Revenge of the Killer Worms Page 2
“I mean, how far can you go on that dinky old skateboard you have?” Louie interrupted. “I’m asking my mom to take me over to the sporting-goods store to get me the new Lexithon 210 skateboard. There’s not a move I won’t be able to do on that board.”
“Except you don’t know any moves,” George said.
“Since when do you skateboard?” Julianna asked Louie.
“Since now,” Louie said. “When I saw that board in the window of the sporting-goods store, I knew I had to have it.” He took the last bite of his hoagie and turned to Max and Mike. “You guys want to go play killer ball?” he asked.
Killer ball was a game Louie had made up. He changed the rules all the time, so he was always the one who won. No one liked killer ball—except Max and Mike, of course.
“Sure,” Max said.
“Count me in,” Mike agreed.
As Louie and his pals got up from the table, George shook his head. “That’s strange,” he said.
“What?” Alex asked him. “You know Max and Mike do anything Louie does.”
“No, the whole skateboarding thing,” George said. “I just wrote in my journal about the Lexithon 210. I tried it out in the store, and it was amazing. But my mom said I had to earn half the money working at Mr. Furstman’s pet store on Saturdays before I could have it.”
Alex shrugged. “It’s probably just a coincidence. Louie couldn’t have known anything about what was in your journal. The only person who reads it is Mrs. Kelly. And she would never tell.”
“It makes me crazy how Louie gets everything he wants,” Julianna told George.
George thought about how Louie was going to be free on Saturday to meet Dirk Drek. And how he was going to be the first one in the whole fourth grade to own a Lexithon 210 skateboard.
“It makes me crazy, too,” George agreed. “Especially since Louie wants the same things I do, and I’m not getting any of them!”
It really wasn’t fair that Louie’s dad could buy him anything anyone could ever want.
Although, maybe that wasn’t completely true. All the money in the world hadn’t bought Louie a decent personality. He was still pretty much a jerk.
Ping!
The e-mail alert went off just as George was typing about the importance of yogurt for his science nutrition paper. He clicked OPEN in the e-mail icon. It was a message from Louie.
HELLO, FANS! Get ready for a brand-new Life with Louie webcast. I’m going live in five minutes. It’ll be a real good time. So be sure to log on!
Fans? George thought. Did Louie really think he had fans? Other than Max and Mike, nobody liked hanging out with Louie in real life. Why did he think anyone would want to watch him on a computer screen?
George looked down at the note cards he had made in the school library. Then he went back to typing his report. Yogurt is curdled milk that has lots of bacteria. The bacteria coagulates . . .
George stopped typing. He wasn’t sure what the word coagulate meant, but it sure sounded gross. He started to look it up in the dictionary, but then he glanced at the clock. Just two more minutes until Louie went live on the Web.
There was no reason to waste any extra time on Louie Farley. Although . . .
George couldn’t help himself. He clicked the link Louie had posted at the bottom of his e-mail. A moment later, Louie was on his screen.
Well, Louie’s foot, anyway. Whoever was handling the camera was giving the audience a close-up of one of Louie’s bare feet. His big toenail looked all yellow. And there was a wart or something on his little toe.
“Aim the camera at my face, you idiot,” Louie hissed to the cameraman.
“Sorry, Louie,” said the cameraman—who sounded like Max—as he raised the camera.
“Hi, everyone,” Louie said. “Welcome to Life with Louie, the webcast that’s all about my life.” He smiled creepily. “By now you know that Dirk Drek is coming to town this Saturday . . .”
George frowned. He knew, all right.
“A lot of you are going to be volunteering and stuff,” Louie continued. “But I won’t be. So I’ll have all day to meet Dirk Drek. I know where he’s going to be. I’ve got his whole schedule.” Louie held up a piece of paper.
George shrugged. That was no big deal. The schedule was posted on Dirk Drek’s website.
“I’m sure I’ll get to meet him at one of these stops,” Louie said. “When I do, I’ll get his autograph. Then I’ll show it to everybody on another Life with Louie webcast.”
George was really bummed out. Sure, Louie wasn’t guaranteed to meet Dirk Drek. But at least he had a chance. George had no chance at all. He had to go to the shelter right after his job at the pet shop. And George had to go to the pet shop if he ever wanted to earn enough money for that new skateboard.
“I know we’re all excited to see Dirk Drek’s new movie, Revenge of the Killer Worms,” Louie continued. “And speaking of worms, my dad and I are going fishing in a few weeks. So I’ve been practicing how to bait a hook.”
Louie held up a big bowl. He pointed it toward the camera. Inside the bowl were a whole bunch of live worms.
Louie picked up one of the worms and dangled it between his fingers. “It’s really important that you bait your hook right,” he said. “If you don’t, the worm will fall off, and you won’t catch your fish. You have to shove the pointed hook right through the worm at just the right spot—”
George clicked off the computer as fast as he could. He didn’t want to see Louie bait the hook with the worm. Just the idea of it made him feel sick. It also made him really angry. He raced to the phone and called Alex.
“Hello?” Alex answered.
“Did you see that?” George asked. He didn’t even bother to say hi to Alex.
