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But Chad had been skeptical. . . .

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think it’s legal.”

  “It’s only illegal if you (sniff-sniff) get caught,” Doug said.

  Chad still didn’t like the idea, but since he was a nice guy (some said the nicest guy in school) and since Doug was a nobody nerd (some said the nerdiest nobody in school), he’d offered to help Doug and give the board a test run.

  So here they were at sunrise, getting ready to try it out.

  Chad looked ahead and saw the water starting to swell. He spoke into the headpiece. “Looks like we got a good set coming in.”

  “Roger that.”

  “It’s coming in fast.”

  “Ready when you are.”

  Chad turned his board and started paddling toward shore. He felt the water lift the board. This was good. He paddled harder, making sure he would be on the breaking side. He glanced over his shoulder. The wave was just about to curl. Quickly, he scrambled to his feet.

  “Okay,” he shouted, “I’m up!”

  “Commencing countdown (sniff). On my mark (snort). Five . . . Four . . . Three . . .”

  The tube of water was building nicely. Chad cut the board to the right, picking up speed, making sure he stayed inside the pipe.

  “Two . . . One . . .”

  He snapped the board to the left. Now he was in the perfect position, racing down the wall. “Let’s do it!” he shouted.

  “Beginning ignition sequence.”

  “Hurry!”

  There was no answer.

  “Doug, anytime you feel like—”

  Chad felt the board vibrate under his feet as the jets fired and pushed it up, one inch . . . two inches.

  Perfect. Now there was no friction on the water and Chad could begin all kinds of maneuvers. There was only one problem. The

  grew louder.

  The board rose three inches . . . four inches . . .

  “Okay,” Chad shouted, “that’s enough!”

  Ten inches . . . twenty inches . . . then twenty feet!

  Chad yelled, “Shut it down! Doug, shut it down!”

  “I’m . . . (crackle-crackle) . . . unsure . . . (crinkle-crinkle) . . .”

  Chad pressed the receiver to his ear. “You’re breaking up! Doug, can you hear me?”

  Chad heard only one word. That is if you count

  as a word.

  Suddenly he shot straight up into the sky

  in a space shuttle kinda way.

  Now, to call the experiment a failure really wasn’t fair. . . .

  Granted, the police did receive a lot of UFO sightings—actually, UFS (Unidentified Flying Surfboard) sightings:

  “Officer, it was like this giant surfboard was shooting across the horizon!”

  “Step out of the car, sir. We need to check your breath for alcohol.”

  And the United States Air Force did have to scramble a couple of fighter jets to shoot down an enemy missile:

  “General, you won’t believe it. There’s nothing up here but . . . but . . .”

  “But what, pilot?”

  “A kid on a surfboard!”

  “Return to base immediately for mental evaluation!”

  (All right, I might have exaggerated a little, but when you’re flying 100 miles into the air . . . well, okay, 30 miles . . . well, all right, 30 feet—things can feel a lot more dramatic.)

  The good news was the board finally stopped flying.

  The bad news was what goes up must come

  down.

  But at least Chad was alive. He wasn’t crazy about landing in the ocean halfway to Hawaii. (Okay, that’s another exaggeration; so sue me.)

  But he was alive.

  “All right, guys!” TJ stood in the hallway, wearing her backpack and calling up to the attic door. “Guys, who wrote this? Guys?”

  The this was a typed, 20-page book report she held in her hands.

  The guys were, of course, Tuna and Herby.

  “I’m not leaving for school ’til someone answers me!”

  Finally the attic door creaked open an inch and a pair of eyes appeared.

  “Come down here,” TJ demanded.

  The door opened another inch and another pair of eyes appeared.

  “Now!”

  Reluctantly, the boys opened the door the rest of the way and floated down, cross-legged, to greet her. It always weirded her out to see them floating like that. But that weirdness was nothing compared to the weirder weirdness she was about to be weirded out by.

  TRANSLATION: Things might get a little weird.

  She waved the book report at them. “I found this on my desk this morning.”

