“Yeah,” said Skunk. “I don’t get why they voted to take it away.”
“Because Pluto’s puny like a dwarf,” Riley butted in. “Pluto gets its butt kicked by all the other planets. If an asteroid came, Pluto would be all ‘Aah! I’m scared,’ and shrink away.”
“Nah-uh!” said Stink.
“Yah-huh. Ask anybody. I learned it at Space Camp.”
“Space Camp, Space Camp, Space Camp!” said Stink. “People should boycott Space Camp for telling lies about Pluto.”
“Stink! Riley!” Mrs. D. said sharply. “What’s going on back there? You’re supposed to be working on your Science.”
Riley’s hand shot up into the air. “This is Science,” she said. “That’s what we were fighting about.”
Mrs. D. came over to their tables. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Riley says there’s no Pluto,” said Stink, “and I say there is.”
“Riley, what makes you say there’s no Pluto?” asked Mrs. D.
“You said it yourself!” said Riley. “Pluto got its butt kicked out of the solar system. It’s just a number now.”
“Riley, I’d rather you didn’t say ‘butt’ in this class.”
Stink couldn’t keep from smiling when his teacher said butt.
“But it’s still up there,” Stink said, “even if it is a dwarf planet.”
“Actually,” said Mrs. D., “you’re both right.”
“Huh?”
“Scientists argued about it, too. They had to study Pluto for a long time.”
“Then they had a big meeting,” said Riley, “and voted it O-U-T out!”
“Yes, they did,” said Mrs. D. “But some scientists still think Pluto should be called a planet.”
“YES!” Stink pumped his arm in the air and high-fived his team.
“Tell you what,” said Mrs. D. “Why don’t we turn it over to our own panel of scientists?”
“You mean we get to be scientists right here in our class?” asked Stink.
“Sure. We can have a discussion, a debate next Friday. Riley, your team can explain why you think Pluto should not be a planet anymore. Stink, your team can argue why Pluto should still be a planet. You have exactly one week to prepare your arguments.”
“Super Galileo!” said Stink.
Riley narrowed her eyes at Stink. “Stink Moody, you are SUCH a . . . a . . . Pluto Head!”
“Thanks,” said Stink, sitting up a little taller.
The following Monday morning, Stink was in a huddle with his friends. “We have to tell everybody about Pluto so they’ll vote to keep it in the solar system.”
“Let’s tell the whole world!” said Sophie.
“The whole galaxy!” said Webster.
“The whole universe!” said Skunk.
Stink’s team made up a secret handshake. They each held out a fist and piled one on top of the other.
“P-L-U-T-O!” they shouted, then waved their hands high in the air and yelled, “PLUTO POWER!”
“Look out. Here comes Riley and her friends,” said Skunk.
“Logan, Morgan, and Heather aren’t her friends,” said Stink. “They’re just on her team because she let them touch her space rock.”
“Space rock?” said Riley. “It’s a hunk of meteor. From Mars!”
“La-di-da,” said Skunk.
“What’s your team’s name?” asked Riley. “The Stink Bombs?”
“What’s yours — the Jupiter Jerks?” asked Stink.
“It’s WAY more official if you have a name. We’re Team Kick-Pluto’s-Butt. Team KPB for short.”
“No way will Mrs. D. let you use butt in your team name,” said Stink. “This is a school thing.”
“Okay, then we’ll be Team Kick-Pluto’s-Behind. That’s still KPB.”
“Whatever,” said Sophie.
“Stink, you just like Pluto because it’s the smallest and you’re the shortest.” Riley said. “You’re always for the underdog, but everybody knows that Jupiter is the best. We even have team shirts!” she said.
Just then, Riley’s team lined up beside her, all wearing the same shirts. The shirts did not say SPACE CAMP RULES. The shirts did not say TEAM KPB. The shirts did not even have words. Each shirt had a number: 134340. The number for Pluto, now that it wasn’t a planet!
Stink looked down at his shirt. I’M KIND OF A BIG DEAL. He took the top off of a marker and changed it to PLUTO IS KIND OF A BIG DEAL.
