The Cereal Box Crisis: A Short Story

GGray

GGray

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The Cereal Box Crisis

My Cereal Box Crisis began one summer morning in Chester’s Supermarket. Claudia, my grown-up sister, was picking items off the shelf, and I was looking over some new comic books.
After I chose the coolest-looking one and paid for it, Claudia called me over to the cereal section.

“Willy,” she said, “My arms are full. Please get a box of cornflakes.”

I turned to the shelf without much interest, and grabbed the box. Just then, my eyes fell on the best cereal in the entire world—Krispy-Krunchies Kookie Krumb Cereal. Claudia thinks that there’s too much sugar in it, but, in my opinion at that moment, that’s what made it so good.

“Hey, Claudia!” I shouted. “Krispy-Krunchies is having a contest!”

Claudia didn’t seem interested. “Willy, we’re not getting that cereal, contest or not. You know we don’t buy dessert for breakfast.”

“But, Claudia!” I protested. “The grand prize is a two-week trip to an amusement park—all expenses paid! And it’s a family trip!”

“Never mind, Willy,” Claudia said. “There’s only one winning box, and...”

“But there are tons of other prizes!” I yelled. “Look! A blue and yellow sportscar, a radio, two walkie-talkies, a TV set...”

Claudia was already at the counter, paying for the groceries. “If you want to buy a box with your allowance, you can. But we don’t buy the stuff with the grocery money, and you know it.”

I decided to do a little begging. “But, Claudia! It’s just five dollars for a harmless box of cereal!”

Claudia was on her way out of the store. “No.”

In the afternoon, I ran over to my friend J.J.’s. He was gulping down a bowl of Krispy-Krunchies Kookie Krumb Cereal. HIS Mom buys it weekly.

“I won a prize!” he howled, doing a victory dance with the box. “I bought the cereal this morning, and I ate the whole box in two sittings!”

“What did you win?” I asked.

“Walkie-talkies,” he replied. “They’re the most common prize, but still, they’re cool. I’m aiming for the sportscar, though.”

I noticed that the box had a dented edge. It was the same one I’d been handling that morning. I had held a prize in my hands!

“So, are you going to get some Krispy-Krunchies and try for the biggie prizes?” J.J. asked.

“Well, you know Claudia,” I said. “She’s crazy over that health cereal, and she’s prejudiced against Krispy-Krunchies. Dad wants her to take care of me and Rosalie, and she thinks that means taking care of our teeth, too.”

“Why doesn’t Claudia like Krispy-Krunchies? She’s probably never tasted the cereal, anyway,” J.J. pointed out.

I sighed. “Well, it has something to do with the 100 grams of sugar per serving.”

J.J. glanced at the box to see if this was true. “Wow! It does have 100 grams of sugar per serving!” He stopped and looked at me. “Hey! Then how come it isn’t sweet enough? I add sugar to mine.”

“I guess all that Fizzly Yummy you drink with it destroyed your tastebuds,” I said. “After all, milk belongs in that stuff, not pop.”

J.J. ignored this and pushed a bowl of Krispy-Krunchies across the table. “Here, have some. Oh, wait. Is it okay if you just have it at my house?”

“Well, it’s okay if I have it once in a while, like at a sleepover, and I haven’t even smelled any for three whole weeks, so I guess it’s okay.” I shoveled a spoonful of Krispy-Krunchies Kookie Krumb Cereal into my mouth. Wonderful! I’d nearly forgotten how good it tasted.

That night, I tried again to convince Claudia that Krispy-Krunchies wasn’t as harmful as she thought. Maybe if I kept asking her...

“Has J.J. had any dental work done lately?” Claudia asked me when I brought up the subject.

“Sure,” I said. “He’s had a root canal and three teeth pulled all in the last month or so. Before he started putting Fizzly Yummy in his Krispy-Krunchies, he only had, like, six cavities and a toothache every now and then.”

Claudia was surprised. I guess she hadn’t expected all that. “Exactly how old is J.J.?”

I shrugged. What did that have to do with anything? “Ten, like me. He boasts that by the time he’s twenty, he’ll probably have a set of false teeth.”

Claudia gave me a funny look. Don’t ask me what it was supposed to mean.

“So, Claudia,” I continued, going back to the subject. “Could I PLEEEEEEASE buy a box of Krispy-Krunchies with the grocery...”

“NO,” Claudia said. “If you want to buy it with your allowance...”

“All right, all right,” I mumbled, and headed for my room to count my cash. I had the grand total of twenty-two dollars and ninety-seven cents. There was still time to rush down the the store before it closed.

Once I returned from my short shopping spree, I opened all four boxes of Krispy-Krunchies. The first two had the words, “Sorry! Try again!” written on the inside. The third one said, “Sorry, you’re not a winner this time!” which was pretty much the same thing. The fourth contained a small package. I ripped it open, fingers trembling. It was—a piece of cardboard that said, “Congratulations! You’ve won a walkie-talkie set!”

I yelled with joy and waved the winning box, scattering Krispy-Krunchies around my room.

The next morning, I mailed the piece of cardboard to redeem my prize. I also received my allowance. With it, I bought another box. This time, I didn’t win anything. That was rough.

Three weeks later, I had opened boxes of Krispy-Krunchies piled to the ceiling in my closet (thanks to a late birthday check from Aunt Flora). I didn’t really eat any of it because I was too busy buying more boxes. Well, I snacked on it on the way to the store and sometimes at night, but that was about it.

“Willy,” Rosalie said at breakfast one morning, “aren’t you ever going to eat that cereal?”

“Sure,” I said. “But I didn’t buy it to eat. I bought it for the prizes. So far, I’ve won two sets of walkie-talkies. But that’s nothing compared to J.J. He won three walkie-talkie sets and a cheap cell phone plus a DVD of SpaceMonsters.”

“So, exactly how many prizes are there?” Claudia asked.

