Penguin Problems by Lauren Myracle
ALSO BY LAUREN MYRACLE
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Thirteen Plus One
Peace, Love & Baby Ducks
The Fashion Disaster That Changed My Life
DUTTON CHILDREN’S BOOKS
A division of Penguin Young Readers Group
Published by the Penguin Group
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Text copyright © 2013 by Lauren Myracle
Art copyright © 2013 by Jed Henry
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Myracle, Lauren, date.
The life of Ty : penguin problems / Lauren Myracle ; [illustrated by Jed Henry].—First edition.
pages cm
Summary: “Seven-year-old Ty gets into mischief and big-hearted schemes while navigating second grade and becoming a big brother”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-101-59353-0
[1. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction.] I. Henry, Jed, illustrator. II. Title. III. Title: Penguin problems.
PZ7.M9955Li 2013
[Fic]—dc23 2012045145
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To Jamie and Jacob, two cool dudes.
Contents
Also by Lauren Myracle
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
Today, my big sister Sandra is taking me to school. She pulls into the drop-off lane and tells me to walk in by myself. She says, “Ty, you’re seven years old. You can do this.”
“I know,” I say, because of course I can. I can do tons of things. When a spider needs rescuing in our house, I’m the one who does it. At school, on the playground, I’m famous for jumping from one wobbly mushroom thing to the next without falling. Also, I’m excellent at growing head-hair, which is good because it means I’m not bald.
I’m just not ready to go in this very second. It’s more fun to sit in the car and watch for a while. Linnea’s mom follows Linnea with a bakery box, which means it’s probably Linnea’s birthday and she’s going to give out cupcakes. My book partner, Price, runs ahead of his mom and tugs on the heavy glass door. Only he’s a preschooler, so his mom has to sneakily reach up high and help him.
My other sister, Winnie, twists around in the front seat. She’s younger than Sandra, but older than me. “You like school,” she reminds me. “You’ll get to see Lexie. You’ll get to be Bad Scary Dry Cleaners together.”
“No, because Bad Scary Dry Cleaners ended a long time ago,” I say.
Now Lexie and I are Boingees, which means we put our arms in our shirts and squat and hop all over the playground—boingee boingee boingee! Lexie’s friend Breezie is sometimes a Boingee, only hardly ever.
Breezie doesn’t like me. Winnie says Breezie wants Lexie all to herself.
Sandra honks. I jump.
“Ty. Out,” she says. “Now.” She reaches back and opens my door. She shoves it so it swings open wider. Next, she shoves me. ON MY BOTTOM.
“Sandra!” I cry. I scurry out, but stick my head back in to say, “Sandra, you are so mean!”
“Bye,” she says, pulling away from the curb.
My heart races. She’s not supposed to pull away, zoom, without any warning.
“Fine! Bye!” I say. “And you’re not mean. Not all the time. And, Winnie?” I blow a sneaky kiss, which boys are allowed to do.
“Catch it!” I call. “Did you catch it?”
Winnie leans out her window and grabs it out of the air. She pops it into her mouth. “Mmm, butterscotch.”
She kisses her fingers and blows her kiss to me.
I catch, swallow, and say, “Ew! Dried mouse droppings!”
Winnie laughs. Her hair whips into her face as Sandra pulls away, and then . . . they’re gone.
Now I have to go inside. My stomach tightens. Not because I’m nervous, because being nervous is babyish. Being nervous is for first graders or kindergartners.
But it used to be that Mom took me to school. She walked me all the way to my classroom, and we did our good-byes there.
Then Teensy Baby Maggie came along.
Then Sandra started driving me to school. For three whole weeks, she’s driven me to school instead of Mom. At first, she did walk me in. Either she would or Winnie would.
Then today came along, and bam. Instead of walking me in, Sandra shoved me on my bottom, and Winnie let her.
Price’s mother comes out of the building, this time without Price. I don’t think she knows I’m Price’s book partner, but she smiles at me anyway. I give her a small smile back. She heads to her car, and I bet she’s thinking, Why is that boy just standing there?
Probably lots of people are thinking that. All the kids going in, all the parents coming out. I could stand here forever, but I’d get all wrinkly, and everyone would say, “Who’s that old creepy dude who’s always standing there?”
I start toward the door. Then I stop, because I hear a noise coming from the playground. A kid noise. Only kids aren’t supposed to be on the playground yet. I go to check it out. It's Price. He’s saying “Help!” in a squinchy voice, and the reason why is because his head is stuck between two metal bars.
I sigh.
Preschoolers.
I go through the gate outside the playground, and it clangs when I pull it shut. Price tries to look over, but he can’t, really.
“Hold on, Price!” I call. “I’m coming!”
“My head got stuck!” he cries.
