Minn and Jake's Almost Terrible Summer Read online

  Hey, everybody! Soup shouts.

  Look! Ice cream!

  A red-faced,

  red-haired man

  in a striped red shirt shouts,

  Welcome

  to the Second Annual

  Frojjen Moudde

  Ice Cream Eating Contest!

  Our competitors today

  will try to beat last year’s record

  of 32 ice cream cones in ten minutes,

  set by our defending champion,

  Wanda the Wonder Eater!

  Kids, don’t try this at home!

  We don’t want you

  to freeze your mouths

  and bite your tongues off

  and choke and die

  and sue us for millions of dollars,

  now do we?

  Yes-we-DO! Soup shouts.

  Can I be in the contest?

  A skinny woman on Rollerblades,

  her arms and legs covered with tattoos, shouts,

  Hey, this kid wants to be in the contest!

  The red man explains

  how he’s hoping to make this contest

  an official event next year.

  The International Federation of Competitive Eating,

  the IFOCE, says that no one

  under the age of eighteen

  can compete—

  The crowd boos.

  The skinny woman starts a chant.

  The crowd joins in:

  Let him eat!

  Let him compete!

  Rules are rules, the red man tells the crowd.

  The skinny woman skates away.

  The crowd starts to break up and leave.

  A woman dressed in a bright yellow

  Frojjen Moudde suit

  whispers into the red man’s ear.

  Wait a minute, everybody!

  Come on up, son!

  Even though you can’t officially compete,

  we’re going to let you eat as much

  Frojjen Moudde ice cream as you want—

  while our professional eaters

  are doing their jobs!

  The three competitors are introduced.

  Gerry the UPS Man

  looks like a summer version of Santa Claus.

  He raises his arms high in the air

  when he is introduced,

  stands on tiptoes like a ballerina,

  and bows. The crowd hoots and cheers.

  The next competitor is Muumuu LuLu,

  a woman with a tiny pretty face

  swallowed up in folds of fat.

  Minn wonders how Muumuu Lulu

  can open her tiny mouth wide enough

  to fit gallons of ice cream.

  Clearly, though, Muumuu LuLu

  has somehow managed

  in the past

  to do her fair share of eating.

  The last competitor

  is Wanda the Wonder Eater,

  a quiet and skinny Asian woman.

  The crowd claps politely for Wanda,

  but Wanda does not seem to hear them.

  She must be in a trance, meditating on the cones.

  She’s gonna lose, Minn says.

  She’s so skinny.

  My halmoni is skinny, Jake says,

  and you have no idea how much she eats.

  Besides, didn’t Wanda win last year?

  Soup then introduces himself

  as Soup the Super Eater!

  The crowd erupts

  with cheers and whistles

  when he does a mini Gerry-Ballerina twirl.

  Are you ready?

  YES! the crowd shouts.

  Gerry the Hippo Ballerina

  jumps out to an early lead.

  At the five-minute mark,

  he is ahead with 20 cones.

  His “bite-chew-swallow” technique

  looks hard to beat—

  but his nose is running

  and his face is turning purple.

  Muumuu LuLu’s small mouth

  does not seem to be a problem.

  She is in second place.

  Her eyes are watering, though,

  and she keeps shivering,

  which makes her look

  like she’s trying to do the hula

  sitting down.

  Both Gerry and LuLu have nearly quit

  while Wanda is catching up,

  slow and steady,

  eating with no breaks,

  no heavy breathing,

  no lip-slapping,

  no shivers or sighs.

  At the five-minute mark,

  Wanda has only 16 cones,

  but she shows no signs of slowing down.

  Jake is glad that Soup is not competing.

  Soup is an embarrassment:

  he is licking his ice cream cones,

  biting, chewing,

  standing up,

  sitting down,

  standing up, walking around,

  licking, slurping,

  biting some more,

  and even occasionally shoving a whole scoop

  in his mouth with his fingers.

  At the five-minute mark,

  he has eaten only 10 cones.

  At the eight-minute mark, though,

  while Gerry and LuLu have practically quit,

  Soup is still eating strong.

  He is almost keeping pace with Wanda

  cone-for-cone,

  a mini-clone

  of The Eating Machine herself.

  The crowd has tripled in size.

  A teenage girl with purple hair

  and a purple bikini yells,

  Go Super-boy!

  A man selling sunglasses shouts,

  Watch that kid!

  Can you believe it?

  That kid can eat!

  Minn starts chanting,

  Soup! Soup! Soup! Soup!

  The crowd joins in.

  When the buzzer sounds,

  Jake thrusts his arms up in victory.

  That’s my brother! Soup!

  That’s my brother! YESSSS!

  No one cares that Wanda the Wonder Eater

  has broken her record with 33 cones

  in ten minutes.

