Dedication
For Scott—
and our magical dog, Seamus
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
1.The Big White Moving Van
2.TJ vs. the Dog
3.An Awful Lot of Waffles
4.The Body-Sized Crate
5.7:15 on the Nose
6.The Buzz, the Pop!, and a Little Bit of Screaming
7.Study Butt-ies
8.A Really Good Home for Baxter
9.Spectrometers and Elbows
10.Baxter and the Boop
11.The Secret Layer of Science
12.The Baxter Station
13.Spike Takes a Hike
14.Caveman vs. Zombie Cheerleader
15.The Barfing Sock-Snake
16.Bounce-Pass Keep-Away
17.The Crabby Detective
18.Baxter Slumber Party
19.Jordie, Jordie . . . Jordie!
20.The Missing Professor
21.For Emergencies Only!
22.King of the Bounce
23.TJ, the Genius
24.3:42 A.M.
25.A Hard Landing
26.Cranking the TJ Zapper
27.Mutant Frogs and Nuclear Ants
28.A Pink Box the Size of Something Delicious
29.Pretty Outstanding at the End
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
1The Big White Moving Van
When the big white moving van rumbled up to the house next door, I dumped my Crispy Rice down the kitchen sink and ran into my brother TJ’s room.
“Wake up!” I pulled his pillow out from under his head and whapped his nose with it. “Someone’s moving in next door!”
“Go away!”
I ran outside.
I’d been waiting forever for someone to move in, ever since the For Sale sign went up last summer. Then the sign changed to Pending, which Mom said meant “waiting,” and I had been, for two months, even after it changed to Sold.
Considering how close together all the houses are in our neighborhood, you’d think I might have noticed someone clomping up the old wooden porch steps next door and opening their front door. But Crispy Rice crackles a lot, so it’s easy to miss something.
You couldn’t miss the van, though. It was huge. A big guy with a bushy dark beard and ponytail got out and walked toward the house with a clipboard while another big guy with his head shaved smooth as an egg got out and stretched. They were sort of funny together because one was so hairy and one wasn’t at all.
I leaned against the little fence between the two yards, waiting to see who was moving in. Maybe it was a family with a girl my age, so I wouldn’t be stuck every afternoon with just TJ. Or a young couple with a baby they’d let me push in a stroller.
Instead, out walked an old lady wearing a Portland Trail Blazers T-shirt tucked into her elastic-waist jeans. Her short gray hair kind of stuck up on one side, like she’d forgotten to brush it. I reached up to check if I’d brushed mine.
The old lady talked to the clipboard guy while the egg-head guy pulled up the back hatch of the van. Then she noticed me and waved.
I waved back and thought, Oh well, no kids.
But at least I could see what kind of furniture the old lady had, because if she was rich, maybe she had her own pinball machine. I’ve seen that in movies. Or a grand piano, and then I could watch the two guys try to carry it up the porch steps and through the front door.
Suddenly, this big shaggy gray dog burst out of the house.
I thought, A dog! That’s even better than a baby!
He bounded down the old lady’s front walk, like he had springs on the bottoms of his feet. He bounced up the ramp into the moving van and back down the ramp and across the yard and over the fence, circling my legs before bounding back over the fence again. He tumbled to a stop right by the old lady, woofing the whole time. But he wasn’t woofing in a scary way—he was woofing like he was saying how happy he was to be here and how happy he was that we were all here, too.
The old lady hurried into her house and came back out, holding a leash. The dog followed her over to the tree right across the fence from me. “He must have gotten out of the bathroom,” she said, smiling at me. “I think I need to tie him up for a little while so he doesn’t trip someone carrying furniture into the house.”
“I can watch him!”
“Really? Thank you. That would be most helpful.”
The dog stood beside her, quietly panting.
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“Um, Buddy . . .” Then she shook her head. “No, wait—Charlie. Sammy? . . . Oh, this is terrible, but I can’t remember.” She rubbed her chin with her hand. “I think I wrote it down somewhere, but everything’s in boxes right now.”
“You don’t know your own dog’s name?”
“Well, he’s not actually my dog. He belongs to a colleague at work. I’m only watching him for a few days.”
The dog leaned his head against her hip and looked up at her, his long pink tongue flopped out and resting on his teeth.
“He sure acts like he’s your dog,” I said.
The lady laughed. “Yes, I suppose he does.” She patted the dog’s head. “You’re sure you don’t mind watching him?”
“No problem!” I clapped my hands on my thighs, and before I could say “Here, boy!” he jumped back over the fence and landed at my feet.
The lady laughed again. “What’s your name, dear?”
“Jordie Marie Wallace.” (I always put the middle name in, too, because it sounds so pretty all in a row like that.)
“Thank you, Jordie.” She hurried toward her house.
I scritched under the dog’s chin. “Hey, buddy!”
He reared up on his hind legs and planted his front paws on my shoulders, so fast and heavy it practically knocked me over. We stood eye to eye then, with his crazy silver eyebrows standing straight up and his black lips open, panting dog breath, and his shaggy gray beard, dripping water. Either he drooled a lot, or he’d already drunk from the old lady’s toilet. “You’re a good boy!” I nodded.
The dog nodded back.
Huh, I thought.
He dropped to the ground and leaned against me.
“Oh, by the way,” the old lady called from across the yard, “I’m Professor Reese. Like the peanut butter cup.”
And just as I started thinking how strange it was for someone to introduce herself like a candy bar and add a “Professor” in front of it, I also started noticing that the stuff coming out of the moving
