Slappy Birthday to You Read online

  “Stop bouncing me so hard,” the dummy rasped. “I can bite, you know.”

  The morning sun was still red and low in the sky. The grass was still wet from the early morning dew. They cut through their neighbor’s yard and crossed the street.

  “Ian is going to be surprised,” Jonny murmured.

  “Ian is surprised that he has ten fingers!” Slappy chimed in.

  That made the two boys laugh.

  “I like it when you pick on Ian instead of us,” Vinny said.

  “You two are beneath me,” Slappy said. “You’re a waste of my time. You’re so dumb, you both stay up all night studying how to pick your nose!”

  “Give us a break,” Vinny muttered.

  They ducked low behind a tall hedge and made their way along a narrow alley.

  “Jonny,” Slappy said. “Do you know what you get when you put your brain into a dog’s head? A really stupid dog. Hahahaha!”

  “Not funny,” Jonny said.

  “Not as funny as your face,” Slappy replied. “Is your face hurting you?”

  “No,” Jonny said.

  “Well, it’s KILLING me! Hahahaha!”

  They followed the alley to the end of the block. Hanging over Vinny’s shoulder, Slappy’s head bounced heavily against Vinny’s back. Vinny held on to the dummy’s legs with both hands.

  Suddenly, the dummy pulled back one heavy shoe—and kicked Vinny hard in the stomach.

  “Ohhh.” Vinny groaned and doubled over. “Hey—what was that for?” he demanded.

  “For fun!” Slappy replied. “I like to get my kicks! Hahahaha!”

  Slappy turned to Jonny. “Try to keep up. Do you take stumbling lessons after school?”

  Jonny mumbled something under his breath.

  “Know what would help you be smarter?” Slappy asked him.

  “No,” Jonny said.

  “I don’t know, either! Hahaha!”

  Vinny turned to his brother. “I wish we’d never kidnapped this jerk.” They started to walk again. They waited for two SUVs to roll past, then crossed the street onto Ian’s block.

  The Barkers’ red-brick house stood in the middle of the block, shaded by two leafy maple trees. Molly’s silver scooter lay on its side near the driveway, gleaming under the morning sun.

  “Boys, can you wave bye-bye?” Slappy said.

  “Huh? What do you mean?” Vinny demanded.

  “Bye-bye.” Slappy gave Vinny another hard kick in the pit of his stomach.

  Vinny gasped as pain shot through his body.

  As he tried to catch his breath, Slappy slid off his shoulder. His heavy leather shoes hit the ground with a thud. And the dummy took off, running loose-legged but full speed across the corner yard.

  “Bye-bye, dudes! Bye-bye!”

  “Stop him!” Vinny groaned, still holding his throbbing stomach.

  Jonny watched the dummy cross a driveway and continue his staggering run into the next yard. “Let him go. He’s dangerous.”

  “No!” Vinny cried. He straightened up, took a few breaths, and started to chase after the dummy. He motioned with both hands for Jonny to follow him.

  “We don’t want Ian to know we stole him,” Vinny explained. “If they find out we broke into their house last night and kidnapped the stupid dummy, we’ll be in major trouble. We’ll be doomed!”

  Jonny realized his brother was right. He lowered his head and ran beside him, their shoes pounding the grass.

  The dummy couldn’t run fast. His legs were light and rubbery, and his big shoes were heavy. He ran awkwardly, like a newborn colt first testing how to trot.

  Vinny raced up behind Slappy. He wrapped his arms around Slappy’s waist and tackled him to the ground. Slappy’s head hit the ground hard. Vinny landed on top of the dummy and pushed his face into the wet grass.

  He grabbed both of the dummy’s arms and twisted them behind his back. “Give?” Vinny demanded breathlessly. “Do you give up?”

  Slappy spun his head around until it was completely backward. Then he raised his head—and bit Vinny hard on the nose.

  Vinny screamed in pain and rolled off the dummy. He smoothed a hand over his nose, trying to wipe away the pain.

  Slappy, his head backward, grinned up at him. But the dummy made no attempt to escape.

  “Why did you do that?” Jonny demanded. He leaned over the dummy, hands on his knees. Ready to grab him if he tried to jump up and run away again. “Why did you run away from us?”

