The Hole to China Read online

  As we left his house, a paper airplane came flying out of the window of Gus’s room. It had writing on the wings that said, “Don’t let my mom see you with this.” So I stuck it under my shirt, and we headed down the street.

  When we were sure that Gus’s mom couldn’t see us, we stopped and unfolded the paper airplane. Gus had written more on the inside. It said, “Help! My mom is making me eat only healthy junk for the next few days. Can you guys get me some real food? You know what I like. I will look for you when it gets dark. Make sure my mom doesn’t catch you.” There was a twenty-dollar bill taped onto the plane. “Here is my birthday money. Don’t spend it all.”

  We rode our bikes downtown to the supermarket to get the food for Gus.

  “What should we buy?” asked Stew.

  “I think we should get these! Gus loves them,” I said.

  “He likes it when his fingers get all yellow,” said Stew. “He says that his hands are lava and if he touches you you’ll melt!”

  “We should get these!” I said, and I held up a bag of his favorite cookies. “He only eats Chips-a-Plenty.”

  Stew was like, “Sweet!”

  We were looking around for something else.

  Stew held up a box of taco shells. “What about these?”

  I was like, “Nah.”

  Then I held up a can of spaghetti shaped like prehistoric animals.

  Stew said, “Nah.”

  Then we went around the corner to the deli section, and I had my best idea of the day!

  “Sausages!” I said as I pointed to a big string of sausages hanging from the ceiling.

  “Yeah!” said Stew. “Gus loves sausages!”

  So we bought the Cheezos, the cookies, and the sausages. And we still had some change left. We grabbed the shopping bags and rode home.

  When it got dark, Stew came over to my house. He saluted me when I opened the door. He was dressed all in black. “Special Ops Agent Stew reporting for Operation Gus Grub.”

  I started laughing.

  “We better get moving, Sergeant. Looks like there’s a storm a-brewin’,” he added.

  I leaned out the door and could see the wind blowing the trees around. I ran to my room and got dressed in all black, too. I even found some black hats for us. Mine was a winter hat, and Stew’s was a baseball cap. We grabbed the food and headed for Gus’s.

  “People can still see our faces,” said Stew.

  “Yeah. Special Ops guys have that black stuff to cover them up,” I said.

  We looked around, and then I got down on my knees and started rubbing my face on a tire of my dad’s car. I looked in his side-view mirror. It was perfect.

  “Soldier!” I said to Stew. “Drop and get some of this tire junk on your face!”

  “Yessir!” said Stew. Then he rubbed his face on the tire. He looked awesome, and we were ready to be all stealthy and bring Gus his food.

  We went over there quietly. We hid behind trees, and when it seemed that no one was looking, we’d run and roll to the next tree. We did this the whole way.

  I rolled on the cookies but missed the Cheezos. I don’t think anyone would have heard us anyway, because the wind was getting really loud.

  When we got to Gus’s house, we realized that we had no clue how to let him know we were outside.

  I called up to him in a loud whisper, “Gus! Gus!” He didn’t hear me because of the wind. So I threw a rock up to his window. But his window was already open.

  Then Gus stuck his head out the window. “Hey!” he said quietly. “Did you bring the food?”

  “Affirmative, soldier,” I whispered.

  Gus was like, “What?”

  “I said, ‘Affirmative’!” I shout-whispered.

  Gus was like, “What?” again.

  I just shouted:

  The front-door light turned on. The door opened, and his mom looked left and right. We hid behind a bush.

  The wind blew a tree branch against the house, and she looked over at that. Then she went inside.

  “Yikes!” I said. “Close call.”

  For a few minutes, nothing happened. Gus leaned out the window. He had a toy fishing rod. He lowered the string. He had tied a big clip to it. We clipped it to the bag of Cheezos. He started reeling it up.

  It was working fine, but the bag blew around and got caught on the end of the little roof under his window and ripped.

