Judy Moody, M.D. (7 page)

“Time for a real live operation!” said Judy.

“Do it on me!” said Frank.

“Not me!” said Rocky.

“If you need a guinea pig,” said Jessica Finch, “do it on Peanut.”

“I already have a patient.”

“Is it dead?” asked Bradley.

“My patient is alive, not dead. My patient is better to practice on than a little brother. My patient has lots of guts. Ooey-gooey guts.”

“Who is it?”

“Tell us!”

“Does it have a name?”

“Yes.”

“Oh no! Does it have green skin?” asked Rocky.

“Yes!” said Judy.

“It’s Toady!” Frank called out.

“Her name is . . . Ima,” said Judy. She held up a zucchini with a Magic-Marker face. “Ima Green Zucchini!”

The whole class clapped.

Frank came up front to help. He held up Judy’s X-ray drawing of the insides of a zucchini. “First, make sure you take an X-ray, so you know what you’re doing.”

“What’s that big black blob?” asked Rocky.

“That’s the thing I’m going to remove. The appendix. Nobody really knows what the appendix is for, so it’s a good thing to take out.”

“I had my appendix out,” said Alison S.

“I had mine out twice,” said Bradley.

“Before you start,” said Judy, “don’t forget to take the Hippo oath. Swear by the Hippo guy, Father of Medicine, and Mr. Clean and Louis Lasagna that you will do your doctor best. Then make sure the patient is clean.”

Judy turned to Frank. “Toothbrush!” She scrubbed the zucchini with a toothbrush.

“Shot.” Frank handed her the shot from her doctor kit.

“Give the patient a shot, so they fall asleep. Use your nicey-nicey voice and tell them they won’t feel a thing. Or tell them a joke to make them feel okay. Like, what vegetable lives in a cage? A
zoo-chini
!”

Frank cracked up the most at that one.

“Knife!” Frank handed Judy a plastic knife.

“Next, make the incision.”

“I-N-C-I-S-I-O-N,” said Intelligirl Jessica Finch, Queen of Medi-words. “A cut, slash, or gash.”

Judy poked the zucchini with the plastic knife.

“Scissors,” said Judy. Frank handed her the scissors.

Snip, snip, snip.

“Blood!” Judy said to Frank. She pointed to the ketchup bottle. Frank poured ketchup all over the zucchini.

“Operations have lots of blood.”

“All this ketchup stuff is making me hungry for hot dogs and stuff,” said Rocky.

“Tweezers!” She whispered, “Clothespin” to Frank.

“Take out the appendix.” Judy pulled out a hunk of seeds with the clothespin.

“Sponge!” Judy picked up the zucchini and wiped off the ketchup-blood. The zucchini was so ketchup-y, it slipped out of Judy’s hands and fell to the floor.

OH, NO!

The kids in 3T leaned out of their seats to see what had happened. There, in the middle of aisle 3, was perfect patient Ima Green Zucchini, lying in a pool of ketchup-blood, broken in two!

“Rule number one: Stay calm,” said Judy. “Admit ‘I know not’ what to do!”

Then she had an idea. Judy picked up both halves of her patient and said to Frank, “Sutures!” So Frank handed her a needle and some thread.

“I’ll just sew the patient back up.” Judy showed the class how to make nice neat stitches.
In, out, in, out.

“Don’t just do a
sew-sew
job. Or your patient will have a purple Frankenstein scar. Or a pizza-shaped scar, like mine.” Judy pulled up her sleeve to show her own bumpy pizza-scar, from the time she fell chasing the ice-cream truck. Judy and Frank laughed till their appendixes hurt.

Frank helped Judy put Band-Aids all over her patient. “Wait one week, then take the stitches out. Tell them to rest and eat prunes and plenty of Screamin’ Mimi’s ice cream. No, wait. That’s for tonsils. Whatever! The end.”

Everybody clapped really hard. “Good job,” said Mr. Todd. “Nice details. You really thought of everything. I’d say it was a
smashing
success!”

The very next day after Operation Zucchini, Frank Pearl brought a cardboard person to school. A cardboard person that looked exactly like him.

