Dodger for President Read online

  “No, I mean they were controlling my brain! I wanted to read my speech the way it was written, but I just couldn’t do it.”

  “Oh,” Craig said. “So all we have to do is go to Mrs. Starsky and tell her that somebody was controlling your brain, and everything will be fine.”

  We heard a thwack, and Craig said, “OW! What did you do that for?”

  “You idiot! Don’t you know anything about politics?”

  “Um, no. I don’t. I’m only running for vice president because you told me to. You said I didn’t need to know anything, that all I had to do is stand near you and look scary.”

  “Well, the first rule is that you never apologize for the truth. You make up a half-truth, deliver a half-apology, and then find a way to blame your opponent for the whole issue. It’s called the weasel defense.”

  “Huh?”

  “Listen: Let’s say I had gas, okay?”

  “Uh, okay. You had gas.”

  “Right. So I totally blasted one off, like, right in the middle of class. And then Willie Ryan made a face. Using the weasel defense, I’d say, ‘Wow, did you hear that? Someone in this room has an innocent little tooting problem. I’m sorry for bringing this up, but my opponent doesn’t seem to have any respect for our classmates who face physical challenges.’ Then, whatever Ryan says, he looks like the bad guy.”

  Craig still had that doubting tone as he said, “And this works?”

  “Are you kidding me? Have you ever listened to an election campaign? How many times did George W. Bush get elected? It’s foolproof.” We heard a thud and then some muffled, colorful language from Craig. “What’s the matter, Craig? You just dropped your school bag; it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything.”

  Craig blurted, “Look, James! There are TWO cell phones in my bag. Not one, TWO!”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means my little brother forgot to take his phone with him to his dad’s house, and then I accidentally threw it in my bag.”

  “So?”

  “So, now when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he won’t be able to call me.”

  “Okay, so you’ll go home and tell your mom to drive you over there.”

  “I can’t. She’ll be at work, and there’s no way my stepdad will drive me there. It’s like twenty minutes each way. Plus, he hates seeing my other stepdad. Anyway, I can’t tell them about my brother’s night terrors, because then our mom won’t let him go see his dad at all.”

  “Wow, sounds major.”

  “It is major, you jerk! Now my brother’s going to be scared and alone, with nobody to—”

  I could tell Craig really felt horrible. He might have been the toughest kid in the fifth grade (twice!), but he sure did have a soft spot for his brother. I started to wonder whether I would have been as worried if it had been Amy alone and scared in the dark. My thoughts were interrupted by a horrible burning sensation in my left big toe. It was hard to reach my foot, lying there in the tunnel, with Lizzie’s feet in my face, but I managed. I ripped off my shoe, and in the dim reddish light coming through the plastic, I could see that the drops had eaten right through my sneaker and into my toe. I tried to check out the damage, but it was hard to focus my attention on the toe. I realized that the magic was spreading to my foot! Another wave of pain shot through me, and I winced. This made Lizzie slip. Her left knee whacked into my bruised cheekbone, and I dropped the sneaker. It clattered all the way down the slide, stopping with a resounding thump at the last turn.

  James said, “Wait! What’s that? Remember you thought you saw something here the other night? And then today something made me give that speech? I bet this place is haunted! I’m getting out of here!”

  “Stop, James! What about my little brother? You’re the smart one—you have to help me figure out what to do!”

  At that moment, Lizzie shifted her weight in an attempt to get her knee out of my aching eye. We slipped about two feet down the slide with a shuffling, squeaky sound. James heard it and said, “Sorry, dude, but when it comes to ghosts, it’s every man for himself! Later!” James’s footsteps echoed as he charged away from the playground.

  Lizzie and I were huddled together inside the slide, trying our hardest to disappear, when all of a sudden, a huge, steely hand closed around my bare foot, and Craig yanked me out the bottom of the slide.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Geeks in Flight

  “HEH, HEH. HI, CRAIG,” I said. “We were just, uh—”

  “About to die? Yeah, you were.” Craig let go of my ankle, and I tumbled onto the wood chips on my butt. He stomped on my hand and kept his foot pressed down on top of my fingers. Then Lizzie slid out of the tunnel, stood up between us, and held her hand up to Craig’s chest. As soon as she touched him, he flinched, as though he hadn’t seen her. Which I guess was true. “Yow!” Craig said. “Where did you come from?”

