Almost a Winner Read online

  Again.

  Viva looks at Lonnie and says, “Any words of wisdom, Yoda?”

  Lonnie shakes his head. Just like me, he’s speechless.

  When we walk into the kitchen Mom says, “Why is your dad never home when stuff like this happens?”

  “Mom,” I say, “it’s The Destructor you should worry about. He snuck into the aviary. Grumpy Pigeon Man—”

  “Mr. Marney,” she corrects me.

  “Mr. Marney will be really mad.”

  “You’re right,” she says. “I’ll have to talk to him about this.”

  I’m impressed with Mom; for once we’re actually in agreement about The Destructor. But no matter what she says, I still have to keep an eye on him.

  I don’t care what he calls himself; he’ll always be The Destructor to me.

  MY TO-DO LIST #2

  1. Break a world record with Lonnie and Viva before the end of vacation.

  2. Invent a way to keep The Destructor far away from me.

  3. Feed the pigeons.

  4. Invent a way to keep The Destructor out of the aviary.

  RECORD ATTEMPT #2

  Because The Destructor distracted us yesterday, we sit around for a while trying to figure out a record.

  Lonnie suggests jumping jacks and points to Bill Kathan’s record for most jumping jacks in an hour (5,671).

  “I’ve tried those jumping jacks before,” I say. “They’re harder than they look.”

  “Last time you weren’t doing it with us,” Viva says. “Remember, we’re here to win.”

  “Anyway,” Lonnie says, “Bill Kathan is old and we’re ten years old. How can we lose?”

  I can’t help agreeing with Lonnie. We definitely have the age advantage in this record.

  FAILED RECORD ATTEMPT #2

  It turns out I was wrong about having any advantage, but I was right about jumping jacks being harder than you’d think, which is why we’re lying on the ground in my backyard unable to move. Strange but true, I’m feeling a lot like the world’s largest serving of cooked snails (2,449 pounds).

  Dead and mushy.

  KIDS THESE DAYS

  When I go out to the aviary that afternoon, there is still no sign of The Destructor, which is great. Maybe he’ll really be gone for good and I can cross that off my to-do list. Grumpy Pigeon Man comes out. He glares at me and then says, “You and your friends are trying to break more records, Tent Boy?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say. I hate being called Tent Boy, but there’s no point in correcting him.

  “Kids these days.” He sighs. “You always want more. When I was your age, I was happy to have one of anything. One balloon. One scoop of ice cream. I only had one roller skate.”

  “What happened to the other one?” I ask.

  “My sister had it, of course.”

  He walks back into his house before I can say anything. Considering the guy owns fifty-seven pigeons, I think it’s a little weird that he complains about me wanting two world records.

  Then again, he is Grumpy Pigeon Man. What do I expect?

  RECORD ATTEMPT #3

  A good night’s sleep really helps the muscles when you’re trying to break a record. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help us to think of what our next record should be. It’s day three of spring vacation. We’re in the aviary and we’re stuck for ideas.

  Finally, Viva says, “I’ve got it!”

  I’ve learned from experience to be careful when Viva has an idea. Her ideas have gotten us into trouble before.

  Viva says, “We make up our own record to break.”

  Lonnie says, “I thought we decided not to do that.”

  “Making up one is hard,” I say.

  “Oh brother!” Viva says. “If you’re too afraid to try my idea then maybe I should do it alone.” And then she stares straight at Lonnie and me and doesn’t blink, and even though I know she’s doing the Jedi mind trick, it totally works.

  FAILED RECORD ATTEMPT #3

  Balancing the most books on our heads was not as good of an idea as Viva thought. First off, the most books we could balance was seven, and seven books will never get us into The Guinness Book of World Records.

  The first time we tried, the books fell and almost crushed Smarty Pants. The second time the books crushed each of us. The third time the books crushed a lamp, and Mom told us that from now on all record breaking had to be done outside.

