101 Ways to Bug Your Friends and Enemies by Lee Wardlaw

Author:Lee Wardlaw
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2011-05-22T21:00:00+00:00

b. Hiccup hating my guts and every other organ in my body (as if I cared!) because of his mistaken assumption that I’d stolen Joonbi

c. The heart-wrenching hurt and disappointment Hayley would feel if “Cullen” didn’t send her an e-mail

I stared at the empty aquarium and sighed. In the olden days (three months ago!), whenever I had a problem and Hiccup wasn’t around, I consulted the Guys. They’d been perfect confidants, expert listeners who never argued with me, never accused me of stealing their little fishy friends . . .

But now—

I hoisted the tank and shoved it into a moldy corner of my closet (where my failed invention Flapjacks in a Can had oozed through its aerosol nozzle). Into it I flung everything I could find of Hiccup’s: a hypoallergenic sweatshirt; two early editions of Medicine Man comics; rough drafts of the cover drawing for 101 Ways to Bug Your Parents; stubs of stray colored pencils; and a half-empty box of surgical masks.

Last, I tossed in the container of fish flakes, and slammed the door so hard my window rattled.

The Nice Alarm tsked-tsked.

“It’s just the two of us now, kiddo,” I said, “so no scolding.”

I sank into my desk chair and pulled from my pack the notebook in which I’d scribbled and scratched ideas for Cullen’s e-mail to Hayley.

Ugh. Even worse than I remembered.

“Why is this so hard?” I asked the alarm. “Maybe I’m not as good at writing as I am at inventing. Or sneezing. But I’m a clever wordsmith. Everyone says so. Mom. Dad. My teachers. Hayley. Even the great Mr. Sterling Patterson!”

I traced the outline of the Nice Alarm’s toad-like body with a finger.

“That’s how I got the interview with him at the convention. I wrote a humdinger of a letter as president of a phony invention company. Remember how surprised and impressed he looked when I waltzed in with you?”

The alarm tsked-tsked again.

“Yeah, too bad he wasn’t as impressed with what you can do. But when I told him I’d written and sold 101 Ways to Bug Your Parents to earn extra money for my trip, he asked for a souvenir copy! He asked for my ‘Bug Your Teachers’ list too. So if I can write well enough to impress—and fool!—a man of Mr. Patterson’s intelligence, stature, and experience . . .”

Do-it, do-it, do-it, ticked the Nice Alarm.

“Okay, okay. Don’t rush me!”

I switched on my computer, clicked into my e-mail program, cracked my knuckles, and typed:

TO:[email protected]

FROM:[email protected]

SUBJECT:Homework assignment ;-)

Dear Hayley,

How are you? I am fine.

Ugh. That was the kind of letter Cullen would’ve written in second grade—to his grandmother.

You can do better, Steve. Think “Cullen.” Think “Hawaiian.”

Howzit, Hayley!

The first time I saw you, I got chicken skin.

My brain turned into a whoosher. That’s what a cute wah-hee-nay like you does to a Hawaiian lug like me. I wish you could be my kwee-poe.

But I don’t have enough koa to stand up to your dad.

I don’t want to talk stink about him, but he thinks I’m a moke (rhymes with Coke) and you’re a kaykee.

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