Got Cake? Read Free Page A

don’t you?”
    She giggled. “Of course I’ll help you. You’re my wubby-wubby—aren’t you?”
    â€œYour WHAT?!” I screamed.
    Her crooked grin spread all the way to her huge, floppy ears. “My wubby-wubby.”
    Oh, puke.
    â€œJennifer, please!” I begged. “Don’t ever say that again. Please— swear you’ll never say that again.”
    She giggled. “How do you want me to help you?”
    â€œI want you to take a bunch of photos of me being popular,” I said. “Follow me around with your camera. And whenever you see me being popular, snap a shot.”
    â€œOkay, Wubby-Wubby,” she said.
    â€œPlease—no wubby-wubby!” I pleaded. “If you say it one more time, I’ll have no choice. I’ll have to leave school.”
    â€œSo I take photos of everyone adoring you,” Jennifer said. “Then what?”
    â€œThen you snap a thousand photos of the huge crowd at my birthday party,” I said. “Total proof of how popular I am.”
    She squinted at me with her one brown eye and one blue eye. “You’re having a birthday party?”
    â€œThe biggest party in Rotten School history,” I said. “Then you bring the stack of photos to Leif Blower. Blower will see that I’m the only choice. Piece of cake!”
    Jennifer lumbered to her feet. “I’m late for hockey practice,” she said. “Can I bake you a big birthday cake for your party? Please, please, please? Can I bake the cake?”
    â€œSure,” I said. “The bigger the better.”
    She grinned. She had clumps of grass stuck in her teeth. “Thank you! Thank you! I’m going to bake the biggest birthday cake in history!”
    She started to trot toward the hockey field. Then she suddenly turned and yelled at the top of her lungs: “Bye, Wubby-Wubby!”
    I saw April-May and Leif across the grass. They HEARD her! They started to laugh. Other kids started laughing, too.
    Oh, wow. I felt my face turn red. Laughter rang in my ears. I slumped to the ground. And I started pulling up clumps of grass and stuffing them into my mouth.
    Hey —not bad!

Chapter 8
THE SECRET IS OUT
    So far, the birthday party was just a brilliant idea. Now I had to get people working on it.
    I knew I couldn’t give the party for myself. How lame would that be?
    Other kids had to throw the party for me.
    You probably go home every day after school. But I can’t. Rotten School is a boarding school. That means we all live at school.
    My buddies and I live in a dorm called Rotten House. Actually, it’s a run-down, beat-up old house with creaking floors, rattling windows, an inch ofdust everywhere, and strange, furry bugs crawling up and down the walls.
    We love it.
    We can do whatever we want. No parents! And Mrs. Heinie, our dorm mother, is totally nearsighted. She can’t see a thing we do.
    How great is that?
    I have a big room all to myself on the third floor. My friends Feenman, Crench, and Belzer are squeezed into the tiny room across the hall.
    They don’t mind. They know a popular guy like me needs plenty of room to practice being popular.
    That night, I crossed the hall into Feenman, Crench, and Belzer’s room. I stopped at the door—and gasped in surprise.
    Crench’s face and hair were gleaming bright red. He was standing totally still while Feenman slid a fat paintbrush up and down his jeans and T-shirt.
    Painting him red.
    I stepped into the room. Feenman’s hobby is painting things red. He likes to paint kids’ computer screens red when they’re not looking. One night he sneaked into the School House and painted all thewindows in Mrs. Heinie’s classroom red.

    â€œYo, Bernie,” Feenman greeted me with a smile. “How does he look?”
    â€œHe looks red,” I said. “Why are you doing this to him?”
    â€œFor Halloween,” Feenman answered.