  To be perfectly honest, we were too bruised up to even walk outside, so we lay on the couch for the rest of the day and watched the first three Star Wars movies.

  Star Wars makes everything better.

  RECORD ATTEMPT #4

  Unbelievably, Lonnie and Viva show up early again the next day.

  “If only you guys getting here could be a world record,” I say as I pour everyone a bowl of cereal.

  Lonnie pulls out two bags of marshmallows from his backpack. “How about this instead,” he says.

  “I love marshmallows,” Viva says. “I could eat a million.”

  “The record is for eating twenty-five marshmallows in one minute,” Lonnie says. “So we each need to eat twenty-six marshmallows in one minute.”

  “Is that all?” Viva says.

  “We were born to break this record,” I say.

  And then we do a three-way high five, which actually fails horribly and we end up slapping each other’s faces instead.

  We’ll need to work on that.

  FAILED RECORD ATTEMPT #4

  Eating twenty-six marshmallows sounds easy, but after seven marshmallows my teeth stick together so much I think a tooth might get yanked out if I eat another. Of course I do eat another and another, because I’m trying to break a world record and Lonnie and Viva are still eating them.

  It turns out that after nine marshmallows, chewing and breathing at the same time is pretty hard and swallowing is impossible. That’s when I call it quits.

  Lonnie stops at ten.

  Viva eats eleven marshmallows and then throws up.

  Mom was really, really happy we were outside.

  Viva’s mom wasn’t happy about anything.

  ASHRITA FURMAN

  The next morning Viva’s mom calls. She says between the bruises and the vomit, it’s been enough record breaking for one vacation, and she’s sending Viva to her grandparents’ house for the rest of the week!

  This is wrong for so many reasons. I mean, Ashrita Furman has broken more than five hundred records and holds the record for most records held by one person at the same time. Does Viva’s mom think that’s too many records?

  When I bring this up to Mom, she says, “Just because I let you act like a wild child doesn’t mean every parent should do it.”

  And then Mom tells me that Viva’s mom called Lonnie’s mom, and now Lonnie is going to his grandparents’, too!

  This stinks! It totally ruins our chances of breaking a record before school starts again. And besides that, now what am I going to do for the rest of vacation?

  This is bad. Very bad.

  MY TO-DO LIST #3

  1. Break a world record with Lonnie and Viva before the end of vacation.

  2. Invent a way to keep The Destructor far away from me.

  3. Feed the pigeons.

  4. Invent a way to keep The Destructor out of the aviary.

  5. Find something to do before I explode from boredom.

  6. Break a world record with Lonnie and Viva.

  FIVE SISTERS IS MORE SISTERS THAN ANY KID SHOULD HAVE

  In The Guinness Book of World Records there’s a guy who holds the record for having the most cups kicked off his head in one minute (133 cups). Most of the time, living with five older sisters feels a lot like that. It’s nerve-racking and startling, and really, you’re always waiting for the time that the kicker messes up and kicks you in the head.

  Eventually, it’s bound to happen.

  MORE ABOUT MY SISTERS

  1. Sharon, the singer (eighteen): All she ever wants to do is sing. Ex
cept now that she’s dating Jerome, all she wants to do is sing with him. Her favorite place to sing in our house is the upstairs bathroom.

  2. and 3. Caitlin and Casey, the twins (fifteen): They used to be famous for pretending to be each other; now they are famous for their new business: Trash Trikes. They collect trash on wagons attached to their bikes. This might seem impressive, but what’s really impressive is how bad they smell when they come home.

  4. Maggie, the runner (fourteen): Maggie likes to run as much as Sharon likes to sing, but she smells a whole lot worse.

  5. Grace, the lemon (thirteen): Grace’s greatest joy in life is causing me pain. She did take the photographs that proved to the Guinness people I slept in a tent for 162 days. But the only reason she did that was to show the world what a nut-o her little brother is. (Her words, not mine.) She has no body odor issues.

