Tabloidology (9 page)

No wonder Ms. Baumgartner was stinking mad. This edition of the paper was a recipe for disaster.

As he sat in Ms. Baumgartner's office, Martin wondered why
he
should be the one in trouble. Trixi was obviously the one to blame. Surely Ms. Baumgartner could see that. All she had to do was look at all the spelling mistakes. Before Trixi had arrived on the scene, the
Upland Green Examiner
had been full of factual, carefully researched stories. Now it was this…this…this mess of putrefied pulp! It had Trixi Wilder written all over it.

While Martin stewed in the principal's office, Trixi was still out in the hall selling papers almost at the speed of light—that is, until Ms. Baumgartner appeared out of the crowd and stood before her.

“Hey, Ms. Baumgartner!” Trixi said. “Just look at the sales of the paper! It's almost sold out! It sure is an improvement over the old paper, don't you think?”

Ms. Baumgartner scooped the last few copies of the paper off the table and snarled, “In my office. Now!”

When the rest of the kids in line saw that newspaper sales had stopped, they began to chant, “WE WANT A PAPER! WE WANT A PAPER! WE WANT A PAPER!”

Ms. Baumgartner quickly silenced the crowd by shouting, “Enough!” The chanting stopped immediately; everyone knew from the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes that Ms. Baumgartner meant business. The crowd dispersed quickly as Ms. Baumgartner escorted Trixi to the office.

While Ms. Baumgartner was out in the hall dealing with Trixi and the crowd, Martin paced back and forth in the principal's office. He knew he was supposed to sit in one of the small yellow chairs, but he was suffering from a bad combination of anger and nervousness. He was furious at Trixi. He was also afraid of what Ms. Baumgartner was thinking. Could she really blame him for this paper when it was obviously Trixi's handiwork? The longer Martin waited for Ms. Baumgartner's return, the more these awful thoughts whirled about in his head. The more his head whirled, the more his stomach churned.

This wasn't good. His rumbling stomach felt like a trampoline with a barrel of nitroglycerin bouncing on it. In his last school, Martin's explosive stomach had earned him the nickname “Barfy.” Now he was about to live up to his name once again. His insides were moving toward a large-scale eruption—any second, he was going to upchuck his breakfast and his recess snack.

Martin scrambled around the office, frantically searching for a can or a pail to throw up in. There must be some sort of barf container somewhere. Plenty of kids must throw up in the principal's office. It was a natural thing to do.

After searching every corner of the office, there was no barf bucket to be found. Even the wastebasket wouldn't do, as the sides were made of wire mesh. Time was running out. The situation was becoming critical. He couldn't just throw up on the floor. Only little kids did that. In desperation, just as he was about to throw up, Martin grabbed for something—anything.

Martin yanked open the bottom drawer of Ms. Baumgartner's filing cabinet, hoping it would be empty. It wasn't. The drawer was full of file folders stuffed with papers.

Everything happened very quickly. It was not a pretty sight.

Seconds later, Martin slammed the filing cabinet drawer shut. As he wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt, the office door swung open and Trixi strode in, flopping down on the other yellow chair.

Ms. Baumgartner looked in through the doorway and said, “Don't move a muscle. Either of you. I'll be back!”

Martin stared at the floor, refusing to look at Trixi. Sure, he was angry at her, but the filing cabinet drawer was a bigger worry right now.

“What's that stench?” Trixi said.

“What stench?” Martin replied quickly.

“Can't you smell that gross stench?”

“No! I don't smell a thing!” Martin said.

“It smells like barf!”

“I don't smell any barf!” Martin said.

What would Ms. Baumgartner do when she charged into her office and smelled the stench of barf? Between the newspaper and the barf in the filing cabinet, Martin's troubles were growing larger by the minute.

But for once, Martin was in luck. Ms. Baumgartner threw open the office door and said, “I've got a couple of kids with bleeding noses out here. I don't have time to deal with you two right now, so come back here right after school.”

Martin ran for the door, but as he was leaving the office, he overheard Ms. Baumgartner say to Mrs. Sledge, “I'll need to record the details of these students' injuries. Where do we keep the injury report forms?”

“In the bottom drawer of your filing cabinet, Ms. Baumgartner,” the secretary replied.

EIGHT

T
rixi sat in class, beaming with pleasure. The new version of the Upland Green school newspaper was a complete success. She knew her version of the paper would sell like crazy. Working on the school newspaper had turned out to be way more fun than anything she'd ever done. It definitely beat washing school buses on Saturday mornings.

Martin sat silently in his class, making plans for an escape from the school. Because of Trixi Wilder, he was in deep trouble with Ms. Baumgartner. And thanks to Trixi Wilder, his newspaper would probably be shut down. Without the newspaper to work on, his mother would make him take babysitting jobs or weed the garden or help Sissy trim the dogs' nails. All because of Trixi Wilder.

First, Martin planned to hitchhike to Bolivia. Then he'd have plastic surgery to change his appearance and assume a new identity. Ms. Baumgartner would never find him, and all the blame for the newspaper would fall in Trixi's lap.

