Big Nate Flips Out Read online

  “You’re such a slob.”

  I turn around. Francis is shaking his head in

  disgust.

  He rolls his eyes. “No, I was talking to the drink-

  ing fountain,” he says. Then he mutters something

  about “the messiest kid at P.S. 38.”

  Just a little background here: P.S. 38 is our middle

  school. Francis is my best friend. And, yeah,

  I’m a little messy. So what?

  Francis starts to swing his notebook at me, then

  stops himself. He doesn’t want any teachers to

  catch him clocking me in the head. Around here,

  assault with a three-ring binder is worth at least

  a couple of detentions. And Francis never gets

  detention. EVER.

  See? The detention lady doesn’t even know his

  NAME. That says it all.

  People think it’s

  weird that Francis

  and I are so tight,

  and do you know

  what? They’ve got

  a point. He and

  I are total oppo-

  sites. Here’s what

  I mean:

  Okay, here’s an FYI: Francis isn’t really this much

  of a weenie. I think I wrote this study guide back

  when I was annoyed with him for hanging air

  fresheners in our tree house. Anyway, read on.

  Maybe the neatness thing

  should have gone at the

  TOP of the list. I’ve known

  Francis since kindergar-

  ten, and he’s ALWAYS been

  Captain Tidypants. Back

  then, he wouldn’t even play

  in the sandbox without a

  package of wet wipes.

  Oh, brother. “What’s the big deal about a crooked

  poster?” I ask him.

  “It looks sloppy,” he answers, frowning. “It detracts

  from the hallway’s overall feng shui.”

  “Hilarious, Teddy,” I grumble, rubbing the bump

  on my head. “You’ve still got it . . .”

  Great. Science with Mr. Galvin. Ever sit through

  a late-night infomercial for one of those useless

  kitchen appliances? That’s what science is like—

  except you can’t change the channel.

  “Nicely done, Gina,” Mr. Galvin says. She flashes

  her usual smirk.

  “Francis, great job,” he says next. I look over, and

  Francis holds up his packet so I can see it.

  An A! No big surprise there. But it’s good news

  just the same, because Francis and I did the

  homework together. So if HE got an A . . .

  Huh? “See me at my desk”? Where’s my “nicely

  done”? Where’s my “great job”?

  “Uh . . . okay,” I say a little nervously. No, a LOT

  nervously.

  “This is, without a doubt,” he announces,

  his voice rising . . .

  I hear snickering behind

  me. Nice of him to broad-

  cast that little nugget to

  the entire class. Couldn’t he have chewed me

  out in PRIVATE?

  Whatever. I’m not going down without a fight.

  “I couldn’t even READ your

  answers!” Mr. Galvin goes

  on. He’s in full-blown rant

  mode now. “Your HANDWRITING is completely

  ILLEGIBLE! . . .”

  He flips my packet over.

  Whoops. Didn’t realize I’d started my latest comic

  masterpiece on the back of my science homework.

  “You like mysteries?” he asks,

  pushing my homework across

  his desktop.

  Yikes, did THIS ever blow up in my face. Three

  minutes ago I thought I had an A. Now I’m practi-

  cally getting expelled.

  Mr. Galvin’s voice follows me as I shuffle back to

  my seat. “I want that assignment on my desk

  tomorrow, completely redone.”

  It’s a note from Francis. I sneak a quick peek

  at Mr. Galvin, who’s busy showing Mary Ellen

  Popowski how to light a Bunsen burner without

  setting her hair on fire. The coast is clear.

  Yeah, I know: You can’t read it. You’re not

  SUPPOSED to. Francis and I spend a lot of time

  making sure that NOBODY can. What good is

  having a secret code if half the world knows

  what it means?

  Well . . . all right, just so you can follow along,

  I’ll let you see the key. BUT DON’T SHOW IT TO

  ANYBODY ELSE!

  I write back:

  Good ol’ Francis.

  Finally the bell rings, and we file out. That’s the

  only thing I like about science: It feels great when

  it’s over.

  “. . . Which is exactly why we should go to the

  meeting!” Francis says. “Let’s make a Chronicle

  that’s MEMORABLE for a change!”

  Yeah. For all the wrong reasons.

  What a train wreck. There were more mistakes

  than Chad has freckles. I started to count them,

  but I got bored when I hit triple digits.

  “You know why all that stuff went wrong,

  don’t you?” Francis asks.

  “Sure,” Teddy and I answer together . . .

  Nick Blonsky was the Chronicle editor last year.

  I could have told you he’d screw up. Anyone who

  spends that much time with his finger up his

  nose doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

  “Who’s gonna be the editor THIS year?” I ask.

  “Well, whoever it is,” Francis says as we walk into

  the meeting . . .

