Pennybaker School Is Headed for Disaster

  To all my unique readers.

  What makes you different is indeed a gift.

  Now, go put on your reading socks!

  Also by Jennifer Brown

  Life on Mars

  How Lunchbox Jones Saved Me from Robots, Traitors, and Missy the Cruel

  CONTENTS

  Trick #1: The Second Head Illusion

  Trick #2: Poof! An Actor Appears!

  Trick #3: Flying Saliva Paper

  Trick #4: A Chip in a Trachten Hat

  Trick #5: Making Something Out of a Cheese Puff Nothing

  Trick #6: Flash! Bang! Panic!

  Trick #7: Vanished!

  Trick #8: Abracadabra and Entemwhatevergy

  Trick #9: Producing a Smuggler Out of Thin Air

  Trick #10: Vanish All the Things!

  Trick #11: The Shadow Trick

  Trick #12: The Broken Pencil

  Trick #13: Poof of Smoke and the Ghost Cat Appears

  Trick #14: Chained to the Thunk

  Trick #15: Sleight of Family

  Trick #16: Out of Nowhere, a Plan Is Hatched

  Trick #17: It’s All in the Hands

  Trick #18: There’s a Plan Behind Your Ear

  Trick #19: Hocus Pocus Bats And Noises

  Trick #20: Tricked by Naw

  Trick #21: A Clue Appears! Razamatazz!

  Trick #22: Now You See Us, Now You Don’t

  Trick #23: Walking Through Doors!

  Trick #24: I’ll Now Make Water Appear

  Trick #25: I Shall Now Turn My Sister into a Human

  Trick #26: Alacazam! A Plan!

  Trick #27: Disappearing from School

  Trick #28: Floating to Cathy’s Cow Barn

  Trick #29: Impaled in a Barrel

  Trick #30: There’s a Coin in Your Ear

  Trick #31: A Hat Full of Evidence

  Trick #32: Abraconfession!

  Trick #33: Gone

  Trick #34: And Now My Assistant Will Get Caught

  Trick #35: The Hoax of the Century

  Trick #36: Encore! Encore!

  Curtain Call Trick: Flying Objects

  Acknowledgments

  TRICK #1

  THE SECOND HEAD ILLUSION

  Louis XIV was my mortal enemy.

  Sure, he was the beloved Sun King, and sure, he was artistic and stuff, and all the paintings show he had pretty great hair.

  But he was also the first guy to wear a tie.

  Okay, maybe not technically the first. Technically, Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang had his soldiers wear them to command respect. And maybe some Romans might have worn kerchiefs around their necks to keep their vocal cords warm, because Romans were all persnickety about things like talking fancy. And, okay, some seventeenth-century Croatian warriors wore something like a necktie. Which was how a certain king with pretty great hair found out about them.

  But Louis XIV was the first guy to wear a necktie just because he liked the way it looked. He thought they were fashionable. Clearly, the dude had his kerchief tied just a little too tight.

  As I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, hopelessly winding a scratchy brown strip of sandpapery fabric around my neck every which way but the correct one, I thought about the ways I could get revenge on Louis XIV for this torture, if he were not already dead:

  Lethal duel with a broom handle. Toothpaste squirted in his Oreos. Smelly sauerkraut in his underwear drawer.

  There was a knock on the door, and then it popped open, my dad’s face peeking through.

  “Nervous, pal?”

  I pulled one end of the bow tie, and the whole thing knotted itself into a ball on the side of my neck. Half of my collar was flipped up, and if I squinted one eye just right, the tie-ball looked like a rat peeking out from under it. It was as close to tied as it was going to get. “Why would I be nervous?”

  “New school, new friends.” He sipped his coffee, then pointed at my neck with his cup. “New bow tie.”

  “No big deal,” I said.

  But it was a big deal. A very big deal. Such a big deal, in fact, that Louis Pennybaker was now a close number two on my mortal enemies list.

  Bludgeoned with a salami hunk. Hospital glove slap-fight. Green pudding up the nostrils.

