Judy Moody, Mood Martian, Page 4

  They learned some way-cool measurements:

  George Washington’s nose on Mount Rushmore: 20 feet long

  Statue of Liberty torch: 12 feet 7 inches long

  Chesapeake Bay Bridge: 92,928 feet long

  They found out that the United States was 3,000 miles long and the distance from the earth to the sun was nearly 93 million miles!

  “Great job today, class,” said Mr. Todd. “Tomorrow we’ll measure things in hands, cubits, and licks.”

  Judy raised her hand. She waited for Mr. Todd to call on her. “Licks? Does that mean we get to eat ice cream?” she asked.

  Mr. Todd chuckled. “I’m afraid not. A lick is the distance from the tip of your thumb to the tip of your index finger when they’re spread out like an L.”

  Judy’s pencil was two and a quarter licks. Her Women of Science ruler was four licks. Her Yardstick of Bubble Gum box was twelve licks.

  “Over the weekend, think of something you’d like to measure, and come up with a unique way to measure it. On Monday, we’re going to make our own rulers.”

  Rocky was going to measure his iguana, Houdini, using a deck of cards. Frank was going to measure his breakfast waffles in forks. Jessica Finch was going to measure the Ultimate Speller’s Dictionary in Magic Straws.

  “How about you, Judy? You’re being awful quiet,” said Frank.

  Judy itched. A bad-mood twitch. Remembering to raise her hand and not speak out in class and be like Jessica Finch all the time was making her jumpy. Trying to be in a good mood all the time was making her grumpy.

  But she could not be a grumpa-lumpa-gus if she wanted to stay away from Antarctica. So she made a joke. “I’m going to measure my spaceship. You know, the one I flew in on with the Pod People from outer space.”

  Everybody half laughed.

  “Kidding!” said Judy. “I’ll probably measure Stink using sugar packets.”

  By the time Judy got home, she was in a tizzy. Her hair was in a frizzy and her brain was dizzy with bad-mood thoughts. Grr. She, Judy Moody, was in an almost mood. She checked her mood ring. It was awful dark under there, where the purple nail polish was chipping off.

  Judy had a heart-to-heart with Mouse. “This being in a good mood all the time sure is hard, Mouse. And my friends think I’m some kind of weirdo. I should just give up right now. Nobody would even know.”

  Mouse hid her eyes behind her paw. “You’re right, Mouse. I’d know.”

  Mouse sniffled. Mouse sneezed. “I know, I know, Mouse. If I quit now, I might as well move to Antarctica and live on an iceberg.”

  Judy picked up a ball of dark blue yarn. Knit, knit, knit. Loop-de-loop-de-loop. At least she had yarn to knit with again, thanks to her so-called not-alien friends. Her chain of finger knitting was getting longer and longer. It went down the stairs and around the banister and over the coat tree and into the living room, where it wound its way around the legs of the couch.

  The dark-blue ball of yarn was used up in no time. Judy climbed up to her top bunk with a ball of purply yarn. She cast off of her thumb.

  Soon a lacy purple chain piled up in her lap. Purple. The color of kings and queens and creative ones. The color of a mood ring painted Joyful.

  Purple always put Judy in a better mood.

  Suddenly, she had an idea. A royal idea. A plum of an idea. A lilac-lavender-NOT-eggplant idea. Peanut Butter and Jelly! She, Judy Moody, would paint her same old chicken-pox polka-dot wall purple. That way, at least her room would be in a good mood all the time. All she had to do now was ask the You-Know-Whos.

  Judy found Mom downstairs playing Words With Frenemies on the computer. Dad was helping Stink with homework.

  “Mom! Dad!” Judy begged. She got down on her knees. “Please say yes. Pretty please with peanut-butter fingers on top?”

  “Don’t say yes,” said Stink. “I bet she’s going to ask you to take her to Fur & Fangs to get an Australian sugar glider or something.”

  “Or something,” said Judy. “What even is a sugar glider?”

  “It’s like a flying squirrel with big bulgy eyes. From Australia. You can have one as a pet as long as you don’t live in a four-syllable state.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know. California, New Mexico, Massachusetts, and parts of Minnesota.”

  “Weird,” said Judy.

