Judy Moody, M.D.: The Doctor is in!
Megan Mcdonald

M.D.- A Moody Day
PLIP! Judy Moody woke up. Drip, drip, drip went rain on the roof. Blip, blip, blip went drops on the window. Not again! It had been raining for seven days straight. Boring!
She, Judy Moody, was sick and tired of rain.
Judy put her head under the pillow. If only she was sick. Being sick was the greatest. You got to stay home and drink pop for
4
breakfast and eat toast cut in special strips and watch TV in your room. You got to read Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, mysteries all day. And you got to eat yummy cherry cough drops. Hey! Maybe Cherry Ames was named after a cough drop!
Judy took out her mom's old Cherry Ames book and popped a cough drop in her mouth anyway.
"Get up, Lazybones!" said Stink, knocking on her door.
"Can't," said Judy. "Too much rain."
"What?"
"Never mind. Just go to school without me."
"Mom, Judy's skipping school!" Stink yelled.
5
Mom came into Judy's room. "Judy, honey. What's wrong?"
"I'm sick. Of rain," she whispered to Mouse.
"Sick? What's wrong? What hurts?"
asked Mom.
"My head, for one thing. From all that
noisy rain."
"You have a headache?"
"Yes. And a sore throat. And a fever. And a stiff neck."
"That's from sleeping with the dictionary under your pillow," said Stink. "To ace your spelling test."
"Is not."
"Is too!"
"See, look. My tongue's all red." Judy
6
stuck out her Cherry-Ames-cough-drop tongue at Stink.
Mom felt Judy's head. "You don't seem to have a fever."
"Faker," said Stink.
"Come back in five minutes," said Judy. "I'll have a fever by then."
"Faker, faker, faker," said Stink.
If only she had measles. Or chicken pox. Or ... MUMPS! Mumps gave you a headache. Mumps gave you a stiff neck and a sore throat. Mumps made your cheeks stick out like Humpty Dumpty. Judy pushed the cough drop into her cheek and made it stick out, Humpty-Dumpty style.
"Mumps!" said Dr. Judy. "I think I have the mumps! For real!"
7
"Mumps!" said Stink. "No way. You got a shot for that. A no-mumps shot. We both did. Didn't we, Mom?"
"Yes," said Mom. "Stink's right."
"Maybe one mump got through."
"Sounds like somebody doesn't want to go to school today," said Mom.
"Can I? Can I stay home, Mom? I promise I'll be sick. All day."
"Let's take your temperature," said Mom. She took the thermometer out of the case.
"Cat hair?" said Mom. "Is this cat hair on the thermometer?"
"She's always making Mouse stick out her tongue and taking the cat's temperature," said Stink.
8
Mom shook her head and went to wash off the thermometer. When she came back, she took Judy's temperature. "It's 98.6," said Mom. "Normal!"
"Faker, faker, not-sick, big fat faker," said Stink.
"At least my temperature's normal," said Judy. "Even if my brother isn't."
"Better get dressed," said Mom. "Don't want to be late."
"Stink? You're a rat fink. Stink Rat-Fink Moody. That's what I'll call you from now
on."
"Well, you'll have to call me it at school 'cause you don't get to stay home."
Judy stuck out her cherry-red, no- mumps tongue at Stink.
9
She was down in the dumps. She had a bad case of the grumps. The no-mumps Moody Monday blues. She, Judy Moody, felt like Mumpty Dumpty! Mumpty Dumpty without a temperature, that is.
10
When Judy walked into Class 3T (seven minutes late!) on the un-mumpsy day of Monday, Class 3T was dry as a bone. Or bones! There were bones everywhere.
Mr. Todd had made a new bulletin board: Our Amazing Body: From Head to Toe. It had a tall poster of bones with long scientific names. On the front board he taped a chart that showed rodent bones. It looked like the insides of Peanut, the dwarf guinea
11
pig in Class 3T. And ... sitting behind Mr. Todd's desk in Mr. Todd's chair, using Mr. Todd's pencil, was a glow-in-the-dark skeleton!
Class 3T had turned into a bone museum!
Bones were not drippy. Bones were not noisy. Bones were not boring. Bones were dry and quiet and very, very interesting!
Things were sure looking up for a no- mumps Monday. Judy handed Mr. Todd her late slip. "Sorry I'm late," she said. "I almost had the mumps."
"Well, I'm glad you're healthy, and here now. We're starting a new unit on the Human Body from head to toe."
"We're going to get to jump rope," said
10
12
Jessica Finch. "And measure our heart rates."
"And play Twister," said Rocky. "To learn about muscles."
"And sing a song about bones," said Alison S.
"I can't believe you started the human
body without me!" said Judy. "A person
can miss a lot in seven minutes."
"Don't worry. I think you'll catch up," said Mr. Todd.
Mr. Todd taught them a funny song
that went, "Da foot bone's connected to da ankle bone. ..." He read them a book called Frozen Man, the incredible, real-life story of a five-thousand-year-old mummy.
13
And Class 3T got to turn out the lights and use the glow-in-the-dark skeleton named Bonita to count how many bones were in a human. Two hundred and six!
"We'll be learning a lot of new words in this unit. The scientific names for bones and body parts come from Latin. So they may sound a little funny."
"Like maxilla is your jaw?" asked Judy, looking at the bulletin board.
"And so is mandible," said Jessica.
Jessica Finch had already learned to spell microbes (a fancy word for germs, as in cooties!) and medulla (a fancy word for brain stuff). "Can you spell headache?" Judy asked. Frank Pearl cracked up at that one.
14
Then Mr. Todd passed out owl pellets. They got to poke them with a pencil to find bones. Rodent bones. Judy and Frank stared at their fuzzy gray lump.
"Double bluck! Just think. This is owl spit-up!" said Frank.
"It's still interesting," said Judy. "Real bones are in there. Skulls and stuff."
15
"You poke it," said Frank. So Judy poked it with her Grouchy pencil. They found a jawbone, a rib, and a bone Mr. Todd called a femur. They glued each bone onto paper and drew in all the missing bones to make a rodent skeleton that matched the one on the board.
"Do any rodent bones have the same names as human bones?" asked Mr. Todd.
Judy raised her hand.
"Tibia," called out Jessica Finch.
"Very good," said Mr. Todd.
"That's what I was going to say," said Judy. Jessica Finch was a rat fink (like Stink!) for not raising her hand. A rodent fink.
"Now let's talk about your Human Body projects," said Mr. Todd. "Projects will be
16
due in two weeks. You can do your project on bones, muscles, joints, the brain --"
"Even toenails?" asked Bradley.
"As long as it teaches us something about the human body. Let's start by writing down ideas in your notebooks. I want to see brainstorming."
17
Judy had a storm in her brain already.
Rocky wanted to do three-thousand-yearold human body stuff. Mummies!
"What are you thinking of doing?" Judy asked Frank.
"Cloning. I'll be a fiction scientist or a science fictiontist. Somebody who clones stuff. Like in Jurassic Park. They used a drop of mosquito blood and made a whole dinosaur. They do it in real life, too. Start with one cell, like from your DNA, and make a whole new you."
" Double cool!" Judy said.
"I'm going to write a dictionary," Jessica told Judy. "With human body words like appendix and patella. That's
18
your knee." Jessica Finch had cooties on the medulla if she thought she could rewrite the dictionary.
Judy looked back at her own paper. She chewed her eraser. She chewed her fingernail. She chewed her hair. Judy had a brain wave! A real-body-parts idea. She would call Grandma Lou to see if she had any good body parts for Showing and Telling. Something better than scabs. This was the brainiest of all storms! She wrote down Call Grandma Lou so she wouldn't forget.
Judy's just-sharpened Grouchy pencil was still flying when Mr. Todd said, "Class, that's enough brainstorming for today."
"Good. My brain hurts," said Frank.
19
"I'm passing out permission slips for our
field trip."
Field trip! "Is it to Screamin' Mimi's?"
asked Judy. "Please, please, pretty please with chocolate mud ice cream on top?"
"Max and Kelsey's dad, from Class 3M, b'
works at the hospital. So we're invited to go with their class to the Walter Reed Memorial Hospital emergency room. We'll learn all about the human body and get to see people who make a difference in action."
Emergen cy room! That was even better than Screamin' Mimi's! Judy Moody dropped her mandiblel And her Grouchy pencil.
"I was there when I broke my finger,"
20
said Frank, waving his crooked pinkie. "They have a nurse named Ron."
"I went when my brother stuck a Lego up his nose," said Bradley.
"Can we go see all the new babies?" asked Frank. "They're so wrinkly."
