this. What is wrong with you? Where is your respect? And is that a foreign accent I hear?”

  Lizzie looked like she was about to faint. I wonder what she’s going to say to that, I thought. I never got a chance to find out, though, because just then, Dodger p
ushed the pie across the floor. The mayor’s foot came down right in the middle of the spinning pastry, and he lost his balance. His foot slid out from under him, flinging the pie up in the air. Mrs. Starsky had been hurrying over to see what was going on—and she arrived at my desk just as the pie did.

  SPLAT! We now had a teacher dripping with pie—banana cream pie, judging from the smell—and a very, very angry government official doing a split on the floor. The mayor spoke first, probably because he didn’t have to spit out a big gob of whipped cream before he could make a sound. “You two are exactly what’s wrong with America today. Foreigners and disrespectful brats!” He pointed at Lizzie and continued. “You come here and take our jobs. You don’t respect our flag, our traditions, or our laws. If I had my way, everyone who wasn’t born in the U.S. would be sent back to their own country! Or thrown in jail forever!” Then he turned to me. “And you! Aren’t you the president of this group?” I nodded weakly. “I came here because you wanted to save the forest and preserve the environment. Well, you know what? Nobody elected me to protect a bunch of trees! I couldn’t care less about the environment! If it would help the most prominent citizens of this town to make money, I’d go out there and chop down those stupid trees myself!”

  With that, the mayor stood up, dusted himself off, and stormed out of the room. As he reached the doorway, he turned and said, “If these students are the kind of leaders you produce here, I think this school should be closed down!”

  I looked around. Most of the kids looked horrified. Except for James Beeks, who was grinning. It figures, I thought. The second you start feeling sorry for a guy like Beeks—BAM! Meanwhile, Mrs. Starsky was standing over Lizzie and me, with wads of banana pie goo dripping from her hair and face. “What on earth do you have to say for yourselves?” she demanded.

  I gulped. There really wasn’t much to say, was there?

  I looked at Lizzie, who was looking down at her desk. No, I realized, she wasn’t looking at the desk—she was looking at her laptop computer. And then I saw that the red RECORD light was blinking on her screen.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A Nice, Quiet Dinner with the Family

  MRS. STARSKY SENT EVERYBODY other than Lizzie and me home, told us not to go anywhere, and went to the bathroom to get cleaned up. When she came back, she looked mostly normal—well, other than a little splotch of banana custard in her left eyebrow. But she was really, really angry at us.

  At least, until Lizzie showed her the video of the speech on the laptop computer. Then Mrs. Starsky became really, really angry at the mayor. On the tape, you couldn’t hear anything Lizzie or I had said, but you could tell we hadn’t flung the pie. You could also see that the mayor had gone completely bonkers for very little reason. Mrs. Starsky made us swear that we hadn’t thrown, pushed, bought, or even brought the pie (which was strictly true, anyway), and then apologized for the mayor’s behavior. By the time we got out of there, Mrs. Starsky was just about ready to storm Town Hall by herself.

  I hoped she’d get her eyebrow cleaned up first.

  At dinner that night, Dad was really proud of himself. He was wearing a “Kiss the Cook” apron, and had made roast beef with potatoes and carrots on the side—the first time in my life I had ever seen him make anything other than eggs, toast, or grilled burgers. He told us he had even scrubbed off the top of the stove and washed the pots and pans already. Mom said, “Wow, that’s some excellent manly housework!” Of course, that got Dad onto the topic of how our resolutions were going. I complimented Mom for letting me express my independence by going downtown with Lizzie to meet with Lasorda. Then I told the family about the upcoming town council meeting. Dad was thrilled that we were using his book as a guide for becoming activists, and wanted to know whether we had found a rare animal yet. I said we were working on it and that Lizzie and I planned to spend that Saturday morning searching the forest for endangered shrews, turtles, and squirrels. That was when the conversation started going downhill.

  “Can I go? Huh? Huh?” Amy said. One thing you have to say for my sister: She never, ever gives up. Once she gets an idea, she’s like a pit bull.

  I had already tried yelling at Amy to make her stop following me and Lizzie around. I had even said mean things to her, and in fact, Amy hadn’t talked to me for a few days. She probably didn’t even want to spend time with me now, but she wanted to keep snooping. So she was trying to get my parents to make me take her along. The worst part was that they would probably fall for it.

  “Mom, Dad,” I pleaded. “Don’t I deserve some privacy?”

  “Ooh, Willers wants some privacy to be with his Lizzie-poo!”

  “Be quiet, Amy!”