  Louis Pennybaker was the founder of Pennybaker School for the Uniquely Gifted—which, it turns out, is where they send you when they start thinking you have unique gifts. For example, if you were a—to quote my mom—Chemistry Genius Who Will Change the World and Probably Discover a Whole Bunch of New Diseases and Then Cure Them All and May Invent a Species and Possibly Even Prove That UFOs Are Real by Using His Genius Geniusness. Exclamation point.

  Actually, I was a kid who kind of liked magic tricks and figured out how to change pennies into silver. Except not real silver. It was a chemical reaction between copper, zinc, and sodium hydroxide to make them look silver. Which took me a long time to explain to Mom. She was very excited about the silver. So excited that I decided not to even show her that I could turn the silver ones into gold. She’d probably have enrolled me in college right then and there. Chemistry College for the Disease-Curing-Species-Creating-Alien-Proving-World-Changing Geniuses Who Can Make Gold.

  Instead, she enrolled me at Pennybaker School. Because, apparently, my old school “doesn’t have the resources” to “support such talent,” and Pennybaker is “a really respected school” that would “look great on a résumé someday.” Besides, “It’s on the way to Dad’s work,” so he could drive me to school every day, and “it would be a great father-son bonding thing,” and she “just likes the idea” of me “getting the best education possible” for someone like me, whatever that was supposed to mean. And Mom “always wished” that she had “gone to such an illustrious school,” and, no, she didn’t “think it was a funny suggestion” that she pretend to be me and go to Pennybaker herself, and apparently that was “the end of it, Thomas, so you should drop it before you get yourself in trouble with all that sass.” To paraphrase.

  The short version: I was going to Pennybaker School, period.

  Which I was not at all excited about.

  Going to a new school meant I’d have to leave my old school, where all my friends were, probably forgetting I ever existed. I would never get to fight for the one table in the Boone Public Middle School cafeteria that doesn’t smell like an unfortunate, and perhaps even illegal, bologna incident. I would never get to try to top the legendary smuggled-armadillo-on-the-school-bus prank of 2002. And I would never get to have Mr. Butts, the computer lab teacher everyone wanted for obvious reasons.

  “You need help with that tie?” Dad asked, gesturing with his cup again, a bit of brown liquid sailing over the side and landing on the sleeve of my crisp white uniform shirt.

  “Nah, I think this is good,” I said, and tried not to notice that the tie actually looked like a giant mole growing out of the side of my neck. Or possibly a second head. Which would be cool, if the head weren’t made of scratchy brown material that came with a matching vest. I would have named the second head Louis XIV. And then tweezed out all his nose hairs.

  Mortal nose tweezing.

  “That’s my man,” Dad said. He reached in and patted my shoulder twice. “I’m headed to work. I’ll want a full report tonight. Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  Dad disappeared, and soon Mom started hollering for me to hurry up or I’d be late for the first day of my “new adventure.”

  My mom called everything that was awful an “adventure.” There was the “Dentist Coming at Your Face with a Power Tool Adventure” and the “Seven-Thousand-Needle Kindergarten Shots Adventure” and the “Boring Restaurant with Gross Fr
oofy Food and Eyeballs on Your Plate Adventure” and the “Going to a New School Where They Wear Bow Ties Adventure.” Mom needed to look up the definition of “adventure” again, because I was pretty sure she had absolutely no idea what an adventure really was.

  Slowly, I put on my scratchy brown sandpaper vest. It buttoned around my stomach so tightly I didn’t see how I would ever eat so much as a grape without feeling like a snake with a frog in its stomach. I could feel the itchy fiber all the way to my liver.

  At Boone Public, we wore what we wanted. T-shirts. Jeans. Tennis shoes. At Pennybaker School, we wore brown things and penny loafers. My mom thought putting a shiny penny in each shoe would be a clever way to let everyone know what my gift was. But, more important, it would make them look cute.

  They weren’t cute.

  They were not a Penny Loafer Adventure.

  “Hurry up, fish face,” my little sister, Erma, said as she flitted past the bathroom. She crossed her eyes and sucked in her cheeks, moving her lips up and down like a fish does.

  “Stuff it, Erma,” I said.

  “Only a turkey would say something like that,” she said, then raced down the stairs, flapping her elbows and gobbling.