"Well, I'm glad the whole class is enthusiastic," said Mr. Todd.
"When do we go? When? When?" everybody asked.
"Monday. One week from today. Dr. Nosier will be giving us a tour."
"Dr. Nosehair!" said Rocky, and everybody cracked up.
She, Judy Moody, and Class 3T were going to the ER. For real and absolute
21
positive. The blood-and-guts, real-body- parts emergency room.
Judy reached down to pick up her Grouchy pencil. The tip was broken. "Mr. Todd," she asked, "may I please sharpen my pencil?"
"Remember what we said about sharpening pencils ten times a day?"
"But Mr. Todd," said Judy, "it's an emergency."
"What?"
"A pencil emergency! My pencil just broke its spinal cord!" said Judy.
22
The next Monday was a better-than-best-
ever third grade day. At lunch, Judy ate her
PBJ sandwich in seven bites, then walked
not-ran to the playground. Class 3T had a ten-minute recess before their field trip to the hospital.
Judy's mom was a driver and parent volunteer, so Rocky and Frank rode in their car. Mom made Judy ask Jessica Finch, too.
"Did you know muscle comes from a
23
word that means mouse?" asked Jessica. "If you move a muscle, it looks like a mouse." She flexed her arm.
Judy used all forty-three muscles it took to frown at Jessica Finch.
At the hospital, Dr. Nosier led Class 3T down a long hall.
"Why does that doctor lady have a rabbit?" asked Frank.
"Animals aren't allowed in the hospital!" said Jessica.
"It's a new program called Paws for
Healing," Dr. Nosier told them. "People
bring animals to patients in the hospital to help them feel better. Holding an animal and petting it can actually lower a person's
24
blood pressure, and help a patient forget about being sick."
"RARE!" said Judy.
Dr. N. took them into a room in back of the ER, where Class 3M was already waiting. There were lots of machines. And important-looking stuff.
"What's the first thing you would do in an emergency?" quizzed Dr. Nosier.
"Call 911!" everybody said.
"Would you call 911 to find out how long to cook a turkey?"
"Only if you're a turkey," Frank said. Judy and Frank cracked up.
"Is a crossword puzzle an emergency?"
"Only for my dad, who tries to beat the clock," said Judy.
25
26
"Believe it or not, we do get people who call 911 for such things. But let's say we have a real emergency, like a car accident or a heart attack. Everything around here
happens super fast. As soon as the ambulance arrives, the E M Ts, people trained to handle medical emergencies, start 'giving the bulletin telling us what happened.
Train wreck means the patient has lots of things wrong with them. Who knows what
code blue means?"
"Lots of blood?"
"All the people in blue shirts have to help?"
"It means somebody's heart stopped," said Dr. Nosier.
"You fix hearts that stop?" asked Alison S.
27
"You must help a lot of people!" said Erica.
"All doctors make a promise to help people. It's called the Hippocratic oath. Hippocrates was the Father of Medicine. In the old days, you had to swear by Apollo and Hygeia to help people the best you could. If you didn't know what was wrong with a patient, you had to say 'I know not.' The old oath sounds funny to us now, so a doctor named Louis Lasagnal rewrote it."
"Louis Lasagnal Did he invent pizza, too?" asked Frank. Dr. N. laughed.
"But how do you always know what to do?" asked Rocky.
"Being a doctor is like being a detective. You look at all the clues and try to solve the
28
mystery. In the E R we just do it in a hurry.
Think of it like each one of us is a human
jigsaw puzzle. My job is to figure out the missing pieces and put the puzzle back
together."
"RARE!" whispered Judy.
"I'm the best at jigsaw puzzles," bragged Jessica Finch. "I did a five-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle of Big Ben all by myself!" Sometimes Judy wished Jessica Finch would shut her mandible.
"Now I'll show you what some of this stuff is for," said Dr. Nosier. Dr. Judy got to use a stethoscope to listen to her own heartbeat! Ba-boom, ba-boom! Then she took Frank's blood pressure (for real!), looked for Jessica Finch's tonsils, and saw
29
eye insides with a special kind of scope. They took turns riding on a bed called a gurney, walking with crutches, and sitting in a wheelchair.
Dr. N. turned out all the lights and showed them x-rays. There was a brain (it looked all ghosty), a dog that got hit by a car (it looked all sideways), even a violin (it looked all dead!). "X-rays help solve the mystery," he said.
30
They even got to see a real live, ooeygooey heart on a TV. "This is better than the Operation Channel at home!" Judy said.
And they got to practice on life-size dummies called Hurt-Head Harry and Trauma Tammy. "I have a practice doll, too," said Judy. "With three heads. HeddaGetBetta. I practice being a doctor, like Elizabeth Blackwell."
"How would you like to practice being a patient with a broken arm?" asked Dr. N. "And I'll show everybody how we put on a cast."
Judy Moody could not believe her inner, middle, or outer ears. "Can I, Mom?"
"Sure, if you want to."
31
"Hold out your arm, Judy Moody, First Girl Doctor."
Judy grinned with all seventeen muscles it takes to make a smile. She held her arm out straight as a snowman's stick-arm. Dr. N. wrapped it around and around with soft cotton stuff.
"I'll use a special plaster bandage that turns hard when it dries so Judy won't be able to move that arm. That way her bone will stay in place and heal back together."
"My radius or my ulna?" asked Judy.
"I see you know your bones! Can you still wiggle your phalanges?"
Judy wiggled her fingers. Everybody laughed.
"A not-broken arm is even better than a
32
broken arm! I wish I never had to take it off!
"Tell you what," said Dr. Nosier. "If your mom says it's okay, you can wear it home. I'll show her how to take it off."
"Can I, Mom? Can I? I can fool Stink! Please, pretty please with Band-Aids on top?"
"I don't see why not," said Mom. "Sure!"
"RARE!" said Judy. She, Judy Moody, was a mystery. A human jigsaw puzzle with a broken arm... NOT!
Judy was so happy from Hospital Day that even her eyebrows were smiling. She stared at all the autographs on her cast. Even Dr. Nosier had signed it. His autograph looked like a messy blob, but still!
33
She could hardly wait to get home and show Dad her cast. Maybe she could even get out of setting the table, on account of her broken arm (not!). Wait till she told Stink!
When she got home, Stink was waiting at the front door. Judy held up her cast.
"You broke your arm?" asked Stink. "Sweet!"
34
She, Judy Moody, was in an operating mood! As soon as she got her cast off, Judy asked Stink to play Operation, a game where you remove body parts with tweezers and try NOT to make the buzzer go off. Dr. Judy performed a delicate operation and removed butterflies from the patient's stomach. Next she removed his broken heart. Stink went for the charley horse. Buzz! "Hey, his nose lights up red," he said.
35
"Like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer!"
"You did that on purpose!"
"Did not!" Stink tried to remove the pencil from the guy's arm, to get rid of writer's cramp. Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
"Stink. Give me the tweezers. Your turn's over when you buzz."
"Let's play something else," said Stink.
"I know," Judy said. "You can help me with my Human Body project for school."
"That's not playing. That's homework," said Stink.
"Fun homework," said Judy. "I'm going to do an operation with real stitches and stuff." Judy got out her doctor kit. "All I need is somebody to operate on."
"You're not operating on me. Just so you
36
know. No slings or eye patches or anything." "Can I at least take your blood pressure?"
"I guess." Judy put a cuff around Stink's arm and pumped air into it. "I'm afraid you have high blood pressure, Stink," said Judy. "Your heart's beating super fast."
"That's 'cause I'm scared of what you might do to me!"
"I have a better idea." Judy went straight to Toady's aquarium. "Operation on Toady! You hold him down, Stink, and I'll make the incision." "The what?"
"The cut. Hel-lo? It's an operation."
"You're loony tunes!" Stink said. "You can't cut Toady open."
37
"I'll stitch him back up. C'mon. Just one small, teensy- weensy snip?"
"N-O, no! Give me him!"
"It's the only way to see toad insides. Admit it, Stink. You want to see toad guts."
"Not this toad's guts." Stink rushed over to his desk and rooted around in the top drawer. He held up a cardboard badge that said ASPCA: Saving Lives since 1866.
"Busted!" said Stink, holding the badge up to Judy's face. "It's against the law to be mean to animals or hurt them. Ever. Just show them respect and kindness. You're not even supposed to let your dog drink out of the toilet."
"I don't have a dog. And Mouse doesn't drink out of the toilet!"
38
"Good. If she did, you'd go to jail."
"I was just going to practice on Toady. Not put him in the toilet!"
