Dead Possums Are Fair Game Read online

  Copyright © 2015 by Taryn Souders

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Dictionary definitions found at the beginning of each chapter come from either the Oxford American Dictionary or Merriam Webster.

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.skyponypress.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design and illustrations by Chris Piascik

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-162-0

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-927-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  TO ELLA HUNTER AND ANYONE WHO HAS EVER WISHED THAT SPIDERS AND MATHEMATICS WEREN’T A PART OF REAL LIFE.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One Luck

  Chapter Two Rigor Mortis

  Chapter Three Fair

  Chapter Four Dead Ball

  Chapter Five Control Freak

  Chapter Six About-Face

  Chapter Seven Photojournalism

  Chapter Eight Chew

  Chapter Nine Annex

  Chapter Ten Posthumous

  Chapter Eleven Hydroplane

  Chapter Twelve Bombshell

  Chapter Thirteen Meatloaf

  Chapter Fourteen Convert

  Chapter Fifteen Close Shave

  Chapter Sixteen Spreadsheet

  Chapter Seventeen Self-Interest

  Chapter Eighteen Last Straw

  Chapter Nineteen Reality

  Chapter Twenty Apprehension

  Chapter Twenty-One Heimlich Maneuver

  Chapter Twenty-Two Distraught

  Chapter Twenty-Three Cliffhanger

  Chapter Twenty-Four Crestfallen

  Chapter Twenty-Five Reconcile

  Chapter Twenty-Six Proposition

  Morty’s Math Memorial

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER ONE

  LUCK

  luck

  noun luk

  —a force that brings good fortune or adversity

  —the events or circumstances that operate for or against an individual

  The pouring rain the night before clued me in—misfortune was fast approaching.

  The last three times we had a spring storm, awful things happened right after. First, while Dad was trying to repair a leak, he slipped off the roof and broke his leg. Next, Mom made meatloaf for dinner, which would have been bad enough—I detest meatloaf—even if we all hadn’t gotten food poisoning the very next day. Then, a week later, after another downpour, my pet turtle ran away. I realized then that rainstorms brought bad luck.

  My walk to school that day didn’t do much to disprove my theory that disaster was looming. Gray clouds piled on top of each other and covered the sky, and I just knew misfortune was headed my way.

  I didn’t know what the misfortune would be, but I had a strong hunch where it would be: Victor Waldo Elementary. There might as well have been a bright neon sign blinking BAD LUCK, RIGHT HERE, COME AND GET IT as the largest of the cloud clusters settled over my school.

  A couple times I misjudged the depth of a puddle while walking and rainwater poured into my shoes. By the time I arrived at the back gate of Victor Waldo Elementary, I was the not-so-proud owner of frizzy hair (a standard look for me on warm, humid days), wet socks, and muddy shoes. As I squished into the yard, a sickening smell wafted toward me.

  “Eww,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “What stinks?”

  “Hey Ella,” said Lucille, one of my best friends, coming up from behind me. “Oh, ugh!” She pinched her nose shut and shook her head in disgust, causing her messy red ringlets to boing like crazy. “I hope Jolina gets here soon so we don’t have to stand here too long. It stinks.” She sounded like a cross between a moose and a duck.

  “I talked to Jolina last night, and she said she’d meet us on the playground. She had to get here early. There was a safety patrol meeting this morning.”

  “Good,” said Lucille. “Then we don’t have to wait around and smell whatever reeks.”

  As we crossed the muddy field, I scanned the playground for Jolina. I needed to ask her a question about our math homework. Most of it had completely freaked me out, so if our teacher, Ms. Carpenter, gave us a pop quiz, I’d fail for sure. Jolina Washington was my other best friend even though we were as opposite as night and day. When it came to math, Jolina was a whiz kid, and I was the kid math whizzed past.

  I had two major phobias in life: spiders and mathematics. I firmly believed anything with more than four legs should not exist. I also believed the world would be a better place without fractions or long division.

  The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed my unavoidable bad luck would have something to do with math. Or spiders, but my money was on math. I had experienced a spider issue already this year, so it was math’s turn to make my life miserable. I was teeter-tottering between a C and a D in the subject, and my parents had informed me if I got a D, I’d have to go to tutoring classes all summer long.

  I was so intent on finding Jolina, I didn’t pay attention to where I was walking.

  “Ella, look out!” Lucille yelled. She yanked me back so hard I lost my balance and fell to the muddy ground.

  “Lucille O’Reilly!” I squealed. “What did you do that for?” I picked myself up and tried to brush off the mud. Instead, I ended up smearing it across my shorts.

  “You almost stepped on that!”

  She pointed at the ground. Lying on its back was a very ugly, very wet, and very dead opossum—the source of the bad smell. Its four hairy legs stuck straight up in the air, and a frozen expression grinned at me. Flies buzzed around its stiff body.

  I jumped back. “Oh, gross! I can’t believe I almost stepped on it!”

  Lucille grabbed my arm and pulled me away.

