Iggy Loomis, Superkid in Training Read online

  I woke to the sound of Iggy calling for Mom and Dad and screaming about “squid monsters.” My mom came into the bedroom to comfort him.

  “It was just a dream, Iggy,” Mom said. “There’s no such thing as a squid monster—especially here in this house. You’re safe. Now go back to sleep.”

  That was really weird, I thought, because I just had a bad dream about a monster, too.

  Except in my dream, the monster was Iggy.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Iggy slept late and woke up grouchy. It’s pretty unusual for him to wake up in a bad mood. Even on school days, he usually bounces out of bed with so much energy, you’d think he was heading off to see the circus instead of driving to preschool in a minivan.

  But this time, Iggy sat at the breakfast table and glared at his bowl of cereal.

  “Have a bite of cereal, Iggy,” said Dad.

  “No.”

  “Just one bite?”

  Iggy stuck his face in his cereal bowl and tried to lap up the milk like a dog.

  “Okay, Mister, I think you’re done with breakfast,” said Mom.

  Iggy screamed as Mom took away his cereal bowl.

  “Somebody didn’t sleep very well last night,” said Mom. “Did Iggy have a bad dream?”

  Iggy nodded. “I have a bery bad dweam!

  “I dweam dat a squid monster gwab-ded me!

  “And den I turn into a monster wif bug-wings and gwoss blobzees!

  “And den Dano won’t play wif me, and so I squish-ted him and sting-ded him!”

  I felt a little queasy when I suddenly remembered my own bad dream: the nightmare that Iggy had turned into a giant creature that was large and strong enough to devour me. It seemed pretty weird that both Iggy and I had nightmares about Iggy turning into a monster. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but it gave me a bad feeling.

  Was this what it would be like to sharing a room with Iggy from now on? A life of nightmares and midnight urine?

  “Come on, Iggy and Dottie,” said Mom. “You need to hurry up and get dressed.”

  For the next few minutes, Iggy and Dottie argued with Mom about what they were going to wear. Iggy wanted to wear his underpants over his jeans instead of under them. Dottie wanted to wear her princess nightgown instead of a regular dress or pants.

  “Iggy,” said Mom, “underpants go under your pants.”

  “But I want SEE Squidboy ON TOP my pants!” Iggy protested.

  “Iggy,” said Mom, “big boys wear underpants, not overpants.”

  “BUT I WANT SEE DEM!!”

  My mom gave up on Iggy and turned her attention to Dottie. “Dottie, honey, how about this pretty dress instead of the nightgown?”

  “I HATE DAT ONE!” Dottie screeched. “I going step on it and weck it!”

  My dad stood up from the table and chuckled. As he walked to the sink, he made up a song called “I Never Knew It Could Be So Great!” which is about a jolly dad who’s having a super-great time with his perfect kids. Dad’s made-up songs happen to be my most unfavorite songs in the universe, but Dad keeps singing them.

  Just then, I heard the doorbell ring, so I jumped up to open it. I found Alistair on our front porch, waiting to walk to school with me.

  “Aren’t you cold?” It was a surprisingly chilly morning, but Alistair wasn’t wearing a sweatshirt or jacket.

  “I’m not cold,” he said. “Are you?”

  “Kind of.” I shivered, and noticed that I could actually see my breath in the morning air. “I’d be freezing if I were you.”

  Alistair nodded. He didn’t seem cold at all, and I noticed that I couldn’t see his breath in the morning air.

  Just as we started to head down the sidewalk, Iggy and Dottie burst through the front door.

  “HEY, ALISTAIR!” they shouted, “WAIT FOR US!!” Dottie wore her nightgown, and Iggy wore his underpants over his jeans.

  Alistair smiled when he saw them.

  “IGGY—NO!” My dad followed them out the door, trying to herd Iggy and Dottie toward the van.

  Iggy and Dottie are almost always late for school. Whenever it’s time for them to leave, they run away, in two different directions.

  “IGGY! DOTTIE! GET IN THE CAR!”