"You're not allowed to test stuff out on animals. You're supposed to test on beans. Or pumpkins. People who make soap and shampoo and underpants and stuff are always testing it on animals, and the animals get hurt or even die."
"Stink, nobody makes animals wear underpants."
"Yah-huh. They do. No lie. It makes me really sad and mad that people do stuff to animals. I'm so sad and so mad I'm . . . smad!"
"Okay, okay! Don't be smad. I cross-my- heart promise I won't shampoo Toady or
39
make him wear underpants or anything. I just wish I had something really good for Sharing tomorrow. Something nobody's ever seen. Something human."
"Like what?"
"Like Einstein's brain. A hair from Abraham Lincoln's beard. Or Grandma Lou's kidney stone, if only she had saved it."
"Put a kidney bean in a jar and say it's Einstein's brain. You could say it's a human bean, get it?"
"Hardee-har-har, Stink."
"I have some baby teeth. Teeth are human."
"Everybody's seen baby teeth, Stink."
40
I have a toenail collection."
"Boring."
"Wait! I do have a body part."
"What? What is it? Can I have it?"
"Nope. I'm not showing you 'cause you'll want it bad."
"Is it a finger? Or an ear?"
"NO!"
"A bone?"
"Nope."
"Is it skin? Like you peel off when you get sunburned?"
"Nope."
"Is it a cavity? You know, like in a tooth?"
"Nope."
41
"Cmon, Stinker. You HAVE to show me."
"Okay, but promise you won't SHOW or TELL anybody, and you can't take it to school, okay?"
"Cross-my-heart promise," said Judy. Stink went over to his closet. He pulled down a dusty box from the shelf. A box with all his baby stuff.
"Hurry up. I can't stand it!" said Judy. Stink opened the box and took out a baby- food jar. There was something in the jar. Something that looked like a shriveled-up, shrunken dead worm.
"Yee-uck. What is it? A petrified worm? Or one-hundred-year-old burnt spaghetti?"
"No, Einstein. It's my belly-button!"
42
"Your belly-button?"
"You know. That thing that falls off your belly-button when you're born."
"For real and true?"
"Yes, for real. When Mom brought me home from the hospital--"
"But you were born in a Jeep!"
"You know what I mean. When I came home, I had a thing on my belly-button. You have to wait for it to fall off. Mom said you wanted to keep it."
"Me? So, then, really it's mine?"
"NO! It's my body part. I used to be an outie. Now I'm an innie." Stink lifted up his shirt. "See?"
"RARE!" said Judy. "I can't wait for my class"-- Stink gave her a starey, glarey
43
look -- "to NOT know about this. Ever."
Stink put the jar with his wormy old burnt-spaghetti belly-button on the desk. "You know what's so great about this belly-button?"
"What?" asked Judy.
"That you don't have one!" said Stink. He laughed himself silly. "But if you give me a million dollars, I'll let you take my belly-button to school."
"How about five dollars?"
"A million dollars or you'll never, not ever, touch my belly-button!" said Stink.
44
Wednesday. Wednesday was her Sharing Day! Judy was going to have the best share ever. She couldn't wait two weeks until her Human Body project was due. She, Judy Moody, would Show and Tell about Stink's belly-button. To-day. All she had to do was steal it.
Judy waited for Stink to go downstairs for breakfast. She tiptoed into his room, took down the box of baby stuff, grabbed
45
Stink's belly-button jar, and hid it in the secret inside pocket of her backpack.
As soon as the bell rang, Mr. Todd asked Class 3T to form a Sharing Circle. It was Rocky's day to share, too. And Jessica Finch. Jessica said she'd brought an especially special share. But Judy just knew her belly-button had to be the specialest!
Rocky went first. His share was a Lego. Judy thought one Lego was boring, until Rocky conducted an experiment on it. He put it in a petri dish and poured some stuff on it. The Lego turned black-as-dirt from all the germs on it.
"Eee-yew!" said Jessica Finch. "Germs!" Germs made her squirm.
46
"There's a fungus among us," said Frank.
"I had lice before," said Bradley. "In my hair!"
"Me too!" said AlisonS.
"Ick," said Dylan, backing away from the circle.
"Millions of bacteria are on us all the time," said Rocky. "On our heads, up our noses, between our toes."
"That's right," said Mr. Todd. "Each one of us is our own ecosystem. We carry around millions of critters too tiny to see."
"Like a human rain forest?" asked Judy.
"Exactly," said Mr. Todd. "Now do you see why I'm always after all of you to wash your hands?"
47
"I have something that's not germs," Jessica said. "My guinea pig, Chester, was a boy, but he turned out to be a girl and had babies." Jessica Finch held up a picture. "Nutmeg, Jasmine, Coco, and Cindy, short for Cinnamon. The Spice Girls!"
48
"Aww!" everybody said. "Cute!" Judy took a look. All she could see were hairballs. Bellybuttons were way more scientific than hairballs!
"Judy, did you bring anything to share?" asked Mr. Todd.
"Yes, said Judy. She held the baby-food jar behind her back. "See, when you're a baby and you first come out, there's a thingy attached to your belly-button. Then it falls off and your mom and dad find out if you're an innie or an outie."
"I'm an innie!" said Frank.
"Ooh. I'm a way-outie!" said Bradley, showing off his belly-button.
"Okay, 3T! Keep your shirts on," said Mr. Todd. "Let's let Judy finish."
52
49
"In this jar, I have a real live belly-button thingy. No lie. I call it Mucus Dermis. It's Latin. Dermis means skin and mucus means yucky. Yucky skin."
"Where'd you get it?" asked Rocky.
"Actually, it's from my very own brother, Stink Moody."
"Double yuck," said Jessica Finch, squirming in a wormy way.
"Let me see!" said Frank Pearl. Judy
passed Stink's belly-button to Frank Pearl.
Everybody crowded around to see.
"Take your seats and Judy will pass it around," said Mr. Todd.
"Bellybuttons are also called navels," said Judy. "Everybody has one, but no two are alike. Just like snowflakes. Sometimes
53
50
bellybuttons collect lint, and in Japan, they have belly-button cleaners. My dad told me. No lie!"
"Thank you, Judy," said Mr. Todd. "I think we've all learned more than we ever imagined about bellybuttons."
"Bellybuttons are better than' bones," said Rocky.
"Better than lice!" said Frank.
"Better than hairballs!" said Judy.
"Does your brother know you have his belly-button?" asked Jessica.
51
After Sharing, Judy went out in the hall to put away her backpack. Stink was there, listening right outside the classroom.
"Give it," said Stink, holding out his hand.
"Give what?"
"I know you have it. I came to tell you... I just saw you! I overheard.... You stole it, didn't you? You showed the WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD my belly-button!"
52
53
"Nah-uh! Only half of the third grade." "You owe me a million dollars! "Stink, we can fight later. Go back to second grade."
"I can't. I'm sick. My throat hurts. I think I have mumps." "Made-up mumps?"
"No. For real." Stink held his neck like it really hurt.
"Would you say that the pain is in your larynx or your pharynx?" Judy asked. "Huh?"
"Just go to the nurse, said Judy.
"I'm scared."
"Of what? Mrs. Bell?"
"No." "A shot?"
54
"No."
"Getting lost?"
"No."
"For-real mumps? A pill? Throwing up?"
"No. No. And not really."
"What? What are you scared of?"
"The skeleton! In the nurse's office."
"Stink! It's not even real!"
Stink's face crumpled like he was going to cry. "The office lady told me to wait till Mrs. Bell gets here, but I was in there all by myself. With it."
"I'll take you, if you promise not to be mad about the belly-button."
Judy got a pass from Mr. Todd, then walked Stink down the hall and around
55
the corner to the nurse's office. Stink pointed to the skeleton in the corner.
"Pretend he's not there, Stink. Sit on the edge of the bed. I'll be the doctor while we wait for Mrs. Bell. So, what seems to be the problem?"
"When I woke up this morning, I just had hiccups and a loose tooth. Now my throat hurts."
Judy picked up a flashlight from the desk and shined it in Stink's eyes.
"Hey, now my eyes hurt, too!"
"Does your face hurt?"
"Nope."
"It's killing me!" Judy cracked herself up. "Let's see your throat." She shined the light down his throat. "Say ahh!"
56
"Grub!" said Stink.
"Not glub. Ahhhhh! Try again."
"Slug!"
"Never mind, said Judy.
"What's wrong?"
"Well, you DON'T have a frog in your throat. Just a glub and a slug." Judy held her head sideways, thinking. She looked Stink up and down.
