Toilet Paper Mummy

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Michael Rex

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Rex, Michael.

  Toilet paper mummy / written and illustrated by Michael Rex.

  p. cm. — (Icky Ricky; #1)

  “A Stepping Stone Book.”

  Summary: Icky Ricky finds his way into all sorts of messes, from having a sleepover on the ceiling, to launching his pet hot dog into his father’s toolbox, to being shot with his favorite food, Cheese-in-a-Can.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-97538-6

  [1. Behavior—Fiction. 2. Humorous stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.R32875Tnm 2013

  [E]—dc23 2012025090

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  To Bob, who some say is a slob,

  but I know him as a friend.

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. Homework Cheese and the Booger Bubble Freak-Out

  2. Mean Dean’s Remote-Controlled Car (Part 1)

  3. The Soup-Covered 3-D Sleepover on the Ceiling!

  4. Mean Dean’s Remote-Controlled Car (Part 2)

  5. Harry’s Rock-and-Roll Mummy Birthday Party

  6. Mean Dean’s Remote-Controlled Car (Part 3)

  “Ricky! What is that on your face?” asked Icky Ricky’s teacher, Ms. Jay.

  “It’s my homework,” said Ricky.

  “It looks like cheese!” said Ms. Jay.

  “It is cheese!” said Ricky.

  “Why, oh why, Ricky, is your homework made out of cheese?” asked Ms. Jay.

  “Because I couldn’t find my bike helmet!” said Ricky.

  “I don’t understand,” said Ms. Jay.

  Yesterday, Gus came over to my house and wanted to go bike riding. I couldn’t find my bike helmet. So instead of wasting time looking for it, I decided to make one.

  I brought a watermelon from the kitchen out to the front steps. I cut it in half with a plastic knife because I’m not allowed to use real knives. That took forever. Then I scooped out all the insides. I put the watermelon on my head. It looked really cool. Then Gus wanted a watermelon helmet, too. So we made his from the other half of the watermelon.

  We didn’t know if the helmets were safe for bike riding, so we tested them. We dropped things on them, like a book, splop! And a shoe, clomp! And a wrench, blonk! And then a really big book, kasplop! Then we did one more test. We ran into a wall as hard as we could.

  The helmets cracked, and the juices and gunk ran all over our faces. We couldn’t go bike riding.

  All that testing had made us hungry. We went back to the steps and scraped the watermelon insides into a bowl. But there were ants in the insides now, and a leaf and a stick. I don’t eat ants. (It’s not fair to them.) We let the ants have the watermelon, and we picked out the seeds.

  We decided to have a seed-spitting contest. We spit our first seeds across the lawn but couldn’t find them in the grass. Gus figured the seeds would be easier to find inside, so we went to my room. At first we weren’t very good, and the seeds went all over the place. One went into the fishbowl, one went under my sheets, and one stuck to a lightbulb. We needed targets. I took all my homework papers from my folder and drew monsters and aliens and stuff on them. We spit and spit and spit.

  We got really good and could hit the targets right between the eyes from all the way out in the hallway. We were awesome.

  We got tired of spitting seeds since we were experts now, so Gus did a trick for me. He turned his eyelids inside out so I could see the pink side. It was freaking me out.

  I was like, “You’re freaking me out!”

  And Gus said, “Am I totally freaking you out?”

  Then I told him, “Yes, you’re totally freaking me out!”

  Gus said, “How much am I freaking you out?”

  And I was like, “You’re freaking me out so much that … that … I have to blow a booger bubble!” So I blew the biggest booger bubble I could, and we cracked up all over the place.

  Gus went home, and I had to do my homework. I’d used all my paper for the seed targets. (I looked for clean sheets of paper but I couldn’t find any.) Then I started to think real hard. What else could I write on? What else is smooth and bright and flat? I thought the walls or my bedroom door would be good, but I couldn’t get them to school in my backpack.

  Then I figured out that cheese would work. First I tried to write on it with a pencil, but the pencil ripped it up. So I ate that slice. Then I tried a crayon, but that just smushed the cheese and didn’t really show up. So I ate that slice. Then I tried a marker. That worked. It smeared a little, but if I blew on the cheese, it dried pretty well. The marker was like …

  I did my homework and filled nine pieces of cheese. I used the last slice of cheese to make a sign that said “Ricky is Awesome!” Then I stuck it to my wall. It stayed, even without tape or glue. Then I went to bed.

  I woke up late, and my mom was telling me to hurry. I went to put the homework in my backpack, but it was stuck to my desk. I tried to peel the cheese off my desk, but it just ripped. I used a flyswatter to scrape the slices off and stuck them in my folder. One got all rolled up, but I was able to fix it.

  My mom was yelling, “C’mon, Ricky! You’ll miss the bus! You’ll be late for school!” So I had to leave without eating breakfast.

  On the bus I was getting really, really hungry. I didn’t want to eat my lunch, because then I wouldn’t have lunch at lunchtime. So I started to eat the cheese, even though it was my homework. At first I couldn’t even taste the marker, but after two slices it got kind of gross. Then Gus was like, “What are you eating?”