“The contest slogan is ‘a prize in every fifty boxes’,” I said. “But those are mostly the one-dollar walkie-talkies or two-dollar DVD’s.”

I bet you have a hundred boxes in your room,” said Rosalie.

“Not that many,” I assured her. “Only sixty-seven. I counted them last night.”
“How are you ever going to eat all that cereal?” Claudia asked.

“Oh, I’ll manage,” I said, gulping down the last of my milk and getting up. “I’m planning on running down to the store and getting some more boxes.”

Claudia rolled her eyes and said warningly, “You’re wasting all your allowance on cereal you aren’t even eating.”

“Don’t worry, I probably have enough cereal now to last for years,” I pointed out to her. “Anyway, I have my other piggy bank, the locked one. It’s got to have at least a hundred dollars in it, no kidding.”

“I’m glad to see you’re saving some of your allowance,” Claudia remarked. (Can you tell that she’s going to college to learn how to teach businesses how to handle their money?)

“I’m not saving it on purpose,” I explained. “I lost the key around Christmas, and I can’t break the bank open with a hammer because it’s made of metal. But I wish I had that money. It’d buy about twenty boxes of Krispy-Krunchies.”

“Your teeth are going to fall out,” Rosalie said seriously. “Or the dentist will have to pull them out.”

I left, wondering where my little seven-year-old sister got the idea that she knew all about teeth. Probably one of those unnecessary talks on health in school---the ones I usually daydreamed through

After a month, I’d added two SpaceMonster DVD’s, a portable CD player, and a matchbox Krispy-Krunchies racecar to my collection of prizes. I still hadn’t found the key to the metal bank, though.

Later that summer my dad took me and my sisters to visit Beachville, the seaside town where my Uncle Don, Aunt Flora, and three cousins live.

A few days after we got there, I was sitting on a bench in Beachville Town Park, watching Rosalie and my little cousins play on the jungle gym. Before I could see him coming and leave, Vince Parker, the local Beachville bully, flopped down next to me on the bench. “Hey, dude! Want to know a secret?”
“No thanks, Vince,” I said, edging away from him.

“No, really!” he said. “It’s valuable info. You know about my older brother Vic?”

“What?” I asked. “All I know about Vic is that he’s twenty-three or something like that, and he has a job in some factory somewhere.”

“Well, that factory somewhere just happens to be the Krispy-Krunchies plant,” he said. “And he knows which box is the grand prize winner. Families of the workers can’t participate in the contest, so he’s offering the info for a hundred bucks.”

I gasped. One hundred dollars? The smash-proof bank!

I opened my mouth to say, “Sure!” but then I clamped it shut. I still needed to find the key to my bank. Besides, the idea sounded a little bit...sneaky.

“I’ll..uh...think it over and let you know in a few days, Vince,” I said finally.

Vince chuckled. “Sure, sure.” Still chuckling, he zipped away on his skateboard.
 
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When we got home the next day, I hunted around for the key. Finally, I found it under my bed. That night, I felt a little funny. Was I going to get the info from Vince’s brother? I thought about it a while, then made my decision. I’d give Vince the hundred dollars and win myself a trip
to the amusement park! I tucked the key under my pillow and went to sleep.

Well, that night I had this really weird dream. I dreamed that I had paid Vic and was now at the amusement park—riding the roller coaster, the drop tower, and all the other cool rides---but not the mini-racers, because those are for kids. Then I stopped for a snack. My dad got me some snack food and I just sat down to eat it when my friend
Harvey came up.

“Hey, Will!” he said.

“Hey, Harvey,” I answered. “I didn’t know you were here too.”

“We go every year,” said Harvey. “Having fun?”

I nodded. “Sure.” But I really wasn’t so sure. I’d had this funny feeling all day. The words ‘box’ and ‘cheater’ kept popping up together in my head.

Harvey sat down. “You know, I heard that Vince’s brother was kicked out of the Krispy-Krunchies Kookie Krumb Cereal factory. Know why?”

“Uh....why?” My funny feeling began to turn into a kind of sick feeling.

“He sold one of the prize boxes to somebody for a hundred dollars!” Harvey yelled. “Isn’t that sooo...sneaky?”

I suddenly didn’t feel hungry for the monster-size bag of cotton candy I was holding. “Uh...yeah. Real sneaky.”

“They’re looking for the kid who Vic sold the box to. They still don’t know which prize box it was, and Vince’s brother isn’t talking.”

Looking for the kid? I definitely was sick now. Harvey noticed the look on my face.

“Hey, Will?” he asked hopefully. “You want that cotton candy? ‘Cause if you don’t...”
I was about to hand it over when suddenly...

“There’s the kid!” A group of men in Krispy-Krunchies hats, followed by about a dozen policemen (I guess they must have been the Krispy-Krunchy Cops), ran towards me.
“He’s the cheat!” one yelled. “Arrest him!”

How could they tell? How did they KNOW? I was shocked to find that the bag of cotton candy I was holding had somehow turned into the Krispy-Krunchies Grand Prize box, twice as large as life. The words ‘THIS IS THE BOX’ were written on it in big, fat, bold letters.

My dad looked at me. “William Robert Cuzzford! Do you have something to tell these men?”

I opened my mouth. “Uh...I’m...sorry?”

The man wearing the biggest Krispy-Krunchies hat gave me a mean look.

“Not good enough,” said the toughest-looking policeman.

“GET HIM!” yelled everybody, except Harvey and my dad, who disappeared. I was surrounded by big, angry Krispy-Krunchies Cops holding out handcuffs...

...and then I woke up.

Once I made what I knew was the right choice, I phoned Vince.

“Hey, dude!” said Vince’s voice, after I said hello. “Did you already mail the cash? Because I think Vic wants it in tens...”