  All eyes are on the frozen smile

  of Soup the Super Eater,

  unofficially in fourth and last place,

  but pound-for-pound

  the undisputed winner:

  Gerry the UPS Man: 28 ice cream cones

  Muumuu LuLu: 26 ice cream cones

  Wanda the Wonder Eater: 33 ice cream cones

  Soup the Super Eater: 23 ice cream cones

  Great job, Soup! Minn says,

  covering Soup’s frozen face

  with kisses.

  I have a stomachache, Soup says.

  He runs to the bathroom tent,

  holding his stomach.

  Jake runs after him.

  Five minutes pass.

  You didn’t fall in the hole, did you?

  Jake says to the Porta-Potty door.

  Soup groans.

  Another five minutes later,

  Soup comes out smiling.

  OK now? Jake asks.

  Soup gives the thumbs-up sign.

  Minn says, I’m hungry

  from watching all that eating.

  Who wants a hot dog?

  Soup raises his hand

  and jumps up and down, shouting,

  I do! I do! And can I have a churro, too?

  8 / Halmoni’s Spending Sprees

  Halmoni is not rich,

  but she loves to spend money

  on Jake and Soup,

  which Jake and Soup love—

  except that their parents always scold them

  for letting Halmoni buy too much.

  Halmoni is itching to buy something today,

  and with Jake’s mother gone

  to visit her friends,

  and Minn spending the rest of the day

  with her father,

  and Soup’s eating feat to celebrate,

  it’s the perfect time to do it.

  Halmoni, Jake, and Soup plan their day.

  First stop: GameStop.

  Soup says,

  Misha gave me a GameStop card yesterday.

  Mommy has it in her purse.

  I’ll tell her to bring it to me.

  Let’s call her, Jake!

  No, no! Jake says.

  You can’t tell Mom about any of this!

  Halmoni nods vigorously,

  her eyes darting around like a criminal.

  She and Jake exchange sly glances

  and hand signals.

  Jake wants to look at the used games.

  Not because

  Jake wants to buy used games,

  but because

  he wants to know what’s available

  and how much things cost,

  so he can trade his used games.

  Barter can be big business.

  Last summer

  Jake traded a Sony PSP game

  for a brand-new bike.

  It went like this:

  1. Jake traded

  a Sony PSP game (Lumines)

  to Mariela

  for an Anchorman DVD;

  2. Jake then traded

  Anchorman

  to his cousin Colin

  for a huge tae kwon do trophy

  that Colin was using as a hat rack;

  3. Next Jake traded

  the tae kwon do trophy

  to Jeremy (Haylee Hirata’s brother)

  for an autographed baseball

  that Jeremy’s grandfather had given him.

  Jeremy made the trade

  because he had no idea

  who the baseball player was,

  and he was sick of

  hearing his parents bragging

  about Haylee’s tae kwon do trophies;

  4. Finally Jake traded

  the Pete Rose autographed baseball

  to Jake’s father’s best friend

  and got a brand new Diamondback mountain bike,

  with a free water bottle thrown in.

  So Jake is doing research at GameStop,

  checking out the competition:

  Zero copies of Star Wars Battlefront II.

  Zero copies of Halo.

  Zero copies of Halo 2.

  This would make it a very easy sell

  or trade (for Jake),

  if he were willing

  to part with any of those games.

  But he’s not.

  And unfortunately

  there are three copies of Gladius

  and six copies of Sneakers,

  the two games

  that Jake was hoping to trade this week.

  Too much supply.

  Next stop: Best Buy.

  The games that Jake and Soup want

  aren’t any cheaper there

  than they were (new) at GameStop.

  But Jake’s mother

  will raise her eyebrows

  over a GameStop bag.

  And she won’t care much

  about a Best Buy bag—

  especially

  if Jake also happens to buy blank CDs.

  Jake’s mother doesn’t need to know

  that in addition to blank CDs—

  they bought three video games, too.

  Looking at all the video games,

  it hits Jake:

  somebody came up with the ideas

  for each of these video games.

  People: why not him?

  An idea for a video game

  pops into Jake’s head,

  and he scribbles it quickly

  in the little notebook he keeps in his pocket,

  afraid that the idea will disappear.

  This might be the game

  that turns Jake

  from a sitting-on-the-couch amateur gamer

  into a professional video game developer,

  from a regular kid

  into—a millionaire!

  Jake writes:

  Stuff It!

