Tabloidology by Chris McMahen

Author:Chris McMahen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2009-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

When Martin arrived home, he was met at the door by Sissy and her five dogs.

“Hey, Marty! Is it true? Is it true?” she shouted.

“Is what true?” Martin said.

“I heard a dog was driving a snowplow around the field at the school. And he was smoking a cigar and shouting at everyone in Japanese!”

Martin shook his head and went inside.

“Thank goodness you’re safe, Martin!” his mother said. “I heard a terrible story about maple trees pulling people’s heads off! I was so worried about you!” Martin shook his head once again and climbed the stairs to his room.

Razor was there, strumming his guitar. “Hey! You decided to come home! I thought you might have been one of the kids who ran away.”

“Ran away? What are you talking about?” Martin said.

“To the circus, you twerp! I heard a bunch of kids ran away from the school to join the circus and become sword swallowers.”

Martin clasped his hands against the sides of his head and screamed, “I don’t believe this! And it’s all her fault!”

“Whose fault?” Razor said.

Before Martin could reply, his mother shouted from the bottom of the stairs, “Martin! Telephone! For you!”

A look of bewilderment came over Martin’s face.

“What did you say?” he shouted back.

“I said it’s the telephone! For you!”

“The telephone? For me?” Martin said. He tried to remember the last time anyone phoned for him, but he couldn’t. “Are you sure it’s for me?”

“Yes, of course I’m sure!” his mother said. “Unless there’s another Martin living in this house that I don’t know about.”

Martin ran down the stairs, jumped over the fifth step and bounded down the hall to the kitchen. Who could it be? What could they want?

He grabbed the phone out of his mother’s hand, pressed it against his ear and said, “Who is this?”

“Hey, Marty!” It was a girl’s voice. Martin had never gotten a phone call from a girl. He didn’t say anything. He just pressed the phone harder against his ear.

“Marty? Are you there?”

“Who is this?” he said in a quiet voice.

“Who do you think it is? Queen Elizabeth?” Martin was just about to slam the phone down, when he heard, “It’s Trixi, you little doofus!”

His grip tightened around the phone. “What do you want?” he said.

“You’re the only person left to call,” she said. “All my friends are out, so you were my last resort.”

“Last resort? For what?”

“My mom and dad are away at a convention, and our housekeeper’s locked in her room watching some reality show finale,” Trixi said.

“So?”

“So I had to talk to someone. Especially after what happened today at school. Wasn’t that one crazy day?

I mean, who would ever believe we’d get that much snow in September? And a dog driving a snowplow? And what about that crazy maple tree? Mr. Quigley better buy stronger glue, if you ask me.”

“What do you want?” Martin said.

“What do I want?”

“Yes, what do you want?”

“I don’t want anything,” Trixi said. “I just thought we could talk about what happened today, that’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“Yeah.

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