CONTENTS
UNCLE DANGERFOOT
HELVETIA’S HOOLIGANS
INTO THE SEA
SNAKE EYES
A SLIMY SANDWICH
ROXIE’S PLAN
BORROWING
THE RABBIT NOISE
THE ROCK BRIGADE
OUT OF THE SKY
About Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
To Garrett Riley Naylor, the newest member of our family, with love
—P. R. N.
To Andrea, with love. And to Vanessa, who brought all the little Roxies to life.
—A. B.
• UNCLE DANGERFOOT •
When Uncle Dangerfoot came to visit, everything in the house had to be just so.
The footstool was arranged in its place, the tea piping hot, the crumpets and jam on a platter, and Roxie Warbler watched for him at the door. The man who had wrestled alligators and jumped from planes was not to be kept waiting.
“And there he is!” cried Mrs. Warbler as her brother stepped handsomely out of a cab and came briskly up the walk. He wore a jungle helmet, a tan safari jacket with brass buttons, and he carried a long slender cane, which could, in an instant, become a harpoon, a gun, an umbrella, or a walking stick, depending on the circumstances and the weather.
Nine-year-old Roxie looked forward to his visits, for he had traveled all over the world with Lord Thistlebottom from London. And Thistlebottom was famous for his book, Lord Thistlebottom’s Book of Pitfalls and How to Survive Them.
“Hello, Uncle Dangerfoot!” Roxie called, throwing open the door as he came up the steps.
The man with the handlebar mustache smiled down at his niece and tapped her fondly on the head with his walking stick. And that was about all the attention Roxie would get from her uncle, for although she had put on her best blue dress and her patent-leather shoes and she had brushed her hair till her scalp tingled, Uncle Dangerfoot was not a man of emotion and never hugged anyone if he could help it.
“Come in! Come in!” said Roxie’s father, shaking Uncle Dangerfoot’s hand and ushering him to the big easy chair with the footstool at the ready. “We are so glad to have you.”
“So eager to hear about your latest adventure!” said Roxie’s mother.
Roxie just stood to one side beaming, holding the platter of crumpets until her uncle noticed and helped himself. Then she sat down on the floor at his feet, waiting to leap to attention should he need some extra cream for his tea or a second lump of sugar.
“Oh, it was harrowing, let me tell you!” said Uncle Dangerfoot, taking a small sip of tea, then biting into his crumpet and jam. “It was uncharted territory in Australia, and our canteens had long since run dry. . . . ”
Roxie hung on every word, even though her uncle’s stories tended to go on all evening. The crumpets and tea would be gone, and her uncle would still be talking. The flames in the fireplace would have died down and gone out, and he would still be talking. Sometimes Roxie was embarrassed by drifting off to sleep in spite of herself, and her father would carry her upstairs and tuck her in bed. But parts of her uncle’s stories always lingered in her head:
“. . . So there we were, our lips parched, our mouths full of dust, our throats so dry we could scarcely speak. ‘Do not panic!’ Lord Thistlebottom said to me as we followed the dry streambed. ‘Look for a sharp bend in the bed and keep an eye out for wet sand.’ I, of course, having the sharper eye, spied it shortly, and there we dug down, down, down until we found seeping water. . . . ”
“I’m thirsty,” Roxie murmured, her own lips feeling parched, her throat dry. She opened her eyes to find that, once again, she was back in her bed, a glass of water on the night table, the first faint glow of morning coming through her window shade, and Uncle Dangerfoot, of course, gone.
She drank a little of the water and pulled the covers up under her chin. If only she could be as brave as her uncle. What a disappointment she must be! Not only did she sometimes fall asleep during his visits, but while he was afraid of nothing, Roxie Warbler was afraid of a lot of things: thunder, lightning, tornadoes, floods, and, most of all, Public School Number Thirty-Seven, where Helvetia’s Hooligans seemed to have chosen Roxie to be their Victim of the Year.
It was her ears, of course. They were round ears, pink ears, ears of the normal variety, and Roxie scrubbed them daily inside and behind. But they stuck straight out from her head like the handles on a sugar bowl, the ears on an elephant, the wings on a bat.