“Look! Up in the sky, Stink.” Riley pointed. “It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a frog. No, wait. It’s a puny ex-planet getting kicked out of the solar system!” Team KPB cracked up. “You should be Team Underdog.” Riley Rottenberger sure was rotten. And getting rottener by the minute.
After school, Stink and his team met in the Toad Pee Club clubhouse, aka the backyard tent. “We need an official name,” said Stink.
“How about the Stinkazoids?” said Skunk.
“The Plutonics?” asked Webster.
“The Extra-Extra-Galactic Einsteins?” asked Sophie.
“Maybe Rotten Riley was right for once,” said Stink. “We could be the Underdogs. You know, small like Pluto, but we come from behind to beat the pants off the Jupiter Jerks.”
“And you could be Captain Pluto, our leader,” said Sophie of the Elves.
“Captain Pluto and the Underdogs,” said Stink. “I like it!” Everybody agreed. Captain Pluto and the Underdogs made T-shirts for their team. They each drew a flying planet wearing a Superman cape with a capital letter P.
“Let’s make signs, too,” said Skunk.
“‘Cuckoo for Pluto’” said Webster, waving his marker in the air.
“We can march around school and wave our Pluto signs.”
“We can have a Pluto parade on the playground,” said Stink.
For a long time, all that could be heard in the tent was the squeaking of markers.
At last, the signs were finished. The Underdogs went home. Stink ate supper and thought about Pluto. He took a bath and thought about Pluto. He did his not-science homework and thought about Pluto. Stink Moody, aka Captain Pluto, had Pluto on the brain!
Stink went to bed and couldn’t sleep a wink. He sneaked outside to the tent. He shone his flashlight on the signs lined up in a quiet parade. Next thing he knew, a bright light was shining back at him, right smack in his eyes. “Hey!” called Stink, shielding his eyes.
“Stink Moody,” said a deep voice, “this is the Pluto police. Come out with your hands up.”
But it was not the Pluto police. It was just Judy.
“You scared me half to death,” said Stink. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”
“What do you think? I’m spying on what you’re doing out here in the middle of the night.” Judy’s flashlight hit the signs. PLUTO IS KIND OF A BIG DEAL. “Wow! Did you guys make all these?”
“Yep. Today. What do you think?”
“I think you have Pluto-itis. You need a Pluto-ectomy,” said Dr. Judy.
“I couldn’t sleep,” said Stink. “Just think,” he half-whispered, pointing to the night sky. “Pluto’s up there, right now, billions of miles away, just waiting for us to save it. To earthlings, it just looks like a golf ball with dimples. But it’s spinning out there with tons of other hunks of rock and chunks of ice. And it needs us.”
“And don’t forget space junk,” said Judy. “You know, the trash astronauts throw away. Like fridges and stuff.”
“They don’t have refrigerators flying around in outer space!”
“Yah-huh. And paper clips and sneakers and decks of cards and empty jars of Tang and all sorts of stuff.”
Judy and Stink tilted their heads back and stared up at the sky.
“Killer rocks are out there, too,” said Stink, “streaking through space. One could smash into Earth at any second. A big giant asteroid like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs could be on its way, headed right for Planet Earth.”
“Cosmic,”
said Judy. “You better hope an asteroid hits before Mom and Dad find you out here in your PJs on a school night when you’re supposed to be in bed.”
Stink and Judy headed back to bed. But before they did, Stink turned off his flashlight. He held two fingers up to the sky. “Urp!” he said. “We come in peace.”
Early the next morning, Stink’s team stood out in front of the school. As the buses pulled up, Captain Pluto and the Underdogs waved their signs.
Rotten Riley marched up to Stink, hands on hips. “School hasn’t even started yet,” she said. “Mrs. D. said we could do this only during recess.”
“Who can wait?” said Stink.
Riley turned and stomped away. “Oh, you just wait. I’ll get you for this, Stink Moody.”
“That’s Captain Pluto to you!” yelled Stink.
“And the Underdogs!” yelled the Underdogs.
