Morgan and the Money Read online

  I wobble happily back to Charlie. “Mission’s off,” I grin.

  “Whaddya mean?” he says. “I just did it, while you were talking.”

  I stare at Charlie for a second. “You mean you . . . NOOOOOOO!” I go bombing for Room 9. Mrs. Ross is already there. She’s staring at a pile of money on her desk. My money. If I tell the truth now she’ll know I lied. If I lie now, she’ll still think I was telling the truth when I really was lying. My brain is spaghetti. What else can I do?

  “I forgot,” I say. “The whole class collected money so we could still go on the trip.” It’s true, sort of. I’m a liar, but a noble one.

  10

  Lunch in the Lurch

  It’s cold and rainy at the zoo. The gorillas don’t play, the komodo dragons are sleeping and I sit in a puddle on the benches as we watch the seals. The wildest thing here is Aldeen Hummel. Maybe that’s why the principal and three parent volunteers have come too.

  The seals are hungry. So am I. I swish my rubber boots in a puddle and look around. Aldeen has just exploded her bubble gum and it’s stuck in Kaely’s hair.

  I don’t think Aldeen ever figured out what I did. When everybody came in that day, Mrs. Ross thanked them. She said the lost money was her fault and everyone could take back their money or she’d add to it and buy popsicles at the zoo. Nobody knew what she was talking about. I couldn’t say the money was mine, and besides, no one would have believed me. Anyway, popsicles sounded good, so everyone shut up and left the money — except Aldeen. She marched right up and took fifty cents. So much for being noble, boy.

  And now it’s not even a good popsicle day. I still want one though. I’m hunting in my pack for my snack when Mrs. Ross says, “Morgan, would you have room in there for my lunch bag?” She’s carrying a lot of stuff.

  “Sure,” I say, “What are you having?” I’m very interested in lunches.

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Ross laughs, “My husband is the lunch maker.”

  She hands me a brown bag and hustles off to make Aldeen come down out of a tree. I put her lunch on the bench and keep digging in my pack.

  It’s not until we get to the picnic shelter and Mrs. Ross asks for her lunch that I open my pack again and see the brown bag isn’t there. Luckily, Mrs. Ross has gone to help somebody. I look all over the place, fast as I can, then remember the bench by the seal pool. I never put Mrs. Ross’s lunch in my pack. It’s still on the bench — on the other side of the zoo. “Oh no,” I groan.

  “Hussamatter wiv oo?” asks a voice behind me. I turn, and it’s Aldeen, with her mouth full of potato chips, her usual lunch. Her spider-leg hair bounces as she chews.

  “I lost Mrs. Ross’s lunch,” I whisper.

  Aldeen swallows and looks around. “Wait,” she says. She wipes her fingers on her purple sweatshirt and moves away. A moment later she’s back. “Here,” she says, and hands me a brown paper bag. It looks like — how did she . . .

  “Wow, thanks,” I say, “How’d you do that?”

  Aldeen shrugs, crumples up her chip bag and throws it at Mark.

  I take the lunch over to Mrs. Ross, who thanks me. Walking back to my seat it hits me: Aldeen Hummel, Hummel the Bummel, the Godzilla of Grade Three, has just helped me. Like we were friends or something. Now she’s trying to tip over the garbage can.

  “Thanks, Aldeen,” I yell, and then something stranger happens: she smiles at me. For a second she doesn’t even look like Aldeen. She looks . . . well . . . happy.

  All at once, squeezing in beside Charlie, I feel great: I have baloney sandwiches to eat, a popsicle coming, and we’re all at the zoo. My bum is wet, I’ve told a few stories, but nobody’s perfect. I did my best. How could anything go wrong?

  I pick up a sandwich.

  “Hey,” calls our principal from across the shelter, “Has anybody seen my lunch? It’s in a brown paper bag.”

  All at once I think I have some explaining to do. Mostly it’s going to be true.

  What else is Morgan up to?

  Here’s a look at what happens when Morgan signs up for soccer in Great Play, Morgan!

  Find this and more in the First Novels Series at www.formac.ca

  1

  Soccer Genius

  “Impossible! Impossible! Land it on the rail! Five-Oh! Go! NOOOOOO!”

  Charlie wipes out his board again. Charlie has so many sports trophies it looks like he won the Olympics, but hey, you can’t be good at everything. I’m better at skateboarding. Well, not skateboarding skateboarding. I stink at that. What we’re doing is video game skateboarding.

  I’m a pro at that. It’s better anyway — you can eat while you’re playing.

  Charlie hands me the controller. As I start my turn, he says, “Did you decide about soccer yet?”

  Oh yeah. Soccer. Charlie wants me to sign up with him. His dad will be coaching the team. “Hang on,” I say. I’m reverse grinding along the edge of a skyscraper roof. Right, right, left, down, down, hold on, up, up, upupUP. My fingers are flying. I’m flying. I can do anything. How hard can kicking a ball be, compared to this? Plus Charlie says they have freezies and snacks after every game.

  “Sure,” I say, “I’m gonna sign up.”

  “Great,” says Charlie.

  “Wonderful!” says my mom, looking into the family room. I face plant into a dumpster. I have three thousand points and a new sport.

  * * *

  After supper, I dig a ball out of the garage and go over to the schoolyard. I figure I’d better try soccer while no one’s around. I’ve never really played it because I don’t like to run that much. But who knows? Maybe I’m a soccer genius.

  Or maybe not. My first kick blops along the ground. The second one, I miss, The third one connects. The ball takes off and rattles the fence. Oh, yeah! I shake my fists and do a little jump. My winning goal will be like that.

  “Whutcha doin?” a voice asks. I jump again. Aldeen Hummel, the Godzilla of Grade Three, is standing behind me. Where the heck did she come from?

  “Um,” I say, “playing soccer.”

  Aldeen squinches up her eyes behind her smudgy glasses. Her witchy hair bounces.

  “You should try it,” I say, just to say something.

  She puts her hands on her hips. “What for?”

  Aldeen always makes me nervous, and when I get nervous, I blab. I tell her all the stuff Charlie told me: the uniform you get, how everybody comes to watch and how you get a trophy after the tournament, plus the snacks and freezies.

  “You should try it,” I say.

  Aldeen grunts and shuffles off. I figure I’m lucky. Sometimes when Aldeen gets bored she belts you. But I’m wrong about luck. And about being bored. When I go out for first practice, Aldeen Hummel is standing by the soccer balls.

  Text copyright © 2011, 2008 Ted Staunton

  Illustration copyright © 2011, 2008 Bill Slavin

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Formac Publishing Company Limited acknowledges the support of the Cultural Affairs Section, Nova Scotia Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada hrough the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.

  Cataloguing in Publication data is available from Library and Archives Canada

  This digital edition first published in 2011 as 978-0-88780-173-0

  Most recently published in 2008 as 978-0-88780-774-9

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