Masters of Disaster Read online

  The cat was quietly watching the parade; the dogs were enjoying being in the parade. Dwight Hauser, however, who has never enjoyed anything in his entire miserable, misbegotten life, had to go and ruin everything. This reporter, who was jogging alongside the dogsled, taking notes and snapping the occasional photo along with running the video camera, spotted Hauser, who spotted the dogs as they spotted the cat. Even so, nothing would have happened had Hauser’s tiny mind not conceived an evil, vicious, malicious plan. Hauser leaned over as the dogs trotted by and said “Meow!” right into the ear of the Chihuahua.

  The Chihuahua, obeying some genetic code that makes even frail, tiny, practically decrepit dogs think and act as if they were a direct link to prehistoric pack-hunting wolves, leapt out of his ill-fitting harness. The standard-size harnesses afforded a great deal of wiggle room for Queso, and once freed, he tore after the cat.

  The Chihuahua’s explosive surge of speed and his bloodthirsty snarling and yipping triggered the Rottweiler’s latent bloodlust. And Carl was a dog who couldn’t resist a chase. His full-power lunge jerked the rest of the team ahead, yanking Hamner off his feet and dragging him after the sled by the rope tied to his waist.

  As the sled jumped forward, the rug-brake was jerked from beneath Mosley’s feet and he fell into the sled on his face, his feet kicking in the air.

  Perched on top of four sets of free-rolling skateboard wheels, and unencumbered by Hamner acting as lead dog or Mosley exerting pressure on the rug-brake, the dogs streaked through the middle of the parade like a jet-powered train.

  The team and the sled plowed directly into the pack of llamas, which got tangled up with the herd of ponies, which tripped the grade school singers, all of whom became entwined in the dogs’ gang line.

  The entire spitting, braying, barking, screaming, singing mass headed for Goren.

  While he was normally willing to enter into battle with all real and perceived threats, Goren knew he was outnumbered, and adopting discretion as the better part of valor, he ducked down and headed for the nearest escape route.

  Which, at that moment, proved to be the open door of the ice cream store, from which the Reverend Potter Jenks was emerging with his annual Memorial Day treat (French vanilla covered with sprinkles on a handmade waffle cone). So involved was Reverend Jenks with managing the dripping cone that he did not see the large cat followed by llamas and ponies and dogs and singers and a makeshift dogsled with one boy upside down and another being dragged alongside by a rope tied around his waist. The cone, halfway to his mouth, was slammed into his face, blinding him as the hooved, pawed, barking, screaming, spitting, singing tsunami roared over him and into the store.

  Witnesses, including this reporter, saw Goren make two quick loops of the shop pursued by the mob before he blew a hole through the exact center of the screen door leading to the back alley. He was followed immediately by llamas, ponies, dogs, rowdy theater students still singing, the sled and Mosley and Hamner, who later denied that they had screamed the whole time even though Lacey, the girl who worked at the ice cream store, testifies she clearly heard Hamner bellow “Call 9-1-1!” as she stood paralyzed, a cup of mango strawberry gelato melting in her hand.

  The torn screen frayed the rope that attached Hamner to the dog team, but his momentum was such that, once freed, he flew straight toward the Porta Potti that the town fathers had placed in the alley for the parade crowd.

  In the back alley, Goren streaked up a power pole, where he clung to the top by his claws, shaking. The rest of the animals, joyous but exhausted, milled around the alley underneath the pole, making it easier for the police’s mounted unit to round up the still-spitting llamas, ice-cream-covered ponies and howling dogs while simultaneously freeing the musical actors from the melee.

  Local law enforcement, in this observer’s opinion, did a magnificent job and delivered each animal and minor back to its proper supervisor, a little the worse for wear to be sure, but in a surprisingly upbeat mood.

  In the end, two boys rested upended in the deserted alley.

  “Is it over?” Hamner called from underneath the tipped-over Porta Potti. “I think I’m okay, even though my head seems to have been propelled through a wall of this outside bathroom thingie and I am looking at the business end of the toilet seat, which makes it hard to breathe. And I don’t mean to worry anyone or complain, but I think I got road rash when I was pulled along the ground after the dog team. Because there’s a kind of burning and stinging and itching with isolated patches of numbness along the right side of my body.”

  “It was,” Mosley said dreamily, “awesome. The noise was overpowering and the syncopated rhythm of so many different animals—and small children—was amazing! I hope Riley got this on video so we can watch it later. And is it just me, or do you think the community-access cable channel would leap at the chance to air that footage?”

  “It’d be nice to be on TV,” Hamner agreed. “A replay would fill in the gaps of what I may have missed when I was upside down and skidding after the dog team on my face.”

  Mosley went on, “It’s like I said the last time: We’re really getting good at this adventure stuff. And now the world, or at least the world that subscribes to our local community-access cable channel, will see how enterprising and take-charge we are.” He climbed out of the sled and pried the Porta Potti door off Hamner’s head. “I’m glad we decided we needed to shake things up. Best decision we ever made.”

