Feenman squinted at me. “Impressions? What kind of impressions?” he asked.
“Watch,” I said.
I took off my glasses and pulled on a pair of inch-thick glasses. Then I turned to Belzer. “Take the two pillows off my bed,” I said. “Stuff them down the back of my jeans.”
Feenman and Crench gaped at me as if I were nuts. But Belzer is trained never to ask questions. He took the pillows and jammed them down the back of my jeans.
“Okay, who am I?” I said.
They stared at me.
“I’m Mrs. Heinie,” I said. “Get it?” I strutted around the room, bent forward, staring through the thick eyeglasses with my huge butt sticking out behind me.
“Get it? Look at the size of this butt! I’m Mrs. Heinie! Brilliant?”
“Uh…not too brilliant,” Crench muttered. He and Feenman were staring over my shoulder.
I turned to the open door.
Guess who was standing there.
You got it.
Mrs. Heinie.
Chapter 6
HEINIE TROUBLE
I squinted through my thick eyeglasses—and saw Mrs. Heinie squinting back at me through her thick eyeglasses.
Uh-oh. Double uh-oh.
Was she smiling? No. I wouldn’t describe the look on her face as a smile. I’d describe it as the look people have in a horror movie when they see the ugly, evil, man-eating monster for the first time.
Behind the glasses her eyes were bulging like tennis balls, and her mouth had dropped open to her knees.
Mrs. Heinie is our teacher and our dorm mother. And we all think she’s terrific. She’s not a kind person, but she’s very fair.
She has a job to do as dorm mother. And that job is to keep us from being us. In other words, she has to make sure that we don’t have too much fun.
It’s a tough job. And despite the fact that she’s a little nearsighted and a little bent over, she’s a tough woman.
And now here she was in the doorway to my room, watching me strut around, doing my two-pillow impression of her.
Most kids would fall to the floor and start to cry and plead insanity.
But not Bernie Bridges. Do you think I can’t talk my way out of anything?
“Yo, Mrs. Heinie,” I greeted her with my most adorable, dimpled smile. “Would you like to join our game?”
She made a choking sound. Her bulging eyes were locked on my huge butt. “Game?”
“Yes, we’re having such awesome fun,” I said, keeping the dimples flashing. “We’re playing Pillow Search. It’s a totally popular game. Everyone in the dorm is playing it.”
Mrs. Heinie made another choking sound. “Popular?” she said.
“You’re looking lovely tonight, Mrs. H.,” I said. “I see you are dressed up. Are you going to a fancy party? I know you. I know you have a secret party life we boys don’t know about.”
“Bernie, I’m wearing my bathrobe,” she said. She frowned at me. “Let’s get back to the game.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “The game. See? The rules are pretty simple. We take turns hiding the pillow. Then everyone tackles the guy with the pillow.”
I turned to Feenman, Crench, and Belzer. “Okay. Tackle me, guys. Go ahead. Tackle me. Show Mrs. H. how the game works.
My three friends didn’t move. They sat hunched on the bed, paralyzed, staring at me with their mouths hanging open.
“Ha-ha.” I laughed. “They’re a little shy. But it’s a great game. We play it all the time.”
Mrs. Heinie didn’t move. She just stared at me, frowning, her face wrinkled up tight like a very pale prune.
“Uh…are you buying this story?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “What do you think?”
I swallowed noisily. “So…I’m in major trouble?”
She nodded. “Yes. Major trouble.” She spun around and started to leave. But then she stuck her head back in the door. “You know, Bernie,” she said, “one pillow would have been enough!”
Chapter 7
KIDNAPPED!
We waited for Mrs. Heinie to go up the stairs to her apartment in the attic. Then we all fell on the floor laughing. Feenman pulled the pillows from my pants, and we had a big pillow fight. Just letting off some steam.
Finally, I got everyone quiet. “Dudes, we still need an act for the Talent Contest,” I said. “Hey, I’ve got another idea.”
