Daredevil Morgan Read online

  Daredevil Morgan

  Ted Staunton

  Illustrations by Bill Slavin

  Formac Publishing Company Limited

  Halifax

  1

  No-Hands

  My best friend Charlie and I are biking no-hands. Okay, Charlie is biking no-hands. I am biking both-hands because I wobble sometimes, which is scary.

  Charlie says, “Know what the coolest ride is?”

  “Wha’ wun?” I am panting. Charlie is a fast pedaller, even no-hands. Going fast is okay, though. I want to get to my place and have snacks.

  “The best ride is the GraviTwirl,” says Charlie. “You stand against this wall and it spins so fast you stick there, even when the floor drops away, and you can make yourself go upside-down.”

  “Coo-ool,” I pant. “Let’s go on it tomorrow.” Tomorrow night is the Fall Fair. I love rides. I mean, I will love them. I have never been on a big ride before, but I don’t tell Charlie because I can hardly wait to go on, so that is almost the same thing. And I’m going to win a prize at the fair too.

  Before I can pant all that, we are at my place. Charlie grabs his handlebars and pops a wheelie. I don’t. We take off our helmets. I start to say “I’m going to —” And that’s when we hear it: scritch, scritch, scritch.

  Oh-oh. I know that sound. Sure enough, Aldeen Hummel pushes around the corner on her skateboard. Well, not on her skateboard. Aldeen always keeps one foot on the ground, that’s why you always hear short scritches, never a long scriiiiiiiiiiiiiitch.

  “Hey,” she yells, “you were supposed to wait for me!”

  Double oh-oh. I was supposed to. Aldeen comes over to my house after school when her mom and her grandma are both working. I hate that, because Aldeen is the Godzilla of Grade Three.

  Now she scritches up with her witchy hair bouncing. She takes her foot off the skateboard. It keeps going without her and whams into the garage door. “Way to go,” says Aldeen, pushing up her smudgy glasses. “Let’s eat.”

  We get snacks from my mom and go into the backyard. Charlie hangs upside-down from my play fort and tells us about the Octopus ride. I will say “Coo-ool” as soon as I finish chewing. Aldeen just says, “Your face is red.” She’s sitting on her skateboard.

  Then she says, “Rides suck. I’m going to win a prize in the art contest.”

  Now is my chance. I swallow.

  “I’m going to win a prize too. Wait here.”

  I run into the garage.

  “What is it?” asks Charlie, climbing down.

  “It’s my pumpkin. I grew it all summer at Grandpa’s. We just brought it home yesterday. It’s for the Perfect Pumpkin contest at the fair.”

  I drag it out in my red wagon.

  “Wow,” says Charlie.

  Wow is right. It is a perfect pumpkin. It’s super round and orange, and it doesn’t even have a scratch or a bump, and it’s so big my dad could barely even lift it. It is also going to make the best Halloween jack-o’-lantern ever, after the fair.

  Aldeen squints at it. “It looks like you,” she says.

  Huh?

  She rolls over on her skateboard. “Is it heavy? Bet I can lift it.”

  Before I can stop her she jumps up and starts heaving.

  “Aldeen,” I say, “cut it out!”

  “Gnnnnnnnnnnnuh,” says Aldeen, still heaving. Her teeth are clenched and her face is redder than Charlie’s.

  “GnnnnnnnnnnnUH!” she says again, and rears. Her skateboard shoots out from under her foot.

  “AHHHH!” Aldeen goes flying back. The skateboard whacks my shin. I yell. Aldeen falls. My pumpkin drops. It lands on the patio with a big, fat THWUNK.

  Then it isn’t perfect anymore.

  2

  Less Than Perfect

  I am still mad when Aldeen’s grandma finally comes to get her after dinner. Aldeen has barely even said she’s sorry. First, she yelled, “Stupid skateboard!” Then she yelled, “I hurt my butt!” Then she yelled, “Stupid pumpkin!” while I hopped around holding my shin.

  “You wrecked it,” I yelled, still hopping.