“Oh, hi, George,” Alex said. “You mean Life with Louie?”
“Yeah,” George said. “He’s such a jerk.”
“You mean because he’s bragging about not volunteering?” Alex asked.
“Well, that,” George agreed. “But also because now I know for sure he’s been reading my journal. I bet that’s why he was late to lunch. He probably sneaked back to the classroom to find out what I wrote in there.”
“What makes you think that?” Alex asked.
“I wrote about how I didn’t want to go fishing with my dad because I couldn’t stand the idea of sticking a hook through a worm,” George told Alex.
“I wondered why Louie would fill his mom’s fancy soup bowl with worms,” Alex said. “Mrs. Farley’s going to be mad when she finds out.”
“Not as mad as I am,” George said. “Those journals are supposed to be private! I’m telling Mrs. Kelly tomorrow.”
“You can’t do that,” Alex said. “You don’t have any proof. I mean, I believe you. But Louie could just say it was a coincidence. Dirk Drek’s new movie is called Revenge of the Killer Worms. And besides, how would Louie know you were even going to watch his webcast?”
“Yeah, but then that would be two coincidences,” George said. “The skateboard and the worms.”
“Still—” Alex began.
“There’s gotta be a way we can catch him,” George interrupted. “Maybe we can hide a camera in the classroom and photograph him peeking at my journal.”
“Too complicated,” Alex said. “But I think there is a way we can prove it.”
“How? How?” George asked excitedly. He was really glad he had such a smart friend.
“You can write something in your journal that he couldn’t possibly have seen or heard anywhere else,” Alex began.
“Yeah. And then if he repeats what I wrote . . . or tries to do something about what I wrote . . .” George stopped and thought for a minute. Then he shouted, “I got it!”
“What?” Alex said.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” George promised. “I gotta go. I have a trap to set! I’m going to catch me a great big Louie—and I won’t even need a worm!”
“A musical?” Alex repeated as he and George walked to school Thursday morning. “You wrote in your journal that Dirk Drek’s next movie is going to be a musical?”
George nodded. “I said Dirk was looking for a kid to play his son, and that the kid would have to be able to dance and sing. I wrote that I found out about it on a secret website for Dirk Drek’s biggest fans.”
“You think Louie is going to believe that?” Alex asked. “Dirk Drek is an action hero, not a dancer.”
“You know how bad Louie wants to be a star,” George said. “He’s dying to be famous. If he thinks he can be in a movie with Dirk Drek, he’ll sing and dance like crazy.”
“But Louie is a terrible singer. And you saw how badly he danced when Mrs. Kelly tried to teach us the Watusi.”
“That’s the best part,” George told him. “If he reads my journal and tries to sing or dance for Dirk, he’ll look like a jerk.”
Alex looked at George and smiled. “You’re a genius,” he said. “Mean. But a genius.”
George shrugged. “I didn’t want to be mean,” George told Alex. “But Louie totally crossed the line. He has to learn a lesson. He can’t just read my private stuff.”
“And if he’s not reading it, he won’t do anything stupid, and he won’t look like a jerk,” Alex said. “Well, no more than usual, anyway.”
“Oh, he’s reading it,” George assured Alex. “And he’s about to get caught.”
A few minutes later, George walked into his classroom, reached into his backpack, and pulled out his journal. As George dropped the journal off on Mrs. Kelly’s desk, he gave Louie a big smile. Louie shot George a dirty look.
“Good morning, everyone,” Mrs. Kelly said as the kids entered the room. “Don’t get too comfortable. We’re about to line up to go to the cafeteria.”
“We’re having lunch now?” Max asked. “We just had breakfast.”
“We’re not going to eat,” Mrs. Kelly explained. “The lunch lady is going to talk to us about nutrition. She’s going to show us what goes into making all the healthy meals in our cafeteria.”
“I don’t think I want to know what goes into cafeteria food,” George whispered to Alex as the kids lined up. “It’s better that mystery meat remains a mystery.”
“I’m with you, dude,” Alex agreed.
Sage got in line right behind George and pointed to her T-shirt. “Did you see my new official Dirk Drek shirt, Georgie?” she asked. “I thought of you when I bought it. I know how crazy you are about Dirk Drek.”
George frowned. Sage wasn’t the only one in school wearing a Dirk Drek shirt today. He had seen at least seven of them on the playground before school started. Every time George looked at a picture of Dirk Drek’s face, he thought about how he wasn’t going to get to meet him. All this Dirk Drek fever made George feel rotten.
Fever . . . feel rotten . . .
Hey! Maybe that was it. George could call in sick to work on Saturday and then try to meet Dirk instead. Or maybe tell Alex he was too sick to work at the shelter.
“Dirk Drek must have a lot of energy,” Julianna said, interrupting George’s thoughts. “Did you see the schedule Louie was talking about on his webcast last night? He’ll have to zoom around town to make all those stops.”
Sage looked around. “Where is Louie, anyway?”
“He had to go to the bathroom,” Max said.
“I volunteered to go with him,” Mike added. “But he told me he could do it by himself.”