I pulled a bunch of toilet paper rolls out from a desk drawer. I’m not sure why I was saving them. I knew they’d come in handy one day.
I handed each guy a toilet paper roll. “We’ll hum into them,” I said. “We’ll totally rock. Come on, dudes. Let’s work up some awesome harmony. We’ll play better than Wes’s band.”
I hummed a rock riff into my toilet paper roll.
Feenman made a disgusted face. “Sorry, Big B,” he said. “That idea totally wipes.”
I think he was making a joke. But he was right.
I slapped myself on the forehead. “Come on, Bernie. Think. Think of something!”
I had to come up with an act to beat Wes Updood.
“Hey, I’m going out, guys,” I said. “I’m gonna take a walk. Sometimes fresh air helps me think.”
They didn’t hear me. They were singing into their toilet paper rolls at the top of their lungs.
I hurried downstairs and stepped out the front door. It was a clear, warm night. An owl hooted high in a nearby tree.
I took a deep breath and inhaled the strong aroma from the rotten apple trees on the Great Lawn. Mmmmm. Nothing like that smell to wake up your brain.
Sometimes I head over to Pooper’s Pond to stare at the water and think. Don’t ask me how the pond got that name. No one seems to know.
I turned and started to follow the narrow path to the pond.
And who was the first kid I ran into? Wes Updood. Carrying his saxophone case at his side.
“What’s up, Wes?” I said. “You going to band practice?”
“Marshmallow Fluff, dude,” he replied. “It’s like Custer’s Last Stand. Know what I mean? Extra creamy, with half the carbs.”
“Cool,” I said. I kept walking.
I was almost to the pond when strong hands grabbed me around the waist and spun me around.
I stared into the chunky, panting face of Jennifer Ecch!
I call her Nightmare Girl. That’s because she’s twice as big as I am, twice as strong—and totally in love with me.
A nightmare.
Do you know how embarrassing it is to be in fourth grade and have a girl who follows you around making loud smoochy noises and calling you “Honey Lips” and “Butter Cakes”?
It totally wipes!
“Hurry,” she whispered. She picked me up off the ground.
“No!” I cried. “Jennifer—don’t touch me. I have a flesh-eating disease. You don’t want to catch it. It’ll eat your flesh, too!”
She ignored me. She hoisted me over her broad shoulders and started to jog across the grass.
“Where are you taking me?” I cried, bouncing on her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Shhh. Quiet, Honey Face,” she said. “Come with me. We’re gonna win the Talent Contest!”
Chapter 8
WHO’S THE DUMMY?
Jennifer carried me into the girls’ dorm. I heard girls giggling as she trotted down the front hall.
Finally, she set me down in the Commons Room. Every dorm has a Commons Room. It’s like a big living room for everyone living in the dorm. You know. Couches and big armchairs, a TV, a game table.
I glanced around. We were the only ones there.
“Jennifer, I have to get back to my dorm,” I said, glancing at the clock over the mantel. “I’m already in trouble with Mrs. Heinie. I can’t—”
“Shut up, Sweet Breath,” she said. She grabbed my arm and yanked me across the room to a big, red armchair. “I heard you love The Plopps. Do you want to go to their concert or not?”
“Of co
urse, I do,” I said. “But—”
“Well, I know how we can do it,” Jennifer said. She blew the hair from her eyes. She does that all the time. It’s a habit, I guess. But I really hate it when she blows the hair from my eyes!
“How can we win the Talent Contest?” I asked. “Do you have a secret talent?”
“Of course!” she answered.
This was starting to get interesting.
I know. I know. I usually do anything to keep away from Jennifer Ecch. I once jumped in Pooper’s Pond and stayed underwater for three minutes to keep her from seeing me.
That’s pretty gross—right?
But tonight I was desperate. Desperate to beat Sherman and Wes and Nyce House. And desperate to see The Plopps.
“What’s your talent?” I asked The Ecch. “Do you eat an entire car?”