  “You don’t say,” Tuna said, pretending to be surprised.

  TJ simply looked at him. He was as bad an actor as he was a time traveler.

  “Any idea where it came from?” she asked.

  Herby floated to her other side and looked. “Cool. Maybe it was, like, the book report fairy.”

  She blew the hair out of her eyes in frustration. “Which one of you wrote this?”

  “Perhaps you typed it yourself,” Tuna said.

  “In my sleep?”

  “You’ve never heard of sleep typing?” Herby asked. “It can be a terrible thing.”

  “Guys?!”

  “Your Dude-ness,” Herby said, “didn’t you say you had a gargantuan book report due today?”

  “Right, but—”

  “And with all the distractions Tuna caused last night, we figured—”

  “Excuse me,” Tuna interrupted. “I was not the one responsible for last evening’s distractions.”

  “You were too.”

  “Was not.”

  “Were too.”

  “Was—”

  “Guys!”

  “—not.”

  “Were—”

  “GUYS!”

  They came to a stop.

  Once again she raised the paper. “I can’t hand this in.”

  “Why not?” Herby asked. “Is it too short?”

  “I can’t hand it in because I didn’t write it.”

  “So?”

  “So that’s cheating.”

  The boys looked at each other, puzzled.

  “Even if it’s well typed?” Herby asked.

  “Even if it’s well typed,” TJ sighed.

  “Even if Robert Louis Stevenson wrote it for you?” Tuna asked.

  “Even if Robert Louis . . . Wait a minute. Robert Louis Stevenson, the author, wrote this?”

  The boys grinned in pride.

  Tuna explained, “We time-ported him up to our attic last night.”

  TJ could barely speak. “Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, wrote a book report on his own book . . . for me?”

  “Correct,” Tuna said. “We bribed him with food items unavailable in his era—a Big Mac and a strawberry shake.”

  “And a Happy Meal toy, dude. Don’t forget the Happy Meal toy.”

  Before TJ could respond, her backpack started to move.

  “Excuse me, Your Dude-ness, but is your backpack alive?”

  “Don’t be torked,” Tuna scoffed. “Living backpacks were not invented until the year 2104.”

  Next, the backpack started to wiggle.

  (Remember that weirdness that’s supposed to be happening? Well, buckle up.)

  Actually, the wiggling backpack wasn’t as weird as the way it started screaming,

  “Shiver me timbers! Shiver me timbers!”

  Not to be outdone, TJ let out her own scream. She slipped off the pack as fast as she could and dropped it to the floor, where it kept right on wiggling.

  To make matters worse, her cute little sister, Dorie, called from downstairs in her cute little sister voice. “TJ, you okay?”

  “Pieces of eight!” the backpack cried. “Pieces of eight! Squawk!”

  “TJ?”

  TJ would have loved to answer, but it’s hard answering when you’re busy having a nervo
us breakdown.

  “Open it,” Tuna whispered to Herby. “Open the backpack!”

  “You open it,” Herby whispered back.

  “TJ?” Cute little sister Dorie started up the stairs. “Is everything okay?”

  TJ stared at the moving backpack, then looked to the stairs, her panic growing. This was the last thing her sister needed to see.

  “TJ?”

  “Do something!” she hissed. “Guys?!”

  Without a word, Tuna reached into his pocket for his Swiss Army Knife. Before TJ could stop him (things never seemed to go right with that contraption), he opened the Time Freezer Blade and

  Dorie and everything around her turned to slow motion.

  “T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J . . . . . . . . . . .”

  Dorie was still climbing the stairs, but by the time she arrived, TJ would either:

  A) Be an old lady

  B) Be eaten alive by the alien backpack

  C) Find the courage to reach down and open the backpack herself.

  It was a tough call, but TJ chose C.

  She reached down, quickly unzipped the pack, and was suddenly hit with a faceful of feathers. Last night’s parrot flew out squawking and shrieking. (Though it was hard to hear over TJ’s own squawking and shrieking. Something about a parrot appearing in your backpack at 7:40 in the morning will do that to a person.)

