VICTOR SHMUD
TOTal
expeRT
Let’s Do a Thing!
DON’T MISS
THESE OTHER
Jim Benton
TITLES:
Franny K. Stein #1–7
Dear Dumb Diary Year One #1–12
Dear Dumb Diary Year Two #1–6
AND DON’T MISS . . .
Dear Dumb Diary, Deluxe:
Dumbness Is a Dish Best Served Cold
VICTOR SHMUD
TOTal
expeRT
Let’s Do a Thing!
BOOK ONE
SCHOLASTIC INC.
JIM BENTON
Copyright © 2017 by Jim Benton
This book is being published simultaneously in hardcover by Scholastic Press.
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Publishers since 1920
.
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Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-93285-1
First printing 2017
Book design by Jim Benton
Thanks to
Kristen LeClerc,
Abby
McAden, Yaffa Jaskoll,
and
Kerianne
Okie
Never, ever, ever lose your
confidence.
Table of Contents
1.
HELLO, VICTOR
1
2.
SHMUD AT SCHOOL
7
3.
YO, WHERE’S MY CHICKEN?
13
4.
THING DOING
18
5.
SAFE AND EFFECTIVE WHEN USED
AS DIRECTED
25
6.
SPACED OUT
32
7.
POOF
40
8.
THE GROOGLINGS
44
9.
THE FRAPPLETONIANS
50
10.
YOU SHOULD HAVE THAT SPOT
LOOKED AT
61
11
.
ALWAYS REMEMBER TO FORGET
72
12.
THERE’S GOOD NEWS AND THERE'S BAD
NEWS (THE BAD NEWS IS THAT THERE
REALLY ISN’T ANY GOOD NEWS)
80
13.
THE BEAUTY THAT IS NOZZLEBURP
88
14
.
IT’S NOT EASY BEING BEAUTIFUL
94
15
.
MOPPING UP
99
16
.
ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME
TO AN END
105
VICTOR SHMUD
TOTal
expeRT
Let’s Do a Thing!
> Chapter 1
HELLO VICTOR
Victor Shmud lived with his parents in a
house with trees and bushes outside, but
none of those things you see in front of
houses sometimes, like little statues or
birdbaths or things like that.
> Victor always thought their house would
look better with a thing out front, and he
felt that anybody walking past could tell
right away that there was a space right
there that needed a thing in it.
Victor’s room was always messy, because
even though he had decided to be many
things in his life, like a Knuckle Doctor, a
Hunter of Ghost Bears, and The Guy at the
Restaurant Who Puts the Sugar in Those
Little Envelopes, he hadn’t decided to be A
Guy Who Cleans Up Bedrooms yet.
It actually wasn’t even on the list.
Victor rolled out of bed and checked his
computer—the highly advanced Electro-
Brain Three Million—which he had created
by writing
ElEctro-Brain
thrEE
Million
on
the side of a cardboard box, back when
he was a Computer Scientist a couple of
weeks ago.
The Electro-Brain Three Million didn’t
work as well as other computers for email
and going online, but it was square-
shaped, and Victor believed that this was a
good start.
> Victor looked down at Dumpylumps, the
tiny duck that had been by his side since he
was a baby.
“What are you?” Victor asked. “A chicken
or something?”
“Quack,” said Dumpylumps.
“You should have that cough looked at,”
Victor said. “As an Expert Bird Veterinarian,
I need to tell you that healthy chickens
don’t make noises like that.”
> Chapter 2
SHMUD AT SCHOOL
Victor walked into the classroom and took
a seat at the teacher’s desk at the front of
the room.
His teacher, Mrs. Nozzleburp, smiled
sweetly at him, with a smile that had very
nearly the correct number of teeth in it.
“Victor,” she said, “you know that this
desk is for the teacher. The smaller desks
are for the students.”
> “Then you better take a seat in one of
them, Mrs. Nozzleburp—you great big
beautiful doll—because I’m teaching the
class today. And if you don’t mind, please
keep it down. I’m the kind of teacher who
likes it nice and quiet.”
Mrs. Nozzleburp raised her eyebrows.
She was pretty old, and eyebrows were just
about the heaviest thing she could raise.
“Very kind of you to offer to teach the
class, Victor,” she said. “And maybe one day
I’ll take you up on that.”
She led him gently to his desk.
“But today I think I’ll have to go ahead
and teach the class. It’s kind of a rule that
the principal has.”
&
nbsp; > For a brief moment, Victor decided to be
the principal.
“The principal is like the boss of the
school,” he whispered to himself, but then
he began to worry that the principal prob
-
ably had to take all the teachers home every
night and feed them and give them baths
and put them to bed.
“That’s too much work,” he whispered.
“That could mean hundreds of tub toys.”
Mrs. Nozzleburp taught the class some
stuff with words and numbers and how they
were really important for reasons that Victor
was forgetting as fast as she said them.
“I’ll bet I’m some kind of Champion
Forgetter,” he said to himself. And he won
dered if being able to forget things at
superhuman speed was useful.
Suddenly, it was time for recess, and
Victor asked the question that we all find
ourselves asking at times.
> Chapter 3
YO,
WHERE’S
MY
CHICKEN?
Dumpylumps was waiting on the play
-
ground sitting on the rock that Victor had
decided was his office.
“There you are,” Victor said. “Just the
chicken I needed to speak with.”
“Quack,” Dumpylumps said, hoping that
Victor would notice what a very unchicken
-
ish thing that was to say.
> “Here we are, already halfway through
the morning, and I still haven’t made a
decision about what thing I’m going to do.”
Dumpylumps took out his little notebook
and pretended that he was taking notes on
what Victor said.
