Number One Kid Read Free Page A

walked about a hundred miles.
    “I’m ready to fall on the ground,” Habib said. “I don’t think I’m a nature person.”
    “Me neither,” Mitchell said. “Not if we have to walk till our feet fall off.”
    At last, they saw a bunch of trees. “Apple trees,” said Mr. Oakley. “Take an apple.”
    “I’ll take a couple,” Habib said. “I’ll juggle with them.”
    Everyone jumped up to pick apples.
    Mitchell was too tired to jump. He scooped two apples off the ground. One for him. The other for Angel. To make up for the poison ivy.
    “Don’t take them from the ground,” Mr. Oakley said.
    It was too late. Mitchell bit into his apple …
    Right into one of Mr. Oakley’s favorite creatures.
    He dropped the apple. The other half of the favorite creature was still wiggling. “Sorry, worm,” he said.

    “Eww!” Angel spit out her bite of apple. She began to scream. She grabbed her throat. “I swallowed a worm!”
    “Oh, no!” Yolanda yelled. “Angel’s been poisoned!”
    “I might end up in the hospital.” Angel wiped her mouth hard.
    She stared at Mitchell. “Because of you, Mitchell ‘Number Eighty-seven’ McCabe.”
    Mr. Oakley sighed. “You’re all right. A worm won’t hurt you.”
    Mitchell sighed, too.
    He wasn’t going to win a nature prize.

CHAPTER 6
THURSDAY
    M itchell stopped at the kindergarten shelf. He saw Clifton’s mask. The mask had big teeth. There was a big
C
on one tooth. There was a
D
on the other.
    But where was Trevor’s mask?
    Mitchell had to find it before Peter Petway found out he had lost it.
    It wasn’t on the stairs.
    Maybe it was in the schoolyard.
    Too bad it was raining outside. The Zelda A. Zigzag School smelled like his dog, Maggie.
    Mitchell took another sniff. It smelled a little like his old school, too.
    It was time to search. But now his raincoat had disappeared.
    He never could find anything! Angel was right about that!
    He’d go outside to look anyway.
    He’d have to skip Homework Help. He’d have to skip Ellie with her three freckles.
    What about snack?
    He couldn’t skip that. He’d have a hole in his stomach.
    Mitchell dashed to the lunchroom. He was fast enough to be first in line for leftover pizza.
    Habib was right behind him. They looked out the windows.
    Habib twirled his hand around. “It’s dark out there. Windy. It looks like a—a what-do-you-call-it?”
    Mitchell frowned. “Something like a tomato.” Wasn’t that a big wind that carried people away?
    Never mind. He still had to go outside. He had to find that mask.
    He took a bite of pizza. It looked like cardboard. It tasted like cardboard, too.
    “Could I have the pizza box?” Mitchell asked the lunch lady.
    She tucked one ear in her shower cap. She handed him the box.
    Mitchell took another pizza slice.
    He went up the stairs and opened the door.
    Wow! It was raining hard. He could hardly see the schoolyard. Maybe there was a flood. He might drown.
    He went out anyway.
    “Yeow.” He held the box over his head. It made an almost-umbrella. He took a bite of pizza.
    He splashed through the giant puddles. He looked for the mask. It wasn’t in the playground area. It wasn’t near the windows.

    His #1 T-shirt was stuck to his back.
    Pizza sauce ran down his face.
    He jumped into the air. He landed in the mud.
    It felt great.
    Angel called from the storeroom window. “Is that blood all over you?” She sounded worried.
    Mitchell sighed. “It’s pizza sauce.”
    “You’re going to be soaked. You can get sick from all that rain.”
    Mitchell checked behind the bushes. No mask. Just Terrible Thomas hiding from the rain.
    “Miiiiitchell!” Angel screeched.
    “I’m coming,” he yelled.
    “I won’t even have a brother.”
    “I’m coming in right now.” He dropped the pizza box into the litter basket.
    In the hall, he shook himself like Maggie. Drops flew all over.
    Ms. Katz stood there. She held his raincoat out with one finger. “Get a towel from the boys’ room.