  Amy smirked at me, but then put on her most innocent face and asked Dad, “But I want to help. I have a right to help. And aren’t I supposed to stand up for my rights, Daddy?”

  He looked unsure for a moment. Amy pushed on. “I mean, won’t it be good for your book if I keep following my resolution?”

  “Dad,” I said, “you can’t make us take her along! This is supposed to be my quest!”

  “Then why are you taking Lizzie?” Amy said triumphantly.

  That was it. I didn’t have to sit there and listen to this. “Amy,” I shouted, “you—are—not—going with us into the woods! You will never, ever be welcome to tag along with us! Now, for the last time, LEAVE ME ALONE!” Then I stormed upstairs. I don’t know where all that grumpiness had come from all of a sudden. Maybe I was spending too much time with the mayor.

  That Saturday morning was clear and beautiful. I put on some scruffy clothes and a pair of beat-up sneakers, in case we had to crawl around chasing animals. Then I met Lizzie at the edge of the woods, and we set out looking again for interesting creatures. I didn’t see any Least Shrews, Flying Squirrels, or Bog Turtles, but I did see some strange flashes of green between the trees. When we got to a clearing, I stopped. “Lizzie,” I muttered, “don’t look, but I think we’re being followed by leprechauns.”

  She giggled.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “I keep seeing green out of the corner of my eye, but when I turn around, they’re gone.”

  “Hmm,” Lizzie said, “maybe we can try to talk with them.”

  “Talk with them? Why would we want to do that?”

  “Oh, come on, Willers. Think about it: If the forest gets chopped down, they’re in a lot of trouble. Plus, Lasorda is only selling it so he can pay them back. Maybe we can get them on our side.”

  “I don’t know, Lizzie. Dodger said they’re tricky. And I happen to know they don’t like it when people go looking for them.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “My mom read me this fairy tale once, and the prince in it tried to—”

  “Willie, do you honestly mean to tell me you’re afraid of leprechauns because of a fairy tale you once heard?”

  Jeepers, when she said it that way, it sounded kind of wimpy. “All right,” I said, “we can talk to the leprechauns. But how are we supposed to do that?”

  “I dunno. Maybe we should make them an offering.”

  “An offering? Like what?”

  “Let’s see … what do leprechauns like?”

  This was a really ridiculous conversation. But I actually did know something that leprechauns were supposed to like. I bent down, took off my right sneaker, and hopped into the middle of the clearing. I carefully placed the sneaker on a flat rock, hopped backward away from it, and sat down in the shade to wait.

  “A sneaker?” Lizzie asked as she sat next to me. “Why would a magical forest creature care about your sneaker?”

  “Ah,” I said, “it’s not just any old sneaker. It’s a sneaker with a broken lace and a worn-out heel. Leprechauns fix shoes.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s what they do, that’s all.”

  “So you’re leaving them a smelly old piece of athletic footwear—damaged athletic footwear. That sounds kind of crazy, don’t you think?”

/>   I thought for a second, then burst out in a fit of giggles. Here we were, trying to save a forest so that our magical chimpanzee friend wouldn’t lose his home. The land was being sold by a genie, and now we were attempting to lure a leprechaun into a meadow. And Lizzie thought the broken sneaker was the crazy part?

  Lizzie said, “I don’t really see what’s so fu—” Then she had to stop talking, because the giggles overcame her, too. We laughed until we were doubled over, gasping for breath. When we finally recovered and sat up again, there was a little man standing next to my sneaker. And when I say little, I’m serious; the guy must have been a foot and a half tall. He had bright red hair and was wearing a very old-fashioned green suit with black buckle shoes and a matching buckled hat. He was studying the sneaker the way a doctor looks at an injury: peering at it from all angles, poking around it gently, and saying hmmm … a lot.

  I cleared my throat. The little man jumped back a step and shouted, “Hark! Who dares deface this meadow with such an unflattering, odorous specimen of low-quality footwear?”

  “Well, sir, I didn’t mean to offend you with it. My name is Willie, and this is my best friend, Elizabeth. We just wanted to meet you because … well, we’re trying to save this forest from being sold and destroyed. We thought maybe you, uh, wee people might want to help us.”

  “Wee people? Wee people? Ye think we are wee? Well, we are not wee, are we? Nay, lad, we are the large, powerful, and mighty leprechauns. I am known as Big Pat Clancy, but if that’s too much to say, ye can just call me Big.”

  “Um, okay, Big. Would you like to help us save the forest?”

  “Wait a moment, son,” Big said. He had taken a little pair of eyeglasses from his vest pocket and slipped them on. “I just need to concentrate so I can operate on this sorry excuse for a shoe.”