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  CHAPTER 1

  CALM BEFORE THE STORM

  In a house on the ground there lives a Robert. That’s me. Robert Columbo Burnside. My family also lives in that same house. Their names are coming in a moment. Families are kind of weird. I mean, I like mine, but it’s sort of strange that we all have to get along and live together under one roof.

  These days there are all kinds of families. I saw a show about a man with a parrot and a coatrack who kept talking about them all being family.

  There’s a TV station that always features Today’s New Family. But then all they show are programs about people who live in swamps and movies about superheroes or witches.

  Yep, families come in all shapes and sizes. I guess if I had to describe my family, I would say it’s medium-sized and kind of boring. My mom naps a lot on the couch, my dad thinks things like jigsaw puzzles are exciting, my older sister, Libby, spends a good part of her day looking in the mirror, and my little brother, Tuffin, is crazy about a terrible kid show called Toe Time.

  My family is pretty bland. Normal things like family dinners are usually a snoozefest at my house. We don’t always eat together, but when we do, sometimes it puts me to sleep. If anyone ever made a movie or TV show out of one of our normal dinners, it would be pretty dull and the cast would be kind of lame.

  It might be a stretch comparing my family to a movie, but I have movies on my mind. Sure, my closet has been pushing books on me, but this week my brain’s thinking about movies.

  I like previews for movies, I like movie theaters, and I even like watching movies on TV. But what really has me pumped about movies is making them. Last week my best friend, Trevor, got a video camera from his dad. Since then we’ve been filming things with our other friends in our spare time. Then we upload the movies to YouTube. We’ve only finished one movie, but already it has thirty-seven views.

  Everyone has been making suggestions about what our second movie should be. Some suggestions are way better than others.

  We appreciate the ideas, but Trevor and I already know what our next big movie will be. It’s based on a script that I wrote. It’s called Mustache and the Mighty Cool Adventure. I’m going to play the star, Mustache, but we’re going to use our other friends to help.

  So I’ve been thinking about Mustache and making movies. I’ve also been thinking about Janae. She lives right next to my house, and ever since she kissed me at the Fun-ger Games Funstival, we seem to be getting along great. Plus, Maggie, who is a girl that lives four houses down, told Teddy some good news:

  Maggie said Janae was sure, which was pretty amazing. A while ago Janae was so mad at me I didn’t think she’d ever speak to me again. But that was then, and this is now. Besides, the reason she was mad at me had more to do with my closet than anything else. It’s not a normal place to hang clothes and store shoes. If you’re already aware of what my closet can do, then you’re welcome to close your eyes for the next few lines.

  When I was a little kid, I had a walk-in closet with no closet door that I wanted to turn into a science lab. I collected things like salad dressing and nail polish and glue and whatever I could find that was a sticky liquid. I took all those things and mixed them together in my closet in an attempt to make stuff. I never really created anything great.

  At some point, I stopped trying to create things and just used my closet to store all the books that my mom forced on me. She used to have a job at a bookstore and brought books home all the time. It really wasn’t fair. It’s one thing for parents to talk about books, but it’s another thing when parents have access to so many. Sometimes I felt buried in the books she brought home.

  My mom would also bring books home for my brother, Tuffin, but his were all picture books and super easy to read.

  Too many books! That’s why I threw all of mine into the closet, along with goop and the mess from my fake lab. When my closet really began to change, however, was when my dad brought home an odd closet door he found at a garage sale. The door was heavy and old. It also had an embarrassing sticker on it that we couldn’t peel off and a really weird doorknob. The doorknob was made of brass, and it had a little bearded man on the front. I named him Beardy.

  A few months back, my room got so messy I couldn’t move around in it.

  My mom made me clean everything up. I shoved most of it into my closet. Then I shut the door and figured that was that. But that wasn’t that, that was this, and this is my life where I now have a closet that mixes the books and supplies together. It also brings strange creatures to life, mash-ups that I have to deal with and figure out why they are here. The first creature that came out of my closet was Wonkenstein. He was more than a handful. He was sort of a foot-full.

  Then there was the Potterwookiee, also known as Hairy, who made me hang out in cemeteries and fly in vans and cook things I didn’t know how to cook.

  The third creature was Pinocula, and he filled my life with confusion and lies.

  And the last thing to emerge from my closet was Katfish. She was also the best thing. Not only was she kind, but she helped fix things at Softrock Middle School, where I had messed stuff up.