“Vince,” I interrupted firmly, “I’m not going to cheat. I think you’d better tell your brother to stop ‘offering the info’ before he gets into big trouble.”

Vince snorted. “Hah! Well, you’re...you’re...you’re missing a big chance here!”

I hung up the phone. The next week, it was in the newspapers that a certain Krispy-Krunchies Kookie Krumb Cereal factory employee had been fired for—you guessed it—“offering the info.”

Well, guess who won the grand prize to the amusement park? Not me—J.J. He’d bought so many boxes that I wasn’t surprised. His parents broke the big news to me on the way to the dentist’s. (J.J. needed another tooth pulled, and his mouth hurt so much he couldn’t tell me himself.) Thinking it over, I decided I’d rather go without the prize than have all those tooth problems. Maybe Claudia’s healthy cereal isn’t so bad after all!

THE END
 
That was a riot! Fantasy reader though I am, I love seeing people here turning out really GOOD fiction based on real life. This was almost like a Bill Cosby narrative.
 
Zella said:
That was funny. I liked it.:)
Click to expand...

Thanks, Zella!:D

I'm going to post any other "Will stories" under this thread. Here's the next one:

Summer Camp

I was going to summer camp.

Now, I wouldn’t have minded going to Space Camp or Video Game Camp, but this was different. It was a physical education camp that went under the strange name of Cool Campers Phys Camp. Right from the day we got their brochure in the mail, I was set against going. I mean, phys ed? That’s for school, not summer vacation!

Normally, my dad wouldn’t have made me go, but Space Camp was booked up, and my sisters and I usually go to summer camp for two weeks while my dad travels around, checking up on his restaurant chain, Cuzzford’s House of Fried Chicken. My two sisters were going to some girly camp that was fortunately ‘no boys allowed’.

After my dad told me that I was signed up for this Cool Campers place, I dug out the brochure from the recycling bin and looked it over. The biggest advertisement was for the safe-swim natural pond. POND? Who knows what lived in ponds—especially natural ones? The sports were numerous and uninviting: 26-people-a-team soccer, flag football (no tackle!!!), baseball, rock-climbing, and golf. They didn’t even have hockey! And you had to play them all! They should’ve called this place Kids’ Boot Camp.

I packed my bags with all the portable video games I owned, and then noticed the small print on the brochure. Here it is, magnified about 10 times: "No Electronic or Battery-Powered Resources Allowed (Besides Flashlights)—e.g., Cellphones, Video Games, Laptop Computers...if emergency occurs use various phones located at camp buildings..."

I dumped out my last hope of survival and groaned. This was going to be the worst two weeks in all my ten years of life.

A week later, I got off the train, dragging my heavy suitcases. A big red van with the Cool Campers logo on the side was waiting for me. Five other boys were jammed into it. They were obviously returning to the camp from last summer, because they all wore Cool Campers T-shirts.

There was some kind of mix-up, and I was dumped in a tent with three twelve-year-old boys. They looked big enough to be fourteen. Their names were Jake Carter, and Louis and Blake Bennet. To my relief, the other two boys in the tent were ten, like me. One of them looked cool. His name was Andy Donalds.

I thought the other kid was, you know, weird. He called himself Wendell Krabb, or something like that. I watched in digust as he unloaded a full set of non-illustrated dictionaries and a large book on local plant life.

To my disappointment, Andy ignored me. He had been at the Cool Camp before, and had a list of last-year’s buddies as long as the Mississippi.

At campfire that night, I learned that I was one of the twelve ‘new campers’. The others, besides Wendell, were little seven-and-eight-year-olds. The kids from last year were all divided up into buddy groups, so I was stuck being a loner.

The wake-up bell rang at seven-thirty. At Space Camp, we didn’t have to be up until nine. Breakfast was crummy. I had to stand in a long line, and the cereal was the healthy kind. Instead of Galactic Gingerale, they served orange juice. The other kids at my table had a big argument over soccer rules, and I didn’t get a word in edgewise.

After breakfast, we split into groups. I was stuck playing flag football. Then the intructors split us up into teams. I got on the same team as Wendell—just my luck! As I expected, he couldn’t play. A smart coach would’ve kept him on the sidelines, but there was this rule about ‘giving everyone a chance’, so he was in half the time. Our team lost 28-6.

At lunch, the brownies were all grabbed up before I got one. I had to settle with lemon cookies. On top of that catastrophe, we had to clear the tables ourselves.

This got me so mad that I almost told the counselor a thing or two, like I was here to TRY to have fun, not to work. Fortunately, I kept my mouth shut. Why? One of the other new campers, some kid called Braedan, complained...and got dish-duty.

The next five days were pure misery. I was covered in mosquito bites because I ran out of bug repellent after the first day. I was also covered in blisters from the rock-climbing. In the wood workshop, I attempted to use the scroll saw to create an inricate pattern on a bookshelf I’d built. Wouldn’t you know, I got the broken saw. While I was taking the thing apart to figure out what was wrong, I cut my finger. The instructor advised me to ‘refrain from dismantling their saws’ in the future. Now, how was I supposed to know what that meant? I’m only in the fifth grade!

On the seventh day, I went on a hike with a few other kids. Blake and Louis were there, and so was Jake. Andy pretended he had stuff to do with his mile-long list of buddies, but he finally agreed to come. Wendell came along, too—probably to collect more plants.

After an hour of listening to the other guys talk, I was bored. I suggested we return to camp. Just then, Blake saw the coolest bug. It was a praying mantis, like the six-foot one in InsectMan, only this one was a more realistic size.

“Get it!” Jake screeched, and all of us—except Wendell—thundered off into the woods after the bug. I had some uneasy thoughts about leaving the trail, but I didn’t tell the others until it was too late.

Somehow, the bug escaped. We were all disgusted with the fact that such a puny thing could outrun us.

Suddenly, Louis looked worried. “Which direction is the path in?”