  All she said was, “Well, sor-reee. What’d you make it so heavy for?” Then she looked at my pumpkin. “You can just put some tape on it or something.”

  I could not just put some tape on it or something. There was a big crack right up the middle and a split in one side, too. My pumpkin is in a garbage bag in the garage and I am sitting at the kitchen table being mad. My mom is in the hall talking to Aldeen and her grandma. I can hear her grandma going, “Heh, heh, heh.”

  Aldeen’s grandma is named Flo. She drives a taxi and she smokes little cigars. I like her, even if she does smell like cigars, but no way am I going out to say goodbye. I am so mad, not even thinking about rides tomorrow can make me feel better.

  The back door opens and my dad comes in with the pumpkin bag.

  “Did you say goodbye to Aldeen?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “All she wants to talk about is how she’s going to win an art prize.”

  Dad puffs and puts the bag down. Now his face is kind of red too. He says, “Hey, kiddo, it was an accident. You know Aldeen didn’t mean it. We’re still going to have fun at the fair tomorrow. Think about all those rides.”

  Dad lifts the pumpkin out of the bag and puts it on the table. “And right now, you and I are going to do something with this.”

  “You can’t just put tape on it or something,” I say.

  “Of course not,” Dad says. “No sense letting a Perfect Pumpkin go to waste. We’re going to make Perfect Pumpkin pies.”

  3

  Expert Squisher

  Dad says we are going to do it from scratch. He always says that, but we never scratch anything. He’s a good baker. When we have cookies at our house, he makes them, and sometimes I get to eat the extra cookie dough.

  We get out the flour and the mixing bowl and the butter and the sifter and the rolling pin and the board and the measuring cup and the rattly silver pie plates.

  “Get out the shortening please, Morgan,” Dad calls. He’s looking in the cupboard.

  “We need salt too,” I remember.

  “Excellent,” says Dad.

  I’m a good helper because I’ve done this before.

  Dad measures and I mix in the big bowl with a wooden spoon and a fork. Then Dad spreads flour on the board and I get to flatten out the dough with the rolling pin. I love that part. It’s like being a steamroller squishing everything. I go “BLLLLLL- AAAP” when I do it, like a rumbly engine noise, and I pretend I’m squishing Aldeen. It feels good. Then I start thinking about all the rides I’ll go on tomorrow. Charlie said there was one called the Sizzler. We’ll have to go on that. And the GraviTwirl and the Octopus one too. Out in the hall, they are still talking. I hear Aldeen say, “Gra-a-a-an, let’s go. I have to do my picture.”

  Dad and I are fitting the dough in the pie plates.

  “Okay,” Dad says, wiping up flour. “Now it’s pumpkin time.”

  We put newspapers on the kitchen table and put the pumpkin on them. Then Dad gets the big knife and starts cutting chunks out of my pumpkin. We reach into the cold middle and start pulling out seeds and stringy orange pumpkin guts. My hands get super slimy in one second flat. It is so gross, it’s fantastic. Pumpkin smell fills the kitchen. Dad scrapes off the chunks, then cuts them small and pops them into a saucepan to boil.

  The blender is whirring when Mom finally comes into the kitchen. Dad has sugar and spices and eggs and milk out on the counter. I’m squishing pumpkin guts in both han
ds to make the seeds come out. We’re going to save them. Mom says something.

  “What?” I say, when the blender stops.

  “Pardon,” says Mom.

  “Pardon what?”

  “No, you’re supposed to say ‘pardon’ instead of ‘what’,” she reminds me.

  Oh. Right. “Pardon?”

  “Aldeen is coming to the fair with us tomorrow,” Mom says, “until her Grandma Flo can meet us there after work.”

  “Wha-a-at?”

  “It’ll be fun,” says Mom.

  I squish harder.

  4

  A Fair Start

  So now it is Friday night and we are going to the fair. Everybody from school is going. Last year we were away when the fair was on, and before that we didn’t live here. This time, though, it is going to be so cool that I don’t even care if Aldeen is with us. Charlie and I will go on about a million rides with everyone and too bad for Aldeen if she says that rides suck.

