The Lord of the Hat Read online

  It was a good thing that the music was loud, because Jack’s screaming was pretty bad. As soon as he calmed down, I rushed him to the bathroom, where we ran his hand under cold water. I knew it hurt, but Jack was trying to act like it was no big deal.

  After running his hand under the water for ten minutes, he dried it off and we went back to my room. Trevor was still blow-drying Beardy, but it hadn’t done anything except fluff Beardy’s hair.

  Trevor turned off the blow-dryer, and I turned off the music. Trevor looked around for something he could use to open the hot doorknob. He spotted Hairy’s scarf on my dresser and grabbed it. Using the scarf like a hot pad, he tried to open the door, but there was still no budge.

  Jack was whining about his hand so I asked to see it. He turned it over, and we all gasped.

  I think only Beardy was happy about what we saw. Jack had a perfect imprint of my closet doorknob on his palm. It was the reverse image of Beardy. It looked painful but also kind of cool.

  Jack was interrupted by Libby coming through my door. She was not happy about me using the blow-dryer.

  My friends left, and I spent the next couple minutes promising my mom and Libby I would never touch Libby’s stuff again. If our house had been an old-fashioned school, I would have run out of chalk writing down my apology.

  CHAPTER 4

  MISSING

  In the morning when I got up, I noticed that the top of my dresser looked wrong. It usually looked like this:

  Today it looked like this:

  Even if you are horrible at guessing games, you should be able to easily guess what was missing. If not, I can make it easier. Pretend I’m a children’s cartoon, and you yell what’s missing at the TV screen.

  The small cane that Wonkenstein had left me was no longer there, and I had a pretty good idea who might have taken it.

  Libby probably took the cane to get even. Well, I needed it back. I had been given something from all four of my creature visitors, and all of them had told me to take care of the gifts because I would need them in the future. Jim, the bat/cricket that had stayed with me after Pinocula left, wasn’t on my dresser, but he was somewhere in my neighborhood. Wonk’s cane was way more important than Libby’s dumb blow-dryer. She could buy another one. Wonk’s cane was one of a kind. I ran to her room and confronted her.

  I could usually tell when she was lying, because she would close her eyes. Well, her eyes were wide open and she seemed honestly surprised by what I was asking. So I went to accuse Tuffin, but he was still sleeping so he probably didn’t take it. When I asked my mom, she said the same thing she always says whenever we misplace something:

  My mom wasn’t being mean. She just had three kids, and she didn’t have the energy to look for every LEGO and homework assignment we might have lost under the couch.

  I went back to my room and checked to see if the cane had fallen behind my dresser. It hadn’t. I looked on my desk and under my beanbag. It wasn’t there or there. I looked in my dresser drawers and under the blankets on my bed. No cane. I got down on my knees and looked under my bed.

  Nothing. I did find one of Tuffin’s shirts. That wasn’t too surprising, seeing how Tuffin left his stuff everywhere. I pulled the shirt out and …

  There was cat hair all over it. I had no idea what cat Tuffin had been playing with, but it sure shed a lot.

  I was worried about Wonk’s cane, but I needed to get ready for school. So I pushed those thoughts aside and took a shower. While eating breakfast, I asked my dad about the cane.

  After breakfast I rode the bus to school. It’s strange how different going to school is ever since Katfish left. People don’t hate me and nobody gives me grief. Unless you’re talking about Chris Heck, who has supercool hair and gives everybody grief about how uncool theirs is.

  I brought the note I had written for Janae with me to school. I couldn’t decide what to do with it. I had been arguing with myself all morning about it.

  By lunchtime I was so worked up about it that I could barely eat. Trevor thought I should just be a man and throw the note away. I was considering doing that when Jack came up to our table to show us his hand. The imprint of Beardy was still there. Jack was pretty proud of it. He was showing everyone and telling them that it was the symbol of a bearded street gang. I didn’t blame him; telling people it was my closet doorknob didn’t sound quite as cool. Jack said that he was even thinking of getting his brother to make some T-shirts of Beardy to …

  I hadn’t noticed, but while Jack had been talking to me and Trevor, I had been scribbling something on my napkin with my pen. When Jack walked off to show some other people his palm, I looked down and gasped.

  What was wrong with me? I covered the napkin so no one would see. Trevor could tell something was up by the way I was hunched over. He asked me if I was okay, and I sheepishly showed him the napkin.

  Trevor pointed out that I was acting like a nut. He also pointed out that what I had just written was very Dr. Seuss-ish.

  I didn’t finish my lunch. I didn’t even finish the conversation. I got up and walked across the cafeteria, wadded up the napkin, and threw it into the trash. Then I walked down the hall to put my lunch in my locker. I noticed Janae’s locker number: 384. I stopped and stared at it.

  Nobody besides me was in the hall. I had thrown the napkin away, but I still had the rhyming note I had written yesterday. It felt like it was burning a hole in my back pocket.

  I knew I could easily put the note into her locker without anyone seeing. Janae might like it. She might also think I’m a rhyming stalker.

