9 Ch9-Slinking Around

Chapter 9 Slinking Around The horrible sound got louder and louder! It got deeper and deeper. I thought I was gonna die. Finally, I climbed out of my sleeping bag to see what was making all that noise. It was Mr. Docker and Mr. Macky! They were snoring! I thought I was in the middle of a herd of hippos! Man, what is the problem with grown-ups? Kids don't snore like that. It must have something to do with the hair growing out of their noses. I hope I never grow up to be a grown-up.

"Pssssst! A.J.!" Michael whispered. "Are you up?" "Yeah!" "I can't sleep with all this snoring," Michael said. "Me neither." That's when I got the greatest idea in the history of the world. "Hey," I said. "You wanna go get candy?" "Do you have any money?" Michael asked. "No. Do you?" "No." Bummer in the summer! I really wanted candy. "Let's go get a drink from the water fountain," Michael whispered. "Okay!" I stepped over a few kids in sleeping bags, and then my foot bumped into something hard. "Owwww!" somebody yelled. "You kicked me in the head, Arlo!" Ugh, it was Andrea! "SOR-reeee!" I said. Whenever you have to say you're sorry to someone but you don't really feel sorry, just say "SOR-reeee." Because "SOR-reeee" is the opposite of "sorry." When you say "SOR-reeee," it means you're not sorry at all. But nobody can punish you, because at least you did say you were sorry. So it's a win-win! That's the first rule of being a kid.

"Do you have any money?" Michael asked Andrea. "Of course," she replied. "My mother gave me a ten-dollar bill to buy something educational at the gift shop." Everything Andrea does is educational. When she blows her nose, she probably writes an essay about boogers for extra credit. "Can we borrow some of your money?" I asked. "We wanna get candy." "Only if I can get some, too," she replied. I didn't want Andrea coming with us to the candy machine, but I did want candy. "Okay," I said. "I have money too," a voice whispered. "I want to come." Oh, man! It was that crybaby Emily. This thing was turning into a party. The four of us grabbed our flashlights and tiptoed around the other sleeping bags. "Hey, you know what would be cool?" I said. "We should pick up one of the snoring grown-ups and put them in a diorama! Can you imagine Mr. Docker or Mr. Macky waking up next to a wild yak?" "That would be hilarious," Michael agreed. "But I don't think we could pick them up." "We could if they went to Weight Watchers," I told him. "Can we go already?" said Andrea. The four of us slinked around in the dark like secret agents. "How come they don't have a security guard?" Emily whispered. "Anybody could come in here and murder us."

"The doors are locked, dumbhead," I told her. "They have chains on them." "If there are chains on the door," Michael whispered, "that means we can't get out, either." We all looked at each other. I thought I heard scary music playing again. "Relax," I finally said. "Who's gonna murder us? The dead animals?" We slinked over to the candy machine. Awesome! It had all my favorite candy bars. This was the best night of my life! Andrea put her ten-dollar bill in the slot, but it popped back out. She tried it again, and it popped out again. "The machine doesn't take ten-dollar bills," Andrea said. This was the worst night of my life! "Hey, look!" Michael said, pointing to some boxes that were stacked next to the candy machine. "They're boxes of candy!" said Emily. "Great!" Michael said. "The candy is free!" "You mean it can fly wherever it wants?" I asked. "No, dumbhead," Andrea told me. "It means they're giving the candy away."

All right! I was so happy, I didn't even bother saying anything mean to Andrea. We all grabbed the candy and started stuffing it in our mouths. I ate about a million hundred candy bars. It was the greatest night of my life.