  I rolled my eyes. Fifth graders were so annoying. There was no possible way that I had been that annoying just last year. Erma was jealous that she wasn’t going to Pennybaker School with me. She really thought it was an actual adventure. Erma was very weird.

  I pawed off the bathroom light and followed her down the stairs, my whole body feeling like it was filled with wet sand. Itchy, brown wet sand. And pennies.

  “There he is,” Mom said as I came into the kitchen. She placed a plate piled high with pancakes on the table next to a stack of bacon and a bowl filled with sliced oranges. “I was starting to worry. I don’t want you to be late on your first day.”

  “I can get him there real fast on my motorcycle,” Grandma Jo said.

  “Mother, I told you, no more motorcycle,” Mom said. She scooted her chair in between Erma and me.

  “And I told you you’ll have to pry my helmet out of my cold, dead hands,” Grandma Jo said defiantly.

  Mom crossed her arms, looking vexed. “Well, you’re definitely not taking Thomas or Erma on that deathtrap.”

  Grandma Jo stuffed a bite of pancake into her mouth. “Old fuddy-duddy,” she said.

  Truth was, Grandma Jo was not the kind of grandma who needed a babysitter. Grandma Jo liked fast things on wheels and taking hot-wing challenges at restaurants. Grandma Jo was a twenty-year-old in a seventy-year-old’s body. But try to tell Mom that. One day, about a month ago, Grandma Jo took a turn too narrowly on her bike, crashed into a parked car, and broke a wrist and two ribs. Three days later, we were moving Grandma Jo, and all her Grandma Jo stuff, into our house, even though Grandma Jo swore it was just a onetime accident and she didn’t need any help. Mom was an only child. She thought it was up to her to make sure Grandma Jo lived a long time. So Grandma Jo moved. And we all quickly learned that Grandma Jo liked having company, but she didn’t like being told what to do.

  Mom was very persistent, though. Grandma Jo didn’t know this yet, but she was having a You’re Never Riding Your Motorcycle Again Adventure.

  “It’s okay, Grandma,” I said. “I’d rather not mess up my uniform with the wind anyway.”

  Grandma Jo looked me up and down, then stuffed another bite of pancake into her mouth and harrumphed, shrugging.

  “What did you do to your tie?” Mom asked.

  I glanced down. “Tied it.”

  “With your feet, maybe,” Erma said. I made a face at her; she made one back at me. I flicked a hunk of bacon at her; she squealed like I’d tossed a vat of boiling bat guts at her, then started whining at Mom, which was what Erma did best.

  “Okay,” Mom said. “That’s enough of that. Finish up and get your backpacks. Thomas, your tie is … fine.” But she didn’t look convinced.

  That made two of us.

  Erma sprang up from her chair and raced for her room, and Grandma toddled over to the coffeepot to refill her mug.

  “Oh, here, let me help you with that,” Mom said to Grandma Jo, lunging for the coffeepot. Grandma Jo swatted at her with a dish towel, and they started squabbling over whether or not Grandma Jo could pour a cup of coffee by herself.

  Leaving me to myself and my pancake.

  Which had taken on a funny shape. Double chin. Fluffy hair. Upturned nose. Fancy-guy cravat.

  I pressed the back of my fork into it, watching the syrup pool in the ridges. Aha! Stuck to death in a swamp of syrup. Almost too good for you, Louis XIV.

  “Come on, Thomas,” Mom called from the counter, where she was grabbing her keys and purse. “Time’s up.”

  “Right,” I said.

  I got up and yanked hard on the brown tie-wad, which only got tighter as I pulled, like a boa constrictor made out of wool.

  Maybe not too good for you after all, Louis.

  TRICK #2

  POOF! AN ACTOR APPEARS!

  “It leans to the left,” I said as Mom pulled into the circular driveway in front of Pennybaker School.

  “So tilt your head to the right,” she said. As if that could solve anything. As if I could bend my neck with this tie on anyway. I would probably pass out from lack of oxygen.

  Which might be a good thing, if it meant I would get sent home from the illustrious Pennybaker School for the Uniquely Gifted. Blah.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Mom said, craning her neck to look at the upper floors.