“I had a career as a teacher very briefly
earlier this morning, but it turns out that
it’s a highly competitive field, and I was
replaced by an older, much more attractive
teacher.
“I wonder if the other teachers are jeal
-
ous of Mrs. Nozzleburp’s attractiveness,”
Victor said.
Dumpylumps shrugged uncomfortably.
He had never thought of her that way, and
the entire conversation seemed inappropri
-
ate, and probably against one of the rules.
“Yes
. . . , ”
Victor said thoughtfully.
“Attractiveness!”
> Dumpylumps pretended to underline
the word
attractiveness
, which he had pre
-
tended to write.
“This seems like a thing I should look
into,” Victor said boldly.
Dumpylumps closed his eyes tightly. He
knew where this was going.
“LET’S DO A THING!” Victor shouted,
and he thrust his fist in the air, hoping
there would be some thunder or light
-
ning or something.
“Ckkaackk,” Dumpylumps said, trying
to sound like lightning.
> Chapter 4
THING
DOING
The next morning, Victor marched down the
stairs with a strong sense of purpose.
“Mom,” Victor said, “it’s time you knew
that I’m a Makeover Expert.”
“You mean like a person who does peo
-
ple’s hair and makeup?”
“That’s right,” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “When did you
become one?”
“I don’t remember,” Victor said, snipping
her large scissors in the air. “It began long
ago. I guess it was probably five or six
o’clock this morning.”
“I see,” she said.
“Mom, look—you’re a vision of glamour
from head to toe, but if you ever need a
little dusting off, let me know, and my
assistant and I will be there to lend our
expert help.”
> Dumpylumps nodded. He waved a comb
at her and winked.
“I’ll need to borrow a whole big bag of
your makeup and hairspray and stuff. There
are a lot of teachers who are going to be
thrilled that they finally have somebody
who understands how gross they are, and
is willing to help them.”
“You’ll need to do what you can with
just the comb,” Mom said, taking the scis
-
sors away from him. “That’s really all an
expert needs anyway.”
“You’re not completely right, Mom,” he
said. “And I know that because I also hap
-
pen to be an expert on knowing when
people aren’t completely right.”
He slipped the comb into his pocket and
headed off for the kitchen.
> “Don’t worry about the scissors. I don’t
ingredients to make a spectacular beauty
treatment,” Victor said to Dumpylumps,
who was at that very moment wondering to
himself if he should just fly away and never
come back.
“Some people have no idea how benefi
-
cial mustard can be in a shampoo. You
know what’s in it?” Victor asked as he com
-
bined various items from the refrigerator.
> “Mustard molecules,” he whispered qui
-
etly, as if he was revealing a closely guarded
secret. “The very essence of beauty.”
Victor headed off to school with
Dumpylumps following behind him.
“It’s really amazing, isn’t it?”
Dumpylumps nodded. Most things
amazed him—the universe, invisibility,
peanut butter.
“Think about the great things we’ll be
doing for people today,” Victor said, shak
-
ing his little bottle of beauty treatment.
> Chapter 5
SAFE AND EFFECTIVE WHEN
USED AS DIRECTED
The janitor at Victor’s school was Mr.
Plumporski, and he was a very hard worker.
The kids made a lot of messes, and Victor
made more than his fair share.
There was that time when Victor was an
Octopus Wrestler, and Mr. Plumporski had
to mop up the seawater he spilled.
And one time he was a Tattoo Artist and
Mr. Plumporski had to scrub the tattoos
off everybody.
> And just last week, when Victor was a
Wedding Planner and accidentally married
some of the teachers to each other, it was
Mr. Plumporski who had to help them get
unmarried.
Victor knew he made a lot of work for
Mr. Plumporski, and he felt it was only
fair that he treated the janitor to the first
makeover.
“Mr. Plumporski, how would you like to
be beautiful?” Victor asked him as he pulled
his little bottle from his backpack.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mr.
Plumporski said. “I’m already beautiful.”
Mr. Plumporski posed in several beauti
-
ful poses to prove it.
“That’s true, but this will make you
beautifuller,” Victor said, and he jumped
up on the recycling bin and sprinkled
some of his beauty preparation on Mr.
Plumporski’s head.
“It tingles,” Mr. Plumporski said. “And
beautifuller
isn’t a word.”
“We hear new words every single day,
Mr. Plumporski. Somebody has to make
them. I happen to be a Licensed Wordmaker.
It’s what we do.”
He showed him his official Wordmaker
license.
> Mr. Plumporski’s hair started to curl.
And then his eyebrows, and then his
mustache.
“Look!” Victor shouted. “It’s the curly
hair that you always wanted.”
“Yeah, I never said I wanted that! When
will it stop? It’s starting to hurt!”
“Soon. It will stop soon,” Victor said. “Or
never. Maybe never. You shouldn’t have put
so much on.”
> “You’re the one who put it on me!”
As Victor and Dumpylumps walked
away, Mr. Plumporski stuck his head in his
mop bucket and washed off the beauty
treatment.
Victor shook his finger at Dumpylumps.
“We need to label this stuff so that peo
-
ple don’t get overly enthusiastic and use too
much like Mr. Plumporski did,” Victor said.
“Not everybody is lucky enough to have a
mop bucket nearby to dunk their heads in.”
Dumpylumps nodded.
“You know, I always felt I’d be pretty
good with a mop. Write that down as a
thing I might do someday.”
> Chapter 6
SPACED OUT
Victor stared out the window as Mrs.
Nozzleburp taught the class about the solar
system.
“Victor,” she said gently, “please pay
attention.”
“Don’t worry. I heard everything you