"Do you have a pain in your neck, too?" asked Stink.
"Just you," said Judy. She cracked herself up some more. "Wait a minute! Stink! I got it! I know what you have!"
"What?" asked Stink.
"Skeleton-itis!" said Judy. "Fear-of- Skeletons disease. Found only in second
57
graders with glubby slugs in their throats." "I can't help it. He just stares . . . with those eyes! It's creepier than that pyramid
eye on a one-dollar bill."
"Stink, skeletons don't have eyes."
"I know! Just big spooky holes like dead
people. And he's all clicketyclackety." Judy picked up the skeleton from where he was hanging in the corner. "Hi! I'm Mr.
DryBones!" Judy clacked the skeleton's jaw
open and shut. "You can call me George.
See? He teaches you about your bones and stuff." Judy made the skeleton wave at
Stink.
Stink did not wave back. "You're giving
me goose bumps. Put him back before we
get in trouble."
58
"Not till he tells some jokes. Here, I'll practice some jokes I'm learning for my Human Body project. Mr. DryBones likes jokes, don't you?" Judy said to the skeleton. 'They tickle his funny bone!"
Stink cracked up.
"What does a skeleton take for a cold?" asked Judy.
"What?"
"Coffin drops!"
Stink laughed at that one.
"What do skeletons put on their mashed potatoes?"
"Umm..."
"Gravey!"
"What do you call a skeleton who sleeps all day?"
59
"Sleepyhead?"
"Lazybones!" Judy cackled.
"How does a skeleton pass his math test?"
"How?"
"He bones up on his addition and subtraction."
"Funny!" Stink laughed and laughed. He seemed to forget all about his sore throat. And Fear-of-Skeletons disease.
"What does a skeleton eat for breakfast?" asked Mrs. Bell, setting her purse down on the desk.
"I don't know? What?"
"Scream of wheat!"
"Good one!" said Stink. He held his stomach, he was laughing so hard.
60
"I see you've met George," said Mrs. Bell. "I had to go to another school this morning. So it's just my skeleton crew here today."
"Hey, that's good!" said Judy. "I was just, um, helping Stink until you got here."
"Old Mr. DryBones is very humerus," said Mrs. Bell. She cracked herself up. "Humerus. That's the name of this long bone right here in your upper arm."
"Cool beans!" said Judy.
"Oh, I get it now!" said Stink, cracking up too.
"See, Stink? I told you he wasn't scary."
"Don't worry," Mrs. Bell said to Stink. "Lots of people find bones scary. Did you know even elephants are afraid of bones?"
61
"Really?" asked Stink.
"Bones are interesting, really. We start out with over three hundred bones when we're born, and when we grow up we have--"
"Only two hundred and six!" said Judy. "We just learned that in Mr. Todd's class."
How do we lose so many bones?" asked
Stink.
"Some grow together," said Mrs. Bell. "To hold us up, make us strong. Otherwise we'd all be jellyfish. A jellyfish has no bones."
Judy went all limp, imitating a jellyfish. "See, Stink. Aren't you glad you're not a jellyfish?"
"No, because if I were, I could sting you!"
62
"So, what seems to be the problem, young man?" Mrs. Bell asked Stink.
"I have a stomachache."
"A stomachache?" said Judy. "I thought you had a sore throat."
"I do. But now my stomach hurts from laughing."
"So, I guess you could say your sister had you in stitches, huh?"
"Don't give her any ideas!" said Stink.
"Let's just take a look at that throat," said Mrs. Bell. "Say aahl"
"AHH!" said Stink.
"Hey! You didn't say glub. Or slug," said Judy.
"Uh-oh," said Mrs. Bell. "Somebody's sick, all right."
63
"For real?" Judy asked. "Can I see?" "His throat is as red as a fire engine."
Mrs. Bell took Stink's temperature with a non-cat-hairy thermometer. "And he has a fever: 99.9."
"Stink, you have ALL the luck," said
Judy.
64
No fair! Stink got to go to the real doctor. Judy convinced her mom that she had to come too, so she could learn stuff.
Dr. McCavity looked in Stink's eyes and ears and down his throat with a purple tongue depressor. She explained how tonsils are two pink balls like grapes in back of your throat, and they can get infected with white specks and swell up and hurt.
Dr. McCavity told Mrs. Moody to give
65
Stink some special medicine and make sure he got lots of sleep. She told Stink to drink ginger ale and eat the Brat diet.
"He's been eating the brat diet since he was born!" Judy said.
Dr. McCavity laughed. "BRAT means Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, and Toast." She also told Stink to stay home from school till his fever was gone, and stay away from Judy as much as possible.
She really did say the last part!
"Just think," Judy told Stink. "If you get tonsillitis, you get to go to the hospital for an operation and get a bracelet with your name on it and wear funny pajamas and eat Popsicles all day."
"Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that,"
66
said Mom. "That would be a lot of Popsicles."
"We don't like to take out healthy tonsils," said the doctor.
"But you said they were grapefruits," said Judy. "Maybe he has Grapefruititis!"
"Grapes," said Dr. McCavity. "Not grapefruit. If he takes care of those tonsils, he won't have to worry about Grapefruititis." She laughed again.
"Dr. McCavity, you should have been a dentist!" Judy cracked herself up.
"You like jokes? What did the doctor say to the patient with tonsillitis?"
"What?"
"Have a swell time!" said Dr. McCavity.
67
Double no fair! Stink got to stay home from school (for real), drink ginger ale (for breakfast), and eat mashed-banana toast all day (the bratty diet). AND he got to have TV in his room, even though Dr. McCavity did not say one thing about TV in your room.
Judy did not stay away from Stink as much as possible.
She took his temperature (way not normal) and made him a hospital bracelet with his name (Stinker) on it. She let him use her crazy straw to drink ginger ale. She read him Rex Morgan, M.D., comics and Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, mysteries.
68
She wrote him a prescription on her doctor pad.
She even took a Hippopotamus oath to be nice to Stink. Nicey-nice. Doctor nice.
"Stink," she said, raising her right hand, "I swear by Neopolitan and Hygiene and Larry Lasagna that I will do everything I can to the best of my ability to help make
69
you better. Here. Pet Mouse." She plopped Mouse on Stink's stomach.
"Ow!" said Stink. "She clawed me!" Mouse jumped to the floor.
Judy picked up Mouse again. "Stink, you have to pet her twenty times. It's called Paws for Healing. It will lower your blood pressure. Trust me."
"Are you sure it's not called Paws for
Scratching?"
"Stink. Just try it." Judy plopped her cat on Stink again. Mouse bolted off the bed, knocking over the glass of ginger ale.
"Ahhh! Ginger ale! It's all over me," cried Stink.
Judy got Stink a towel. And a new ginger ale. And a clean crazy straw. She got
70
him a not-wet blanket. She got him Baxter and Ebert, his stuffed-animal penguin and timber wolf.
For four days, she fed Toady. For four days, she brought Stink his homework. For four days, she watched Megazoid and the Deltoid Bananas with Stink, even though she wanted to watch the Operation Channel.
That's when she saw it. In an ad on TV not prescribed by Dr. McCavity. The one-and--only, for-sure cure for Stink. "Are you tired all the time?" Yes. Stink was sleeping right now!
71
"Are you sick? Want to be healthy? Live longer?"
Yes, yes, and YES!! Judy told the TV.
"We have a secret just for you. PRUNES!" said the cartoon lady on TV.
"PRUNES!" cried Judy. "UCK!"
"Bite them, chew them. Don't pooh-pooh them." said the TV lady. "CALIFORNIA PRUNES! The energy-packed super snack. Majorly delicious! Off to climb Mt. Everest? Take some PRUNES with you today."
Judy did not think Stink would be climbing Mt. Everest anytime soon. He could barely climb out of bed. But it was worth a try. All she had to do was convince Stink to eat one prune.
Judy tiptoed downstairs and opened the
72
kitchen cupboards. Tea bags, peanut butter, pretzels, crackers. . . . They had to be here somewhere. Judy pulled a chair over to the up-high cupboards. Ah-ha! A shiny bag!
Gravy?!
Gravy did not help you climb Mt. Everest. Gravy did not cure tonsils. Gravy did not make you live longer.
She spotted a yellow sun shining on the front of a pink and purple bag. Finally! Judy stared at two shriveled lumps. Prunes were icky. Sticky. Prunes were wrinkly as elephants and looked like one-hundred-and-fiftyyearold buffalo droppings. hundred-year-old dried-up belly-buttons. Two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old tonsils.
73
Why do you have to eat bad stuff for good stuff to happen?
