At the end of the street lives Wingnut, a ten-year-old boy with ears that stick out and an imagination that takes him to the most exotic places on Earth. His real name is Graham, but no one calls him that-except maybe his mom. When Wingnut becomes best friends with the boy next door, the neighborhood will never be the same again. The two embark on a series of adventures, dares, mishaps, and close calls, but they always manage to make it out in one piece, more or less. As long as they're home for dinner by the end of the day, life is good. When a group of bullies targets the duo and makes life miserable, it's time to take a stand. The two decide to implement an elaborate plan that will stop the bullying once and for all. But to do it, they'll have to sneak past the old witch who lives in the spooky house on the other side of the road, creep across Old Man Scott's garden, and get the other neighborhood kids to join the fight. One thing is for sure: they're about to show these bullies who's the boss! Full of fun and excitement, Wingnut is a delightful tale that celebrates the magic of childhood.

WINGNUT

Operation PaybackBy LINDSAY BAKER

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2011 Lindsay Baker
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4269-5660-7

Chapter One

Wingnut is a small boy about 10 years old, who lives in the untidy old gray house next to the church at the end of my street. It is the only house on the street with no lawn, garden or driveway. It has a waist-high concrete wall across the front yard and it looks as though neither it, nor the house, has ever been painted in my lifetime.

My brother said that people call him Wingnut because of his big sticky-out ears. I felt kind of sorry for him, but he really does look like one of those threaded nuts that I have on my bike, with the tabs on the side, so that you don't need a wrench to tighten them up. I often see him playing imaginary games by himself out on the street, when I ride my bike home from school. He always wears the same gray cotton shorts that look one size too small, and a dark blue shirt that looks one size too big. I have never seen him wear anything else on his feet, except black rubber gumboots with the tops turned down. I thought that perhaps he doesn't have any other clothes to wear, because he wears the same thing every day, winter and summer. I can't help thinking that his socks must get awfully stinky inside those boots on a hot day.

I have a pair of Gummies like that too; I don't wear them every day but when I do, my socks really stink and they get a kind of stiff and crusty feeling. My brother gets mad when I leave them lying on the floor of the bedroom for a few days, especially when he can catch a whiff of them from his bed.

One day, I put them inside his pillow case, and when he went to bed that night he couldn't figure out where the strange smell was coming from. He kept getting out of bed to search underneath it for cat poop, with his flashlight. Eventually, feeling the lump in his pillow, he ripped them out and dove over to my bed with them clutched in his hand, and vigorously rubbed them all over my face.

I was screaming and yelling, and trying to fight him off, when Mom came storming into the room, grabbed him by the ear, and marched him into the hall for a slap on the bum and a good yelling at. I could hear her screeching at the top of her voice, how she has had just about enough of our stupid pranks. I was thinking that if she has had "just" about enough, that could mean the same as not quite enough, so one or two more practical jokes probably wouldn't hurt. Mom snapped me out of my daydream with a screeching tongue whip, which lashed down upon me as I put my head under the covers and pretended to go to sleep; she didn't appreciate that prank very much, either.

My brother said that he would get me back for getting him in trouble. Since he is four years older than me, I'm sure he will. So I had better be careful for a couple of days.

I saw Wingnut again a couple of days later, as I rode my bike home from school. He was playing by himself as usual, still wearing the same shorts, shirt and gumboots. He was walking along the top of the wall in front of his house, pausing to balance on one leg, while waving his arms about. I thought that he was probably pretending to be a circus tight ropewalker or something. Anyway, there he was, silly little Wingnut, balancing on one leg on top of the wall, having a great time by himself, in his imagination. As I rode by, he caught sight of me from the corner of his eye, turned his head suddenly, and started to frantically windmill his skinny arms in opposite directions; his mouth was open and his eyes were open extra wide, nearly popping out of his head. He teetered there for a few seconds, looking very funny indeed, and then suddenly he just fell off onto the sidewalk. He didn't get up, cry or make a sound; he just lay there thrashing about on the ground. I thought that he should be a circus clown, always fooling about like that.

I just kept peddling my bike down the road. After a minute or so, as I turned into my driveway, I looked back and saw that Wingnut was still lying on the sidewalk. I turned my bike around and rode back to find him lying on his side, curled up in a ball, clutching his leg, and making weird moaning sounds.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

Talking through his clenched teeth he said,

"no my leg really hurts, I think I've got a bruise".

As I tried to help him up, he whimpered some more; I thought that the bruise must be a big one. So I picked him up and carried him to his front door. All the paint had been worn off around the doorknob, and a big patch was worn off at the bottom, where many shoes had kicked it open. So I kicked it in the same spot, trying to make it sound like a knock, as I had my hands full of whimpering Wingnut. My legs were beginning to tremble with the strain; he wasn't a big kid but it seemed that his weight was doubling each second. Finally, Wingnut's big fat mother, with her strange teeth and weird haircut, opened the door. She just gave me a come-inside nod with her head, so I followed her into the house and at the next head nod, I laid Wingnut down on the cluttered couch. Then she made a freaky sound like a seal barking and nodded towards the door; I figured it was definitely time to make a dash for my bike, and peddled home as fast as I could.

