My Dog's a Scaredy-Cat (2 page)

AS I RODE UP IN THE ELEVATOR to the tenth floor, I could hardly stand still. Now, that's not so unusual for me, because I have learning differences. Dr. Berger, who is my educational therapist at school, says that lots of kids with learning challenges are in constant motion. Sometimes I'm just sitting in school and I look down and notice that my leg is bouncing up and down a mile a minute.

But that night, I knew that my bouncing around in the elevator wasn't from my learning challenges. It was from being both very excited and very nervous about turning myself into a walking Italian table.

Ashley and Frankie had given me some pretty strong warnings, which I have to confess, were making my stomach do a few double backflips. But I have the kind of personality that when someone tells me
not
to do something, I want to do it even more. My mom calls it a stubborn streak. Talking to Ashley and Frankie got my stubborn streak all fired up and made me determined to become a table in an Italian restaurant.

As I got closer to our floor, I noticed that thoughts were flashing through my mind faster than the numbers flashing above the elevator door. It's cool when I have an idea that I think nobody's ever had before. It makes my brain all busy and full of thoughts, like the way the very first caveguy who discovered fire must have felt.

I couldn't wait to get started building my costume. As I got out of the elevator, I made a mental list of what I would need. I'd start with my mom's old red-and-white checkered tablecloth and cut a hole in the middle for my head to slip through. I'd need cardboard to make a square tabletop. I'd cut a hole in the cardboard and slip that over my shoulders before I put the tablecloth on.

Then I'd need to put some things on the tabletop. Things you'd find in an Italian restaurant. Like a glass filled with breadsticks. And maybe a candle stuck in an old bottle.

Then I had what I considered to be my most brilliant idea yet. I could make a chair out of cardboard and tape it to my butt.

As I walked to my apartment, I was worried that I was going to forget all my mental notes before I could put them into action. You know me. I have a thought and it's with me for five or ten minutes. Then, all of a sudden, it packs its bags and takes off for a journey into the unknown. Sometimes it returns, and sometimes it just shoots off into the universe and never comes back even for a visit. I'm not like Frankie, who remembers every thought he ever had.

I opened our apartment door with my key—which took about five minutes to find. During the time I was downstairs in the clubhouse, my key must have moved from pocket to pocket, just to throw me off. I could have sworn I'd put it in my shirt pocket, but I found it in the back pocket of my jeans, buried in between some old gummy bears. I had to peel those sticky suckers off the key before I could fit it into the lock.

By the time I finally got into our apartment, I was so ready to start my costume that I felt like I was going to pop. I must have been really distracted because I almost tripped over our dachshund, Cheerio. He was waiting for me in the front hall, doing what he likes to do best—spinning around in circles.

“Slow down, boy,” I said, trying to scratch him behind the ears, which was hard to do since he was spinning so fast. “If you keep going like that, you're going to lift off like a helicopter.”

Cheerio collapsed in a dizzy heap like he always does, and I took off down the entry hall. Unfortunately, as I hit the living room, I ran smack into my dad.

“Hey, Dad. I have the greatest idea for a costume in the entire history of Halloween!” I said to him.

“Not so fast, mister,” he said. “Halloween comes after . . .”

“Tonight,” I said. “You don't have to tell me that Halloween is tomorrow, Dad. I'm counting the hours until the school parade.”

“If you'd let me finish my sentence, Hank, I was about to say that Halloween comes after homework.”

“You're kidding me, right, Dad?”

“Do I look like I'm kidding?”

I looked at his face. His glasses were sitting on top of his forehead where he usually wears them when he's working a crossword puzzle. His teeth weren't showing, like they do when he smiles. His eyes weren't squinty, like they are when something amuses him. His mouth wasn't turned up at the edges, like it does when he's laughing. Nope, I saw not one bit of kidding in his face. Not even a teensy, tiny bit.

“Dad, you're not going to make me do homework on the night before Halloween, are you?”

I pleaded. “I've got to make my costume.”

“Halloween comes second. First comes math, reading, social studies.”

“Actually, that would make Halloween come fourth,” my sister, Emily, piped up from the dining room, “after math, reading, and . . .”

“We can all remember what Dad said, Emily,” I snapped. The last thing I needed now was Miss Perfect ticking off all the subjects I had homework in.

I walked into the dining room, hoping my dad wouldn't follow me. No luck. He did.

“Do you have homework in every subject?” he asked. Boy, his curiosity about my homework was out of control.

I looked around the dining room, trying to come up with a decent argument about why tonight was not the night to get serious about homework. I was desperate. Emily and her nerd boyfriend, Robert Upchurch, were sitting at the dining-room table, working on their Halloween costumes. They had decided to go as twin flu germs, which will give you an idea of how much fun they are.

