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  Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc., New York

  Text copyright © 1982, 1997 by Barbara Park

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  eISBN: 978-0-307-79710-0

  Reprinted by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

  v3.1

  To Steven and David, for all your inspiration

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One - Me and the Kid with the Wooden Nose

  Chapter Two - Showin’ and Tellin’

  Chapter Three - Reekin’ and Stinkin’ and a Littie Do-Si-Do

  Chapter Four - They’re Magically Delicious

  Chapter Five - Has Anyone Seen My Velvet Pillow?

  Chapter Six - All Wound Up and Nowhere to Throw

  Chapter Seven - Hard-Boiled Egghead

  Chapter Eight - A Faceful of Flakes

  Chapter Nine - Losers Play Ball … Film at Eleven

  Chapter Ten - Who’s on Second?

  Chapter Eleven - Wake Me When I’m Grown

  Chapter Twelve - Who Would Have Thunk It?

  About the Author

  chapter one

  ME AND THE KID WITH THE WOODEN NOSE

  MY CAT EATS KITTY FRITTERS BECAUSE …

  If she didn’t eat Kitty Fritters, she would die of starvation.

  Kitty Fritters is the only cat food my mother will buy. She buys it because she says it’s cheap. She says she doesn’t care how it tastes, or what it’s made out of. My mother is not the kind of person who believes that an animal is a member of the family. She is one of those people who thinks a cat is just a cat.

  I have an aunt who thinks that her cat is a real person. Every time we go over there, she has the cat dressed up in this little sweater that says PRINCESS KITTY on the front.

  This aunt of mine wouldn’t be caught dead giving her cat Kitty Fritters. She says that Kitty Fritters taste like rubber I’d hate to think that my aunt has actually tasted Kitty Fritters herself, but how else would she know? My mother says that my aunt has a screw loose somewhere.

  Anyway, I think you should keep on making Kitty Fritters as long as there are people like my mother, who don’t think cats mind eating rubber.

  THE END

  After I finished writing my comments, I went to the closet and took the bag of Kitty Fritters off the bottom shelf. I turned to the back of the bag and read the rest of the directions. It said:

  COMPLETE THIS SENTENCE:

  MY CAT EATS KITTY FRITTERS BECAUSE …

  Then print your name and address on the entry

  blank enclosed in this bag. Mail your entry to:

  KITTY FRITTERS TV CONTEST

  P.O. Box 2343

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

  I dug down into the bag, trying to find the entry blank, but I couldn’t feel it anywhere. I tried again, reaching into the other side this time. But still no luck.

  Finally, I got so frustrated, I dumped the entire twenty-five-pound bag of cat food out onto the kitchen floor. Even then, I must have sifted through about a million fritters before I found the stupid thing.

  At last, I put it on the table and began to fill it out.

  NAME: Alex Frankovitch

  ADDRESS: 2567 Delaney Street

  CITY: Phoenix STATE: Arizona ZIP: 85000

  Just as I finished up, I heard the cat scratching at the door. I figured she had probably smelled the odor of fritters all the way down the block.

  “Go away, Fluffy!” I shouted. “You can’t eat right now. I’m busy!”

  I had to get the cat food mess cleaned up before my mother got home.

  “Alex Frankovitch! You open this door!” shouted Fluffy.

  Fluffy? Fluffy was talking now?

  No … wait! It was my mother!

  I hurried to let her in.

  “Why were you scratching?” I asked as she hurried past me.

  It was a stupid question. She was carrying two bags of groceries.

  “I wasn’t scratching, Alex,” she answered. “I was trying to open the door with my foot.”

  After putting the groceries on the counter, my mother spotted the millions of little fritters scattered all over the floor. All things considered, I think she took it pretty well.

  “Been fixing yourself a little snack?” she asked dryly.

  I had to think fast. Basically, there were two ways of handling this situation. First, I could try to get her to laugh the whole thing off. If that failed, I would move on to Plan B: Blame It on Fluffy.

  “Snack? What snack?” I asked. “I haven’t been fixing a snack.”

  “I mean all those Kitty Fritters, Alex,” she snapped. “I mean that huge mess all over the floor.”

  I looked around. “Floor? What floor?” I asked.

  This was where the laughing was supposed to start. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

  Mom glared.

  “I’m waiting,” she said.

  On to Plan B …

  “Oh … those Kitty Fritters!” I said, pointing. “Well, you’re not going to believe this, Mom, but I was in the other room watching TV, when all of a sudden I heard this loud crash in the kitchen. I ran in here just in time to see Fluffy sprinting out the back door. That’s when I looked down and saw this giant mess of fritters all over the floor.”

  My mother crossed her arms. She didn’t say anything for a minute.