  I like that my life is calm now. It’s nice to catch my breath and not worry about any messes for a while. My closet’s locked, my friends are behaving, and my mom isn’t mad at me. I’d say that’s something to celebrate. And in my house when we celebrate, it usually involves Tuffin throwing food.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE ANNOUNCEMENT

  Actually, the dinner we were having was nothing to celebrate, unless they were giving out trophies for boring meals.

  I mean, I like my life calm, but not my food. We were having more chicken and some sort of salad and peas. My mom always served peas even though none of us liked them. Tuffin just threw his, Libby hid hers in her napkin, and I always slipped mine up onto one of the hidden slats under the table. My dad wasn’t home from work yet, which was unusual. Normally he came home early and watched TV or helped us do our homework. We were just about to worry when he pulled up to the house and honked twice like he always did.

  A couple of seconds later, he came busting through the door. He was smiling and singing some song about good fortune.

  He patted me on the head, pinched Tuffin on the cheek, and winked at Libby. He then picked up my mom and kissed her. It sort of made me lose my appetite.

  It wasn’t unusual for my dad to be happy. He was a smiling, double-honking, complimenting, loud-laughing kind of guy. Everyone was his friend, and the world was a place he liked. He loved his job, he loved wearing a suit and tie every day, and he loved, well … he loved everything.

  He was embarrassing like all dads, but at least he was nice. Rourk’s dad was embarrassing and the opposite of nice.

  So we were all pretty interested in what was making our dad act so happy. He was practically bouncing off the
walls, and there were at least ten things out of place on him.

  I had no idea what the great news was. I was aware, though, that my dad and me had very different opinions about what was great. He thought things like ant farms and self-discipline were fantastic, while I thought things like the latest video games and pools shaped like money signs were more “da bomb.” So I was pretty sure that whatever my dad was hopped up about would be something I didn’t care for. My dad kept singing and dancing around the table until my mom gently said,

  Okay, you need to know this. My dad has his own business. It’s called Earl M. Burnside and Associates. He sells playgrounds and basketball courts and really anything that you might find at a playground or gym. Well, according to my dad, his company had just won the award for …

  We all congratulated him and then went back to eating our chicken. I’m glad I didn’t get too excited. I was happy for my dad, but the award didn’t sound very impressive. I mean, who wants to win for the smallest business? My dad did like little things, so I could see why he was pumped up. He liked little snacks, little puzzles, little stories. He even liked little cheap headphones, where I liked the big ones.

  My dad continued to jump up and down. I guessed he had more good news to tell us. Since he had won for being the outstanding small business for the western region, not including California, he had also won a trip for eight to a fancy hotel in New Mexico.

  Libby started to huff and puff about what I had said until my mom spoke up:

  My dad went on and on about how he had already rented an RV and we were going to leave this Sunday and drive to New Mexico and stop at interesting sights.

  We were also going to take a famous old mountain train to a beautiful hotel where he was going to be the honored guest at a banquet where he would get his award for being the …

  I was a little excited. If we were going next week, that meant I would be able to miss some school. Besides, I had never been to New Mexico. It could be fun. I mean, it might be nice to take a trip and get away from it all.

  Uh-oh. My stomach started to hurt, and I could actually see fear in my sister’s eyes. The last time we had heard my dad mention “best news yet” was when he had signed us up as a family to sing a song in church.

  It turned out that the best news this time was almost as bad. Since the trip was for eight people and we only had five, my dad had invited my uncle and aunt and their obnoxious son, Kyle.

  Libby started to cry and ran off. My mom looked upset, and Tuffin started to chant.

  This was not good. Even though Tuffin liked him, Kyle was the worst. I was amazed at how much I now missed our normal boring dinners.

  CHAPTER 3

  NOTES

  All right, I should talk a bit more about my closet. After all, it is the reason for me keeping these notes and drawing these pictures. I do it for science. It’s so I’ll have documented proof of what has been happening. I think the world deserves to know. My closet used to have no character. Now it has piles of character. Just keep reading and turning the pages. You’ll see what I mean.

  This is my closet:

  This is my closet on books:

  My closet has been locked up tight since Katfish splashed back into it. Kat had said that things were going to get weirder, but so far Beardy is keeping the door locked. It’s been over two weeks, and I haven’t heard any noises or seen any sign that the closet is about to open. I’ve actually tried to get Beardy to unlock the door and let me look inside. But Beardy’s not budging; he’s as stubborn as always.

  Not only would I like to get into my closet for the creatures’ sake, but I would also like to take out some of the things that I put in there. I know my favorite basketball is inside and a couple of my Thumb Buddies. I’m missing at least three that I know of.

