The Backpack Aquarium Read online

  I took a string from the neck of a sweatshirt, but it was too thick to go in the holes on the cleat. I took apart a little bracelet I had made in arts and crafts, but that string was all stretchy and wouldn’t hold the shoe on tight.

  I picked up a roll of tape and yanked off the last piece. I tried to wrap it around my cleat, but it was too short!

  Then I had my best idea of the day. I grabbed a bottle of glue, poured it into the shoe, and stuck my foot in. It was just sticky enough so that my foot didn’t slip out.

  I got on my bike and rode to the soccer field as fast as I could. I was really thirsty when I got there. I tried to get the water bottle from the survival kit. Yup! I was right! I had tied it way too tight and couldn’t open it. I gave up on that, and I ran over to you!

  Coach Ron just shook his head.

  “I’m sorry I asked,” he said. “The game’s about to start. You think that cleat will stay on?”

  “Sure,” said Ricky.

  “Then get on out there,” said Coach Ron as he gave Ricky a quick tap on the back.

  Ricky took his position, and the referee blew the whistle to start the game. Ricky’s team had the ball. Stew passed the ball to Ricky, and he took off.

  Ricky slipped past a few defenders. He kicked the ball as hard as he could. The ball went sailing toward the goal.

  His shoe went flying into the air. The ball shot over the goalie’s hands.

  Ricky’s shoe landed on the ref’s head.

  The team started screaming, “Goooooooalllllll!” But then the ref blew the whistle and said, “No goal.” Everyone looked around, trying to figure out what was going on.

  Coach Ron and the ref ran over to Ricky. “No goal,” said the ref again.

  “What do you mean, no goal?” asked Coach Ron.

  “It was a dangerous play,” said the ref.

  “How was it a dangerous play?” asked Coach Ron.

  “His shoe hit me in the head!” said the ref.

  “Sorry my shoe hit you on the head, Ref,” Ricky said.

  The ref looked at Ricky and told him that he was fine, but the goal wouldn’t count. Then the ref screamed, “Snake!”

  Then Coach Ron screamed, “Snake!”

  All the kids on both teams started running all over the place, shouting, “Snake! Snake!” Kids climbed the sides of the goal. Kids jumped on each other’s shoulders. Even the moms and dads on the sidelines were screaming, “Snake!”

  “What the heck is going on?” said a man as he leaned out the window of his car. He was looking up at Ricky, who was hanging halfway out a school bus window. “Give me one good reason why you are hitting my car with a belt!” demanded the man.

  “Because Michelle couldn’t move her assigned seat!” said Ricky.

  “Kid,” said the man, “you’re lucky we’re stuck in traffic, because I’m not going anywhere until you explain yourself.”

  “All right,” said Ricky. “This is what happened.…”

  It all started on our field trip to the natural history museum. To get there, we had to take the George Washington Bridge.

  There was tons of traffic, and the bus was hardly moving. Stew and I tried to look out the bus windows to see how high we were, but we were in a center lane and just saw lots of cars on either side.

  “I wonder if this bridge is high enough so that you could jump off and still have time to open a parachute,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” said Stew. “A wing suit might be a better idea.”

  “Yeah, because then you could just fly down the river and go wherever you wanted,” I said.

  “Ugh!” said Michelle, who was sitting behind us. “Will you guys stop talking about jumping off the bridge?”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I hate heights,” she said. “They make me sick.”

  “Yeah, but we’re in a bus in the middle of the road. Nothing’s going to happen to us,” I said.

  The traffic started to move again, and there was lots of honking and stuff. The bus pulled over to the outside lane.

  “Look, Stew,” I said. “Check out how high we are.”

  Stew leaned over me and pressed his face against the window.

  “Wow! We’re like five hundred feet up!” said Stew.

  We both tried to get a better view out the window. I opened it, and I stuck my head out. The bus was so close to the edge that we could almost see straight down.

  “Stop, Ricky!” yelled Michelle. “You’re freaking me out!”

  I pulled my head in from the window. “Sorry,” I said. She looked really nervous now.

  “Why don’t you change seats so you’re on the other side of the bus?” I asked.

  “You know we have assigned seats!” she said.

  “She’ll get in trouble if she moves,” said Lisa, who was sitting next to her.

  The bus inched forward a bit. I didn’t think it was possible, but we got closer to the edge.

  Michelle covered her eyes. “How long is this trip going to take?” she asked. Then she started to cry. Just a little, but I could see it. She was shaking, too.

  “Let’s play a game,” I said. “It will distract you.”

  “No,” she said. “Just leave me alone.”

  “C’mon! Let’s play Garbage Mouth!” I said.

  “Eww, no!” she said. “That’s for little kids.”

  “What’s Garbage Mouth?” asked Lisa.

  Michelle rolled her eyes and said, “It’s this dumb game where—”

  I cut her off. “It’s an awesome game where I’ll eat anything that people give me. If I refuse, the other person wins.”