  “Beautiful” must be right next to “adventure” in Mom’s dictionary.

  To me, Pennybaker School looked terrible. All brick, rows of windows like evil, glaring eyes covered with ivy eyebrows—green plants that climbed all the way up the front and even over the roof, making the building look angry and alive.

  Pennybaker School was founded by Louis Pennybaker in 1895. Once a one-room schoolhouse built on the outskirts of town, it had been built up and built out over the years until it was a looming building sprawling over the top of the tallest hill in Clair County like a big, ugly hat. Or a giant fanged spidermonster protecting its nest.

  Even from the parking lot of Boone Public, which was all the way on the other side of town, you could see Pennybaker School staring down at you with its hundreds of spidermonster eyes, demanding that you notice and appreciate it. Students at Pennybaker School had a reputation for being studious, kind of mysterious, and definitely well mannered. Translation: snooty-patootey.

  “Do you want me to walk you in?” Mom asked.

  I watched as a group of giggling girls walked up the front steps. A pack of guys met with high fives on the sidewalk. Some stragglers peered curiously into our car. The last thing I needed was to be the new kid who got walked into middle school by his mommy.

  “No, I got it,” I said. “I’ll figure out where to go.”

  “Okay,” Mom said, and then she gave me the wobbly smile thing that moms do when they’re getting ready to get squishy on you. “My baby. You’re so brave.”

  I knew it. Super squish.

  “Thanks, Mom. I don’t want to be late,” I said. I pecked her on the cheek and then plunged out into the crowd.

  The very scary crowd filled with properly tied brown bow ties.

  I waited until Mom pulled away, then took a deep breath and marched toward the front doors, which I now noticed had snarling gray metal lion heads on them. The kind that are always, 100 percent of the time, on doors in horror movies featuring haunted mansions that people go into and never come out of. There was no way I was reaching for that door. In horror movies, it never turns out well for the guy who reaches for the door.

  “Excuse me! Excuse me! Young man!” I heard. A frazzled-looking woman was hurrying across the lawn toward me, the sleeves of her dress billowing in the breeze as she lifted her arm to wave. “Excuse me!”

  I started toward her, relieved to be away from the lion heads. I’m not proud to adm
it it, but I was totally willing to let her be the one to reach for the door first.

  “Hello, hello,” the woman said as she got closer. “You must be our new student, Thomas Fallgrout.” I nodded. She was out of breath from her race across the lawn. “I’ve been watching for an unfamiliar face. I’m Miss Munch. The school secretary. I’m supposed to help you get started. Follow me.”

  I had so many questions, but Miss Munch was surprisingly fast, whipping open the doors as if the lions weren’t even there. I practically had to jog to keep up as we plowed our way through the crowd of kids in the foyer. I tried not to notice the curious stares.

  “Good morning, Miss Munch,” a girl said as we passed. “Your dress is really pretty today.”

  Miss Munch paused long enough to curtsy, then we were off again. “Thank you, Cecily,” she said over her shoulder. Then to me, “Cecily is such a lovely girl. You’d never know about the chain saws.”

  “Chain saws?” I looked back at the girl, who was small and fragile and seemed way too girly to have the words “chain saws” in the same sentence as her name.

  “She juggles them,” Miss Munch said lightly. “Well, not just chain saws. Knives, battle-axes, flaming sticks. And once, live possums. She’s very good, actually. One might say she’s uniquely gifted.” Miss Munch giggled. “Oh, that joke never gets old.”

  The foyer of the Pennybaker School for the Uniquely Gifted was a big circle filled with stained glass and a ceiling that went all the way up to the top floor. A staircase wound its way around and around, and was filled with kids racing to get to their classes, making me dizzy as I tried to watch them. The marble floor was so shiny it looked like a mirror, and right in the center of the foyer was a giant pedestal.

  And on top of the pedestal was a head.

  It was bronze with wild frizzy hair, bulging eyes, and a mouth open in a scream. Like a gargoyle, only worse. It was the scariest thing I’d ever experienced, and that included the first night after Grandma Jo moved in, when I almost drank her false teeth.

  Miss Munch must have seen me staring at the head.

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s Helen.”