The Terrible Two Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  About the Authors

  Chapter

  1

  WELCOME TO YAWNEE VALLEY, an idyllic place with rolling green hills that slope down to creeks, and cows as far as the eye can see. There’s one now.

  Some facts about Yawnee Valley: If you placed all of Yawnee Valley’s cows in a stack, they would extend to the moon and back. (But this is probably not a good idea since cows are afraid of heights and cannot breathe in space without helmets.)

  In 1836, due to a balloting error, a cow was elected mayor of Yawnee Valley. (After earning record-high approval ratings, the cow was reelected to a second term.) A statue of that cow still stands in the center of the town square.

  If you stand next to a cow for a whole day, you will hear that cow moo one hundred times or less. Counting moos is a popular pastime in Yawnee Valley.

  That’s one!

  All this makes Yawnee Valley a very exciting place if you’re enthusiastic about cows.

  Miles Murphy was not enthusiastic about cows.

  Chapter

  2

  THIS IS MILES MURPHY. He’s on his way to Yawnee Valley. Let’s take a closer look at his face.

  Notice the scowl. Notice the gloom. Notice the way his face is pressed against the window and he looks like he’s trying to escape.

  Notice the way he keeps sighing.

  That’s one hundred sighs today.

  “Miles, please stop sighing,” Judy Murphy said from the driver’s seat. “We’re going to have a house now! Your room will be bigger. And you’ll have a yard! We’ll have a fresh start. So a smile would be nice.”

  But Miles could not smile, because he was unhappy about moving to Yawnee Valley. He was unhappy about saying goodbye to his friends Carl and Ben. He was unhappy about saying good-bye to his old apartment in a pink building that was close to the ocean. He was unhappy about saying good-bye to his old bedroom, whose four walls and ceiling were plastered with maps that he’d tried to take with him but were plastered so well they tore when he pulled them down. (He shouldn’t have plastered those maps so well.) He was unhappy about saying good-bye to Max’s Market, his trusted candy supplier. And he was unhappy about saying good-bye to his reputation as his school’s biggest prankster, which he’d earned through years of hard work and brilliant thinking.

  Miles kept hoping they’d turn back and head home. But the car just kept going and was even now passing this sign:

  Chapter

  3

  IT WAS WELL PAST MIDNIGHT, and Miles paced around his new bedroom. It was too big. The walls were too white. There were boxes everywhere. He should have been asleep, but he was awake, because this room was all wrong. And the house was all wrong. And the yard was all wrong. Miles didn’t care about big rooms or houses or yards. This wasn’t a fresh start. It was a rotten start. He turned off the lamp that sat on a box and got back in bed.

  Miles couldn’t sleep. Through the window of his old room, Miles would listen to the sound of waves crashing as he drifted off to slumber.

  Miles got out of bed and opened the window. Somewhere in the distance, a cow mooed.

  The air outside his old room smelled like the sea. This air smelled like cows.

  Today was a bad day, but tomorrow would be an even worse day. Tomorrow he was starting his new school.

  Miles went to bed with a sense of dread.

  Chapter

  4

  MILES AWOKE WITH A SENSE OF DREAD. He opened his eyes and stared at his blank ceiling. Last night he’d dreamed it had all been a dream, and now he wished he were still dreaming.

  Miles shut his eyes tight. He tried to fall back asleep, but downstairs he could hear his mother shuffling around the kitchen, preparing breakfast. Breakfast smelled like eggs. And cows. Although that might’ve just been the cows.

  Miles ate his eggs. They tasted like dread, although that might’ve just been the dread.

  The dread stayed with him on the car ride to Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy.

  “Mom, what if I skipped this grade?” Miles said. “Lots of kids skip a grade. Then I could just spend this year working on projects. You know I have a lot of projects. This could be my project year!”

  “Miles, when you skip a grade, you don’t get a year off. You just start the next grade.”

  “I know that, Mom. But if I did that, I’d be younger than all the rest of the kids. That wouldn’t be good for my development. That’s why I think my project year is such a good idea.”

  “You’re not having a project year.”

  “Maybe I could take this year to travel. You know I’ve been wanting to see the world! They say traveling is the best education.”

  “No.”

  “Maybe I could take a sabbatical. Do you know what a sabbatical is, Mom?”

  “Yes. Do you know what a sabbatical is?”

  “It’s basically a project year.”

  “No.”

  They pulled up to the front of the school.

  “Did you remember everything?” Judy asked. Miles checked around him. He had his new backpack, his new lunch bag containing his lunch, his new binder, his new folders, his new jacket, and—most importantly—his old pranking notebook.

  It was a boring-looking notebook on the outside, of course (so as not to seem suspicious), but inside, it was a fabulous notebook filled with blueprints and maps and notes and plans for all the best pranks Miles had pulled.