  The videotape of the parade is submitted herewith as visual proof that the contents of this report are true and accurate to the best of this reporter’s abilities.

  Sincerely yours,

  Riley Dolen

  8

  Propaganda and Turtle Dregs

  “It’s the last day of school, men,” Henry announced as he and Reed limped to the cafeteria for lunch. It was the day after the Memorial Day parade. Riley followed—not limping. “We need to make it special. And there’s a wrong I’ve seen that we need to right. I have an idea.”

  “I don’t know that I’m up for another plan so soon after the last one, Henry,” Reed said. “Although being dragged along the parade route and through the ice cream store and out into the alley on my side by a dog team and a herd of ponies and a flock of llamas and several dozen musically inclined students seemed to lessen the constant smell of baby doody and fetid Dumpster rot and bat guano and cow pies, I think it’s just because layers of my skin were removed. I don’t think it’s a good idea to do another plan until the scabs on the entire right side of my body have dropped off. Or at least reached the crusty, healing stage instead of this oozy, red open sore thing I’ve got going on.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty gross,” Henry admitted. He watched Riley toss Reed a fresh tube of salve and pull some gauze bandages and tape out of his first-aid kit. “But the idea I have is psychological warfare. We do everything from a computer terminal in the library.”

  “No risk? No danger? No poop? Nothing that would keep me from moving out of the garage back to the basement and maybe even someday all the way back to my bedroom if I stop stinking and itching and oozing and crying in my sleep and periodically flinching like I am these days?”

  “Nothing like that,” Henry said. “You’ve been going through a rough patch, buddy. Way to take one for the team. You’re an inspiration and, have I mentioned, really tough. Thanks.”

  Reed shrugged modestly and dabbed at the scrape on his right wrist with a cotton ball dipped in hydrogen peroxide from Riley’s first-aid kit.

  “What wrong needs righting?” Riley asked, pulling his small digital voice recorder from his pocket and clicking it on so that he could capture every word, because not only did he like to be prepared for every eventuality, but he also wanted documentation of the way this idea had started, for purposes of comparison and contrast when he wrote up his final report. He took out a notebook and a pencil because he didn’t trust the recorder as much as his own notes.

  Henry pulled out of his back
pack a flyer that he had ripped off the wall. It read DON’T RUN IN THE HALLS.

  “Does that mean the halls on the third floor?” Riley asked. “Or all the halls in school? Or all the halls in all government buildings? Or maybe it’s an overall suggestion for every hall in the whole wide world?”

  “It’s not the sign that bothers me,” Henry said. “The sign just reminds me of what a huge bully Dwight Hauser is.”

  “Because he’s big and mean and makes everyone in school do what he wants and his father has a ton of money and his mother intimidates all the other mothers in the parent volunteer group and he makes infectious diseases seem preferable by comparison and we can’t stand him?” Riley asked.

  “And because of the way he fed me bunny turds and told me they were chocolate-covered raisins when we were in kindergarten?” Reed asked with a touch of bitterness.

  “Yes! Especially the rabbit droppings. People like him always get away with everything because no one ever stands up to them. The thing with the sign was really annoying because I was standing there this morning reading it and Hauser went barreling through the crowd like he was an armored tank blasting through a war zone. No reason, just because he could and thought it was funny to bounce people off the walls. And no one said anything to him even though the hall was full of teachers.”

  Henry took a deep breath. “Then he was mean to Marci Robbins.” Reed and Riley winced. “He knocked her down when she got in his way and then he called her stupid and laughed like it was a big joke when she started to cry.”

  “That scum.” Riley put down his pencil.

  Marci Robbins was sweet and quiet and so painfully shy that she blushed bright red when teachers called on her and stammered when she had to speak in front of the class and had probably never done anything wrong to anyone even once in her entire life. Plus, ever since she had contributed some helpful information while they were planning the Dumpster experiment, Riley had been keeping an eye on her; any girl with the powers of observation she had shown was interesting to him. And he’d noticed how pretty she was, too.

  “I’m in,” Riley said, closing his notebook.

  “What do you have in mind?” Reed asked.

  “This afternoon is field day; since we finished our tests and turned in our books this morning, we’re supposed to do PE outside all day. But I say we ditch that and hole up in the library.”

  “And?”

  “And come up with some flyers of our own.”

  Riley opened his backpack and pulled out a ream of retina-searing fluorescent-yellow copy paper. “Aren’t you glad now that I’m always prepared for every eventuality?”

  Henry grinned. “Flyers printed on paper that color will really attract attention.”

  * * *

  Henry, Riley and Reed were huddled around a computer terminal in the library, arguing about how to spell imbecile and whether it looked better to print D-W-I-G-H-T across the top of the paper or down the left side, followed by the words Dishonorable, Wormy, Insolent, Grievous, Harassing and Tormentor.

  Ms. Davidson, the librarian, caught sight of them. Sure they were up to no good, and in a hurry to finish cleaning the library by the end of the school day, she called Reed over to her office.

