Road trip! The Moodys were on their way to Washington, D.C. Double Cool!

In the car, Judy could hardly sit still. In almost exactly one hour and twenty-seven minutes, she would be in the District of (not) Cooties!

Except it took more like four hours because of Stink.

1.) He had to stop to go to the bathroom.

2.) He had to stop to buy some Yubba Dubba bubble gum.

3.) He saw a giant statue of a giant’s head coming up out of the ground and — POP! — got bubble gum all over his face and hair.

4.) He had to stop to get de-gummed.

When at last, finally, the end, they got there, Judy had to wake him up. “Stink! We’re here! The District of Coolsville!”

Dad parked and they walked along the Mall that was not a mall at all. It was more like a park with a long reflecting pool and tons of famous, cool stuff you see on money. Judy saw the fancy White House where the Big Boss of the Whole Entire Country lived. Aka the Prez. Plus the First Lady and First Kids and First Dog.

Da-da-da Dome! Judy saw a big important building with a dome where some Big Important People decided Big Important Stuff like laws or something.

Judy saw a tall, skinny pyramid thingie called the Washington Monument. Mom said it was almost as tall as the Eiffel Tower!

Her eyes bugged out when she saw the real, actual statue of Abe Lincoln, called the Lincoln Memorial, just like on the back of a not-lucky penny. RARE!

“I bet James Madison, best-president-ever, stood right here,” said Stink. “James Madison could have spit on this sidewalk. James Madison could have eaten a hot dog on this bench.”

“Hot dogs weren’t even invented yet,” said Judy.

“How do you know?” said Stink.

“I know you have James Madison on the brain,” said Judy.

Dad checked his watch. “Who wants to go to the museum?”

“Is it the boring kind? Or the way-not-boring kind?” said Judy.

“Way-not-boring,” said Mom, pointing to a bunch of museums that were part of the Smithsonian.

“Whoa! Check it out,” Stink said, running down the sidewalk. “A castle!”

“Let’s start there,” said Dad. “It’s the info center.”

“What do they have at this way-not-boring museum?” Judy asked.

“The Hope Diamond,” said Mom.

“Lincoln’s stovepipe hat,” said Dad.

“Shrunken heads and dino poop!” said Stink.

“They do not,” said Judy.

“Yah-huh. No lie,” said Stink. “I saw it when I came here before with my class. Plus they have three thousand sea slugs, fifty thousand flies, and one hundred and fifteen thousand bird eggs.”

“We are SO there,” said Judy.

Here is what she, Judy Moody, saw up-close-and-personal at the way-not-boring museum:

• Astronaut boots

• Barf bags

• Brick from the Great Wall of China

• Robber crabs (They steal forks and spoons! No lie!)

• 7 million beetles, including the endangered Northeast beach tiger beetle

• 1 million samples of dirt

• 10,000-year-old sloth dung

• President Warren G. Harding’s pajamas

• Lock of George Washington’s hair (+ hairy locks of 13 more presidents)

• Way-old pack of gum

After the museum, they hit the gift shop. Judy used her lucky Crazy Strips money to get freeze-dried ice cream (just like the astronauts). And a book about stuff to make with duct tape.

Stink already had the James Madison six-inch ruler, the James Madison mini statue, and the James Madison friendship coin. And they were all sold out of James Madison talking bobbleheads. So he got a plastic un-talking statue of Abe Lincoln.

“Abe Lincoln is my second-best president,” said Stink as they walked back to the car. “See? It says eman-ci-potato at the bottom.”

“Potato? Let me see,” said Judy. She sounded out the word at the bottom.

“E-M-A-N-C-I-P-A-T-I-O-N. What’s emancipation?” Judy asked Mom and Dad.

“It means to set free,” said Mom.

“Lincoln set potatoes free?” Stink asked.

Mom chuckled. “No, Lincoln is famous for writing something called the Emancipation Proclamation.”

