CHAPTER 27

Chelsea cleared her throat, took another swig from her water bottle, and began.

“This is a picture of me the day I was born,” she said, pointing to a photo on the first page of her scrapbook. “The caption I wrote says, ‘Hi World! I’m here and I’m bald.’”

Everyone laughed. First of all, that was a pretty funny thing to say. And second of all, we were trying to make Chelsea comfortable.

I didn’t hear McKelty laughing, which is unusual, because when he laughs it sounds like a foghorn going off. I glanced over at him and saw him reaching down and fumbling in his backpack for something. It was just like him not to pay attention.

Chelsea turned the page and held up her scrapbook so we could all see.

“This is a picture of my first birthday party,” she said. “I’m the one with chocolate cake all over my face. The caption says, ‘There really is a face behind all the chocolate frosting, I promise.’”

The picture made me think of my first birthday party. I don’t remember it, of course, but we have a picture of it in our family album. Papa Pete is holding out a dill pickle and I’m sitting in a high chair, taking a lick of it and looking like I’m going to cry. Things change, because I’m a huge dill pickle fan now. Next to pepperoni pizza and black-and-white cookies, they’re my favorite food.

“I love chocolate,” McKelty blurted out as if anyone cared.

“Nick, this is Chelsea’s turn to talk,” Mr. Rock said.

McKelty’s interruption rattled Chelsea a little, and as she went to turn the page, she dropped her scrapbook on the floor.

“Butterfingers,” McKelty said, in a whisper loud enough for everyone to hear.

Mr. Rock went immediately to the front of the room to help Chelsea pick up her scrapbook and reopen it to the right page. While that was happening, I shot McKelty a dirty look, trying to send him a message that no one appreciated him interrupting Chelsea. He didn’t see me, though, because he was busy slipping something into his jacket pocket. I couldn’t see what it was.

“Go on, Chelsea,” Mr. Rock said. “You’re doing great.”

Chelsea picked up her water and took another gulp.

“When I was three,” she went on, swallowing hard, “I had to go to the hospital to get stitches because I got my finger caught in a door. I was very scared, but a nice doctor took a rubber glove and blew it up like a balloon and gave it to me. This is me at the hospital. The caption says, ‘What an unusual balloon. It has five fingers!’”

It was a little hard for me to hear Chelsea reading the caption, because McKelty was making noise as usual. I don’t know what he was doing in his pocket, but it sounded like he was crinkling up paper or something. Knowing him, he was probably destroying a spelling test he got a zero on.

“Excellent, Chelsea,” Mr. Rock said. “‘Unusual’ is a very difficult word to read. Go on!”

I think Chelsea was starting to relax a little. I could see that her hands weren’t shaking as much as she turned to the next page.

“This page isn’t a picture,” she said. “It’s a copy of my favorite poem that my mom used to read to me every night. It’s called The Owl and the Pussycat.”

“Sounds stupid,” McKelty muttered.

I turned around to tell him to be quiet, but he already had his back to me. He was still fidgeting with something in his pocket.

“Why don’t you try to read us a little of the poem,” Mr. Rock said.

“It’s pretty hard,” Chelsea answered.

“Just give it a try,” Mr. Rock said. “We’re all interested, aren’t we, kids?”

Everyone nodded.

Chelsea took some water and a deep breath, and then slowly started to read, pausing a lot between the words to try to figure them out. It sounded like me reading. I knew how nervous she must have been. Every time I have to read out loud, my stomach feels all jimbly and jambly.

“The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beau . . . beau . . . beautiful pea-green boat,” Chelsea read.

She looked up and could see from our faces that we were all rooting for her. She smiled a little. I felt really happy for her and flashed her my best Hank Zipzer grin. As she smiled back, her eyes drifted to the chair next to me. Suddenly, her expression changed. She looked scared or disturbed or something, and cast her eyes back down on her scrapbook really fast. I whipped around to look at McKelty. His cheeks looked very puffy, like there was something in his mouth.

“You’re not doing the tongue thing again, are you, McKelty?” I whispered to him.

“Hank, no talking now,” Mr. Rock said. “Chelsea needs our full attention while she’s reading her poem.”

I pretended to look at Chelsea, but I kept one eye on McKelty while Chelsea went on reading her poem.

“They took some honey and plenty of money wrapped up in a five-pound note,” she read. “The owl looked up to the stars above and sang to a small guitar . . .”

With that, Chelsea looked up, pretending to be the singing owl. In that one little glance, there was time for her eyes to catch a glimpse of Nick McKelty. And in that split second, the big lug opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. It was covered with chocolate goop and chunky chocolate crumbs.

Oh, no! It was another Ding Dong attack! And once again, no one saw it but me. Me and Chelsea Byrd.

Chelsea gasped and dropped the scrapbook. On its way down to the ground, it nicked the table and knocked over her bottle of water. The scrapbook she had worked so hard on landed kerplop on the floor. The water gushed out of the bottle and spilled all over everything, dripping onto the floor like pouring rain. I could see the ink on the pages turning into a blue river as the water washed over her handwritten captions.

Chelsea burst into tears. Mr. Rock was next to her in no time.

“It’s okay, Chelsea,” he said, picking up her scrapbook and blotting it with his handkerchief. “Accidents happen. That’s why we call them accidents.”

“That was no accident,” I shouted out.

Everyone turned to stare at me.

“McKelty Ding-Donged her!” I said.

Zoe whipped her head around and gave me an angry stare. “You’re not starting this again, are you, Hank?” she whispered.

“You didn’t see what happened,” I whispered back. “I did!”

“What are you talking about, Hank?” Mr. Rock asked.

“He stuck his chocolaty tongue out at Chelsea,” I said. “I saw him do it. And it threw her off completely.”

“Is this true, Chelsea?” Mr. Rock said. “Did Nick stick his tongue out at you?”

Chelsea was so embarrassed that she wouldn’t even lift up her head to answer. She just buried her face in her hands and cried.

“Nick, did you do such a thing?” Mr. Rock asked him.

“There’s nothing in my mouth, Mr. Rock,” Nick said. “See?”

He opened his mouth, and just like at the Tae Kwon Do match, it was empty.

“Look in his pocket,” I said. “I saw him take the Ding Dong from his backpack and slip it into his pocket. I’ll bet there’s a wrapper in there.”

“Nick, can I see what’s in your pocket?” Mr. Rock asked.

Nick put his hand in his pocket and turned it inside out. There was nothing in there.

“The other pocket,” I said. “He took it from the other pocket.”

Mr. Rock came over and stood next to Nick. He gave him a look like I have never seen Mr. Rock give anyone else before. It was strict. It was tough. It was disappointed.

“I’d like to see what’s in the other pocket,” Mr. Rock said.

“Zipperbutt just makes stuff up,” McKelty said.

“NOW!” Mr. Rock said.

McKelty reached into his pocket and turned it inside out.

A short, stubby pencil fell out.

Then a little blue NERF ball.

Then a ChapStick.

The last thing to fall out was a crumpled up Ding Dong wrapper.

“I don’t know where that came from,” Nick McKelty said.

But I knew. And Frankie knew. And Mr. Rock knew. And Chelsea knew.

And now, finally, Zoe knew, too.