When we were outside, Mr. Hooper said to us, “Question … what would you do if someone was shooting gum at you with the Bubble Blaster?”

“I’d run away,” I said.

Perry said, “I’d do a front flip, then I’d karate chop the Bubble Blaster right out of his hands.”

He would, too. Perry has some crazy ninja skills.

“Wrong!” Mr. Hooper cried. “You would use your Invisibility Vest!” He whipped out a piece of paper from his back pocket and started reading instructions out loud.

“‘Flip on the switch in the front of the vest,’” he read.

Perry and I looked down at our vests, found the switches, and flipped them on.

“‘Next, flap your arms like a chicken,’” Mr. Hooper read.

“Are you sure, Dad?” Perry said.

“That’s what it says.” Mr. Hooper waved the instructions at us.

Perry shrugged, then started flapping. I started flapping, too.

You would think people would stare at two kids who were wearing solar panels on their heads and flapping like chickens. But mostly people didn’t pay much attention to us. At first, anyway.

After a minute or so something odd began to happen. Green smoke started to seep out of a tube in the back of our vests.

“Um, Dad. I think we’re on fire,” Perry said.

We did. But now it was looking like we wouldn’t come back with our eyebrows still on our faces.

“Hey, Otis,” Perry said. “Is it my imagination, or does this smoke smell bad?”

I took a sniff.

“Uggggh! It smells like clam chowder and body odor!”

The green smoke started getting thicker. People were beginning to stare.

“Holy cow, what did you two eat for lunch?” one guy said as he walked by, holding his nose. “You’re tooting green smoke!”

“That’s a Texas Bean Bomber,” a guy told him. “I read about them in a medical book.”

“Nah, that’s a Thunder Dumpling,” a lady said. “My grandfather used to do those after Sunday dinner.”

“Don’t stop flapping!” Mr. Hooper shouted. “Just think … if someone had a Bubble Blaster, they wouldn’t be able to find you in all that smoke!”

More people were staring now. Most of them were laughing.

All I kept thinking was:

Right about then, I spotted two of the Pony Tag girls from school walking up the street toward us.

“Oh no,” I squeaked. I flapped my arms faster so that I could become “invisible” quicker. But when I saw the girls just a few yards away, staring at the green smoke, I panicked and started to run. The only problem was, I couldn’t see where I was going with all that smoke.

I slammed into something. Luckily it was soft-ish. I think it might have been a lady. I’m pretty sure that she was fine, though, because I heard her say,

Finally all the street noise stopped, so I figured I was inside a building. Since I’d stopped flapping my arms, the smoke gradually began to clear. My eyes stung a little, so it took a minute to see where I was. You’ll never believe it, but by some miracle I had made it back to the Tidwell Towers lobby and was standing right next to Julius.

I felt for my eyebrows. They were still there.

“Good news, Julius!” I said. “I still have all my limbs and my eyebrows!”

I knew he wasn’t going to be too happy about me stinking up his lobby, so I wanted to keep things positive. But the look on Julius’s face wasn’t the look I was expecting. Instead of looking mad, he looked terrified.

“DON’T DO IT!!” he yelled.

“Don’t do what?” I asked.

But Julius wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Potted Plant Guy.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” I cried when I realized what had happened. I hadn’t seen where I was going with all that smoke, and I had passed Potted Plant Guy without putting something in his pail.

Potted Plant Guy’s pinky and thumb were pointed directly at me. Between the leaves, his demented eyes were glinting.

He declared his curse: “You will be attacked by a swarm of angry bees!”

“Bees?!” I shrieked. “Not bees!”

Back in Hog’s Head we had bees living in our walls one summer. I found out because I accidentally poked a hole in the wall with a fork and I got stung seven times.

“Make it something else, Potted Plant Guy,” I begged. “How about angry squirrels?”

To my amazement, Potted Plant Guy actually looked like he was considering this.

Then he said: “Okay. Instead of bees, you will be attacked by … a swarm of angry yellow jackets.”

“What?” I cried. “Yellow jackets are even meaner than bees!”

But Potted Plant Guy had stopped pointing at me. “The curse has been set. It cannot be lifted!” he said.

I made a squeaking sound.

“Just remember, little man,” Julius said, “run in a zigzag pattern. It will confuse the yellow jackets. Don’t swat at them either. And they like sweet smells.”

He paused and made a face.

“I think you’ll be fine in that department,” he said.