Jessica Finch in Pig Trouble (Judy Moody and Friends)
Megan McDonald
.
.
.
For Ashley
M. M.
For my nieces, Melanie and Mariel
E. M.
Adopting a pig
—
or any pet
—
is a big decision. Make sure you
understand the time, care, and cost involved before making a final
commitment and bringing any critters home! If you are interested
in learning more about owning and caring for potbellied pigs, ask
your local librarian to recommend an authoritative and reputable
guide, or search online for more information.
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places,
and incidents are either products
of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 by Megan McDonald
Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Peter H. Reynolds
Judy Moody font copyright © 2003 by Peter H. Reynolds
Judy Moody®. Judy Moody is a registered trademark of Candlewick Press, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted,
or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means,
graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording,
without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2014
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2012947726
ISBN 978-0-7636-5718-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7636-7027-6 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-6713-9 (electronic)
This book was typeset in ITC Stone Informal.
The illustrations were created digitally.
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
CONTENTS
CHA
p
TER
1
Just Say
Oink
1
CHA
p
TER
2
This Little Piggy 19
CHA
p
TER
3
The PeeGee WeeGee Club 43
.
7
CHA
p
TER
1
Just Say
Oink
Pigs, pigs, and more pigs! Jessica Finch
loved pigs.
Jessica Finch had a dream. A big pig
dream. She dreamed of having a pet
pig.
If she had a pig, they would read
books together. And ride bikes. And
have sleepovers.
.
Jessica called her friend Judy
Moody. “Emergency,” she told Judy.
“Come right away.”
Judy Moody rode her bike up the
hill to Jessica’s house.
“I came as fast as I could,” said
Judy. “What’s the emergency?”
“It’s a pig emergency,” said
Jessica Finch.
“RARE!” Judy said.
“Come on,” said Jessica, and Judy
followed her upstairs to her room.
.
Jessica’s room was pink. Pink,
pinker, pinkest. Pinker than bubble
gum. Pink as a pig’s tail. And her
room was full of . . . pigs. Pig books.
Pig pillows. Pig posters. Piggy banks.
Even a fuzzy piggy-face rug.
.
12
“Your room is one big pigpen!” said
Judy.
“Thanks!” said Jessica. She glanced
out into the hall. She closed her door.
She made her voice almost a whisper.
“Okay. So. You know how it’s
almost my birthday, right?”
“Right! Happy almost birthday,”
said Judy.
“And you know how there’s only
one thing I want for my birthday,
right? More than anything else in the
whole world.”
“Umm . . . a piggy cake?” asked
Judy.
13
“No. Not a piggy cake.
Not a piggy coin purse.
Not a piggy clock.
Just one single present. A real-live,
cute-as-a-button, potbellied pig.”
.
14
Judy’s eyes grew as big as gum balls.
“Potbellied pigs are super cute and
super smart and super cuddly,” said
Jessica. “And I dropped a million and
one hints, like telling my parents that
my birthday just happens to be on the
same day as National Pig Day.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Happy almost Pig Day, too,” said
Judy. “But I think you have about a million
in one chance of getting a real live P-I-G.
You might as well ask for an aardwolf.”
“A-A-R-D-W-O-L-F,” said Jessica
Finch, Super Speller.
“So what’s the emergency anyway?”
Judy asked.
“Right. You have to help me snoop
around. I just have to know if I’m getting
a P-I-G.”
“Judy Moody, Super Snoop, at your
service. Where do we start?”
.
16
Jessica squinted her eyes. Jessica
pinched up her face, thinking. “I
know!” she said. “Under my mom and
dad’s bed.”
“You think there might be a pig
under your mom and dad’s bed?” Judy
asked.
Jessica Finch snorted. “No, see, we
snoop for normal presents. If we find
any, that’s bad. If we don’t find any,
that’s good.”
Judy scrunched up her face. “How
is
no presents a good thing?”
“If we don’t find presents, I just know
I’m getting a real pig. If we find normal
presents, no pig.”
Judy just shrugged. She had no pig
sense at all.
.
“Come on. I know all the good
&n
bsp; hiding places,” said Jessica. “You be
my lookout.”
“Roger,” said Judy.
“Who’s Roger?”
“Never mind,” said Judy.
“If you hear footsteps, just say oink,”
Jessica told Judy. “One oink for Mom.
Two oinks for Dad.”
“Gotcha,” said Judy.
Jessica took Judy’s arm and dragged
her down the hall.
19
Jessica looked under the bed.
Jessica looked in
the window seat.
Jessica went to
look in the closet.
.
“Oink! Oink!” Judy was oinking!
“Who? What? Where?” asked Jessica.
“I think I heard footsteps,” said Judy.
Jessica listened at the top of the
stairs. Quiet. Dead quiet. “I don’t hear
anything,” she said.
“Sorry,” said Judy. “False-
alarm oink.”
.
Jessica opened the closet door. She
stood on a box. She pulled down a
bag. Crunch, crunch, crunch went the
paper. Jessica’s heart sank.