  The Ghost Prank. The Missing Front Tooth Prank. Operation: Soggy Homework. They were all in there, plus others. Two Cats Instead of a Dog. Fish in the Bed. Lemonade Without Any Sugar. Mission: Pie. Inside was all the great stuff that had made Miles famous. Ketchup That Looks like Blood. Raisins Everywhere. Operation: Sandy Shorts.

  On your first day at a new school in a new town, you got to decide what kind of kid you were going to be. You could be the smart kid, or the kid who has cool shoes. You could be the kid who knows everything about old cars, or current events, or World War I. The kid who always has ChapStick. Chess kid, basketball kid, student-government kid. Kid who organizes canned-food drives. Front-row kid. Back-row kid. Kid who always has his hand up even though he doesn’t know the answers. Kid who’s allowed to see R-rated movies. Kid who isn’t allowed to see R-rated movies but says he does and just makes up their plots based on the previews. Kid whose family doesn’t own a TV and just wants to watch your TV. On the first day of school you could fake a French accent and be the foreign kid. You could bring your teacher a gift and be the kiss-up kid. Expensive-school-supplies kid. Kid who sharpens his pencil ten times per period. The two-different-socks quirky kid. The kid who wears shorts every day regardless of the weather. Today was the day when you could decide to become a new kid and be that
kid for the rest of your life.

  But Miles didn’t want to be any of those kids. He didn’t want to be a new kind of kid at all. Miles wanted to be the same kind of kid he was at his old school: the prankster. Miles had been the best prankster his old school had ever seen, and he’d be the best prankster at his new school too.

  “Bye, Mom.”

  He got out of the car and surveyed Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy. It was a squat brick building in the shape of a squat brick. Miles looked around and saw all the typical school stuff.

  There was the typical marquee.

  There was the typical flag attached to the typical flagpole.

  There was the typical gaggle of kids.

  The typical hedges.

  The typical trees.

  The typical school entrance blocked by somebody’s typical car.

  Wait. That couldn’t be right. Miles looked again.

  He approached the crowd of kids. Miles heard snickers. He heard snorts. He even heard some guffaws.

  “There’s a CAR on the STEPS,” one kid said, stating the obvious.

  “WHAT is going ON?” said the same kid. “I mean, SERIOUSLY. Can somebody TELL ME?”

  This kid was named Stuart. Anyone could have told him what was going on, but nobody did. (That sort of thing happened a lot to Stuart.)

  Miles’s heart was beating fast.

  The bell rang, setting off the car alarm.

  Nobody moved.

  “I mean, HOW are we supposed to get into SCHOOL with THAT CAR there?” Stuart collapsed into hysterical tears.

  Miles smiled for the first time since leaving his old town. That was a pretty good prank.

  Then he stopped smiling.

  It was a very good prank.

  He frowned.

  It appeared this school already had a prankster. A very good prankster.

  Miles Murphy didn’t know anything about World War I, and his socks matched. If Miles wasn’t the school prankster, he was nobody.

  Chapter

  5

  PRINCIPAL BARKIN WAS SOMEBODY. Principal Barkin was a principal. Principal Barkin was the principal of Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy, and at that moment, staring at a yellow car perched atop a flight of steps, he was an angry man.

  At an earlier moment, Principal Barkin had been a happy man. That moment was 4:44 A.M., when Principal Barkin woke up one minute before his alarm went off. It was the first day of school, and nobody in the entire town of Yawnee Valley was happier.

  He jumped out of bed.

  First up was his shower: He spent two minutes shampooing, five minutes conditioning, and two minutes on a new song that he made up about school.

  “Goodness gracious, here comes school / School, school, school, school, school, school.”

  Next, he picked out his favorite tie. (It took him one minute.) The tie was bright red with absolutely no pattern. The problem with the tie was that it had a small mustard stain, but the good thing about the tie was that its color (the red of the tie and not the yellow of the mustard stain) was the color that conveyed absolute power. Always wear red. Presidents knew it. Bankers knew it. And Barkin knew it.

  He ate breakfast: oatmeal on toast, a dish his great-grandfather had invented and deemed “The Breakfast of Barkins.” This gave him exactly six minutes to reread his favorite chapter of his favorite book, The 7 Principles of Principal Power.

  Principal Barkin got into his hatchback, sank into the leather interior, and drove to work in the dark.

  He was the first person to pull into the lot behind the school that morning, just like every other morning, and he parked in the special “Principal Only” spot, which he had marked with a sign he’d made himself.

  Principal Barkin got out of his car and buffed a smudge on his window with the back of his tie. He looked at the building, exhaled proudly, and walked in through the school’s rear entrance.

  Principal Barkin arrived in his office and settled into his chair. He cracked his knuckles. He sharpened a pencil. Then he hunched over a crisp sheet of paper and began crafting his First-Day-of-School Morning-Announcement Power Speech.

