My Life as a Computer Cockroach (4 page)
“All right, Mrs. McDoogle,” Wall Street called back. “Tell her I'm on my way.” With that she reached over and started to shut down Ol' Betsy.
“Wait a minute,” I protested. “You can't leave my grade like that.”
Wall Street gave me one of her famous eye rolls . . . so hard I thought she was going to sprain them. “Wally, no one's going to care.”
“Coach Kilroy will,” I said. “He's been waiting all year to flunk me. Think how disappointed he's going to be.”
Wall Street began to nod. “Good point.”
It was about time I had one. I let out a sigh of gratitude. Then, without a word, she reached down to Ol' Betsy and typed:
Choco Chum, make sure Coach Kilroy no longer teaches at our school.
“Wall Strâ” But before I could stop her she snapped the computer off. “Wall Street?!”
“What?” she said, looking at me with that grin. I stared at her, unsure what to say. Part of me wanted to order her to turn Ol' Betsy on again and change my grade back to an F. But another part of me sure liked the idea of that A. Then there was the thing with Coach Kilroy. It would sure be cool if for some reason he was transferred to another school, where he couldn't torment me. But still . . .
“Come on,” Wall Street urged. “Let's keep it, just for a day, and see if anything happens. We can always change it back if we want to.”
I looked from her, to the computer, then back to her again. And then, for some unknown reason, I felt my head begin to nod up and down.
“Great,” she said, gathering her things and heading for the door. “I'll see you tomorrow.” And, just like that, she was gone.
I sat there for a long moment . . . feeling kind of bad and kind of excited at the same time. Of course, I figured it was just a computer glitch and everything would be back to normal in the morning. Unfortunately, my figurer had misfigured this figure.
Translation: Things were going to get majorly weird majorly soon . . .
“Tuck and roll, McDoogle!”
TWEET!
“Tuck and roll! Tuck and roll!”
It was another grueling day of Coach Kilroy's extra credit class, and he was busy doing what he did bestâyelling at and humiliating me. (Actually, he was just doing the yelling, I took care of the humiliating part.)
Since I'd pretty well destroyed the obstacle course the day before, we met inside. Now he had us running around on tumbling mats, holding tightly wrapped gym towels. Every time he blew his whistle, we were to pull the towel into our gut and tumble, doing our best not to crush it.
“When that massive food shortage hits,” he screamed, “and you're the only one with a loaf of bread within twenty miles, you gotta protect it with your very life!”
TWEET!
“Tuck and roll! Tuck and roll!”
Actually, I was doing a pretty good job of running and pretending to hold the imaginary loaf of bread in my hands. I was even falling down all right (I'd had lots of practice). It was only when I
tucked
just a little too close to the door and
rolled
just a little bit out into the hallway that things got just a little bit ugly. Actually, it wasn't even the tucking and rolling, but the bouncing down the flight of stairs . . .
bounce
â “Ouch!”
bounce
â “Ooch!”
bounce
â “Eech!”
that got painful.
“McDoogle, you moron!”
Of course, everyone had a good laugh. Everyone but me . . . and Wall Street, who rushed down to the bottom of the steps to help me up. Normally, I'd be embarrassed getting helped by a girl, but when you're majorly unconscious and seriously considering death as a pastime, you forget those minor details.
“Too bad that computer thing didn't work,” I groaned as she helped me sit up and we started counting my broken bones.
“Actually, it did,” she said.
“What?”
“I called up Mrs. Fipplejerken this morning and asked her if I could do extra credit, kind of like we're doing here, to raise my grade.”
“And?”
“She said I was already getting a B . . . just like we typed in Ol' Betsy.”
“No way,” I said.
“Big way.”
“But what about Coach Kilroy. How comeâ”
Suddenly, I was interrupted by a loud police siren. Actually, several loud police sirens. I got up and kinda half limped, half dragged myself to the nearest doorway to take a look. By the time I stepped outside, there were about a hundred policemen swarming around the building, and they were all heading in one direction . . . straight toward the gym doors.
“All right, Kilroy!” a police officer shouted through a blow horn. “Come out with your hands up.”
“What's going on?” I whispered to Wall Street.
She shook her head. “I don't think we really want to know.”
A moment later, Coach Kilroy stepped outside. His hands were on top of his head, and he looked even more clueless than me. “What's going on?” he shouted. “What have Iâ”
But that was all he got out before a half-dozen officers jumped him and tackled him to the steps. Coach shouted, officers yelled, kids screamed.
“What's happening?” I cried to Wall Street.
She said nothing as we watched them hoist Coach to his feet and cuff his hands behind his back.
“What's going on?” I yelled.
Slowly Wall Street turned to me. Her usual grin was no longer grinning. And for good reason. “Looks like Ol' Betsy kicked in after all,” she said.
“Huh?”
“It looks like we really are getting rid of Coach Kilroy . . . for good.”
