My Life as Polluted Pond Scum Read online

  MY LiFe

  as

  POLLUTED

  Pond Scum

  BOOKS BY BILL MYERS

  The Incredible Worlds of Wally McDoogle (20 books):

  —My Life As a Smashed Burrito with Extra Hot Sauce

  —My Life As Alien Monster Bait

  —My Life As a Broken Bungee Cord

  —My Life As Crocodile Junk Food

  —My Life As Dinosaur Dental Floss

  —My Life As a Torpedo Test Target

  —My Life As a Human Hockey Puck

  —My Life As an Afterthought Astronaut

  —My Life As Reindeer Road Kill

  —My Life As a Toasted Time Traveler

  —My Life As Polluted Pond Scum

  —My Life As a Bigfoot Breath Mint

  —My Life As a Blundering Ballerina

  —My Life As a Screaming Skydiver

  —My Life As a Human Hairball

  —My Life As a Walrus Whoopee Cushion

  —My Life As a Mixed-Up Millennium Bug

  —My Life As a Beat-Up Basketball Backboard

  —My Life As a Cowboy Cowpie

  —My Life As Invisible Intestines with Intense Indigestion

  Other Series:

  McGee and Me! (12 books)

  Bloodhounds, Inc. (10 books)

  Forbidden Doors (10 books)

  Teen Nonfiction

  Hot Topics, Tough Questions

  Faith Encounter

  Just Believe It

  Picture Book

  Baseball for Breakfast

  www.Billmyers.com

  the incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle

  MY LiFe

  as

  POLLUTED

  Pond Scum

  B I L L M Y E R S

  MY LIFE AS POLLUTED POND SCUM

  © 1996 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 Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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

  Quotations marked NKJV are from the New King James Version, © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Myers, Bill, 1953–

  My life as polluted pond scum / Bill Myers.

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

  Summary: Thirteen-year-old Wally must learn to trust God when his Career Day assignment on the local water management facility leads him to a rumor of a lake monster and a real scheme that threatens the town.

  ISBN 978-0–8499–3875–7 (pbk.)

  [1. Pollution—Fiction. 2. Christian life—Fiction.

  3. Humorous stories.] I. Title. II. Series: Myers, Bill, 1953– .

  Incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle ; #11.

  PZ7.M98234Mytp 1996

  [Fic]—dc20 96–8256

  CIP

  AC

  Printed in the United States of America

  08 09 10 11 12 QW 26 25 24 23 22

  For Debra Bell and Sigmund Brouwer—

  co-laborers committed to young people

  All things work together for good to those

  who love God, to those who are the called

  according to His purpose.

  —Romans 8:28 (NKJV)

  Contents

  1. Just for Starters . . .

  2. First Impressions

  3. Close Encounters of the Weirdest Kind

  4. Here We Go Again

  5. Ghost Bustin’

  6. A Little Hide-and-Seek

  7. All Cooped Up with No Place to Go

  8. Up, Up, and Not Quite Away

  9. A Little Night Swim

  10. Wrapping Up

  Chapter 1

  Just for Starters . . .

  All right, all right, I learned my lesson. Do whatever you want to me. I promise I will never, ever complain about anything ever again.

  • Run over me with the offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys, and you won’t hear a peep (maybe some snapping bones and tearing muscles, but no peeps).

  • Make me watch Barney reruns the rest of my life, and you’ll still not hear what I’m thinking (how can you, when my mind has been turned to oatmeal?).

  • Force me to eat my little sister’s cooking, and . . . well, all right, I’d speak up then, but only because poisoning people to death is frowned upon in some countries.

  The point is, from now on, whenever anything bad happens to me, I’m keeping my mouth shut and looking for ways to use that bad for good. ’Cause when you do that, cool things happen.

  How did I get to be such a know-it-all about this? As usual, I learned the hard way. . . .

  It all started back in Ms. Muddlemucker’s geography class. She was finishing up one of her thrilling lectures on the chief exports of some South American country:

  “. . . wheat, rye, oats, and beef. This can be attributed to the arid climate created by the winds as they cross over the mountains, thereby losing much of their moisture and . . .”

  See what I mean?

  I don’t want to say this woman is boring, but my best friend, Wall Street, who wants to make her first million by the time she’s fourteen, has been recording Ms. Muddlemucker’s classes and selling the tapes in drug stores right next to the sleeping pill section. And she’s making a killing.

  But there are a couple of advantages to taking Ms. Muddlemucker’s class. First, we all get to catch up on our sleep. And second, we get to participate in something called . . .

  CAREER DAYS.

  Each year every member of her class gets to be some hotshot city official for forty-eight hours. We actually get to go down to their offices and do their jobs for two days. Depending on our assignment, we get to be anything from Police Commissioner to Fire Chief to Dog Catcher to you name it.

  Pretty cool, huh?

  Not only do we get out of school, but we also get to play golf all day long and take three-hour lunches and do all the other neat stuff government officials always do.

