The Word Eater Free Book Reading Online

  Things Are Disappearing . . .

Quietly, Lerner pulled out Fip'south ink bottle and put her head down on the desk-bound so that she could stare middle to centre with him.

She tried to remember through what she knew and what she didn't know nearly this little creature. He ate the words spinach soufflé and spinach soufflé disappeared, only not spinach. If he had simply eaten the discussion spinach, would all spinach have disappeared? She smiled at the thought, so a picayune shiver crawled up her spine. Could the magic be that far-reaching? If Fip had eaten the word stars instead of Jay's Star, would all the stars in the world have disappeared? Lerner tried to imagine a sky without stars. If the magic was that stiff, she'd accept to exist very careful nigh what she permit him swallow.

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Washington Sasquatch Reading Laurels Nominee

The

Word

Eater

Mary Amato

Spot illustrations past

Christopher Ryniak

Text copyright © 2000 past Mary Koepke Amato

Illustrations copyright © 2000 by Christopher Ryniak

All Rights Reserved

Holiday Firm is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Function.

www.holidayhouse.com

ISBN 978-0-8234-2550-1 (ebook)w

ISBN 978-0-8234-2679-9 (ebook)r

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Amato, Mary.

The discussion eater / Mary Amato.

p. cm.

Summary: Lerner Chanse, a new student at Cleveland Park Middle

School, finds a worm that magically makes things disappear, and she

hopes it volition help her fit in, or get revenge, at her hated schoolhouse.

ISBN 0-8234-1468-X

[1. Schools Fiction. 2. Worms Fiction. 3. Magic Fiction.]

I. Title.

PZ7.A49165Wo 2000

[Fic]—dc21 99-34007

CIP

ISBN 978-0-8234-1468-0 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-8234-1940-1 (paperback)

In memory of

Aunt Mil

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Ivan, Maxwell, Simon, and my entire family unit for feeding me encouragement. Thanks to Rachel, Stephanie, and the Shannon girls for feeding me constructive comments; to the Heekin Foundation for feeding me grant money; and to William Reiss for feeding the manuscript to the wonderful Regina Griffin. Thanks to Natasha Sajé for feeding me heteroglossia and biscotti. And, finally, thanks to Marion "The Librarian" Schwerman for feeding me all the groovy children'southward books that turned me into a bookworm as a child.

A yellowish cocoon, about the size of a corn kernel, twitched and rolled in the mud. A fat worm sucking upward leaf mold felt the cocoon'south vibrations through the mud and stopped eating. Quickly, she drummed a message through the ground to the others. A Nascency! A Nascency! Within seconds, 253 worms—the whole Lumbricus Association—squirmed out of their tunnels and gathered into a circle around the cocoon with their leader, the Swell Lumbra.

Finally the jerking stopped, and a infant worm, equally small equally a grain of rice, poked his head out of the cocoon into the moist October air. He blinked and looked at the worms gathered around him.

Worms are very sensitive creatures, and right abroad, this little newborn sensed that he was different. He blinked again. He had eyes, for 1. The worms effectually him were eyeless, yet they seemed to be looking right at him.

"Why hasn't he jumped out?" a worm whispered.

"Is something wrong with him?" asked another.

"Could be a Nil Birth," the Bully Lumbra said in a gritty, ominous voice.

The little worm snapped to attention. They were waiting for him to jump out of his cocoon! Eager to make a good impression, he summoned up his strength, squeezed his optics close, and jumped. He imagined soaring out, turning a somersault in midair, and landing in the center of the clan's circle. Instead, he slid downwardly the side of the cocoon and plopped headfirst in the mud.

The worms gasped.

The Great Lumbra frowned and shook her fatty head. "The vibration is runtly and weakish! He won't pass the tests."

The audio of the Groovy Lumbra's vocalism made the babe worm's skin prickle with dread. He didn't know what she was talking about, simply it didn't sound good.

One hundred yards from the ditch where the Lumbricus Clan lived, a girl named Lerner Chanse was sitting on a swing. Her peel was prickling with dread, too, from the sound of another vox: the voice of Reba Silo, the queen of the MPOOE Club.

"The just way yous can get into the MPOOE Social club is to pass a dare," Reba was telling her. "Nosotros thought upward a skillful one for you. Actually, I thought it up. I rule when it comes to dares."