  Object of game:

  stuff your face with the most food

  Setting: an eating contest

  Characters:

  a multi-player first-person eating game;

  look at a line-up of eaters

  and choose who you want to be

  Special effects:

  an aroma-maker console attachment

  shoots out puffs of food smells

  (chocolate, pizza, peaches, burgers, popcorn)

  Levels:

  advance to a different level

  with each ten pounds of food you eat

  Level One:

  something easy to eat

  (easy to grab with the controls),

  such as hamburgers

  Level Two:

  something harder to eat

  (harder to grab with the controls

  and harder to eat in real life),

  such as broccoli

  Level Three:

  something really hard to eat,

  like worms

  When you eat (grab/shoot/whatever)

  a pound of food, you earn points.

  Bacteria are trying to sneak into your food.

  You need to shoot them down.

  Salmonella = 5 points

  E. coli = 10 points

  When you accidentally eat contaminated food, you vomit (and lose points and eventually can die).

  ∼

  Maybe Soup isn’t so bad, after all,

  Jake is thinking.

  If Soup hadn’t entered the eating contest,

  Jake never would have come up with this idea,

  and then Jake wouldn’t become

  a millionaire (next year) at age eleven.

  Jake is waiting for Soup and Halmoni

  to come back from the bathroom.

  He is sitting on the edge

  of the mall’s large reflecting pool,

  estimating the coins at the bottom,

  when he starts wondering

  how he will spend his first million.

  Jake is scribbling:

  Aston Martin (a James Bond car)?

  boat?

  private airpla

  when Soup ambushes him from behind,

  causing Jake’s notebook

  to go flying—

  straight into the water!

  Soup! Jake screams.

  But before Jake can say YOU STUPID ID—

  Soup jumps in after the notebook,

  grabs it, holds it high in the air,

  and shouts,

  Soup to the rescue!

  9 / The Happiest Place on Earth

  The next day, 10:15 a.m.:

  Minn’s father gets in line

  for tickets at Disneyland.

  Halmoni fights

  over who gets to pay.

  She stuffs three

  one hundred dollar bills

  in his pocket.

  10:20 a.m.: Minn’s father finds the bills

  and passes them

  behind his back

  to Minn’s mother,

  who stuffs them

  in Halmoni’s huge overstuffed purse

  when she is not looking.

  10:30 a.m.: Soup wants to go

  on Small World first

  and Teacups next.

  Jake wants to go

  on Indiana Jones.

  Minn wants to go

  on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

  Minn’s father mentions

  that the Haunted Mansion,

  his favorite ride ever since

  his own summer

  between fifth and sixth grade,

  thirty years ago,

  will have a shorter line.

  Minn’s mother wants to go

  to the California Adventure side

  and ride Soarin’ Over California.

  They argue.

  10:40 a.m.: They are still arguing.

  Minn grimaces.

  10:45 a.m.: Minn’s mother says,

  Stop making that face.

  We’re not arguing, honey—

  aren’t we allowed to TALK?

  Jake suggests that they split up.

  You three go your way.

  Soup and Halmoni can go

  to Small World,

  and I’ll go on Indiana Jones.

  We’ll meet up at one o’clock.

  Minn mutters,

  And why

  did we bother coming here

  together?

  Jake points out

  they should’ve decided this in the car.

  And why

  didn’t we decide this in the car?

  Was somebody

  too busy reading her REPTILE book?

  11:15 a.m.: They get in line

  at Pirates. Halmoni was walking

  like a tortoise today,

  stopping every hundred feet

  to pound her aching leg.

  It took half an hour

  to walk from the park entrance

  to Pirates of the Caribbean.

  Jake has convinced Soup

  that he should save the best for last.

  Going on Pirates first

  is like spinach salad at dinner,

  and going on Indiana Jones next

  is like spaghetti and meatballs

  (a much better part of the meal),

  and going on Small World and Teacups

  at the very end

  is just like a double dessert:

  ice cream and pie!

  ∼

  11:45 a.m.: Pirates of the Caribbean

  has one of the longest

  and slowest-moving lines

  of any ride in the whole park.

  The line is moving

  about six inches a minute.

  This would not be bad

  if the line were six feet long,

  but the thick clumpy line

  (three or four children across at some points)

  is winding around the chain barriers,

  up and down and side to side

  for at least six hundred feet,

  as far as the eye can see.

  If people were coins

  at the bottom of a fountain,

  Jake figures there would be at least

  2,000 copper pennies,

  500 nickels,

  and 300 quarters

  in front of him.

  Noon: Three boys

  push their way past.

  Our mom is up there,

  the biggest boy says.

  Jake follows them with his eyes.

  They stop about four rows up,

  tapping the shoulder

  of the woman in front of them.

  They are acting friendly

  toward her,

  as if she is their mother.

  But she is not acting friendly

  toward them.

  They do not look like family.

  Jake points this out to Minn.

  Minn snaps,

  You and Soup

  don’t look exactly like Halmoni, either,

  do you?

  Just as they are about to turn a corner

  into a different waiting room,

  Soup spies a family