2 Vroom! Vroom!

Vroom! Vroom!

The next day after school, Stink sat on his race-car bed. He stared at the page with all the Pluto questions. He stared at the big fat red X, as big as the Great White Spot on Saturn. Stink wished he could zoom away on that car bed. Down the stairs and out of the house and up the road and into outer space. He wished his racecar bed would rocket him all the way to the rings of Saturn.

He might as well move to another planet. Anywhere but Pluto. "What's wrong?" Judy asked when she saw his sour-ball face.

Stink held up his test. He pointed to the big fat red X. "Did you flunk? For real?" Judy asked, grinning. "You know that thing you taught me? Well, guess what? My very excellent mother DID NOT Serve Nine Pizzas." "What did she serve?" "Nothing. Zero. Zip. T. I. N. P. There. Is. No. Pizza." "What do you mean, there's no pizza?" "There's no letter P. Because there's no Pluto." "How can there be no Pluto? Where did it go?" "It's still up there, but it's not a planet anymore. There are only eight planets now." "Stink, they can't just take away a whole entire planet. That would mess with the whole entire solar system." "Well, they did. Ask Mrs. D. She said Pluto is too small, and it has a weird orbit. Besides, they found something bigger, so they flunked it. Voted

it off the island. Kicked it out of the solar system. Pluto is gonzo." "Who's they?" asked Judy. "Big important science guys. One day, the President of Outer Space had a big meeting and everybody voted and Pluto got kicked out, so it's not one of the nine planets anymore." "What is it?" "A dwarf planet."

"A dwarf planet! So now are they going to call it Grumpy? Or Dopey?" "No, but they are going to call it Number 134340." "What? That stinks on ice," said Judy. "I can't believe Mr. Todd didn't tell us. This is big. Really big! How come Mrs. D. didn't tell you?" "I guess she did. But I don't think I was even in the room. I think I was at the nurse's office getting my hearing checked." "Well, you better get it checked again if you didn't hear your teacher say they kicked a whole entire planet out of outer space." "Pluto's my favorite, too."