  The bird began flying around their heads, crying, “Shiver me timbers! Shiver me timbers!”

  Meanwhile, Dorie continued up the stairs. “Whaaa aat’ssssss . . . . . . . . . . . . . goooooooooo . . . . . . . . . .”

  “Guys, do something!” TJ shouted.

  “. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . iiiiiiiing . . . . . . . . . . . . .”

  The good news was Tuna had already pulled open another blade on his Swiss Army Knife. Once again it started making all those cool

  noises.

  The bad news was

  “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”

  nothing happened. (Well, except that Dorie finally appeared at the top of the stairs.)

  “. . . . . . . . . . onnnn . . . . . . . . . . . . . .”

  “Give it a thwack!” Herby shouted. “Give it a thwack!”

  “I’m thwack-ing; I’m thwack-ing!” Tuna shouted as he

  it against the side of the wall.

  “Guys!”

  “. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . uuuuuuuup . . . . . . . . . . .”

  Finally, after one last thwack, the parrot

  disappeared.

  That was the good news. But as TJ had already learned, with these guys there would always be some bad. This time it came in the form of a

  flying pterodactyl.

  “A pterodactyl?” she shouted. “You turned the parrot into a pterodactyl?”

  “Please,” Tuna said, “there’s no reason to shout.”

  “THERE’S A FLYING DINOSAUR IN MY HALLWAY!”

  “Well, all right, perhaps there is a small reason.”

  “. . . . . . . . . . . . .heeeeeeeeeeerrrre . . . . . . . . . . ?”

  Slowly, Dorie began turning her head. Any minute she would see what was going on. Although Tuna and Herby would be invisible to her, the pterodactyl would not. And although Dorie was pretty easygoing, something about a flying dinosaur in the house could send her into a screaming fit . . . which could cause older sister Violet to appear and do the same. . . . which could bring Dad upstairs to have a major heart attack (since dads are even less fond of flying dinosaurs than screaming sisters).

  “Shiver me timbers! Shiver me timbers! SQUAWK!”

  Once again Tuna thwacked the blade and once again it:

  This time the pterodactyl disappeared. So did the parrot. Finally everything was back to normal . . . well, except for a handful of colorful feathers floating down to the floor. Oh, and cute little Dorie still moving at about 1/390,234 miles per hour.

  TJ spun back to Tuna and Herby. “What was that about?” she demanded. “And how come the bird came back?”

  Tuna answered, “Apparently the time-space continuum was juxtaposed in such a nonlinear fashion that—”

  TJ held up her hand. “English, please.”

  “Oh yes, certainly.” He cleared his throat and carefully explained, “You’ve got me.”

  TJ gave him a look.

  He gave her a shrug. Then, opening the Time Freezer Blade, he pointed it at her sister and

  everything returned to normal.

  “You okay?” little Dorie squeaked in her little six-year-old voice.

  “I’m fine, Squid,” TJ said, scooping up her backpack and heading past her. “Come on; we’ll be late.” Dorie nodded and followed. “You gonna take me swimming right after school like you promised?”

  “Sure.”

  “Great,” she said, skipping down the stairs after her. “’Cause Dad won’t let me go in the ocean by myself.”

  “Guess he figures one dead Finkelstein a year is enough.”

  It was supposed to be a joke. Their mother had died almost a year ago, which was one of the reasons their father had packed them up and moved to California. But even as she said it, TJ realized it wasn’t funny. She was definitely on edge from her little encounter upstairs.

  “TJ?” Dorie asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is that a feather in your hair?”

  TJ reached up to her head and pulled off a bright green parrot feather.

  Dorie looked at her. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  TJ shoved the feather into her pocket and opened the front door. “Everything’s fine, Squid, perfectly normal. Let’s go.”

  And the truth was TJ wasn’t lying. Because for her, all this craziness was perfectly normal. Unfortunately, her latest perfectly normal would seem even more perfectly normal compared to the perfectly normal she was about to experience, which would be anything but normal.

