“Purple,” said Dwight.
Rabbski actually growled. She grabbed Dwight by the arm and hauled him off to the office.
“I can’t believe you guys were trying to make me eat that,” I said when she left.
“I can’t believe you’re not going to,” said Harvey. “Rabbski’s gone now.”
“Didn’t you hear what Origami Yoda said? He smelled rat saliva.”
“Uh,” said Harvey, “I’d like to remind you that not only is Paperwad Yoda not real, even if he was real, HE DOESN’T HAVE A NOSE!”
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, well, I’m still not eating it.”
“You’re passing up three bucks because of Paperwad Yoda? You’re an idiot!”
“OK,” I said, “then you eat it, Harvey. I’ll give you three dollars myself.”
Tommy and Kellen both said they’d add a dollar each.
“Five dollars,” said Kellen. “Plus a chance to prove that Origami Yoda is wrong!”
“No problem,” said Harvey, and he ate the hot dog. Then he held up Darth Paper:
Harvey’s Comment
I still don’t think there was anything wrong with that hot dog. I think the problem was that Mike and Kellen had been waving it around and got their germs all over it.
My Comment: That was totally worth a dollar!
Despite all that home ec pizza bagel stuff, Amy and Lance got in this huge argument about a book and aren’t speaking to each other now.
Could Yoda have helped me too? I sure wish he had. Because my life sucks right now, all because I bought Sara the wrong thing.
You already read about Lance and Amy and the pizza bagels. Well, that’s what Sara has been doing with Tater Tot. Sitting with him in home ec, every single day! It makes me sick to think about it.
I don’t have any classes with her, so I’m lucky if I get to talk to her for a couple of minutes before school or at lunch. Meanwhile, he’s there with her, cooking and goofing around in the kitchen like some kind of cable TV romance movie.
But I had a chance to make up for all that by buying her an awesome birthday present.
If Origami Yoda had been around, I would have asked him what to get her. Of course, I e-mailed Dwight to see if he would ask Origami Yoda and e-mail me back. But he never answered.
But I wasn’t too worried, because I had a great idea and got her this amazing graphic novel, Robot Dreams. It’s so great. It’s this really beautiful story, and I thought she would go crazy for it.
I gave it to her in the library before school. She kind of looked at it funny, like she wasn’t sure about it. But I knew once she started reading it she would love it.
And then guess who shows up? Tater Tot! With a teddy bear! Dressed like Elvis! You squeeze its foot and it plays Elvis singing “Teddy Bear.”
Even then I didn’t realize what a total disaster it was until the next day when Rhondella told Mike, who told me, that Sara was going on a date with Tater Tot. They were going out to play miniature golf together. That made me feel sicker than the pizza bagels.
Harvey’s Comment
The problem with you guys is you blame me or Darth Paper or Dwight being gone for everything. I mean, Kellen shouldn’t need Jedi wisdom to know that his artwork makes people want to barf. Anyone with a brain would have known that Rhondella would freak.
THE ABSENCE OF ORIGAMI YODA AND THE PRINCESS RHONDELLA
BY RHONDELLA
I don’t even know why I need to write about this, Tommy. Just show them that picture! That’s all you need to do.
I spend a whole weekend making perfectly normal posters that say
Blah. Blah. Blah.
I come in to school to put them up, and the halls are plastered with a million copies of THAT PICTURE!
If Kellen needs a finger puppet to tell him not to do something that stupid, then what he really needs is a psychiatrist!
I tried to take them all down, but I think my opponent, Brianna, must have gotten one and made copies and put them back up.
It’s no wonder I lost!
So, yeah, if Origami Yoda can keep Kellen from doing stuff like this, then BRING BACK DWIGHT … PLEASE!
THE REST OF THE STORY
BY TOMMY AND KELLEN
So that’s the end of the case file that I’m going to show to the school board later this week. I don’t know if it’s going to do any good, but that’s what we’ve got.
You may be wondering why I let Harvey comment on the case file—after all, he’s been waving Darth Paper around and making a jerk of himself all year. Kellen had been trying to get me to kick him off our lunch table. I was, like, “How am I supposed to do that? He just sits there. I never invited him.”
So that’s why he was still sitting with us. And when he found out that Kellen and I had finished the case file, he said, “OK, let me see it and I’ll make my comments.”
“Why should he let you make comments?” Kellen asked. “You’re just going to say the same stuff anyway: ‘Paperwad this. Paperwad that. Blah, blah, blah.’”
“Are you guys afraid of what I’m going to say? Are you afraid I’ll poke holes in your little theories about Dwight using the Force?”
“No,” I said. “That’s not even what this case file is about. It’s about whether Dwight—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You talk about making a case file, but if you’re afraid to include someone’s opinions or other ideas, then it’s not really a case file. If you want it to be scientific, you have to let other people look at it and critique it.”
“But the school board—”
“Fine, if you don’t want to show my comments to the school board, you don’t have to. But I think they belong in the case file. They might even help you. They’re certainly more useful than Kellen’s awful drawings.”