My mom is on a diet, so for some reason we all have to be on a diet. I really miss our ordinary food; now we have to eat salad, bean sprouts, and raw vegetables and stuff like that. My dad doesn't like it much either, but he never says anything, he just sits there and eats it. My brother sometimes complains; one day he even left the table, and started cooking himself something else. For the next two weeks he had no dinner served to him at all, he had to make his own dinner every day. Anyway, these diet things never seem to last long. All it takes is for someone to come over for a visit, with a cake or homemade cookies or something, and the diet deal is off.

That night my brother, sister and I listened to our favorite serial on the radio. Mom let us stay up a little later than usual to listen to a new series of stories. The radio was placed in a proud position in our living room, on a shelf above the new record player. We knew of a family a few streets away that had a television set in their living room. We all thought, wow! How fantastic must that be? The new radio serial was a comedy show about a family and several other silly characters. We have been waiting for this series to come on the radio since last year; now that it is finally November 1960, it is here at last. It was a very funny show, and we all laughed from beginning to end. When it was over, Mom presented the three of us a chocolate biscuit each. It was a special treat, as cookies were heavily guarded by the cookie jailer, and were kept stashed away in a secret place. We all knew where they were of course, but we never dared take any without asking, because the punishment for such a terrible crime was dealt out quickly and severely. It was never the same; so depending on the particular mood of the cookie custodian, it could range from a whack on the head, to a brutal yelling at, or perhaps crucifixion on a cross, or even banishment from the universe. So if we actually wanted to play, any time in the rest of our lives, we left the forbidden cookies alone.

We all got washed and ready for bed. Mom herded us all into the bathroom to brush our teeth with salt, which had been lovingly blended with water to create a truly revolting toothpaste. My toothbrush was made of wood. The bristles had been folded in half over little brass tabs and jammed into the little holes in the head of the brush, to hold them in place.

One day when I was half asleep, I was brushing my teeth vigorously, trying to get it over with as soon as possible, when all the little brass tabs decided to fall out.

It took me a second or two to figure out what the heck was happening to me, as my mouth filled with prickly bristles. It felt like I was having one of those terrible nightmares, where you get stuck in thick mud, or have lots of sand in your eyes, or you suddenly find yourself standing in front of your entire class completely naked.

I began to gag, cough and wrestle my tongue around these things, trying to spit them out. It took ages to find the last of the bristles up under my lip, and flick it out with my finger. The neat thing of it all was that the next day I got a new, bright blue, plastic toothbrush, which felt super smooth in my mouth after the old wooden one.

Because of the smelly socks trick, and my brother's pledge to get even, that night I carefully checked to see if the bottom of my pajama legs had been stapled together, or if my sheets had been folded back two feet too short, or if miscellaneous foreign objects had been placed in my pillow or bed. When I was totally convinced that my bed was quite safe and free from booby traps or tricks, I got in between the nice clean, white sheets that had been hung outside on the clothesline in the sun to dry, after my mom had done the laundry. I loved the clean fresh smell and feel of newly washed sheets; it was almost as nice as stuffing my face into a pile of hot linen that Mom had just ironed. I gave my pillow one last security sniff just to make sure, and then fell into a lovely dream-filled sleep.

Sometime in the night, I was dreaming that I was having a pee. I was standing on the top of the stone wall outside Wingnut's house, peeing onto the sidewalk. I was just standing there with my wee wee in my hand, peeing and peeing. Suddenly, I woke with a shock. After a moment or two, I realized that I was soaking wet from head to foot. I thought, "Oh no, I have wet the bed and Mom said that I wouldn't get my allowance if I peed the bed again." She said that I was much too old for that. I thought I was too old for that too, as I hadn't done that for about a year. Perhaps if I got up, stripped the sheets off the bed, got new pajamas, and stuffed all the wet stuff into the washing machine, she wouldn't notice. Feeling that this was a great idea, I got out of bed and started pulling off the sheets. My brother woke and seemed to be quietly snickering to himself. I asked him what he thought was so funny.

"Nothing," he said, and pretended to go back to sleep. Mom heard me moving about, and came into our room in her dressing gown, with huge pink curlers in her hair. I never quite figured out exactly what they were supposed to do, but she seemed to like them, as she wore them nearly every night. She said,

"What on earth are you doing in here in the middle of the night?" Since I was totally caught in the act of stripping off the sheets, I had to confess to peeing in my bed. She sighed, her huge sigh saying that she thought I had passed that stage. As she came over towards my bed in her bare feet, she suddenly stopped, looked down, lifted up her foot and examined the stuff that was stuck to the bottom of it. She said,

"What on earth have you spilled in here now?" I told her that I hadn't spilled anything. But I could see her eyebrows starting to rise, and her overall expression began to take on the stern and ready-to-explode look.

