My Life as a Cowboy Cowpie Read online

  MY LiFe

  as a

  Cowboy

  Cowpie

  Books by Bill Myers

  Series

  SECRET AGENT DINGLEDORF

  . . . and his trusty dog, SPLAT

  The Case of the . . .

  Giggling Geeks • Chewable Worms • Flying Toenails • Drooling Dinosaurs • Hiccupping Ears • Yodeling Turtles

  The Incredible Worlds of Wally McDoogle

  My Life As . . .

  a Smashed Burrito with Extra Hot Sauce • Alien Monster Bait • a Broken Bungee Cord • Crocodile Junk Food • Dinosaur Dental Floss • a Torpedo Test Target • a Human Hockey Puck • an Afterthought Astronaut • Reindeer Road Kill • a Toasted Time Traveler • Polluted Pond Scum • a Bigfoot Breath Mint • a Blundering Ballerina • a Screaming Skydiver • a Human Hairball • a Walrus Whoopee Cushion • a Computer Cockroach (Mixed-Up Millennium Bug) • a Beat-Up Basketball Backboard • a Cowboy Cowpie • Invisible Intestines with Intense Indigestion • a Skysurfing Skateboarder • a Tarantula Toe Tickler • a Prickly Porcupine from Pluto • a Splatted-Flat Quarterback • a Belching Baboon • a Stupendously Stomped Soccer Star • a Haunted Hamburger, Hold the Pickles • a Supersized Superhero . . . with Slobber •

  The Portal • The Experiment • The Whirlwind • The Tablet

  Picture Book

  Baseball for Breakfast

  the incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle

  MY LiFe

  as a

  Cowboy

  Cowpie

  BILL MYERS

  MY LIFE AS A COWBOY COWPIE

  © 2001 by Bill Myers

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other— except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Tommy Nelson. Tommy Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Tommy Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the International Children’s Bible®, New Century Version®, © 1983, 1986, 1988.

  Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version is marked (NIV). © 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Myers, Bill, 1953—

  My life as a cowboy cowpie / by Bill Myers.

  p. cm. — (The incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle ; #19)

  Summary: When Wally and his two best friends spend the summer at a dude ranch, he discovers that writing superhero stories will not help him deal with the cantankerous ranch owner, a deceitful camper, and a dangerous bull named Satan Breath.

  ISBN 978-0-8499-5990-5

  [1. Dude ranches—Fiction.

  2. Ranch life—West (U.S)—Fiction.

  3. West (U.S.)—Fiction. 4. Interpersonal relations—Fiction.

  5. Christian life—Fiction. 6. Humorous stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M98234 Myed 2001 [Fic]—dc21 00-054628

  Printed in the United States of America

  09 10 11 12 13 EPAC 14 13 12 11 10

  For Angela Hunt:

  One terrific writer!

  “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.”

  —Romans 12:17 (NIV)

  Contents

  1. Just for Starters . . .

  2. What a Burn

  3. Shake, Rattle, and Yikes!

  4. Friend or Foe?

  5. An I for an Eye

  6. A Goof for a Goof

  7. More Unforgiveness . . .

  8. War!

  9. Somebody . . . Anybody? . . . to the Rescue!

  10. Wrapping Up

  Chapter 1

  Just for Starters . . .

  “McDoogle! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, McDOOGLE!?”

  Yes sir, I was busy making one of my famous first impressions. This time, it was inside a corral of a tiny little dude ranch. We were all saddling up our horses . . . well, everybody else was saddling up their horses. I was busy just trying to haul my saddle from the tack room over to my horse—not an easy job when you consider the saddle’s great weight (and my great wimpiness). It’s not that I’m weak; it’s just that I’ve got very specially trained muscles designed only to operate TV remotes and the latest Mario Brothers game.

  “Look out!” I shouted, staggering under the saddle. “Coming through!”

  “Watch it!” yelled my best friend, Opera.

  “You’re heading straight for the manure pile,” cried Wall Street, my other best friend (even if she is a girl).

