CHAPTER 4

Sweetumzzz

When she arrived at school the next morning, Ellie ran into Dex’s up-to-no-good grin first thing.

“Baaah!” she muttered under her breath. “Why are evil masterminds so . . . evil?”

To find out what her archenemy had planned, Ellie decided to read his mind. A-ha! It was a fake hic-hic-hiccups attack! Dex had gotten into the spelling bee, and he would stop at nothing to rub it in Ellie’s face.

Luckily, Ellie knew just how to thwart him. She plugged her ears with the Ultra Sound Stoppers. Then she adjusted the Villain Volume Control, turning the dial all the way down.

Sure enough, after morning announcements, Dex’s phony hiccupping began. He hiccupped through a movie about sea animals, recess, and rollerblading in gym.

But Ellie heard not one single H-I-C. Her idea to use the Ultra Dex Stoppers was genius! Super genius!

With Dex under control, Ellie could take her mind off the spelling bee. During library time, she sat at a no-fake-hiccups-allowed table. There she flipped through the comic book Ice Boy and the Deep Freeze.

As Ice Boy snowboarded down the Sled Hill of Horror, something whooshed past Ellie. She lowered the comic and looked around.

Joshua and Owen were searching for Spy Fly books. Payton was showing Amanda a picture in Soccer Girl Magazine. Dex was sitting with Miss Little and Fuzzball. He was in trouble for peeking at Hannah’s computer password.

Everything seemed okay . . . until Ellie noticed Ms. Bumble.

The substitute was skittering through the library. In front of her she pushed a book cart stacked with honey jars — lots and lots of honey jars. As Ellie watched, Ms. Bumble unloaded the cart at the checkout desk.

Grownups sure are cuckoo bananas, Ellie thought. She knew grownups liked honey with tea or toast. Her dad even squeezed some on his grapple, a snack he’d made by crossing an apple and grape’s DNA. But where on earth had Ms. Bumble gotten so much honey?

Just then, Hannah plopped down in the chair next to her. The sound made Ellie’s thoughts scatter like bees around a honey-hungry bear.

“I’m so mad at Dex!” Hannah said. “He opened my notebook to look at my password. Now I have to change it before he tells the whole world! It was the perfect password too — KitKat!”

Talk about cuckoo bananas! Hannah was completely crazy about KitKat, a character from her favorite comic book series, Dance Cat Academy. Just like Hannah, KitKat loved to dance and always seemed to be getting ready for a big performance.

That reminded Ellie — she needed to ask Hannah about Comic Book Day. “I have great news!” she started. “There’s this exciting thing coming up, and I was wondering if you wanted to —”

“I know!” Hannah interrupted. “There are only six days left until the spelling bee!”

Ellie frowned. She didn’t want to talk about the B-E-E. Hoping Hannah wouldn’t go on about it, she tried to change the subject.

“No, not that,” said said. “I’m talking about Comic Book —”

“I can’t wait!” Hannah blurted out. “The whole school is coming to watch since it’s going to be in the auditorium. The whole school! That’s like a jillion people, I think.”

Ellie’s super brain did some quick math. It was actually four hundred and two, give or take a lunchroom helper.

“That’s great,” she started to say, “but —”

“Ms. Bumble told me students will sit on the stage,” Hannah continued. “We even get a number. That way, we’ll know how to line up. I got lucky number seven!”

Hannah went on and on about the spelling bee, but Ellie stopped listening. She didn’t want to hear about how Hannah was going to sit onstage with her very own lucky number. Meanwhile unlucky Ellie would be stuck in the audience doing nothing. Talk about B-O-R-I-N-G!

Ellie wondered if, maybe, just maybe, she could swap places with Hannah. It would be easy with the Ultra Body Swapperoo.

Hannah dug into her backpack and pulled out a piece of paper. “Ms. Bumble also made a new word list. She said it’s a special one, just for this year’s spelling bee. Look!”

Ellie leaned over and read the words:

zone

zipper

zebu

zigzag

zinc

Her eyes narrowed as she skimmed the page. Every single word started with the letter z!

Ms. Bumble’s list is C-U-C-K-O-O, Ellie thought to herself.

“Will you help me practice?” Hannah asked hopefully. “I need to study all this week. With your help, I’ll zip through the words. Hey! Zip is one of the spelling words. I’ve already got that one down. Z-I-P!”

“Well . . . ,” Ellie said quietly. She really didn’t feel like helping. In fact, she’d rather battle evil villains. Even that would be better than listening to Hannah’s bee-bragging.

Still, Hannah was her friend. “Okay,” Ellie finally said.

“Twirl-errific!” Hannah said, sounding like KitKat. She spun over to the bookshelf and returned with KitKat: Stage Cat-astrophe.

Ellie got back to reading Ice Boy. Asking Hannah to Comic Book Day would just have to wait.

Bzzz! Bzzz! Suddenly, a pair of bees buzzed past Ellie’s table. They sailed through the air and landed on the checkout desk.

“Hello, Sweetumzzz,” Ms. Bumble greeted the insects. Reaching down, she gently stroked their wings.

Ellie watched as the substitute librarian petted the bees as if they were pets. It wasn’t just that Ms. Bumble liked honey — she was acting like a Cuckoo-for-Bees Queen!

Just then Miss Little approached the desk and scared off the bees. “Excuse me, Ms. Bumble?” she said. “Can you help one of my students change her computer password? There was a slight problem, and she needs a new one.”

“A problem?” Ms. Bumble asked.

“Yes — oh, that reminds me!” Miss Little said. She reached into her teacher’s bag. “About the other day, I’m sorry if I surprised you with the badger —”

“Did you say badger?” Ms. Bumble interrupted, freezing up.

“Yes, but don’t worry.” Miss Little took out Fuzzball. “It’s only a —”

“BADGER!” Ms. Bumble’s hairpins twitched in all directions. She skittered around the desk and made a beeline for Mr. Soto’s office. A moment later, the door slammed behind her.

Ellie held in a giggle. Frightened? By a badger puppet? If only it was that easy to scare off a villain!