  Oh, no. NO!!

  “GINA?? SHE’S the editor?” Teddy groans.

  “Well, what’d you expect?” whispers Francis.

  “Gina wants to be in charge of EVERYTHING.”

  Bingo. That’s one reason she’s about as popular as

  a fire drill during recess. Here are a few others:

  And now back to the meeting, starring Pushy

  McBossaround.

  “OKAY, Gina, we hear you,”

  I tell her. “You can lose the

  stinkin’ hammer.”

  “It’s called a GAVEL, genius . . .”

  Nice. Now she’s THREATENING us. Is this a year-

  book meeting or a game of Whack-A-Mole?

  Gina obviously doesn’t care that nobody’s paying

  attention to her, because she launches into some

  bragfest about taking the Chronicle in a “new

  direction.”

  “Sounds good,” I tell the guys. “She can go HER

  way . . .”

  “Why not?”

  Francis nods toward Gina. “Do we really want the

  yearbook in HER hands?”

  Now THAT’s bad. You

  thought a Blonsky-ized

  Chronicle was scary? A

  Gina-fied one would be

  a NIGHTMARE.

  “You’re right,” I say. “We can’t just sit here and let

  Gina make herself the queen of the yearbook.”

  “So what do we do?” Teddy asks.

  “Watch,” I whisper. I shoot my hand into the air.

  Gina peers at me suspiciously.

  “What do YOU want?”

  Everyone looks stunned. Especially Francis.

  “ME?” he says. />
  “ExCUSE me,” Gina sputters, her cheeks flushing,

  “but I’m ALREADY the editor!”

  “Oh, is that right? Was there an election? . . .”

  Gina’s face gets redder. “I VOLUNTEERED, if that’s

  what you mean,” she growls. “I volunteered FIRST!”

  “And Francis volunteered SECOND,” I say. “What’s

  the difference?”

  Now she’s turning a color I’ve never even SEEN

  before. She points the gavel right between my eyes.

  “There can’t be TWO editors!” she hisses.

  That’s Mrs. Hickson, the school librarian and

  yearbook adviser. She’s also the only person who’s

  ever sent Gina to detention. And now she’s shooting

  down Little Miss Control Freak’s master plan to

  take over the Chronicle! HA!

  I’m really starting to like this woman.

  Uh-oh. Maybe I spoke too soon.

  She holds up a book. “Recognize this?”

  Sure. I just borrowed it from the library last week.

  “Zack Birdwatcher Takes the Cake.” It was really

  good. Zack’s this kid who gets a parrot for his

  birthday, but the parrot disappears. So then . . .

  She flips through it. “Perhaps you’d care to

  explain why there are orange smudges on every

  single page?”

  She frowns. “I see. And

  what about this STAIN on

  the cover?”

  “And look at THIS!” she goes on.

  I gulp. It IS pretty beat up. “Uh . . . sometimes

  stuff gets a little crumpled in my locker.”

  “A LITTLE CRUMPLED? This looks like it went

  through a TRASH COMPACTOR,” she shouts.

  Wait, aren’t librarians supposed to be QUIET?

  Yeah, I know. A couple months ago I had a total

  space cadet moment and DREW in a library book.

  That went over like a turd in a punch bowl.

  “Nate,” she says, “people are different. Some are

  neat, and others are messy.”

  Yes, and some enjoy listening to grown-ups flap

  their gums, and others don’t. Can we move on?

  “But when being messy and careless affects other

  people or their belongings . . .”

  “Problem” sounds so

  negative. How about

  “lovable quirk”?

  “Lecture’s over,” she says, giving me one last hairy

  eyeball. “I’ll let you get back to your meeting.”

  Francis and Teddy are on one of the computers.

  I pull up a chair.

  I start to say “nothing,” but who am I kidding?

  I can’t keep secrets from the guys. I give them

  a recap of my one on one with Ol’ Silent but Deadly.

  “No,” I remind him. “You told

  me I was a PIG!”

  “A SLOB, not a pig,” Francis corrects me.

  “Slob. Pig. Let’s compromise!” Teddy says . . .

  “Alphabetizing all the portraits,” Francis says.

  “Some of these are a RIOT!”

  “Here’s Randy!”

  “He looks like he’s about

  to throw up.”

  “You’d throw up, too, if

  you looked like Randy.”

  “Lights! . . . Camera! . . .

  Dee Dee!”

  “That smile is so fake.”

  “Good thing she flossed

  that day.”

  “Yikes. Check out the zit

  on Artur!”

  “Wait, IS that a zit?”

  “Um, it’s either a zit or a

  small island.”

  “Let’s find YOUR picture, Nate!” Francis grins.