And though Roxie Warbler was neither fat nor thin, short nor tall, pretty nor plain, smart nor stupid—a perfectly average child in the fourth grade at Public School Number Thirty-Seven—her ears were the first thing anyone noticed when they looked at her and the only thing they seemed to remember.
From that first day of school a month ago, when Roxie started up the walk to the building, Helvetia Hagus had watched her come, and her eyes narrowed. So did the eyes of her little band of hooligans: Simon Surly, Freddy Filch, and the smallest, leanest, meanest hooligan of them all—a wiry little hornet of a girl called Smoky Jo.
When Roxie had got up close to them, it was Smoky Jo who squealed, “Why, Grandma, what big ears you have!” and the other hooligans laughed and hooted.
Helvetia brayed like a donkey: “Hee-yah, hee-yah!”
Simon howled like a hyena: “Hoo-hoo ha-ha, hoo-hoo ha-ha!”
Freddy cawed like a crow: “Ca-haw! Ca-haw!”
And Smoky Jo squeaked like a mouse: “Eeeka. Eeeka. Eeeka.”
Together, their braying and howling and cawing and squeaking sounded to Roxie like feeding time at the circus—and trouble for Roxie Warbler. Roxie had tried her best to smile and be friendly, but that only made the teasing worse.
“I think we ought to tape those ears to the sides of her head where they belong,” said Helvetia Hagus, a large-boned girl with a square face and a square frame who wore her kneesocks rolled down around her ankles.
“I think we ought to find something to hang on those ears,” said Simon Surly, who was as tall and skinny as a broom. When he was feeling nasty, his lips curled down on the left side and up on the right.
“I think we ought to find something to pour in those ears,” said Freddy Filch, a round, red-faced boy who wheezed when he talked.
Smoky Jo had eyes that positively gleamed, and her short hair circled her head like a barbed-wire fence. “I think we should hang her up by the ears!” she squealed, and they brayed and howled and cawed and squeaked some more.
Every day it happened again, only each day the hooligans crowded a little closer around Roxie. It did not happen in the classroom, where the teacher, Miss Crumbly, could see. And Roxie did not want to bother her parents about it, for how could the niece of the man who braved sandstorms and avalanches tell her parents that she was afraid of a small band of hooligans on the playground?
She had almost memorized Lord Thistlebottom’s book by heart. Every bit of advice was followed by the admonition Do not panic. Roxie knew that if she were ever lost in the desert, she should try to sit at least twelve inches off the ground, because the ground could be thirty degrees hotter than the air. Do not panic.
She knew that if you are jumping from a plane and your parachute does not open, head for water if you can. Do not panic.
Roxie knew that if she found herself on top of a moving train, she should not try to stand up. Do not panic.
But she did not know what to do about Helvetia’s Hooligans, who had chosen Roxie Warbler to tease and torment and otherwise make miserable for every day of her life in Public School Number Thirty-Seven.
• HELVETIA’S HOOLIGANS •
Of course, not all children on this little-known stretch of New England’s shoreline beha
ved so abominably. Farther up the coast in the town of Hasty Pudding, children were especially kind. In the town below that, in Hamburger-on-Bun, children were well mannered, and even the boys and girls of Swiss-on-Rye were known to be friendly.
By the time you got down as far as Chin-in-Hand, however, where Mr. and Mrs. Warbler had moved with their daughter, people just didn’t much care. Times were hard, and there were other things to worry about.
So every morning Roxie got out of bed and put on her school uniform—her green kneesocks, her brown and green plaid skirt, her green shirt and brown jacket. Her clothes were about as dull as she felt inside.
She bravely said good-bye to her father and kissed her mother and wondered how to get through another day. If she went early, she discovered, she could go inside and help the teacher dust the erasers. But then the hooligans waited for her after school and tried to hang their book bags on her ears.
So she asked the teacher if she could stay in after school as well and empty wastebaskets. Miss Crumbly said, “Of course!”