“You haven’t even seen the drawings, so how do you know they’re awful?” snapped Kellen.
“You’re right,” said Harvey. “It is unfair for me to criticize either the drawings or the files without seeing them. That’s why I just want to take a look.”
“OK,” I said, “you can look at it for a couple of minutes. But don’t write any comments on it!”
“No problem,” said Harvey, and he held out his hand for it.
I pulled the case file out of my backpack and handed it to him.
As he grabbed it with one hand, he held up Darth Paper with the other.
“I HAVE YOU NOW!” Darth Paper shouted, and Harvey jumped up and took off out of the cafeteria and down the hall with the case file.
I looked at Kellen.
“What’s his deal?” I asked.
“Dude, I think you have just underestimated the power of the Dark Side.”
He was right. I had.
We tried to chase him, but of course we got yelled at by Mr. Howell, who has Kellenradar or something. Then the bell rang for fifth period.
We caught Harvey in the library after class.
“Give us the case file, Harvey!”
“Sure,” he said calmly, and handed it to me.
I flipped through it. Not only had he crumpled it all up, he had already written his nasty Dark Side comments all over it!
“You know, I’m a very fast reader,” he said with that awful smirk of his. “Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this ahead of time. I was able to put some real thought into my counterarguments.”
“Counterarguments?” I said.
“Yes, you’ll find it all in my conclusion,” he said, and flipped to the end of the case file.
He had added these pages:
* * *
Origami Yoda DoesN’t Belong Here
by Harvey
Dear School Board Members,
I come to school to learn, not to watch a daily puppet show.
I support Principal Rabbski’s attempts to help us focus on our schoolwork, especially the important Standards of Learning tests.
For this reason I have always objected to Dwight’s use of the finger pup
pet, especially in the library and classroom. I also object to many of Dwight’s other activities, which also interfere with the learning process but which are too numerous and too gross to list here.
When you consider the stories in the so-called case file that Tommy has collected, you’ll notice that the recurring theme is Dwight disrupting the learning environment, Over and over again:
• Talking a student out of taking a model rocketry class so that he could sit with a girl he likes in home ec.
• Potentially jeopardizing the school fund-raiser.
• Turning the class insect collection activity into an unpleasant game of one-upmanship.
• And, most seriously, issuing a strange and ominous statement that could easily be seen as a threat.
Now, I do not believe that Dwight would really want to hurt anyone, but as you have heard, his strange statements certainly have the power to upset people who are not so sure about his intentions.
For this reason, I encouraged Jen to tell Principal Rabbski about the “Zero Hour comes. Prepare to meet your Doom!” threat that Dwight made.
I feel that we are a big family at McQuarrie Middle School, and it’s every student’s job to look out for the other students. I felt it best for everyone that a responsible adult was made aware of Dwight’s statement.
I hope that Dwight receives the help he needs and that everyone will eventually realize that I have acted in his best interests as well as those of McQuarrie Middle School.
Thank you for your time.
Harvey
* * *
Harvey had this proud look on his face when we finished the letter. “So it was you! You were the one who got Jen to complain about Dwight!” I shouted.
“I have to admit, I never expected that to be so effective,” said Harvey with his superevil smirk back on full blast.
I wanted to punch it right off his face!
“I can’t believe you would do that!” I yelled.
“I can,” said Kellen. “I’ve told you not to underestimate the Dark Side!”
“So,” says Harvey, “are you going to show my comments to the school board?”
“Are you crazy?” I said. “You’ve twisted everything to make Dwight look bad. Of course I’m not going to show them to the school board!”
“Mmm-hmm,” said Harvey. “I knew you would say that. That’s why I copied them. I’m going to come and read them to the school board myself!”
“What?!”
I felt like that kid Jedi in Revenge of the Sith who’s, like, “Hey, Anakin, what’s up?” and then Anakin slices him with his lightsaber. I was a fool. I had given Harvey all the ammunition he needed to shoot down everything.
Harvey held up Darth Paper: “You were unwise to lower your defenses.”
“Would you shut up!” I yelled. I grabbed it off his finger, crumpled it up, and threw it on the floor.
Harvey picked up the wad of paper and made it say, “Yes, release your anger. Feel the power of the Dark Side.”
“Would you stop for one minute! This is serious. You’re not really going to go to the school board meeting, are you? They could kick Dwight out!”
“Sure I am. You get up and read them your little files, and then I’ll read them my counterarguments. We’ll see who they believe.”
“No, you can’t do that,” I said.
“Why not?” said Harvey. “It’s a school board meeting. ‘Every student, teacher, parent, or member of the public has a right to attend.’”
“Shove it!” I shouted.
Everybody looked at us, and Mrs. Calhoun started walking over. I picked up my stuff and took off before she could tell me to. Kellen came too.
“See you tomorrow night,” called Harvey in a fake friendly voice. “The meeting’s at seven, right? Save me a seat!”
“I said, shove it!” I shouted over my shoulder. That made Mrs. Calhoun follow me out of the library and give me an ISS slip. That’s the first time I’ve ever been sent to ISS. If I’d known I was going to get in trouble, I would have said something better than “shove it.”
