Planet pee wee, p.1
Planet Pee Wee, page 1
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Published by
Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers
a division of
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
Text copyright © 1998 by Judy Delton
Illustrations copyright © 1998 by Alan Tiegreen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
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eISBN: 978-0-307-80006-0
v3.1
For New Baby, Grace, who isn’t a new baby
anymore, with love
from Grandma Mama
Contents
Cover
Other Yearling Books You Will Enjoy
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1 Mud Slide
2 Take Me to Your Leader
3 Top Secret
4 Rocket Fever
5 Chocolate Moons and the Milky Way
6 Dead Batteries
7 A Star Named Roger
8 Project Liftoff
9 Let’s Pretend
10 Roger Eats His Words
11 And the Winner Is …
CHAPTER
1
Mud Slide
“Look out ahead!” shouted Roger White, tearing past the other Pee Wee Scouts on his bike.
It was too late. His bike skidded in the mud, throwing big black splashes onto Rachel Meyers.
“Roger White, this is my new jacket, and it says ‘dry clean only’!” shouted Rachel. “It has silk in it! You’re going to pay for this!”
Roger’s bike was stuck in a big, squishy mud rut. Rachel walked up and gave it a shove. Over toppled Roger into the rut. He sank deeper and deeper. The more he tried to get out, the more the mud squished up between his arms and legs and fingers. It’s not easy to stand up when mud is pulling you down.
“You shouldn’t try to get back at Roger,” said Molly Duff to Rachel. “He’s mean.”
“Pooh,” said Rachel, brushing off her jacket. The more she brushed, the worse the mud looked. “I’m not afraid of him.”
Molly looked at Roger. He didn’t seem mad at all. He was laughing.
“Hey, look at me,” he called. “I’m taking a mud bath!”
Roger pretended to wash himself with an imaginary bar of soap. He rubbed it on his neck and under his arms.
“You look like one of those mud wrestlers on TV!” shouted Kevin Moe. “That looks like fun.”
“It is,” said Roger, sliding over on his stomach.
The other boys looked as if they wanted to try taking a mud bath but were not quite brave enough.
“Come on in, the water’s great,” called Roger. He grabbed Kevin’s shoe. Kevin grabbed Tim Noon’s arm, and both boys tumbled into the mud with Roger.
“What’s your mom going to say when they come to the Pee Wee meeting all covered with mud?” said Mary Beth Kelly to Molly. “They can’t go to your house like that!”
It was Tuesday. Tuesday was Pee Wee Scouts meeting day. Molly’s mother, Mrs. Duff, was their temporary leader while Mrs. Peters was out of town. Molly knew her mother would not welcome mud-covered Pee Wees on her clean floors and flowered sofa. Molly thought of mud on the table and chairs and even on their treat of chocolate cupcakes. Rat’s knees, things looked bad.
“It’s the January thaw,” said Tracy Barnes. “This happens every year. My mom hates it.”
“I like it. It feels like spring is coming,” said Patty Baker, who was Kenny’s twin sister. They were both Pee Wee Scouts.
“Spring is a long way off, dummy,” said Sonny Stone. “I don’t see any grass or flowers around here.”
Now everyone was getting wild, thought Molly. Kenny Baker was sliding in the mud. And Lisa Ronning was making mud castles as if she were at the beach.
“You guys are crazy,” said Rachel, stamping her foot. “I’ll bet Mrs. Duff cancels our meeting!”
A mud fight began, and Jody George’s wheelchair got stuck in the middle of it.
“It’s not like Jody to get in trouble,” said Mary Beth.
“It was an accident,” said Molly. “He got stuck in that rut.”
Before long a neighbor’s dog came running by and jumped on Roger. Then the dog turned into a mud dog.
Soon there was not one clean Pee Wee in the crowd.
“What are we going to do?” asked Tracy. “We can’t go to Scouts like this.”
“I know,” said Kevin, who was a good problem solver. Molly liked Kevin almost as much as she liked Jody. She wanted to marry one of them someday.
“We can roll in the snow and get clean!” Kevin said.
“Yeah!” shouted Sonny, throwing himself from the muddy rut into a snowbank.
All the Pee Wees followed. But the snow was wet. That was what happened in a January thaw.
“We still have mud on us, but now it’s dripping,” groaned Rachel.
Lisa wiped her face with a muddy mitten. Now her face was muddy too.
“Yuck,” said Mary Beth. “Your mom is going to kill us!”
CHAPTER
2
Take Me
to Your Leader
When the scouts got to Molly’s house, it was not Mrs. Duff who opened the door. It was Mrs. Peters!
“Surprise!” she said. “I’m back!”
When she saw the muddy Pee Wees, her smile turned to a frown. “Why, look at you! You all look like candy bars dipped in milk chocolate!”
“Surprise!” said Roger. “We fell in a mud bath.”
