Isabelle Shows Her Stuff: The Isabelle Series, Book Two (13 page)

BOOK: Isabelle Shows Her Stuff: The Isabelle Series, Book Two

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“Your grandmother!” Frannie exclaimed. “She certainly doesn't
look
that old.”

“Yeah, well.” Isabelle smiled as she took a couple of swipes at Frannie's head with her friendship ring. “She just got her face lifted.”

THREE

Right after the six o'clock news, Herbie showed up, looking for a fight. Acting as if nothing had happened. Acting as if he hadn't chosen Chauncey Lapidus to be his right-hand man when he was elected art editor of the
Bee
to fill Sally Smith's shoes when Sally moved away. Isabelle still had hurt feelings that Herbie hadn't chosen her, Isabelle, to do the job.

“Let's tangle, Iz,” Herbie sang out, taking his boxer's stance. “I got a couple new moves I want to try. A couple things guaranteed to send you sky-high. Come on out.”

“Go soak your head, Herb,” Isabelle said. “Go pick a fight with Chauncey, why doncha? You and him are such big buddies. Go knock his socks off.” Sarcasm coated her tongue and made it thick in her mouth.

“Gimme a break,” Herbie whined. “What'd I do to you? What's your beef? Why would I want to go pick a fight with Chauncey anyway? That'd be like punching a bag full of marshmallows.”

Isabelle's face remained stony. “Take off, Herb,” she told him. “You and me have had it. We've come to the end of the road.”

“What's your prob? I didn't do nothing. I'm your best pal.” In his agitation, Herbie pushed his face against the screen. “We been pals ever since nursery school. Now you're dumping on me. It ain't fair,” he wailed.

“Fair's fair,” Isabelle said coldly. But it was true. They had been best pals ever since Miss Ginny's nursery school, when they'd discovered they both liked to fight. They'd been fighting ever since, sometimes at her house, sometimes at his. Miss Ginny had threatened to throw them both out if they didn't stop. They were giving her school a bad name, she said.

And now they were in fifth grade.

“You and me go back a long way, Iz,” said Herbie dolefully.

Herbie began jumping up and down, as he always did when he got excited. Isabelle loved it when Herbie did that.

“Chauncey forced me!” Herbie cried. “I wanted you, but Chauncey said he was responsible for my landslide so I had to make him my right-hand man. He said that was the rule. I tell you, Iz”âHerbie shook his head and shot her a somber lookâ“it was a dark and stormy night when I landed that spot. I don't even know what an art editor
does
, for Pete's sake!”

“I buy that, Herb. I don't either,” Isabelle admitted. “Who does? I don't think even Sally Smith knew, and she was a star. Sally faked it a lot.”

“So now Chauncey's organizing a campaign to make himself art editor of the
Bee
,” Herbie said. “And who do you think's gonna be his right-hand man?”

“Beats me,” Isabelle said. “Who?”

“Mary Eliza Shook, that's who! She already gave Chauncey the word. Put me in office, she said, or else. You got Mary Eliza for an enemy, you don't need anybody else, right?”

“Yeah! Yeah!” Isabelle cried. To celebrate, she decked Herbie with one well-aimed punch to the nose. As he hit the dirt, blood started to flow.

“I'm getting weaker by the minute,” Herbie gasped, catching the drops of blood in his cupped hand. “One, two, three,” he droned. “If I die, Iz, you can have my ten-speed bike and my Havahart trap.”

Isabelle had had her eye on that Havahart trap for a long time. With it, she had high hopes of catching a muskrat or a raccoon or even a skunk. “Stay right there,” she said and raced inside. When she got back, clutching a paper cup full of ice cubes, Herbie was stretched flat out, pale and still, studying the sky. She knelt and pushed an ice cube up each of Herbie's nostrils.

Whereupon Herbie let out a bloodcurdling war whoop and leaped upon Isabelle as if he'd been fired from a cannon.

“You turkey! You toad! You rat cheat!” Isabelle hollered as she fell.

With one foot firmly on her stomach, Herbie felt like king of the hill. His nose had stopped bleeding, and he was, for the moment, victorious.

“Next time you get a nosebleed, I'm gonna sit there and watch,” Isabelle stormed. “Wait and see. No tourniquet, no nothing, I'm just letting you drip until there's no more to drip. You'll be the original drip-dry kid. Just rinse you out and hang you up and, boy, will you be pale! You'll look like a ghost. Ghosts don't have any blood, you know. And when Dracula takes a peek at you, he'll say phooey, because it won't be worth his while to suck your blood out of you because it's all gone. What a mess.”

Unmoved by all this, Herbie pressed his foot down harder and said, “Okay, if that's the way you feel, I'm taking back my ten-speed and my Havahart.”

“So you're an Indian giver and a cheat and a toad and all the rest.” Isabelle looked past Herbie and said, “Oh, hi, how are you, little orphan Frannie. Meet Herbie, the biggest creep on the block. Frannie's old daddy died, Herb, and her mom's out looking for a new one.” Isabelle spoke in her best hostess manner as she performed introductions.

Herbie turned to see who was there. No one. In the flick of an eye Isabelle seized the advantage and succeeded in flipping Herbie off her and down to the ground. Once there, she pounded Herbie's head into the dirt.

“I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding!” Herbie cried. “No fair using feet. That's cheating.”

“Look who's talking.”

“Isabelle! Time!” Her mother's voice rang out.

“Coming!” Isabelle gave Herbie's head one last thump and took off at a high rate of speed for home.

Herbie got to his feet, hitched up his trousers and, muttering to himself, headed for home. His mother would have a fit when she saw the blood all over his shirt. So who cared. His mother had lots of fits. She always recovered.

And after supper Isabelle went to her room and wrote on her blackboard in big letters: “
HERBIE IS A WEASEL AND A TOAD AND A CHEAT
.”

She stood back to see how it looked. Then she added: “
AND A TURKEY
.”

Then, after further scrutiny, she wrote in very small letters: “i have read 43 books.”

That looked good, if not exactly the case.

She went back to the blackboard, crossed out the “43” and put in its place “Â½” and erased the “s” on “books” so it read right.

“At least I tell the truth,” Isabelle announced to the empty room. “That's more than some people I know.”

Buy
Isabelle and Little Orphan Frannie
Now!

About the Author

Constance C. Greene is the author of over twenty highly successful young adult novels, including the ALA Notable Book
A Girl Called Al
,
Al
(
exandra
)
the Great
,
Getting Nowhere
, and
Beat the Turtle Drum
, which is an ALA Notable Book, an IRA-CBC Children's Choice, and the basis for the Emmy Awardâwinning after-school special
Very Good Friends
. Greene lives in Milford, Connecticut.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

ISBN: 978-1-5040-0435-0

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com