The Bad Mood and the Stick by Lemony Snicket

  Text copyright © 2017 by Lemony Snicket

  Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Matthew Forsythe

  Cover art copyright © 2017 by Matthew Forsythe

  Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic

  sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the

  author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes),

  prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you

  for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at lb-kids.com

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  First Edition: October 2017

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-39278-5 (hardcover), 978-0-316-39276-1 (ebook), 978-0-316-51095-0 (ebook),

  978-0-316-51094-3 (ebook)

  E3

  ABOUT THIS BOOK

  The illustrations for this book were done in gouache, colored ink, and pencil. This book was edited by Susan

  Rich and designed by David Caplan and Nicole Brown. The production was supervised by Ruiko Tokunaga,

  and the production editor was Jen Graham. The text was set in Futura, and the display type is hand lettered.

  Once there was a stick and a bad mood.

  The stick was on the ground,

  and the bad mood was with a girl named Curly.

  Curly had been with the bad mood for two hours, since she

  had seen an ice cream store but hadn’t gotten any ice cream.

  The stick had been on the ground since

  last night, when the tree dropped it.

  Curly picked up the stick and used it to poke her brother.

  “That’s not nice,” said her mother. “Apologize to Napoleon,

  and throw the stick in the bushes.”

  Curly had really enjoyed poking her brother Napoleon—

  so much that her bad mood was gone.

  Her mother was carrying it now. “Harrumph,” she said, which

  is a bad mood noise.

  The stick didn’t say anything,

  even when a raccoon picked it up.

  Who knows what the raccoon wanted to do with the stick,

  but he ran out of the bushes

  and frightened an old man

  named Lou.

  “Holy moly!” said Lou, which is what he

  always said when something exciting

  happened, and his feet did a little dance,

  and he fell into a puddle.

  Curly’s mother couldn’t help herself and started to laugh.

  Her bad mood was gone.

  Lou had it.

  The sound of all that laughter startled the raccoon, and he

  dropped the stick in the mud.

  “Look at my pants,” Lou said, which was his bad mood

  noise. “They’re a muddy awful mess.”

  The stick didn’t answer.

  Lou went right to the dry cleaner’s. A lady named Mrs. Durham

  was head of the establishment, with a pencil behind her ear.

  “Take that pencil outta your ear,” said Lou.

  “You gotta wash these pants and wash

  them quick. I’ll stand around here in

  my underwear until you’re done.”

  “You will do no such thing,” said Mrs. Durham.

  “This is a family place.”

  But Lou already had his pants off. “Here you go,”

  he said. “They’re a muddy awful mess.”

  “Ugh,” said Mrs. Durham, looking at the pants

  and looking at Lou, and you would think that the

  bad mood would have moved on to her.

  But it didn’t.

  She took one look at Lou in his underwear,

  and the bad mood flew right out the window.

  You never know what is going to happen.

  Same thing with the stick. You would never guess, but

  some kind of bug made a brightly colored cocoon on it.

  “Well, look at that,” said Bert, and picked it up to look

  at it better.

  He took it back to his ice cream store and put it on display.

  “That’s sure unusual,” said Curly’s mother, when they walked by.

  “Whattaya say, kids? Let’s all have some ice cream.”

  Curly had fudge ripple, and Napoleon had mint chip. Curly’s

  mother ordered vanilla yogurt, but then she changed her mind

  and had fudge ripple, too.

  This didn’t bother Bert. The bad mood was nowhere around.

  By the time Lou arrived, with his pants all clean and pressed,

  he wanted a double scoop, and so did Mrs. Durham.

  “Holy moly,” Lou said, “do I love ice cream.”

  Mrs. Durham smiled. “Same here,” she said,

  and three years later they were married. The wedding was

  right there in the park, and everyone in this book was invited.

  Even the raccoon. Curly and Napoleon carried the flowers,

  and they did great. You never know what is going to happen.

  By then the bad mood had been all around the world.

  You yourself had it several times.

  The stick, however, stayed in the ice cream store.

  The cocoon had opened a long time ago,

  and Bert had helped the bug fly out into the world,

  but the stick he kept right there. It put him in a good mood.

  LEMONY SNICKET has written numerous

  books, including those in A Series of Unfortunate Events and

  All the Wrong Questions, and The Dark. He is often in a mood.

  You can learn more at lemonysnicketlibrary.com.

  MATTHEW FORSYTHE lives in

  Montreal, where he makes comics and picture books and

  designs for animation. His comic Ojingogo was nominated

  twice for an Eisner Award, and he was the lead designer

  on the TV show Adventure Time. For research purposes,

  he was in a bad mood the whole time he drew this book.

 

 

  Lemony Snicket, The Bad Mood and the Stick

  (Series: # )

 

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