The ii girls were sitting on rusty swings at the lesser of the Cleveland Park Middle School playground. All the other sixth graders were upwardly on the blacktop next to the schoolhouse pretending to have lunchtime recess while secretly watching the newcomer and the queen.

"Here's what you lot have to exercise," Reba continued. "Steal Mr. Droan's grade book, change Bobby Nitz'due south course from D to A, and return it to Mr. Droan! Isn't that excellent?"

Information technology didn't sound first-class to Lerner. "I don't go it," she said. "Nobody likes Bobby. Why practice you want me to brand his grade meliorate?"

"That'due south the double-whammy part!" Reba said, enjoying herself. "See, if you don't become defenseless, and then eventually Droan will notice the change in the course book, and he'll think Nitz did it! I mean, who else would? Nitz will get in big problem. Isn't that excellent?"

Lerner pushed upward her glasses. "What happens if I get caught?"

"Don't worry nearly that. If you lot get defenseless, yous'll merely become suspended or something. The important affair is that even if you're caught, you'll still become a MPOOE because you did the dare." Reba hopped out of her swing, clearing the puddle underneath it, and looked back at Lerner. "It's an honour to get a dare, you know. And if you don't have the dare . . . well, y'all know what happens to people who aren't MPOOEs."

Lerner knew. Everybody knew. If the Most Powerful Ones On Globe (the MPOOEs) gave you a dare and yous did it, then y'all were in the MPOOE Social club. Y'all got to wearable a MPOOE wristband, and get to secret meetings, and basically own the schoolhouse. Reba started the club, and when she decided to let boys in, information technology gained a kind of authority that no other clique had. If yous weren't in the club, and then you were a Sad Loser Under Ground (a SLUG), which meant yous were nothing. Lerner didn't really intendance about being a MPOOE, but she didn't want to exist a SLUG for iii reasons:

1. She didn't like the sound of the proper noun.

ii. The other SLUGs never looked like they had whatsoever fun.

3. Bobby Nitz was a SLUG.

Lerner stared at the mud under her swing and wished that everything would disappear: the dare, Reba, the MPOOE Order, Mr. Droan, the whole schoolhouse—poof! On 2d idea, she said to herself, I wish the entire city of Washington, D.C., would disappear.

"It'south now or never," Reba said, gesturing up at Mr. Droan on the blacktop. "Recess is almost over."

Mr. Droan and Ms. Findley were sitting on a bench most the school door. Mr. Droan's sail tote bag was propped against the bench, his green course volume sticking out similar a giant ticket.

Lerner sighed and got off the swing. All around the playground, heads turned in her direction. She felt like a bug under a microscope. "Does everybody on the planet know about the cartel?"

"The MPOOEs know, and they

're sworn to secrecy."

Lerner inched upward the grassy slope toward the teachers' bench. The wet earth squished beneath her former sneakers, moisture leaking up through a crack in one sole. Was she really going through with it?

The dare bothered her. She didn't like Bobby Nitz—he was mean and smart mouthed and, unfortunately for Lerner, her next-door neighbour. Just she didn't think he should get in trouble for something she did. Lerner Chanse had principles. She didn't think she should have to pass a test to make friends, either. So why was she headed toward that greenish class book?

The circle of worms around the newborn was perfectly still. The newborn looked nervously from worm to worm to worm to worm. Why wasn't anybody moving? Why wasn't anybody proverb anything?

The little worm didn't know it, merely the Great Lumbra and her clan were all waiting for him to skinch. Information technology was the first test. If a newborn was potent enough to skinch, then Lumbra would sense the particular vibration made by the skinching worm, and that vibration would get the newborn's proper noun.

Unfortunately, the newborn was too scared to move 1 little scooch, let alone a whole skinch.

Afterwards a few minutes, Lumbra sighed and addressed the crowd. "The newborn is besides weakish to skinch. I hereby proclaim a Nothing Nascency. We leave him to die."

Get out him to dice? That didn't sound skilful. The little worm picked his head upwards and began moving all the hairlike bristles on his underbelly back and along, moving forward.

The others waited to hear if Lumbra would accept the worm's endeavour. Lumbra pressed her bang-up underbelly to the basis and tried to feel the detail vibration the worm was making. A less than nix sound . . . Fip . . . Fip . . . Fip.

