“Aww, I’m sorry, Otis,” Perry said after everything settled down and I explained that Pandora was Gunther’s girlfriend, and the hovercraft was my Lego contest entry.

“We were just trying to protect you,” Cat said. She even put her arm around me. Usually when she does that, something bad happens next. But this time, she just patted my shoulder.

Myra was still suspicious, though. She turned to Pandora and asked point-blank, “Did Trevor poop you out?”

“Who’s Trevor?” Pandora asked.

Which seemed like a weird response, if you think about it.

“Trevor is the guy who ate one of the little yellow alien eggs in the ketchup container,” Myra said.

“Yellow eggs?” Boris said. “In a ketchup container? No one told me the eggs were yellow and in a ketchup container.”

“Does that matter?” I asked him.

“Well, yeah. Because those weren’t alien eggs,” Boris said. “They were Red Wiggler worm eggs.”

“Worm eggs!” Cat cried. “What were worm eggs doing in a ketchup container in the playground?”

“I was giving them some fresh air,” Boris said.

“Then my hovercraft was busted up because of WORM EGGS?” I cried.

“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” Sid Frackas said. “Listen, Dooda, Tidwell Towers is only big enough for one Lego genius, and you’re looking at him.” Then he started laughing. His tongue flopped all the way out of his mouth and waggled around.

“Hey, what are those bumpy things on your tongue, Sid?” Cat asked.

We all looked at his tongue. There were these little red blisters all over it.

Sid yanked that flounder-tongue right back into his mouth. “Anyway, get ready to congratulate me on winning first prize in the Lego contest, Dooda. You won’t be able to fix that thing by tomorrow.”

I looked at the messed-up hovercraft and the smashed vacuum-cleaner motor.

He was right. Even if I could rebuild the Legos, there was no way I’d be able to find another vacuum-cleaner motor in time.

I was so bummed about my hovercraft that I had no appetite for dinner. No one else was eating much, either. Gunther and Pandora were too busy making goo-goo eyes at each other. And Mom and Dad were too busy text-messaging each other about Gunther and Pandora. Even Smoochie didn’t seem very hungry.

I couldn’t sleep that night, either, and not just because I was lying on the floor in a sleeping bag while Pandora was scratching her scalp in my bed.

“Are you sad about your hovercraft?” Pandora said.

“Yeah.”

“Want to see me do shadow puppets with my toes?” she asked.

“Kind of,” I said.

So she did the entire Charlie Brown Christmas Special with her toes. It was really good, too. Her big toe looked exactly like Charlie Brown’s head.

Pandora may not be so bad after all.