  I told him I was eating homework cheese.

  And then Stew was like “Hey, I love cheese. Can I try homework cheese?”

  So Gus and Stew tried a slice of homework cheese. They didn’t like it. We bit holes in the cheese and made bank robber masks. They stuck to our faces without any strings or anything.

  Gus still had some watermelon seeds in his pockets, so then we decorated the masks and made them look even cooler.

  “Don’t they look cool, Ms. Jay?” Ricky asked.

  “Yes, Ricky, they look cool,” Ms. Jay said. “It seems like you really tried to do your homework. Do it tonight, and I will accept it.”

  “I don’t know if I can do it tonight,” said Ricky.

  “Why not?” asked Ms. Jay.

  “Because,” said Ricky …

  ICKY RICKY’S TIME-SAVING TIP #1

  Life can get really busy, and you need food to give you energy. I always have a snack on hand so I don’t get slowed down.

  Spaghetti is a great snack. It’s easy to make, fun to eat, and fits into any size pocket! You can even ball it up and keep it in your sock or your hat.

  If spaghetti seems dull for a snack, spice it up with a meatball and extra tomato sauce. Meatballs and sauce also fit well into most any pocket!

&
nbsp; For the kid on the go, spaghetti is the answer!

  And remember, kids, plastic is bad for the earth and harmful to the environment. Skip the plastic bags and stuff this yummy treat anywhere you can. You’ll be ready for a fun-filled, high-energy, spaghetti-powered day!

  Mean Dean was walking right toward Ricky. “Dude, why are you covered with yellow paint, and why do you have baloney and dog hair all over you?” he asked in his mean voice.

  “That’s a long story, Dean,” said Ricky.

  Dean’s little sister, Samantha, came up behind Ricky.

  “Why are you wearing that stupid hat, and where is my remote-controlled car?” Dean asked her angrily.

  Samantha looked at Ricky. She was about to cry.

  Ricky started to explain, “That’s what I was going to tell you about, Dean.…”

  Samantha came over to my house this morning, trying to sell her toys. She was like, “I drove my brother’s remote-controlled car into Black Pond, and I need money to buy him a new one. Do you want to buy some of my toys?” But all she had were girls’ toys, like Glitter Pony Superstar, Pinky Pink Pals, Poo-Poo Cutie Kittens, and Poo-Poo Cutie Kitten Babies. I didn’t have any money anyway, so I asked her if she wanted me to try to get the RC car out of the pond for her, and she was like, “Yes! Yes!”

  We went down to the pond, and she showed me where the car drove off the footbridge. We looked real hard from the bridge, but the water in that pond is so black and scummy that you can’t see the bottom. I walked around to the side of the bridge and stepped into the pond.

  I kept my shoes on, because I know a lot of people throw junk and garbage in the water. One time I saw a whole air conditioner in there, and another time I saw a kid throw in a notebook on the last day of school.

  I walked through the water to where Samantha was pointing, and I started to feel around. I pulled something out! It was an old baseball glove. I was like, “Cool! I’m keeping this.” Then with my other hand, I pulled out an old can of soda, and it wasn’t even opened. I stuffed it into my pocket to keep for later. I kept digging around and finding all these cool things, like an old windshield wiper, a deflated soccer ball, a CD, and a baseball hat. But I couldn’t find the car. I put my head underwater to look for it, but the water was too dirty.

  Something tickled my leg. I reached in and pulled out a frog. I asked Sam if she wanted to give the frog to you, but she said you would still want your RC car. I closed my eyes, bent down, and felt around one more time. I grabbed something, stood up, and yanked. Whatever it was, it was really stuck. I pulled and pulled, but it wouldn’t move. I needed both hands but I didn’t want to lose the frog, and Samantha wouldn’t hold it, so I put it in my mouth. I didn’t bite it or anything, I just held it with my lips. I put both hands on the thing I was pulling and tugged really hard.

  It yanked free and shot into the air. It was underwear! Huge underwear! Huge, old, pond-scum underwear! It flew into the sky and blocked the sun! It was an underwear eclipse! The frog freaked and jumped out of my mouth and landed on Samantha’s head. She started screaming like crazy! Then the underwear landed on my head, like, splat!

  Dean interrupted Ricky. “Dude, this story is stupid. What’s it got to do with my remote-controlled car?”

  “Just wait,” said Ricky, “there’s more!”

  “Ricky!” his mom cried as she walked into his bedroom. “Why are you guys sleeping on the ceiling?”

  “Because we ate too much junk food!” said Ricky.

  “That makes no sense,” said his mom.

  “Sure it does,” said Ricky. “Let me explain.…”

  Last night, when Gus and Stew came over for our sleepover, the first thing we did was get out all the food we had. We had chips, pickles, candy bars, peanut butter, ketchup, juice, popcorn, pizza, and Cheese-in-a-Can. This was a great way to start a sleepover.

  We started watching monster movies. First we saw a vampire movie. We put ketchup in our mouths, and when the vampires bit people, we let it dribble out.