  Iggy zipped right out of my dad’s grasp. “I go wif Dano and Alistair!”

  “IGGY! Come here! You’re going to be late!”

  “Get in the van, Iggy,” I said. “Alistair and I are going to the school for big kids.”

  “I a big kid!”

  My dad grabbed Iggy, but Iggy kicked and screamed. I was used to seeing Iggy act this way when he was angry. As Dad lifted Iggy and prepared to stuff him into his car seat, Iggy braced his feet against the side of the car and grabbed the car-door handle. Iggy had always been strong for his age, but he suddenly seemed unusually strong. And that’s when something really, really strange happened: Iggy ripped the car door off its hinges.

  MY DAD STARED AT the car door lying on the ground and scratched his head. He looked pretty stunned. Pulling the door off a van was pretty extreme, even for Iggy.

  Iggy’s eyes grew wide. He wasn’t yelling anymore; now he just looked scared.

  “Poor, poor car,” said Dottie. “Iggy bwoke it.”

  Dottie’s comment made Iggy start bawling again, now louder than ever.

  None of us could understand or explain what had just happened. Iggy just pulled a car door off its hinges, I thought. But that can’t be possible, because he’s just a little kid. So there must have been something wrong with car.

  Mom appeared on the front porch. “What happened? I heard something crash!”

  Then Mom saw how Dad was just standing there, staring at the open side of the van where the door used to be, shaking his head.

  “Oh, no!” Mom ran to the car to take a closer look. “See? I told you we needed to get that old thing into the shop!” said my mom. “That door has been acting weird for months.”

  “The door was making a weird sound,” said my dad. “It wasn’t falling off!”

  “Well, just look at it!” said my mom. “It certainly WAS falling off!”

  “I could help you fix it,” Alistair offered.

  Based on what I had seen Alistair do with Technobloks, I figured he really might be able to fix the broken car door. “I bet Alistair could figure it out if you let him take a look, Dad,” I said. “He builds all kinds of vehicles and robots and stuff.”

  But my dad was in too bad a mood to even give Alistair a chance. “Never mind,” said Dad. “I’ll stop by the repair shop after I drop off Iggy and Dottie. You guys just go to school or you’ll be late.”

  We all helped my dad move the car door into the van. Then Alistair and I watched my dad, Iggy, and Dottie drive away with the side of the van wide open, as if they were riding in some kind of delivery truck.

  Iggy and Dottie laughed and waved to us as they rode away with their hair blowing in the cold breeze. The look on my dad’s face reminded me of the time I accidentally stepped on his reading glasses just as he was sitting down with his newspaper.

  Alistair and I stared after them. “I was afraid something like this might happen,” Alistair said quickly.

  I looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Um—have you noticed anything strange about Iggy today?”

  I thought this was kind of a dumb question since Alistair had just watched Iggy scream like a baboon, then pull a car door off its hinges, and ride away, giggling like a fool. “I guess it’s strange for him to pull a car door off its hinges,” I said, “but the car door must have been broken.”

  “Maybe,” said Alistair, mysteriously. “Or maybe Iggy is actually a lot stronger today than he was yesterday.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “An ant, for example, can lift and carry a load up to
fifty times its own body weight,” said Alistair. “And I’m afraid that Iggy may have ingested more of that bug-DNA serum than I thought.”

  I stared at Alistair. “You think Iggy tore the door off a car because he ate bugs?!”

  “Well, a combination of bugs and—”

  “Alistair,” I said, interrupting him, “everyone knows that eating a bug—or bug DNA—doesn’t turn you into a bug. I mean, there are people who eat chocolate-covered ants, and they don’t turn into superhuman ant people. Right?”

  Alistair didn’t answer. There was something he wasn’t telling me.

  “Alistair,” I said, “you have to tell me what’s going on.”

  Alistair paused on the sidewalk. “You have to promise to keep a secret,” he whispered.

  “Okay,” I said. “I mean, depending on what it is.”