  “Sounds stupid,” said Lisa.

  “It is,” said Michelle. “We played it every day in second-grade lunch.”

  “You used to love it!” I said.

  “That’s because I was a dumb second grader,” she said.

  Stew turned around and told the people in the seat in front of ours that we were going to play Garbage Mouth. We kept it quiet because our teacher is really strict on the bus. Some kids didn’t know the game, but Stew explained it, and soon everyone was in on it.

  All the kids on the bus opened their lunches and looked for things for me to eat. They started handing stuff to us. First was a banana that had gotten black in someone’s lunch bag. I ate that in a second.

  Then came half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that someone had put a slice of cheese on. No problem.

  Then came a bag of crushed tortilla chips that someone had poured applesauce and vanilla pudding in.

  “Yummy!” I said as I licked my lips and rubbed my belly. Then stuff was coming fast, and I could barely keep up.

  “Egg salad mixed in hummus with cheese balls? No problem,” I said.

  “Gummy worms wrapped in salami, with crushed chocolate chip cookies squished up with tofu? Awesome!” I said. “What’s next?”

  “White rice with a chewable multivitamin?” I asked. “You guys aren’t even trying!”

  “A leaf from someone’s shoe? Mother Nature’s own snack.” I chomped down.

  A group of kids put tuna fish salad, a cold chicken nugget, some raspberries, some whole wheat crackers, a piece of gluten-free chocolate, some lo mein, and a pretzel into a small container, smushed up with a spoon.

  “I love it!” I said as I dug in.

  Someone handed me a sock with something in it.

  “That’s against the rules,” I said. “It has to be something I can digest.”

  “Open the sock!” someone said. I looked at the sock and knew that I had to eat whatever was inside it.

  I can’t wait to grow up and get a job. No matter what I choose, I am going to be the best in the world at it!

  Weasel Repairman

  Fudge Judge

  Short-Order Pigs-in-a-Blanket Chef

  The President of Mud

  “Ricky and Gus!” shouted Scoutmaster Dave. “What are you doing down here at the lake? And why is your backpack glowing, Ricky?”


  “Because I really like worms!” Ricky told him as he and Gus stood up on the dock.

  “Ricky,” said Scoutmaster Dave, “not only does a scout always have to tell the truth, but a scout also has to make sense. Now just start at the beginning.”

  “Yes, sir!” said Ricky.…

  It all started when we were fishing this afternoon. The older scouts taught us how to bait the hook with a worm, cast off, and reel in when we needed to start again. I didn’t really like the idea of using a worm to catch a fish. I like worms, and I think it’s cool how they can crawl right into the earth and that they make the dirt better for growing stuff.

  But we had to catch fish for our badge. I took part of my lunch sandwich, ripped it into small pieces, and dropped the bread crumbs in the water. Gus found a net, and we got on our bellies with our hands hanging off the dock.

  “Hahaha! That’s never gonna work,” said Dawson, who was in charge.

  “You guys are a bunch of babies using a net like that,” said another kid. “You should learn to fish the real way.”

  “Well, I don’t want to hurt any worms,” I said. “They never did anything to me!”

  The older scouts laughed and laughed.

  Gus and I ignored them. While they were laughing, some fish swam to the top and nibbled at the bread. I scooped them up with the net. I got one and put it in a bucket of water we had on the dock.

  “Awesome,” said Gus. Then he took the net and had his turn. He scooped up a fish, too. He put his in the bucket. We kept doing this until the bread ran out.

  Some of the older scouts who were using worms hadn’t even caught anything yet.

  “Hey, Dawson,” I said. “Our bucket’s full. Can we throw the fish back now?”

  “What?” said Dawson. “No, you don’t throw them back. We bring them to camp and eat them for dinner.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “What’s the matter?” said Dawson. “Don’t ya like fish?”

  I told them I liked fish, but I didn’t want to kill anything. “Can’t we get our badges from this bucketful?” I asked.

  “No,” said Dawson. “I’ll tell the scoutmaster that you threw them back, and you won’t get your badge, and your whole afternoon will be wasted.” He laughed.

  “All right,” I said. “We’ll take them back to camp and eat them.”

  Gus looked at me like I was crazy. I winked at him.

  “Yeah!” said Gus. “We’re gonna fry these babies up and have a fish feast!”

  “Mmmmmmm,” I said, rubbing my stomach. “I’m gonna pull the bones out, roll them up, and make fish sticks!”

  The older kids were all laughing now. We took the bucket and headed back in the direction of the camp. Once we were far enough from the water and the older boys, I turned away from camp and headed in a different direction.

  “Where are we going?” asked Gus.

  “We’re gonna throw these guys back. I don’t want to eat them,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Gus. “I don’t even like fish-flavored potato chips.”

  We quietly walked through the woods and then went back down to the lake.

  “What about our fishing badges?” asked Gus.

