Read Online Pickle by Kim Baker - Free Book Online Page B

have a name so we can take the credit.
    Like Zorro!
    Frank was right again.

 
    19
    Reward
    From: Agent Fix-it
    To: Oliver Swanson
    Cc: Agent Queso; Agent Super
    Subject: Initiation
    Let me show you how it’s done. —AF
    I knew what Frank’s message was about as soon as I got to school. Green flyers hung everywhere. On the front doors, through the halls, on the bulletin boards. There were even a couple on the office door. He’d beaten Oliver to the punch.
    MISSING!
    Sense of humor.
    If found, please return to the office ASAP.
    Reward!
    The flyers were up for the first two classes until somebody with no sense of humor took them down. Is that irony? I don’t know, but check it out: I heard a kid telling his dad about it that night at Lupe’s. I needed to come up with something really good so I could be a member of my own club.

 
    20
    Suspects
    â€œMs. Ruiz said that the new girl got a party because of a new school rule, but none of my other teachers know anything about it. I asked,” Maggie said. “Why would anybody throw a party for a kid they hadn’t met yet?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. It wasn’t a whole lie.
    â€œWait a minute…” She sat there with her mouth open, just squinting at the ceiling. “Do you think it was the same people who filled the class with balls? Why would somebody keep sneaking into our classroom?” Maggie chewed her thumbnail.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said.
    Kids were talking about what would happen next. The leading theory going around was that the balls and the party were from someone inside our homeroom class. Their powers of deduction amazed me. And made me want to throw up a little bit. Leo Saylor wrote everyone’s name on a long list labeled “Suspects.” We were pretty much all on it. Except Leo. He didn’t put his own name down. He said he didn’t have time to do goofy stuff like that, and everybody believed him. My name was near the top. Frank, Bean, and Oliver were on there, too. The pressure was on.

 
    21
    Banana Bread Bribery
    â€œGood morning, students!” Pat’s voice came over the P.A. and interrupted Ms. Ruiz’s talk about lake monsters and dragons. “Imagine my surprise this morning when the heater came on in the office and I was showered with confetti. Confetti, I tell you! Some clever trickster put a great deal of confetti in our office vents. I enjoyed the rain, but I’m afraid Principal Lebonsky won’t have the same, ah, appreciation. It looks like her office got the worst of it.” There was mumbling and the intercom clicked off. Ms. Ruiz took a breath to get back into her mythological creature talk. The P.A. clicked back on. “Pat here, again. If anybody wants to volunteer to help Rick and me clean up the confetti before Principal Lebonsky gets back from a school district meeting, there will be some banana bread in it for you. Thank you.”
    Oliver stopped Bean and me on the way out of class.

    â€œMission accomplished. Consider me an official, initiated pickle maker,” he said. Bean high-fived him.
    â€œWhere’d you get the confetti?” she said.
    â€œI bought it at Party Plus. I didn’t want it to get traced back to Lee’s.”
    â€œThey can’t trace confetti! Way to take food out of my mouth, bro,” she said. Oliver looked like he might apologize, so I talked before he could.
    â€œNice work. How’d you think to put it in the vents?”
    â€œI used to hide stuff in the heater vent at my last foster house. There was another kid there that swiped stuff,” he said.
    â€œPretty clever, Oliver,” I said.
    â€œWe’ll call you Clevoliver.” Bean tapped him on top of the head with her pencil like she was knighting him. I don’t call him that, but she does. A lot.

 
    22
    A Club with No Name
    â€œFrank suggests that our group needs a name, and I think so,