  “Uh … let me think … because I don’t like you?” Slappy replied. The dummy snickered. “Actually, I thought you two slaves needed some exercise. It’s not good that your stomach comes into a room before you do! Hahaha!”

  “No more jokes,” Vinny said. “We’re taking you to Ian. What more do you want?”

  “I want to get to that sheet of paper first,” Slappy said. “That’s why I took off. Now let’s get to business, slaves.”

  Vinny grabbed Slappy off the ground and swung the dummy back over his shoulder. “Ian can be your slave,” he muttered.

  “You’re ALL going to be my slaves!” Slappy screamed angrily. “You wouldn’t want me to get another nosebleed all over you—would you?”

  Vinny shuddered. Once again, he pictured the smelly, hot glop that covered him and his brother, burning their skin and making their stomachs heave.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Jonny and I will look for that paper.”

  They stood in the neighbors’ front yard, gazing at Ian’s house. Sunlight filled the windows. They couldn’t see inside.

  “We’ve got one problem,” Jonny said. “We don’t want them to see us, right? We don’t want them to know we’re the ones who stole this creep.”

  Slappy, slumped over Vinny’s shoulder, swung an arm and hit Jonny in the face with his wooden hand. “Be polite. Don’t call names, you moron.”

  “We could dump him on the front stoop and run,” Vinny said.

  “No. Not good,” Jonny replied. “Someone in the living room might see us.”

  They both stared at the house.

  “Don’t strain your brains, boys,” Slappy said. “Thinking is MAN’S work! And since you’ve never tried it before …”

  “I have an idea,” Vinny said.

  “Let’s dump him in the garage and run,” Vinny said.

  They both turned their gaze to the square white garage at the back of the house. The garage door was closed, but they both knew Mr. Barker never locked it. Vinny gazed up and down the driveway. It was empty.

  Did that mean the Barkers weren’t home? Or was their car in the garage?

  It didn’t matter. This was the perfect place to hide Slappy and not be seen, Vinny decided.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Jonny told his brother.

  “Sounds like a lamebrain plan,” Slappy chimed in.

  The boys ignored the dummy. They crept along the side of the neighbor’s yard, hunkering low behind a row of evergreen shrubs. Then they burst across the Barkers’ driveway to the wide, white garage door.

  Jonny grabbed the handle in the center of the door and began to pull it up. The door slid up easily. Halfway up, they could see Mr. Barker’s blue Camry parked inside.

  Vinny heard a sound and spun around. Had the kitchen door opened?

  No. It must have been a tree branch creaking.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, he ducked his head and carried the dummy into the garage.

  Jonny followed him in. “Hurry,” he whispered. “I hear music in the house. They’re definitely home.”

  Vinny gazed around the garage. Shelves on the two side walls held tools and folded-up lawn furniture … bags of fertilizer and garden soil. A power mower stood against the back wall. A green garden hose was rolled up beside it.

  “Here. This will work,” Vinny said. He sat Slappy down on the trunk of the car and propped him against its rear window.

  “I don’t like this,” Slappy said, shaking his head from side to side. “Sorry, slaves. I do
n’t like this at all.”

  “Too bad,” Vinny said. He gave Jonny a gentle push. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Know what I do when I don’t like something?” the dummy rasped. “Watch.”

  Slappy raised both hands in the air—and the garage door came slamming down.

  “Hey!” Jonny uttered a startled cry. He and Vinny, inches away from the door, jumped back.

  Jonny grabbed the inner door handle and tugged. The door wouldn’t move. He tugged again. Then he turned to Slappy. “Let us out!”

  Slappy tossed back his head and laughed his shrill, maniacal laughter. He raised his hands again and moved them up and down like an orchestra conductor.

  Both boys ducked as garden tools came flying off the shelves. Steel hedge clippers sailed inches over Vinny’s head and bounced off the side of the car.

  “Whoa! Wait! Stop!” Vinny cried.

  Slappy raised his hands. The garden hose unwound itself and began to spray a stream of water around the garage. The car horn began to honk. The power mower roared to life.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Vinny screamed.