But when Roxie came out, the hooligans were still there, and they tried to tape her ears to the sides of her head with strapping tape. Her hair stuck to the tape and her ears burned, and when she finally got away and ran home, she had red marks on both cheeks.
The only person who befriended her was a large boy named Norman, who wore thick glasses and had to squint to read his primer.
“Those kids are like sharks, Roxie,” he said. “They’re mean to me, too. They’re always trying to take my glasses. Then I can’t see anything at all, and I bump into stuff.”
“I know,” said Roxie.
“I’d help if I could,” said Norman.
“I know,” said Roxie.
If only she was half as brave as Uncle Dangerfoot. If only she was one fourth as brave as Lord Thistlebottom. If only he would write The Book of Hooligans and How to Survive Them.
Roxie told her mother that she would be going to school very, very early each morning to help her teacher. And she would be staying very, very late to help even more.
“Just how many erasers can you possibly dust?” asked Mrs. Warbler.
“How many wastebaskets can you empty? How many desks are there to wipe?” asked Mr. Warbler.
“Oh, there’s a lot of work to be done,” said Roxie. And her parents were glad to know that she was a help to the teacher, so they let her be.
One Tuesday, Roxie got up an hour early. She made her own toast and cocoa and got to school just as the sun was beginning to rise over the ocean a block away. The only other person at school at this hour was Norman, sitting on a bench and eating a breakfast of fish-and-chips. Not even the teachers or principal had come to school yet, so Roxie and Norman sat together and watched the gulls circling over the playground.
And then Roxie saw them—the hooligans—coming through the gate. Freddy Filch was holding something gray under one arm, and Smoky Jo was waving something white in the air.
“What have they got?” Norman asked, squinting his eyes.
“I don’t know. Smoky Jo looks like she’s carrying a flag, maybe,” said Roxie. And she began to hope. A truce flag, perhaps? A peace flag?
The hooligans were yelling.
“What are they saying?” asked Norman.
“I’m not sure,” said Roxie.
The hooligans came straight toward them. Smoky Jo was not waving a flag at all. She was waving a pair of her brother’s underpants, and Freddy, strangely, was carrying a carton of eggs.
“Hey, Roxie!” said Helvetia. “We figured your head was cold.”
“Yeah, Roxie. You need a cap!” said Simon Surly.
“Your ears will just fit through the leg holes,” said Smoky Jo, swinging the underpants around and around over her head like a lasso.
“And then,” said Freddy Filch, “we’re going to glue those pants to your head with eggs. You’ll be the Slimy Creature from Public School Number Thirty-Seven.”
“Run, Roxie!” whispered Norman.
“What’d you say, old boy?” asked Simon, snatching his glasses.
“Give those back!” Norman demanded, but he couldn’t even see who had them.
Roxie leaped off the bench and began to run, but the hooligans had blocked the gate. All she could do was run around and around the playground. The hooligans picked up gravel and threw it at her legs to make her stop.
Roxie’s heart was racing. Her head began to pound. Do not panic, she remembered. To avoid gunfire, run in a zigzag line. Roxie ran in a zigzag line. Ping went a piece of gravel as it hit the school building. Pong went another piece as it hit a swing.
There must be something I can do! Roxie thought in desperation. There must be somewhere I can hide! If only she could get inside the building . . . But she tried the door and it was locked. Then she saw that a window was open ten feet off the ground. The school’s big blue Dumpster sat beneath the window. Two trash cans sat beside the Dumpster.
Roxie made a dash toward that corner of the building. Splat! Something hit her ankle. Freddy was throwing eggs.
Roxie scrambled on top of one of the trash cans. Splog! Another egg hit her knee and began sliding down her leg as Roxie climbed up the side of the Dumpster.
“She’s going for the open window!” shouted Helvetia as more eggs hit Roxie or landed on the rim of the Dumpster. “After her!”
There came the sound of scraping and scrambling as the hooligans began to climb. Freddy must have decided to throw all the eggs now, Roxie realized, to keep her from reaching the window, for they splattered here and there.
