The next morning, Oggie ran into Donnica, Dawn, and Hannah on their way to school. They were talking about the haiku they’d written for the assignment.

“Mine is totally me,” said Donnica proudly. “In other words, per —”

Dawn and Hannah hesitated.

“Per —” Donnica prompted again.

“— sonal?” Hannah said uncertainly.

“No,” said Donnica disgustedly. “Not personal. Perfect. My haiku is perfect. Perfection is totally my essence.”

“I couldn’t think of anything at first,” Oggie told the girls. “But then I stood on my head. It was kind of like the Heimlich maneuver — you know, that squeezing thing you’re supposed to do when someone’s choking? — except instead of a clam shell, a haiku came flying out.”

The girls looked at one another.

“Loo —” mouthed Donnica silently to Hannah and Dawn.

“— zer” Hannah and Dawn mouthed back.

“So did you bring the list?” Oggie asked Donnica.

Donnica reached into her backpack and pulled out several sheets of paper, neatly stapled together. “B.P.R.” was written in large pink letters across the top of the first page. Before she handed the list to Oggie, Donnica took out a pen and added one more rule.

“‘Rule Number One Hundred and One,’” she said as she wrote, “‘NO STANDING ON YOUR HEAD ALLOWED.’”

When she finished, she gave the list to Oggie.

“If I were you, I’d stay away from those orange apricots,” she told him. “You’re going to need all the brain cells you’ve got if you’re going to have these rules memorized by Saturday.”

Oggie stopped dead in his tracks.

“Memorized?” he said. “You didn’t say anything about memorizing.”

“Didn’t I?” There was a gleam in Donnica’s eyes. “Well, it’s right here. See?” Donnica pointed to the last page of her list. “‘Rule Number One Hundred, All Birthday Party Rules must be memorized.’ And you’ll have to be able to prove it, too.”

“Prove it?” Oggie gulped.

“Yes — I give all my party guests a little quiz before they’re even allowed to come in the door. Right, girls?”

Dawn and Hannah nodded like a couple of bobbleheads on a dashboard.

Oggie was pretty sure he could manage to keep from prrrrr-ip-ing if he put his mind to it. He could go to the party barefoot instead of wearing shoes or slippers. And it wouldn’t be hard to exchange his red bathing suit for another color. But memorizing was another matter. Oggie had trouble memorizing the weekly spelling words, and there were only ten of those. There was absolutely no way he was going to be able to memorize a hundred and one rules by Saturday. Oggie was not going to be able to go to Donnica’s birthday party.

And as that disappointing thought entered Oggie’s head, something occurred in Wawatosa, Wisconsin, that had never happened before: Donnica Perfecto and Oggie Cooder were thinking the exact same thing.

*  *  *

Kids were already beginning to go inside when Oggie reached the schoolyard. Amy Schneider waved to him from the top of the steps, but he didn’t see her. As Oggie walked down the hall toward his classroom, all he could think about was the fun he was going to be missing. What if there were piggies-in-a-blanket? Oggie’s aunt Hettie always served those when she had a party. They were delicious little hot dogs rolled up in dough with toothpicks stuck through them. Oggie’s uncle Vern loved them, too, and had once eaten sixty-seven of them in one sitting — including the toothpicks.

Oggie’s mouth watered thinking about those piggies-in-a-blanket, but it looked like his imagination was as close as he was going to get to mini–hot dogs now that Donnica had informed him that the rules for her party had to be memorized.

Oggie felt so miserable, Mr. Snolinovsky didn’t have to speak to him once about prrrrr-ip-ing during class. What was there to prrrrr-ip about? A dark cloud hung over Oggie’s head all morning, until suddenly, right before lunch, he had a brainstorm. Oggie and Amy sometimes quizzed each other on spelling words. Working together made it much easier. Since Amy was going to Donnica’s party, too, maybe they could team up and work together on memorizing the rules!

“I was thinking maybe we should get ready for Donnica’s party together,” Oggie said the minute Amy sat down at the lunch table.

But Amy got the exact same uncomfortable look on her face that she’d had the day before when the topic of Donnica’s party had come up.

“What’s the matter?” Oggie asked.

“Did Donnica really invite you to her party?”

“Yeppers,” said Oggie. “I’d show you the invitation, but Turk ate it. He ate my Swiss Warbler, too. I’ll tell you about that later. First I want to know if you want to help each other get ready.”

“Um. I don’t think so,” Amy said.

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m not going to the party.”

“Why not? Don’t you like girls either?”

Amy gave him a funny look.

“That’s why Dylan isn’t going,” Oggie explained. “He doesn’t like girls. He only likes Ghorks.”

Amy gave Oggie an even funnier look.

“Ghorks?”

“Yeah,” said Oggie, “Ghorks and windowsills. Or something like that. Anyway, how come you’re not coming to the party?”

“Because I didn’t get invited,” said Amy.

“You didn’t?” Oggie was genuinely surprised. He had assumed that since Donnica had invited him, she must have invited everybody in the class. “Maybe your invitation got lost in the mail,” Oggie said to Amy. “Do you want me to ask Donnica to send you a new one?”

“No,” Amy said quickly. “I don’t really want to go to Donnica’s birthday party. We’re not exactly friends, you know.”

Oggie felt that dark cloud sliding back into place over his head. If Amy wasn’t coming to the party, that meant he was back at square one. He knew he would never be able to memorize all of the rules by himself.

Now it was Amy’s turn to ask Oggie what was wrong.

“I was finally going to get a chance to dive into Donnica’s pool,” Oggie explained sadly, “but now that I can’t go to the party, it’s probably never going to happen.”

“Why can’t you go to the party?” Amy asked. “You were invited, weren’t you? And you sure seemed excited about it yesterday when you found out about Bumbles.”

“I know. But there’s no way I’m going to be able to get ready by myself.”

“I don’t get it,” said Amy. “Why do you need help getting ready for a pool party? All you have to do is put on your bathing suit and walk across the street.”

“Actually, I can’t wear my bathing suit,” said Oggie. “It’s red. Rule Number Four is no red bathing suits allowed.”

“What?” said Amy.

“There’s a whole list of rules. A hundred and one of them. And I just found out that I have to have them all memorized by Saturday or Donnica says I can’t come to the party.”

Amy was beginning to get the picture. She hadn’t wanted to say anything, but she’d actually been pretty surprised to hear that Oggie had been invited to Donnica’s party. It was clear from the way Donnica acted that she didn’t like Oggie. So why invite him to the party? Amy was sure there was something fishy going on.

“Where is this list of rules?” she asked.

Oggie pulled Donnica’s B.P.R.’s out of his back pocket and handed it across the table to Amy. As Amy began to read, her cheeks turned very pink. She saw right through Donnica’s little plan. Obviously Donnica didn’t really want Oggie at her party. Tricking him into thinking he had to follow all these rules was just plain mean.

“I can’t believe this,” Amy said.

“I know,” said Oggie. “There’s no way I’ll ever be able to memorize them all by Saturday.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” said Amy.

And suddenly Donnica Perfecto wasn’t the only one with a plan.