  I stopped thinking and just did it. Something must really have been wrong with me. I had a good thing going with Janae, and now I had just willingly made it weird. I stepped back from the locker and sighed. Teddy saw me and said,

  I ignored Teddy and walked down the hall alone. It was very possible I had just made a huge mistake. Who gives a rhyming note to a girl? I suddenly felt very alone and extra dorky.

  CHAPTER 5

  MUSTARD BURGER

  I like most surprises, but there are some I could live without. For example, I don’t like finding Libby’s long hair in my cereal.

  But I do enjoy good surprises, like when I get a check from my grandpa for being …

  Or when my parents go shopping at one of those big warehouse grocery club stores and come home with boxes of food that we usually never buy.

  But even the good surprises don’t compare to the great surprise I got after school when I was walking down the hall with Trevor. Maggie, Janae’s friend, stopped me and said,

  Maggie walked off, and I looked at Trevor. He seemed even more surprised than me. In fact, he was so shocked that his glasses were straight for once.

  I couldn’t believe the note I slipped into Janae’s locker had worked. In the history of notes, it was one of the dumbest.

  I didn’t have time to think about how lucky I was. I needed to get home and get my homework done so I could slip out my window and get to the mall by four. Plus, I needed to spend at least fifteen minutes brushing my teeth to get my breath in good shape.

  I was lucky. When I got home, my mom was taking a nap on the couch and Tuffin was at a neighbor’s house playing. I did my homework in record time and then brushed my teeth and combed my hair in a way that made it look like I wasn’t a baby. I also put on a little body spray. While slipping out my window, I was greeted by another surprise. This one seemed to shock me almost as much as Janae liking my note.

  It was Jim. The preachy half-bat, half-cricket that had come out of the closet with Pinocula and never gone back in. Despite him being a little bossy, I was happy to see him.

  I didn’t like the sound of that. I bet nobody has ever been happy to see trouble show up at their party.

  Jim flew into my room and rested on my dresser, where Wonk’s cane used to be. He took off his tiny top hat and dusted the brim of it. He then put it back on and cleared his throat.

  I explained to Jim that I was w
earing body spray because I was going to meet someone at the mall, and that it was important that I smelled good because …

  It was a lie, of course. I was wearing body spray because of Janae. But the mall still does smell like feet. Since Jim had come with Pinocula, he knew all about lying, so he didn’t buy the one I was telling. He told me that he had been hanging around and knew all about my plan to meet Janae.

  Jim was interrupted by the sound of something hitting my window. I looked over and saw an egg running down the pane.

  I looked out my window, and what did I see? Nothing. If one of my friends had thrown the egg, he would still have been there laughing and pointing at me. It wasn’t unusual for weird things to be thrown at my window. Aaron had thrown mud balls before, Teddy had thrown gummy worms, Rourk had thrown water balloons, and Jack had thrown some of the tomatoes his dad had grown on their roof. Now someone had thrown an egg, but someone wasn’t there. No one was around.

  When I turned to ask Jim if he had seen who did it, he was no longer on top of my dresser.

  I didn’t know what Jim was going to tell me, but I needed to get to the mall and couldn’t wait around for him to show up again. I climbed out my window, being careful not to get any egg on myself, and headed across the street to Trevor’s. He had told me that he wanted to go to the mall with me to film some of the shops to put into our movie. I was nervous about meeting Janae, so I was kind of happy he wanted to come along. I didn’t want to be by myself if she didn’t show up or if she brought a friend. It never hurt to have a wingman to help you out. And unlike my other friends, Trevor was a pretty good wingman.

  The mall wasn’t too far away, but I didn’t want to walk. And since my bike was broken and my skateboard was in my locked closet, I needed to borrow Trevor’s. He never used his skateboard and had only tried it once. His mom had made him wear all kinds of crazy protective gear, and he still crashed on a small wall and biffed it bad.

  He had fallen down so hard that he’d decided never to skate again. Now we just used the skateboard to roll each other sodas when we were sitting around his swimming pool.

  Trevor lent me his skateboard, and he rode his bike. It took him around fifteen minutes to put all of his safety pads on.

  By the time we got to the mall, it was almost four and the wind had given me weird hair.

  Trevor also warned me about keeping track of his skateboard. Sure, he never used it, but he still didn’t want it to get lost or stolen. He was extra worried because in the last couple of weeks our town, Temon, had been having a lot of little things taken from people’s houses and yards. They weren’t expensive things. It was more like Kleenex boxes and sunglasses and lawn gnomes. The police were currently looking for what they were calling …

  Trevor’s family was really concerned about their personal safety, so they had put new locks on their doors and gotten an alarm system. They even put up a sign on their lawn.

  I promised Trevor I would keep a good hold on his skateboard and make sure that the Temon Taker didn’t get his hands on it.

  Since my hair was a mess, we stopped at one of the mall’s bathrooms before going to Mustard Burger. I used the mirror in the bathroom and combed through my hair to fix it. Then I nervously made my way with Trevor to Mustard Burger.