  Alistair swallowed. He looked nervous. “You’re my only friend here,” he said. “And I need to tell someone—”

  “Tell someone WHAT?!” said a gruff voice behind us. It was Chauncey; he had snuck up from behind.

  I felt very annoyed to see Chauncey right when Alistair was about to spill the beans.

  Chauncey put his arm around Alistair. “So what’s the big secret?” he asked.

  “Alistair was just telling me about his favorite secret broccoli recipes,” I said.

  “Ew,” said Chauncey, backing away. “NO THANK YOU!”

  “I’ll tell you that other recipe later,” Alistair said with a wink as we pushed through the front doors of our school and walked into the noisy crowd of kids in the hallway.

  I sighed. I was dying to know what Alistair’s secret was. How could I possibly concentrate on schoolwork with something like this on my mind?

  MY TEACHER MR. BINNS seemed really surprised when Alistair walked into the classroom with me. “Are you sure you’re in the right classroom, buddy?” he asked Alistair. “I wasn’t expecting a new student today.”

  Alistair showed Mr. Binns an official form that apparently was signed by someone in charge of the whole school system, so Mr. Binns told Alistair to find a spot for himself at my work group table.

  I showed Alistair where to put his backpack and explained how our classroom is divided into different work groups who sit together. My team table was the “Orcas.”

  After taking attendance, Mr. Binns handed back some graded math quizzes.

  I got a “sobbing face” grade because I had forgotten to put my name on the assignment. I used to feel really bad when I saw an unhappy or “mortally wounded” face on my assignments, but then I realized that Mr. Binns enjoys giving those faces more than the smiley ones because they’re a lot more interesting for him to draw.

  “What does that mean?” Alistair asked, pointing to the unhappy face on my paper.

  I explained how, instead of regular grades like A or B or check-plus or check-minus, Mr. Binns gives us “face grades” so we understand how the teacher felt when he was looking at our work.

  Alistair still looked pretty confused, so I sketched a few of Mr. Binns’s more popular face grades for him to use as a homework reference.

  Chauncey leaned across the table to compare his math quiz grade with mine, like he always does. “I got more right than you,” he said, pointing to the smiley face on his paper.

  The Orcas table may have the most awesome work group name (which I chose), but the downside is that Chauncey also sits there. Chauncey has been moved to a lot of different tables because he drives people crazy by making annoying comments like, “You’re not doing it right!” and “I got more right than you!” and “Why are you wearing THAT?!”

  For a couple days, Chauncey even sat at Mr. Binns’s desk, and I kept hearing Mr. Binns tell him, “Just THINK it, Chauncey; don’t SAY it!”

  Finally, Chauncey ended up at the Orcas table, next to lucky me.

  And I had a feeling he was going to work extra hard to annoy me now that Alistair was also sitting with our work group.

  “PSST—ALISTAIR!” I whispered, “When are you going to tell me the secret?” We were both sitting at the Orcas table, working on a math worksheet.

  “I can’t tell you here,” Alistair whispered. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “When?” It was driving me crazy, wondering what this huge secret was.

  “Soon,” said Alistair, munching one of the broccoli florets he had brought with him in a little plastic bag. I had to admit that Alistair’s interest in broccoli seemed a little weird to me, but I guessed that having a food allergy made broccoli pretty important to him.

  Chauncey noticed Alistair’s snack and raised his hand.

  “Mr. Binns?”

  “Yes, Chauncey?”

  “Alistair is eating in the classroom.”

  “Alistair,” said Mr. Binns, “the rule in our class is that we don’t eat snacks during work time, unless you’ve brought double-fudge brownies for the teacher.”

  Alistair just stared at Mr. Binns. I could tell, he didn’t get the joke.

  “I was just kidding about the brownies,” said Mr. Binns, “but no snacks right now, okay?”

  And just like magic, Alistair reached into his backpack and produced another note signed by a doctor and also the school principal. I sneaked a peek and saw that this note said something about Alistair’s “Special Dietary Needs in the Classroom.”

