Prrrrr-ip! Prrrrr-ip!

Oggie Cooder fluttered his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He always did that when he was excited about something.

“Check it out, Turk,” he cried happily. “Look who just got invited to Donnica Perfecto’s birthday party. Can you believe it?”

Oggie’s dog, Turk, loved to eat paper. So when Oggie proudly held out the invitation he’d just received in the morning mail, Turk misunderstood and thought he was being offered a snack. In two quick bites the invitation disappeared.

“Hey!” Oggie laughed. “You were supposed to read it, not eat it!”

Turk, whose full name was Turkey-on-Rye (like the sandwich), burped and wagged his tail.

Oggie finished eating his breakfast and carried his empty cereal bowl over to the sink to rinse it out. Looking out the window, he saw Donnica Perfecto coming out of her house, her bubblegum-pink backpack slung over one shoulder. Mrs. Perfecto, in a long flowered bathrobe and hair curlers, followed after her daughter. She looked nervous.

“Don’t worry, Cupcake!” she called. “Everything’s going to be fine on Saturday. Just fine.” Then she blew a kiss and waved, but Donnica only glared at her and marched off.

Grabbing his own backpack, Oggie made a quick pit stop at the fridge for a few slices of processed American cheese, which he slipped into his back pocket for later. He gave Turk a good-bye pat on the head and raced out the door.

“Hey, Donnica! Wait up!” Oggie cried as he ran down the front steps.

Ever since his aunt Hettie had taught him how to crochet, Oggie had been making his own shoelaces. The night before, he’d crocheted himself a new pairing — orange and green, one of his favorite color combinations. Oggie thought they went nicely with the new blue-and-yellow-checked pants his mother had brought home from the store for him that week. Unfortunately one of the shoelaces was a little too long, and when the end of it caught on a loose nail on the steps, Oggie went tumbling head over heels into the bushes. Luckily he wasn’t hurt, but by the time he pulled himself together, brushed the leaves out of his hair, and retied his shoelace in a double bow, Donnica had rounded the corner and was out of sight.

Oggie finally caught up with her in the schoolyard at Truman Elementary.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Oggie panted, holding his side and trying to catch his breath, “but I have about a bazillion questions I need to ask you.”

“What’s the matter with you, Oggie Cooder?” Donnica snarled as she spun around on her heel to face him. “Can’t you see I’m having the worst day of my life?”

Now that she mentioned it, Oggie did notice that Donnica’s eyebrows were scrunched down and bunched together in a knot over the top of her pointy little nose. And her shiny pink gloss-covered lips, which were usually turned up in a self-satisfied smirk, were pulled down at the corners in an unhappy pout.

Oggie hated to see people upset. Even Donnica Perfecto, who wasn’t very nice to him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked with genuine concern.

“You mean besides the fact that those pants you’ve got on are so hideous they’re giving me a headache?” Donnica said.

“Maybe you should ask the school nurse for an aspirin,” said Oggie. He didn’t realize that Donnica’s head wasn’t really hurting, she was just making fun of his pants.

“Aspirin isn’t going to fix what’s wrong with my life,” Donnica complained.

“What’s wrong with your life?” Oggie asked, surprised. It seemed to him Donnica Perfecto had a pretty great life. For one thing, she had a swimming pool in her backyard. When Oggie felt hot, the only way he had to cool off was to run through the sprinkler.

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with my life,” Donnica grumbled. “Because of my father and his stupid, boring old store, my whole birthday party is ruined.”

Mr. Perfecto owned the largest appliance store in Wawatosa, Wisconsin. Walk into any house in town, chances were that the microwave in the kitchen and the television in the den had been purchased from Big Dealz. Any house, that is, except Oggie’s. Mr. and Mrs. Cooder believed that microwave ovens and televisions — not to mention marshmallows, air fresheners, and milk sold in plastic jugs — were all bad for your brain cells.

“Are you planning to have your party at your dad’s store?” asked Oggie, who hadn’t had time to study the details of the invitation before Turk had eaten it.

Donnica heaved an exasperated sigh.

“Why would anybody have a birthday party in an appliance store?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” Oggie shrugged. “If I had a swimming pool like yours, I’d have my birthday party there.”

The Perfectos lived directly across Tullahoma Street from the Cooders, and although Oggie had never been in their beautiful sky-blue kidney-shaped swimming pool, Turk had jumped in once, uninvited, after managing to get loose one day.

“Obviously, I’m going to have a pool party,” said Donnica. “I always have a pool party. But I already told everybody that this year was going to be different. I told them there would be a big surprise. Who’s going to want to come to a plain old ordinary pool party now?”

“I will!” cried Oggie, who had never been invited to any of Donnica’s parties before.

Oggie undid the strings on his backpack and pulled out a plastic bag filled with dried apricots.

“Want one?” he asked Donnica.

“Ewww,” she said, turning up her nose at the apricots. “They’re brown.”

“That’s ’cause they’re from the health food store. My mom says the orange ones you get at the grocery store have a ton of chemicals in them that can ruin your brain cells.”

Donnica ignored him and went back to her whining.

“It’s just not fair,” she said. “Why does Daddy’s big promotion for his store have to be on the same day as my party? Why didn’t he listen to me when I told him what I wanted? It’s my birthday. I’m supposed to get everything I want for my birthday. That’s the rule.”

This seemed like the perfect opportunity for Oggie to ask Donnica the most important of the bazillion questions he had for her.

“What do you want for your birthday?” he said. “I want to get you something that you’ll really, really like because I’m really, really happy that you invited me to your party. Actually, I’m not really, really happy. Prrrrr-ip! Prrrrr-ip! I’m more like really, really, really —”

“I get the point,” Donnica interrupted. Oggie Cooder was more annoying than a broken fingernail.

The big red doors of Truman Elementary School swung open and students began filing into the building to begin the day.

“So anyway,” said Oggie, trotting along next to Donnica as they started up the steps of the school, “can you think of something I could give you for your birthday?”

Donnica was about to tell Oggie to get lost and quit bothering her, when a lightbulb suddenly went on over her head. Actually there was something she wanted Oggie to give her for her birthday! Something Donnica had been wanting from the moment Mrs. Perfecto had made her write Oggie’s name on one of her bubblegum-pink party invitations. Donnica wanted Oggie Cooder NOT to come to her party. And as anyone who knew her would tell you, Donnica Perfecto was really good at getting what she wanted.

Really, really, really good.