Jake, the biggest, did his best to appear confident. “That way,” he said calmly, pointing randomly.

Unfortunately, we all trusted him, so we followed his lead until we came up against the side of a cliff.

“This is so totally the wrong way,” Andy said, stepping forward. “Leave it to the cool kid—that’s me.” He took us in a diagonal line, and we ended up someplace in the middle of the forest.

“We go left here,” he ordered, glancing at the sun and making like he could tell directions from its light.

Blake looked like he’d been suddenly hit with a heavy board. “We’re lost! We’ll die in here!”

“Well, there’s no point in sitting around moaning,” Louis said. “Come on. If we keep moving, we’ll have to hit the path soon.”

We wandered around for two hours in what I suspect were aimless circles. Finally, we stopped.

“We’re as good as dead,” Blake said. “No food, no water...”

“We could find food,” Jake said.

Blake was skeptical. “Where? Do you expect to come across a Burger Bud’s?”

“Of course not,” Jake said scornfully. “Berries grow on bushes, don’t they? And there are lots of bushes around here.”

“How will we know they aren’t poison?” Blake asked suspiciously.

“Oh, poison berries are those little red ones,” Jake said.

I wasn’t about to accidentally poison myself by eating the wrong berries. “Hey?” I said. “What about we...”

My suggestion was never finished. A noise that sounded like something walking through the woods met our ears.

“It’s a bear,” Jake said decisively. “Climb a tree!”

We obeyed, and were all sitting up in trees in about thirty seconds flat. To our relief, it wasn’t a bear—it was Wendell!

“Hey! How’d you get here?” Jake asked, scrambling down the tree.

“I followed your trail,” Wendell said. “And the path is a little to your right.”

Believe it or not, he knew exactly how to find his way through that maze-like forest! I guess there’s something in reading information books, after all.

That kind of changed my attitude towards him. The remaining six days at camp were a lot better than the rest—probably because I changed my outlook. When I left, I had Wendell’s address, and he had mine. (We agreed to be pen-pals.)

Next year, when the time for camp comes around, I hope I’ll be going to Space Camp. But if that’s booked up, I’ll be sure to go to any other camp with a good attitude—and I’ll probably enjoy it!

THE END
 
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Motorcycle Mischief

My story is set in Committee Town and I, naturally, am the hero. My name is William Robert Cuzzford, known as ‘Will’ to my friends. I am ten years old, and the proud son of Robert Cuzzford. He owns the mega-famous restaurant chain Cuzzford’s House of Fried Chicken, and is richer than that Midas guy everybody talks about.

This story begins one rainy Saturday in spring. My two best friends, Harvey and J.J., were out of town, and I was bored. Video games are all right, but after you play them six times in a row you aren’t too wild about them anymore.

Out of desperation, I went to find my sisters, but they were playing some girly game in the living room. Bored as I was, I wasn’t going to play a girly game.

I wandered to the kitchen and opened the pantry door. Nooooooo! We were out of Krispy-Krunchies Kookie Krumb—the only edible thing in the pantry! I searched the other shelves, but only found some vegetables, fruit, and
healthy cereal, besides baking supplies. I could tell that my older sister had done the shopping that week. I considered going over to the restaurant, but then remembered it was closed for repairs.

Stuffing a five-dollar bill in my pocket, I headed out the door, intent on purchasing some more cereal at the General Store.

Before I had gone three steps, I regretted leaving my umbrella behind. The rain was really coming down. As I turned to fetch it, a dark figure thrust a sack over my head. I let out a muffled yell. To my relief, it was pulled off the next moment.

“Danny Duke!” I shouted. “What’re you doing, impersonating Robin Hood?”

“Naw,” Danny said. “My best pals Paul and Joel are outta town, and I’m bored, so I decided to play a practical joke on the next person to walk out your door. I was kinda hoping it would be you.”

“Look,” he continued, “let’s forget the little trick I just played, huh? My big brother just got the coolest motorcycle, and I’m dying to show it off to somebody. He’s in Beachville on business, so I can ride it.”

“Did he say you could?” I asked suspiciously.

“Well, not exactly,” Danny admitted. “But he’ll never know. Come on!”

I followed reluctantly. Well, maybe ‘reluctantly’ wasn’t the word for it. I was looking forward to a spin on that motorcycle.

Danny pushed open the shed door just as I caught up with him. “Shhhhh!” he ordered.

I stared at the motorcycle. It was a beauty, all right—one of the best brands on the market.

“Look, Danny,” I cautioned. “That machine’s expensive, okay? So be careful.”

“I know, I know,” Danny said impatiently. “It’s my brother’s cycle, so I go first.”

He hopped up onto the seat and started it up after fastening the red and silver helmet.

I stood next to the open door and watched as he roared by. After a couple of spins around the block, he let me try. I was pretty confident—I’d been on my cousin’s motorcycle about ten times.

I grinned as the cycle whizzed down the street.

“Hurry up!” I heard Danny call from far behind me. “My brother’s train is due in half an hour, and that thing needs to cool down before he comes home!”

As I started back down Danny’s street, the Catastrophe occured. Little Nicky Donnell rounded the corner on his scooter.

“Watch ooooout!” I shouted, swerving the cycle just in time to prevent a coroner’s visit. I hit the curb and flew into the air. When I got up, I was afraid to look at the motorcycle. Danny dashed up, breathless.

“It’s wrecked!” he yelled. I gathered my courage and looked at the machine. It wasn’t a total wreck, but the front tire was twisted and flat. We managed to pull down to the shed, where I straightened the wheel as best as I could. Danny pumped up the tire, and I fled home.

The next three days were raining, and Danny’s brother didn’t even go into his motorcycle shed. But on the fourth day, the sun came out. As I watched from the safety of a tree (where I had been fetching my sis Rosalie's kite), he opened the fatal door and walked inside. Three seconds later, the whole street could hear him shout, “Daniel Duke!”