When 3:00 pm finally arrived, Ms. Baumgartner's voice could be heard over the pa in every room of the school and down every hallway. “Martin Wettmore and Trixi Wilder to my office, please.”

Martin was still thinking about Bolivia as he trudged down the hall toward the office, walking as if his shoes were filled with concrete. His head, his arms, his shoulders, even his nose and ears felt like limp lifeless rags.

But not Trixi. She swaggered down the hall, her arms swinging back and forth, her head held high. She walked as if she owned the world—including Bolivia.

Trixi reached the principal's office first. She found the door wide-open and Ms. Baumgartner sitting behind her desk with her arms tightly crossed and a deep crease running down the center of her forehead. In one hand, she clutched a crumpled copy of the school newspaper.

Trixi slid past the principal and took her place in one of the two yellow chairs. Moments later, Martin shuffled into the office and flopped into the other yellow chair.

“I'm afraid there's only one word I can use to describe this edition of the school newspaper,” Ms. Baumgartner said. “Shocking. This paper is absolutely shocking.”

“But I thought you said…,” Trixi began, but she knew to stop when Ms. Baumgartner raised her hand. The principal was obviously in no mood to argue.

“This…this…newspaper is…is…shocking! That's the only word I can use!” Ms. Baumgartner took a very deep breath. “I asked you to write a school newspaper, not a collection of fairy tales! How do you think Mr. Dobson feels when students ask him to swallow some swords? And the primary students are terrified of the maple trees! As for the instructions for building a stink bomb…I don't think I have to say any more about that!”

As Ms. Baumgartner turned the pages of the paper, she said, “A dog? Driving a car? Snow? In September?”

Trixi had seen Ms. Baumgartner angry many times, but this time, she'd taken her anger to a whole new level. Her nostrils were flared, one of her eyebrows was twitching and the creases in her forehead were deeper than ever.

“But Ms. Baumgartner,” Trixi said, “we only did what you asked us to do!”

The principal's eyes widened, and when she spoke, it was in a dangerously calm voice. “What did you say?”

“I said we only did what you asked us to do,” Trixi repeated, her eyes never leaving Ms. Baumgartner.

The principal took another deep breath and said, “I certainly did not ask you to write completely untrue stories about vicious trees and sword-swallowing crossing guards! And I most certainly did not tell you to teach our students how to build stink bombs!”

“But you did say you wanted a newspaper the kids at our school would want to buy and read.” Trixi kept her eyes on Ms. Baumgartner.

Ms. Baumgartner looked up to the ceiling and sighed. “Yes, I suppose…I suppose that is what I said. But this…this thing you call a newspaper is not what I meant.”

“You saw how eager everyone was to buy it,” Trixi said. “I'd say this edition of the school newspaper is a great success.”

“A success?” Ms. Baumgartner replied, glaring at Trixi.

“Of course it's a success! Everyone loves the new school newspaper. Who can blame them?” Trixi said, jumping out of her chair. Ms. Baumgartner cleared her throat. Trixi sat back down and said, “That article Martin wrote on the dog obedience class? A fine piece of journalism!”

Martin lifted his head for the first time. His eyes were bloodshot, his face streaked with tears.

“And his interview with the crossing guard showed outstanding questioning techniques,” Trixi yammered on, not stopping for a breath. “Only a highly skilled reporter such as Martin could write such a wonderful interview!”

Ms. Baumgartner smoothed her copy of the paper on her desk. “As I look at the first article, I count more than twenty spelling mistakes. That's more spelling mistakes than we've had in this paper since Martin began writing it.” Ms. Baumgartner stood up and leaned across her desk. “Either Martin's suddenly forgotten how to spell, or someone else wrote these articles without Martin's knowledge.”

Martin rubbed his eyes with his shirtsleeves and sat up straight. Even though he hadn't been asked a question, he was nodding his head.

“Spelling, schmelling!” Trixi said. “What's really important? You can't argue with the sales of the paper, Ms. Baumgartner.”

“Selling newspapers is one thing, Trixi, but selling lies is an entirely different matter altogether!” Ms. Baumgartner said. “The main purpose of the school newspaper is to inform its readers.”

“What good is a newspaper if no one buys it?” Trixi said. “The real purpose of a newspaper is to sell as many copies as possible. And the only way to get people to buy it is with entertainment!”

“Entertainment has its place, Trixi. But you can't take a proper newspaper and turn it into a three-ring circus!”

“People don't want boring facts, Ms. Baumgartner,” Trixi said, her voice growing louder. “They want to be entertained! They want excitement! They want gossip! What's wrong with that?”

“What's wrong? What's wrong?” Ms. Baumgartner said, her voice also becoming louder with each word. “Can't you see what's wrong? It might be entertaining, but every last thing you wrote in that paper was made up. It's fiction! It never happened! I was hoping you'd add a bit of pizzazz to the paper, Trixi, not turn it into a pack of lies. That's what—”