  As we drive, Mom says from the front seat, “So, rides tonight and country fair things tomorrow: the farm animals, the —”

  “Yeah, rides!” says Aldeen. She’s bouncing as if she’s on one already. Huh? I thought she —

  “And games too!” she says.

  “Maybe we’ll win a prize,” Dad says.

  “And we have to go see what prize my picture won,” Aldeen says, bouncing some more. “’Cause my mom took it to the art contest this afternoon.”

  I look away. I don’t want to hear about Aldeen winning a prize. It makes me think of my pumpkin, all smooshed up in pies.

  It is already dark when we park. Up ahead are lights and music, and things are rattling and swooping, and every little while you hear a whole bunch of voices go “wwwwWWWOOOAH!” Even better, I think I can smell French fries.

  There is a lineup at the gate. We all get green wristbands.

  Aldeen says, “Let’s go see if my picture has won a prize yet.”

  “When your Grandma comes,” says Mom. “She’ll want to see too.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Let’s go on rides.” I am already looking for Charlie in the crowd. It will be way more fun with him.

  Mom and Dad buy tickets for us to

  go on five rides. The first ones we see

  are baby ones that go really, really slow.

  Forget them. Then we pass the funhouse. Everything is thumping and clanking, and music is blasting. A skeleton pops out and Aldeen jumps about twenty miles in the air and a monster laugh goes “BWAH-HAHAHAHA!” I only jump ten miles, so I laugh too — until Aldeen gives me her Queen-of-Mean look.

  And then we’re at the midway. It’s crowded. Lights flash and this big rocket ride swoops and all the voices go “wwwwWWWOOOAH!” again. Then the rocket swings up, up, up, until it looks as if everyone is going to fall out of their seats. Backwards. Next to it another ride has these little cage things climbing up in the air and tumbling upside-down, and over there another one has all these arms whooshing everybody in and out so they scream and twirl like crazy. I bet that’s the Octopus. Just watching it makes my stomach go woozly.

  Holy Cow. I swallow. I peek at Aldeen. Her mouth is open. The lights are flashing on her glasses. I look at the rides again. Everything is so big. And fast. And loud. And swooshy. I swallow again. It’s all … kind of ….

  “Morgan! Morgan!”

  I look and there’s Charlie, with Kaely and Mark and Paige, lined up for a ride.

  “Come on!” Charlie waves me over.

  I swallow one more time. “I can’t right now,” I call back. Aldeen is still staring. I point at her, behind her back where she can’t see. “Soon.”

  Right now I’m almost glad she’s here.

  5

  Bumper Stars

  “So,” Dad says from behind me, “What do you want to go on first?”

  The really, truly answer is — nothing. I didn’t know the rides were going to be, well, scary. I don’t say that, though. I say, “Ummmmmm ….”

  “How about the funhouse?” Mom suggests.

  “No way,” says Aldeen, really fast.

  Good. That skeleton was kind of scary too.

  “What, then?” says Mom. “We have to use the tickets.”

  “That.” Aldeen points.

  Perfect: it’s the bumper cars. We hand in our tickets for the next turn. This is going to be good; I can hardly wait to bash into Aldeen a few million times.

  Except I don’t. The ride starts and — BONK — Aldeen rams into me from behind. I try to turn and — BONK — she hits me again. I spin the wheel around and she zooms off, then — BONK — gets me from the other side.

  The whole ride goes like that until, finally, I have Aldeen all lined up and — zoop — the power stops. The ride is over.

  “That was cool,” says Aldeen. It was not. Then she says, “I want to go see if my picture won a prize yet.”

  Before I can say no, Dad says, “Well, look who’s here.”

  I’m hoping it’s Aldeen’s Grandma Flo, so she can take Aldeen away. But it’s not. It’s Charlie and the others, with their moms and dads. The grown-ups start talking. Charlie says, “We were just on the Octopus. It was so coo-ool. What have you been on?”

  Just hearing “Octopus” makes my stomach go woozly again.

  Kaely says, “We’re going on the Orbiter next. Wanta come?”