The kids all laughed. George laughed the hardest. But that was because he was pretty sure Louie wasn’t going to the bathroom. More likely, he was going back to the empty classroom to sneak a peek at George’s journal.
Which was exactly what George wanted him to do.
“So you think he read it?” Alex asked George as the boys walked past some stores in the center of town after school. “I mean, he didn’t mention one thing about singing or dancing all day.”
“It would be just like Louie to keep the audition information to himself,” George told Alex. “He figures if he’s the only one who knows about it, he’ll be the only one to audition. That’s less competition.”
“I never thought of it that way,” Alex admitted.
George smiled. Alex was a whiz at science and math. But when it came to knowing how rotten Louie could be, George was the smart one. That was because George was usually on the receiving end of Louie’s rottenness.
“You want to stop at Mr. Tarantella’s for a slice?” Alex asked.
George frowned. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Things didn’t go so well for me the last time I was in there.”
“Oh, I’m sure Mr. Tarantella has forgotten all about that by now,” Alex said.
George wasn’t so sure. It wouldn’t be easy to forget a kid who tossed pizza dough in the air and then let it fall down on his head like a big gooey mask.
Still, George was hungry. And he did love pizza.
“I guess we can go,” George said. He opened the door and walked into the pizzeria.
“Oh, hello, boys,” Mr. Tarantella said as Alex and George slid into a booth near the window.
George thought Mr. Tarantella sounded a little nervous, like he was wondering what George might do this time. George didn’t blame him. He wondered that sometimes, too. Because George never knew what the burp might make him do. Or when it might make him do it.
“I’ll have a slice with pepperoni and a small glass of orange soda,” Alex said.
“I’ll have the same,” George said. “Please.” He added the please to show Mr. Tarantella that he was trying to be polite.
“Actually, you want a giant glass of ice water,” Alex told George.
“I do?” George asked.
Alex nodded. “Definitely. Trust me.”
As Mr. Tarantella walked back toward the kitchen, George gave Alex a funny look. “Why do I want water?” he asked him.
“To drink when you eat this.” Alex pulled a clear plastic bag out of his backpack. “It’s a mix of cumin, dried chili peppers, fennel, and celery. According to the Burp No More Blog I’ve been following, if you eat this with a big glass of water, your burping will stop for good.”
George opened the bag and poured the fennel, cumin, chili pepper, and celery into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.
“Whoa, that’s spicy,” George said. He opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue as he gasped for air.
“It’s the chili peppers,” Alex said.
“I’m burning up,” George croaked.
Just then, Mr. Tarantella brought over Alex’s soda and George’s water. He took one look at George and rolled his eyes.
George wanted to explain why he had his tongue hanging out. But he couldn’t. He was waaay too thirsty to talk. So he grabbed the big glass and poured the ice water down his throat in one gulp.
“May I have some more water, please?” he asked Mr. Tarantella.
“Uh . . . sure,” Mr. Tarantella said. He took George’s cup and walked away. A minute later, he returned with another big glass of cold, icy water.
“I’m telling you, this is the cure that’s gonna work,” Alex said.
Now George felt really bad. Here was Alex trying to help him, and George had been thinking about faking being sick and bailing on Alex at the shelter. George could never do that to Alex.
He couldn’t call in sick to work on Saturday, either. Mr. Furstman was one of the only store owners in Beaver Brook who didn’t get upset when the super burp made George do strange things like eat bugs or slither around on the floor of the pet shop like a snake.
Besides, Mr. Furstman’s pet shop was always really busy on Saturdays. Mr. Furstman never had time to feed all the animals. If George didn’t show up, the lizards wouldn’t have their crickets to eat. The hamsters wouldn’t have their pellets. And Petey the parrot would have to go seedless.
There was no way George was getting out of either one of those commitments on Saturday. He was just going to have to see Dirk Drek like everyone else—on a movie screen in Revenge of the Killer Worms.
“Here you go, boys,” Mr. Tarantella said. He placed their pizza slices on the table.
“Thank you,” George said. “And thanks for all the water.”
“You want some more?” Mr. Tarantella asked him.
George looked down at his belly. It was sticking way out because of all the water sloshing around in there. “I think I’m okay,” he said.
As Mr. Tarantella walked away, Alex looked out the window. “Hey, there’s Louie and his mom,” he said.
“He’s not coming in here, is he?” George asked.
“No,” Alex assured him. “He’s going somewhere down the block.”
“Do you think he’s going to Miss Frieda’s School of Dance?” George asked excitedly. “To practice for his audition?”
“Could be,” Alex said. “I can’t see from here. It could also be Pansy’s Petals Flower Shop, or Hammer and Nails Hardware, or Wally’s Workout Sporting Goods. They’re all down there.”
“Not the sporting-goods shop,” George groaned. “Because that would mean he’s getting the Lexithon 210 skateboard. And he’ll bring it to school just to rub it in my face.”
“He could still be going to Miss Frieda’s,” Alex said. “Which would mean he took the bait.”
George started to smile. But then he stopped. How could he smile when there was something so awful going on inside his body?
Slish-slosh. Uh-oh! This was bad. George didn’t have much time. He had to get away from the table.
Quickly, George leaped up.