“Don’t be stupid, Sweet Ears,” Jennifer said. “I’m a great ventriloquist. I can throw my voice.”
I stared at her. First at her blue eye, then at her brown eye. “No joke?”
“I just threw my voice,” she said. “Could you hear it?”
“No,” I replied.
“That’s because I threw it really far,” she said. She blew the hair out of her eyes again. “Listen, Bernie, we can do an awesome act together and win the big prize.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why do you need me?”
“I don’t have a dummy,” Jennifer said. “I can’t do a ventriloquist act without a dummy. So…you’re it.”
“Huh? No way!” I cried.
She grinned. “You love the idea—don’t you! I can tell. It’ll be a riot, Honey Knees.”
“PLEEEASE don’t call me Honey Knees!” I begged.
“How can we lose?” Jennifer said.
She grabbed me and pulled me down onto her lap on the chair.
“This act is gonna be way wicked,” she said.
“There’s never been a ventriloquist act like this.” She slid her arms around my waist. I felt her hot breath on the back of my neck.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s start.”
I waited for her to throw her voice. Or tell a joke. Or ask me a question or something.
I waited. And waited.
And waited.
“Uh…Jennifer?” I said.
She grabbed my hand. Squeezed it in both of hers. And started planting smoochy kisses all over it.
“Uh…Jen,” I said quietly, “you’re not a ventriloquist—are you?”
Smooch. Smooch. Smooch.
My hand was sopping wet.
“Uh…well…no.” She finally answered my question.
“You can’t throw your voice—can you?” I asked.
Smooch smooch.
“No, Lovey Chin. Actually, I can’t.”
I sighed. “And this was just an excuse to get me to sit in your lap, wasn’t it!” I exclaimed.
“Yes,” she said.
Chapter 9
BABOOM BABOOM
The next afternoon I ran into Sherman Oaks outside the School House, our classroom building. He flashed me his perfect, 65-toothed smile. “Guess where I’m coming from, Bernie.”
“Having your head bronzed?” I said.
“No. Headmaster Upchuck’s office. We were practicing.” Sherman smiled again, an even brighter smile. So bright, I had to shield my eyes.
“I envy you,” I said. “Headmaster Upchuck is a man among men. He’s a man I look up to. Well, yes, he’s only three feet tall. I guess I can’t really look up to him. But what does that matter? The man is a GIANT. He—”
Sherman rolled his eyes. “Bernie, aren’t you going to ask me what we were practicing in his office?”
“Okay,” I said. “What were you practicing?”
“Him handing me the First Prize trophy for winning the Talent Contest,” Sherman said.
“Excuse me?” Gulp. I swallowed my bubble gum. “You—you—”
“The Headmaster likes to get it right,” Sherman said. “You know. When he comes onstage at the end to give the trophy to the winner? He wants the handoff to be smooth. So he and I practiced it for about an hour.”
I took a deep breath. “But he handed it to the wrong guy, Sherman,” I said. “Because you’re not going to win. I am!”
Sherman tossed back his head, opened his mouth wide, and laughed for about ten minutes. He laughed until he got the hiccups.
Then, wiping the tears from his eyes, he took my arm. “Come here, Bernie—HIC. Let me show you—HIC—one more reason you’re not going to win.”
He dragged me into Nyce House, his dorm. I instantly started to shake and sweat. The place gives me the deep creeps. It’s clean and neat and quiet.
Who would live in a place like that?
As we passed the front hall I saw the dorm parents, Sam and Janet Pocketlint. They wore matching school uniforms and carried matching dust mops.
They were dusting everything in sight.
Gross.
Sherman pulled me into his room. I nearly gagged. The bed was made!
He had a furry, white sheepskin bedspread, and a sheepskin rug covered his floor. He had a wide-screen TV on his dresser. A music system with huge floor speakers that nearly reached the ceiling. On the wall above his bed he had a big, green-and-black poster of a dollar sign.