  TRANSLATION: You guessed it: things will be getting a bit un-normal.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Temptations x 2

  TIME TRAVEL LOG:

  Malibu, California, October 20—supplemental

  Begin Transmission:

  Stopped by subject’s school to check up on her. (Ahh . . .) Problems increasing. (Ahh . . . ahhh . . .) Also afraid from what happened. I may be allergic to either salt or (ahh . . . ahhh . . . CHOO!) pepper.

  End Transmission

  “Thelma Jean?”

  TJ was never fond of hearing her real name spoken. (With a name like hers, who could blame her?)

  “Thelma Jean Finkelstein?”

  She was even less fond of hearing her entire name. (Wouldn’t you be?)

  “Thelma Jean Finkelstein, may I see you a moment?”

  And when it came from the lips of a teacher like Miss Grumpaton (who had a frown tattooed on her forehead so she could look mean even when she slept), TJ knew she was in trouble.

  The rest of the class had left for lunch, so it was just the two of them in the room. TJ approached the desk. “Yes, Miss Grumpaton?”

  “Why did I not receive your book report this morning?”

  “Oh, I, um, er . . . I’m still working on it.”

  “Young lady, there are no late assignments in my class. You either hand the assignment in on time or you get a zero.”

  TJ could feel the weight of the 20-page book report still in her backpack. (At least she hoped it was the book report and not a parrot.)

  “Hey, JT?”

  She turned to see Elizabeth, one of Hesper’s best friends since forever, standing at the door. “Are you coming to eat lunch with us or what?”

  TJ glanced around the room to see who she was talking to. But since there was no one there but her, she turned back and asked, “Me? You want me to eat at your table?”

  “Well, of course, silly.” Elizabeth flashed her every-tooth-in-place-thanks-to-a-$100,000-orthodontist-bill smile.

  Needless to say, TJ was suspicious. (You’d have to have the IQ of a turtle not to be.) But before she
could ask any more questions, Miss Grumpaton cleared her throat.

  “Well?” the teacher asked.

  TJ looked back at her and repeated, “I’m sorry; my report’s just not ready.”

  “But you do have some of it, correct?”

  “Well, yes, sure . . . sort of.”

  Now, to be honest, that really wasn’t a lie. After all, she did have the pen she was going to write the report with, and she did have the paper she was going to write the report on, so technically she did have part of the report she was going to write with her.

  “Since you’re new,” Miss Grumpaton said, “and since you made a complete ninny out of that Hesper Breakahart last week . . .” She lowered her voice and shook her head. “Honestly, I can’t stand that girl. Probably because she reminds me so much of myself one or two years ago.”

  TJ nodded, thinking, Now who’s not telling the truth?

  Miss Grumpaton continued. “So, for this one time, I will allow you to hand in what you have completed and I will give you partial credit.”

  The report in TJ’s backpack suddenly weighed even more.

  “Well?” Miss Grumpaton said. “It’s either that or get an F.”

  “Come on, BJ.” Elizabeth motioned. “Give it to her and let’s go.”

  TJ hesitated. She knew handing in the report was cheating . . . but she also knew she wanted to pass the class.

  “JB, come on.”

  And sitting at Hesper and Elizabeth’s table meant sitting with (insert dreamy sigh here) Chad Steel.

  “I’m waiting, young lady,” Miss Grumpaton said.

  Finally, going against everything she knew was right (and now demonstrating the IQ of a turtle in need of a brain transplant), TJ slipped off her backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out the 20-page, single-spaced, typed book report.

  “Wow!” Elizabeth said, stepping closer to look.

  “You wrote this?” Miss Grumpaton asked.

  TJ motioned toward her name at the top of the paper and gave another not-quite-the-truth answer.

  “That’s my name right there.”

  “My, oh, my,” Miss Grumpaton said, flipping through the pages. “This is quite a report.”

  TJ swallowed nervously. Well, she tried to swallow nervously. But it’s hard to swallow any type of way when your mouth is as dry as hot desert sand cooked in the toaster and blown dry by a hair dryer . . . set on high.