Read No Girls Allowed (Dogs Okay) Online
Authors: Trudi Trueit
No Girls Allowed (Dogs Okay) (2 page)
Doyle edges closer. “Howâ?”
“Wart!”
He drops. When Mrs. Lipwart goes into the copy room, I wave him in. Doyle crawls toward me. He
looks like a lizard in his green jacket. “How long you in for?” he asks.
“Don't know yet. Are you coming over today if I'm notâ?” I pretend to choke myself.
“Can't. We're taking Oscar for his shots.”
My throat tightens for real. Oscar is his new wiener dog. I've wanted a dog my whole life. But every time I ask, and I ask a lot, my parents say the same thing.
“Someday, Squiggle Bear,” says my mom, “when you're older.”
“Someday,” says my dad, “when you show you can be responsible for a pet.”
I'll be ten in two months and nine days. That's double digits! How much more responsible can I get? By the way, you did
not
hear my mom call me Squiggle Bear.
“You could come with us to the vet,” offers Doyle.
SCAB'S TIP #19
W
HEN FLICKING A SNOT
-ball, twist your wrist for turbo speed and maximum sticking power!
I nod toward the vice principal's door. “What if I'mâ?”
“You won't. You'll get out of it.”
He's right. I'll wriggle my way out of trouble. I always do. Doyle knows me from the bones out. And I know him from the bones out too. We met at summer day camp when we were seven. I got 148 mosquito bites in four days at camp. We counted them. The best part is that 148 red, oozing, swollen bites equals 148 scabsâscabs that you
have
to scratch and pick at until you peel off every last brown crusty covering. Oh, yeah! After that, Doyle started calling me Scab, and the nickname stuck. That's another reason why he's my best friend. If it weren't for him, people would be calling me by my real name! Sorry, my real name is top secret. You'll have to get special clearance if you want to know it.
“Doyle Ferguson!”
Bug spit! The lip knob has caught us. “Get back to the lunchroom this instant,” snaps Mrs. Lipwart, “unless you'd like to join Mr. McNally here.”
Doyle spins on his stomach and squirms out
of the office. Mrs. Lipwart starts stapling papers.
Ka-chunk. Ka-chunk.
I go back to softly kicking the leg of the chair outside the vice principal's office. Mr. Huckabee likes to make you wait. He thinks the longer you wait, the more scared you'll be when
he calls you in. Not me. I don't scare easily.
TOP SECRET:
SCAB'S REAL NAME!
A
RE YOU A TEACHER? ACCESS DENIED
.
Are you a doctor? Access denied.
Are you an adult? Access denied.
Are you a kid with a name you hate too? Access allowed.
My real name is Salvatore Wallingford McNally. Kids were calling me Sally McNally from the second I stepped onto the playground. What were my parents thinking? Spit-swear you'll never tell anyone my name and destroy this top-secret info immediately! If you could eat it, I'd really appreciate it. Put some chocolate syrup or peanut butter on the page or something. Thanks.
MY MOST DANGEROUS STUNTS
Going down Kamikaze Hill at eighty miles per hour my first time on a snowboard. Where are the brakes?
Letting a tarantula crawl over my face at the zoo. It made my sister pass out!
Hanging upside down on a broken roller coaster for five and a half hours. All the blood rushes to your head. Cool!
Flying ten feet, nine inches off Alec Ichikawa's Super Colossal Dirt Bike Ramp. A new world record!
Not crying once while getting five stitches in my knee after I flew off Alec's Super Colossal Dirt Bike Ramp.