  “No problem.” I gasped under the weight as I staggered this way and that, then that way and this. “I’ve got it covered. I know what I’m doing. I’m—

  K-SPLAT

  smelling kinda bad.”

  I spotted Cowboy Roy, our beloved counselor, part-time Gestapo, and full-time owner of the ranch, heading toward me. He was about a thousand years old with a brown, leathery face that had more wrinkles than a box of Sun-Maid Raisins. He also had a pretty impressive limp. Thanks to my superkeen insight, I suspected he wasn’t exactly thrilled to be having a bunch of kids around his ranch. (My superkeen insight and the fact that all he did was mumble and spit.) Now, as he reached down to pull me out of the pile, he saw no reason to stop.

  “Morons,” he muttered, then spit on the ground. “I’m surrounded by morons.”

  “No, sir,” I corrected as I grabbed his hand and tried to stand. “I’m not a moron. Just a little unsteady on my feet, that’s all. Just a little—

  “AUGH . . .” K-Splat!

  K-SPLAT!

  As you no doubt figured, the first “AUGH” and K-Splat belonged to me as my feet slipped and I went crashing back into the pile. Unfortunately, the second K-SPLAT! was Cowboy Roy, whom I managed to pull down into the pile right along with me.

  “MaBOOWLE!!!” (That was supposed to be “McDoogle!” but it was hard for him to speak with his mouth full . . . or for me to hear with my ears full.)

  “MaBOOWLE, YOU MOORWON . . .”

  Yes sir, I could tell right then and there that it was going to be the start of a beautiful relationship.

  An hour later, we were out on the range, herding up some calves to be branded. Well, everybody else was herding up some calves to be branded. I was just sitting on my horse hoping that someday she would move.

  You see, Ol’ Bag a Bones (who did not get her name by accident) had some problems with me riding her. She hated it. As a result, it had taken longer than usual to establish who was the real boss. But as soon as she made that clear to me, I did whatever she wanted—even if it meant letting her stand forever at the edge of the stream as the calves ran behind us making their escape.

  “McDoogle! Turn your horse around!” Cowboy Roy cried. “McDoogle, they’re getting away! McDoogle!!”

  Now, before we go any further, let me explain that going to a dude ranch wasn’t exactly my first choice for summer camp. Come to think of it, it wasn’t even my last choice. But Dad, in his continual quest to make me a man, decided that riding horses all day would somehow put hair on my chest. (He didn’t say anything about blisters on my rear.) So, when he found the ad in the paper about this little dude ranch that worked with only a couple of dozen kids at a time, he thought, Perfect . . . another way to inflict incredible torture upon my son.

  So, there we were—Opera, Wall Street, me, and about twenty other ki
ds—out in the middle of the lone prairie, herding bawling calves through a stream. (Oh, boy. What fun. Maybe next year Dad will sign me up to be the target for archery camp.)

  “McDoogle! McDOOGLE!”

  “Don’t worry, sir,” a new voice shouted. “I’ve got them!”

  I turned to see Chad Diamond galloping toward me full tilt, obviously planning to save the day. In a flash, this superrich, superathlete, supereverything of a guy began driving the calves back toward the stream.

  “Not bad, kid!” Cowboy Roy shouted. “Nice work!” He turned to the rest of us and yelled, “Why can’t you kids handle a horse like that?” He leaned over and spit. “Ya see the way he’s workin’ him?”

  I saw, all right. And I saw something else, too. I saw the way Chad kept stealing looks over at Wall Street. I also saw the way Wall Street kept googling back at him, her face all a-beaming, her heart all a-twittering. I tell you, it was enough to make a guy sick. But before I could break into a major case of nausea, Chad cut his horse behind me and shouted, “Come on, Wally, let’s show Cowboy Roy and the kids what we’re really made of.”

  Before I had a chance to point out that that might not be such a good idea, he slapped Ol’ Bag a Bones on the rear. No problem, except for the part where it startled her so much that instead of taking off, she raised up on her hind legs and

  “Augh . . .”