“I know!”
There are steps leading from the slides to the monkey bars, and by the stairs, there are rails that have metal bars. That’s where Price is stuck. It’s not the first time.
I walk over, bend at the waist, and put my upside-down face where he can see me.
“Ty!” he says happily. He tries to stand, but it doesn’t work. “Ouch.”
Boy, I’m glad I’m not a preschooler anymore.
“Have you drawn any more pictures of Cyber Grape?” Price asks.
Cyber Grape is like Plankton from SpongeBob, only bigger and purple, and I invented him. I drew a picture of him for Price, and now Price wants more and more.
I also invented Robo-Thing, who is Cyber Grape’s best friend, but without as many superpowers.
“I haven’t drawn any Cyber Grape pictures this morning, because this morning I’m rescuing you,” I say.
“Will you draw some more soon?”
“Maybe. Now, stay.”
I tromp up the stairs. I tromp to the railing and kneel beside him. I reach through the bars, grab his head, and twist twist twist, until pop!
He topples backward and lands on the seat of his jeans, which are the kind with elastic. He presses on his skull like he’s pushing his brain into place. He looks at me with admiration. Like how Robo-Thing looks at Cyber Grape, probably. Huh. I haven’t drawn that picture yet, but I should.
“Don’t stick your head in there again,” I tell Price. “And even so, you’re not supposed to be out here. You’re supposed to be inside.”
I hold out my hand. His hand is sweaty, but I pull him up anyway. “C’mon. I’ll walk you to your class.”
CHAPTER TWO
By the time I get to Mrs. Webber’s room, which is my class, I feel less stomach-jumpy than when I first got to school. I feel more like me. Even so, my hand gives Mrs. Webber a weird wave when I walk through the door. It does this without my permission, because I don’t know the rule for saying hi to Mrs. Webber first thing in the morning.
Maybe there’s not a rule?
“Good morning, Ty,” Mrs. Webber says. “How’s your baby sister doing?”
She always asks this. Every day for the last three weeks, she’s asked this.
“She’s fine,” I tell her, which is what I always say. I think for a moment. “She spit up all over my mom’s shirt this morning.”
“Oh dear. No fun.”
“Nope.”
Mrs. Webber clucks. Then she says the other thing she always says, which is, “Well, be sure to help out your mom as much as you can. Babies are precious, but so much work.”
“Babies aren’t precious,” Lexie says, coming up next to me. “Babies are b-o-r-i-n-g boring. Does she have hair yet?”
“Nope,” I say. “Still bald.”
“Ha. Ugly baldie.” She grabs my arm. “Come on, let’s go.”
I follow her to the beanbag corner of the room. Teensy Baby Maggie isn’t ugly, I almost tell her as we sit down. But I don’t, and I also don’t tell her that she shouldn’t make fun of bald people in general, which she pretty much is by saying “baldie.”
Joseph, who’s my real best friend, is a baldie. A temporary baldie, because he has leukemia. He’s going to be okay. But he’s in the hospital for a little while. Not forever, just for a while.
But telling Lexie not to do something just makes her do it more, except when I’m trying on purpose to trick her. Then she doesn’t fall for it. Like, if I say, “Don’t give me your cheese puffs or I will be so mad,” she shrugs and says, “Okay.” And doesn’t give me her cheese puffs.
Also, Lexie herself has really pretty hair. It’s dark brown and shiny, and it swishes.
She bumps me with her shoulder and says, “Look what I learned to do. It’s awesome.”
She wiggles a rubber band off her wrist. She’s wearing zillions of them. She holds the rubber band in one hand, and with her other hand, she makes a gun shape.
“Lexie?” I say.
She loops the rubber band around her thumb and the tip of the pointed finger. The rubber band slips off, but she gets it back on. Then, with her other hand, she pulls down the bottom of the rubber band, stretches it tight, and uses the leftover fingers on her gun hand to lock it in place.
My stomach knots up like it did at morning drop-off. “Lexie . . .”
She lets go, and the rubber band sails off her finger and thwacks the wall.
“Sweet!” she says. “Wasn’t that sweet? Tomorrow, you need to bring lots of rubber bands so we can have a war, ’kay?”
She pulls another rubber band off her wrist. This time she aims it at Taylor—a boy Taylor—but before she can do anything, Mrs. Webber rings her cowbell and calls, “Room break!”
My muscles relax. I like saving people. I don’t like shooting them.
Some of the kids in our class don’t like Lexie because she’s wild. Like, sometimes she kicks them or pokes them with sharp pencils. Sometimes, she kicks and pokes me. Sometimes I have to use my stern voice and say, “Lexie, stop.”
But Lexie is big and loud. She does whatever she wants.