  Jonny strained and struggled with the garage door handle. But he couldn’t get the door to slide up. A cold stream of water from the garden hose hit him in the back and made him scream.

  The shelves on both walls were empty now. The tools had all come flying out. The heavy bags of soil and fertilizer slapped the hood of the car and slid to the garage floor.

  Slappy waved his arms, conducting the horrible mess, grinning gleefully.

  The horn honked and honked.

  “Stop! Slappy—stop it!” Vinny pleaded.

  And over the splash of the water, the roar of the power mower, and the pounding blare of the horn, both boys heard a shout—from outside the garage.

  “Hey—what’s going on in there?”

  Mr. Barker.

  Jonny turned to his brother. “We’re in trouble,” he said.

  Slappy lowered his hands. His head drooped forward and he collapsed onto the Camry’s trunk. The garden hose swooped to the floor. The mower and the car horn became silent.

  A hush fell over the garage.

  The two boys, drenched and shaking, watched in the sudden stillness as the garage door raised itself. Mr. Barker stood in a gray sweatsuit. He peered into the garage, and his eyes went wide with shock when he saw the chaos and damage.

  “What on earth!” he cried.

  “We didn’t do it!” Vinny shouted.

  “I—I don’t believe this,” Mr. Barker stammered. “Everything on the garage floor? Everything? It—it’s all soaked!”

  “I swear we didn’t do it!” Vinny insisted.

  Mr. Barker kept blinking and squinting. His face had turned bright red. He shook his head. “No … this is impossible.”

  “It wasn’t us,” Jonny said. “Vinny is telling the truth.”

  Mr. Barker turned to him, as if seeing him for the first time. He squinted from Vinny to Jonny, trying to focus.

  “You two?” He finally managed to speak. “What are you doing in here? Why are you in the garage?”

  “It’s kind of a long story,” Vinny said.

  “We didn’t do this. Seriously,” Jonny repeated. “The dummy did it. We were returning it and … and it went crazy.”

  Mr. Barker turned to the car. He saw Slappy folded up on the trunk, his head down between his legs.

  He gazed silently at the lifeless dummy for a long moment. “Guys, you’re in a lot of trouble,” he said finally. “We need to get your parents and have a very long talk. Look at my garage. Look at the incredible mess you made.”

  “But—” Vinny started.

  Mr. Barker raised a hand, motioning for him to be quiet. “I hope you two can explain why you did this,” he said, shaking his head again. “But I have a feeling you can’t.”

  All three of them turned to the open door as Ian came running into the garage. “Hey—you found Slappy!” he cried. “Where was he?”

  “Your cousins took him,” Mr. Barker said, speaking softly. “He didn’t walk out on his own after all.”

  Ian gazed from Jonny to Vinny. “You took him?”

  Vinny nodded. “It was … kind of a joke.”

  “The damage to my garage isn’t a joke,” Ian’s dad said. “Sneaking into our house late at night and stealing something that belongs to Ian isn’t a joke, either.”

  “It was just a prank,” Jonny said. “We didn’t mean any harm.”

  “You’ve done a lot of harm,” Mr. Barker told him.

  “But it was the dummy—” Vinny started.

  Mr. Barker pointed to the dummy, still and lifeless, sprawled facedown on the car trunk. “You need a better story, guys. That one isn’t going to work.”

  Mr. Barker stepped forward and lifted Slappy off the car.

  “So, you see, Ian?” his father said. “You can relax now. It was your cousins. They took the dummy. The dummy isn’t alive. Slappy is completely harmless.”

  Ian didn’t reply. He knew the truth about Slappy. He knew his father was wrong.

  All four of them left the garage and strode across the driveway toward the kitchen door. Ian was the only one who saw Slappy tilt his head and mischievously wink one eye.

  It wasn’t a happy morning in the Barker house. Mr. Barker had to call Jonny and Vinny’s parents and tell them what their sons had done. They all had a long talk.

  The Hardings agreed that the two boys would be grounded for a month. Jonny and Vinny had to promise to clean up the garage and make sure everything was put back where it belonged.

  “And you have to stop telling dumb stories about Ian’s ventriloquist dummy,” Mrs. Harding added.

