AAAARGH!!! (2 page)

He frowned. “What ye be doin’ that for, missy?”

She twirled back to Tuna and Herby. “Hit it on the ground again! Hit the knife thingy on the ground!”

Once again the pirate lit a match and once again she spun around and blew it out.

“ARGH,” the pirate
argh-
ed. (He would have thrown in a few
bleep
s of his own but figured his mother might be reading this book.)

Tuna called back to TJ, “I fail to see how hitting the knife upon the—”

“It’s worked before!” Herby shouted at Tuna. “Give it a try.”

The second pirate struck a third match, and this time blocking TJ from it, he managed to light the fuse. It started smoking and sputtering.

Tuna continued arguing with Herby. “I fail to see the logic in
thwack-
ing the Story Amplifier on the ground.”

“Guys!” TJ shouted.

“That’s how we fixed it before, dude.”

“Guys!” TJ whirled back to the fuse, watching it burn toward the cannon.

“This is extremely expensive equipment,” Tuna argued. “Such handling would be foolish and—”

“Aim!” the first pirate shouted.

“Aim!” the second pirate repeated as he adjusted the cannon so it would clearly destroy Chad’s house. “Fire!”

“Fire!”

Both men plugged their ears and closed their eyes . . . which gave TJ just enough time to throw herself at the cannon and

move it 6¼ inches before it finally

The good news was the cannonball missed Chad’s house by mere inches. (Close, but when it comes to total demolition of a neighbor’s house, every inch counts.)

The better news was Tuna finally agreed to

the knife on the floor until the Story Amplifier

finally shut down.

Suddenly everything in the room was back to normal. No fighting pirates, no shooting cannons. Everything was gone . . . well, except for one or two parrot feathers floating to the ground and the gentle sound of

a light evening breeze blowing through the new hole in TJ’s bedroom wall. The new hole that was roughly the size of a very large cannonball.

It had been a rough day for Hesper Breakahart, too. Besides the usual problems that came with being a super-rich, super-spoiled, and super-famous TV star on the Dizzy Channel, she had a terrible headache. There were three whiny reasons for her suffering:

WHINY REASON #1

The thirteen-year-old beauty queen had found a split end in her perfectly styled and perfectly blonde (because it was perfectly dyed) hair.

But that catastrophe was nothing compared to

WHINY REASON #2

Hesper had nearly broken a nail—which is a danger you risk when your PTB (Personal Tooth Brusher) calls in sick and you have to brush your teeth by yourself.

But even that was small potatoes (or in Hesper’s case, very small portions of caviar) when compared to

WHINY REASON #3

She was still having to talk to the common people. (Insert gasp here.) That’s right, the great Hesper Breakahart, star of stage, screen, and her own ego, actually had to pretend to like her fellow students.

It had all started last week when the new girl from Memphis—or Miami or whatever that Midwest state that starts with an
M
is called—embarrassed her in front of the entire school. For five terrifying minutes, every student at Malibu Junior High had heard Hesper’s real thoughts broadcast through the school’s PA system. Now they
all
knew how much she loathed them. (It’s not that Hesper was a snob, but when you’re as big a winner as she is, it’s hard to ignore how big a loser everyone else is.)

So for the last week, she’d had to go around school telling those awful, average people how much she respected them (insert second gasp here). Talk about embarrassing. Talk about humiliating. It was almost as bad as when she had to share the cover of
Teen Idol
with some stupid brother band that everyone was all gaga over.

But now it was

Hesper Breakahart was going to think up a plan so nasty and so evil that TB—or BLT or whatever that new girl’s name was—would wish she’d never been born.

“So what will it be?” Hesper’s very best friend since forever asked while sitting at Hesper’s feet. (All of Hesper’s subjects—er, friends—sat at her feet. Usually around the pool, working on their tans.)

“I don’t know,” Hesper said, drawing her perfectly plucked eyebrows into a perfectly plucked frown.

“Make her drink regular tap water?” Hesper’s other very best friend since forever asked. (When you’re a TV star, you’ve got plenty of very best friends.)

“Take away her credit cards?” another very best friend asked.

“Make it so she can’t get a pedicure for a whole month?”

All the girls shuddered.

“Oh, I know; I know,” the first very best friend said.

Hesper turned to her. “Yes, er, um . . .”

“Elizabeth.”

Hesper flashed her recently whitened, glow-in-the-dark-teeth smile. “Yes, of course it is. What’s on your mind, um, er . . .”

“Elizabeth.”

“Right.”

Elizabeth didn’t need Hesper to know her name. Just letting her hang at the pool and breathe the same air was enough. “You know how weird stuff seems to be happening whenever the new kid is around?”

“Yes,” another very best friend since forever said, “like the book that flew across Mr. Beaker’s class when she came into the room?”

Another very best friend (I told you she had plenty) added, “Or that dodgeball that made a U-turn and hit you when she was in PE?”

“Or how ’bout when she—?”

“Please, please.” Hesper held up her perfectly manicured hand. “Must we always be talking about her?”

Elizabeth frowned. “But I thought—”

“We were talking about what
I
was going to do to her.”

“Oh, right.” Elizabeth glanced down, embarrassed. If there was one thing you didn’t talk about when you were around Hesper Breakahart, it was other people.

Hesper reached out an understanding hand and patted Elizabeth on the head. “That’s okay, um, er, whoever you are.”

Another very best friend since forever spoke up. “What if
you
hired a private detective?”

Hesper turned to her, waiting for more.

“
You
could have him find some dirt on her for
you,
and then
you
could tell everybody what
you
learned.”