  “Badge, shmadge,” I said.

  We were far away from the docks now. We were about to dump the fish back in the lake, when we heard a voice.

  “Ricky! Gus! What are you two doing?” someone called. There were a group of scouts in canoes on the lake.

  “Nothing!” I yelled. “Just looking around.”

  We couldn’t dump the fish back in the water now! The scouts would see us and tell everyone else. We turned and walked back through the woods to the camp.

  The water in the bucket seemed to be getting lower. We stopped and looked it over. It had a tiny hole in the bottom and it was leaking.

  “What are we gonna do with all of these fish?” I asked.

  “They gotta get back in the water,” said Gus.

  “I don’t want them to die,” I said. “Yikes! Let’s get going!”

  We got to our tent without anyone seeing us. We brought the bucket inside and zipped up the front of the tent. The water was really low. I looked around for something else to put the fish in.

  We had a big, strong plastic bag that we hung our food in at night so animals wouldn’t get it. I dumped out the food, and we poured the water and fish into the bag. Some of the water missed and went all over our camping stuff. Our tent was on a slight hill, and it all ran down into the corner. The sleeping bags and our clothes got soaked. Some bread and crackers got wet, too.

  We were worried that the plastic bag was going to rip, so we put it in my backpack and piled up our sleeping bags around it so it wouldn’t tip.

  We poured some more water in from our water bottles. The fish seemed pretty happy now. We put some crackers in, and the fish ate them.

  My backpack had a rip on one side, so you could see the fish swimming at the bottom.

  “It’s like an aquarium,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Gus. “Should we put some more stuff in there? Like some colored rocks or a toy sunken ship?”

  “We don’t have either,” I said. But I did have a glow stick. I cracked it, and it started to glow. I put it in a small plastic bag with some rocks, and I dropped it into the bag. It sunk to the bottom. It looked awesome. Gus was looking closely at the fish.

  “Are we going to keep these guys?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “We’re going to wait until it’s dark and bring them back down to the lake.” We sat and quietly watched the fish for a while.

  Later, Dawson and the others called in to us.

  “Ricky! Gus! It’s dinnertime,” said Dawson. “C’mon.”

  “We can’t,” I said.

  “Why not?” asked Dawson.

  “We’re sick,” I said in a croaky voice. “We ate our fish, and we ate too much.”

  “I don’t see any fires,” said Dawson. “You’re lying.”

  “We didn’t cook them,” I said. “We made sushi. Now we’re sick.”

  It was quiet outside the tent. Then I had my best idea of the day. I scooped up the wet crackers and gunk from the low corner of the tent. Gus smiled, because he knew what I was doing. That’s how you know you have a best friend, when he can read your mind.

  “We’re really, really sick!” I said. Then I started making heaving sounds. Gus unzipped the bottom of the tent zipper, and I made a huge barfing sound. I threw the gunk out of the tent.

  “Ewwwww!” said all the older scouts. “Stay away from us. We don’t want to get sick!” They ran off, laughing and talking about how gross we were.

  Soon it was dark, and we knew that the other scouts would all be busy making a campfire.

  I put the backpack on, and we set off into the woods. It was really dark. We didn’t want anyone to know where we were, so we couldn’t use our flashlights. The glow stick created an eerie glow from the backpack. The fish still seemed very happy and were swimming around.

  “Which way?” said Gus.

  “Follow me,” I said. It was hard to figure out where to go. We couldn’t use any paths, because we couldn’t let anyone see us. But we knew that the lake was downhill from camp, so as long as we were walking down, we’d get there.

  We heard a loud snap in the dark woods. Then another. Then there was a thud of some kind. Something big fell.

  “That sounds like a bear,” I said. “It probably smells the fish.”

  “Aren’t we supposed to back away if a bear sees us?” asked Gus.

  “Yeah, we are,” I said. We stood still for a moment. Then we heard some fast snapping sounds coming from the other direction.

  “What’s that?” asked Gus.

  “Could be a wolf,” I whispered.

  “Should we run?” asked Gus.

  “YES!” I screamed.

  We took off. I could feel the water splashing from the backpack. I jumped over a log, and a fish flew out of the top and hi
t Gus in the face!

  “Ahhhhh!” cried Gus. “It’s attacking me!” Luckily it fell into his hands, and he quickly tossed it back into the pack. I ran past a tree, and the pack got caught. A branch went right through the hole and into the plastic bag. Water started pouring out!

  “It’s leaking!” I screamed.

  “Run! Run!” shouted Gus.

  We tore through the woods until we could see the lake. I took the pack from my back and tried to carry it with my hand over the hole. I was getting soaked, and I could see the water level going down. We came out of the woods onto the dock, and I dove. The backpack went flying into the lake along with the fish and the glow stick.

  We looked down into the water and could see the fish swimming happily in all directions. The glow stick lit the water as we watched them swim away. We pulled out the pack and other junk. That’s when you came down the path.