“Candy bars!” yelled Sonny. “Gobble gobble gobble, I’m going to eat everyone up!”
Soon most of the Pee Wees were pretending to be candy bars.
Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Duff did not look pleased to have chocolate-covered Scouts.
They helped everyone strip off the muddy clothes, and the Pee Wees took turns at the laundry tub in the basement washing up. Mrs. Duff put the jackets that did not say “dry clean only” into the washer.
“Now,” said Mrs. Duff. “Half of our meeting time is over already!”
“It’s Roger’s fault,” said Rachel.
Mrs. Peters held up her hand before an argument could begin about whose fault the mud was.
“I just got back today,” she said, “but I had to come right over because I missed you all so much.”
The Pee Wees cheered. Molly didn’t mind her mother’s helping out, but it was never as much fun when your own mom was in charge. Mrs. Peters would turn everything back to normal. The meetings would be in her basement again, where there was lots of room for games and projects.
“While I was gone,” said Mrs. Peters, “I gave a lot of thought to our new badge. I think it’s one you’ll all like and have fun working on.”
“Is it a badge for being muddy?” asked Tim.
Rachel groaned. “Anyone can get muddy,” she sighed. “You don’t get a badge for doing that. What is the real badge, Mrs. Peters?”
“Well,” said their leader, “when I was out of town I met someone who is an astronaut.”
Here the Pee Wees interrupted her again.
“Yay! We’re all going to the moon!” shouted Roger. “When do we leave?”
“I don’t want to go to the moon,” cried Sonny. “I’m afraid of heights. It’s an allergy.”
“Fear of heights is a phobia,” said Mary Beth. “Not an allergy.”
“Well, the moon is too high, anyway,” said Sonny.
“We are not going to the moon,” said Mrs. Peters. “But the astronaut I met will come and talk to us, and we can read all about space in books in the library. Then I thought we would go to the planetarium. They have a model of the whole galaxy there, and we can feel as if we’re right up close to the stars and planets.”
The Pee Wees cheered. This space badge sounded exciting. Sonny was the only one who was worried.
“I think we should really go to the moon,” said Roger. “We could have our own spaceship with ‘Pee Wees’ written on the side of it. And we could go to other planets and make new friends.”
“Like, you know, a matador,” said Tim.
“A matador is a bullfighter,” said Kevin. “You mean a meteor.”
“A meteor is part of a star or something,” said Kenny.
“I think Tim means an ambassador,” said Jody,
“That’s it!” said Tim. “Can we do that, Mrs. Peters? Can we go and spread goodwill, please?”
Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Duff were smiling. “I doubt that we can go to the moon,” said Molly’s mother. “But we can learn about space and spacecraft and planets and stars and have a good time doing it. And when we have each done a project of our own that has to do with space, we’ll get our space badge.”
Now all the Pee Wees cheered, even Sonny.
“And I have even more news,” said their leader. “The Pee Wee Scout officials in Washington have decided to sponsor a contest. They will choose one Pee Wee from each troop across the nation to go to Camp Blast Off next summer. The person with the best project will win. A judge will come to look at your projects when you’re finished with them. Then they’ll choose the winner. So one of you, or two if you’re working together, will go to camp and meet Pee Wees from all over the world. You’ll live like a real astronaut for one whole week. You’ll eat space food and wear a space suit and see how it feels to float in space. I hear the space capsule you’ll go in is the real thing. And you’ll take a moon walk that you’ll never forget. Our visiting astronaut will tell us more about Camp Blast Off.”
Now the Pee Wees were clapping and shouting.
“I want all of you to think very hard about one special project you can do to try to win the contest and earn this badge. You could draw a picture of a spacecraft, or make up a recipe for space food, or report on the planets. You could write a play about children living on Mars, or even build a little make-believe galaxy out of clay.
“Today I brought with me some pictures of Saturn, Mars, and Venus to color. Just look at all the rings around Saturn! Those rings are made of ice and rock. If we color three planets a week, we’ll have a fine collection of all the planets when we’re through!”
“I’ve got a book about the planets at home,” said Kevin. “Maybe I’ll bring it to our next meeting.”
“I’m sure none of you has ever met a real astronaut,” said Mrs. Peters. “So that’s another very exciting thing about this badge.”
“Boy, this is great!” said Rachel to Molly. “A real astronaut, and a contest, and a badge!”
Molly nodded. Now all she had to do was think of the very best project in the world! There was more than a badge at stake this time. This could be her ticket to Camp Blast Off! What could she do to make sure she was the one to walk on that moon?
CHAPTER
3
Top Secret
After the meeting, the Pee Wees put on their semiclean jackets and started walking home. All except Molly and Mary Beth, who sat on Molly’s front steps to talk.
“I can’t wait to go to Camp Blast Off,” said Roger as he passed them.