  “That’s not important right now. Listen,” Lizzie said, “I’m sorry we were eavesdropping on you, but you can’t beat up Willie.”

  “Sure I can,” Craig growled. “I could beat him up blindfolded, one-handed, hopping on one foot. Just watch me.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said, figuring my only chance was to keep Craig talking. He might have been nice to his little brother, but he was killing my fingers. I tried not to think about what he could do to the rest of me. “Of course you could beat me up if I was blindfolded, one-handed, hopping on one foot. But where would the challenge be in that? In a fair fight, I’d probably kick your oversized, hairy—”

  “Shut UP, Willie!” Lizzie and Craig both said at once. Then they looked at each other, rattled. Lizzie recovered first. I hoped she knew what she was doing—my hand was killing me. “As I was saying, you can’t beat up Willie, because he and I are the only ones who can help you.”

  “What are you talking about? And make it fast, because you already made me miss my bus. I have to get going soon, or I’ll have to rush while I’m pounding on Willie, and it will ruin the fun.”

  “Craig, we heard the part about your little brother. If you let us go, we can get the cell phone to him without your parents even knowing about it.”

  Flynn stared at her. “You’re serious? You can really bring him the phone? And you would do that—for me? Then what would I have to do for you to make it even?”

  “Yes, we could really do it. Yes, we would do it for you. And you wouldn’t owe us anything.”

  “Well,” I interjected, “you might consider getting off my hand.” Craig lifted his foot, but reached down and grabbed the back of my collar in an iron death grip. I yanked my bruised fingers away, sat up, and started to put my newly burned sneaker back on.

  “How are you planning on doing this?”

  Lizzie said, “We can’t tell you that. But I promise your brother will get the phone. Just tell us where he lives, and let us get going. Little Tyler won’t have to wake up scared and alone tonight.”

  Craig said, “You promise? Really?” Lizzie nodded, and he handed her the phone. “Just tell him that you’re friends with Craigie-weggie, all right? I taught him never to talk to strangers, but that way he’ll know you’re okay.”

  “Craigie-weggie?” I asked.

  “Look, Willie, I could still totally kill you.”

  Lizzie said, “Come on, Willie, we don’t have time for this. We have to go get the—um, we have to go get the object we need. Craig, just give us your ex-stepdad’s address, okay?”

  “It’s Two Seventy-seven Swamp Court, in Frogtown, the trailer right near the edge of the water. You can’t miss it, but watch out for Tyler’s dad’s pit bulls. I think there are three of them.”

  Lizzie said, “Got it—Two Seventy-seven Swamp, Frogtown, three pit bulls. Let’s hit the road, Willie.”

  Craig said, “One more thing: Don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

  “Your secret’s safe with us, Craigie-weggie,” I said, and took off running toward home. As I passed Craig, I saw Lizzie pat him on the shoul
der. Then she was running beside me. Behind us, Craig shouted, “Hey, wait! How did you know my brother’s name?” But we didn’t even look back.

  As we left, Lizzie confirmed my alarming suspicion: Her plan was to fly the magic carpet to Tyler’s house. She told me to get Dodger while she “made some preflight arrangements.” I asked her whether her arrangements would include finding out how to get to little Tyler’s killer-dog-infested house. She said she’d find out how to get there, no problem. I said, “Magic?” She said, “Mapquest.”

  I limped home on my sore, enchanted toe, which rubbed against the ground through the gaping hole in my sneaker. Between that, my throbbing hand, and my black eye, I was starting to feel like I’d been through a war. And we still had a carpet flight to get through.

  I had no problem persuading my parents to let me go back out. I think the Tincture of Distraction was still working, because my dad didn’t even ask me how the big speech had gone. In fact, my parents didn’t really pay much attention to me unless I was touching them. Amy was a different story. She kept staring at me, then looking away, then looking around again in bewilderment. I knew my problems with her were far from over.