Turning to her clan, the old worm muttered, "He passes the first test. His name is Fip. If he is strong enough to eat the First Bite of dirt, then nosotros welcome him to the Lumbricus Clan." She drew a ritual circumvolve in the mud and sniffed effectually, frowning. "Where is the runtly ane?"

"I believe you're sitting on him," said Rashom.

Lumbra skinched out of the way. "Hoisters, come!"

Two strong worms wriggled nether Fip, hoisting him up according to custom. "May his gizzard churn!" Lumbra chanted.

BAM! Bobby Nitz slammed a basketball confronting the brick wall of the school and watched Lerner Chanse out of the corner of his eye. He had overheard Reba and Randy plotting the dare in the library, and he was burning mad. BAM! He slammed the ball harder. He was also jealous, although he wouldn't admit it. Chanse was new, and she was already getting a dare. BAM! The MPOOEs would never give him a dare even though he had more guts than everyone in the whole school. BAM! He hated them all.

Lerner inched her way upward the playground hill, sure she was going to throw up. She brushed her bangs off her forehead and pushed on her glasses, enlightened that everybody was staring at her. She had a sudden and horrifying thought: With her curt legs and her short blond hair, she looked like a infant male child in an antiquarian photograph. She might as well wear a sailor conform. To make matters worse, her bangs needed a trim, but she refused to accept her hair cut by anyone other than Mrs. Wellbloom, her former neighbor, and her mother stubbornly refused to fly her back to Wisconsin but for a trim.

Lerner reached the top of the colina. On the basketball game court, Reba's young man, Randy, stopped guarding for a 2nd. Looking at Lerner, he rubbed the MPOOE band around his wrist. She could feel her face redden in the cool air.

DON'T Get THROUGH WITH It! A voice inside her head screamed. WHO NEEDS TO BE IN THE LOUSY MPOOE CLUB?

Lerner glanced around. Bobby Nitz was off in the corner, slamming a basketball confronting the school wall.

"The singing potato is not on the underwear commercial, it's on the chips commercial," Mr. Droan was proverb over the dissonance. "As in po-ta-to chips, get it?"

Lerner passed the bench slowly, tipping Mr. Droan's book handbag over with her pes.

"Well, you don't have to be and so huffy near it, Markus," replied Ms. Findley.

The pocketbook's contents spilled out. Lerner knelt down, setting her backpack on summit of Mr. Droan's grade volume, and pretended to tie her shoe. She was just about to stand up, gripping the grade book underneath her own haversack, when . . . BAM!

Bobby's basketball slammed into her. She dropped everything and fell backward.

"Await what yous did, Nitz!" Mr. Droan screamed.

Bobby bent downwards and stuffed Mr. Droan's things back into his tote handbag.

The instructor snatched information technology from him. "Repent to Ms. Chanse!"

Lerner stood up, rubbing a scraped elbow.

"Sorry, Helmet Head," Bobby said. His smug smile told her that he knew about the dare, that he wasn't sorry at all. A mixture of guilt and anger rocked Lerner. She had expected to exist caught by Mr. Droan, not by Bobby.

The bell rang, and everybody headed in. Reba caught up to Lerner. "I saw the whole thing," she said. "Nitz slammed into you lot on purpose. He must accept institute out about the cartel."

Lerner brightened at Reba's sympathetic tone. Maybe the MPOOEs would forget the whole thing and just let her in the club.

"I'll requite you lot one more adventure tomorrow at recess," Reba said. "Same cartel."

Lerner's centre sank. "Simply Bobby knows! He'll only botch it up again."

"That's your trouble," the queen said. "Isn't information technology?"

Bobby Nitz was ecstatic. Non only had he sabotaged the MPOOE plan to get him in trouble, but he had also acquired a prize. A package of thumbtacks had spilled out of Droan'south pocketbook, and he had pocketed information technology without existence seen. 1 hundred gleaming weapons!

He tore off the newspaper label, dropping it on the ground as if the world were his personal garbage tin. Who would his first victim be? He ran into the school and down the hall to language arts. The room was empty. He put ii thumbtacks on Ms. Findley'due south chair and slid into his own seat.