Danny nervously approached, looking like he was being led to the guillotine. His brother glared at him.

“Okay, okay, I know who did it!” Danny gulped. “But it wasn’t....” He happened to glance up and caught a glimpse of me in the tree.

“Uh...it was...it was Nicky Donnell’s fault,” Danny said. “He...uh....he got in the way!”

“The way of....” Danny’s brother asked sternly.

I made a ‘throat-slitting’ motion.

“Uh, me,” he said.

Danny’s brother practically dragged him into the house, muttering something about punishment. I slid down the tree and hightailed it for home.

Once I was in my room, I thought about the cycle accident. I was my fault, really, but I wouldn’t have admitted it to Danny’s brother for a fortune. He looked mad enough to kill somebody.....somebody like me! I gulped and tried to tell myself it was really Danny’s fault, Nicky’s fault...anybody's but mine. This worked for a while...until I saw Danny cutting the Donnells’ lawn.

“I have to pay for repairs—one hundred and fifty dollars,” he said. “At five dollars a lawn, that’ll take a long time.”

I reconsidered my point of view. I really should have admitted it—the damaged motorcycle was just as much my fault as it was his. Finally, I steeled myself and knocked on the Dukes’ door.

I’ll pass over the next few weeks quickly. I ended up paying for half the repairs, and the other punishments I got are better left undescribed. I felt pretty bad, especially after I discovered that it was against the laws of our town for ten-year-olds to drive motorcycles.

Three weeks later, Harvey raced into my room. “Hey, Will! My dad just got a neat antique racecar! Want to take it for a spin?”

My glare could’ve frozen a volcano. “Don’t even think about it! I’ve been through that already!”

Harvey jumped two feet backwards. “Okay! Don’t be so sore!”

“Trust me,” I said, “I’ve been through that before, and got CONSEQUENCES in return.”

Harvey looked interested. “Yeah? What kind.”

I shook my head sadly. “You don’t want to know, buddy—you don’t want to know!”

THE END
 
MONSTERS FROM THE HOUSE OF DOOM

Before I start this story, let me get this straight—this was all Daniel Duke’s idea. I had nothing to do with thinking it up. My dad says I should ashamed of participating—but Danny convinced me! And you gotta admit, he does have some pretty neat schemes up his sleeve.

It all started one Friday afternoon when Brad took Danny and little Davey to the House of Doom Wax Museum in Beachville. Danny had the time of his life, but Davey wasn’t too interested. Four-year-olds don’t always like horror museums, I guess.

After about two hours, Danny decided to make Davey believe that the
monsters were real.

“See that?” he asked, pointed to the Shaky Skeleton. “That’s REAL!!”

“No,” Davey said. “Brad said it’s wax.”

“Brad doesn’t know that some of these are real,” Danny whispered—partly for effect and partly so Brad wouldn’t hear.

“It’s fake,” Davey said. “See?” He touched Shaky Skeleton’s finger.

Danny emitted an exaggerated gasp of horror. “Oh, no, Davey! Now you’ve done it! The skeleton will follow you home and haunt you for daring to touch him!”

Just then, Brad said it was time to go home. But Danny didn’t give up. He called J.J., Harvey, Paul, Joel and me together.

Danny made sure we were alone in a corner of the park, then told us his plan. We would each dress up as a character from the museum, using a supply of old costumes from Danny’s attic.

"Won't Davey be kind of...too scared?" Joel worried.

Danny brushed this aside. "Aw, it's only a joke. Anyway, here's the idea. I can’t dress up, ‘cause I’ll be in Davey’s room convincing him that these ‘monsters’ are after HIM,” Danny explained. “Paul, you can be the Shaky Skeleton. Harvey, you’re the Villainous Computer-Minded Killer Robot. J.J., you’re the Dreaded Vampire. Joel, you’re the Spooky Snake-Headed Man. Will, you can be the Evil man-Eating Ape.”

I objected. “Man-Eating Ape? That’s silly. Besides, Davey’s not scared of gorillas. It’s not as spooky and horrifying as the rest!”

“You can add big teeth to your costume and call yourself the Ferocious Fanged Gorilla Guy,” Harvey said. I still didn’t like it.

“Look, Will Cuzzford,” Danny said. “Do you want to help or not? The only costume I have for you is the Ape. Take it or leave it.”

I decided not to miss out on the fun, and resigned myself to being an Ape.

“Hang on a minute,” said Paul, who thinks he’s boss just because he’s a year older than the rest of us. “Won’t Brad come out to investigate the noise?”

“Brad is going to stay at the school late tonight,” Danny said. “He’s got tests to grade. And anyway, he's picking something up from the park in his truck. Let’s go to Paul’s house and have a rehearsal in his basement.”

Later, in Paul’s basement, we struggled into our costumes. Mine wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. It looked like King Kong with rabies. The Villainous Computer-Minded Killer Robot, Harvey, looked dangerous. Paul, as the Shaky Skeleton, looked creepy, but J.J., the Dreaded Vampire, and Joel, the Snake-Headed Man, were the most terrifying, due to the fake blood dripping from their plastic fangs.

That night, we snuck into Danny’s backyard, costumed and ready. We saw the light in Davey’s bedroom flash twice—the signal! We crept out from behind the bushes, making the creepiest noises we could think of.

J.J. dragged a ladder over to the wall, and we all started climbing it. Davey yelled. Danny grinned behind his back, and motioned for us to leave.

The next morning, Danny met us in the park. “It worked fine—only, I think Brad’s suspicious. Davey spilled the whole thing to him at breakfast.”

“Oh, he’ll never catch on,” Harvey assured him. “How about trying the same stunt tonight?”

“Fine,” Danny said, “but I want to be a monster, too. I’ve got just the
thing—the Creepy Creature. It looks like a giant slimy bug.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have any more costumes,” I said accusingly.