  When I got to Mustard Burger, Janae was standing out in front. Okay, so people already make fun of me for the way I described Katfish. And my friends still give me a hard time about once saying Janae was cute, but the thing is, I don’t know how to talk about girls. Now, as Janae was standing in front of Mustard Burger, she looked better than ever.

  I told Trevor nicely to get lost, and he ran off to film some random stuff. I did my best to walk coolly up to Janae and say,

  My mouth needed to be arrested and locked up.

  I had said “howdy” as if it was the olden days and we were living in a western town. I quickly added some words after “howdy” in an attempt to make it sound a little less dorky.

  Like a fool, I kept talking in an attempt to correct my mistake.

  I was about as smooth as a rhino covered in shards of glass.

  Janae looked a little concerned at first, but then she smiled and laughed. One of the best things about Janae is that sometimes she mistakes my dorkiness for my sense of humor. So if I say something stupid, she thinks it’s just me being clever. I hope she never finds out the truth. I sure as heck am not planning to tell her. I figure I’ll wait until I’m on my deathbed to admit things like that.

  Janae reached out and took my hand. I think it was because she liked me, or maybe my mom had told her that my balance was poor and I needed people to help prop me up. It kind of seemed like the sort of thing my mom would do.

  While holding hands, we bought mustard burgers and fries and sat over by the quarter rides. At first Janae did most of the talking, but every once in a while, I would try to say something that didn’t sound too dumb.

  Janae and I talked about a lot of things. She was actually pretty easy to have a conversation with. She told me about her life, and I told her about mine. I also told her that my family was going on a trip next week to New Mexico. She was smart enough to know that New Mexico was a state. After I told her about the trip, she said,

  I got a compliment from Janae! At least I’m pretty sure it was a compliment. Boring is bad, which means that things will be bad without me. I could feel my neck and face getting hot as I blushed. I must have looked as red as a cherry.

  Time flew by, and before I knew it, it was five o’clock and Janae’s friend Maggie came looking for her to leave. I didn’t know what I should do. I think Janae and I were kind of turning into boyfriend-girlfriend, but nothing was official. Was I supposed to give her a good-bye hug or a kiss? I was so confused that I sort of curtsied.

  Of course Maggie laughed at me. And of course I tried to say something to make things better. I don’t know what was wrong with me, but my words came out rhyming.

  Janae didn’t laugh or smile quite as much as she did earlier. But she did flee. She ran off with Maggie, and I went to look for Trevor. It took me almost twenty minutes to find him. When I did, he was in the Pointy Image store trying out massage chairs.

  Trevor and I filmed a few more things for Mr. Mustache and then talked about getting home before our parents got mad at us.

  I was going to wait around for Trevor to put on his safety pads, but he started singing his safety song. I took off before he began the second verse.

  CHAPTER 6

  HAPPY INSTEAD OF SAD

  After another boring family dinner …

  … we all went into the family room to watch TV. Right as my favorite show was starting, the doorbell rang.

  My mom asked me to get it, so I reluctantly got up and did as I was told. Usually when the doorbell rang, it was one of my friends, so I was typically the one my parents sent to go open the door. It wasn’t one of my friends this time. I wasn’t actually sure what it was.

  I screamed, but I probably shouldn’t have, seeing how it was just my aunt Sally. She was wearing a medical mask and a bathrobe and breathing like Darth Vader with a cold. She didn’t want to come in because she was

  I didn’t want to get any closer. I yelled for my dad and mom, and they came running to see what all the ruckus was about. The good news was … I mean the bad news was that my cousin Kyle had just come down with something called swamp fever, and now my uncle Paul had it and my aunt Sally probably did too. That was super sad, but even happier … I mean even sadder, they weren’t going to be able to go on the trip with us next week. I think my mom was okay with that. She kept smiling really big while she was telling my aunt Sally how sorry she was that they were sick.

  My mom didn’t always get along with my aunt Sally. They had a disagreement a year ago about how people should raise their kids. I guess my mom thought that Kyle was a little out of control and that my aunt needed to discipline him a little more.

  They got along a little better these days, but I could tel
l my mom was happy that she wouldn’t be trapped in an RV for a week with my aunt, Uncle Paul, and their wild kid, Kyle.

  My dad was the most upset, although you couldn’t really tell because he always looked excited. He was worried about my aunt, but he was most concerned about who would use the three extra train tickets and the extra hotel room. Libby had an idea.

  Melany was Maggie’s big sister. She was also Libby’s best friend. I liked her a little more than I liked Libby. She was loud and always talking about her boyfriend, Roy.

  I told my parents that it wasn’t fair for Libby to bring Melany, because I couldn’t bring Trevor. Surprisingly, my mom said Trevor could go if his parents gave him permission. My dad jokingly asked Tuffin if he wanted to bring a friend, and he said,

  Tuffin liked Jack. I think it’s because once when my mom got a bunch of whipped cream from the warehouse club store, Jack borrowed a couple of bottles and accidentally covered Tuffin with them while he was helping me babysit.