Fay LaFarge rolled quietly out of bed and held her breath so she would be skinny enough to squeeze past the bedroom door without making it creak. There was a new, crisp, completely unopened box of Cinnamon Rogers cereal in the kitchen, and she wanted the prize in the package. If she woke up Skipper, […]
Archive > July 2009
Chapter 2
Things were looking ugly at the Crunch & Barley Breakfast Factory as Lyle LaFarge attempted to slip into his flavor design laboratory quietly and unnoticed. Instead, he slipped quietly and accidentally into the Board of Directors who were having a heated discussion in the corridor. “Our stockholders are cranky!” screamed Mrs. Pink, ferociously squeezing a […]
Chapter 3
Fay headed for school, late as usual, not feeling at all sure what good it might do her to have a cereal box coin in her pocket, but she was certain it must mean good luck. So she was surprised when her teacher, Miss Parsnip, announced that tomorrow’s field trip to the Briny Harbor Aquarium […]
Chapter 1
There were plenty of things which Ari Soffit could ignore. Sometimes he could ignore Flossie Beemis, casting dopey, dewy gazes at him over her maracas during music class. Usually he could ignore Jimmy Jasper, humming off-key, behind him in math. But he couldn’t ignore Finbar Fenker. Not anymore. Not after Finbar had spent all of […]
Chapter 4
Field trip days were special, and Miss Parsnip always looked ready to lead an army into battle. Today she was dressed in khaki from head to toe, and the pockets in her mesh vest overflowed with tissues, cough drops, and other important provisions. “Boys and girls,” began Miss Parsnip enthusiastically, “As you know Crunch & […]
Chapter 2
Ari’s first day back at school wasn’t as bad as he’d been afraid it might be. Finbar Fenker smirked at him, and even snorted a little. Ari shrugged, but didn’t feel like he needed to count to ten. Luckily, at square dancing time, Mrs. Kirkle assigned partners and Ari only had to touch Flossie Beemis […]
Chapter 5
Mrs. Pink took her job as chairperson of the Crunch & Barley Board of Directors very seriously. If anything fishy was happening at the factory, she would sniff it out. Sniffing was the thing she did best. And today, Mrs. Pink had sniffed out a whopper. Her fishiest fish yet. “What?” demanded Mr. Green, stomping […]
Chapter 1
“SPLUT!” went an enormous glob of mud against the window of Mr. Hollerbuck’s Industrial Arts classroom. Mabel Crockett winced at the sudden squeal of chairs scraping the floor as almost every child at Willibunk Middle School scrambled for a view out of a classroom window. “Sweeeeet!” cried a boy next to Mabel, as the wind […]
Chapter 3
Soffit’s Deli sat halfway up Spoke Street from the harbor, snugly squeezed between DiRosa Savings and Loan and Granny Frappler’s Antiques. Granny Frappler’s frizzy gray hair was, as usual, hastily braided into two frizzy gray braids and she was seated in her usual rocker by the front door as Ari passed, squinting intently at a […]
Chapter 2
The river’s latest outburst was merely a hiccup in duration, and the sky remained clear; the air calm. Mabel and Van passed the gray church, beyond which were several houses on either side of River Street, and beyond the houses the road ended abruptly in a small roundabout. Directly in front of Mabel and Van, […]
Chapter 6
After an orderly march from Elbow Harbor Elementary, down Elbow Street, with a sharp right turn on Cargo Point Road, Miss Parsnip came to a halt in front of the Main entrance to the Crunch & Barley Breakfast Factory and blew several blasts on her sailor’s whistle. “Ahoy!” she said. “Are all my groups on […]
Chapter 7
Fay glanced around the shiny industrial hallways of Crunch & Barley and felt a meager glimmer of hope. Visiting the cereal factory had to be the most tedious field trip she could think of, especially in Barnaby Hootsman’s group, but with the notorious Mr. Arg leading the tour…maybe, just maybe it would be better than […]
Chapter 4
That night in bed, in his small room above the deli, Ari had a terrifying dream. He was getting married to Flossie Beemis, who gazed at him all dewy-eyed from behind a dangling veil of spaghetti noodles, while Arden Feeny read the vows from an enormous dictionary and Finbar Fenker cackled insanely from the choir […]
BEA AND THE SMART KIDS
BREAKFAST OF SCALLYWAGS
HUNTING THE ROSE
THE LEGEND OF LOGJAM