At recess, Captain P. and the Underdogs waved signs again. They shouted stuff. They even sang songs. “R-E-S-P-E-C-T! That’s what Pluto needs from me,” Stink sang at the top of his lungs.
“Give me a P!” Skunk yelled. “Give me an L! Give me a U! Give me a T! Give me an O! What have you got?”
“PLUTO!” yelled the Underdogs.
“I can’t hear you!”
“PLUTO!” screamed the Underdogs. Soon nearly half the whole playground was screaming, too.
Then out came Rotten Riley and the KPBs. They were dressed in black from head to toe and carrying shovels.
“Are they wearing garbage bags?” asked Sophie. Sure enough, Riley and the KPBs had on black garbage bags with holes cut where their heads and arms poked through.
Somebody yelled, “Who forgot to take out the trash?”
“We’re not trash,” said Riley. “We’re dressed in black because we’re going to a funeral.”
“Huh? Wha?”
“FYI, Pluto died. Pluto is D-E-A-D dead.”
Then Riley and her rotten team began to dig in the dirt, but they were not planting a garden. They were not searching for buried treasure. They were digging a grave. A grave for Pluto!
“We’ve been skunked!” said Skunk.
Riley took out a tiny plastic ball. “Pluto is officially dead,” she said, dropping the ball into the hole and covering it over with dirt.
“Good-bye, Pluto,” said the KPBs. “Sure, we’ll miss you. But you’re not a planet anymore.”
When they were done, they put up markers in the dirt, like at a pet cemetery.
“Moment of silence, please,” said Riley with a serious face. A hush fell over the second-grade crowd, and the playground was dead silent.
Stink felt like he was in a black hole. He couldn’t help it. He spoke. He broke the spell. “Pluto is SO not dead, Riley Rottenberger!”
Stink walked away at warp speed, leaving a dust tail behind him.
URP!
Stink had to think, think, think. He had to think up a way-smart Pluto plan. A rottener-than-Riley plan. Something that would convince Class 2D and Mrs. Dempster that Pluto wasn’t dead. But what?
Stink fed Toady. Stink talked to Astro. Stink drove and drove and drove. His car bed, that is. All the way to outer space.
Stink’s race-car bed was covered with tons of bumper stickers.
Stink stared at the bumper stickers. Suddenly he saw them in a brand-new way.
Faster than you can say “Ratbert” (the Mars rock, not rat), Stink had an idea. A plan.
Stink took out the Make Your Own Magnetic Bumper Sticker kit that he had gotten from Judy for his birthday. He made a brand-new bumper sticker.
A perfect Pluto bumper sticker.
All he needed now was a bumper. Stink knew just the bumper and just the car for Operation Bumper Sticker.
Now all he needed were the Underdogs. His team. A few good friends to be his lookouts.
The next morning before the bell rang, Captain Pluto and the Underdogs met under the big maple tree by the teachers’ parking lot.
“Listen up,” said Stink. “It’s not just a plan. It’s more like a mission. You know, to help Pluto.”
“Yeah, Mission Impossible,” said Webster. “Impossible that you won’t get caught and get in big trouble.”
“I won’t get caught,” said Stink. “That’s why I have you guys.”
“Okay, we’re in,” said Skunk, starting the secret Pluto handshake.
“I just need you guys to be on the lookout while I sneak up to the car,” said Stink. “Make sure no teachers are coming.”
“We’ll be like spies,” said Webster.
“Outer-space spies,” said Sophie.
“If a teacher comes, yell out the secret code,” said Stink.
“What’s the secret code?” asked Skunk.
“Urp!” said Stink. “Just say ‘Urp’!” He grinned. “Okay, places everybody.” Skunk hid behind the tree. Webster ducked behind a trash can. And Sophie crouched behind a bench.
Stink looked left. Stink looked right. The coast was clear. He scooted across the parking lot. He ducked behind a green car, darted beside a black van, and scooched over to a blue Mini.
He pulled the bumper sticker from his back pocket and, in a split second, stuck it to the blue Mini’s bumper: HONK IF YOU LOVE PLUTO.