  K-Splash!

  threw me into the water.

  Now, even that wouldn’t have been so bad, if I had taken the time to learn to swim. But with my busy schedule of being Dinosaur Dental Floss, a Toasted Time Traveler, a Walrus Whoopee Cushion, and a Human Hairball, well, it was kinda hard to squeeze swimming lessons into my daily routine.

  So, I proceeded to do what any red-blooded kid in my predicament would do . . .

  Drown.

  Drown and scream my head off:

  “Help me! Help me! Help me!”

  Fortunately, from all my misadventures, I was a pro at screaming my head off. Unfortunately, there was somebody who was an even greater pro at being a hero. In exactly 2.3 seconds he leaped into the water to rescue me. Normally, I would be grateful for such actions . . . except for three tiny little problems:

  Tiny Little Problem 1:

  My hero was Chad Diamond.

  Tiny Little Problem 2:

  When he pulled me up, I discovered I

  was standing in only three feet of water.

  Of course, everybody doubled over with laughter, which was okay by me—except that that brought us to:

  Tiny Little Problem 3:

  “Everybody” included Wall Street.

  That’s right, my good buddy and longtime friend was pointing at me and laughing her head off, just like the rest of the crowd.

  Of course, I gave my little idiot smile and pretended to laugh, too. But inside, I was steaming. . . .

  * * * * *

  “If you ask me, munch-crunch,” Opera shouted as we peeled off our clothes and limped toward our bunks for the night, “you’re just jealous.”

  “Jealous?” I yelled, moaning and groaning with every step.

  “That’s, burp-belch, right,” he shouted.

  “No way!” I yelled, whimpering in pain as I crawled up to the top bunk.

  Now, in case you’re new to these stories (where have you been the last eighteen books?!), let me explain . . .

  The munching and crunching are Opera going through his fifth bag of Chippy Chipper potato chips. Hey, some people have their teddy bears to help them through the night; Opera has his junk food.

  The burping and belching are more frequent features thanks to the case of Pecos Bill’s Flame Thrower Hot Sauce recently given to him by the camp’s cook.

  The yelling was from shouting over the Sony Walkman that Opera had permanently attached to his ears.

  And my moaning, groaning, and whimpering? You try riding a horse for six hours and tell me how you feel.

  “What do I have to be jealous of ?” I called back down to him. “Just because Chad Diamond is superrich and superathletic, why should that bother me?”

  “Actually, crunch-munch, I wasn’t talking about that.”

  “What then?” I asked.

  “You’re just steamed because he made you look like a fool when he, munch-crunch, BURP, made your horse buck and throw you into the water.”

  “He what?” I asked. “Are you saying he did that on purpose??”

  “Oh, BELCH, yeah.”

  “No way.”

  But there was no answer.

  “Opera? Are you sure? Opera?”

  Ditto in the no-answer department. Now all I could hear below me was munching, crunching.

  “Opera??”

  And snoring. Snoring that grew louder by the second.

  ZZZZNORK . . . munch, munch, munch

  ZZZZNORK . . . crunch, crunch, crunch

  That’s right, Opera had dozed off. And he’d become such a pro at eating junk food that he was even able to do it in his sleep.

  ZZZZNORK . . . munch, crunch, BELCH!

  “Opera?”

  But the guy was out cold.

  Well, fine! I’m glad somebody could sleep. After what I’d just learned, I sure couldn’t. Was it possible? Had super-Chad set me up to look like a superchump? Not that it would take much setting up, but still . . .

  The longer I lay there staring up at the ceiling, the longer I stewed. Finally, I did what I always do to unwind. I reached over, grabbed Ol’ Betsy, my laptop computer, and started another one of my superhero stories. Maybe that would take my mind off what had happened. Then again, maybe not . . .

  It has been another long day of superheroism for our superhero, Chester C. Chessclub.