“Ho ho ho,” said Mary Beth. “You aren’t going to Camp Blast Off, we are!”
Roger snorted. “What do girls know about space?” he said. “Only guys can be astronauts.”
“That’s a lie,” said Molly. “Girls can be anything boys can be.”
“No way,” said Roger. “Girls would be wimpy astronauts. Did you ever see an astronaut wearing gooky makeup, or a dress? I say Sonny and I will win that trip, hands down.”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.” said Mary Beth. “You just wait and see, Mr. Know-it-all.”
But Roger had covered his ears and was running down the street, laughing.
“Do you think he’s right about girls not making good astronauts?” Mary Beth asked Molly.
“Of course not,” said Molly. “He’s so dumb.”
“Well, our project will have to be really, really good,” said Mary Beth.
Molly noticed Mary Beth had said “our project.” She asked, “Are we doing one together?”
“Of course,” said Mary Beth. “We’re best friends. And it will take both of us to come up with something to beat Roger.”
“What about Jody and Kevin and Rachel?” said Molly. “They always have really good projects.”
“Well, ours is going to have to be better,” said Mary Beth, sighing. “We’re going to have to come up with something really great.”
The girls thought some more.
“I know what the best thing of all would be,” said Molly. “It would be to build a real rocket and really go to the moon. Boy, would Roger and Mrs. Peters ever be surprised.”
“How could we do that?” asked Mary Beth.
“I don’t know, but I know no one else could beat us. We’d be sure to win the contest.”
Just saying the words made Molly quiver with excitement. Could they build their own rocket? If they worked really hard, could they go to the moon?
Or was Molly’s wild imagination running away with her again?
“Where would we get our own rocket?” asked Mary Beth. “They don’t sell them at the mall.”
“We’d have to build it,” said Molly. “I’ll bet we could.”
“Wow,” said Mary Beth. “Wouldn’t Mrs. Peters be surprised if we built our own rocket? We’d get our badge just like that!” She snapped her fingers. “We wouldn’t have to draw pictures or make up recipes for space food or write reports. We wouldn’t have to make clay galaxies or do a play. I’ll bet we’d even get our picture in the paper.”
“Maybe even in books,” said Molly.
“Can’t you just see Roger’s face when our rocket takes off?” said Mary Beth.
That was all Molly needed to convince her. “Let’s do it!” she said. “Let’s build a rocket and surprise everyone. It’ll be top secret. We won’t say a word to anyone, okay?” A shiver went down Molly’s back, and she got goose bumps up and down her arms.
“Okay,” said Mary Beth. “It’s a deal. No one will know but you and me. Unless maybe we need some help.”
Molly nodded. “But we won’t,” she said. She was very anxious to get started.
“Where should we build it? It has to be a place where no one can see it,” said Mary Beth.
The girls thought about it.
“In your garage?” asked Molly.
Mary Beth shook her head. “There’s no room with two cars. And besides, my mom and dad go in there every day. How about your basement?”
“My mom washes clothes down there,” said Molly. “But maybe in the storeroom. No one goes in there till my dad gets out the lawn furniture in summer. Will we be done with the rocket before then?”
“We have to be,” said Mary Beth. “We only have three weeks to earn our badges. And the camp is this summer. This is only January. We’ll have to be on the moon in less than three weeks.”
The girls ran into the Duff’s house and down the basement steps. They pulled open the door of the storage room and looked in.
“It isn’t very big,” said Mary Beth.
“We’ll make a small rocket,” said Molly. “Just big enough for two. You and me. And some Tang and astronaut food.”
The girls ran upstairs.
Mrs. Peters had gone home, and Molly’s mother was reading the paper and drinking a cup of tea.
“Can Mary Beth and I use the storeroom in the basement for something private?” asked Molly.
Her mother looked suspicious. “Is it for something dangerous?” she asked.
Both girls shook their heads. “No,” said Molly. “It’s not dangerous.”
“All right,” said Mrs. Duff. “If you promise to clean up when you’re finished.”
“We will,” said Mary Beth.
The girls thanked Molly’s mother and dashed downstairs to make plans.
They unfolded two dusty lawn chairs and sat down. Then Mary Beth said, “How do we start? Don’t we need some kind of directions?”
“I’ve never seen directions for making rockets,” said Molly thoughtfully. “I mean, there are no patterns or models, are there?”
“I don’t think so,” said Mary Beth. “I’ve never seen them in those pattern books, or at the hobby shop.”
“I guess we’re on our own,” said Molly. “Mrs. Peters said we are creative. And I have a good imagination, you know.”
Molly left out the word wild, which was how her parents often described her very active imagination.
“It seems to me that all we need is some wood and nails.”
“There’s lots of old wood in my garage,” said Mary Beth. “I’ll bring it over tomorrow.”