Sometimes—not all the time, but sometimes—I wonder if I should be wild. Or at least a little wild. Or at least a little . . . something that’s more wild and less stomach-clenchy.
Right now, I’m glad it’s time for morning meeting.
• • •
“All right, kids,” Mrs. Webber says once we’re sitting crisscross applesauce on the floor in front of her. Taylor isn’t allowed to sit next to Chase, but I can sit next to anybody, so I sit next to Lexie. Breezie sits next to Lexie, too. On Lexie’s other side.
I would sit next to Joseph, but yeah . . . Joseph’s in the hospital. I on purpose don’t sit next to Taylor, because he’s even wilder than Lexie, and he gets in trouble all the time. Also, he always wants to do puny-arm fights.
“On Thursday, we have our field trip to the Georgia Aquarium,” Mrs. Webber says.
Everyone claps and says, “Yay!”
I can’t wait to go to the aquarium. We’ll get to touch sharks and real live starfish and see two beluga whales who are friends and who drift like pale gigantoid marshmallows through the water. Mrs. Webber told us about them. That’s how I know.
“Please bring in your permission slip if you haven’t already,” Mrs. Webber says. “And a sack lunch, so we can throw our trash away when we’re done.”
Lexie raises her hand. “Can we bring money for the gift shop?”
“You cannot bring money for the gift shop. That would be too complicated with the whole grade there.”
“Wah,” Lexie says.
Taylor raises his hand.
“Yes, Taylor?” Mrs. Webber says.
“I have a question,” Taylor says.
“Does your question have to do with our field trip?”
“Yes.”
“Then go ahead. But stay on topic.”
“Well, it’s just that the only black shirt I have is ripped, and so I can’t wear it, and so I can’t dress up as my favorite fish, the black phantom.”
“Taylor? Did I at any point say that you should dress up as your favorite fish for our field trip?”
“I had a black phantom once in my aquarium. Then I got a kissing fish, and the kissing fish ate it.”
Everyone laughs.
“Taylor . . .” Mrs. Webber starts.
“The kissing fish kissed it to death!” Lexie says.
“It happened on vacation,” Taylor says. “I forgot to put food in the fish tank, and—”
“Taylor.”
“—and when we came back, the kissing fish was still there. But the black phantom was just a skeleton!”
“Ewww!” the girls say.
“Cool!” the boys say.
I think it’s ewww and cool. I feel bad for the dead black phantom, though.
“Just a fishy fish skeleton, floating in the water,” Taylor says.
“Taylor, you’re off topic,” Mrs. Webber says. “Now on Thursday, I’m going to put you into groups with parent volunteers, so—”
“But can we dress up as our favorite fish?” Taylor asks. “If we want to?”
“No.” Mrs. Webber looks hard at Taylor. Then smiles at the rest of us. Or tries to. “So if any of you have a preference for whose group you’re in, let me know. I can’t guarantee anything, but I’ll do my best.”
Taylor’s hand shoots up.
“Let me know in private,” Mrs. Webber says.
“But—”
“Moving on,” Mrs. We
I can. I put up my hand.
“Yes, Ty?”
“Bring our permission slip,” I say. “Bring a Lunchable.”
“It doesn’t have to be a Lunchable. But yes, you need to be able to throw your trash away afterward, so no Tupperware containers or thermoses or lunch boxes.”
I’m going to tell Mom it has to be a Lunchable, because I like Lunchables. Especially the Nachos Supreme with a Capri Sun.
“And . . . ?” Mrs. Webber says.
“Oh!” I say. “And if we want to be in someone’s group, tell you.”
“Beautiful, Ty. Excellent listening.”
I feel warm. I fold my lips over to hide my smile.
“Tell Mrs. Webber to put you with Breezie’s mom,” Lexie says. “So we can be in the same group.”
“Breezie’s mom?”
“Unless your mom’s chaperoning. Is she?”
Maybe she could. I didn’t ask her. Or maybe I did, and she said no. But if I ask again, maybe she’ll say yes.
Before Teensy Baby Maggie, Mom used to chaperone all the time. She went with us to the Atlanta Zoo and bought everyone in our group popcorn, which we shared with the howler monkeys.
“All right, morning meeting’s over,” Mrs. Webber says. “Head to your desks and get started on your reading work sessions.”
Kids untangle their legs and push their hands against the carpet as they stand up. I get up, too, but without hands. I can do that, even from crisscross applesauce. I practiced and practiced, and now it’s easy.
No one notices, but I don’t care. Some things I’m good at just for me.
CHAPTER THREE
Sandra has track after school and Winnie is off with her friends, so I get Mom all to myself. She’s pretty and she smells good, and we snuggle on the sofa and watch Tom and Jerry, just the two of us.
Teensy Baby Maggie is taking her nap.