“Awesome,” said Rocky. “You have a twin!”

“He’s my clone. I’m Frank. He’s Stein. Get it? We’re Frank-and-Stein!”

Judy hoped Frank-and-Stein was not better than Operation Zucchini.

Frank Pearl told the class how you get DNA from a bone or a hair. “One cell has all your genes. You can make another one of you, exactly like you, by cloning. You can’t see your genes,” said Frank. “But it’s all there.”

“I can see my jeans. I’m wearing them,” said Bradley.

“Not blue jeans. G-E-N-E, genes. DNA is the stuff that makes you YOU.”

“Cool beans,” said Judy.

“Scientists cloned a sheep and named her Dolly. And they cloned a bunch of mice. And some pigs, right here in Virginia,” Frank told the class.

“Is that true, Mr. Todd?” asked Jessica Finch.

“It’s science fiction,” said Alison S.

“Like
Jurassic Park,
” said Rocky.

“It’s true,” said Mr. Todd.

“They found a mammoth frozen in ice and they might try to clone it with DNA so mammoths won’t be extinct anymore. No lie,” said Frank.

“Thank you, Frank,” said Mr. Todd. “Very interesting. Most of us just think of cloning as science fiction.”

The rest of the morning, Frank Pearl did not pay attention once. Judy wrote him a note, but he didn’t write back. She told him a joke, but he didn’t laugh.

“Frank! What’s wrong?” Judy asked.

“My project wasn’t good.”

“Was so!” said Judy. “You’re a gene-ius.”

“My project was cardboard.
Dead
cardboard. Nobody even believes it’s real. Yours had something real. Something alive.” He just stared at Peanut, the dwarf guinea pig.

“Why are you staring at Peanut?” asked Judy.

“I was just thinking how she must be lonely all by herself,” said Frank.

“Judy, Frank, are you with us?” asked Mr. Todd.

“Sorry, Mr. Todd,” said Judy. “Frank’s worried about Peanut. Do guinea pigs get lonely? For friends?”

“Yes, well, guinea pigs do enjoy company.”

“I have guinea pigs, and my guinea pig book says you’re never supposed to have just one guinea pig,” said Jessica Finch.

“That’s why we take turns playing with her every day,” said Mr. Todd. “And we made her a fun box, remember? Now let’s keep our minds on our work, okay?”

At morning recess, Frank found Judy and Rocky at the water fountain. “You guys have to help me get in trouble,” said Frank.

“Are you crazy?” asked Rocky.

“Do you
want
to go to Antarctica?” Judy asked Frank.

“No, I just want Mr. Todd to make me stay inside for lunch recess. I need to try a science experiment. A real one. About cloning.”

“Cool beans,” said Rocky.

“Cool genes,” said Judy, cracking herself up. “What kind of experiment?”

“Cloning Peanut. I’ll make another guinea pig exactly like her. Right here in Class 3T. So she’ll have a friend. Or
friends.
Real ones, not cardboard. If it works, nobody will think cloning is just science fiction.”

“Cloning just works on aliens,” said Rocky.

“And bones. And frozen stuff,” Judy said.

“Nah-uh,” said Frank.

“Well, it’s against the law to practice science on animals. Stink told me. You have to use a zucchini or something.”

“Everybody clones vegetables. And does experiments on
zucchinis.
”

“What’s wrong with that? Real doctors practice stitches on zucchinis. It’s way scientific.”

“Cloning a guinea pig is way MORE scientific.”

“Get real!” said Judy. “You can’t just be a cloner. You need equipment. Fancy stuff, like scientists have. In labs.”

“It’s easy. All I need is DNA (a few hairs from Peanut), a petri dish like Rocky used for Lego germs, and electricity. Plus a little help from you guys.”

“DNA means
Do Not Ask
me to experiment on animals!” said Judy. “I’ll watch, but only to make sure you don’t hurt Peanut.”

“Let’s ask Mr. Todd if we can stay inside at recess and clean Peanut’s cage,” said Frank. “Then nobody gets in trouble.”

“Perfect,” said Rocky.

“Genius,” said Judy.

“Scientific,” said Frank, tapping a finger to his head.