  I went upstairs, got Dodger, and headed out the back door into the woods. On the way over, I kind of thought he’d be mad at me for having switched the order of the assembly speeches, but all he did was slap me on the back and say, “Willie, that was a great plan! Dude, I never doubted you for a second!” I tried not to roll my eyes.

  When we got to the Field of Dreams, I told Dodger about the mission to Craig’s brother’s house. He thought it was a great idea, but there was a catch: He couldn’t go with us. Apparently, he couldn’t help an Irish kid directly either. “But this will be great,” he said. “My two best flying students of this century on a combat mission together!”

  “What do you mean, best of this century? Aren’t we your ONLY flying students of this century?”

  “Well, yeah, technically. But, dude, I taught lots of people how to fly in other centuries.”

  “Like who?”

  “Um, Amelia Earhart, the Red Baron, and . . . let’s see . . . oh, I almost forgot: Captain Max Pruss.” I looked at Dodger blankly. “You know,” he said. “The pilot of the Hindenburg zeppelin.”

  “So, Dodger, your three best flight students of the whole twentieth century all crashed?”

  “Uh, in a sense . . . I mean, if you’re going to be all precise about it . . . hey, look! There’s Lizzie!”

  The next thing I knew, Dodger was saying, “Bon voyage, dudes! Beware of—”

  The end of his sentence was drowned out by the rush of wind as Lizzie and I took off on the Flying Carpet of Khartoum. Lizzie asked, “Did he just say we should beware of cannibals?” I shrugged; I was pretty busy concentrating. I was mostly controlling the flight, with Lizzie standing next to me, holding a fistful of my sweatshirt with one hand and reading the directions aloud. Interestingly, we could see each other. Dodger had said that the Tincture of Distraction and the magic of the carpet would probably cancel each other out. I have to say, I did a lot better on this mission than I had on my first one. Lizzie kept telling me I should go faster, but hey, we were getting there. At one point, she dug her elbow into me and pointed out two little kids below us in a little red wagon. They appeared to be going faster than we were, but they were going downhill—so it was a totally unfair comparison.

  Anyway, we eventually got to Frogtown and found the trailer at the edge of the swamp where Tyler lived with his dad and the three deadly dogs. Once we didn’t need the directions anymore, Lizzie whipped Tyler’s cell phone out of her pocket, handed it to me, and said, “Okay, Willie, I’ll take it from here.”

  “What do you mean, you’ll take it from here?” I asked.

  “Look, do you see those high-voltage power lines running on both sides of the trailer? And that row of trees in front? And the clotheslines in the back by the swamp? Ooh, and the agitated, snarling dogs?”

  I gulped. “Uh, yeah. But I could—”

  “I think we’re going to have to come in at a pretty steep angle if we want to get to Tyler’s window without getting fried, smashed, or eaten. So while I know you are more than capable of piloting this carpet, I just thought you might want to give me a turn, that’s all.”

  I could feel the clammy sweat of intense physical fear breaking out all over my body. “Well,” I said, “I guess it’s only fair that I give you a chance.”

  “I knew you’d see it my way,” Lizzie said. “Now hold on! I’m going to have to dive almost vertically to get us past the power lines with enough speed to outrun the dogs. Then we’ll circle the trailer once to get the dogs confused. They shouldn’t be able to see us, but they will smell us. We’ll need to hover by Tyler’s window for a moment while you lean over the side of the carpet, knock on the window, and give him the phone, and we’ll want to have a head start. Any questions?”

  “Uh, couldn’t we just land on the roof of the trailer? Or knock on the door?”

  “No, the roof isn’t flat, see? And we can’t knock on the door. Craig said his ex-stepdad would be mad about the phone thing if he knew about it, remember? So we need to get the phone to Tyler without his father knowing about it. Now hold on!”

  I grabbed the hood of Lizzie’s windbreaker, and she shifted her weight forward. There was a horrible moment when we were tilted forward but hadn’t started to dive yet—kind of like that feeling when you’re momentarily balanced at the top of a roller coaster. Then the wind was rushing past my face, the power lines were getting bigger and bigger right in front of me, and the dogs were starting to bark.

  Wow, those were some loud dogs.

  Not only that, but they appeared to be staring right at us. “Uh, Lizzie,” I said.