  “I’m Principal Barkin, and I am your principal” he wrote and then crossed out. It was hard writing a power speech. He was a little rusty, and a good power speech required perfect concentration. At 6:15 the phone rang. Barkin picked it up and barked a gruff “Yes?”

  “Howdy! I’m callin’ from Armadillo Stationery, in Amarillo, Texas. How we doin’? So listen: I’m callin’ to offer y’all a great deal on paper clips and other office supplies, like staples! You like staples, pardner?”

  “Not now!” Barkin hollered. “I’m writing a power speech!”

  Principal Barkin slammed down the receiver.

  At 6:21, the phone rang again. Principal Barkin picked it up, upside down, and yelled, “What?” into the wrong end of the phone. Then he turned it over and yelled, “What?” into the right end of the phone.

  “Hello, good sir.” This time it was somebody with a chipper English accent. “How are your windows this morning? Clean? I’m calling from the Laramie Cleaning Supply Company with a great offer on glass cleaner.”

  “I have no time for this now!” said Barkin. “Power speech!”

  “You’re probably wondering how an Englishman ended up in Wyoming selling janitorial supplies. It’s an interesting story—”

  “Call later!”

  Barkin slammed down the phone.

  At 6:36, the phone rang again. Barkin stood up. He knew what he had to do.

  All principals should have a place in their schools that only they know about, where they can retreat to think and plan and write power speeches undisturbed. Principal Barkin was headed to just such a place, a secret place where he alone was king—his castle, his barony, his hidden land of hopes and dreams: the utility closet on the second floor.

  Inside, Barkin moved a mop and pulled a chain to turn on the light. There was another mop in the way. He moved that mop too and sat down on a bucket. There, he began to write. Barkin, inspired, lost track of time as he wrote his speech. It took an hour. At 7:38 he emerged from the supply closet clutching perhaps the greatest first-day power speech in the history of Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy, at which point a student in the hallway told him his car was parked in front of the school entrance.

  Chapter

  6

  FORTY THINGS HAPPENED NEXT.

  1. Principal Barkin threw his speech up in the air.

  2. He ran downstairs.

  3. He stood behind the school’s glass doors, staring despondently at his car.

  4. He noticed a number of students already milling about on the lawn.

  5. He checked his watch. The bell would ring in nineteen minutes.

  6. “Think!” he thought.

  7. Principal Barkin fumbled for his car keys and dropped them on the floor.

  8. He picked up the car keys.

  9. Principal Barkin exited the school and crawled over the hood of his car.

  10. He unlocked the driver’s side door and got in.

  11. The car’s engine started.

  12. Barkin put the car into drive.

  13. He realized he could not drive his car down a flight of stairs.

  14. The car’s engine stopped.

  15. “Think!” he thought.

  16. He started up the car again and put it in reverse.

  17. He slammed on the brakes.

  18. “Stairs!” Principal Barkin reminded himself.

  19. He crawled back over the hood.

  20. Principal Barkin again stood at the doors of the school, wondering what to do next.

  21. He ran to his office and dialed the Yawnee Valley Towing Service.

  22. He asked the operator whether it was possible to tow a car down a flight of stairs.

  23. The operator told him no.

  24. He called the Yawnee Valley Police Station and asked the dispatcher if they could send a helicopter to airl
ift his car back into his parking spot.

  25. The dispatcher told him no.

  26. He slammed down the phone.

  27. He picked it up again to make sure it was still working.

  28. He ran back to the entrance.

  29. He stared again at his beautiful car with the sun-yellow paint and the leather interior.

  30. He checked his watch. The bell would ring in three minutes. “How will these kids get inside?” he asked himself.

  31. He wondered whether he would have to cancel school. No principal had canceled school at Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy since the Blizzard of ’32.

  32. “There is a way,” he thought.

  33. “No,” he thought.

  34. “But I can’t cancel school,” he thought.

  35. “But the leather interior,” he thought.

  36. The bell rang.

  37. Principal Barkin knew what he had to do.

  38. He opened the school’s glass doors and stepped outside.

  39. He climbed up onto the car’s roof.

  40. He cleared his throat and began to speak.

  Chapter

  7

  MILES MURPHY STOOD on the lawn of Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy, watching as a man climbed up on top of the car. The man cleared his throat and began to speak:

  “Good morning, students. Who did this?”

  Nobody spoke. Somewhere in the distance a cow mooed.

  Principal Barkin had figured it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  “I see. Well, due to unfortunate circumstances, this morning, the first morning of what I hope will be Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy’s best year yet, I will need all students, teachers, and staff to enter the school by first going through my car, being careful to mind the leather interior that I had installed this summer as an early birthday present to myself—my birthday is in three weeks, by the way, for anybody who keeps track of those things and would like to show their appreciation for their principal—but, yes, in any case, as I said, you will be entering school through my car.”