  “Are you sure that’s what happened, Alex?” she asked, finally. “Are you positive?”

  Oh, man! I couldn’t believe this! She was actually going to buy it! My mother was going to buy this whole insane story! For the very first time, I was going to get away with something! Usually I never get away with anything!

  “Positive, Mom. Honest. That’s exactly what happened. The cat must have tried to eat out of the bag and she knocked the whole thing over.”

  Slowly—very slowly—Mom walked over and put her arm around my shoulder. “In that case, would you mind doing me a little favor?” she asked.


  I started backing away.

  “Oh, no. Come on, Mom. You’re not going to make me clean this mess up, are you? That’s not fair. I already told you I didn’t do it.”

  “No, Alex. That’s not the favor,” she said. “What I would like you to do is to go get Fluffy out of the car and bring her inside. I took her to the vet to get some shots, and she’s still a little groggy.”

  Then my mother just stood there and grinned. Not a nice grin, though. One of those “Ha! Caught-you-in-a-big-fat-lie” kind of grins.

  Now, most people would probably give up at this point. But not me. No way. A liar at my skill level never gives up without a struggle.

  My mouth dropped all the way open and I managed an actual gasp.

  “Are you kidding, Mother? Fluffy? Fluffy is in the car?” I said. “Man, I cannot believe this!”

  Mom narrowed her eyes. “Can’t believe what, Alex? Can’t believe that you’ve been caught in another ridiculous lie?”

  I gasped again.

  “Lie? What lie? What are you talking about, Mom?” I asked indignantly. “No. The thing I can’t believe is that one of Fluffy’s little friends would come in here, make a big mess, and then try to run away and blame it on the Fluffster! I’m telling you, when I find out which neighborhood cat did this, he is really going to pay.”

  I hurried outside and got Fluffy from the car. As I walked back into the house, I kept talking to the cat so that my mother wouldn’t have a chance to say anything.

  “Fluffy, you’re not going to believe this, but one of your little kitty pals almost got you in very big trouble. If you ask me, I think it was Mr. Fuzzy, from down the street. I’ve always thought that Mr. Fuzzy was the shifty type.”

  “Alex?” said my mother.

  “Yes?”

  “Give up.”

  “Give up? What do you mean, give up?”

  “I mean, you’re making a complete fool of yourself,” she said. “I mean I’m actually embarrassed for you.”

  I paused for a minute. “So what are you saying? Are you saying you don’t believe me?”

  “Let me put it this way,” answered my mother. “If you were Pinocchio, right now we could saw off your nose and have enough firewood to last the winter.”

  With that, she handed me a broom and started out of the room.

  “By the way, if it will make you feel any better, I enjoyed the part about Mr. Fuzzy,” she said over her shoulder.

  I thought about it.

  It didn’t make me feel better.

  As soon as she was gone, I started sweeping the Kitty Fritters back into the bag. Meanwhile, Fluffy had begun to eat every single fritter in sight. I’m not kidding. No matter how fast I swept, I just couldn’t get the food into the bag fast enough. Fluffy was sucking them up like she was a Dustbuster or something.

  It took about ten minutes before I was totally finished cleaning up the floor. But Fluffy never stopped eating … not until the very last Kitty Fritter was out of sight.

  Just as I was putting the bag back, my mother came in to inspect the floor.

  Fluffy made a weird noise.

  My mother frowned. “What’s wrong with her?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s probably all those Kitty Fritters she ate while I was trying to get them cleaned up.”

  Mom’s eyes widened. “Oh, Alex, no! Those things will swell up in her stomach and make her sick! She’s not supposed to have too many!”

  She looked seriously worried.

  I would have been seriously worried too. But just then Fluffy walked over to where I was standing, and she threw up on my shoe.

  It was the most disgusting thing that ever happened to me.

  My mother busted out laughing.

  “Not funny!” I yelled.

  But Mom couldn’t help herself. She left the room all doubled over. I’m not kidding. For a mother, she can act extremely immature at times.

  Anyway, as it turned out, she was laughing so hard, she forgot to punish me for lying.

  I knew getting her to laugh would work.

  It’s just too bad I couldn’t have done it without getting hurled on.

  chapter two

  SHOWIN’ AND TELLIN’

  The first time I ever remember making people laugh was in kindergarten. Each morning, the teacher would ask if anyone had anything special for Show and Tell.

  At first I was pretty shy about it. I would just sit there quietly at my desk and keep my mouth shut. But there were lots of kids who didn’t.

  Like there was this one kid who we called Weird Peter Donnelly. Every single day, when the teacher asked if anyone had anything for Show and Tell, Weird Peter Donnelly would raise his hand.

  Mostly, he brought in his hobbies. Weird Peter had the stupidest hobbies in the whole world. One of them was collecting different-colored sweater fuzz. Scary, right?