  “Hush,” she said, “I’m trying to concentrate. You don’t want me to hit any power lines, do you?”

  “No, but I don’t think Dodger said—”

  “Not now, Willie! I have to—oops! Oh, dear!” Lizzie swerved to avoid a power pole, and the front edge of the carpet caught a tree branch. Instantly, we were tumbling and spinning at the same time. Lizzie was clutching my coat, I was desperately trying to grab the edge of the carpet, and the ground was getting really big, really fast.

  The impact was brutal. We landed about fifty feet behind the trailer, only about a yard from the beginning of the mucky swamp. Lizzie was on top of me, and the carpet had ended up half-submerged amid the reeds, maybe ten feet away from us. Lizzie just had time to gasp, “Willie, are you all right?” before the dogs got to us.

  All three of them stood in front of our prone bodies, growling and drooling. No doubt about it, they had totally watched us flying in. “Lizzie,” I said, “I don’t think Dodger told us to beware of cannibals. Looking back on it, I’m pretty sure he said beware of animals.”

  As the dogs glared at us right at our eye level, Lizzie muttered, “Oh, right. Good one, Willie.”

  For maybe ten seconds, we didn’t move and neither did the dogs. Then they all started barking at once. Lizzie rolled off me, and I jumped up. I don’t know what got into me, but I said, “I’ll hold them off. Get the carpet!” Thinking fast, I tried to come up with something I could use as a weapon. There was absolutely nothing, but I figured I might be able to get the dogs away from Lizzie. As the dogs started jumping toward my face, I pulled off my left sneaker and threw it. “Fetch!” I shouted. All three dogs turned and rushed after the sneaker. The one that got there first pounced, and in an instant there were little shreds of leather and rubber flying everywhere. But then that dog started stumbling around in circles, looking totally confused. Wow, I realized, the Tincture of Distraction works on the dogs! At least if they eat some . . . Too bad there were still two more dogs, and I only had one more sneaker. I whipped that one off my right foot, tossed it as far as I could, and watched the two remaining dogs jump on it. Only one of them turned back toward me. Before I could come up with Plan B, the last dog was hurtling through the
air at me. I fell on my back and tried to kick at him with my bare feet. My burned big toe brushed against the fur of his belly, and instantly, the dog twisted away from me. He sniffed at the air, but didn’t look back in my direction. The tincture on my foot was still working! He couldn’t see me! I was saved! This was great.

  But he was still growling. And now he was looking over my right shoulder at something in the swamp. “Lizzie,” I said in the calmest voice I could muster, “I think you might want to hurry with that carpet.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  From the Office

  of Doctor Chimpstone

  LATER THAT NIGHT, back at the Field of Dreams, we told Dodger about the whole adventure: how Lizzie had half-run, half-swum her way through the swamp, gotten the carpet just in time, and swooped in to pick me up—just as Tyler’s dad had come outside to see what all the racket was. How the dad had said, “All right, Killer! Down, Slash! Relax, Muffy! If you give me a minute, I’ll take you for a nice walk. Stay here, Tyler.” And how, as soon as Daddy was gone, we had delivered the cell phone, as promised. I think Dodger especially liked the part where we’d told Tyler that Craigieweggie had sent us.

  “Dudes, that is awesome! No, that’s better than just awesome—that’s, like, made of awesome! It went just as I planned, too!”

  Lizzie and I just rolled our eyes at each other and walked out of the woods toward home. In my backyard, I realized that I was shoeless, scratched up, and smeared all over with swampy muck. I didn’t want my parents to see me in this state, so I tiptoed through the door, crept up the stairs, and eased my way along the wall to the bathroom. I turned the corner and reached for the light switch. A hand covered mine. I stifled a scream and flipped the switch. Amy was standing there, in her pj’s, with her Sherlock hat firmly in place. “A-ha!” she said triumphantly.

  You know, I’m not sure Amy totally bought my story about how Lizzie and I had been abducted by swamp-dwelling aliens from the planet Murgh. But she did get out of the bathroom without making a commotion, which allowed me to take a shower before my parents figured out I was home. Some days, that’s the best a brother can hope for.