  My shrieking, however, had caught the attention of Harry, the weird guy in our class, and he trotted over. Common sense wasn’t Harry’s strong point; he would take any bet someone offered him. The year before, when we were in fourth grade, a fifth-grader in the cafeteria had bet Harry five dollars he couldn’t eat fifty packets of ketchup and then chug three cartons of chocolate milk without throwing up. Harry made it through the ketchup and two and half cartons of milk, then started choking. He coughed so hard the rest of the milk came out his nose (which he had said technically wasn’t throwing up).

  As Harry stared at the dead opossum, his eyes widened. “Ms. Carpenter! Ms. Carpenter! Look, a possum!” he bellowed. “It’s dead. At least I think it’s dead—maybe it’s just playin’ dead—they can do that, ya know. Do you think it’s dead?”

  Ms. Carpenter and several students slogged through the mud toward us.

  “Sacre bleu! Ah will give you a dollar to touch zee possum, ’arry!” Jean-Pierre said. Jean-Pierre had moved from France the previous month and obviously someone had already told him about Harry’s willingness to take
bets.

  “You’re on. But you didn’t say I had to use my hand, so I’ll poke it with this stick.” Harry pushed his glasses high up on his nose, picked up a stick lying in the grass, and reached toward the opossum.

  Ms. Carpenter snatched the stick from Harry’s hand.

  I glanced at Harry. I’d never seen a more disappointed look. There he was, surrounded by his fellow fifth-graders and publicly stripped not only of his right to earn a dollar, but also to poke a possibly dead animal.

  Ms. Carpenter’s face, on the other hand, had turned a sickly green color. She covered her nose with her hand. “I’ll notify the custodian about the animal. I’m sure he’ll know what to do. Meanwhile, everybody go play on the far side of the field closer to the playground and stay out of this area!” She shooed us away while reaching for her walkie-talkie.

  The boys let out groans of disappointment as we walked toward the playground for the precious few minutes of playtime left before the first bell.

  Ms. Carpenter called after me, “Oh, Ella, do you want to call your mom and ask her to bring you some clean clothes?”

  “No thanks. I’m fine.” I stared down at my dirt-smeared shorts. Just my luck. I cringed at the thought of wearing the muddy clothes all day. Truthfully, I did want to call my mom, but knew I needed to find Jolina and get math help in case we had a quiz.

  Clean clothes would have to wait.

  CHAPTER TWO

  RIGOR MORTIS

  rig·or mor·tis

  noun rig-ǒr - mor-tis

  —temporary rigidity of muscles occurring after death

  We found Jolina near the monkey bars. She was easy to spot because she wore her safety patrol belt. Weeks ago, she told me she hated wearing the belt because it was scratchy. I guess she had to wear it because of the meeting this morning. I always thought she looked pretty with it on—the bright lime green against her dark skin.

  “Hey there, Jolina!” said Lucille. “You missed all the excitement!”

  “Yeah, real exciting, Lucille,” I muttered. “You’re not the one who nearly stepped on that thing.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Jolina asked. “Did you step in dog poo again, Ella?”

  I suppose it could’ve been worse. The week before, I’d almost twisted my ankle sliding through a pile of dog logs. I was still scraping the nastiness from the treads of my favorite boots.

  Jolina didn’t give me a chance to explain, though.

  “After our safety patrol meeting, my stomach felt queasy, so I went to the nurse’s office. She gave me a peppermint. I just now made it out to the playground.” She wiggled her shoulders around, scowled, and readjusted her belt.

  I looked over at Lucille, begging her with my expression not to tell Jolina about the opossum—she’d puke all over the place. Lucille must have got the message.

  “Bummer. I sure hope you feel better. You don’t want to miss out on Ms. Carpenter’s big announcement today. Remember she said she had special news for us?” said Lucille.

  I’d completely forgotten about Ms. Carpenter’s surprise announcement! I was so anxious about the math homework and focused on getting Jolina’s help (not to mention shaken by the little episode with the opossum), it had totally skipped my mind.

  “What do you think it is?” Jolina asked.

  “I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out!” Lucille said.

  I was just about to ask Jolina for homework help when the bell rang. Not cool. I quickly pulled her aside as we hurried to class. “I don’t get it.”

  “Don’t get what?”

  “Last night’s math. And I have a feeling Ms. Carpenter’s going to give us a pop quiz or something. She’s been pop-quiz happy lately.”

  I’ve always been a bit of a control freak. I don’t like surprises—like pop quizzes. Surprises make me feel out of control. Mom thinks my control “issues” are because I’m an only child. She’s a mental health counselor and knows a lot about stuff like that. But, I don’t have issues; I have rules. Like M&M’s can only be eaten in pairs and must be in specific color combinations. The pencils in my pencil cup have to be sharpened after I finish my homework so they’re pointy the next time I need them. Even the clothes in my closet are organized by color and season.

  “Don’t worry. I doubt she’ll give a quiz,” Jolina said.