  She was looking at the rabbit cage.

  “I need you to carry the bunny to my car, Reed. I’m taking him home for summer vacation. Ooh”—she wrinkled her nose—“I guess his cage hasn’t been cleaned out for a while. Be a dear and remove the soiled newspapers and replace them with a clean, dry lining, will you? There are plastic trash bags behind my desk. Be sure to dispose of the waste properly.”

  “Sure thing,” Reed said, more enthusiastically than Miss Davidson would have expected. A few minutes later, after a whispered conference with Riley and Henry, he hurried out of the library with a plastic bag of rabbit turds.

  Henry stood by the copier, scooping copies off the tray and keeping an eye on Riley, who had just accessed the entire school’s email address book and sent a mass mailing (after double-checking the spelling of the phrases barbarous imbecile, menacing tyrant and puerile brute, as well as providing a hyperlink to his blog). Riley logged off, grabbed a roll of tape from Miss Davidson’s desk and met Henry at the door.

  By the time the next bell rang, 300 flyers had been taped on hallway walls or slid into faculty mailboxes and a bag of rabbit by-product had been smushed into the innersoles of the $350 gym shoes that rested in the backpack of one Dwight Hauser.

  The three boys looked at their handiwork, high-fived and headed for the principal’s office to turn themselves in. They might have been wrong in becoming vigilantes, but they weren’t going to try to escape the blame.

  “Well, men,” Henry said, “it’s been a pleasure and a privilege to redress an injustice with you. The flyers have flown, the emails have mailed and we have shown Dwight for the petty lowlife that he is. That was awesome, Riley, that you had snapped that picture of his hairy butt crack when he bent over in the locker room and that you cut and pasted it to the email. And Reed, that was a brilliant touch to put the bunny poop in his shoes—brings the whole thing full circle.”

  “It was,” Riley agreed, “awesome.”

  “I’m so glad that someone other than me is going to wind up smelling like crap,” Reed said.

  “I can’t wait for summer vacation,” Henry said. “We’ve really been held back with the whole school thing. Imagine: three months of free time. And just as we’re hitting our stride. People will read about us someday, songs will be sung and movies will be made celebrating Our Audacious Exploits. You watch.”

  Epilogue

  “Men, I have a great idea,” Henry said to Reed and Riley as they sat in the principal’s office waiting for their parents. They’d been suspended with forty-seven minutes left in the school year and a wink and a handshake from the principal, who pretended to look stern.

  “No!” Reed said sharply.

  Henry jumped. “Okay, okay, I hear you.”

  “No more ideas,” Reed continued, “until I figure out how to explain to my parents that I’ve been suspended for the last forty-seven minutes of school because of your last idea.”

  Riley didn’t say anything, but he edged away from Henry on the bench.

  Henry just smiled.

  Henry’s smile was one Reed and Riley had seen many times before—a smile of confidence and of knowledge that somehow, in some way, everything would work out all right.

  When Reed and Riley saw Henry smile, they knew.

  They knew that they would do whatever Henry’s plan called for. They knew, furthermore, that they would always do whatever Henry’s plan called for because, in the end, Henry had the best ideas, and his smile and his belief in his plans were so amazingly convincing.

  But Reed knew one more thing: No matter what, he would never land in poop again.

  And Riley knew, from the look on Marci Robbins’s face when she poked her head into the principal’s office and waved to him, clutching one of their flyers, that their exploits were finally going to Attract the Attention of Females.

  About the Author

  Gary Paulsen is the distinguished author of many critically acclaimed books for young people, including three Newbery Honor Books: The Winter Room, Hatchet, and Dogsong. He is the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in young adult literature. Among his Random House books are Lawn Boy Returns; Woods Runner; Notes from the Dog; Mudshark; Lawn Boy; The Legend of Bass Reeves; The Amazing Life of Birds; The Time Hackers; Molly McGinty Has a Really Good Day; The Quilt (a companion to Alida’s Song and The Cookcamp); The Glass Café; How Angel Peterson Got His Name; Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books; The Beet Fields; Soldier’s Heart; Brian’s Return, Brian’s Winter, and Brian’s Hunt (companions to Hatchet); Father Water, Mother Woods; and five books about Francis Tucket’s adventures in the Old West. Gary Paulsen has also published fiction and nonfiction for adults, as well as picture books illustrated by
his wife, the painter Ruth Wright Paulsen. Their most recent book is Canoe Days. The Paulsens live in Alaska, in New Mexico, and on the Pacific Ocean.

  You can visit Gary Paulsen on the Web

  at GaryPaulsen.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2010 by Gary Paulsen

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Three chapters in this work are based upon stories by Gary Paulsen previously published in Boys’ Life magazine: “Henry Mosley’s Last Stand” (July 2001), “Breaking the Record” (March 2003), and “The Night the Headless, Blood-Drinking, Flesh-Eating Corpses of Cleveland (Almost) Took Over the World” (July 2004).

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89867-9