“Check this out,” Sherman said. He dragged me to a large keyboard standing against the wall. “This is my new digital drum machine,” he said.
I was still shaking and sweating. But I pulled myself together. “Very nice, Shermy,” I said, slapping him on the back. “And what do you plan to do with it? Annoy your neighbors?”
“No,” he said. “My parents bought it for me so I can play drums in Wes Updood’s band.” He glanced at the big dollar sign on the wall. “It cost five thousand dollars. But my parents really want to buy my love.”
“But you don’t know how to play drums,” I said.
He sneered. “What does that matter?” He clicked the power switch on. A soft rhythm started. He turned up the volume.
“See? You pick any rhythm,” he said. “Then you pick a speed. Here.”
He turned a knob. I heard
“There it goes,” Sherman said. “Sweet, huh? It’s perfect for the band’s first number.”
“But what do you do?” I asked.
Sherman squinted at me. “Me? I don’t do anything. It’s all digital. It plays itself. I’m too rich. Why work up a sweat?”
“Can I try it?” I asked. “Hmm. Let me see…”
I grabbed the volume knob. “Is this the rhythm knob?”
I turned it up all the way.
A deafening roar blasted from the machine. Two windows broke.
Sherman covered his ears. “Turn it down!” he shrieked. “Bernie! The volume! Turn it DOWN!”
I pretended I couldn’t find the volume. “Which knob is it?” I screamed. “Is it this one? No. How about this one? No. Sorry, Sherman. I’m just not good with these digital things.”
I pulled the volume knob off and held it in the air. “Is this it? I think it’s broken.”
The walls were shaking. I saw a big crack split the ceiling. The sheepskins were jumping as if they had come alive!
Sherman fell to his knees, covering his ears, wailing in agony.
It was way painful.
I took off running. The throbbing, electronic drumbeats were shaking the whole house.
I was nearly out the front door. But I stopped at the entrance to the Commons Room.
“Whoa.” I saw April-May June. She was sitting on a couch beside Wes Updood.
What’s up with that?
He was playing his saxophone. Showing off. He was making it honk like a duck and making it do gross, rude noises.
And April-May was slapping her knees, tossing back her blond hair, laughing her head off. She thought Wes was a riot.
“She doesn’t really like Wes Updood,” I growled to myself. “She likes me. She just doesn’t know it yet. When Rotten Ho
use wins the Talent Contest, she’ll be begging me to take her to The Plopps concert.”
The honking stopped. Wes saw me in the doorway. He waved.
“Instant pancakes, dude!” he called to me. “Yo, Bernie—instant pancakes, man! Nothing but the best. Know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah. Instant pancakes,” I replied. And I hurried out the door.
Chapter 10
“OW!”
Belzer, Feenman, and Crench jammed into my room after dinner. They seemed very excited. All three of them were talking at once.
“We’ve got it, Big B!”
“We’re gonna win.”
“We’ve got the act. We’ve got it!”
“Well, it’s about time,” I said, jumping up from my computer. “I knew my guys would come through. You found a fabulously talented dude hiding in the dorm?”
“Not exactly,” Belzer said.
“Belzer, did you have spinach at dinner?” I asked.
“Well, yeah,” he replied. “How’d you know?”
“You’ve got big, green globs of spinach stuck to your braces.”
“No problem, Big B,” he said. “It always dissolves in two or three days.”
Feenman pulled me away from Belzer. “Bernie, forget the spinach. You’ve gotta see our act. We’re the best!”
“Your act?” I took a few steps back. “You three? What kind of an act? Guess what, guys? Eating a double cheeseburger without chewing is not a talent!”
“We’ve got a better act than that,” Crench said. “You ever see those old comedies on TV? The black-and-white ones with those three nutty weirdos?”
“The Three Stooges?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Crench said. “Those dudes who are always slapping each other, hitting and kicking, and poking each other’s eyes out. They’re cool, right?”
“So guess what we decided to do?” Belzer said, picking long strings of spinach from between his teeth.