  What was even cooler was I knew exactly what job I was getting. Yes sir, there was no doubt about it. I would be the highly esteemed and most honorable Wally McDoogle, Mayor of Middletown.

  “How could you be so sure?” you’re asking.

  Just by doing a little planning . . .

  The first step was to find out when they were holding Career Days. Once I knew that, I spent a whole week ahead of time trying to impress Ms. Muddlemucker. Major-league stuff, like handing in my assignments with writing she could actually read, doing extra credit reports on, what else, her beloved South America, and even making a special effort not to drool on my desk when I slept.

  But that was only half of it. Since I figured God would probably also have some say in the matter, I spent the rest of my time trying to butter Him up. For nearly two weeks I said grace at every meal, wore clean socks to church, and on the last Sunday, I even volunteered to help collect the offering.

  Of course, that made Pastor Bergman just a little nervous, until I bumped into the candle stand and knocked it over. Then he got a lot nervous. Even that wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t for that one lone candle that fell into my offering plate and caught all the checks and dollar bills and stuff on fire.

&n
bsp; As I handed Pastor Bergman the smoldering plate, I tried to make a little joke about “burnt offerings,” but he didn’t seem to get it. Then again, maybe he did.

  Anyway, the big day finally rolled around. After finishing another stimulating lecture on South America (Do you know meat is the number one export of Argentina? Do you care?), Ms. Muddlemucker closed her geography book and announced that it was time to make the Career Days assignments.

  All right! Everyone suddenly woke up, and we all gave her our fullest attention.

  “Now,” she said, “I know many of you have your hearts set on a particular job, but not everyone can have the top position.”

  You can say that again, I thought. Only us hard workers (and non-desk droolers).

  “Still, I’m sure you’ll find each and every one of these jobs a challenge and an adventure. So without any further ado . . .” She picked up the list and began reading the names: “Cindy Bullhocker, Superintendent of Schools.”

  Mild applause.

  “Delbert Dillwood, City Treasurer.”

  More of the same.

  She continued down the list until she got to Opera, my other best friend who got his name ’cause of his love for classical music. “And Opera,” she said, “you’ll be the Assistant Mayor.”

  All right! I thought. If he’s my assistant, we’ll be able to hang out together!

  She continued rattling off a few more names until she came to Wall Street. “And finally, Wall Street, you will be our city’s Mayor!”

  “Yes!” Wall Street cried, giving Opera a high-five. “Mayor of Middletown! All right!”

  Everybody clapped. Everybody but me. It’s hard to clap when your body’s gone into traumatic shock.

  “Ms. Muddlemucker, Ms. Muddlemucker,” my hand shot up faster than that of some second grader having to go to the bathroom.

  “Yes, Wally?”

  “There must be some mistake.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What about me?”

  “Didn’t I call your name?”

  “No ma’am.” (That extra respect stuff always gets them.)

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, looking back down at the list.

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax. Already I was feeling a little sorry for Wall Street. Poor kid. It’s tough to have your hopes built up like that, only to have them dashed to smither—

  “Oh, here we go,” Ms. Muddlemucker said, looking up with a smile. “You’re right, I did make a mistake.”

  A wave of relief washed over me.

  “Wally, you will be in charge, let’s see . . . ah, here we go. Wally McDoogle will be in charge of the Water Management Facility.”

  I blinked.

  “Wally?”

  I blinked twice. Then, after about a minute, I decided it would be a good time to start breathing again.

  “Wally, are you all right?”

  “I’m sorry,” I croaked. “I thought you said ‘Water Management Facility.’”

  “That’s right,” she grinned. “You’ll be in charge of managing and recycling all of our city’s water and sewage.”

  “Sewage,” I choked.

  “Sewage,” she grinned.

  “They put you in charge of what?” My older brother Brock laughed so hard that he launched a bite of semichewed raw potato across the table. (It would have been a cooked potato, but it was my little sister’s turn to make dinner.)

  “Don’t laugh,” Burt, my other brother, laughed. “Maybe he can get us, like, free water samples or something.”

  “Free samples!” Brock laughed even harder, then suddenly he stopped. “Hey, maybe you’re right.”

  Unfortunately, he was serious. Unfortunatelier, they both were. Unfortunateliest, when it comes to IQs, neither of my twin brothers has one. (I pray every night that it’s not genetic.)

  “Listen, Sweetheart,” Mom said, trying her best to do the Mom thing for me, “I know it’s not exactly what you expected, but I’m sure there’s some very good reason for it.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered, “God doesn’t like the way I take up the offering.”

  “No, I’m serious,” she said. “Instead of being discouraged about it, you should trust the Lord. He has a way of turning our disappointments into something good.”

  “I trust Him,” I said.

  “Then you should be content to bloom wherever He plants you.”

  “You’ll certainly have the fertilizer for it there,” Dad snickered.

  There was more laughter (and jet-propelled potatoes).