Wall Street and I burst through the front door of my house and headed for the stairs. Opera was right behind.
“Sweetheart,” Mom called as we breezed past her. “I just heard the news. Isn't that a shame about Coach Kilroy?”
“Yeah,” I shouted as we raced up the steps to my room.
“Such a pity,” she said, shaking her head. “To think that nice man actually robbed seventeen banks.”
Suddenly, we came to a screeching halt. Well, two of us came to a screeching halt. With Opera's extra weight, it took a little longer for him to slow down, which explains why
THUD, THUD
CRUSH, CRUSH
SUFFOCATE, SUFFOCATE
I was suddenly on the bottom of a giant, two-man pig pile.
“Opera,” I gasped. “I . . . can't . . . breathe . . .”
“Oh, sorry,” he said as he staggered back to his feet.
Wall Street and I pulled ourselves back up and, after checking for any major injuries, we turned to Mom. “What did you say?” I asked.
“I just saw it on the news,” she said. “There's some confusion about the fingerprints and surveillance tapes, but they're pretty sure he's the one who's been holding up all of those banks.”
I looked at Wall Street and Opera. They looked at me. Then we turned and raced up the stairs for all we were worth. We entered my room, and I quickly turned on Ol' Betsy. As she booted up, Opera kept shaking his head. “I can't believe it, I can't believe it, I can't believe it.”
“Believe it,” Wall Street said as she grabbed a chair and scooted behind me. “Whatever we type on Ol' Betsy actually happens.”
“That's right,” I said as I brought the Choco Chum story up on the screen.
“See”âWall Street pointedâ“right there it says,
âChoco Chum, make sure Coach Kilroy no longer teaches at our school.'
”
“That's the last thing we typed,” I said.
“Only we didn't fill in the details, so Ol' Betsy's fried circuits did it instead,” Wall Street said.
“By getting Coach arrested?” Opera asked.
“Exactly. Ol' Betsy contacted whatever computers were necessary to make that come true, and those computers changed their data to make it a reality.”
Opera seemed to be getting it . . . although he obviously had something else on his mind as well. “So, you mean if you were to type something in like, oh, I don't know . . . ,
âOpera gets a giant dump truck load of Chippy Chipper Potato Chips . . . ,'
then that would happen?”
Wall Street nodded. “The computers would make it become a reality. Go ahead, show him, Wally.”
“Guys,” I said, “I really don't think we want to keep messing withâ”
“Go ahead,” Wall Street insisted. “It won't hurt anything.”
I turned to her. “Don't you think we've done enoughâ”
Before I could stop her, she reached past me to the keyboard. “Honestly, Wally, sometimes you can be such a chicken.” I watched as she typed:
Choco Chum, deliver a dump truck full of potato chips to Opera.
“That's it?” Opera asked. “That's all you do?”
“Yup.”
“Are you sure? Because I don't feel like anything has changed.”
“Of course you don't feel anything,” Wall Street sighed. “Unless you're a dump truck or a load of potato chips, you wouldn't. But just be patient, they'll show up.”
“Cool. Maybe you could order me a couple of double-decker cheeseburgers withâ”
“Guys,” I complained, “we're supposed to be clearing up the problem with Coach Kilroy, not creating new ones.”
“So go ahead,” Wall Street said, scooting back and letting me get to the keyboard. “Clear it up.”
It took a moment to decide what to type. Obviously, there was a major mix-up in the computers about Coach Kilroy and the fingerprints and the video surveillance tapes and everything. So, I finally reached for the keys and typed:
Choco Chum, clear up all of the confusion about Coach Kilroy.
“There,” I said. “That should do it.”
Wall Street nodded. “Things should be getting back to normal in no time.”
I looked back to the screen, pleased that for the first time in history I had actually ended a major McDoogle mishap before it had grown out of hand. Incredible.
Little did I realize how incredibly wrong I was.
After Wall Street and Opera left for home I tried to relax a little. Normally, I would have whipped out my computer and unwound by writing my superhero story. But I was still a little nervous about Ol' Betsy's fried circuits, so I grabbed a tablet and a pencil and went to work the old-fashioned way . . .
When we last left Choco Chum, he was not changing Wall Street's and Wally's grades, and he was definitely not getting rid of any middle school P.E. teachers (particularly any whose names start with Coach and end in Kilroy).
(Even though I was only writing this on paper, I figured better safe than sorry.)
Instead, our stupendous and sometimes sticky (but only when he sits in the sun) superhero sits in his Choco-mobile racing toward Outrageous Ray the Wrestler's secret hideout. (I'd like to tell you where it is, but it's a secret.)
No one's sure what made Outrageous Ray so outrageous. Some say he just liked neon green tights, flamboyant capes, and shoving his finger at ugly opponents, screaming, “I want you! I want you! I want you!” Then there is the ever-popular theory that Ray really wanted to be president, but found politics far too rude and violent for his tastes.