The cheek in the mirror was still all puffed out, but his own cheek felt soft and flat. He moved his tongue around inside his mouth, even though the tongue in the mirror was sticking out at him.
He set the mirror on his desk.
“This is very interesting,” he said aloud. Clearly, the face shifts to whoever stares at it, he realized.
He turned the mirror over, facedown.
He hadn’t read about this in any of his psychiatry books. He slowly raised the mirror, caught a glimpse of the hideous face that was still there, then quickly lowered it back down on his desk.
This discovery would make him famous! He picked up the bust of Sigmund Freud. “Even more famous than you,” he said to it.
But would all that fame be worth it? What if someone else’s face got stuck along the way?
“What would you do?” he asked Dr. Freud.
There is a reason it is called a bust. It was made of bronze, and felt heavy in his hand.
He flipped the mirror over, and slammed Sigmund Freud down on top of it.
The face shattered.
Up in Mrs. Jewls’s class, Kathy suddenly felt very dizzy and confused.
She looked at the sentence she had just written. “I can’t read this!” she exclaimed. “It’s backward.”
“Let me see,” said D.J., taking it from her. “How did you do that? That is so cool!”
“Warm!” Kathy replied.
19
Push-Downs
Stephen lay on the playground, surrounded by his classmates. He grunted as he pushed down on the blacktop with all his might.
Nothing happened.
“You can do it!” urged Maurecia.
“Push harder, Stephen!” encouraged Joe.
Stephen pushed harder. He grunted louder.
Still, nothing.
Louis, the yard teacher, blew his whistle. “What’s going on here?” he asked as he made his way to Stephen.
“Stephen is trying to do a push-down,” said Dameon.
“You mean a push-up,” corrected Kathy.
“Why do you have to be so opposite all the time?” asked Dameon. “Stephen isn’t pushing up. He’s pushing down!”
“So he can go up,” said Myron.
Kathy didn’t mean to be opposite. She’d discovered she liked being nice and having friends. She just really thought they were called push-ups.
“How many has he done so far?” asked Louis.
“None,” said Jason. “But he’s trying really hard.”
Louis kneeled and then patted Stephen on the back. “Keep at it, Stephen,” he encouraged. “Every day you’ll get a little stronger. In a month, I bet you’ll be able to do five push-downs.”
“A month!” exclaimed Deedee. “Stephen doesn’t have a month.”
“He has to bang the gong on Friday!” explained Ron.
Louis raised one eyebrow. His mustache twitched. “I guess he really is the best principal ever!!!” he muttered.
“What?” asked Mac.
“Never mind,” said Louis. “Push hard, Stephen. The mallet is made of solid iron.”
Stephen grunted louder than ever. He didn’t move. “I can’t do it, Louis,” he gasped. “Talk to Mr. Kidswatter. Tell him to pick somebody else!”
“Ooh, me!” exclaimed Joy.
“Mr. Kidswatter is the smartest principal in the school,” said Louis. “He must have had a very good reason for choosing you.”
“Would you like to donate a toenail, or maybe a fingernail?” Mrs. Jewls asked.
Mr. Kidswatter examined his nails. “No, I’m still using mine. I need a student to bang the gong on Friday.”
The next thing he knew all the little brats had their arms in the air, and they were making strange noises, like “Ooh, ooh!” and “Me, me!”
“You’re the best principal ever!!!” someone shouted.
Those were magic words. He turned to see who had shouted them, when suddenly he saw HER—that awful girl who had given him that awful face.
“YOU!!!” he boomed, pointing at Dana.
Dana had a mosquito bite on her ankle, however, and at that moment, she bent down to scratch it.
Stephen sat behind Dana.
He lay on the blacktop, staring up at the awful Cloud. “I’m doomed,” he moaned.
“Look, Stephen, I don’t know what will happen on Friday,” Louis admitted. “I don’t know if you’ll hit the gong, or drop the mallet on your toe. But I know this. You have to try. Or else you will regret it every day for the rest of your life. And whenever you hear a gong, your heart will fill with a terrible sadness.”
“You really don’t hear gongs all that often,” Myron pointed out. “I mean, except here.”
“Even if you make a million dollars someday,” Louis continued. “You could buy your own gong, and hit it every day, all alone in your great big mansion. But it won’t be the same.”
“That is so sad,” said Leslie.
Paul sniffed back a tear.
“So, what do you say, Stephen?” asked Louis. “You want to give it one more try?”
Stephen wished Louis hadn’t mentioned dropping the mallet on his toe. Now that was all he could think about.
He sighed, and then rolled back over. He pushed as hard as he could.
“You can do it, Stephen!” urged Allison.
“Push!” said Jason.
“Up!” encouraged Kathy. “I mean down. I mean up. I mean . . .”
Now she was really confused.
Stephen rose an inch off the ground, then collapsed.
Everyone cheered.
“One more,” urged Louis. “And then we’ll go to the monkey bars and do some pull-downs.”
20
Inside the Closet
Jason did it! He finished reading all 999 pages.
He was so tired, he didn’t know how he made it up the stairs to Mrs. Jewls’s class. He fell asleep somewhere around the fourth floor and awoke on the twenty-eighth.
“Did you finish your book, yet?” Allison asked him when he entered the classroom.
She and Rondi giggled.
“Yep,” said Jason.
The girls’ mouths dropped open.
His book report only had to be one page, but Jason had written ten pages. It was impossible to write only one page about a 999-page book.
He wondered if anybody had ever written a book with more pages. Probably not. There was probably a law against writing a book with a thousand pages or more.
He brought the ten pages, and his three pictures, to Mrs. Jewls’s desk. “I guess if somebody writes a book with nine hundred and ninety-nine pages, it has to be really good,” he said. “Or else nobody would ever read it.”
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Jewls admitted. “I’ve never read a book that long.”
Jason sleepily handed over all his papers.
“Where’s your paper clip?” asked Mrs. Jewls.
“It got all bent in my backpack,” he explained, too tired to think about what he was saying. “Unbent really. I guess the nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-page book was too heavy for it.”
He showed Mrs. Jewls his paper clip, now unbent into a crooked line.