  After dinner I went to my room to do my homework. I could still hear my dad talking enthusiastically in the family room about the trip and renting an RV. I was trying to be happy for him, but traveling with Kyle was not a pretty thought.

  Every once in a while when my aunt goes to play bingo, I have to babysit him. And the last time I babysat, he burned some of my leg hairs off with his mom’s curling iron that he was pretending was a lightsaber.

  He was even worse when he was with Tuffin. Tuffin did everything Kyle did. He wanted to wear what Kyle was wearing, talk like Kyle, and act exactly like him. Now the two of them were going to be trapped in our RV as we drove for hours. I really needed a reason not to go on the trip.

  After I finished my homework, a really strange urge washed over me. I can’t explain it exactly, but for some reason, I felt like I wanted to write Janae a note. Sure, things had been so much better these last two weeks, but I didn’t think our relationship was ready for notes. That was a pretty serious step. Still, I couldn’t fight the urge to scribble out a few words and deliver them to Janae. I was planning to head to the island to work on filming Mustache and the Mighty Cool Adventure with my friends, but my brain was ruining things by telling me to write a note.…

  I got out a pencil and a piece of paper—that part didn’t feel weird. I have been doing a lot of writing lately. I wouldn’t call myself a writer, but I’ve been writing these books, writing little movie scripts, and doing a lot of writing in my homework.

  Now I was writing a note to Janae. Creating the note was easy. The words just seemed to come to me. My hand flew over the paper as my mind clicked and whirred. I almost wasn’t sure what I was writing. But after a few moments, my hand stopped and I looked down at my paper in surprise.

  I couldn’t believe it. Not only had I written a note for Janae, I had written it in a rhyme. And not a very good rhyme. I didn’t feel like myself.

  I wondered if this was how the great poets of the world got started. One day they woke up and felt compelled to send notes to the person they liked.

  My thinking was interrupted by my best friend knocking on my window. Of all the people I hung out with, Trevor was my closest friend. He might have crooked glasses and weak basketball skills, but he was cool, and not quite as much trouble as my other friends.

  My friends used my bedroom window instead of our front door. It didn’t make my mom happy, but it made things easier for us. It was like my own private entrance.

  Trevor crawled through the window and into my room. He was excited and talkative as usual.

  More than anything, I wanted to go out and work on the movie, but I was still a little worried about the note I had written and the feelings I had for Janae. I knew Trevor might laugh at me, but I had nobody else to talk to. I needed to brainstorm about what I should do with the note and figure out why I had written it. So I pulled it out of my pocket and gave it to him to read.

  I told Trevor how I had felt like I had to write it, and he told me how he felt like he had to floss at least three times a day or else his gums would swell and bleed. I then told him to not tell me things like that, and he told me …

  I tried to communicate that I knew what I had written wasn’t very good, but there was still a little bit of me that wanted to give the note to Janae. I figured she would think it was funny. She had liked the poem I wrote with Wonkenstein. She had also liked the song that Katfish had written and that she thought I sang. Actually, that song was what had caused Janae to forgive and kiss me. Heck, if those lame things had impressed Janae, this poem might get her to go on a date with me.

  Trevor was right. As a normal middle school student, I was appropriately awkward. But when I added my closet to my life, I was poem-writing, cooking-contest, dance-ruining, girl-singing kind of weird.

  I walked over and looked Beardy straight in the eyes. He didn’t blink. I grabbed him and tried for the thousandth time to pull him open. Trevor reached out and pulled with me. When that didn’t work, both of us took turns kicking. Still the closet door stayed locked. Trevor stopped kicking and asked,

  I figured he wanted to dry himself off from the sweating the kicking had caused, but he had another reason. He had seen a
show on TV about how some crooks had broken out of a locked room by heating the doorknob with a blow-dryer until the lock got so hot it clicked open.

  It was worth a shot. I ran to the bathroom and got Libby’s blow-dryer. It was a really expensive one that she had warned me never to touch. I knew that if she understood how important this was she would … still not let me use it. So I didn’t ask. I brought the blow-dryer back to my room and plugged it in. I was worried that Libby might hear the blow-dryer, so I turned on my radio really loud. Trevor leaned down and put his ear by the knob to listen for it unlocking. I should have closed my window because Jack was out on the island and he heard the noise and came to investigate. I think he was confused by what he found.

  I don’t know what song was on the radio, but it was awful. Jack climbed through the window acting like everything was normal. I turned off the blow-dryer and told him that we were trying to get into the closet. Before I could say anything else, he reached out and grabbed the now-hot Beardy.