Attack of the Tagger (9 page)

212 Fahrenheit!

Boiling
hot!

I dove back into bed. Too late to worry about that now. I had work to do!

Next step: act sick so Mom would believe me later when I told her I came home sick from school.

I started coughing.
Cough-cough-cough.
Not too hard. Not too soft.
Cough-cough-cough.

I waited a minute. Nobody came.

I tried a little louder—
cough-cough-cough
—and moaned a little for good measure.

Nobody came.

So,
cough-cough-cough
I went again.
Louder.

This time there was a
tap-tap-tap
on my door. “Honey?” my mom said, sticking her head inside. “Are you okay?”

I sat up and nodded, then held my head like it hurt.

“Are you sure?” She sat next to me and felt my forehead.

I nodded again but moved my eyes from one side to the other like Dad always does when he’s checking to see if he’s got the flu. Then I coughed some more—
cough-cough-cough.

Mom hurried out of the room and was back a minute later with the ear-scope thermometer. She pulled up the top of my ear and jabbed the thermometer down the canal.

A perfect 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, 37 degrees Celsius.

She jabbed it down my other ear.

Same thing.

“I’m fine, Mom.”
Cough-cough-cough.

“If you’re not, I can arrange to work from home today.…”

Uh’oh. I was laying it on too thick. “I’m okay. Really.”

I burned the toast at breakfast just to prove it. And after I’d cleared the dishes, I went down to my room, put on my army pants, and stashed my digital camera and my safety scissors in one of the cargo pockets. Then I headed back to the kitchen to load up my other pockets.

Juice boxes—check!

Granola bars—check!

Big straws—check!

Pack of gum—check!

Rubber bands—check!

Dad had left for work early, so I called, “Bye, Mom!” and headed for the door.

She blocked my way, saying, “All right, this is
proof
something’s wrong.”

“Huh?”

She crossed her arms and looked me up and down. “What
is
going on with you, Nolan?”

“Huh?” I said again, and tried hard not to look down at my cargo pockets. Were they bulging way out? Were they
leaking!

She squinted at me. “You hate that shirt.”

I looked from one arm to the other. I did hate it. It was long-sleeved and muddy green and it had a pointy collar and an itchy tag. But it was perfect for what I had to do.

She squinted harder. “And it really does not go with those pants—which you know
I
hate.”

“Mom, I love these pants! They’re… they’re cool.”

Her face crinkled. “Cool? Nolan, have you
looked
at yourself?”

“Mo-om! First you complain that I won’t wear this shirt; now you’re complaining that I am! Can I please just go to school?”

She shook her head, but finally she sighed and said, “Go.” But then she noticed the clock. “Wait! What am I saying? It’s way too early for you to go to school!”

“I know, but I promised Mr. Green I’d help him with a project before school.”

She waved her hand through the air. “Okay, okay! Go!”

I started trucking for the door, but before I could reach it, she cried, “Wait!”
again.

I whipped around. “
What,
Mom!” Wow. I sounded mean. But I was running out of time!

She raised an eyebrow. “Your backpack?” she said, watching me carefully. “Don’t you want your backpack?”

“Oh. Oh, right.” I strapped it on while she felt my forehead and muttered something about my “erratic behavior.”

When I finally got away from her, I ditched my backpack in some bushes near the garage and zoomed across the street.

There were already cars in the parking lot, including a fancy silver one with spoked wheels.

Dr. Voss’s!

I hid in the bushes in my muddy green itchy-tagged shirt and army pants. When the coast was clear, I zoomed across the parking lot. I ducked behind the stack of yard-waste sacks. And I was just starting to open my disguise sack when a yellow Volkswagen drove into the parking lot.

I waited.

Mrs. Bernhart got out.

Then a black SUV drove into the lot.

Drat!

I waited.

Miss Simms climbed out.

“Hi, Peggy!” “Good morning, Liza!” they called
to each other. Then they just
stood
there yakking away.

Double drat! How long were they going to stand around talking? I couldn’t wait forever! I stayed low and untied my yard-waste sack. I stuck my right foot inside and through a bottom flap. I pushed my left foot in. My heart was racing like crazy! My eyes were boinging from the sack to the yakky teachers. I wiggled my body through the leaves and pulled the sack up around me.

No going back now!

Then the Green Machine turned into the parking lot, its motor making a real cool
boop-boop-boop-boop-boop
sound. Dumb-Baby was still all over the dolphins and it looked worse than ever.

Stupid Tagger.

The van backfired a little when Mr. Green turned off the motor, and I noticed Mrs. Bernhart
and Miss Simms pull faces at it before they hurried away.

Just like popular kids do when they see
me
coming.

