Judy Moody, M.D. (2 page)

Mom shook her head and went to wash off the thermometer. When she came back, she took Judy’s temperature. “It’s 98.6,” said Mom. “Normal!”

“Faker, fakey, not-sick, big fat faker,” said Stink.

“At least my temperature’s normal,” said Judy. “Even if my brother isn’t.”

“Better get dressed,” said Mom. “Don’t want to be late.”

“Stink? You’re a rat fink. Stink Rat-Fink Moody. That’s what I’ll call you from now on.”

“Well, you’ll have to call me it at school ’cause you don’t get to stay home.”

Judy stuck out her cherry-red, no-mumps tongue at Stink.

She was down in the dumps. She had a bad case of the grumps. The no-mumps Moody Monday blues. She, Judy Moody, felt like Mumpty Dumpty! Mumpty Dumpty without a temperature, that is.

When Judy walked into Class 3T (seven minutes late!) on the un-mumpsy day of Monday, Class 3T was dry as a bone. Or bones! There were bones everywhere.

Mr. Todd had made a new bulletin board:
Our Amazing Body: From Head to Toe.
It had a tall poster of bones with long scientific names. On the front board he taped a chart that showed rodent bones. It looked like the insides of Peanut, the dwarf guinea pig in Class 3T. And . . . sitting behind Mr. Todd’s desk in Mr. Todd’s chair, using Mr. Todd’s pencil, was a glow-in-the-dark skeleton!

Class 3T had turned into a bone museum!

Bones were not drippy. Bones were not noisy. Bones were not boring. Bones were dry and quiet and very, very interesting!

Things were sure looking up for a no-mumps Monday. Judy handed Mr. Todd her late slip. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I almost had the mumps.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re healthy, and here now. We’re starting a new unit on the Human Body from head to toe.”

“We’re going to get to jump rope,” said Jessica Finch. “And measure our heart rates.”

“And play Twister,” said Rocky. “To learn about muscles.”

“And sing a song about bones,” said Alison S.

“I can’t believe you started the human body without me!” said Judy. “A person can miss a lot in seven minutes.”

“Don’t worry. I think you’ll catch up,” said Mr. Todd.

Mr. Todd taught them a funny song that went, “Da foot bone’s connected to da ankle bone. . . .” He read them a book called
Frozen Man,
the incredible, real-life story of a five-thousand-year-old mummy.

And Class 3T got to turn out the lights and use the glow-in-the-dark skeleton named Bonita to count how many bones were in a human. Two hundred and six!

“We’ll be learning a lot of new words in this unit. The scientific names for bones and body parts come from Latin. So they may sound a little funny.”

“Like
maxilla
is your jaw?” asked Judy, looking at the bulletin board.

“And so is
mandible,
” said Jessica.

Jessica Finch had already learned to spell
microbes
(a fancy word for germs, as in cooties!) and
medulla
(a fancy word for brain stuff). “Can you spell
headache
?” Judy asked. Frank Pearl cracked up at that one.

Then Mr. Todd passed out owl pellets. They got to poke them with a pencil to find bones. Rodent bones. Judy and Frank stared at their fuzzy gray lump.

“Double bluck! Just think. This is owl spit-up!” said Frank.

“It’s still interesting,” said Judy. “Real bones are in there. Skulls and stuff.”

“You poke it,” said Frank. So Judy poked it with her Grouchy pencil. They found a jawbone, a rib, and a bone Mr. Todd called a
femur.
They glued each bone onto paper and drew in all the missing bones to make a rodent skeleton that matched the one on the board.

“Do any rodent bones have the same names as human bones?” asked Mr. Todd.

Judy raised her hand.

“Tibia,” called out Jessica Finch.

“Very good,” said Mr. Todd.

“That’s what I was going to say,” said Judy. Jessica Finch was a rat fink (like Stink!) for not raising her hand. A
rodent
fink.

“Now let’s talk about your Human Body projects,” said Mr. Todd. “Projects will be due in two weeks. You can do your project on bones, muscles, joints, the brain —”

“Even toenails?” asked Bradley.

“As long as it teaches us something about the human body. Let’s start by writing down ideas in your notebooks. I want to see brainstorming.”

Judy had a storm in her brain already.

Rocky wanted to do three-thousand-year-old human body stuff. Mummies!

“What are you thinking of doing?” Judy asked Frank.

“Cloning. I’ll be a fiction scientist or a science fictiontist. Somebody who clones stuff. Like in
Jurassic Park.
They used a drop of mosquito blood and made a whole dinosaur. They do it in real life, too. Start with one cell, like from your DNA, and make a whole new you.”

“
Double
cool!” Judy said.

“I’m going to write a dictionary,” Jessica told Judy. “With human body words like
appendix
and
patella.
That’s your knee.” Jessica Finch had
cooties
on the
medulla
if she thought she could rewrite the dictionary.

Judy looked back at her own paper. She chewed her eraser. She chewed her fingernail. She chewed her hair. Judy had a brain wave! A real-body-parts idea. She would call Grandma Lou to see if she had any good body parts for Showing and Telling. Something better than scabs. This was the brainiest of all storms! She wrote down
Call Grandma Lou
so she wouldn’t forget.

Judy’s just-sharpened Grouchy pencil was still flying when Mr. Todd said, “Class, that’s enough brainstorming for today.”

“Good. My brain hurts,” said Frank.

“I’m passing out permission slips for our field trip.”

Field trip!
“Is it to Screamin’ Mimi’s?” asked Judy. “Please, please, pretty please with chocolate mud ice cream on top?”

“Max and Kelsey’s dad, from Class 3M, works at the hospital. So we’re invited to go with their class to the Walter Reed Memorial Hospital emergency room. We’ll learn all about the human body and get to see people who make a difference
in action.
”

Emergency room!
That was even better than Screamin’ Mimi’s! Judy Moody dropped her
mandible
! And her Grouchy pencil.

“I was there when I broke my finger,” said Frank, waving his crooked pinkie. “They have a nurse named Ron.”

“I went when my brother stuck a Lego up his nose,” said Bradley.

“Can we go see all the new babies?” asked Frank. “They’re so wrinkly.”

“Well, I’m glad the whole class is enthusiastic,” said Mr. Todd.

“When do we go? When? When?” everybody asked.

“Monday. One week from today. Dr. Nosier will be giving us a tour.”

“Dr. Nosehair!” said Rocky, and everybody cracked up.

She, Judy Moody, and Class 3T were going to the ER. For real and absolute positive. The blood-and-guts, real-body-parts emergency room.

Judy reached down to pick up her Grouchy pencil. The tip was broken. “Mr. Todd,” she asked, “may I please sharpen my pencil?”

“Remember what we said about sharpening pencils ten times a day?”

“But Mr. Todd,” said Judy, “it’s an emergency.”

“What?”

“A
pencil
emergency! My pencil just broke its spinal cord!” said Judy.