  “Well, we’re not getting a flying sugar glider,” said Mom. “Or any other Australian marsupial. So if that is the question, the answer is no.”

  “I’m not even asking for a sugar glider,” said Judy.

  “We’re not going to say yes or no until we hear the question,” said Dad.

  “I was going to ask if we could paint my room. Maybe the wall behind my bunk bed? I was thinking purple.”

  “Why not?” said Mom.

  “Sure,” said Dad. “I have a bunch of color samples in the garage. You pick out a color, and we’ll do it this weekend.”

  “Really? So that’s a yes?” Judy asked. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” said Dad.

  “You should have gone for the flying sugar glider,” said Stink.

  On GMD #4, aka Friday, the finger-knitting chain followed Judy out the door and down the sidewalk and all the way to the bus stop!

  “Look,” said Stink. “You grew a tail!”

  Judy turned to look. Sure enough, a tail of yarn snaked down the sidewalk behind her. “Uh-oh. The end of my chain must have gotten caught on my backpack!” said Judy. “I gotta go back.”

  “Hurry up or you’ll miss the bus,” said Stink.

  Judy ran back to the house, gathering up the yarn chain as she went. She tossed the whole thing inside the front door just as Mom and Dad were leaving. The chain looped over Dad’s shoe and around his ankle. Dad shook his foot free.

  “Judy. Mom and I want to talk to you about this knitting . . .”

  “Late! Miss bus! Later! Bye!” Judy called back.

  By the time Judy got back to the bus stop, her hair had escaped the bobby pins. She made two quick ponytails and asked, “Where’s Rocky?”

  “You know he always gets a ride when it rains,” said Stink.

  “But it’s not raining.”

  “It’s gonna. I like when it rains. Rain means frogs.”

  “Can this day get any worse?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mom and Dad were having a knit fit. That’s all.”

  “You’re going to have to stop all that knitting stuff, aren’t you?” Stink said.

  “Never!”

  “Yah-huh. I heard Mom and Dad talking.”

  “Don’t pick a scab before it’s time, Stink.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Just tell me what they said.”

  “They said you’re going to have to stop all that knitting stuff. They said it’s taking over the whole house.”

  “No lie?”

  “No lie.”

  “I can’t stop now. I still have three more days to — I mean, if I stop now, I’ll only have enough finger knitting to yarn bomb a birdhouse.”

  Judy could feel a snit fit coming on. A no-knit snit fit! She felt like stomping. But she could not stomp. She could not roar. She could not growl. Or even meow.

  It was only Friday. She had to keep up her good-mood streak for three more days. That meant getting through one whole day of school without a String-Cheese Incident or an Interrupting Chicken episode. Without even thinking that Jessica Finch was a fink-face. Otherwise, she’d be shivering in bunny boots and seeing sundogs from her own personal iceberg in the back of the room. Frostbite city!

  But she’d made it this far, and Judy was determined, now more than ever, not to go anywhere near Antarctica. Not even close. Not even New Zealand.

  She wiped the sour-ball look off her face. She put on a big fat fake smile.

  She tried to sound smart and know-it-all, like Jessica Finch. “When life gives you lemons, Stink, make lemonade.” That’s what grow
n-ups were always saying.

  “Wha?”

  “It’s a saying. When life gives you sour balls, make SweetTARTS.”

  “Huh?”

  “When bad stuff happens, try to think of something good instead. Always look for the sweetness in the Sour Ball of Life.”

  “You sound like a birthday card,” said Stink.

  “Mom and Dad might make me stop finger knitting, right? That puts me in a bad mood. But they said I could paint my room this weekend. And that’s a good thing.”

  Just then, a dark cloud passed overhead. Judy heard a rumble of thunder. All of a sudden, the sky opened up and it started to pour.

  Judy and Stink held their backpacks over their heads. They dashed for cover.

  “It’s raining cats and dogs,” Judy wailed.

  “It’s raining toads and frogs,” said Stink, grinning.

  “Sour balls,” said Judy.

  “Don’t you mean SweetTARTS?” Stink said.

  It rained all morning. At indoor recess in the gym, Judy took out the paint samples with funny names and passed them around.

  “Rocky,” said Judy. “You’re not even looking.”

  “Why don’t you just paint your room Martian Green,” he suggested.