“In it, he said slaves should be free,” Dad added.

“Everybody knows that,” said Stink.

“Speaking of Abe Lincoln,” said Judy. “Will we have time to go to the Museum of Doctor Stuff? They have Abe Lincoln’s skull bone there. No lie.”

“Sorry, Jelly Bean,” said Dad. “Mom already checked. The National Museum of Health and Medicine had a power outage. They’re closed today.”

“Rat fink,” said Judy.

“How about the World’s Almost-Biggest Chair?” Stink asked. “I didn’t get to see that last time. Can we go? Can we? Can we?”

“Sure,” said Dad.

“No fair. Stink gets to do his thing and my thing is closed. That stinks on ice.”

“Tell you what,” said Mom, checking her map. “We can drive past the chair on our way to the Frederick Douglass House in Cedar Hill.”

“Frederick Douglass! Mr. Todd told us all about him for Black History Month.”

“I thought you might like that,” said Mom.

“Who’s Frederick Douglass?” Stink asked.

“He was a great American thinker and speaker,” said Dad.

“He was a slave and he escaped and fought for freedom,” said Mom.

“He told President Lincoln how being a slave was really, really bad,” said Judy. “And he said everybody should be able to vote. He even got in a fight with Lincoln about it. But that was like four score and seven million years ago.”

Mom smiled.

“I think Mr. Todd would be proud of you,” said Dad.

“And now I can tell him I saw his house!”

The World’s Almost-Biggest Chair sat out on the sidewalk in front of a parking lot.

“Can I climb up it?” Stink asked.

“Go ahead,” said Judy. “If you want to get the World’s Biggest Time-Out!”

Next stop: Cedar Hill. When they got to the Frederick Douglass house, there was an orange plastic fence around it, and yellow tape that said DO NOT CROSS.

“Under construction,” said Mom.

“Aw, this is closed, too?” Judy asked. Double rat fink! She should have rubbed her lucky penny.

A park ranger came out and said they were fixing up the house, and all the stuff was in storage. But they could take a tour of the grounds.

Bor-ing! Judy and Stink sat on a bummed-out bench while Mom and Dad walked around and read blah-blah-blah to each other from their guidebooks.

The flyer with the map had a lot of pictures. “Here, I’ll give you the tour, Stink,” said Judy. “This is a fancy bedroom. This is a fancy room where he played checkers. This is the not-so-fancy kitchen.”

Stink peered at the shiny pictures. “Hey, wait. What’s this?” Judy saw a picture of a little stone house with a chimney. “Stink! Follow me!”

Judy led the way to a little stone house in the backyard. Inside was a high desk with a stool. “What is it?” Stink asked as they stepped through the doorway.

“It’s called the Growlery,” said Judy. “This is where Frederick Douglass came to growl when he was in a bad mood.”

“No. What is it for real?”

“That is for real, Stink. No lie. It says so right here.” Judy pointed to the caption under the picture. “He had a whole house for bad moods.”

“A bad mood house. Whoa,” said Stink. “GRRRRRRR!” He roared like a lion.

“ROARRRRRRR!” said Judy.

Mom and Dad poked their heads into the Growlery.

“It’s a house for bad moods!” said Judy.

“I see,” said Dad.

“I heard,” said Mom.

“We should move this to our house. For Judy!” Stink cracked himself up.

“Time to go, kids,” said Dad. “We have to meet the Finches for dinner so Judy can find out about taking care of PeeGee. Then we’ll check into our hotel.”

“Can’t we stay a little longer?” asked Stink.

“Please-pretty-please with astronaut ice cream on top?” Judy asked.

“Five minutes,” said Mom.

She, Judy Moody, was still the luckiest kid alive. How many kids got to go to the District of Cool and see a giant giant’s head, robber crabs, and a 10,000-year-old ball of dung? And scream their heads off in a Bad Mood house? All in one day!

Washington was Washingfun!