The world was backwards, according to Judy Moody.
Dr. Judy went back upstairs. "Stink! Wake up!" said Judy.
"Wha... ?"
"I have your cure! Right here in my hand. No more fever. No more grapefruit tonsils." Judy held out her hand. She showed Stink the prunes.
"What? What are those?" asked Stink.
"Prunes. The secret to not getting sick. The secret to climbing Mt. Everest."
"They look like moon rocks. Or petrified prune rocks."
74
"They do kind of look like the owl pellets we had in Science "
"Owl pellets! Owl pellets are hairballs. Owl pellets are spit-up."
"Prunes are just plums," said Judy. "C'mon. One bite."
"No way, Prunella De Vil. I am not eating a hairball. I am not eating spit-up."
"Don't you want to live longer? Don't you want to have teeny-tiny tonsils again?"
"Okay. Then help me. Say nice things about prunes," said Stink.
Judy sniffed a prune. "They don't smell like buffalo droppings."
"That's the nicest thing you can say about a prune?"
75
"They're not hairy."
"Not hairy is good," said Stink.
"I know,' said Judy. "Close your eyes. On the count of three, we'll BOTH eat a prune at the same time.
"One, one thousand --"
80
76
Stink closed his eyes tight.
"Two, one thousand --"
Judy threw her prune in the trash.
"Three--"
Stink actually put the prune in his mouth.
"Eee-yew!" cried Stink. Thwaaa! Stink spit out the prune. It went flying across the floor and landed in a dust ball. "I licked it! It touched my taste buds!"
"It's supposed to taste MAJORLY delicious. The TV said so," Judy told him.
"It tastes majorly disgusting," said Stink. "You tricked me!"
"I was just trying to help you feel better," said Judy. "Now I'm a bad doctor and you'll never feel better."
77
"I feel better knowing I'm not going to eat that prune."
"Stink, don't you get it? That was the last prune. Now it has cat hair and spit all over it. What are we going to do?" Before you could say majorly dust ball, Mouse pounced on the cat-hairy spit-up prune.
78
"No! Mouse! Wait!" said Judy.
It was too late. Ga-loomp! Mouse chewed it up and swallowed. Hairball, spit, and all. Judy and Stink fell on the floor laughing.
Prune lips licked her paws, face, and whiskers. "Mouse," said Judy, picking up her cat, "you are going to live a very long life."
"Nine long lives," said Stink.
79
Doctor Day! The day Judy got to dress up like Elizabeth Blackwell, First Woman Doctor, and do a REAL LIVE operation for Class 3T. An operation was the best of all the brainstorms from her list. The best Human Body project ever. Better even than trying to doctor Stink.
Her patient was special. Her patient had green skin and did not talk back. Her patient would not hog the TV and drink
80
all the ginger ale and spit out healthy prunes.
Her patient was perfect. She could hardly wait.
First she took one more bath.
Stink knocked on the bathroom door. "Knock-knock!"
"Who's there?"
"Stink, minus one belly-button."
No answer.
"Mom! Judy's hogging the bathroom and she already took a million baths yesterday." Stink banged on the door. "Hurry up! I need to get in there!"
Judy came out with a towel on her head, and all-wrinkly hands and feet. "I liked it better when you were sick," said Judy.
81
"I liked it better when you didn't look like a spit-up prune," said Stink.
"Doctors have to be really, really clean, Stink. Elizabeth Blackwell took three cold showers a day!"
"Elizabeth Blackwell didn't leave a lake on the floor."
"Hardee-harhar."
"Hip bone's connected to da leg bone," Judy sang as she got dressed. Today was going to be the amazing-est human body day ever, from head to toe.
At school, Judy had ants in her pants all through Spelling, bees in her patella-knees all through Math. At last it was Science. Mr. Todd said the magic words. "Time for our
82
Human Body projects. Rocky, why don't you go first?"
Rocky wrapped himself in toilet paper like a mummy, and told how eating a mummy can help your tummy! No lie. Doctors in the old-old-olden days thought mummies could cure stuff like stomachaches. So they ground up mummies, bones and all, and used them for medicine.
"Creepy!" said most of the class.
"Fascinating," said Judy.
Jessica Finch wrote medi-words
83
on the board. Words like intelligirl (really smart girl), brainiac (has super-Einstein, not-kidney-bean brain), and brain case (sick in the brain), which she added to the dictionary. Then she passed out a word search. Judy found all the medi-words at brainiac speed.
Finally, Mr. Todd called on her. Dr. Judy Elizabeth Blackwell. She put on her doctor shirt, a stethoscope, and a left-eye patch. She taped plastic bags over her shoes. She colored between her eyebrows with a black marker and stuck fake bugs on her head with tape. "Today I am Elizabeth Blackwell, First Woman Doctor," said Judy. "I'll start with a poem." She took a deep breath, so
84
she wouldn't get a terrible case of nerves. Or a bad case of sweat.
Elizabeth Blackwell lived in an attic
Nothing was qutomatic
First in her class
What more could you ask?
Became first woman doctor even though boys mocked her
Opened a clinic helped poor people in it.
Delivered babies. Gave shots for rabies, maybe. Opened her own school. It was way cool.
Wrote a book, Wonder how long it took. Born, I don't know when. Died, 1910.
Take after the example of Doctor Elizabeth Blackwell.
85
Everybody clapped. "Any questions before I begin the operation?" Judy asked.
"Why are you wearing pajamas?" asked Hailey.
"Scrubs," said Judy. "It's a doctor shirt. Doctors have to be really, really clean and take tons of baths a day."
"Why do you only have one eyebrow?" asked Frank.
"It's a uni-brow. Like Elizabeth Black- well had. Plus it makes me look smart. Like an intelligirl who is not a brain case."
"Why do you have that pirate patch on your eye?" asked Brad.
"Elizabeth Blackwell got an eye infection and they took out her eye, so she wore an eye patch."
86
"Ooh. Gross!"
"Why do you have fake bugs on your head?" asked Jessica Finch.
"They didn't really know how to fix her eye, so they put bloodsucking leeches on her head. They thought it would help."
"EEE-yew!" said a bunch of kids in the class.
"Did you write that poem?"
"Well, it wasn't a gnome!"
"Why do you have plastic bags on your feet?"
"In case of blood," said Judy.
"Class, let's let Judy show us her project," said Mr. Todd.
"Time for a real live operation!" said Judy.
87
"Do it on me!" said Frank.
"Not me!" said Rocky.
"If you need a guinea pig," said Jessica Finch, "do it on Peanut."
"I already have a patient."
"Is it dead?" asked Bradley.
"My patient is alive, not dead. My patient is better to practice on than a little brother. My patient has lots of guts. Ooey-gooey guts."
"Who is it?"
"Tell us!"
"Does it have a name?"
"Yes."
"Oh no! Does it have green skin?" asked Rocky.
"Yes!" said Judy.
"It's Toady!" Frank called out.
88
"Her name is ... Ima," said Judy. She held up a zucchini with a Magic-Marker face. "Ima Green Zucchini!"
The whole class clapped.
Frank came up front to help. He held up
Judy's x-ray drawing of the insides of a zucchini.
"First, make sure you take an xray, so you know what you're doing."
"What's that big black blob?" asked Rocky.
"That's the thing I'm going to remove.
89
The appendix. Nobody really knows what the appendix is for, so it's a good thing to take out."
"I had my appendix out," said Alison S.
"I had mine out twice," said Bradley.
"Before you start," said Judy, "don't forget to take the Hippo oath. Swear by the Hippo guy, Father of Medicine, and Mr. Clean and Louis Lasagna that you will do your doctor best. Then make sure the patient is clean."
Judy turned to Frank. "Toothbrush!" She scrubbed the zucchini with a toothbrush.
"Shot." Frank handed her the shot from her doctor kit.
"Give the patient a shot, so they fall asleep. Use your nicey-nicey voice and tell
90
them they won't feel a thing. Or tell them a joke to make them feel okay. Like, what vegetable lives in a cage? A zoo-chini!"
Frank cracked up the most at that one.
"Knife!" Frank handed Judy a plastic knife.
"Next, make the incision."
"I-N-C-I-S-I-O-N," said Intelligirl Jessica Finch, Queen of Medi-words. "A cut, slash, or gash."
Judy poked the zucchini with the plastic knife.
"Scissors," said Judy. Frank handed her the scissors.
Snip, snip, snip.
"Blood!" Judy said to Frank. She pointed to the ketchup bottle. Frank poured ketchup all over the zucchini.
91
"Operations have lots of blood."