“This one is my special reserved one,” Danny explained.

That night, Danny met us in his yard. He looked great, but his sound effects were weird. He sounded like Gollum with a toothache.

We rushed towards the house, waving our arms—and froze. Facing us were six REAL monsters—at least twelve feet tall! They looked a little like us, so I figured they must be the real things from the House of Doom come to life.

Without sticking around to find out if they were out to get us, we ran. I must’ve been doing thirty miles an hour, at least.

When we got to J.J.’s, we tthought we’d be safe, so we stopped.

“What WERE those things?” Harvey gasped.

“The wax monsters,” Danny said flatly.

“Suppose they wreck the town?” J.J. said nervously.

Paul was the first one to come to his senses. “I just realized something—those things were US reflected in Brad’s amusement park mirror!”

I gulped. “No.”

“Yes,” Paul said grimly.

"Where'd he get an amusement park mirror?" asked Joel.

"He picked it up last night. Some guy gave it to him for free because it was cracked."

Harvey clenched his fists. “That Brad! That was no joke! He could’ve caused heart failure!”

Danny was just as mad. “Somebody oughtta tell that guy to pick on
somebody his own size!”

Joel looked ashamed. “Um...guys? We kinda did the same thing to Davey, remember?”

I thought it over. “Yeah. And that’s probably why Brad put up his mirror—to teach us a lesson.”

Needless to say, we had to tell Davey we were sorry. Funny thing is, no one mentioned that Brad still owed US an apology for his little trick. By the way—none of us saw the inside of the House of Doom for several months, and when we were finally allowed to, we discovered we’d lost our interest in horror-filled wax museums.

As for the costumes, well, we donated them to a collector. I guess some people will collect anything!

THE END
 
My car troubles started the day Danny informed me that his grown-up
brother had won the Krispy-Krunchies Kookie Krumb Car—the real one, not the matchbox size.

“It is just the coolest car ever!” Danny exclaimed. “It’s blue and yellow with a Krispy-Krunchies Kookie Krumb logo on the sides. At first I thought he wasn’t gonna accept, but it was mandatory. Brad’s sooo lucky.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “but don’t get any ideas about borrowing it. Remember the time we borrowed his motorcycle?”

“Uh, yeah,” Danny said. “But we won’t need to borrow the car. Brad’s
taking me and Joel down to Beachville in it, and I thought that maybe you’d want to come. I would’ve asked Paul, but he’s babysitting his little sisters that day.”

I had just agreed to the ride when my sister Claudia called, “William
Cuzzford! Go take that box of old french fries out of your room this instant!”

I waved good-bye to Danny and rushed upstairs to explain my mold-growing homework to my nosy sister.

The next afternoon, I hopped into the car. It was cool—a real shiny, sleek one that probably went as fast as I’d hoped. Joel settled himself in the back seat next to me, while Danny proudly seated himself in the front beside Brad.

The ride was pretty exciting, but, no matter how much we kids yelled, “Faster! Faster!” Brad kept on going at about the same speed. Then, a small argument started when Danny began to chant, “Hit the gas! Go real fast!”

“Quiet,” ordered Brad. “I have to concentrate on driving. It’s easy to lose control on this rough road.”

Danny folded his arms. “Are you kidding? I could drive this car all the way to Tealton with my eyes closed.”

Brad apparently didn’t take this seriously. In fact, he ignored Danny, who sullenly turned on the radio, which began blasting rock music. It was hard to ignore that, especially since Danny had the volume on ‘extra high’.

“Turn that off,” Brad told him loudly.

Danny shook his head. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU. I’M LISTENING TO...”

Brad reached over and switched the radio station to some weather report. The announcer informed us that the day was to be sunny—“Perfect swimming and beach weather” was a direct quote.

“Can we go to the beach?” asked Danny. “While we’re in Beachville?”

Brad used the vague phrase grown-ups are fond of saying. “We’ll see.”

When the car finally pulled into Beachville, we boys hopefully eyed the beach.

“Can’t we just go for a few minutes?” begged Danny.

“Maybe later,” Brad said. “I have to run into a few stores.”

We groaned. ‘Run into’ usually meant a half hour of waiting in the car while Brad shopped.

“So, where are you running into?” Danny asked.

Brad pulled his shopping list out of the glove compartment. “Let’s see—I need nails, a new hammer, some parts for my chain saw, a nine-inch piece of lumber...”

“You can get all that stuff at the hardware store,” Danny said.

It wasn’t that simple. Brad got the lumber at Lou’s Lumber, the nails at Bently’s Hardware, the saw parts at Simon’s Wholesale Saw Parts, and the
hammer at Tools Pro. Finally, he pulled up in front of the last store—Garage Door Specialty.

“What’re you getting here?” Joel asked. “A new garage door?”

“No,” Brad replied, getting out of the car. “But our garage door isn’t working properly, and I need some new parts. Wait here. I’ll only be five minutes.”

A while later, Joel glanced at the car clock for the fiftieth time. “He’s been in there for thirty minutes!”

I noticed a gleam coming from the open glove compartment. “Hey! Brad left the car keys in here!”

Danny’s eyes followed my pointing finger. He snatched up the keys. “Let’s go for a spin.”

“Oh, NO!” I shouted. “Remember the motorcycle!”

Danny shot me an angry look. “YOU crashed the cycle, remember? Anyway, I won’t really drive off–I only want to see if the car can start.”

“It CAN,” I assured him.

“Yeah, but that was thirty whole minutes ago,” Danny argued. “It could have broken since then. Inactivity is bad for car engines!”

“The car sits in the garage all night,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but that’s indoors,” Danny said stubbornly. “It isn’t exposed to the elements.”

“What elements?” I asked. “The weather report said it’s a great day.”

Danny got tired of arguing and inserted the key in the ignition switch.

