Leon and the Champion Chip Read online

  Leon

  AND THE

  Champion

  Chip

  ALLEN KURZWEIL

  Illustrations by BRET BERTHOLF

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  The Purple Pouch

  TWO

  The Moodometer

  THREE

  A Spitting Image

  FOUR

  The Target

  FIVE

  A Practice Flush

  Six

  The Twofer

  SEVEN

  The Collection

  EIGHT

  Sparks

  NINE

  The First R

  TEN

  The Second R

  ELEVEN

  Thin-Sliced Deep-Fried Tubers

  TWELVE

  The First Assignment

  THIRTEEN

  One, Two, Three … Spit!

  FOURTEEN

  The Great Potato Chip Flameout

  FIFTEEN

  Fathead

  SIXTEEN

  The Potato Clock

  SEVENTEEN

  Thnickering and Thuffering

  EIGHTEEN

  A Key Variable

  NINETEEN

  All-Chips-All-the-Time

  TWENTY

  Parents’ Nights

  TWENTY-ONE

  The Bus Ride

  TWENTY-TWO

  Furtles

  TWENTY-THREE

  A Hair-Raising Tour

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Zero. Zip. Zilch.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Common Sense

  TWENTY-SIX

  The Zeisel Method

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  .500

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  A Glitch

  TWENTY-NINE

  The Chip-Off (Round One)

  THIRTY

  The Chip-Off (Round Two)

  THIRTY-ONE

  Captain Frank

  THIRTY-TWO

  The Swap

  THIRTY-THREE

  The Transfusion

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The Third R

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The Human Hot Fudge Sundae

  THIRTY-SIX

  Bad News

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  A Hypothesis

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Crunch Time!

  THIRTY-NINE

  Cantennas, Spud Guns, and Dresses Made of Foil

  FORTY

  The Four Domes of the Universe

  FORTY-ONE

  The Champion Chip

  FORTY-TWO

  An Explosive Situation

  FORTY-THREE

  A Very Short Chapter

  FORTY-FOUR

  The Observation of Sparks in Motion

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  spitting image noun [From Middle English. See spite. Date: circa 14th century] Perfect likeness of a person; exact image. Some experts think that “spit” is a corruption of “spirit.” Others maintain that the phrase invokes magic—that armed with a sample of saliva (“spit”) and a doll made to resemble a person (“image”), a sorcerer could cast all-powerful spells on the unsuspecting victim.

  ONE

  The Purple Pouch

  The evening before the start of fifth grade, Leon Zeisel was feeling unusually chipper. He sat on his bed in Trimore Towers—the six-story, wedding cake-shaped one-star hotel he called home—and prepared for school.

  Three-ring binder? … Check.

  No. 2 pencils? … Check.

  Pens? … Check.

  Lab notebook? … Check.

  After making sure all required materials were present and accounted for, Leon reached under his bed and pulled out a large purple pouch containing the unrequired item that was making him so chipper. Keen though he was to peek inside the pouch, Leon resisted temptation. He didn’t want to jinx things.

  He placed the school supplies—plus the pouch—into his backpack, hung the backpack on the doorknob, and pushed the extra item out of his mind.

  For a while.

  But in the middle of the night, Leon awoke with a start. A single word pulsed through his head.

  The word beat quietly at first: POUCH! POUCH! POUCH!

  But soon it got louder: POUCH! POUCH! POUCH!

  Then louder still: POUCH! POUCH! POUCH!

  Leon tried to ignore the chant. He couldn’t. Eventually he hopped out of bed and padded over to the door, dragging his blanket behind him. He placed the blanket across the doorjamb, to keep light from seeping into the living room, then grabbed the backpack and switched on the lamp beside his bed.

  As soon as his eyes adjusted, Leon unzipped the pack and removed the purple pouch. He took a breath. He squinched his eyes and clucked his tongue, a good-luck ritual performed to ward off worry. (And Leon Zeisel was feeling worried—and thrilled and antsy and eager.) He loosened the drawstrings of the pouch and extracted two objects: a small glass bottle filled with tarry brown liquid and a nine-inch-long, handmade rag doll. He set the bottle aside and directed his attention to the tiny doll—a boy dressed in an olive-drab army jacket. The boy had bright orange hair, a surly-looking mouth, and beady eyes that seemed to glower at Leon.