Bitsy Findley walked in. As usual, she had two pencils sticking out of her caput—one behind each ear—similar antennae. "Take out a sheet of paper and clear your desks," she announced every bit the students filed in. "Fourth dimension for the spelling examination."

Bobby Nitz gripped the sides of his desk with barely containable glee. She'd give them the start word and then sit downward. She did this every time. He couldn't wait.

"Time for the Commencement Bite!" the Great Lumbra chanted. "Hoisters, lower!"

The hoister worms were slowly lowering Fip into the dirty center of the ritual circle when a slice of paper, carried by the wind, tumbled in. Knocked off balance, the hoisters let Fip drop. He landed right on top of the paper.

It was just an ordinary slice of litter, a characterization. But in all the naming ceremonies the Great Lumbra had conducted over the years, not 1 worm was always set up downwardly on a piece of paper to eat its commencement repast.

No one moved, except Fip. He lifted his head. Something smelled tangy and sharp. He wriggled all the bristles on his belly forward and back until he moved over to the big, blackness M on the paper. Fip . . . Fip . . . Fip. Everyone listened in amazement.

Ummy! Um! He said to himself and nibbled the M right off the paper.

Lumbra's mouth vicious open. She had never heard anything similar information technology. Fip chomped away until he had eaten the inky letters off the characterization. All that was left was the price. He skinched off the paper, burped, and beamed at the crowd.

Ms. Findley stood at her desk, about to enunciate the first discussion of the spelling quiz. All of a sudden, the papers posted on her bulletin lath fluttered to the floor.

The entire class watched the cursory paper shower, not knowing what to make of it. Ms. Findley didn't know what to make of information technology, either. What happened to the thumbtacks? she wondered. Disliking distractions, she quickly scooped the papers off the flooring and began the quiz.

Bobby Nitz had precisely two thumbtacks on his mind and couldn't wait for his teacher to sit down on them.

"Saturate," Ms. Findley said. "The first spelling give-and-take is saturate. I plan to saturate your brains with spelling words." The teacher laughed at

her picayune joke and saturday downward.

Bobby leaned forward.

Ms. Findley smiled equally if she were sitting on sky's softest cloud and said, "Word number 2 is—"

"No way!"

"Excuse me, Bobby?" Ms. Findley peered over her list at him.

"What happened to . . . uh . . . I was wondering if your chair is comfortable, Ms. Findley."

"How very odd of you to be concerned," said Ms. Findley. "My chair is perfectly fine. Word number two is weary. Ms. Findley is weary of interruptions."

Bobby leaned over to see if he could spot the thumbtacks on the flooring. Peradventure they had fallen under Findley'south desk. What else could take happened? He didn't meet them anywhere. Oh well, he had plenty more where they came from. He pulled the thumbtack instance out of his pocket and got the second surprise of the twenty-four hour period.

Empty. Every final thumbtack had vanished.

Fip sat looking at his clan with a full gizzard and a huge grinning.

Just instead of gathering around him to welcome him, the other worms were backing abroad. "A Lumbricus worm that doesn't eat dirt? How can information technology be?" said Pumama.

"It tin't count as a Commencement Seize with teeth, can it, Lumbra?" asked Rashom.

The little worm'due south smile faded. Being a newborn, he didn't understand everything that was happening, but he knew he had done something wrong. Quickly, Fip skinched over to Lumbra and sucked a fleck of clay into his oral fissure. Run across! he tried to say, I'm one of yous! Just the dirt caught in his throat and he choked. Tears stung his optics. Through them, he looked upwardly at the leader.

The old worm turned her dorsum to him and began skinching downwards the oral cavity of a tunnel. A Nothing Nascency. One by one the other members of the Lumbricus Clan followed her downwardly. Fip was left alone.

Bobby Nitz woke up early, nevertheless wondering about yesterday'southward thumbtack mystery. He tiptoed into his father's den, turned on the computer, tapped into the Internet, and chosen up the online news. In the search command field, he typed THUMBTACK. The cursor blinked, the machine hummed, searching for any and all appearances of the word THUMBTACK in newly filed articles. Three hot-off-the-press stories appeared on Bobby'south screen. He had to impress them chop-chop before his father woke up. Mr. Robert Nitz, Sr., didn't appreciate Bobby messing around with his computer.

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