Chapter 1 

Such an Amazing Bath Toy 

 

My name is Dory, but everyone calls me Rascal. I have a big sister named Violet and a big brother named Luke. They get all the attention and I don't get any! Except when they are busy after school. Then I get my mom all to myself. Because I'm never busy. Today my mom says we are going to the library. "Yay!" I say. "I can check out new books!"

"I love our afternoons together," says my mom. "You're my little partner." 

"So that means you like me the best, right?" I ask. 

She winks at me and says, "Nope."

 

At the library, I go straight to the big desk and ask the librarian, "You know that book about a family who eats breakfast in the shower and the mom wears a dress that's made out of live chickens?" 

"And the boy eats with his feet and then the lights go off and they think they're dead but then their cat and dog turn on the electricity."

"Rascal, are you making this up?" asks my mom.

"No! It's a real book! And then they think they're in heaven but they're really in their living room? It's so funny! Do you have that book?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know that one," says the librarian. 

"But here's a series you might like, it's called Happy Little Farm."

"That's okay, thanks anyway," says my mom. "Stop growling," she whispers, and leads me away from the desk.

My mom finds some books she likes and reads out loud. After seven books she says, "Rascal, I'm going to the bathroom. I want you to read quietly while I'm gone, okay?"

"I can't read."

"Yes, you can," she says. "I'll be right back." 

A very short kid wearing a dinosaur tail starts talking to me. Her voice sounds like a frog. "Wead me it," she says, pointing to her book. 

"I'm a bad reader," I whisper.

"I weally want you to wead it," she says.

"Ask someone else," I say.

"Wead it," says the kid.

"I guess I could tell you a story instead . . ." I suggest. 

"I want a scawy stowy," she says. 

"Well, that's easy . . . once upon a time . . ." I whisper, "well, actually right now, there lives a robber named Mrs. Gobble Gracker."

"Mrs. Wobba Wacka?"

"Yes . . . and she's very sneaky . . . She lives in a cave and she is 507 years old and has a big black cape . . . and . . . and . . . she has really long fingernails and FANGS like this . . . And she's been looking for me for a long time. I am in great danger! She wants to drag me off to her cave and pretend I'm her baby."

"I want to be in gweat danger," the kid says.

"Me too," says another kid.

"Are you scared?" asks a third kid.

"Of course I'm scared! But I have a monster and a fairy godmother who help me fight Mrs. Gobble Gracker. My monster sleeps under my bed. Her name is Mary, she is my best friend. And my fairy godmother is named Mr. Nuggy and he can do magic. He lives in the trees and he has a big mustache, and once, a long time ago, he turned into a chicken. If I have an emergency, I can call him for help. I can call him from a banana." 

They have a lot of questions. 

"SSHhhh!!! Be quiet, everybody! Mrs. Wobba Wacka woke up behind the couch!" says the girl with the dinosaur tail.

"What are you talking about? She sleeps in her cave!" I say. "And it's far away."

"She wants bweakfast!" she says.

"Quick, we gotta make it!" says another kid. 

Then all the kids start making breakfast no matter what I say.

"If we don't make it faster, she'll throw bones at us," says one kid.

"I just saw a flying bone!" says another kid. "She's coming!"

"Oh no!" says a kid, diving into the couch.

"Well, you better have coffee," I warn them. "Mrs. Gobble Gracker drinks a lot of coffee in the morning." 

"NO! She drinks sauce! Not coffee!" says a little boy. 

"Bone sauce!" says the kid from inside the couch. 

Then everyone hides from Mrs. Gobble Gracker. 

Uh-oh. I see my mom coming back from the bathroom. I grab a book and pretend to read quietly.

"How's it going?" asks my mom.

The kid pops out of the couch. 

"Dory--say good-bye. We're leaving," says my mom.

"But I didn't check out any books!" I say.

"I know, but I asked you to read quietly," she says. "And instead you've made all these kids savages."

"What's a savage?" I ask. My mom doesn't answer, she just walks quickly to the door. "Does it have something to do with pirates?" I ask her. 

"I'm so sorry about the disruption," says my mom to the librarian. 

 

On the way home, my mom says, "Rascal, I was thinking, well . . . you know how you outgrow things when you get older, like your shoes? Well, you might outgrow other things too, like . . . say . . . your Mrs. Gobble Gracker game, for example."

"I'm not outgrowing them," I say. "My shoes are shrinking."

"No, they're not," says my mom.

"Yes, they are!" I say.

"No, they're not," says my mom.

"Yes, they are!" 