"All this ketchup stuff is making me hungry for hot dogs and stuff," said Rocky.
"Tweezers!" She whispered, "Clothes pin" to Frank.
"Take out the appendix." Judy pulled out a hunk of seeds with the clothes-pin.
"Sponge!" Judy picked up the zucchini and wiped off the ketchup-blood. The zucchini was so ketchup-ie, it slipped out of Judy's hands and fell to the floor.
OH, NO!
The kids in 3T leaned out of their seats to see what had happened. There, in the middle of aisle 3, was perfect patient Ima Green Zucchini, lying in a pool of ketchup- blood, broken in two!
92
93
"Rule number one: Stay calm," said Judy. "Admit 'I know not' what to do!"
Then she had an idea. Judy picked up both halves of her patient and said to Frank, "Sutures!" So Frank handed her a needle and some thread.
"I'll just sew the patient back up." Judy showed the class how to make nice neat stitches. In, out, in, out.
"Don't just do a sew-sew job. Or your patient will have a purple Frankenstein scar. Or a pizza-shaped scar, like mine." Judy pulled up her sleeve to show her own bumpy pizza-scar, from the time she fell chasing the ice-cream truck. Judy and Frank laughed till their appendixes hurt.
Frank helped Judy put Band-Aids all
100
94
over her patient. "Wait one week, then take the stitches out. Tell them to rest and eat prunes and plenty of Screamin' Mimi's ice cream. No, wait. That's for tonsils. Whatever! The end."
Everybody clapped really hard. "Good job," said Mr. Todd. "Nice details. You really thought of everything. I'd say it was a smashing success!"
95
The very next day after Operation Zucchini, Frank Pearl brought a cardboard person to school. A cardboard person that looked exactly like him.
"Awesome," said Rocky. "You have a twin!"
"He's my clone. I'm Frank. He's Stein. Get it? We're Frank-and-Stein!"
Judy hoped Frank-and-Stein was not better than Operation Zucchini.
96
Frank Pearl told the class how you get DNA from a bone or a hair. "One cell has all your genes. You can make another one of you, exactly like you, by cloning. You can't see your genes," said Frank. "But it's all there."
"I can see my jeans. I'm wearing them," said Bradley.
"Not blue jeans. G-E-N-E, genes. DNA is the stuff that makes you YOU."
"Cool beans," said Judy.
"Scientists cloned a sheep and named her Dolly. And they cloned a bunch of mice. And some pigs, right here in Virginia," Frank told the class.
"Is that true, Mr. Todd?" asked Jessica Finch.
97
"It's science fiction," said Alison S.
"Like Jurassic Park," said Rocky.
"It's true," said Mr. Todd.
"They found a mammoth frozen in ice and they might try to clone it with DNA so mammoths won't be extinct anymore. No lie," said Frank.
"Thank you, Frank," said Mr. Todd. "Very interesting. Most of us just think of cloning as science fiction."
The rest of the morning, Frank Pearl did not pay attention once. Judy wrote him a note, but he didn't write back. She told him a joke, but he didn't laugh.
"Frank! What's wrong?" Judy asked.
"My project wasn't good."
98
"Was so!" said Judy. "You're a geneius."
"My project was cardboard. Dead cardboard. Nobody even believes it's real. Yours had something real. Something alive." He just stared at Peanut, the dwarf guinea pig.
"Why are you staring at Peanut?" asked Judy. '
"I was just thinking how she must be lonely all by herself," said Frank.
"Judy, Frank, are you with us?" asked Mr. Todd.
"Sorry, Mr. Todd," said Judy. "Frank's worried about Peanut. Do guinea pigs get lonely? For friends?"
"Yes, well, guinea pigs do enjoy company."
"I have guinea pigs, and my guinea pig
99
book says you're never supposed to have
just one guinea pig," said Jessica Finch. "That's why we take turns playing with her every day," said Mr. Todd. "And we
made her a fun box, remember? Now let's
keep our minds on our work, okay?"
At morning recess, Frank found Judy and Rocky at the water fountain. "You guys have to help me get in trouble," said Frank. "Are you crazy?" asked Rocky.
100
"Do you want to go to Antarctica?" Judy
asked Frank.
"No, I just want Mr. Todd to make me stay inside for lunch recess. I need to try a science experiment. A real one. About cloning."
"Cool beans," said Rocky.
"Cool genes," said Judy, cracking herself
up. "What kind of experiment?"
"Cloning Peanut. I'll make another
guinea pig exactly like her. Right here in
Class 3T. So she'll have a friend. Or friends. Real ones, not cardboard. If it works, nobody will think cloning is just science fiction."
"Cloning just works on aliens," said Rocky.
"And bones. And frozen stuff,' Judy said.
"Nah-uh," said Frank.
101
"Well, it's against the law to practice science on animals. Stink told me. You have to use a zucchini or something."
"Everybody clones vegetables. And does experiments on zucchinis."
"What's wrong with that? Real doctors practice stitches on zucchinis. It's way scientific."
"Cloning a guinea pig is way MORE scientific."
"Get real!" said Judy. "You can't just be a cloner. You need equipment. Fancy stuff, like scientists have. In labs."
"It's easy. All I need is DNA (a few hairs from Peanut), a petri dish like Rocky used for Lego germs, and electricity. Plus a little help from you guys."
102
"DNA means Do Not Ask me to experiment on animals!" said Judy. "I'll watch, but only to make sure you don't hurt Peanut."
"Let's ask Mr. Todd if we can stay inside at recess and clean Peanut's cage," said Frank. "Then nobody gets in trouble."
"Perfect," said Rocky.
"Genius," said Judy.
"Scientific," said Frank, tapping a finger to his head.
When the lunch recess bell rang, Judy, Rocky, and Frank stayed inside. They lined the bottom of Peanut's cage with clean newspaper and straw. They filled up her
103
water bottle. They gave her a new, never
been-chewed toilet-paper tube to hide in. As soon as Mr. Todd left to get his lunch, Frank said, "Quick!" He got Mr. Todd's pointy scissors. Rocky held Peanut while
Frank went snip, snip, snip.
"Be careful," said Judy. "I'm watching." |« "Haircuts don't hurt!" said Frank. He
carefully placed four hairs in the petri dish. "All we need now is electricity."
"How about the microwave?" said
Rocky. Frank put the guinea pig hairs in the microwave. "Three minutes," said Frank, pressing the buttons.
"I'll say some magic words," said Rocky. "Let me think. How's this:
104
Snip of hair, electric power.
How many guinea pigs per hour?
Eeny Meeny, dead houdini.
Two, ten, twelve, fourteen."
Frank took out the petri dish and put it back in Peanut's cage.
"Hide it under some straw," said Rocky.
"Now what do we do?" asked Judy.
"Wait," said Frank.
"This will never work," said Judy. "You should have practiced on a zucchini."
The next morning, when Judy got to school, Frank was looking in Peanut's cage. Nothing! No more guinea pigs. Not two. Not ten. Not fourteen!. Just Peanut, sleeping with her head on a lettuce pillow.
105
"It didn't work. Cloning must be harder than I thought," said Frank.
"Told you," said Judy.
"I'm not giving up," said Frank. "Everybody knows science takes time."
They waited some more. On Thursday and Friday, when Judy got to school, Frank was there, standing over Peanut's cage. Nothing. Zip. Zero-teeny.
Peanut was alone. Un-cloned. Frank Pearl was having Double Trouble.
Then, on Monday morning, it happened. While Judy was doodling guinea-pig clones with her Grouchy pencil and waiting for the start-school bell to ring, somebody yelled, "Hey! Peanut has a friend!"
106
Judy dropped her Grouchy pencil. She rushed over to Peanut's cage. Peanut did have a friend. No lie! For real and absolute positive! Not one friend, but one-two-three- four friends! One clone for every hair Frank had snipped.
"SCIENCE RULES!" Frank shouted.
"What happened?"
"Where did all these guinea pigs come from?"
"I cloned Peanut!" Frank told the class. "At first it didn't work. Then presto! Four guinea pigs! Double-triple-quadruple Frank-and-Stein magic!"
"They're not clones! Kids can't clone stuff."
"Are they real?"
UH
107
"Did Peanut have babies?"
Judy Moody blinked once, twice, three times. She could not believe her retinas, irises, or pupils. Frank Pearl had cloned Peanut the dwarf guinea pig! She saw it with her own eyeballs. Eyeballs did not lie.
108
"I did it! I cloned Peanut. I'm a world- famous kid scientist! The youngest person ever to clone a guinea pig!" shouted Frank.