  “Or Alien Orange,” said Frank.

  “Or Pluto Pink,” said Jessica.

  Judy did her best to ignore their alien comments. “C’mon, you guys,” she said. “Those aren’t real colors.” She fanned out the sample colors like a deck of cards.

  “If it can’t be Martian Green,” said Rocky, “I’d have to pick Sunny-Side Up or Hay Is for Horses.”

  “Of course you’d pick yellow, Rock.”

  “I’d pick She Sells Sea Shells,” said Amy.

  “Blue is nice,” said Judy.

  “Statue of Liberty or Grass Stain,” said Frank.

  “No go. I’m not going to paint my room Grass Stain.”

  “Eraser, Tutu, or Tippy Toes,” said Jessica Finch.

  “Those are all pink,” said Judy. “How about purple? There’s Lav Out Loud, Plum Crazy, Peanut Butter and Jelly, or Saltwater Taffy.”

  Stink ran over from the second-grade side of the gym. “What color do you like, Stink?” Judy asked him.

  “Frog Prince,” said Stink. “And Bullfrog and Ribbet and Pet Rock.”

  “You picked those because you like frogs.”

  “I know. Do they have Jawbreaker?”

  “Jawbreaker is not a color, Stink.”

  “Then I pick Snow Day.”

  “Snow Day is white,” Judy grumped. “My whole room is already a Snow Day.”

  “Then how about Lemonade?” said Stink.

  “Sorry. It looks like toad pee,” said Judy. She shuffled her paint samples some more. At last, she put her favorite color on top.

  “Peanut Butter and Jelly it is!”

  Friday night was pizza-and-a-movie night. It was still raining outside. Judy leaned on her good-mood pillow and finger knitted between bites of cheesy pizza. She finger knitted her way through five tomato-red balls of yarn while watching The Cockroach that Ate Cleveland with her family.

  “How’d you like the movie?” Dad asked.

  “They should call it The Yarn that Ate Cleveland,” said Stink. “I couldn’t see half the movie with Judy’s finger knitting all over the TV.”

  Mom yawned. Stink yawned. Judy yarned. She kept knit-knit-knitting.

  “Time for bed, kids,” said Mom.

  “But I’m not tired,” said Judy. “One more skein of yarn, please?”

  “About the knitting,” said Dad. “This yarn is taking over the house. I trip over it everywhere I turn.”

  “It’s driving Mouse crazy, too,” said Mom. She leaned over to untangle Mouse. “Poor cat. She looks like she’s wearing a pink tutu.”

  “Did you hear what happened to the cat that ate a ball of yarn?” Stink asked.

  Judy’s eyes grew wide. “Yarn hairballs?”

  “No. She had mittens!” said Stink. He cracked himself up.

  Mom picked up a fuzzy pink section of the chain and peered at it. “Judy, is this . . . Grandma Lou’s hand-knitted dancing-mouse sweater I see in there?”

  Judy stretched and let out a fake yawn-not-yarn. “It’s late. I guess I better get to bed. ’Night, everyone.”

  “But I thought you weren’t tired,” said Stink.

  “Mind your own knitting, Stink,” said Judy. She gathered up her finger knitting and headed upstairs to bed.

  “You can always count dancing mice if you can’t get to sleep,” Stink called after her.

  In bed, Judy leaned on her frowny-face pillow and counted raindrops till she fell asleep.

  On Saturday morning, Judy peered out the window. The rain had stopped! GMD #5 was off to a good start. Her mood pillow grinned at her. She picked up a coil of sun-yellow yarn and soon her fingers were flying.

  Dad went to get the paint for Judy’s room. In the time he was gone, she finger knitted five whole balls of yarn. Plum perfect!

  Finally, Dad came home with the paint. “They were all out of Peanut Butter and Jelly,” said Dad.

  Judy felt a twinge. Like a prickle, only worse. Bad-mood words like “No way!” and “So not fair!” shot through Judy’s head, but she could not be in a bad mood for two more days. What a pickle.

  She took a deep breath. “That’s okay,” she said calmly. “Peanut Butter and Jelly is for babies.”

  “Hey! I love Peanut Butter and Jelly,” said Stink.

  I rest my case, thought Judy, silently and to herself.