  “Oh, man!” whisper-screamed Gus. The Cheezos went blowing all over.

  Stew and I opened our mouths and tried to catch them like snowflakes. But the Cheezos were bigger and heavier than snowflakes. One hit me in the eye, and Stew got one stuck in his ear. He took off his hat to catch some Cheezos in it.

  “Soldier!” I said. “Don’t blow our cover! Stay in uniform!” We both started laughing at this. The wind was so strong now that the Cheezos were flying down the street.

  Gus lowered the fishing line again, and we clipped the bag of Chips-a-Plenty to it. It was much heavier than the Cheezos. We could see the toy fishing rod bending. Gus started reeling it in and almost got it up to his window.

  The string broke, and the cookies fell to the small roof. Gus vanished into his room and came back with one of those robot-arm toys with a grabber claw.

  He reached out his window and snatched the bag, but it slipped from the grabber claw and fell into a tree. Then we couldn’t see it anymore.

  The wind was really blowing hard now.

  “How are we going to get the sausages up to him? That’s all we have left,” said Stew. Then I had my best idea of the day.

  “Soldier!” I said. “You stay here and protect our position. I will return with reinforcements!”

  “Yessir!” said Stew.

  I ran home as fast as I could and back to Gus’s house.

  Stew was like, “Did you bring reinforcements?”

  “Negative!” I whispered. “But I brought my remote-control helicopter! We’re going to airlift the sausages to the prisoner.”

  We hung the sausages on the bottom of the helicopter, and then we turned it on. I throttled forward, and it slowly started to rise. The sausages were pretty heavy.

  “I don’t know if it’s gonna make it,” said Stew.

  “Have faith, soldier! I won’t have any Negative Nancys in my ranks!”

  “Yessir!” said Stew.

  I started doing my military helicopter pilot talk.

  “Alpha, Bravo, Tango. Alpha, Bravo, Tango! This is Apache One-Niner. Permission to enter enemy airspace?”

  Stew was good at military talk, too, so he said, “This is Alpha, Bravo, Tango. Permission granted, Apache One-Niner. Good luck and God bless.”

  The helicopter slowly lifted the sausages to Gus’s window.

  “Alpha, Bravo, Tango! Operation Sky Sausage is commencing,” I said.

  The wind started blowing the little helicopter all over. It was hard to get it to go toward the window.

  “Apache One-Niner!” said Stew. “It looks like you’ve hit some nasty turbulence. Proceed with caution.”

  “Roger!” I said.

  Gus looked out the window. “Oh! Yes!” he said when he saw the string of sausages. He reached the grabber claw out the window. “Come to Papa,” he said.

  The front door to Gus’s house opened again. His mom stepped out and looked around.

  “Bogey spotted!” I whisper-shouted.

  The wind went crazy. Stuff was blowing everywhere. The Cheezos were twirling through the air, and the bag of cookies blew from the tree and dropped right into my face. I lost control of the helicopter. It was spinning wildly. The wind picked it up, and it went sailing into some telephone wires. Then that big box on the telephone wires began sparking and blew up like in a movie.

  All of the lights on the street went out.

  Stew and I froze and looked at each other for a second. Then I found the sausages on the ground. They must have been right in the explosion because they were kind of cooked.

  I swung the string
of smoking sausages above my head. It picked up some speed, and then I let it fly! It went right into Gus’s window. It was a one-in-a-million shot!

  “And that’s why we’re dressed like Special Ops,” said Ricky.

  “You mean you blew up the transformer?” asked Ricky’s dad as he pointed to the big box on the power lines.

  “Yeah,” said Ricky. He looked down sadly. He noticed his dad was carrying a shopping bag.

  “Dad?” asked Ricky. “Why are you here, and what’s in that bag?”

  The front door to Gus’s house opened again, and Gus’s mom looked out. Ricky, Stew, and Ricky’s dad hid behind a bush. As they were crouching, Ricky peeked in the bag. There were some chips, cookies, and a big salami.