  A monster movie came on about a big spider that spun giant webs and trapped all these people. It was pretty lame, so we decided it would be better in 3-D. I hid behind the TV while Gus and Stew watched. Every time the spider made his web, I shot the Cheese-in-a-Can at Gus and Stew. It was great, and it made the movie awesome. At first Gus and Stew dodged the spray, but then they tried to see if they could catch it in their mouths.

  That movie ended and a space movie came on. We made that 3-D, too. Every time someone shot a laser, I sprayed the cheese again. There were asteroids in this movie. We used popcorn to make that part 3-D. We chucked it all over the place when the asteroids were shooting through space. We noticed that the popcorn stuck anywhere there was Cheese-in-a-Can cheese, even to our shirts.

  Then we started throwing popcorn at each other, and the person with the most popcorn on his shirt was the loser, so we tried to eat the popcorn when no one was looking.

  But we didn’t have any more Cheese-in-a-Can, so we covered our shirts with peanut butter and tossed more popcorn at each other. It was awesome.

  We ran out of popcorn, so we decided to see if the pickles would stick to our shirts. I chucked one at Stew and plop, it fell on the floor. They were too heavy, so we ate a few and had Pickle Olympics. We did the pickle toss, pickle soccer, pickle hacky sack, and then freestyle pickle gymnastics.

  That was the easiest. All you had to do was move your body all crazy and stuff while holding a pickle in your mouth.

  We kept eating the chips and the candy bars and any popcorn we could find. The peanut-butter-covered popcorn was better than the Cheese-in-a-Can-covered popcorn. But we all started feeling like we were going to barf. We had eaten too much junk food. I really felt like barf was coming up my throat. Stew said my brain wouldn’t let me barf on my favorite toy, so he held it in front of my face. And you know what? I didn’t barf! It was like magic. We needed to feel better, so I said we should eat something healthy, like soup.

  We snuck down to the kitchen to make soup. None of us had ever made soup, so we just started grabbing things that might be in soup and put them all in a bowl. We found an onion, a carrot, some beans, some broccoli, and a mango. We looked for a potato but couldn’t find one, so we used frozen French fries. Soup should have some meat, so we put in a fish stick.

  I found my bike helmet in the freezer. I put it back in there so I could stay cool the next time I went biking.

  We tried stirring all the soup stuff in the bowl, but it wasn’t getting soupy. Gus said we should mash it up, so we put it in a plastic bag and whacked it with spoons.

  We were making too much noise, so we went back to my room. We kept trying to mash the stuff up, but it still wasn’t soupy. We poured in the leftover pickle juice to make it soupier. We put the bag between some books and smushed it. We put it under my mattress and rolled on it. Finally, Stew stood on it and that worked a little. Then I had my best idea of the night.

  I put the bag on the floor and climbed up on my dresser. I jumped as high as I could and came down hard on the soup bag. It exploded! The soup gunk shot all over Gus, all over Stew, and all over the wall and the floor. It was awesome!

  We tasted the soup, but it wasn’t very good. We were all pretty tired by now, so we got out our sleeping bags, but the floor was so totally covered with soup gunk and popcorn and pickles and ketchup and cheese that there was nowhere to put them. I was trying to think where else we could sleep. Maybe in the basement? Maybe outside? Maybe in the attic? Then I had the perfect idea.

  We covered our sleeping bags with lots of peanut butter, tons of ketchup, and anything else sticky we could find. We tossed the sleeping bags up to the ceiling, and they stuck. Then we climbed onto my desk, across my dresser, and into the bags.

  Right before we fell asleep, we started to make a list of all the foods that should come in a can, like Tacos-in-a-Can and Pizza-in-a-Can and Pickles-in-a-Can and Toast-in-a-Can and Homework-Cheese-in-a-Can. And then we fell asleep. That’s why
we are sleeping on the ceiling.

  “Oh … okay,” said Mom. “Come on down, and I’ll make some breakfast.”

  “That’s okay,” said Ricky. “We thought of that last night and stuck the pizza to the ceiling, too.”

  ICKY RICKY’S TIME-SAVING TIP #2

  Cleaning your room is a big drag and eats up valuable kid time. That’s why I keep my room organized alphabetically.

  “A” items, such as airplane parts, art supplies, and antique sandwiches, go “All over.”

  “B” items, such as baseball gloves, balloons, and baboon costumes, go “Beneath everything else.”

  “C” items, such as clothes, cookies, and collectibles, get stuffed in the “Closet.”

  And “D” items, such as dinosaur toys, dishes, and dirty socks, are “Dumped in drawers.”

  Get it? Let this handy-dandy tip keep you organized so you have time to play with your friends, explore the bottom of a pond, and send pizza to your pen pal in Japan!

  Mean Dean was staring at Samantha and Ricky. “I still don’t know why you are covered with all that yellow paint, and I still don’t have my car.”

  “Well, just listen,” said Ricky.…

  We gave up trying to find the car in the pond, and Samantha was about to cry, so I said I would help her get money for a new one. We realized that selling toys wouldn’t work, because only kids want toys, but kids don’t have money. We needed something adults would buy. Then I had a great idea! “Why don’t we set up a lemonade stand?” I said, and Samantha said, “Yes,” and we ran back to my house.