  Wow, I thought. For someone who seemed confused about school, Alistair sure came prepared with plenty of excuse notes!

  “Okay, Alistair,” said Mr. Binns, looking slightly annoyed, “but just keep the crunching sounds to a minimum.”

  “I’ll try,” said Alistair.

  “Daniel, I expect both of you to turn your attention to the math worksheet I just gave you.”

  Alistair and I looked back at the math worksheet for a minute. I wondered if Alistair was confused, since he hadn’t had much regular schooling.

  “Why is Mr. Binns asking us these things?” Alistair whispered, pointing at his math worksheet.

  “It’s long division,” I whispered back. “I can help you if you want.”

  “You mean,” Alistair said, “Mr. Binns doesn’t know these answers?!”

  “Of course he does,” I said. “He wants us to practice.”

  Alistair just shrugged and started writing.

  When I looked over at him a moment later, I couldn’t believe what I saw: Alistair had filled out the entire worksheet in an instant, while I had only completed two problems. I got the feeling he was getting right answers, too. Alistair put his paper aside and took some Technobloks out of his backpack.

  “Alistair—what are you doing?!” Didn’t Alistair know we weren’t supposed to bring fun stuff like toys to school?

  “I’m done with the assignment,” he said. “Now I’ll work on Technobloks.”

  I stared at him.

  “Do you want me to do your math assignment for you?” Alistair asked. “That worksheet seems to be taking you a really long time.”

  I was still speechless. Alistair honestly didn’t think there was anything wrong with doing my math assignment for me. I knew it was wrong, but I was also really sick of doing those long division problems.

  “Okay,” I whispered, “but don’t let Mr. Binns or Chauncey see or we’ll get in trouble.”

  Alistair started my math worksheet, and I started building Technobloks. I tried hard to hide the Technobloks, but it was no use. A minute later, Chauncey noticed and tattled.

  “Mr. Binns,” he said, “Daniel and Alistair brought toys into the classroom, which is distracting me from my work, and they’re also copying each other’s work.”

  That’s when Mr. Binns moved me to the “Hamsters” table—the work group with the lamest name in the whole class. I sat there, squished between Christina, who talks nonstop, and Frankie, who spends a lot of time stab
bing his paper with his pencil. (You have to be careful around Frankie, depending on his mood and the color shirt you’re wearing. One wrong move when you’re wearing orange, and you might end up with stab wounds on your arm.)

  If Chauncey hadn’t told on me, I’d still be at the awesome Orcas table building Technobloks and letting Alistair do half of my work.

  I’ve decided that as of today, Chauncey Morbyd is no longer my friend. For today, he is officially my enemy.

  I folded the note into a paper airplane. Then, when Mr. Binns’s back was turned and Chauncey had left the table to sharpen his pencil, I flew the airplane note to Alistair. It hit its target perfectly, landing right in front of him.

  Unfortunately, Alistair was clueless. He just pushed the airplane away and kept working on what looked like a very complicated math equation that wasn’t even on the worksheet.

  “Psst—Alistair!” I stood up and pointed toward the paper airplane note sitting next to him. “You’re supposed to READ that!”

  “Back to work, Daniel!” Mr. Binns pointed to my chair.

  I sat back down at my table, but I snuck a peek at Alistair. Luckily, he had finally figured out what I meant. He carefully unfolded my airplane note.

  Alistair read my note, then glanced over at me and nodded. Then he started writing his reply.

  Every time I snuck a peek at the Orcas work group, I saw Alistair still writing. He wrote for a very, very long time.

  That must be one complicated secret, I thought.

  I READ ALISTAIR’S LETTER twice, trying to figure out exactly what it meant.

  The letter said that Iggy’s DNA may have “mutated.” Was Iggy turning into some kind of weird creature? Did an alien virus cause Iggy to pull a car door off its hinges? I had a queasy feeling in my stomach as I remembered my nightmare about Iggy turning into a monster and lifting me toward his giant teeth.