Emily was using Play-Doh to make pus pockets, and Robert had yellow and green markers to color in infected areas. And get this, they had figured out that their costumes would double as a science project. That way, if they didn't win top prize in the Halloween parade, at least they'd get extra credit for educating the students at PS 87 about runny noses. And, by the way, they don't need extra credit because they're each getting an A-plus in science. Or even higher
.

“Emily's making her costume,” I said to my dad. “I don't see her doing homework.”

“That's because it's already done, doofus,” Emily answered. “As a matter of fact, I did it the minute I walked in the house. Didn't I, Robert?”

“Indeedy do, you did,” Robert said.

Then he laughed his snorty little hippo laugh, like he had said something funny. Robert is so skinny that when he laughs, you can see his ribs moving around in his chest. I saw him laugh once during a swim class at the 98th Street YMCA when he didn't have a shirt on, and you could have mistaken him for a skeleton in the Museum of Natural History. Fortunately, he keeps his chest covered most of the time with the white shirt and tie that he wears every day to school. You heard me. I said a tie!

“Some of us know the importance of time management,” Emily said. “That's why I like to complete my homework as early in the day as possible.”

My sister. She can have a real attitude when she wants to.

“For your information, time management and I happen to be very good friends,” I shot back at her. “I can manage my time any time I want to.”

“Oh really? Is that why just today we got another note from Ms. Adolf saying you were missing homework assignments?”

I was hoping no one had noticed that note. I had left it on the table in the entry hall but slid most of it under the flower vase my mom keeps there.

“At least I don't choose to spend my time making pus pockets,” I answered. I had to get tough with her if she was going to bring up Ms. Adolf in front of my dad. “And speaking of pus pockets—Robert, it's always good to see you.”

I turned, stomped off into my room, and slammed the door.

About one-third of a second later, the door to my room blasted open. I think you can probably guess who was standing there.

“Hi, Dad,” I said, without looking up.

“We're not finished, Hank,” he said.

“I know. I know. Homework first. Costume later.”

“You'll thank me for this one day,” my dad said.

I've learned something in my almost eleven years as Hank Zipzer. When a grown-up tells you that you'll thank them one day for
this
, it means you are about to have to do something you really, really hate. I pulled my math workbook from my backpack and wondered when the day would actually come that I'd be thanking my dad for making me do long division. When I was ninety-two? Or sixty-six?

One thing I knew for sure, it wasn't going to be tonight.

I DID MY HOMEWORK in record time. I'm not going to say much more about it, because we all know that doing homework was invented by King Boring of Boringville, which is found just on the outskirts of I-Can't-Find-the-Answers-in-My-Brainville. I'll bet you've visited there yourself.

But since I know you're probably curious, though, I'll give you a few of my tips on how I manage to finish homework in record time.

1. If it's math homework, skip the odd problems and only do the even ones. Tell your teacher that you're allergic to odd problems and when you do them your scalp itches like crazy.

2. If they're short-answer questions, take the directions seriously and give short answers. As in
one
word.

3. If they're multiple-choice questions, don't stress yourself out worrying about which answer is right. Take your best shot and move on.

4. If you have to write a paragraph, remember that there's no law that says it has to make sense.

5. If you have to write an essay, well, sorry, but there's no quick way around that. Once, I told Ms. Adolf that I couldn't write the essay because I had so many ideas for it, I couldn't decide which one to write. (She didn't buy it, but, hey, that doesn't mean it won't work for you.)

6. About extra credit problems . . . leave those to the brainiacs like Heather Payne. You don't know her yet, but you'll read all about her in Chapter 16.

7. See number 10.

8. See number 10.

9. See number 10.

10. There's nothing wrong with skipping a few questions. See numbers 7 to 9 as examples.

WITH THE HELP OF HANK'S TOP-TEN TIPS, I finished my homework and got to the good stuff—my costume. My mom was a champ and helped me cut up her red-and-white checkered tablecloth. While we were cutting the tabletop out of cardboard, she made one of her famous Randi Zipzer suggestions.

“Hank, sweetie,” she said, eyeing the glass of breadsticks I was planning to put on the tabletop. “Those white-flour breadsticks are so not body friendly. Let me give you some whole grain, flaxseed-infused, toasted crisps instead.”

My mom never gives up trying to change the world, one healthy food at a time. She believes in health food like I believe in the Mets. All the way. Do or die. Till the very end. Like last week in our deli, the Crunchy Pickle, she introduced liverwurst made from broccoli instead of liver. Personally, I wouldn't eat liverwurst no matter what it's made from. But let me warn you—if you ever find yourself inside the door of the Crunchy Pickle, I suggest you run as fast as you can away from the brocci-wurst. The smell of it has been known to separate a human nose from its face. In fact, the alley in back of our deli is filled with separated noses bouncing around on their tips.