Stink: Solar System Superhero (2 page)

Stink closed his eyes. “Saturn . . . Jupiter . . . Earth . . . Pluto, and that one that comes before Pluto.”

“Stink, good thing you have me, your brainy big sister, to teach you. My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.”

“I thought Dad was making us spaghetti.”

“No, Stink. That’s how you remember the planets. The first letter of each word in the sentence stands for a planet. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.”

“My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas!” said Stink.

“Your very excellent
father
is just about to serve spaghetti,” said Dad, coming into Judy’s room. “C’mon, you two. Time for dinner.”

“I was just teaching Stink how to remember the planets,” said Judy. “Like ROY G. BIV helps you remember all the colors of the rainbow. Mr. Todd says it’s called a moronic.”

“I think the word is
mnemonic,
” said Dad.

“Who thought that up?” said Judy.

“Some
moron,
” said Stink. He and Judy cracked up all the way to the dinner table.

The next day after school, Stink sat on his race-car bed. He stared at the page with all the Pluto questions. He stared at the big fat red
X,
as big as the Great White Spot on Saturn.

Stink wished he could zoom away on that car bed. Down the stairs and out of the house and up the road and into outer space. He wished his race-car bed would rocket him all the way to the rings of Saturn.

He might as well move to another planet. Anywhere but Pluto.

“What’s wrong?” Judy asked when she saw his sour-ball face.

Stink held up his test. He pointed to the big fat red
X
.

“Did you flunk? For real?” Judy asked, grinning.

“You know that thing you taught me? Well, guess what? My very excellent mother DID NOT Serve Nine Pizzas.”

“What did she serve?”

“Nothing. Zero. Zip. T. I. N. P. There. Is. No. Pizza.”

“What do you mean, there’s no pizza?”

“There’s no letter
P.
Because there’s no Pluto.”

“How can there be no Pluto? Where did it go?”

“It’s still up there, but it’s not a planet anymore. There are only eight planets now.”

“Stink, they can’t just take away a
whole entire
planet. That would mess with the
whole entire
solar system.”

“Well, they did. Ask Mrs. D. She said Pluto is too small, and it has a weird orbit. Besides, they found something bigger, so they flunked it. Voted it off the island. Kicked it out of the solar system. Pluto is gonzo.”

“Who’s
they
?” asked Judy.

“Big important science guys. One day, the President of Outer Space had a big meeting and everybody voted and Pluto got kicked out, so it’s not one of the nine planets anymore.”

“What is it?”

“A
dwarf
planet.”

“A dwarf planet! So now are they going to call it Grumpy? Or Dopey?”

“No, but they
are
going to call it Number 134340.”

“What? That stinks on ice,” said Judy. “I can’t believe Mr. Todd didn’t tell us. This is big. Really big! How come Mrs. D. didn’t tell you?”

“I guess she did. But I don’t think I was even in the room. I think I was at the nurse’s office getting my hearing checked.”

“Well, you better get it checked again if you didn’t hear your teacher say they kicked a whole entire planet out of outer space.”

“Pluto’s my favorite, too.”

“Wait. I thought Saturn was your favorite.”

“Next to Saturn, I mean.”

“What’s so great about Pluto, anyway?”

“Jupiter’s the biggest and Mars is the reddest and Venus is the hottest and —”

“Oh, I get it. Pluto is the smallest planet in the solar system, isn’t it? And you’re the shortest kid in your class. You’re both puny. Instead of Pluto, they should call it Punk-o.”

“Nah-uh!”

“You just like Pluto because it’s so cute-o.”

“Hardee-har-har. This is serious. What am I going to do?”

“Face it, Stink. The time has come to find another second-favorite planet.”

“But I mean, what about my test? Maybe I can talk to my teacher. But what if she doesn’t let me take it over?”

“Talk to her, Stink. You’ll just have to explain what happened.”

“Easy for you to say. Your teacher isn’t a big fat Pluto Meanie.”

“Science time!” said Mrs. D. “Let’s go over your tests.”

Stink took out his test. He tried to cover up the big red
X
on the Pluto page with his elbow, in case Nick, the new kid in front of him, turned around.

Stink stared at the back of the new kid. His head looked a little like a small, almost-round planet.

Just then, Mrs. D. got a call from the principal. “Okay, class. Everybody take out your math workbooks and open to page 101. Keep working while I go talk with Ms. Tuxedo.”

“Teacher got sent to the principal’s office!” somebody snickered.

Planet Head Nick turned around. Nick showed Stink his test. Nick had a big fat red
X
on the Pluto page, just like Stink.

“I got skunked!” said Planet Head.

“Me too!” said Stink, lifting up his elbow.

“At my old school,” said Nick, “Pluto was still a planet. This is so not fair.”

“Tell me about it. I was with the nurse getting my ears checked when Mrs. D. told about the NO PLUTO rule. And nobody, not even my best friends, Webster and Sophie of the Elves, told me.”