"It's salt! How did you get salt sprinkled all over the floor? I told you, no eating in the bedroom. Why do you always disobey me?"

From the bed on the other side of the room, we both heard a muffled snicker. Mom strode over there in two seconds.

"What do you know about this, mister? And exactly what do you find so funny?"

"Nothing," my brother said. Mom stomped back to my bed, grasped her fingers around the edge of the bottom bed sheet and ripped it off with a flourish, like a magician doing the magic tablecloth trick.

There, under my sheet, was a layer of white, soggy, gooey gunk. My mom touched it, and suddenly spun around on her heel, strode out the door at high speed with her dressing gown flapping behind her in the breeze she created, with the curlers dancing a jig on top her head. My brother suddenly sat up in bed, looking a little worried. The giggling had definitely stopped for some reason, and he didn't seem to think that things were quite so funny anymore.

Mom appeared in the doorway, like a pop-up figure at an amusement park that suddenly jumps up and scares the living daylights out of people. She was clutching an empty saltbox, which was upside down with the lid open.

"Explain this!" she screeched, as she furiously shook the empty box at my brother.

He had sprinkled the entire box of salt under my sheet, spreading it all over the bed in a nice even layer. As I slept, the salt soaked up the moisture from my body and soaked everything, including me. He experienced his very first midnight spanking and was grounded until he grew up, got married and moved out.

Chapter Two

Every day, as I rode home from school, I looked for wee Wingnut as I passed his house. I hadn't seen him for three or four days. We were all sitting at the dinner table eating some ghastly diet mixture Mom had made. It was brown and sloppy with big lumps of soggy stuff floating around in it. Mom asked Dad if he liked his tofu; he took a long sip of his beer and just nodded. My sister said that someone in her class told her that a kid on our street was taken to the hospital with a broken leg a few days ago.

"Wingnut!" I exclaimed.

"Who on earth is Wingnut?" Mom asked. I told her that he is a kid at the end of our street who doesn't have any friends. I told them all how I had seen him fall off the wall, and how I had carried him into his house, and heard the weird barking sound his mother had made.

The next day after school, Mom made us have a wash, change our clothes and get into the car. She told us that we were going to the hospital to visit the mysterious Wingnut.

Ward 3 was where Wingnut was supposed to be, in the children's ward. It seemed to be a long way from the front entrance of the hospital, as we walked down lots of hallways to get there. Mom said that she didn't think that Wingnut had had any visitors at all since he had been in here. Probably not even his mom, brothers or sisters. She also said that she had heard that Wingnut's dad died when Wingnut was only five, and his mom was very poor, and almost never left the house. Mom asked the nurse which bed Graham was in, when we reached the door of ward 3.

"Is his real name Graham?" I asked.

"Yes" she said, "at least that's what Mrs. Smith from across the street told me."

Wingnut was lying on his back on a bed covered with crumpled sheets and small comic books. The comics were all World War II stories, and Wingnut seemed to have plenty of them.

Mom cleared her throat as we approached, which was a very useful sound when she wanted to get someone's attention. Wingnut looked up at all of us standing in a row, at the side of his bed. He recognized me,

"Hi! Did you all come here to see me?" he asked. "Yes," we all chimed, simultaneously. His eyes lit up, and a huge smiley grin began to grow from the center of his face and spread out towards each side, forcing his ears to move up and back at the same time. His right leg was in a huge plaster cast, from his toes to his hip, and it was hoisted up at a steep angle by a pulley attached to a frame on his bed.

He had a bed sheet covering his left leg, pulled up to his chest. The plastered right leg was brilliant white, brand new plaster. My sister said,

"Can we sign your cast?" Wingnut smiled that expanding smile again and said, "Sure; I have a pen right here."

As he twisted himself around to reach the pen on his bedside table, the bed sheet moved with him, and my sister, who had moved closer to the bed to do the signing, suddenly jumped back a little, as Wingnut's little pee pee peaked out from under the sheet as it moved. She started to giggle and point.

Soon we all realized what was so funny, and we all began giggling loudly also.

Wingnut looked at us all, grinned, pulled the sheet back over himself and said,

"Oh! That happens sometimes, because I don't have any one legged pajamas." At that, we all laughed like mad, and took turns signing the smooth white plaster cast.

When we got home that night, we had all been forbidden to play any tricks or pull any pranks on each other, especially at bedtime; so it was actually quite nice to get into my bed without having to check it over for booby traps.

I visited Wingnut several more times while he was in hospital. Mom had a friend in the women's ward that she visited at the same time. I hated to go with her, as there was absolutely nothing for me to do there while Mom sat and nattered with this lady that I didn't even know. I could never figure out what on earth they were talking about, and I certainly couldn't figure out why it took so terribly long to say it. I was always so bored just sitting in a chair while Mom and the lady talked and talked and talked.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from WINGNUTby LINDSAY BAKER Copyright © 2011 by Lindsay Baker. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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