  “Don’t you pay any attention to them,” Mom said. “Besides, look at all the opportunities you’ll have to learn about ecology and recycling.”

  Good ol’ Mom, always looking on the bright side of things. As if to prove my point, she turned to my little sister Carrie and asked, “Sweetheart, will you pass some more of those delicious green beans you made?”

  “They’re not green beans,” Carrie explained.

  “Oh really?” Mom said, giving them a doubtful look. “What are they?”

  “Hot dogs. They were just a little moldy, and I overcooked them some.”

  I glanced at my plate and breathed a sigh of relief. By their texture and taste, I was afraid I’d been eating earthworms rolled in kitty litter.

  Mom forced a smile. “On second thought, maybe I better save room for dessert. What are we having?”

  “Boiled ice cream.”

  “Then again, another hot dog might be just what I need.”

  Dad glanced up at me from his dinner plate. “Well, I for one am very happy for you, son.”

  “You are?”

  “Absolutely. Getting out in those lakes and ponds, working with your hands. It should make a real man out of you.”

  “If the smell doesn’t kill you,” Brock laughed.

  Everyone joined in, but Dad was serious. You see, making me into a real man was like his major life project. He started getting nervous way back last year when I told him I wanted to be a writer. Ever since then, strange things have started showing up in my bedroom. Vitamins, protein drink mixes with blenders, weight-lifting machines. In fact, just last week there was a form about joining the Marine Corps. Luckily, they don’t take thirteen-year-olds.

  “What exactly does a Water Management Facility do?” Carrie asked.

  “It’s more than just a facility,” I explained. “It takes care of all the lakes, ponds, and reservoirs in our area.”

  “Even the ones up in the woods?” Burt asked.

  “Like Knox Lake?” Brock added. There was a certain glee in his voice.

  Mom looked at them. “What’s up guys?”

  “Everyone knows Knox Lake is where that giant monster lives,” Burt explained.

  “Oh that,” Mom said, trying to cover it with a laugh but not doing a great job of it. “I’ve heard those rumors too. It’s just a toxic dump site that’s been sealed off. Don’t tell me you actually believe those stories.”

  “I don’t,” Brock said, “but all the people who have seen it sure do.”

  “And don’t forget the ghost,” Burt added.

  “Ghost?” Carrie asked, her little impressionable voice already starting to tremble.

  “That’s right,” Burt said. “Some nights when the moon is full, people claim you can see a ghost with glowing hair standing on the shore, calling the monster to the surface.”

  A silence fell over the table. Even Mom was looking a little uneasy.

  But not me. I was looking a lot uneasy. Having no idea what tomorrow would bring, but remembering my knack for always being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I opened my mouth and started shoveling in Carrie’s cooking as fast as I could. After all, it’s hard to be killed by giant monsters and glowing ghosts if you’ve already died from food poisoning.

  Chapter 2

  First Impressions

  Thinking about tomorrow made it a little hard to get to sleep—not that I was expecting to run into underwater monste
rs or glowing ghosts. With any luck I’d be cooped inside the Water Management Facility and never even get up to Knox Lake.

  Then, again, we all know about my luck . . . which is exactly why I couldn’t get to sleep. Then there were Mom’s words. “If you really trust God, then you should bloom wherever He plants you.” Right. I was supposed to believe that God was using this crummy situation for my best? I don’t know. If this was for my best, I’d hate to see what was for my worst.

  Anyway, I decided to do what I always do when I want to think things over. I reached for ol’ Betsy, my laptop computer, and started another one of my superhero stories. . . .

  K-ZING K-ZING K-ZING

  Great Scott, another blast of photon-powered green peas have been fired at the spaceship. But such distractions are of little concern to the handsomely heroic Tidy Guy. Checking the rearview mirror to make sure his hair hasn’t been mussed, our good guy cranks his spacecraft to starboard (a fancy word for left or right, I can never keep them straight) and the deadly vegetables fly past.

  Yet it is only the beginning of the attack, as the vile villain Veggie-Man reloads his Salad Shooter and swoops in for another assault.

  K-ZING K-ZING K-ZING K-ZING K-ZING K-SPLAT

  It’s the k-splat that gets our good guy. Suddenly his windshield is covered with more goo than a baby’s highchair after mealtime. But it’s not the goo that bothers him, it’s the unorganized way that the smashed peas are scattered across the glass.

  As a neat freak, disorganization has always made Tidy Guy crazy. Why just last Saturday he had spent the entire day organizing the gravel in his driveway. Then there was last night’s spaghetti. He couldn’t go near the table until Mom had taken the noodles out of the bowl and carefully laid them out in straight lines on the table. (Talk about an eating disorder.)

  In any case, before he can stop himself, Tidy Guy has thrown open his cockpit and climbed out onto the nose of his spacecraft to carefully reorganize the peas. Then, suddenly

  BEEP BEEP BEEP

  BEEP BEEP BEEP