  “Which one is that?” I ask.

  Kaely points. The Orbiter is little chairs like baby swings, way up in the air. They spin around this pole so fast that you lean sideways. If anything breaks you’ll fly off the fairgrounds into outer space. My stomach goes even woozlier. Oh, no. What am I going to do?

  Before I can even think, Aldeen says, “That sucks. Bumper cars.”

  Behind her back I make an awwwww face at Charlie. I don’t mean it, though. Compared to outer space in a baby swing, bumper cars sound perfect.

  6

  Bunny Hop

  Really, bumper cars are even dumber than last time. Aldeen bashes me until I start to think that outer space in a baby swing might be fun after all.

  “Now what?” Mom and Dad ask when we get off.

  “Food!” I say. I can smell fries again.

  “I want to see what prize my picture won!” says Aldeen, for the millionth time.

  Dad says, “How about a game? You can use a ride ticket for one.”

  “But what about food?” I ask. Well, whine.

  “If you’re hungry, you should have finished your carrots at dinner,” says Mom.

  Geeeeeeez.

  We pick a game where you throw darts at balloons. A sign says everyone wins a prize and I see just the one I want. It’s a giant gorilla stuffed toy that will be perfect for wrestling with and snuggling into while I read or watch TV. Wait till I show it to Charlie and everybody. They’ll

  all want it like crazy. And I can say that I have to carry it so I can’t go on any more

  rides. Perfect.

  You get three throws. Aldeen goes first, and she is so crummy she only hits one balloon — and it doesn’t even pop. Her prize is this furry little purple snake. How lame can you get?

  Now it’s my turn. Whammo, I break a balloon first time. It’s not the one I aimed at, but who cares? Everybody cheers. I throw again and the dart hits the board, but it bounces off and lands on a balloon and pops it. Everybody cheers again. Hey, am I good at this or what?

  Now it’s my last throw. I pick a balloon right in the middle. I scuff my feet. I stick my tongue between my teeth. I take a big breath, lean back, wind up — and Aldeen yells, “GRAN!”

  I jump. The dart flies out of my hand.

  “HEY!”

  The man in the game dives under the counter. The dart lands right where his head used to be. There is no balloon there.


  The man pops up from behind the counter.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  His eyes go all narrow. He gives me a pink fuzzy bunny.

  Oh, boy.

  7

  Chicken Talk

  Aldeen does not even notice she has wrecked my chance to win a monster gorilla. She is too busy blabbing like crazy to her Grandma Flo, who is smoking one of her little cigars and trying to talk to Mom and Dad.

  “Now we can go see my picture prize!” Aldeen is tugging the sleeve of her grandma’s leather jacket.

  I look at her the way the man at the game looked at me. I do not want to go see Aldeen’s stupid picture prize. If she had not yelled, I would have won a monster gorilla prize. If she had not dropped my pumpkin, I would have a Perfect Pumpkin prize too. Instead, what I have got is a pink fuzzy bunny, and a sore butt from getting bashed around in bumper cars. And I don’t have any French fries either.

  This stinks. If Aldeen wasn’t here, I would probably be having a way better time. I bet I would even be going on all the rides, because it is Aldeen who is more scared than me. If I hadn’t looked at her and seen she was scared, I would not have been scared. No way would I have been scared with Charlie. So it is all her

  fault. Once again, Aldeen has wrecked everything.

  And now here comes Charlie and everybody back from having fun on the Orbiter ride. Charlie runs over to me.

  “We have to go on that one together,” he says. “It was awesome. Hey, what’s that?”

  “Huh?” I say. “Oh, nothing. I won it.” I give the pink fuzzy bunny to Mom. The grown-ups are yakking again. Aldeen is still tugging at her grandma.

  “Is it ever cute,” Paige says.

  “I wanted a gorilla,” I grump. “Anyway, I can’t go on any more rides because now we have to go see Aldeen’s art prize.” I look, and Aldeen is still busy with her grandma, so I say, “And even if we didn’t, I still couldn’t go because she doesn’t want to. She’s chicken.”