  “Who’s all this food for?” asked Ricky, but his dad didn’t answer. Gus’s mom closed the door and went back in the house.

  All of a sudden, Ricky’s dad stood and tossed the salami up into an open window in Gus’s house.

  “Gus’s dad is sick, too!” said Ricky’s dad.

  #2: My Old Backpack

  I haven’t seen this one in years. It’s from third grade. By carefully excavating the contents of the backpack, I will look back at that year of my life.

  #1: Empty water bottle

  #2: Once wet, but now dry and wrinkled, math workbook

  #3: Three inches of worksheets and handouts from cleaning out my desk, all stuck together into one pile

  #4: Once wet, but now dry and falling apart, papier-mâché dog

  #5: One glove missing two fingers

  #6: A flattened toilet paper tube with “DYNAMITE!” written on it

  #7: Nine pieces of rock-hard gum stuck together in the shape of the United States

  #8: Full, unopened lunch box believed to have been lost on field trip

  “What the heck are you doing in my chicken coop, son? And where are your pants?” asked the farmer.

  “I lost my pants in the big barn!” said Ricky as he picked chicken feathers off his face.

  “Why the heck were you in the barn?” asked the farmer as he leaned over his shovel.

  “Because I’m the world’s ugliest pig,” said Ricky.

  “Son, I think you left your brain in your pants, because you’re making less sense than a pig frying bacon,” said the farmer.

  Ricky said, “Let me explain.…”

  It all started when our class came to the farm for a writing lesson. Our English teacher, Mrs. Anderson, wanted us to describe everything we saw at the farm with as much detail as we could, using all of the five senses. Gus and I were working together. At first we were kind of goofing off. Like, instead of saying “The barn smells old and musty” or something, we would just say “The barn smells barnish” and “The tractor looks tractorish” and “The cows sound cowish” and “The goat feels goatish.” We hadn’t tasted anything yet.

  Anyway, at one point, I put our work down to tie my shoe, and the papers were blown away by the wind. They went sailing through the air and landed in the pigpen.

  I was like, “Yikes! Mrs. Anderson’s gonna be mad if we don’t finish the project! We have to get those papers!”

  The rest of the class moved onto the field where the horses were. We hid behind the corner of the barn so we could go back to the pigpen. When we got there, we didn’t see our papers.

  “Where are they?” I said.

  “There,” said Gus. He pointed to the center of the pen, where the biggest pig was hanging out.

  I looked around the farm to see if anyone else was watching. I saw some kids with their parents and another group of schoolkids, but no one was looking at the pig.

  “You stand guard,” I said to Gus. “Tell me if anyone is coming!” I hopped over the fence and ran to where the papers were. It was hard to run because it was so muddy, and one of my shoes came off.

  “Someone’s coming!” said Gus.

  A mom and her kid came around the corner to look at the pigs. I didn’t want them to see me, so I ducked into the little barn that the pigs sleep in. But it had a window and people could still see me, so I got down on the ground.

  All of a sudden, these little piglets came up to me and rubbed their noses on my belly! They were climbing all over and oinking and stuff. One started sucking on my finger. They wanted me to give them milk. One got under my shirt, and it really tickled a lot. I started laughing.

  Gus stuck his head through the window and whispered, “What are you doing in here?”

  “Hiding!” I was still laughing from the tickling.

  “What’s so funny?” said Gus. Then he looked left and right to make sure that no one saw him talking to a window in a pig shed, which I guess would be pretty weird.

  “The pigs think I’m their mommy! They want me to give them milk!” I told him.

  “That’s impossible,” said Gus.

  “Tell them that!” I said.

  “Hey, piggies,” said Gus. “That’s not your mommy. It’s a dude named Ricky.”

  I was really laughing now.

  “Hold on,” said Gus, and he left the window for a second.

  “I just checked, and there’s no one around. Go get them,” he said.

