Katfish

Middle school is weird for a lot of reasons, and a bunch of those reasons have to do with girls. Even my friends are affected by it. Teddy used to brag about never showering. Now he showers constantly and wears cologne. Rourk used to fart and burp in front of everyone. Now he actually tries to clench and keep his mouth closed when girls are around.

  Aaron still has a hard time telling the truth, but in front of girls his lies are extra wack.

  And Jack used to eat bugs, but now he’s always worried about his breath.

  I’d like to think that I wasn’t quite as girl crazy, but I had done some really dumb things in the last few months and all because I wanted Janae to like me. Now, standing here in the hole we had dug was a girl I had never seen. I wanted to ask who she was, but my brain was missing a few pieces.

  CHAPTER 4

  BLOCK HEAD

  It’s not easy for a boy to describe a girl without sounding dumb, but I’m going to try. This girl had two legs and a couple of arms. Her hair was long and darkish and braided to one side. She had a body, and her face was arranged in such a way that I didn’t hate looking at it. Like I said, it’s not easy to describe without sounding dumb. Oh yeah, she was also wearing clothes and shoes. I had never seen her before, and the clothes she was wearing looked too heavy for the warm weather we had in Temon. I was surprised to see her, but I was even more surprised to hear what she had to say.

  Trevor looked at me and put his comb away.

  As I shook my head, the girl began to laugh. It wasn’t the kind of laugh that made you think you’d said something funny. It was more like the kind of laugh that made you feel slightly stupid.

  My jaw dropped and my heart stopped.

  I rubbed my eyes and smacked my right palm against my right ear to bang the water out of it. I took a deep breath and spoke.

  I was going to tell Trevor what I had figured out, but I was interrupted by my mom yelling from our front porch.

  In case you don’t know, my mom calls me Ribert. I’m not totally sure why, but I think it has something to do with her wanting to embarrass me as much as she can.

  She didn’t sound happy or mad. She was probably just making sure I came home rather than hanging out on the island in the cul-de-sac that sat in the middle of our neighborhood.

  I turned to say something to the new girl, but she had already taken off, running in the other direction. Trevor looked at me as if wanting answers. I hadn’t actually seen her come from my closet, but I knew she had. I also knew I needed to talk to her.

  Trevor took out his comb again, combed his hair, and then took off. I ran to my house where my mom was standing on the porch with my sister, Libby. My mom had a phone in her hand. It was bright outside, and I could see that she had a slight smile on her face. She reached out to hand me the phone.

  I nervously took the phone from my mom. The voice on the other end belonged to Principal Smelt. He was way too excited for my comfort. He kept talking about how a boy like me, who everyone was mad at, just needed a push in the right direction. I could tell something dreadful was coming.

  Principal Smelt’s idea dealt with his music group. As most people in my neighborhood know, Principal Smelt has a two-man band called Leftover Angst. It’s just him and another teacher, and they sing horrible songs about things that shouldn’t be sung about.

  Their singing was embarrassing, but it was even worse because Principal Smelt played the pan flute and the other teacher played the tambourine. They performed at most school functions and gatherings in our area. Last week they had played at the supermarket for Fruit Awareness Week.

  Principal Smelt wanted me to play with his band at the costume festival my school was having in three days, on Monday. Of course Principal Smelt wasn’t calling it a festival, he was calling it a

  According to Principal Smelt, fun + festival = funstival. It was going to be like the normal fall festival where everyone wears costumes, and there would be a dunk tank and party games. But this year was going to be a little different. Principal Smelt had recently read the Hunger Games trilogy. He was so excited about it that we were going to have our own kind of Hunger Games at the funstival. Instead of calling the contest Hunger Games, he was calling it …

  It was three days away, and I was going to have to be a part of the music. My life was bruised at the moment, and I guess he wanted to make things worse by forcing me to stand in front of everyone and play in his band. When I tried to explain to him that I had no talent, he said,

  Normally even my mom wouldn’t make me do something so humiliating and painful, but she was still upset about all the lies and trouble I had recently caused. She was dead set on me learning my lesson.

  I hung up the phone, wishing I could die. My school already hated me, and now I would be playing the wood block at the funstival. Everyone would make fun of me. I was upset about the band, but I was also worried about what had just happened with Trevor. I needed to check my closet and then find the girl who had just run off. I quickly thought of an excuse to leave. I turned and looked at my mom.

  My mom was leery at first, but when I explained that I just wanted to practice my wood blocking, she said there were some old pieces of lumber in the garage. I thanked her like I meant it and took off. I found a small piece of wood and something to hit it with. I then headed quickly to my room—I had a doorknob to question.

  CHAPTER 5

  DISLIKE OF COOTIES

  When I got to my room, my closet door was opened a few inches and Beardy was smiling at me. I jumped toward him just as the door slammed shut. I tried as hard as I could to pry it open.