"I helped!" said Judy. "Don't forget me, Judy Moody, First Girl Doctor. We did it together---right, Frank? We're both famous. I bet I---I mean we--will be in theGuinness Book of World Records. Ripley's Believe It or Not!"
"Or NOT!" said one-two-three voices. Three annoying, not-funny, used-to-befriends voices.
Frank laughed so hard he made spit fly. Rocky sprayed her, too. Worst of all, Jessica Finch was laughing her medulla off! She jumped up and down saying, "They're mine, they're mine, they're all my guinea
109
pigs. Chester had babies and we played a trick on YOU, Judy Moody!"
"You fell for it," said Frank.
"You swallowed it like a pill," said Rocky.
What was she thinking? She, Judy Moody, was not First Girl Doctor, first to help clone a guinea pig. It was all a joke. A trick. A big fat bunch of cloney baloney.
"You should see your face!" said Rocky.
"We were just cloning around," said Frank.
"Did you really think you cloned a guinea pig?" asked Jessica.
"Of course not," said Judy. She searched under the straw and pulled out the petri dish. Still there. It now had four hairs,
110
eight, sixteen, thirty two The only thing
that had multiplied were guinea pig hairs.
"Ha, ha! Yes, you did!" said Jessica Finch.
Judy's blood pressure went up. Her temperature was rising! She, Judy Moody, felt as silly as Bozo the Clone.
"Meet Jasmine, Cindy, Coco, and Nutmeg," said Jessica. "The Spice Girls."
"The Not-Nice girls! And boys," she said, looking at Rocky and Frank. "Mr. Todd's going to be here any minute. Don't you need to go sit down or something?"
"Yes," said Frank. "To write a letter to Ripley's Believe It or Not. Dear Mr. Ripley: Believe it or not, we played the best-joke- ever on our friend Judy Moody."
"ROAR!" said Judy.
The next morning, Judy Moody woke up sick. Not fake sick. Not just mad-at-her- friends sick. Real and true sick. Pain-in-the-brain sick. Hot-in-the-head sick. Frog-in-the-throat sick.
Judy ran to the mirror and stuck out her tongue. It was red all right. Not just Cherry-Ames-cough-drop red. Fire-engine red! And she saw a bumpy, mumps-of-a- lump in the back of her throat--one on
111
each side. She, Judy Moody, had grapefruit tonsils. Bowling-ball tonsils!
The lumps made her look like a hound dog. The lumps
& made her look like a clone of Peanut-the-dwarf-guinea-pig (with chipmunk cheeks). The lumps made her look like Mumpty Dumpty.
Dad came into her room. He felt her forehead. He looked in her LumptyDumpty throat. He took her temperature.
"You're sick, all right," said Dad, peering at the thermometer. "Looks just like what Stink had. Must be tonsillitis."
Stink came into her room before leaving for school to see if she was sick for real.
112
"Stink!" Judy whisper-yelled. "Get out of my room!" The lumps made her sound funny.
"Get off your broom?"
"My room. Get out."
"How come?"
"You don't want to catch a bad case of lumps!"
Mouse jumped up onto the bottom bunk.
"How come Mouse gets to be in there and I don't?"
"Cats don't have tonsils!"
"Stink, don't get too close to Judy!" yelled Mom.
Stink was not allowed in her room! RARE!
113
Staying home sick was not as fun as Judy
thought it would be. When Mom brought
ginger ale with a crazy straw, it went up
Judy's nose. When Dad brought toast with mashed bananas, Judy took one look and said, "I think somebody already ate this."
And, worst of all, TV shows in the middle of the day were full of kissing. Mom took Judy's temperature for real, with a brand-new, no-cat-hair thermometer. Human temperature: 101.9! "I called - Dr. McCavity," said Mom. "This will make you feel better." She held out some medicine. Not double-yum baby aspirin that tastes like orange Lifesavers and you get to chew it. Not triple-yum cough syrup that
114
tastes like grape Lifesavers and you get to drink it.
A pill! Not just any old pill.
A big pill. A monster pill.
A pill the size of Nebraska. Mom wanted her to swallow it. Not chew it. Not chink it.
Swallow it. Mom wanted her to swallowNebraska!
Judy held her throat. "I can't swallow," she said in a sickly way.
"You were swallowing ginger ale just
fine," said Mom.
"Ginger ale is not Nebraska!" Judy
mumbled in her bowling-ball-tonsils voice. Her words came out all mumbly-dumbly.
"Alaska?" said Mom.
"Ne-bras-ka!" said Judy.
115
"Just try," said Mom. "It will make you feel lots better." Judy shut her eyes. She pinched her nose, put the pill in her mouth, and gulped down a glass of water.
"That's better," said Mom. Judy stuck out her tongue. The pill was still there!
"Judy, how are you going to be a doctor if you can't take your own medicine?"
"When I'm a doctor, I'll invent a pill- swallowing machine," said Judy.
"Okay. Never mind. I'll crush it up and you can drink it."
"Wank hoo," said Judy.
Judy felt lousy. Lousier than lice. Lumpier than mumps. Germier than worms.
116
She made a list of all her stuffed animals.
Med bear Ted bear Fred Bear Cornflake not cloned guineapig. Tookie Toucan, snowflake, Coon from Minnesoda. auggie Doggy, Pepper smells like pepper.
There were more, but writing them all down gave her writer's cramp on top of bowling-ball tonsils.
She took her own temperature. With the fancy thermometer that beeped. It was not normal. It was not 98.6. Judy's temperature was 188.8! Judy's temperature was
117
00.0! Judy's temperature was beep-beepbeep-beep-beep. She, Judy Moody, had the temperature of an outer-space alien!
She stared at cracks in the ceiling. The Big Dipper. A giant hot dog. A brain (without a pain in it).
She took her temperature again. Beeeeeeep! Still 00.0.
"Mouse, stick out your tongue," she said. She held the thermometer under Mouse's tongue. Mouse's temperature was . . . the letter M. She tried again. Mouse's temperature was E R R. Mouse's temperature was not even numbers. Mouse's temperature was not even human. Mouse
118
the cat was sicker than she, Dr. Judy Moody!
"Poor baby!" said Judy. She fed Mouse an ABC (Already Been Chewed) mashed-up banana toast strip. Mouse loved mushed bananas.
She speed-read one book of Stink's Megazoid books about evil ants from an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter that try to take over the universe.
She read two days of Rex Morgan, M.D., comics Dad saved for her. She read three chapters of a Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, mystery till her eyes felt kerflooey.
Finally, after about a hundred years, Stink came home from school. After about a hundred more years, he came
119
upstairs and walked right into her room.
"Stink! Worms! Worms are everywhere.
You better get out of here."
"Worms?"
"Germs, Stink. Germs! Didn't you see the sign?" Judy pointed to the sign she made on the door. "QUARANTINE! That
means STAYAWAY!"
"Mom said to bring you your home
work.
Plus I brought other stuff."
"Like what?"
"A wooden nickel from Rocky. That he got from Suzie the Magic Lady. It has a picture of a rabbit coming out of a hat."
"I'm mad at him," said Judy. "In fact,
I'm smad. And I'm not going to make up for a nickel. Wooden or not."
120
"Here's a card from Jessica Finch, with a pretend spelling quiz. See?" The card said:
Get-well-Sune
GetuwellSun, Get weel Soon!
"And you have to look inside for the right answer."
Judy opened the card. It said:
Getweil soon! none of the above!
"I think she meant to put Your pal, Jessica Finch."
nd--da-da-da-da! love note from Frank Pearl," Stink told her.
121
"Give me that," said Judy. "I made you something at school today, too." Stink took a mashed-up wad of paper out of his backpack.
"A mashed-up wad of paper?" said Judy. thank yoo very much."
"N-O! It's a cootie catcher! I can catch germs with it. See?" Stink jumped up and down, grabbing at air.
"Stink!" said Judy. "Don't make me waff."
"Okay, okay. I won't make you waff. But look. It tells fortunes." Stink held out the cootie catcher. " Pick a number." Judy looked at the cootie catcher. She
could not find a number. All she could find were funny-looking words. "It's French!"
122
said Stink. "We learned French colors and numbers today. Pick one."
Judy pointed to quatre. "Four," said Stink. "Un, deux, trois, quatre. Now pick a color." "If you say so," said Judy. She pointed to bleu. It looked like blue with the letters mixed up.
"Blue. B-L-E-U," said Stink. "Pick one more color." Judy pointed to another one.
"Red. R-O-U-G-E," said Stink. He lifted up the flap.