"You know, I just thought of something," says my mom, trying to change the subject. "What if we got you a new toy, something really special. Something that you might play with a lot, that might be even more fun than . . . your Mrs. Gobble Gracker game."

"Like a bribe?" I ask.

"Wha--no-- Rascal! I would never--"

"Okay, I know what I want."

My mom looks happy. "What is it, honey?" she asks.

"TUBTOWN! I saw a picture of it in a maga­zine at Grandma's house. It's a town that sticks to the bathtub. It has suction cups that make it stick! It has an elevator! And a shower! And a fish and chips shop, and a lighthouse and a pool with a diving board and a little raft that the people can go in and float around the bathtub and--"

"Rascal, we already talked about this. That was a very old magazine. You know how Grandma doesn't throw anything out . . . The company doesn't make that toy anymore. I can't buy it."

"But that's impossible! They would never stop making the best toy in the world!"

"Well, they did," says my mom. "I already tried to buy it. It doesn't exist anymore."

"Does this have something to do with pirates?" I ask.

"Rascal--did you understand anything I just said?" asks my mom. 

"When I get TubTown, I'm going to take a bath every single day. I'm going to smell clean as a dishwasher!"

"Rascal, can you be quiet now, I have to help Luke," says my mom. 

Then she says a bunch of math stuff to Luke. Luke gets mad.

"I already know how to solve it!" he says. "You're interrupting me. I already did that step!"

"And I'm going to pretend that the little people in TubTown are all kids and they never grow up!" 

"Luke, the answer can't be 64," says my mom. "That's not right."

"Yes it is!" says Luke.

"And they do backflips off the diving board," I say. "And they go head first down the slide into the ocean and they play in the waves all day!" 

"Think about it," my mom says to Luke. "She can't have more cupcakes than she started with. You need to subtract. Can you just listen for one second--"

Luke wails, "First I added--THEN I subtracted!"

Violet comes in the kitchen. "Mom, I need to talk to you." 

"Can you wait?" she asks Violet.

"No, I can't! I got in a huge fight with Anna today. She made friendship bracelets and she didn't make me one. But then I found one on my desk, and I thought she made it for me, so I put it on and she said that I stole it." 

"A stolen bracelet?" I say, astonished. "Is it pure gold?" I ask.

"It's string. Be quiet, Rascal!" says Violet.

"Who's the thief?" I ask.

"There's no thief, Rascal," says my mom.

"Anna said she put it on the wrong desk--since everyone in my class just switched desks, she got confused," says Violet. "So, I told her she could have it back, but I couldn't get the string untied. When I finally got the string untied I was in the bathroom, so I put it in my pocket. When I got back to the classroom, it wasn't in my pocket! I told her I lost it, and she was really mad and didn't believe me." 

"A lost treasure?" I ask. "Does this have something to do with pirates?" 

"Why on earth do you keep asking that?" yells my mom.

"Shush, Rascal!" says Violet.

"But I don't understand why Anna wouldn't make you a bracelet in the first place. She's your best friend!" says my mom.

"She said I was being bossy. But she's bossy too!" says Violet.

I grab a weapon. 

"Put the broom down!" says my mom. "Come on, let's move away from Rascal." She leaves the kitchen with her arm around Violet. 

"I can help you with your homework," I tell Luke.

"Yeah, right," he says. 

"Just listen," I say. "If you have 64 cupcakes and you have 6 bags of pancakes, but if you sit on one bag of pancakes and 4 toucans go to the bathroom on your backpack, then how many bags of pancakes would you--" 

My mom rushes back into the kitchen with Violet trailing behind her. "Rascal, what happened? Luke! What did you do to her?"

"He flunjed me!" I cry.

"That's not even a word," says Luke. "She was teasing me about my math. And I barely touched her! She just fell."

"He flunjed me really hard!" I cry. 

"She's just trying to get me in trouble!" says Luke.

"Rascal, are you okay?" asks my mom.

I'm about to make a bunch of sounds like I'm in pain, and cry that Luke broke my butt--even though it doesn't really hurt that much. But then I notice that Violet's face looks red and splotchy. 

She looks sad. 

And I feel bad for her. 

"I can help you solve your problem, Violet! Because I'm a pirate! And I'm the toughest!" I tell her. 

So I stand up. I brush off my butt. And then at the top of my lungs, I yell, "Aaaarrrggh!"

"Oh no," says Violet. "Just when I thought my life couldn't get any worse." 

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Excerpted from Dory Fantasmagory: Tiny Tough by Abby Hanlon
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.