  I knew it was useless to keep trying, but I couldn’t think of what else to do. Beardy never opened up unless he wanted to. Puck barked loudly at the door as if it would help.

  Libby came into my room and politely told me to shut up. When I explained to her that it was Puck barking, not me, she said,

  Libby sniffed a couple of times and left. Puck growled at the closet door a few more seconds and then rolled away to find something to eat. I picked up my piece of wood as Trevor popped up at my window.

  Trevor opened the window and spilled into my room. He was going on about how the girl had gotten away, but he stopped talking when he noticed the block of wood I was holding.

  Trevor was really excited. He had always wanted to be in a band. His uncle had just sent him a guiro, which was a Spanish instrument made from a dried vegetable gourd that you rubbed with a stick. Trevor was always itching to play it.

  So far nobody had taken Trevor up on his offer. He begged me to ask Principal Smelt if he could play at the funstival with us. When I told him we had more important things to talk about, he looked hurt.

  Trevor wouldn’t drop it. He made me call Principal Smelt and ask if he could play in the band with us at the funstival. He wouldn’t answer my questions about the girl unless I did. So I called Principal Smelt. Not surprisingly, our principal was okay with it.

  As soon as I hung up I asked Trevor about the girl that had stalked us. He got his comb out of his pocket and began to comb his hair again.

  Trevor started to argue with me about how his mother thought he was handsome and how any girl would be lucky to be friends with him. I begged him to stop.

  Trevor told me that she had run past the island and slipped into the alley behind Aaron’s house. He said she was a fast runner and that she didn’t look very mixed-up like the other creatures who had come out of my closet in the past.

  I paced my bedroom trying to think of what to do. One piece of me wanted to go after her. Another piece was a little scared that a girl had come from my closet. Another was trying to figure out who she was, and another piece just wanted to jump into my bed and pretend my life was as normal as it used to be.

  It was one thing for Wonk and Hairy and Pinocula to mess up my life, but it was something altogether different to have the visitor be a girl. Plus, she wasn’t little like the others. She was relatively normal sized and wouldn’t fit in my drawers or locker or
backpack.

  Trevor and I crawled out my window and walked to the rock island. I scanned the area, hoping she might have come back, but there was no sign of her. Jack, Aaron, and Teddy were on the island, beneath the palm trees, carving bars of soap with kitchen knives. Jack had seen someone carving soap in a movie, and now he spent a good part of his time trying to make things. The best thing he had ever carved was a bird’s nest with three eggs. His other attempts were awful.

  Aaron was apparently bored with carving; he chucked his piece of soap at me and hit me in my knees. I picked it up and threw it back at him. Jack was suddenly the soap police.

  Jack wanted us to sit down and carve our own creations, but first we needed to find the new guest. I told them all that we were looking for something, and they became very curious. I knew they’d find out sooner or later, so I decided to spill the beans. I told them about the girl who had followed us, and how I thought she must have come from my closet, and how we now had to find her.

  They all jumped up and volunteered to help. When they asked what she looked like I finally said what I had been thinking since I first saw her.

  I thought Aaron and Jack didn’t care for The Hunger Games, but they seemed pretty pumped up about Katniss.

  For those of you who don’t know, The Hunger Games is all about a dark future where the world’s gone nuts and kids have to compete against each other for food. It’s a cool story, but it’s not always happy. Katniss is a strong, brave girl who volunteers to take her little sister’s place in the games. She does a bunch of amazing girl-power things, and she has mad bow and arrow skills. There are a couple of boys in the book that like her and a few grown-ups that don’t. In the end she … well … I don’t want to spoil the ending.

  Trevor started to say something about how important it was to look for her before the trail grew cold, but he was stopped by Teddy who suddenly looked scared and was pointing to the top of the palm trees above us. I glanced up. But because of the sun I couldn’t see anything besides the shadow of the huge leaves.

  I should have looked harder.

  CHAPTER 6

  BANG A GONG

  I glanced back down and saw Aaron pointing. I turned my head up, and as I did, something came flying down toward us from the palm leaves. It hit Rourk hard and slammed him against the ground. I fell backward as Rourk tried to push whatever it was off him. Dirt flew up and got into my eyes as the sound of Rourk struggling filled my ears. I wiped my eyes, and there she was. She had Rourk’s arms pinned behind his back as he was pressed belly-first against the ground. Rourk was kicking and screaming, but it wasn’t doing him any good. She pulled up on his arms as he lay on the ground.

  I wondered if Rourk even knew what his quads were and if I should try to help. I didn’t know what to do. I looked at my other friends, but they were all just standing there. That’s not completely true—Trevor and Teddy had taken their combs out and were fixing their hair.

  The girl let go of Rourk’s arms and rolled him over onto his back. She pinned down both of his arms and stared directly into his eyes.

  The girl jumped off Rourk. She tried to stare into Aaron’s eyes.

  A noisy truck was coming down the road, and the tree-climbing girl glanced at it. Rourk stood up, trying to look cool about being knocked down by a tree girl. I was going to say something, but she spoke first.