You know, when Origami Yoda first showed up, I spent all my time wondering if he was really using the Force. But when Darth Paper showed up, I never considered it. I figured it was just Harvey being annoying and quoting movie lines.
But as I stomped off to the office, I wondered for the first time … could Darth Paper really be leading Harvey to the Dark Side of the Force? I mean, Harvey’s been a jerk before, but this was just evil!
While I was sitting in the office doing my time, I realized that Dwight was in bigger trouble than I was then.
Origami Yoda had told me that the case file could save Dwight. But because I had let it fall into the wrong hands, it was powerless now. Harvey would counter every good point in it. At best, it would balance out. But more likely, Harvey might actually make the school board believe that Dwight really was “disrupting the learning environment.”
So, basically, after a week and a half without Dwight, absolutely everything had gone wrong, and Darth Paper was set to rule the galaxy. We were in deep trouble.
There was only one hope: Origami Yoda.
I had tried e-mailing, texting, and phoning Dwight but hadn’t gotten any answers except for the Rib-B-Q request. But this time I really, really had to get through to him. I decided to go to his house after school and make him listen.
ORIGAMI YODA AND THE FIVE FOLDS
BY TOMMY
Dwight and Sara both live over on one of those little dead-end streets off of Cascade Drive. Not that far from me, really, but I had never been back there before. Other than crossing Route 24, it’s a pretty easy bike ride.
I knew Sara’s address because we wrote a few letters over the summer.
I passed her house first, but I didn’t see her outside or anything. I was kind of glad. I didn’t have any idea what I would say to her.
Dwight’s house is right next to hers. I guess I figured that since Dwight was so weird, his house would be really weird too. But it looked totally normal. I didn’t see any holes in the yard. Sara says he’s always sitting in holes. Those must be in the back. I did see the fence that Sara’s dad had built so he wouldn’t have to look at Dwight sitting in the holes.
I knocked on the door. No answer. Then I saw the doorbell, so I rang it.
Dwight’s mom came to the door. I had seen her at school that one time, but I didn’t actually know her.
“Hi, Mrs. Tharp, I’m Dwight’s friend Tommy. I really need to talk to him.”
“Oh. Tommy. Hmm. Errr. Well. See …”
And she tells me all this stuff about how Dwight is grounded and isn’t allowed to call people or use the computer or play video games. But how she hadn’t actually made a rule against people coming over. However, if she had thought that someone might, she probably would have, but since she didn’t … and on and on.
I realized she was really talking to herself more than to me. I wanted to go, “Uh, you’re the mom, just say yes or no.”
Instead, I said, “This is really important, Mrs. Tharp. I really need to talk to Dwight about the school board meeting tomorrow night.”
She finally let me in. The house WAS weird, but only because it was so un-weird that it was weird. It was like this beach house my family stayed in for a week one summer. You could tell that no one really lived there and that all the stuff was just there to fill up blank space, not because someone had really liked it.
“Dwight’s up in his room. I’ll call him down.”
“Actually, Mrs. Tharp, maybe I could talk to him up there?”
• • •
You never know what Dwight is going to be like. I sort of pictured him jumping up and shaking my hand. “Hey, Tommy, I’ve missed you guys! Thanks for working on this case file for me!”
Instead, I got to his room and he was slouched on his bed just staring at the floor with a shoe in his hand. He looked over at me, but more like at my feet.
“Dwight!”
His mother fussed. “Your friend is here. Can’t you sit up and say hello?”
He said, “Hello.”
It didn’t exactly give me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
His room was almost empty. I thought he’d have Star Wars posters and action figures and all kinds of stuff. Nope. The stuff on the walls was obviously stuff his mother had put up … when he was in preschool. Seriously, who has a fake anchor hanging on their wall?
The only thing that was Dwight-like was the origami. There was a huge pile of it on top of his dresser. The dresser had all its drawers open and clothes hanging out.
“Oh, Dwight, I thought you were going to put those clothes away NEATLY,” his mom said.
He got up—slowly—and started to move toward the dresser.
“Well, it’s too late now. Don’t do it now. You have a guest.”
Dwight sat back down on his bed.
“Well, I’ll let you boys talk,” his mom said. She walked out of the room, but stood near the door looking back in for a while. Finally, she left.
Dwight came to life a little bit, but not much.
“Dwight, have you gotten any of my e-mails or anything?”
“No. When Sara brought the Rib-B-Q, Mom realized I was e-mailing people and took away my computer, my cell phone—everything.”
“TV, too?” I asked, since that’s my parents’ favorite thing to take away.
“I wasn’t allowed to watch TV to start with,” he said.
No TV! That explains a lot! No wonder he never has any idea what we’re talking about! “Well, listen. I’ve got some bad news. I need your help. Can you get out Origami Yoda?”
“My mom took him.”
“Oh, man! We need him! There’s big trouble! It’s Harvey.”
Dwight looked up at me for the first time. Then he looked at the floor again.