  “C’mon. You saw the rain clouds.”

  “Yes, and I think your whole theory about storms makes you nutso.”

  “Fine, I’m nutso.”

  Jolina smiled and rolled her eyes. “Just remember to take the quotient and—”

  “Wait, what’s a quotient?” I interjected.

  But Jolina never got to tell me.

  “Good Tuesday morning, everybody,” Ms. Carpenter said as we entered the room. “Take a seat and listen up.” She had regained her compo-sure and apparently had decided our experience with the smelly stiff was in fact a teaching moment in disguise. “I know many of you saw the dead animal in the playing field this morning and have been talking about it. First of all, that was an opossum, not a possum. The opossum lives in North America, and the possum lives in Australia and New Zealand—similar animals, but still different. However, you will commonly hear either animal referred to as a possum, dropping the ‘o.’ Though not technically accurate, most people will know what animal you’re talking about based on where you live.

  “Secondly, I’m sure you noticed how stiff and rigid it was. This is due to what’s called ri-gor mor-tis.” She pronounced the words slowly, emphasizing each syllable, as she wrote them on the board. “When something dies, after a period of time the muscles stiffen, and they will stay in whatever position they’re in for several hours, depending on the size of the animal or person.”

  While I’m fascinated by science, I wasn’t so sure how Jolina and her upset stomach were handling this moment. I stole a look at her. She held one hand over her stomach and was frantically waving the other in the air. “Please, Ms. Carpenter, may I get some water?”

  “Yes, Jolina, but be quick. You don’t want to miss our mini-science lesson.”

  I was pretty sure the mini-science lesson was exactly what Jolina wanted to miss. She bolted for the door.

  “So, the possum was on its back with its feet in the air when it died?” Lucille asked.

  “It appears so. And because of rigor mortis,” Ms. Carpenter said, pointing to the words again, “it was still in that position this morning. Like I said, it takes several hours for the muscles to loosen up again.”

  “Hey, I have a question,” Jimmy said. “When my snake dies, if I straighten him out as rigor mortis sets in, could I throw him like a javelin?”

  Jean-Pierre chimed in, “Oh yes, zat would be very cool. I would love to see zat!” He slapped Jimmy a high-five. He was learning our culture just fine.

  Ms. Carpenter closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and sighed. I noticed that happened a lot when Jimmy asked questions. Our teaching moment had come to an abrupt halt.

  “Everyone please take out a pencil and clear your desks,” she said. “It’s time for a pop quiz on last night’s homework.”

  I knew it! Bad luck and math had combined forces to destroy my life. If these pop quizzes kept showing up, I’d be sunk.

  I sat at my desk staring with dread at the five math problems just below the words RIGOR MORTIS. Death and math problems … they definitely went together. I knew it was my imagination, but the problems seemed to be sneering and throwing insults my direction. You can’t do this … You’re not smart enough … You’ll make a mistake and screw up …

  CHAPTER THREE

  FAIR

  fair

  adverb fer

  —in a manner that is honest or impartial or that conforms to rules

  noun fer

  —festival; an exhibition, often accompanied by entertainment and amusements

  Given my love for order, you’d think I would have appreciated math; after all, math is very orderly. But the s
ubject completely freaked me out. I didn’t like it one bit. I didn’t like it because I wasn’t good at it, but I wasn’t good at it because I didn’t like it. It was a nasty cycle. My parents said if I could just learn to like math, I’d probably get better at it.

  To be honest, that was the craziest thing I’d ever heard. Well, maybe not the craziest, but it was close. The craziest would be the time I told my mother I didn’t like going out to the toolshed at night because I was afraid of spiders. She suggested I start calling all the spiders I see “Jonathan” because then they would seem more like friends and I wouldn’t be scared of them.

  Seriously?

  The only thing that came from that brilliant idea was a bunch of squished spiders on the shed floor and a strong dislike of the name Jonathan. At any rate, I really struggled with math and would’ve liked nothing better than to never do it again … ever.

  Ms. Carpenter told us she would wait to make her special announcement before P.E., the last class of the day. So at lunch, Jolina, Lucille, and I tried to guess what she was going to tell us.

  “I bet she’s gonna tell us she’s getting married. Maybe she wants all the girls to be in her wedding! We’ll probably be bridesmaids or flower girls!” Lucille whispered, clapping her hands.

  Jolina shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. I bet she’s taking us on a really cool field trip. Like to Washington, DC, or the Mall of America.”

  I still felt miserable about the pop quiz and took out my frustration on my Jell-O. I jabbed my spoon repeatedly in the lemon-yellow blob until it resembled scrambled eggs. “The Mall of America is all the way in Minnesota and everyone knows Washington, DC, is a middle school field trip. I seriously doubt either of those are it,” I grumbled. “It’s probably just another pizza party.”

  Lucille knocked her shoulder against mine. “Cheer up, Ella. There’re just a few weeks of school left and then we’re home free! Swimming, sleepovers, and water-skiing at my uncle’s lake house.”