“Oh, no!”
“What’s wrong?” Judy asked.
“I found presents,” said Jessica.
23
She peered into the bag. “A piggy
flashlight. An I Piggies notebook.
Even a game called Pig Out. That
means no potbellied pig.”
“Oink,” said Judy.
“Ratday,” said Jessica, slumping
down on the bed.
“Huh?”
“It’s Latin. Pig Latin for drat.”
.
25
CHA
p
TER
2
This Little Piggy
Jessica Finch was ummedbay outway.
B-U-M-M-E-D O-U-T.
Judy tried to cheer her up. “Let’s
play the game,” Judy whispered.
“What game?”
“The Pig Out game!” said Judy.
“Now? But it’s for my birthday. My
mom will get mad.”
“We’ll just play it once,” said Judy.
“C’mon. It’ll be upersay unfay.”
.
“Super fun! Then we put it back and
nobody will know?” said Jessica.
“They don’t call me Super Snoop for
nothing,” said Judy.
Jessica perked up. She ran back inside,
grabbed the game, and then ran back
to her room.
In no time, Jessica and Judy sat
crisscross applesauce on the fuzzy
pink piggy rug.
.
28
“So, how do you play?” asked Judy.
Jessica tore the lid off of the box.
“There’s no board. You just roll the five
little piggies like dice,” said Jessica Finch,
Pig Expert. “And you get points for how
they land.” She showed Judy the score
chart.
29
Judy rolled the pigs. “Snorter! Ten
points!”
Jessica rolled the pigs. “Side of
bacon! Minus ten points!”
Judy rolled the pigs again.
.
30
One landed on top of another.
“Pig pyramid!” yelled Jessica.
“Is that good?”
“Good? That’s fifty points!” said
Jessica. “You win.”
“Play again?” Judy begged.
31
“Shh,” said Jessica. “Did you hear
that?”
“Hear what?”
Somebody was coming up the stairs.
.
32
“Quick! Hide the pigs!” Jessica
whispered.
Judy shoved the pigs under the rug.
Jessica hid the box under her bed.
Mrs. Finch walked past Jessica’s
room. Mrs. Finch went down the hall
into the bathroom.
33
“Phew. That was close,” said Jessica.
“I better put this back.”
“And I better go home,” said Judy.
“Before we get in pig trouble.”
Jessica and Judy laughed like hyenas.
“Are you sure you have to go?”
“Yep. I have to feed the . . . um . . .
my Venus flytrap.”
.
As soon as Judy was gone, Jessica
put the game back in the box. “One
little, two little, three little, four little
piggies
—” Uh-oh! Piggy Number Five
was issingmay! Missing!
35
Jessica looked under her leg. She
looked under the rug.
She looked under the bed.
NTBF! Nowhere To Be Found.
Pig-a-ma-jig!
.
Jessica Finch ran out of the house
and hopped on her super-pink bike.
She rode super fast to Judy Moody’s
house. She honked her Super Pig bike
horn all the way up the driveway to
the Moody backyard.
Jessica took off her helmet. She
heard noises coming from a blue tent
in the backyard. A tent with a sign
that said T. P. CLUB.
.
“Knock, knock,” called Jessica.
Judy poked her head out of the tent
flap.
“Do you know where my pig is?”
Jessica asked Judy.
39
Judy’s eyes bugged out. “Pig? What
pig?”
“One of the little plastic piggies is
missing. From the Pig Out game.”
“Oh, that pig,” said Judy.
Pee! Gee! Wee! Gee!
Jessica heard a strange sound. She
looked around. “Hey, what was that
sound?”
“What sound? I didn’t hear a
sound.”
Pee! Gee! Wee! Gee!
“There it is again. A squeak. A high-
pitched squeak.”
“Maybe it was a mouse,” said Judy.
“It was louder than a mouse.”
“I mean, maybe it was Mouse.
My cat.”
.
40
“Your cat’s in there?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Jessica shrugged. Then she heard
the sound again.
Pee! Gee! Wee! Gee!
“There. Didn’
t you hear that?”
“Squeaky door,” said Judy.
“But your tent doesn’t have a door,”
said Jessica. Sometimes Judy Moody
was one oink short of a litter.
“Then it must be Stink,” said Judy.
“Squeaky Stink.”
“Your little brother’s in there, too?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Well, can I come in?” said Jessica.
“NO!” said Judy. “I mean, no.”
Stink popped his head out of the tent,
too. He pointed to the word CLUB on
the sign. “Members only,” he said.
.
42
M-E-A-N-I-E!”
“Yeah, sorry. Those are the rules,”
said Judy.
“But I never get to be in your clubs.
Can’t I be in your club? Just this once?
For my birthday?”
Judy shook her head. “Rules are
rules,” she said.
“Atray inkfay,” said Jessica.
“I am not a rat fink,” said Judy.
Jessica Finch made a pinch face.
Jessica Finch felt like she might cry.
“Judy Moody, you are not a friend.
You are not even a Super Snoop. You
are just . . . a big . . .