  VENEZUELAN SKUNK FROG

  The first day without Lonnie and Viva is both bad and good. It’s bad because there is no record breaking. It’s good because without record breaking, Grumpy Pigeon Man doesn’t grump at me for wanting to break another record.

  I also have to admit, it’s not as boring as I thought it was going to be. I’m hanging out in the living room comparing the two copies of The Guinness Book of World Records that I own from different years. The Destructor drew all over one of them, but I can read through most of his scrawls.

  It’s really cool to compare them because a lot changes in these books from year to year. For example, only one book lists the most peaceful country (Iceland), the most rabbits pulled out of a hat in thirty minutes (300), or the most cucumbers cut from the mouth with a sword in one minute (27). One book lists all of the Rubik’s Cube records, like the fastest time to solve it using only the feet (27.17 seconds) and most solved while riding a unicycle (28). I’m reading these and trying really hard to keep my mind off Sharon, who’s in the upstairs bathroom singing, “The sun’ll come out tomorrow! Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun!”

  She’s there because a bunch of months ago she decided the bathroom had the best acoustics in the house, whatever acoustics are, and Mom and Dad allowed her to take it over whenever she wanted and for however long she wanted. This seems like a particularly bad parenting choice—even for my parents—because now we’re only left with the downstairs bathroom, and it is the worst. The door sticks, and the toilet has been known to break and overflow (number six on my Destructor list). Also the upstairs bathroom is the only one with a bath and shower, which is important when you have smelly sisters like I do.

  Anyway, I’m just reading about the fastest time to solve the most Rubik’s Cubes in twenty-four hours (5,800) when Caitlin and Casey come home from their trash pickup. I grab my nose and try not to breathe, because they smell a lot like the Venezuelan skunk frog, the smelliest frog in the world. I guess it smells exactly like a skunk, even though it’s a frog.

  The smell lingers downstairs even after they’ve gone upstairs. They pound on the bathroom door, but Sharon just keeps singing. “When I’m stuck with a day that’s gray and lo-onely!”

  With a stink like this in the air, it’s hard not to wish that tomorrow would come even sooner and that Sharon would stop singing and give up the bathroom.

  VENEZUELAN SKUNK FROG PART 2

  Our house really gets lively when Maggie comes home from her run, smelling worse than the smelliest frog in the world. Who knew anything could smell worse than trash?

  Maggie starts pounding too, but Sharon still doesn’t stop singing about tomorrow.

  Caitlin and Casey threaten to dump trash on Sharon’s bed.

  Maggie threatens to help, but it has no effect on Sharon, who’s now singing, “Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love you, tomorrow! You’re only a day away!”

  And all I can do is tie those pillows around my head again, which protects my ears, but does nothing for my nose. I’m looking for a clothespin when Grace strolls in. She’s carrying a new camera around her neck. It looks very professional, and I can’t help wondering where she got it, because Mom and Dad wouldn’t buy it for her.

  “Did I tell you I’m working on the school newspaper?” she asks. “It’s all thanks to the photos I took of you and your tent. They even gave me this camera!” I know Grace well enough to understand that even when she seems nice, she could attack at any moment.

  “Great,” I say, backing away from her. But before I can escape she stomps down on my foot and takes a picture of me hopping around holding my throbbing toes.

  “I love action shots,” she says.

  “If you want action, go upstairs!” I say. “There’s a lot of action up there!”

  For once in her life Grace takes my advice.

  NOW YOU SEE HIM

  I hop into the kitchen to tell Mom I’m going out to the aviary. Mom is reading the newspaper. She’s either totally ignoring the racket coming from upstairs or totally oblivious. It’s impossible to know which. But she finally looks up. “Oh,” she says. I think for a second she might ask what’s wrong with my foot, but she just looks around the room and says, “Have you seen Jake? He was here just a minute ago.”

  I realize another reason this was such a great day was that I had not seen The Destructor for any of it. “No, Mom. And if you haven’t noticed, my foot is practically broken.”