"Here's your fortune," said Stink. "Ily a un dragon clans mon lit."
123
"What's that mean?" asked Judy. "Your friends are a bunch of cloney baloneys?"
"It means, There's a dragon in my bed," Stink told her.
"That's it? That's my fortune?"
"It's that or My horse is dizzy," said Stink. "Those are the only two sentences I learned so far."
"I know one more," said Judy.
"You know French?" asked Stink.
"Oui," said Judy. She took out her doctor pad. She wrote a prescription for Stink. Stink Moody get out of my roomay and close le dooray!
124
She, Judy Moody, was in a mood. A sick-ofbeingsick mood. Even her bowling-ball pajamas didn't cheer her up. They made her think of tonsils. Judy put on her around-the-world postcard pajamas.
Dr. McCavity told Mom that Judy might not feel like herself again for about twelve days.
Twelve days! Her human temperature was rising just thinking about it! Her blood
125
pressure was skyrocketing! Twelve days before she could stop talking like a cat under water. Twelve days before she could learn any new bones or spell scapula or stay away from Antarctica.
Twelve more days to feel like Bozo the Clone.
Judy made up a song. "The Twelve Days of Tonsils."
On the firsst day of tonsils My brother gave to me, one cootycatcher and one love note from Frank P.
That's as far as she got before falling asleep. Again. She slept all through the second day of tonsils.
Tonsils, Day 3: Judy drew an x-ray of her
126
hand; an x-ray of Mouse; an x-ray of Jaws, her Venus flytrap; and one of Ned Bear.
Tonsils, Day 4: Back to Dr. McCavity.
Tonsils, Day 5: BOR-ing! Judy drew a map of her brain.
Tonsils, Day 6: When she became a doctor, she would find a cure for fire-engine tonsils so sick people did not have to make x-rays of cats and maps of their brains all day.
Tonsils, Day 7: Ding, dong! Maybe Stink was home from school. Judy crawled back under the covers, put her head under all her stuffed animals, and pretended to be asleep.
"Knock-knock," said Stink.
"I'm asleep," said Judy.
127
"Knock-knock," said Stink again.
"Stink, have you been eating the BRAT diet again?"
"Just say Who's there," said Stink.
"Who's there?" asked Judy.
"US!" said Rocky, Frank, and Jessica Finch. All three of her UN-best friends!
"What are YOU guys doing here?" Judy grumped. "You came to laugh at my chipmunk cheeks, didn't you? You heard I have bowling-ball tonsils and came to tell me I look like Mumpty Dumpty."
"No!" said Frank. "We
"Wait. Let me guess. You cloned an anteater. An armadillo. An aardwolf. Ha, ha, Very funny."
"We brought you something to make
128
up ... I mean, we brought you something to make you feel better," said Rocky.
"Nothing will make me feel better," said Judy. "I feel lousy. As in licy. As in not-nicy."
"But this really works," said Frank.
"Is it a pill?" asked Judy. "I hope it's not a pill the size of Nebraska."
"No."
"Is it a prune? I hope it's not a goony old prune."
"Nope."
"Is it a Band-Aid? I hope it is a Band-Aid with words."
"No, no, and nope," said Jessica Finch.
"Does it squeak? I hear squeaking!"
"Yes!" said Jessica.
129
"Does it have fur, fins, or fangs?"
"Yes!" said Stink.
Rocky held up a shirt with words. "A shirt does not have fur or fins or fangs.""Look," said Frank, turning the shirt over. "We made it for you at Rocky's house." The shirt said paws for healing. It had blue guinea-pig paw prints all over it.
"Hello! A shirt doesn't squeak!" said Judy.
"No," said Rocky. "But pets do. We brought you animals to pet!"
"Just like Paws for Healing," said Frank.
"So you can lower your blood pressure and not feel sick," said Jessica.
Rocky had brought Houdini, his pet iguana. Frank had brought a red-and
130
purple fish in a jar, and Jessica Finch had brought Chester and all four of the baby guinea pigs--the (un-cloned) Spice Girls!
Stink went to his room and brought back Toady.
"You brought half the zoo!" said Judy.
"And I got you a real Paws for Healing button," said Stink. "From the hospital gift shop." He held out a button that said i'm in
CHARGE OF CRITTER-COOL CARE.
"Cool!" said Frank.
"Critter-cool!" said Judy. She put the Paws for Healing shirt on over her around-the-world postcard pajamas. She pinned the button to her shirt.
Rocky held out Houdini. "You hold him, while I clip his toenails."
131
Snip, snip, snip.
"He has more toenails than Stink!" Judy laughed.
Frank set his fish on Judy's desk, next to her jelly bean collection. "My aunt got me this Siamese fighting fish when I was sick. I named her Judy."
"Same-same!" said Judy.
"You can keep her till you get better. I know you can't pet her, but it's supposed to relax you and make you feel better just to watch her."
"I promise I'll watch her all the time," said Judy.
"Look! Judy the Fighting Fish is blowing bubbles!" said Stink.
"Rare!" said the not-fish Judy.
132
"And you can play with Toady anytime you want," said Stink. "As long as you don't operate on him."
"I won't," said Judy. "I promise." Jessica brought special shampoo, and they each gave a guinea pig a bath. "Coco hates baths," said Jessica. "But guinea pigs have to be clean." "Just like doctors!" Judy said.
When they were done, they each
got to blow-dry their guinea pigs. "Nutmeg's ready for a party!" said Judy, stroking the guinea pig's fur. Jessica got Cindy to roll over twice, and Coco twitched her whiskers at Cornflake, Judy's stuffed guinea pig.
133
"That means hello in guinea pig," said Jessica. "She's trying to make friends!" Everybody cracked up.
Nutmeg squirmed out of Judy's arms and ran in circles around her room.
"Uh-oh!" said Jessica. Nutmeg ran around Judy's floor pillow. She ran around Ned Bear, Ted Bear, and Fred Bear, the trash can, and Judy's doctor kit. She ran around and around Judy's squiggle rug.
"Catch her!" said Stink.
Everybody chased Nutmeg. Even Mouse. Nutmeg hid under Judy's squiggle rug. Jessica caught her with an ice-cream container.
"Phew! That was a close one, girl," said Judy, rubbing the guinea pigs
134
tummy.
"Hey, look! Nutmeg likes tummy rubs!"
"She likes you," said Jessica.
"Aw. I wish I could keep her forever and ever," said Judy. "I promise not to clone her."
"She's still too young," said Jessica. "But when the Spice Girls get older, my dad says we can take them to the hospital for Paws for Healing. You know, help some more kids feel better."
"RARE!" said Judy.
When everybody had gone home, Judy climbed back under the covers and leaned against all her stuffed animals. She was feeling not-so-sick-anymore. Her tonsils
135
did not feel so lumpy. She, Judy Moody, did not feel so grumpy. Friends were better than prunes. Friends were better than medicine. Friends were better than all the ginger ale, ABC toast, and TV in the world.
Her temperature was dropping. So was her blood pressure. Her tonsils were shrinking fast. Most definitely!
Judy Moody took out her mood journal. She wrote herself a poem. A moody poem. A Mumpty Dumpty poem.
Mumpty dumpty had a great case of lumps. Munpty dumpty had a worse case of grumps. All Judy's brothers and all Judy's friends Couldn't put Mumpty back together again.
136
Judy took out her doctor pad. She, Dr. Judy Moody, wrote herself a prescription.
Judy Moody hold Howdini. Watch a fish. Pet a guineapig. If that does not work have fun with three friends and call me in the morning.
Last but not least, Judy signed her name with a scribbly doctor autograph.
137
Collect them all!
"Judy Moody
Read the book that started it all! Get to know Judy Moody through mad-faced moods, funniest-thing-ever moods, and every mood in between.
An American Library Association Notable Children's Book 3
A New York Public Library's Best Children's Book: 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
Judy Moody is in the mood to be a star. One thing's for sure--after reading this, you'll be Judy Moody's biggest fan!
An ABC Children's Booksellers Choice
An American Library Association Notable Children's Book
A Children's Literature Choice List Title
An International Reading Association Children's Choices Award Winner
An Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Seal Award Winner
138
Judy Moody is back, and she's in an environmental mood. Can Judy Moody come up with a plan to save the world?
A Book Sense 76 Selection
A Chicago Public Library Best Book for Children and Teens
An International Reading Association Children's Choices Award Winner
An Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Seal Award Winner
When Judy Moody gets her very own mood ring, she decides to explore her psychic side, with unexpected and hilarious results. It's not hard to predict that Judy Moody's latest book will put you in a very, very good mood!