  Already he had calculated the precise location to fire a missile that blew up some pesky asteroid about to destroy Earth. . . . Already he had installed Windows 3001 into every computer in his school’s computer lab. . . . And to top it off, he even fixed his glasses with a nice thick wad of tape around the nosepiece. (Is there no end to this man’s talents?)

  Now, at last, he’s sitting down to carve himself up a nice hunk of juicy, rare oatmeal, when suddenly the Nerd Phone rings.

  Excuse me, your phone is ringing.

  Excuse me, your phone is ringing.

  (So what’d you expect a

  Nerd Phone to sound like?)

  After fumbling and dropping it five or six times (hey, he’s a brain, not an athlete), he scoops it out of the oatmeal and answers:

  “SuperGeeks R Us.

  If it’s boring and brainy,

  not to call us would be a shame-y.”

  (Okay, so he’s no poet, either.)

  “Chester C., you’ve got the phone upside down again.”

  “I’m sorry,” our hero shouts. “You’ll have to speak up.”

  “Turn the phone around!”

  “Listen, if you can’t talk any louder, I’ll have to——”

  “TURN THE PHONE AROUND! TURN THE PHONE AROUND! TURN THE . . .”

  In a flash of superhero superthought, our superhero turns the phone around and immediately recognizes the voice. “Mr. President, is that you?”

  “Of course it’s me. Who else would be calling you to start up these superhero stories? Listen, Chester C., I’ve got some terrible news.”

  “The stores are all out of pocket protectors?” our hero asks.

  “It’s worse than that!”

  “Somebody from the A.V. Club wants to join the football team?”

  “No, it’s even worse!”

  “Sir, the only possible thing worse than that would be ...”

  Ta-Da-DAAA . ..

  “Oh, no, sir, I’d recognize that bad-guy music anywhere. Don’t tell me, is it——”

  “That’s right,” the President answers. “Your archrival, 2-Kool 4 U, has just escaped from the Prison for the Criminally Colder than Cold. Not only that but ...”

  Suddenly, our hero hears a booming bass throbbing through his phone. “M
r. President, what’s that noise? What’s going on? Mr. President?”

  “That’s my name, Lame,

  so don’t be puttin’ it to shame.”

  “Huh? Mr. President, what’s going on?”

  The bass beat grows louder and louder as the president continues to speak:

  “So this is the truth

  I be layin’ on you chump.

  2-Kool has created

  a chemical to dump.”

  “Mr. President, why are you talking in rhyme?”

  “He’s poured it in the water

  that we all be a-drinkin’

  and it makes us so cool

  that we no longer be a-thinkin’.”

  “No offense, sir, but that is some of the worst poetry I’ve ever heard.”

  “This ain’t no poetry,

  don’t be a sap.

  Use yer brain, for a change,

  what yer hearin’ is rap.”

  “Holy hipster,” our hero shouts. “Are you telling me. . . sir, is he somehow taking over the world with his coolness?”

  “Pierced bodies and brows,

  shades so dark you can’t see.

  Tattoos all over our bods

  like we’re all on MTV.

  “Yer the only one to help us

  so don’t be no fool.

  Only yer supernerd powers

  can free us from Kool.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand,” our hero shouts. “I’ll get right on it!”

  In a flash he slams the phone down on his hand (just ’cause he’s going to save the world doesn’t mean his coordination has improved) and races toward the window while, of course, getting tangled up in the cord, which means dragging the phone all the way across the room with him.

  K-lang, K-Bang

  K-lang, K-Bang

  Once he arrives, he looks outside. It’s worse than he suspects. Everyone is smoking, wearing black clothes, mouthing off to their parents. It’s worse than Friday night at the mall. Well, maybe not that bad, but close.

  And since he’s obviously cool-proof (there’s no way anyone like Chester C. can ever be hip), he knows he’s the only one who can help. Quickly, he slips into his Nerd Cape (not, of course, without spraining an arm or two), races to his Nerd-Mobile (not, of course, without crashing into a wall or two), and takes off to save the——