  Of course she doesn’t notice, because she’s trying to find The Destructor. She starts with the cat box, his favorite spot, and then moves on to the kitchen cabinets, which were his favorite spots before the cat box. “Where could he be?” she asks mostly to herself.

  That’s when Caitlin, Casey, and Maggie all come running downstairs complaining they need the bathroom, followed by Sharon complaining about interruptions, followed by Grace clicking away on her camera.

  Sharon scowls at me and says, “It’s your fault that Jerome had to go to his grandmothers’. We have an audition we were supposed to be practicing for.”

  “Audition?” Grace says. “I thought you were done with the school musical.”

  “It’s a community theater production.” The way Sharon says it you’d think it was Broadway. “You should write about it in your school paper.”

  Grace rolls her eyes. “I should get my earmuffs out.”

  Sometimes Grace is funny. “Wait a minute,” Mom says. She sniffs the air deeply, then looks like she’s going to upchuck. “Sharon, take a break from singing. These three need the bathroom more than you do right now.”

  “Mom!” Sharon starts to say.

  “That’s my decision. And whoever is not taking a bath needs to help me find Jake.”

  I slip out of the room while Mom’s not looking. I’ve spent more time looking for The Destructor than any kid should have to. I go around to the aviary for a little peace and quiet and a lot less stink.

  THE BIGGEST MOUTH

  Strange but true, the biggest mouth in the world is 6.69 inches wide, which happens to be bigger than my head! When I walk into the aviary, my mouth drops open just as big. Maybe bigger, but I don’t have a ruler so I can’t be sure.

  Anyway, The Destructor is here all dressed up in poo and feathers. Again.

  I thought Mom was going to take care of this.

  Unfortunately, my mouth is open so big that when The Destructor flies past me—or should I say, pretends to fly past me—I get a mouthful of pigeon feathers. Yuck!

  And the worst part is, I wasn’t even trying to find him!

  SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE

  “Mom! I found him!” I call.

  Mom rushes into the kitchen. “I knew you would. Where was he?” She stops talking, because as soon as she sees us she knows the answer.

  “Mom,” I say, “I thought you were going to stop this.”

  Dad walks in just then. “What’s for dinner?” He stops because he also sees The Destructor. “I thought you were going to take care of this,” he says to Mom.

  Mom looks at Dad and says, “Sometimes you really say the wrong thing.”

  �
��What’s going on?” Grace asks, bounding in from the living room. “Oh!” She starts clicking away. “I couldn’t ask for better stuff. The school newspaper is going to love me!”

  Dad says to Mom, “You’d better get him up to a bath.”

  Mom says, “Why am I always on bath duty?”

  Dad’s eyes get big and he says, “You know I would, but I’ve got to take the trash out.” He leaves really quickly.

  I might even say he runs. The Destructor tries to follow Dad, but Mom grabs him by a wing and stops him. “This way, Jake. Hey, no pecking!” she says as she leads him upstairs. “Something has to change.”

  “You can say that again,” I say.

  “Something has to change!” she yells.

  I guess she really means it.

  IF I WERE TO LAND ON VENUS

  The Guinness Book of World Records explains that if I were to land on Venus, I would instantly be:

  1. Melted

  2. Poisoned

  3. Suffocated

  4. Baked

  5. Crushed

  6. Dehydrated

  7. Blown away

  The rest of my vacation is worse than all of those things combined.

  Mom decides that since I’m so bored without Lonnie and Viva, I am now in charge of keeping The Destructor out of the aviary.

  I guess I should be happy that she’s taking this seriously. But it would be nice if someone else played Go Fish with The Destructor besides me.

  Strange but true, the record for being stuck in an elevator for the longest time is six days. I never thought that anything could feel so long, but it turns out that sitting in the kitchen playing thirty-three rounds of Go Fish feels longer.

  Especially because The Destructor decided to call it Go Pigeon, and he won every game except two, which probably explains why I finally threw all the cards on the floor and told him about a new game called 52 Pickup.