  Before I could ask her what the heck she was talking about, she turned and took off running. She darted in front of the oncoming truck and off through a distant alley before I could tell my legs to run.

  My friends had a lot of questions for me. Most of them had to do with whether or not I thought the new girl liked them.

  I couldn’t really blame them. There was something about her that made me want to stand up straight and make sure my socks were clean.

  Of all the questions my friends were asking, Trevor’s was the most interesting.

  I was going to admit that I had no idea, when an odd noise sounded. I should tell you that the noise was not one that we heard often in our neighborhood.

  Six houses down, there lives a man named Mr. Foote. In his backyard he has a huge gong that he rings only twice a year—once on Chinese New Year and once on his wedding anniversary. It’s an important gong, and when he does ring it, it’s so loud that the whole neighborhood can hear it. A year ago Jack mistakenly hopped over Mr. Foote’s fence and accidentally rang the gong.

  Mr. Foote was usually pretty nice, but he was not happy about that. He threatened to take Jack to court and sue his parents. Apparently, the gong means a lot to him, and now it had just gone off—twice! We knew it wasn’t Chinese New Year, and Mr. Foote’s anniversary was in the summer. Jack wasn’t about to take the blame.

  Mr. Foote came running out of his house. He spotted us all on the island and jumped up and down as he ran toward us. I thought about running myself, but he had to know that with us standing on the island, there was no way we could have rung the gong. He yelled at us as we all stood there speechless and with blank faces.

  Then he stormed off, promising to find out who had done it. Even though Mr. Foote was six houses down we could hear the sound of him slamming his door as he went back into his house. I looked at my friends. Trevor whispered,

  I nodded. I was 99 percent sure that it had been the tree girl who had rung the gong. There was only a tiny bit of me that felt differently.

  The girl had taken off in the direction of Mr. Foote’s house, and she seemed like the kind of person who would gong someone’s gong when she shouldn’t.

  Before we could figure anything out, my mom spotted me at the island and called me back home to practice my wood block. Trevor went home to practice his guiro, and the rest of my friends continued to practice their soap carving.

  CHAPTER 7

  ROTISSERIE CHICKEN

  After I hit the block of wood for a while, my mom asked me to please stop and go clean the pool. I was able to stop hitting the block, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl.

  Of course there was always a little bit of me that thought about pie. But at the moment I didn’t know where the girl was and I didn’t have any pie. I did, however, have jobs to do. Normally I don’t mind taking care of the pool—I get to test the chemicals and use the net to scoop dead bugs off the top of the water. But I don’t like the job when I have to watch Tuffin at the same time. He always swims as I clean, and if he’s not splashing me, he’s making the pool dirtier.

  My dad came out to swim laps, but when he saw Tuffin was swimming, he decided to do something else.

  While my dad was stretching, I saw something fly up over the alley wall behind our house and into our backyard. The object fell to the ground with a thud. Two seconds later, closet girl hopped up over the fence and landed on her feet right next to the object. My dad had his back turned doing his stretches, so he didn’t see any of it. I ran over to the girl and looked down at what she had thrown over.

  Apparently, she had used her bow and arrow to shoot a chicken that someone had been roasting.

  My dad started to do toe touches. As he was bending over with his head upside down, he spotted me and my visitor.

  My dad smiled and stood up straight. My father rarely looked mad. In fact, most of the time he was smiling. Now, as he spotted me talking to a strange girl in our backyard, he looked even happier than usual. He spun around and raced over to us. I was scared he was going to knock us both down since he was walking so fast. He skidded to a halt in front of us and stuck out his hand.

  I had no idea how she would act toward my father, or how she would answer his question. I knew I needed to speak up. I needed to think of something quick. My brain ran around inside my head trying to figure out what to say and do.

  I had been trying really hard not to lie lately. Pinocula had made things uncomfortable with all the lies and confusion he had put me through. I figured it was best to stick as close to the truth as possible.

  It wasn’t a real lie, but it was definitely
a stretch of the truth. Despite what Beardy might say, there really is no Closet family. And since she looked, and acted, strong and independent like Katniss, I figured Kat would do as a nickname. My dad noticed what was lying on the ground and leaned in to ask me something. I didn’t really have an answer so I made something up.

  Kat was cool. She smiled at my dad and acted like what I was saying made sense. The characters that came from my closet usually were willing to help me keep their purpose a secret, and Kat was no different. I was a little nervous when my dad asked her what country she was from, but she answered,

  My dad smiled. I think he thought she said the country of Panama because he said,

  My dad kept talking. He was being his typical friendly self. He told Kat how he had seen a show on TV about the Panama Canal and how hard it was to build. He asked Kat about what kind of playground equipment they had in her country, and she told them there really wasn’t any.

  My father loved talking about his job, and now here was a foreigner in his backyard who had apparently grown up without slides and swings.