Joel normally sided with Danny in everything, and this time was no
different. “Go, Danny!”

Even I looked forward to hearing the motor start. After all, what could it hurt?

Unfortunately, Danny wasn’t an expert at driving. He pressed something, and pulled something else...and the car shot off down the street, with Danny frantically pressing what he thought was the brake pedal.

To my horror, the beach loomed up in front of us. Danny was too panicky to turn. We plunged into the sea with a giant splash. Danny finally realized his error and hit the right pedal, stopping the runaway car.

By the time the car glided to a stop, we were sunk in the ocean, past the tires.

"And Brad said nothing's worse for the seats than salt water!" Danny groaned.

Joel gulped. “Brad’s gonna kill us.”

Joel wasn’t exactly right. Brad didn’t kill us—but he looked like he might as the crane pulled his car out of the sea.

I considered cleaning out the car and missing a movie mild punishment—we could’ve been forced to buy Brad a new car. As I scrubbed the seats (which, lucky for us, weren’t leather) I resolved never to mess with anybody’s property again...especially with Danny around!


THE END
 
The Football Feud

The Football Feud started the day Danny's big brother Brad tacked up a poster on the schoolhouse wall. It announced that all boys 6-12 were eligible for a week-long flag football league. At the end of the week, the team would play one of the Beachville leagues. I phoned Harvey and found out that he was planning to join, so I thought that I might as well do it, too.

When I arrived at the makeshift field, I discovered that Brad was going to pull names out of a hat to choose the team name. I was hoping for the Mad Grizzlies, or even the Pulverizers, but it turned out to be the Robins. What a sissy name.

I looked around to see who else had joined. I spotted Harvey talking to Joel Taylor across the field and waved. J.J. wasn’t there. He and his family were at Six Flags, a trip J.J. had won earlier in the year.

Paul and Danny were there, along with Tommy and Nicky Donnell and
Tim and Ambrose Felix. I also saw Cory Bannon, the nephew of the local
Cuzzford’s manager. Cory was eleven years old, with gelled blond hair
and a sneaky expression.

Brad explained the game. It was like normal football, except that there was no tackling. Each player wore a belt with two flags on it. If one of his flags was pulled off, it was like he was tackled.

“What a crummy game,” Cory commented in a loud whisper.

Brad ignored him. “During the first four days, we’ll be playing in two teams to practice. The first team will wear the red flag belts. Will, Cory, Ambrose, Tim, and Harvey, you’re that practice team. Tommy, Nicky, Danny, Joel, and Paul, you’ll be the other practice team and wear the blue belts.”

That practice clearly showed who was good and who wasn’t. Most of the guys were good, but Cory was an awful player. He would’ve been ‘tackled’ twenty-seven times in the first fifteen minutes if his flags weren’t so mysteriously hard to pull.

“Hey, no fair!” Tommy Donnell shouted after Cory made his third
touchdown. “Your flags are stuck!”

Brad investigated—and discovered that Cory had made use of a certain high-powered glue.

The next day, Cory stayed on the sidelines as a consequence. I got to be quarterback for the first half. Though Cory wasn’t in the game, he screamed rude things to the players on the field.

“Aw, go take a sewing class!” he shouted after Nicky got ‘tackled’ for the fifth time in a row.

“Hey, kid!” he yelled after I missed a throw. “I hear you come from
Cuzzford’s—no wonder you’re a chicken!”

I didn’t apprieciate that insult. “My dad’s restaurant may be Cuzzford’s
House of Fried Chicken, but I’m not one of the fried birds!” I answered.

On the third day, Cory was back in the game. He tackled Ambrose Felix–a real tackle, not a flag-pulling one.

“Ow!” said Ambrose as Tim and Paul helped him up. I saw with shock
that he had a bloody mouth. Turns out one of his teeth was knocked out.
Fortunately, it was already loose.

Cory pretended he’d forgotton the rules, and Brad let him off that time. However, when he did the same thing on Nicky Donnell, Brad made him sit out. I noticed he only jumped on the little kids---he never went after Paul, who was at least two inches taller.

On the fourth day, a bunch of the other kids came to watch. Cory, evidently trying to impress the crowd, threw a long pass to me. It was too long. The ball landed on the schoolhouse roof and rolled into the gutter.

“Why didn’t you catch it, fumblefingers?” Cory shouted at me as Brad got a ladder.

I held back the one hundred seventy-nine rude replies that were at the tip of my tongue and returned to my position. I dreaded the game on Friday—Cory would probably get us kicked out. (If the referee heard his loud and insulting remarks, we’d be terminated.)

On the train to Beachville the next morning, Cory read a book entitled 101 Cheers That Get on Their Nerves. (It should have been called 101 Easy Routes to the Penalty Box.)

When we got the big field, I saw with horror that Vince was on the opposing team—the Beachville Winners. All the other kids on the league looked like his type of person–the bully-type of kid.

Right before the game, Cory put on a pair of slanted-lens sunglasses. He insisted that they intimidated the other team.

“Cory, please take those off,” ordered Brad.

Cory pretended to think it over. “Yyyeeeeaaaa...no.”

Just then it was time for the game to start. The first six of us out were Joel, Nicky, Tom, Paul, Ambrose, and me. We played pretty well and made two touchdowns. The score was 12-0 when Paul, Joel, Tom, and I were replaced by Cory, Timmy, Danny, and Harvey.

Right from the start, Cory was a bad sport. He howled insults at the other team when they missed anything, and bragged about himself. He was so busy taunting that when he finally got the ball, he ran in the opposite direction. His slanty sunglasses confused his vision, so he didn’t see us all pointing the other way.

“Yyyyyyyeaaaaaaaaah! Touchdown!” Cory screamed, throwing down the ball like in professional football.

“Why didn't you watch where you were going?" Paul howled back. "You just got points for the other team!”

