Phineas L. MacGuire . . . Gets Slimed! (2 page)

“See!” Ben shouted gleefully. “You're even smarter than Albert Einstein.”

Ben is not a famous genius scientist, in case you were wondering.

He's a pretty good friend, though.

“What you need is a good project,” Aretha said. “For example, if you could figure out a cure to a disease, that would be excellent. I've never heard of a fourth grader curing a disease before.”

“Or maybe you could rid the world of mold,” Ben said. “I mean, for a fourth
grader, you sure know a lot about moldy junk.”

It's true. I have always been sort of a genius when it comes to mold. Mold is like science that's happening all over your house, unless your family is really neat and tidy and cleans out the refrigerator on a regular basis.

This does not describe my family at all.

“Not all mold is bad,” I told Ben, showing off my geniosity. “In fact, one of the most important medicines ever, penicillin, is made from mold.”

“So figure out how to get rid of the bad mold,” Ben said. “My mom would give you twenty bucks if you could get rid of the mold in our shower. That's all she ever talks about practically.”

Rid the world of bad mold. It sounded
like the sort of things a superhero would do in a comic book, if comic books were written by scientists with a special interest in single-celled organisms made out of fungus.

I could be Anti-Mold Man, Destroyer of Slime.

Not bad for a fourth grader.

I raised my hand. “Mrs. Tuttle, is it okay to change our goals, at least a little?”

“Revising your goals is a part of the process,” Mrs. Tuttle said. “Sometimes we make goals that are unrealistic or not what we really want after all.”

“Great!” I took out my pencil and started erasing my number one, two, and three goals. When I was done erasing, I wrote:

1. To get rid of all unnecessary mold in Woodbrook Elementary School
   
2. To teach Ben how to count
   
3. To be the best fourth-grade scientist ever
   

Here is my routine after school is over: First I get off the bus and drag my backpack two blocks down the street to my house, which is located at 2505 Apple Blossom Road. The whole time I'm dragging my backpack, I'm thinking about what a dumb name Apple Blossom Road is, since not only are there no apple trees on my street, there are no other trees with blossoms either.

In fact, there are only seven trees on my street, and they are all oak trees.

The next street after my street is Cherry Tree Lane. Guess how many cherry trees there are?

I have no idea who thinks up this stuff.

After I finally get home, I open my front door and tiptoe to the kitchen, in case my sister, Margaret, who is two, is taking a nap. The last thing I want to do is to wake up Margaret, whose favorite
game is trying to fit her dolls' clothes over my head.

In case you were wondering, this is a very annoying game.

If it were up to me, I would go straight to my room the second I got home. My room is very comfortable. There are clothes everywhere, which gives it the lived-in look. I keep snacks in my underwear drawer and my top desk drawer, usually graham stick packs, snack-size potato chip bags, and chocolate pudding cups. My complete set of the Mysteries of Planet Zindar series is piled up next to my bed, so entertainment is not a problem.

In fact, I'm pretty sure if everyone else on the planet except me got sucked into a black hole, I could stay in my room and be fine for at least four months.

But I am not allowed to go straight to my room. There is a list of rules and regulations posted on our refrigerator, and under “After School,” in the number one spot, is “Check in.” So when I get home, I go to the kitchen, where I come face-to-face with the worst part of my day.

Her name is Sarah Fortemeyer.

She is the Babysitter from Outer Space.

Now, you would think, me being a scientist and everything, that I would like a space alien for a babysitter. Only, Sarah Fortemeyer is not the good kind of space alien—the kind who could tell you interesting facts about life on Mars, or who could give you lessons in advanced space alien laser beam technology.

No. She is a Teenage Girl Space Alien from the Planet of Really Pink Stuff.

“Hey, Macky Mac,” she said the minute I walked into the kitchen today, the same way she does every day. “Ready for your snacky snack?”

I sighed. As a rule, I do not like sentences that rhyme.

Especially when Sarah Fortemeyer says them.

Sarah got up from the kitchen table and began waving her fingers in the air. For a second I thought she was trying to put some Teenage Girl Space Alien spell on me, but then I noticed the bottles of nail polish on the table.

“What do you think?” Sarah said, coming closer, her fingers still fluttering around. “Today I did three different colors: Ravishing Raspberry, Simply Summer Strawberry, and Green Day Green.”

“No comment,” I said.

I am a scientist. I do not have opinions on fingernail polish.

“Margaret really liked the Green Day Green, so I put some on her toes,” Sarah said, walking over to the refrigerator. “You don't think your mom will mind, do you?”

My mom would probably throw a fit the size of Mount Vesuvius. She is not one of those go-with-the-flow kinds of moms you sometimes see on TV, moms
who just sort of roll their eyes and laugh when their kids do some crazy stunt like pour hair dye on the dog's fur or draw pictures of pterodactyls on the living-room wall with permanent-ink markers.

My mom is a much more irritated mom than that.

I am sad to say, though, that she is under the spell of Sarah Fortemeyer and will not fire her, even if she did paint Margaret's toenails mucus green. This is because Sarah has her driver's license, always picks up Margaret from day care at exactly 2:45, and only charges five dollars an hour.

For five dollars an hour my mother has learned to live with things like green nail polish on Margaret's toes.

Sarah pulled a cup of strawberry yogurt from the fridge. “How ‘bout some
yogurt for a snack? It's nutritious and delicious!”

“You forgot that I'm allergic to yogurt,” I said. “I would die from anaphylactic shock if that container even touched my skin.”

“Your mom says you're allergic to nuts and cats, and that's all,” Sarah said.

“My mom doesn't know all there is to know about me and my immune system,” I said. “Besides, I'm not hungry. I'm going to go and do my homework.”

That is Rule Number Two on the After School list: “Homework first!”

Which doesn't really make sense, since it's the second thing on the list. But when I pointed that fact out to my mom, she got her Mount Vesuvius look on her face and I decided maybe I shouldn't expect everyone to think in the same logical, rational
way that me and my fellow scientists do.

“By the way, I tidied up your room for you,” Sarah called as I went up the stairs. “Your mom said she'd pay me ten extra dollars if I did. And there's this really cute fuchsia scarf that I saw at Dillard's, so I need the money.”

I sprinted upstairs. Sometimes Sarah acted like I was a fellow Teenage Girl Space Alien who was just dying to talk about clothes and makeup. If I didn't lock myself in my room, she'd go on and on about a bunch of girl stuff that would make me feel like I had cooties just by listening to it. It was
information I didn't want anywhere near my brain.

As I opened my door, I closed my eyes, preparing myself for whatever was inside. With Sarah you get one of two kinds of room cleanings. Either you get the vacuum-dust-make the bed kind of cleaning, or you get the Teenage Girl Space Alien-Decides-to-Redecorate-Your-Room cleaning.

The second kind is the one you really want to avoid.

Fortunately, Sarah was not in a redecorating mood today, so mostly my room looked the same, only not so full of crumbs. And even I had to admit it was nice to have a little clear space on my desk so I could dump out my books from my backpack and not automatically lose them in a big pile of clutter.

A piece of paper followed my books out of my pack. Ben. Most people communicate through e-mail or instant messages or even the phone, but Ben communicates through comics. Ones he draws himself.