  Jonny and Vinny grumbled to themselves. “Why doesn’t anyone believe us?” Jonny asked.

  “Because you’re liars?” Molly said.

  Mr. Barker backed the car down the driveway to make it easier for the two boys to clean the garage. Jonny and Vinny worked for an hour. They piled the garden tools back onto the shelves. They rolled up the garden hose and slid it back onto its holder. They worked for the rest of the morning. But there was still lots to do.

  While the boys worked, Ian brought Slappy up to the attic. He locked him in a trunk and made sure the lock was tight.

  They all had lunch together. Then Mr. Barker disappeared downstairs to his doll workshop to do some work.

  The four kids stayed at the lunch table, having chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Molly sat at the head of the table, hugging Abigail to her chest. Vinny pointed at her half-eaten cookie. “Do you want the rest of that?”

  Molly swiped the cookie out of his reach. “Of course. You’re not getting it, Fat Face.”

  Vinny sighed. “Listen, can we have a truce? Seriously.”

  Molly eyed him suspiciously. “A truce? Do you even know what that word means?”

  Vinny nodded. He lowered his voice. “The four of us have to stick together. We have to stop fighting all the time.”

  Jonny leaned over the table. His usual grin had disappeared. His face was pale and serious. “Listen to Vinny,” he whispered.

  “Your dad is wrong,” Vinny said. “He’s totally wrong about the dummy.”

  Ian squinted at him. He knew Vinny was right.

  “You know as well as I do that Slappy is alive,” Vinny said in a voice just above a whisper. “He messed up your garage. Jonny and I aren’t that stupid. Why would we want to get ourselves in trouble? We didn’t.”

  Molly laughed. “Are you trying to scare us?”

  “You should be scared,” Jonny told her. “Slappy is alive, and he’s dangerous.”

  “I know you’re telling the truth,” Ian said finally. “At the talent show, Slappy said all those rude, horrible insults to everyone. I didn’t. I didn’t have any control over him. He … he was alive.”

  Molly hugged Abigail a little tighter. “If it’s true that the dummy is alive, what are we supposed to do about it? Just leave him locked up i
n the trunk?”

  “Maybe we should cut him in half or something,” Ian said.

  “No. No way,” Jonny answered quickly. “He … he has powers. He can hurt you. He slimed Vinny and me. He burned us really bad.”

  “And you saw what he did in the garage,” his brother added.

  “So how can we be safe?” Ian asked, his voice just above a whisper.

  Vinny tapped the tabletop tensely. “He told us what to do. He told us how to put him back to sleep.”

  “Huh?” Ian’s mouth dropped open in surprise.

  “He ordered us to find that slip of paper,” Vinny said. “The one with the weird words on it.”

  “He doesn’t want anyone to read those words out loud again,” Jonny added. “Because that will put him back to sleep.”

  “And he wants to stay awake forever,” Vinny whispered. “So he can make us all his slaves.”

  “Where is that paper?” Molly asked. “We had it down in Dad’s workshop. Did you take it, Ian?”

  Ian wrinkled up his face. “I don’t remember.” He shut his eyes, thinking hard.

  “Maybe you left it downstairs,” Vinny suggested.

  Ian nodded. “Yes. Maybe I left it on Dad’s worktable.”

  Vinny shoved his chair back, scraping the kitchen floor loudly. “Come on. Hurry, Ian. Let’s go look for the paper.”

  Ian led the three others down the stairs to his dad’s doll hospital.

  Under a bright light, Mr. Barker leaned over a doll on his worktable. He had one hand pressed down on the doll. His other hand held a glue gun.

  He turned in surprise when the four kids marched up to him. “Hey—what do you want?” He glanced at Molly. “Is Abigail broken again?”

  She shook her head no.

  Ian saw the sheet of paper immediately, on the corner of the worktable. “We need that paper,” he told his dad. He made a grab for it.

  To his surprise, another hand came from behind and grabbed for it, too.

  Ian gasped and stared at Slappy. The grinning dummy pushed his way to the worktable. His glassy eyes were on the paper in Ian’s hand.

  “How—how did you get down here?” Ian stammered.

  “Never mind!” Vinny shouted. “We have to read the words.”