Wow, I thought. They’re acting like they don’t like Mr. Green! How could anyone not like Mr. Green? He was nice, and smart, and funny. Mr. Green was cool!

I wanted to say, “Pssssst!” and wave him over, but I didn’t. Another car was coming into the parking lot, and besides, I didn’t have time to talk to my sidekick. I had to hide!

I stayed on my knees and got all the way inside the sack. I stuck my arms out. I pulled the drawstrings tight over my head and tied them! I pulled my arms back in and held real still.

Nobody came and said, Hey! Whatcha doing? so after a minute, I started to feel safe.

I’d done it!

I was completely disguised!

And boy! Was my disguise dark. And stuffy!

I pulled in the face flap and took a few deep breaths while I looked around. More cars were coming in. I had to get going!

I dug up the pack of gum and put two pieces in my mouth, chewing like crazy. When the gum was soft, I pinched off part of it and used it to hold open the eye flap. Then I cut the straws in
half, looped them together with a rubber band, and stuck one end in my mouth and the other out the flap. I breathed in. Ah! Fresh air! My very own trash sack snorkel!

Okay. I could see, I could breathe— It was time to get my camera ready!

There was enough light coming in through the eye flap for me to see what I was doing. And once I had the camera ready, I stood halfway up and tiptoed around the other yard-waste sacks. Hee hee hee! I felt like I was in a Bugs Bunny cartoon!

I got as close to Dr. Voss’s car as I could, then squatted so my feet didn’t show and waited.

More cars came in. The buses drove up and dropped kids off in front of the school. Pretty soon there were people everywhere, walking all around me. One kid even jumped
over
me! I could see everyone, but no one noticed me.

It was the perfect disguise!

Then the tardy bell rang and after a few minutes it was quiet. Completely quiet.

I stayed as still as I could for as long as I could. But my legs were stiff from squatting, and I finally had to shift around and sit down.

Then I waited some more. The tag on my shirt was itchy, but the leaves poking me everywhere were even itchier. And it was getting hard to keep my lips tight around my snorkel. And what
was
that smell? The warmer it got, the stronger it got. Was there… was there dog poop somewhere in these leaves?

I tried to forget about it. But thinking I was stuck in a sack with dog poop was grossing me out!

Then the sun started beating down on my sack and pretty soon I felt like I was cooking inside it. I was sweating, I was itchy, and the smell was getting worse and worse.

I pulled in my snorkel and drank a juice. What
kind of stupid idea was this? What kind of superhero hides in a poopy trash sack sucking down juice boxes? I needed air. Lots of air!

I was about to break down and tack the whole face flap open with a piece of gum when I heard a sound.

Was it footsteps?

Yes! Quick footsteps!
Sneaky
footsteps! Coming from behind me!

I held my breath.

The footsteps got closer.

And closer.

And
closer.

Then they stopped, right behind me!

Something bumped me, hard. And for a minute I thought I was busted. But then there he was, crawling around me, heading straight for Dr. Voss’s car!

The Tagger!

I put my camera up and zoomed in on him.

He checked over both shoulders. He sneaked open the back door. He pulled out a spray can! And then he did it—Ryan Voss sprayed a dumb-baby face on his own mother’s car.

I got a movie clip of the whole thing. And I almost busted out of my disguise and cried, “Gotcha, you villain!”

Good thing Ryan didn’t give me the chance. Revealing my secret identity by popping out of a stinky sack wouldn’t exactly help Shredderman’s image.

Not to mention my already poopy image as Nolan Byrd.

In the blink of an eye, Ryan had slipped the spray can back inside the car—probably under the seat, where Dr. Voss would never think to look—and was
gone.

But still. I was bursting with excitement. I’d
trapped him! I’d really trapped him! I zoomed back through the movie clip and viewed it from the beginning. Yes! There he was, spraying his own mom’s car! Yes, yes, yes! I about boinged up and down in my yard-waste sack.

I checked out my face flap window.

Nobody to the right…

Nobody to the left…

But uh-oh. A truck was slowing down It was turning into the parking lot. It was a
gardener’s
truck. One with rakes and hoes. One half full of… uh-double-oh! Yard-waste sacks!

I had to get out of my disguise! Fast! Only just then someone
screamed.
It wasn’t a little
eeeek,
either.

It was loud!

It was shrill!

It was
close.

I turned sideways and peeked out my right armhole.

It was Dr. Voss!

She circled her car, screaming, crying, yelling for Mrs. Holler to call the police. And boy! Who’d ever guess a principal knew so many four-letter words!

I stowed my camera safely inside a cargo pocket,
then shriveled up and inched back as much as I could. What would Dr. Voss do if she found me? Oh, no! She’d probably think
I
was the Tagger! I had proof I wasn’t, but what if she got mad and threw my camera? What if she destroyed my evidence?