  “Let’s not,” I answer quickly.

  Teddy’s busting a gut. “Oh, MAN! I’d forgotten

  how BAD your picture turned out!”

  Yeah, because it didn’t happen to YOU, that’s why.

  Trust me, I remember it just FINE. It was another

  episode of . . .

  Ta-da. There it is: the

  lamest picture in the

  history of the school.

  Maybe in the history

  of the UNIVERSE.

  “Wow,” Teddy gasps,

  picking himself up off

  the floor. “And I thought

  joining the yearbook committee was going to be

  BORING!”

  “Shut up,” I grumble.

  “Oh, don’t take it so seriously, Nate,” Francis says.

  Yeah, he’s right. I just hate looking like such a

  dweeb. I’d much rather be . . .

  “Candids!” I say to Francis and Teddy as we leave

  the yearbook meeting.

  “It’s a picture you take of someone when they

  don’t know you’re taking it,” Francis explains.

  “Now that you mention it,” says Francis, rubbing

  his chin in a co-editor-of-the-yearbook sort of way,

  “last year’s Chronicle had almost NO candids!”

  “Yet another reason it stank on ice,” Teddy says.

  Hey, LOOK, everybody:

  It’s NICK BLONSKY,

  here to share all his

  yearbook expertise!

  No offense, Nick,

  but isn’t that like

  the captain of the

  “Titanic” offering to

  give sailing lessons?

  “Oh, it stank, all right,” Teddy tells him.

  “Those mistakes weren’t MY fault,” Nick whines.

  Ugh. See that? Nick

  spits when he talks.

  Every time he says a

  “P” word, he practically

  floods the hallway.

  Anybody got a towel?

  Nick snorts so hard, he blows a little snot bubble

  out of his nose. That’s SO nasty.

  “Good LUCK!” he sneers. “There’s no such thing

  as a mistake-free yearbook!”

  “How nice of him to

  offer a few words of encourage-

  ment,” Francis says, rolling his eyes.

  “What a dorkus maximus,” Teddy grumbles.

  “Forget about him, you guys,” I tell them.

  You’re probably thinking: WHAT?? Since when

  do I go LOOKING for she-who-must-not-be-

  named? Especially since she’s been on a total

  rampage lately.

  “Okay, I’m stumped,” Teddy says. “WHY are we

  going to see Mrs. Godfrey?”

  “Because she’s in charge of the audiovisual room,”

  I explain. “I need to borrow one of

  the school’s cameras . . .”

  Francis gives me one of those are-you-crazy?

  looks.

  “Dream ON, Nate! Those cameras are only for

  TEACHERS!”

  “Uh-huh.” I nod. “Teachers ANNNNND . . .”

  “She’ll let YOU borrow a

  camera, Francis!” I point

  out. “She LIKES you! She

  REALLY likes you!”

  “No, what she LIKES is the fact that I don’t do

  stupid things!” he answers.

  “That may have been a mistake,” I admit.

  “You’re ALWAYS making ‘mistakes’!” Francis

  says, curling his fingers into air quotes. “What if I

  put myself on the line and borrow the camera . . .”

  Teddy chuckles and gives me a shove. “You DO

  have a way with food!”

  Francis is still babbling. “The bottom line is:

  If you break the camera . . .”

  “I’m not going to break it,” I object.

  “. . . or ruin it somehow . . .”

  “I’m NOT going to
RUIN it!”

  Just the THOUGHT of get-

  ting in trouble gives Francis

  a stress rash. “Listen, that’ll

  NEVER happen,” I tell him.

  “I SWEAR.”

  I guess I should explain what a “secret swear” is.

  It’s like a pact between me and Francis. Back in

  third grade we were already best friends, but we

  wanted to make it official. So we climbed into

  Francis’s tree house and wrote this out:

  Who knows why we put a skull and crossbones

  on it. I guess we were in a pirate phase.

  Anyway, I told him my biggest secret, and he told

  me his. And, no, I won’t let you know what we said.

  We’ve never told anyone.

  Not even TEDDY. It’s a

  pretty big deal. This sounds kind of cheesy, but

  it’s basically saying that you trust someone with

  ANYTHING. A secret swear is way more than a

  promise. It’s a stone-cold LOCK.

  Francis takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says

  finally. “I’ll go ask Mrs. Godfrey for the camera.

  But stay out of sight, Nate.”

  “He’s right,” says Teddy matter-of-factly.

  “Mrs. Godfrey hates you.”

  Teddy snickers. “Well . . .”

  “Don’t answer that,” I say quickly.

  From around the corner, we hear a door open.

  Mrs. Godfrey’s voice comes floating up the hallway.

  A few seconds later, here comes Francis—WITH

  the camera!