Cory’s face turned purplish-red. He charged at Paul, shrieking something I couldn’t make out and didn’t want to, anyway. He hit Paul like a thunderbolt.

“No fighting, boys,” the referee said calmly. “That’s a personal foul.”

Cory was shouting so loud he probably didn’t even hear the guy. Paul
calmly pushed him off, and the ref escorted the still-screeching Cory off the field.

Needless to say, Cory was kicked off the team. In case you’re wondering, the Winners turned out to be the Losers this time. The Robins won by three touchdowns. I was tempted to rub the victory in, but I’d learned something about good (and bad) sportsmanship from the example of Cory.

And I’d always thought flag football was boring!!!



THE END
 
If you insist...

How to Fix a Fear of Heights, Cuzzford Style

If you picked this up hoping to find a cure for your fear of heights, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Do NOT use this as a how-to manual. Yes, the title says it is, but look at the last two words—Cuzzford Style. Trust me, nobody wants to have their fears adjusted that way.

That’s the tough lesson J.J. learned this summer. It all started one sunny afternoon when he was over playing video games....

Everything was going fine until J.J. elbowed me. “Hey, Will. Take over, will you?”

“Why?” I asked. “You’re doing fine!” I glanced at his character, Super Dude, who at that moment was poised at the brink of a cliff.

“I don’t like the heights part of this game,” J.J. confessed.

In my amazement, I nearly let BattleBoy get his head swiped off by
Archenemy Crunch. “What?”

“I have a fear of heights,” J.J. said. “But I don’t want it to turn out like the hat episode, okay?”

For those of you who are wondering, the ‘hat episode’ was the time I spilled one of J.J.’s secrets to the world—or, to be more exact, to everyone who read the front page of the Beachville newspapers. Suffice to know that it involved a hat.

“Uh, I promise it won’t,” I said. “But I have a perfect thing for you! I’ll fix your fear of heights, Cuzzford Style!”

“It doesn’t involve jumping off skyscrapers, does it?” J.J. asked warily.

“No, of course not!” I assured him. I turned off BattleBoy and pulled a
dictionary off the bookshelf. Dropping it on the floor, I turned to J.J. “Come over here and stand on this book.”

“What for?” J.J. asked.

“It’s the first step,” I said impatiently. “Do you want to be cured or not?”

J.J. obeyed me.

“So, are you scared?” I asked.

J.J. looked at me like I was crazy or something. “I’m three inches off the ground! Of course I’m not scared!”

“Great!” I said. I led him to a small stepladder. “Stand on this.”

Seeing that it was only three feet high, J.J. did.

“Super!” I said. “The next step is a major one—go to the top of the stairs.”

He did, looking puzzled.

“Look down,” I ordered.

J.J. glanced down, then went back down. “Those aren’t the heights I meant. Anyway, I have to go home now and babysit Josh while Mom goes shopping.”

“Practice those three things!” I called to him as he walked out the door. Actually, I didn’t see how practicing standing on a small ladder could help J.J. much, since he wasn’t afraid of three-foot heights, but my sisters’ piano teacher was always saying, “Practice makes perfect!”, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt. Anyway, I felt like a pro. Admitting that I didn't know what I was doing would make me look dumb to J.J.!

The next morning, J.J. had to go to his cousins’ home in Springville, so I took the opportunity to plan out my ‘Destroying Your Fears’ course. I came up with a great list of high objects: trees, rooftops, jungle gyms, tops of slides, swingsets, etc. I wondered if a person could safely jump off a swingset. Oh well, I’d learn soon enough.

J.J. showed up the next afternoon, ready for his course. On our way out, Claudia stopped me. “Where’re you going, Willy?”

“To the park,” I said. “And my name is Will.”

“Be sure to come back by six o’clock,” she called after us as we hightailed it for the playground. Whew! A narrow escape. I was afraid she’d make me take my little sister, and that would have been a disaster!

I paused next to the kiddie slide. “Climb up.”

J.J. did, and stared nervously down at the ground, four feet away.

“Now, jump!” I ordered.

J.J. did, and hit the ground with a thud.

“Super!” I said, trying to encourage him. He looked a little white. “The roof of the schoolhouse is next.”

“That’s twelve feet off the ground!” J.J. screeched, looking as shocked as if I’d proposed dyeing his hair pink, orange, and green.

“Relax,” I told him. “You won’t be jumping this time, only sitting.”

J.J. looked a little calmer, but not much. “And just how do I get up there?”

“I’ll get a ladder from the park keeper,” I said confidently, running off to the shed where Mr. Benton, the keeper, kept his tools. No one was in sight, so I figured it would easier to just borrow the ladder then and there without taking the time and trouble to search for Mr. Benton. I spotted a ladder in the shed and dragged it to the roof. J.J. scrambled up and perched on the peak of the roof.

“Look down,” I said.

He did. “Hey!” he shouted. “I’m not scared!”

I believed this to be an exaggeration, judging from his chattering teeth and sick-looking face. But I wanted to encourage him. “Great! Now, stand up and wave to the world!”

Unfortunately for himself, J.J. did. In the middle of a wild wave, his feet slipped out from under him. I closed my eyes as he slid down the roof and hurtled over the edge.

I opened my eyes, prepared for the worst. To my surprise and relief, J.J. was still alive. But he was tangled in some bushes, screeching.

Naturally, J.J.’s fear of heights wasn’t exactly helped by this little episode. He was really upset. I don’t see what HE had to complain about—his sprained ankle was nothing compared to the consequences I got for convincing him to do such a thing.

After my punishments were over, Harvey came over with his new InsectMan Game.

“You can have it,” he said. “I’m scared of spiders. I heard you made up a neat course for J.J’s fear of heights...”

I had learned my lesson. I wasn’t supervising any more ‘fear-fixing’ courses!

“Thanks for the game, pal,” I said. “But if you need help, talk to your dad!”

THE END
 
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