  I crawled out from the pile of piglets and saw the papers sitting in the mud. They were right next to the biggest pig in the whole world. I ran as fast as I could through the squishy mud. The big pig sat down next to the papers.

  I said, “No, no, no, don’t!”

  And then it rolled over the papers but left a corner sticking out. I pulled on the paper a bit, but I was going to rip it if the pig didn’t get up. I pushed the pig hard, but it was just too big to move.

  I tried to tickle the pig to see if it would get up, but it just rolled on its back, smushing the papers into the mud. I think the pig liked me rubbing it, and it fell asleep.

  “Hey,” called Gus, and I looked over at him. He was pointing down one of the paths around the pigpen. A small group of preschoolers was coming. I ran back into the barn area. Gus stuck his head in the window.

  “Do you have them?” asked Gus.

  “No. They are under that mega-pig. I can’t make it move.”

  “How does it feel?” asked Gus.

  “The mega-pig feels mega-piggish,” I said, and we started laughing again.

  Then I had my best idea of the day. I took some change out of my pocket and gave it to Gus. “Go get some food to feed the pig!”

  Gus took the money in his hands. “The coins feel coinish.”

  I laughed. I watched out the window as he ran to the machine that was made for gum balls but has farm food in it, and he bought a handful. Then he ran to the other side of the shed and stood as close to the pig as possible.

  I could hear him saying, “Here, piggy, piggy, piggy.” The group of preschool kids gathered around him to watch. The mega-pig finally got up and walked to the fence. I could see the papers. I had to get them now, even though the kids would see me. I ran across the mud and grabbed the papers. The kids all looked up at me and screamed!

  “Wow! What an ugly pig!” said Gus, and the kids started laughing. Gus is really good with little kids. I shoved the papers in my pocket, and I got down on my knees and started making piggy sounds.

  “Who wants to watch me feed the ugly pig?” asked Gus, and all the kids cheered. He held out the last of his farm food. His hand was all slimy from the mega-pig.

  I pretended to eat the farm food, but the mega-pig shoved me over and took the food for itself. I pushed back at the pig. Then it shoved me hard, and I fell flat on my face.

  “Mrs. Anderson’s coming!” said Gus. I looked across the pigpen, and our class was walking down the hill from the horse field.

  I stood up and ran into the shed area. This time I just kept going. I jumped over a few small walls. I landed in cow poop.

  I jumped into another pen, and a goat was there! It was really small but really mean and tried to ram me with its little baby horns.

  I climbed another wall, jumped out of t
he pens, and ran toward a door. It was locked. I couldn’t get out of the barn. I looked out the window, and my class was still coming. I had to be out when Mrs. Anderson got there, or I’d be busted. I went through the barn looking for another place to hide or a way to get out.

  I saw a really tiny door, which I thought was kind of cool, so I opened that and crawled through it. My pants caught on the edge of the door and got pulled off.

  I rolled down the ramp and into a chicken coop. A rooster landed on my head, and then a chicken pecked my butt. That’s when you found me.

  “Hmm,” said the farmer. “You did all that for a school project?”

  “Yeah,” said Ricky. As he stood up, he pulled his pants from the little door.

  “If you hurry, you can still join your class,” said the farmer. He opened the coop and let Ricky out.

  Ricky’s class was standing around the big pigpen, all pointing and laughing at something. Ricky and Gus walked up quietly behind them.

  “What’s everyone laughing at?” asked Ricky.

  “That big pig is chewing on someone’s shoe,” said a kid.

  Ricky had forgotten about losing his shoe.

  “I wonder how that shoe tastes?” said another kid.

  Gus and Ricky looked at each other and said, “The shoe tastes shoeish!”

  #3: My Old Lunch Bag

  Sometimes archaeology leaves us with more questions than answers.

  #1: Why did I not eat this sandwich, and why is it now gray?

  #2: Is it safe to eat this rock-hard cookie?

  #3: What’s the difference between blackish mold and greenish mold?