  “Aren’t you going to say, ‘I rest my case’ or something?” Stink asked.

  “Or something.”

  “I got Saltwater Taffy instead,” said Dad.

  “Saltwater Taffy’s good,” said Judy. Dad snapped off the lid and Judy stirred the paint. She could hardly wait to dive in and slap some purple paint around.

  “Saltwater Taffy?” Stink perked up. “Did you know that some guy had a candy shop by the Atlantic Ocean like over a hundred years ago? One day, there was a big storm, the ocean flooded his shop, and the salt water got all over the candy. And that’s how it got invented and how come it’s called saltwater taffy.”

  “I did not know that,” said Judy. “You, little bother, I mean brother, are like a volcano — always spitting up interesting facts.”

  “Why are you being so nice?” asked Stink. “Mom! Judy’s acting weird again.”

  “C’mon you two,” said Dad. “Let’s get this party started.”

  “Stink’s painting too?” Judy grumped, but then she caught herself. “Um, thanks for helping, Stinker. While we’re getting ready, why don’t you tell us how paint was invented?”

  Before you could say “Saltwater Taffy” three times fast, Judy was dipping a roller in the paint tray. While Dad taped the edges, Judy slathered purple paint on the wall.

  “Poiple!” she shouted with glee. Best-mood-ever purple! Purple was on-top-of-spaghetti royal.

  Stink rolled paint on the wall. “Stink! You’re splattering me,” said Judy. She held out her shirt. “Human Spin Art.”

  “That’s why we wore old T-shirts,” said Dad, “and put down cardboard on the floor.”

  “Just don’t get any paint on Hedda-Get-Betta, my Nancy Drew books, my finger knitting, or —”

  “Look,” said Stink. “Mouse has one purple ear.”

  “You mean purr-ple.” Judy cracked herself up. “She’s going to have two purple ears, purple whiskers, and a purple tail if she doesn’t watch out. Scat, cat!” She shooed Mouse out of the room.

  Stink cracked up. “You said scat.”

  In two shakes of a cat’s tail, Judy and Stink had covered the wall in purple. Dad stood on a ladder to get all the edges. “How do you like your royal purple palace?” he asked.

  Judy stepped back to admire their masterpiece. “Rare,” she said.

  “Now, we wait for this to dry. We may need a second coat,” said Dad.

  �
�You mean we have to do it all over again?” Judy asked. Oops. Bad-mood words. “You mean we get to do this all over again?” She turned on a smile.

  “We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m going to rinse these rollers and brushes out.”

  Judy picked up her finger knitting. Stink sat cross-legged next to her. He stared at the wall. He stared sideways. He stared upside down.

  “Watching paint dry is snore pie,” said Stink.

  “It’s not so boring,” said good-mood Judy.

  Stink stared at the wall some more. “Did you know in India they have a purple frog? Also called a donut frog.”

  “I did not know that,” said Judy. “Did you know purple is the color of kings and queens?”

  “I knew that. Did you know Klingons have purple blood in the Star Trek Six movie? And Mace Windu is the only Jedi with a purple light saber?”

  “I did not know that,” said Judy. “Did you know nothing rhymes with purple?”

  “Ya-huh! Urple. Flurple. Snurple.”

  “Use one of those in a sentence, Stink.”

  “My name is Urple from the planet Flurple and I like to drink Snurple.”

  “Ha, ha. Now who’s the alien?” said Judy.

  “Know any more purple facts?” Stink asked. “I’m all out.”

  Judy scratched her head. She looped sky-blue yarn over her finger and back. “Purple-o-phobia is fear of the color purple.”

  “Is not,” said Stink. “You made that up.”

  “You’ll never know.”

  Stink couldn’t sit still. He danced and pranced around the room, singing into a paintbrush all about a crazy one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater.

  Judy pranced around with him, singing into her hairbrush. She didn’t know all the words, so she just made stuff up.

  “Beep, beep, boo bop bop, walla walla Washington!” Judy sang.

  “That’s not even in the song,” said Stink.

  “So?” They cracked up some more. “Beep, beep, boo bop bop . . .” On the last walla walla, Stink’s foot got caught in the finger knitting. He stumbled back a step. He stumbled right smack-dab into the brand-new wall of purple paint.