  One day he brought his fuzz collection to school. He kept it in a shoe box. When he passed it around, I felt stupid just looking at it.

  Then all of a sudden, I got this funny idea. Just as I was about to pass the box to the next person, I pretended that I was going to sneeze.

  “AH … AH … AH … AHCHOO!”

  I sneezed right smack in the middle of Weird Peter Donnelly’s sweater fuzz! Fuzz balls went flying everywhere!

  The whole class went nuts laughing.

  Weird Peter freaked out. He ran over to my desk and began gathering up fuzz and putting it back in his box.

  The teacher told me to help him, but I was laughing too hard to get out of my chair. I had to admit, making people laugh was a lot more fun than sitting quietly at my desk.

  From then on, I began to use Show and Tell to tell the class funny things that had happened to me. When I ran out of true things to tell, I started making them up.

  One time I told the class that my father was Mr. Potato Head. I don’t know what made me say such a stupid thing. It just came out.

  The teacher made me sit down. She said that there was a big difference between Show and Tell and Show and Blatantly-Lie-Right-to-Our-Faces.

  Personally, I don’t think teachers like it when their students are funnier than they are. So far I’ve been funnier than every teacher I’ve ever had, and not one of them has liked me. My goal in life is to try and find a teacher who appreciates my sense of humor.

  Last year—in fifth grade—I had a teacher named Miss Henderson. Out of all the teachers I’ve ever had, Miss Henderson is the one who disliked me the most.

  It makes sense, though. In fifth grade, I was the funniest I’ve ever been.

  On the very first day of school, I knew we weren’t going to get along. Miss Henderson made everyone stand up next to their desk and introduce themselves to the class. You had to say your name, where you were born, and something about your family. How lame is that?

  Allison Martin went first. She said, “My name is Allison Martin. I was born right here in Phoenix, and I have two brothers.”

  Oooh … let me write that down, I thought to myself.

  Then Brenda Ferguson stood up. “My name is Brenda Ferguson. I was born in California, and I have a baby sister.”

  And blah, blah, blah, I thought.

  This had to be the most boring first day of school I’d ever had. After about six kids had spoken, I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I raised my hand.

  “Yes?” asked Miss Henderson. “You there, in the yellow shirt.”

  I looked down at my shirt. Yup. That was me, all right.

  “Miss Henderson? I was just thinking … maybe we should try to tell something a little more interesting about ourselves, instead of just the usual stuff,” I said.

  Miss Henderson considered it a second. Then she gave me a little smile.

  “Okay,” she said, “why don’t you start us off? Tell us who you are and something interesting about yourself.”

  Wow! I thought. Maybe for once, I’ve got a teacher who is actually going to appreciate me.

  “Oka
y. I’m Alex Frankovitch,” I said. “I brought a sandwich for lunch today. And I’d just like everyone to know that my bologna has a first name … it’s O-s-c-a-r.”

  The whole class cracked up at once. Miss Henderson had to beat on her desk with a ruler to quiet everyone down. I almost felt sorry for her.

  That was before she came over to my desk, bent down next to my ear, and whispered, “I’ve got your number, funny boy.”

  As soon as she got the class under control, we started all over with the same boring stuff we had been doing before.

  After about an hour, we were almost finished. That’s when I first saw T.J. Stoner. He was sitting all the way in the back of the room, so he was the last person to talk about himself.

  He stood up real slow and cool. “My name is T.J. Stoner,” he said. “I just moved here from San Diego, and I have an older brother who plays baseball for the Atlanta Braves.”

  Then he sat back down just as slow and cool as when he’d stood up.

  I knew right away I wasn’t going to like old T.J. Stoner.

  Miss Henderson did, though. She was totally impressed.

  “Really, T.J.?” she gushed. “Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about him?”

  T.J. stood up again. “Well, his name’s Matt Stoner and this is his second year in the majors. He’s a pinch-hitter,” he added.

  “How exciting!” said Miss Henderson. “Do you play baseball, too, T.J.?”

  He nodded. “I’m a pitcher. Last year my team won the California State Championship, and I was voted the Most Valuable Player.”

  By this time I was ready to barf.

  I raised my hand again and waved it all over the place.

  You could tell that Miss Henderson didn’t want to call on me, but I was pretty hard to ignore.

  “Okay, Alex. What?” she asked, annoyed.

  “Well, I just thought that the class might like to know that I play baseball, too,” I said.

  Miss Henderson stared. “So?”

  “So last season, I played right field,” I told her. “I didn’t get voted MVP. But I did come in second in the swimsuit competition.”

  That did it. The whole class went crazy again. Brenda Ferguson laughed so hard she fell off her chair.