At the top Roxie shakily got to her feet and tried to balance as she started along the Dumpster’s rim toward the window. Raw eggs hit her knees. They covered her shoes. They glistened on the rim of the Dumpster. Roxie held her arms straight out at her sides as though she were Uncle Dangerfoot crossing a river on a log, but the eggs made it too slippery, and just before Smoky Jo’s head appeared over the edge of the Dumpster, Roxie fell in.
It was warm and wet and smelly in the Dumpster. It smelled like banana peel, paste pots, and old gym suits, but Roxie didn’t make a sound.
“Hey!” yelled Smoky Jo. “She’s not here! I don’t see her!”
“Then old Elephant Ears must have got through that window!” bellowed Helvetia as she too came over the top, then Freddy and Simon, all struggling to raise themselves up and walk along the Dumpster’s rim to the open window of the school.
But one by one, they slipped on the slimy eggs and fell in—Helvetia up to her armpits, Simon up to his chin, Freddy with only his nose sticking out, and Smoky Jo upside down.
Just at that moment Roxie heard a terrible roar from outside, like a dragon with a bellyache. Above the roar she heard Norman’s frantic yell.
And before she could get one leg out of the garbage, before she could even peek out over the bin, the roar became deafening. She heard a clank, then a clunk, and in the next instant Roxie and the hooligans were tumbling about inside the Dumpster as it rose up, up into the air. Little did they know that it had been lifted onto the back of a flatbed truck, and soon they would be rolling down the highway toward the sea.
• INTO THE SEA •
If you are buried in an avalanche, do not panic. Dig a hole around you and spit. The saliva will fall downward, telling you which direction is up.
Roxie knew that Lord Thistlebottom and Uncle Dangerfoot had been buried in snow once, but she bet they had never been buried in garbage. Either way, snow or garbage, it was dark where she was. How was she supposed to see which way her saliva was falling?
Roxie spit. It landed back on her face. She began clawing at the garbage above her only to find, when she reached the top, that Helvetia Hagus had got there first.
“I’ll get you for this!” Helvetia spluttered, a banana peel draped over her head.
Another head appeared, attached to Simon Surly. Then a hand belonging to Freddy Filch popped up and a foot that could only be Smoky Jo’s.
&nb
sp; “We’ll get you, Roxie Warbler!” they all cried, struggling to grab her through the glop.
But who could know that the truck had reached the water’s edge? Suddenly the Dumpster began to tip. Roxie and the hooligans began to slide. When they could hold on no longer, out they spilled along with the garbage onto a barge that soon left shore. And there they were, on their way out to sea.
The barge had an acre of garbage on it, from dozens and dozens of Dumpsters, and though it was open at the top so that Roxie could see the sky, the sides were steep and slippery with the stinky mix of rotten sausage and spoiled fruit. Whenever the hooligans emerged from the stuff, a hand bobbing up here, a leg over there, they looked like slimy sausages themselves, their hair plastered to their heads with hamburger grease.
“We’ll get you, Roxie Warbler!” they bellowed, spitting out bits of moldy cheese and fish scales.
“We’ll throttle your engine!” cried Simon Surly.
“We’ll blow your whistle!” yelled Freddy Filch.
“We’ll stop your clock!” screeched Smoky Jo.
On and on the barge went, farther and farther out into the ocean, as Roxie and the hooligans tried to stay on top of the mess.
Just when they had her surrounded, the tugboat pushing the barge slowed to a stop. The hinges on the barge began to creak, the bottom opened, and suddenly Roxie Warbler and Helvetia’s Hooligans went sliding, sliding, sliding down into the water. The last noise they heard was the sucking sound of the sea as it swallowed the load of grapefruit rinds and coffee grounds, old gym suits and paste pots. And then five filthy children began swimming for their lives.
Now, all the students of Public School Number Thirty-Seven knew how to swim because they lived so near the ocean. Every year on the first day of first grade, every child was taken to the local pool to learn to stay afloat. Every year on the last day of first grade, every child was taken to the pool once again and thrown into the water. If he hadn’t learned to swim before, he learned now.