“Urp!” Sophie called in a loud whisper, but Stink didn’t hear.
“Urp! Urp! Urp!” yelled the others.
Stink stood up.
Right smack in front of Stink was a teacher. A tall teacher.
Judy’s teacher, Mr. Todd.
“Hello there, Stink,” said Mr. Todd.
“Hi, Mr. Toad — I mean Todd,” Stink croaked.
“Checking out the Mini, huh? Great little car. Roomier than it looks. I’ve been thinking about getting one of these guys myself. Saves on gas.”
“Yeah, gas,” said Stink, backing up to stand in front of the top-secret super-sneaky bumper sticker.
“Well, we’d both better be getting to class, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, class,” said Stink.
Stink and Mr. Todd headed for the front door, followed by three super-sneaky, second-grade outer-space spies.
Mission Impossible had just become Mission Accomplished.
On Thursday, Mrs. D. announced, “Everybody take out your science books. Turn to page sixty-seven.”
Stink lugged the heavy book out of his desk. He opened to page sixty-seven. Stink could not believe his eyes. “Hey,” he said, looking around. “Mrs. D.! Something’s not right.”
“Somebody wrote all over my science book!” called somebody else.
“Me too!”
“Me three!”
“Somebody crossed out all the Plutos!” shouted Stink, looking around at all the other books.
“Boys and girls,” said Mrs. D., “let’s just keep calm.” She walked around the room, up and down the aisles, looking at everybody’s books.
“The Evil Science-Book Fairy strikes again,” said Sophie of the Elves.
“Anti-Pluto goblins are on the loose,” said Webster.
“Now, class, you know we don’t go around writing in textbooks. Would anyone like to tell me who did this?”
“Yeah, whoever did this sure is rotten,” said Stink, glaring at Riley.
“Okay, okay,” said Riley. “I did it.”
“Riley, you know better than this. What were you thinking?”
“Well, Pluto’s not a planet anymore. So I crossed it out — when everyone was at recess.”
“I thought we agreed we’d hold a debate on Friday.”
“We did, but I had to do something. Even you’ve already taken sides.”
“No one’s taken any sides,” said Mrs. D. “I’m leaving it up to all of you. Class 2D will debate and decide for themselves, fair and square.”
“Then why are you driving all over town getting everybody in the whole world to honk for Pluto?”
Mrs. D. looked confused. Heather Strong pointed out the window at a little blue Mini parked outside. Mrs. Demps
ter’s little blue Mini.
Mrs. D. leaned and peered out the window at a mysterious bumper sticker on her car. HONK IF YOU LOVE PLUTO.
She couldn’t help smiling. “So that’s why everybody’s been honking at me since yesterday!”
“See?” said Riley. “I rest my case.”
“Riley, I didn’t know anything about it until just now. I think we may have a Bumper Sticker Bandit in Class 2D.”
“And I bet his name is Stink Moody!” said Riley, pointing.
“Stink,” asked Mrs. D., “do you know anything about this?”
“I might,” said Stink. “Okay, I did it!”
“Boys and girls, I know we’re all enthusiastic about the subject of Pluto. But you know better than to go around writing in schoolbooks and sticking bumper stickers on cars without asking permission. Riley, Stink, I’m disappointed in you both.”
“Sorry,” said Stink.
“Sorry,” said Riley.
“Stink, first of all, I’m going to need you to go peel off that bumper sticker at recess.”
“It’s just a magnet,” said Stink. “It’s not even stuck!”
Mrs. D. nodded. “And you and Riley are going to spend recess erasing all the marks in the books.”
This was going to be a no-good, rotten recess. The rottenest.
Stink zoomed around the room, desk by desk. He erased book after book after book. He made a pile of eraser crumbs. A blizzard of eraser crumbs. A mountain of eraser crumbs.
Glancing across the room at Riley, Stink asked, “Did you know that before they had rubber for erasers, they actually used bread crumbs?”
Riley didn’t say a word.
“Did you know that the eraser was invented more than two hundred years ago?”
Riley didn’t say a word.