From The Chocolate Korndog
"Hey, Zack. Mr. Sly said your dad was going to patent the Slydog."
"Ahhh. My dad will tell a client anything. Mr. Sly doesn't have a lock on this thing, so I'm going home and perfect mine. Maybe I'll use parsley, too. Maybe I'll get some weed from Aunty Pring Chaud's greenhouse. That'll make people sit up and take notice."
"That'll put people to sleep and you in the pokey."
"Oh, well." Zack picked his nose, a sure sign of keen thought. Then he snapped his fingers. "I got it. I know exactly how I can get the upper hand in this struggle." Zack's eyes got beady and he had a cruel smile on his lips, like Kiefer Sutherland. You could hardly see the bead in his eye because of the smudges on his glasses, but the cruel smile was easily visible.
"Well, how?"
"I don't know if I should tell you, since you will right away blab to the whole neighborhood."
"You should talk. You, the boyfriend of the biggest blabber in Balona."
"You mean Patella? That boyfriend business she wrote up in the Courier was her idear, not mine. I deny it categorically. Alls I do is have milkshakes and korndogs with her. Or nowdays, cocoa and korndogs. She dut'n even know this latest idear."
Mr. Sackworth, Patella's dad, was crouched on his stool right there at the cash register, overhearing all this gossip about his daughter. You hardly realized he was there, since he is very fat and sits statue still, hardly breathing and with his little fat eyes closed, chewing on a cud of jerky. He does this all day long, and comes to only when his sensors detect a customer approaching the register. He wheezed and swallowed. "Patella's a good girl, boys. You shut'n talk bad about her."
Me and Zack both got red in the face. Since Mr. Sackworth is sort of my Saturday superior, him being Mr. Carp's Chief Boxperson and me being only Assistant Chief Boxperson, I apologized right away. "It was Zack here said the bad stuff, Mr. Sackworth, not me."
"You're the one called her a blabber. Alls I said was it was her idear to have me known as her boyfriend. If you want to know, she said her idea was to make you jealous."
My personal UITS Manual (Universal Intelligence Training School-Pronounce it WITS) tells me it's wise to change the subject when you get the feeling you're losing the argument. "Well, I am trained to keep secrets, Young Zack, so you can tell me in confidence about your winning idear."
Zack's beady-eyed expression returned and he sort of relaxed. I have learned that when you are in a tight spot, all you have to do is give a guy a compliment. It can be an indirect compliment, like my winning idear remark. It doesn't have to be about how sweet his breath is. "I'm gonna notify somebody that I got a winning invention over here. Somebody influential. Somebody...." Zack looked out of the corner of his eye at Mr. Sackworth. "I'll tell you later, when we're alone."
All the way back to Zack's house I kept after him to reveal me his secret, but all he did was keep on whistling Mr. Burberry's favorite tune, "Going Home." We were climbing Zack's front steps when I finally realized that Harley was not with us.
"Where's Harley?"
"Harley is up in our room studying for his test."
"What test is that?"
"Harley is going to be a lost and found dog for Mr. Preene over at the Courier. He's going to find lost dogs."
"Whose idea was that?"
"It was Harley's own idear. He's full of idears, but this one is a winner all right."
"How do you mean he's studying? Dogs don't study."
"Well, honk, Joe. Harley studies a lot like you do."
"I actually don't study much, relying mostly on my powers of retention."
"That's what I meant. But Harley also thinks about stuff. Then, after he's thought a while, he's ready to take his test. He's been sitting in his window seat this morning, looking out the window, thinking about stuff."
"Well, that's the way I do it, too. Only I don't always pass."
"Well, there's bound to be differences of intelligence there."
I didn't say anything for a while, thinking about that, and about what Zack might have meant when he said it. Finally, I stopped thinking about it, since I couldn't find anything positive in it and didn't want to start a big argument with Zack when he was about to reveal his secret.
Up in Zack's bedroom, there was Harley, sitting in his window seat, looking out the window. He turned and looked at us, frowned a little, then moved himself right back to looking out the window. A thinking dog.
"So, what's your big secret?"
"What secret is that?"
"The secret you dit'n want to talk about in front of Mr. Sackworth."
"Oh, that secret. It's nothing. I'm just going to become rich and famous is all."
"C'mon, Zack, you said you would tell me when we were alone."
"Well, we're not alone. There's Harley there." Zack and Harley both snickered.
"Well, I guess I'll just go on home."
"Okay, okay. I'm gonna call up Buddy Swainhammer and get interviewed on the Buddy Swainhammer Show, live. I'll reveal that I am the inventor of the Chocolate Korndog and that a corporate conspiracy is trying to rob me out of fame and fortune."
"Wow. But probably Mr. Sam Joe Sly will sue you."
"So? I got my own in-house defense lawyer, such as he is. Nothing to worry about. Besides, a minor's got immunity."
"You don't have a factory to produce chocolate korndogs."
"I don't need to produce chocolate korndogs. Alls I need to do is tell everybody I got screwed out of my invention. Then the thief will have to pay me a settlement."
Zack is planning to get Mr. Buddy Swainhammer and his Talk Show to set up Mr. Sam Joe Sly for a settlement about who invented the chocolate korndog. I am beginning to think that maybe Zack has criminal tendencies. A JONATHAN PEARCE BALONA BOOK
THE BURBERRY STYLE
4
3
|