  Leon glowered back. “You staring at me, Pumpkinhead?” he whispered sternly.

  Pumpkinhead remained silent.

  “Wipe that look off your face now, soldier!” Leon commanded in a low voice.

  Pumpkinhead failed to obey the order.

  “Okay, lamebrain, you asked for it.” Leon dispensed a disciplinary noogie to show who was boss. Or rather, he made Pumpkinhead give himself a noogie by bunching up the tiny cloth fingers and grinding them into the figure’s soft, stuffing-filled skull.

  “And there’s more where that came from,” Leon promised.

  Comforted by the one-way exchange, he began packing up. But as he reached for the bottle of brown liquid, he felt a slight tug on the leg of his pajamas. Suddenly his bed lamp came crashing down. A cord had wrapped around his shin.

  Almost at once a voice called out from the living room. “Sweetie? You okay?”

  “Fine,” Leon managed as he groped about in the dark.

  “What are you up to in there?”

  Leon could hear the creaky springs of the pull-out couch, a sure sign his mother would soon burst in. “Just organizing stuff for school,” he shot back, fumbling to re-pouch the bottle and rag doll.

  The doorknob turned.

  “What’s blocking the door?” Emma Zeisel demanded.

  Leon zipped up his backpack seconds before his mother pushed the blanket aside. She entered the bedroom and flipped on the wall switch.

  Sniffing the air, she said, “I smell something fishy. You’ve been going through that collection of yours, haven’t you?”

  “No, Mom. It’s just back-to-school jitters,” Leon improvised.

  “Well, jitters or no jitters, this is no time for mischief—not the night before the start of fifth grade. Get it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good,” said Emma Zeisel firmly as she picked up the blanket. “Now get your behind back in bed.”

  As soon as Leon was under the sheets, his mother gave the blanket a single expert flick. It landed over her son with pinpoint accuracy. Quickly and effortlessly, she tucked in the corners. “There we go,” she said, fluffing up the pillow. She gave her son a kiss and returned the bed lamp to the nightstand. “I’d tell you ‘Lights out,’ but you seem to have taken care of that all by yourself.”

  “I was just—”

  “Hush now, and get some shut-eye,” she scolded gently. “You have to be up by six-thirty to walk Trudy Lite.”

 
; “Six-thirty?” Leon whined.

  “At the latest, sweetie. You’re the one who told Napoleon you wanted to get to school before the first bell. Remember, he’s picking you up at a quarter to eight on the dot.”

  TWO

  The Moodometer

  At 7:45 sharp the following morning, Leon pushed through the hotel’s revolving door (twice) and hopped into an ancient yellow cab idling by the curb. He greeted the driver, a finely dressed Haitian man with a glistening smile made all the more sparkly by a shiny silver tooth.

  “Bonjour, Napoleon!”

  “Bonjour, Monsieur Leon! It has been too long, mon ami. How have we been?”

  “Awesome,” said Leon.

  “Awesome?” Napoleon repeated disapprovingly. “Can you not be more exact?”

  Leon knew what Napoleon wanted to hear. The cabby liked answers with numbers. A great day was an eight. A okay day was a four. A lousy day was a two.

  Leon had come prepared. “If you really want me to be exact,” he said, “we’d better use this.” He handed Napoleon a small cardboard measuring device.

  “For me?” Napoleon asked as he admired the handmade dial.

  “Yup,” said Leon. “I call it a ‘moodometer.’ It’s like an odometer, except that it indicates mood instead of miles.”

  Napoleon immediately propped the device on his dashboard. “Monsieur Leon, I am …” He finished his thought by nudging the needle to nine: PUMPED!

  “And to answer your question,” said Leon, “I’d give my summer an eight. It’d be higher, except for flute lessons, plus Mom keeps sticking me with more and more chores.”

  “Chores are good,” said Napoleon.

  “Not when it means picking up poodle poop at six-thirty in the morning!”

  “That is true,” Napoleon conceded. “Is that all you must do?”

  “Are you kidding?” said Leon. He launched into an account of his expanded responsibilities. “I don’t mind handling the VIP board. That’s actually kind of fun. But now I have to do that plus walk Trudy Lite, plus clean cages, plus once I had to change a chimp’s diapers.” Leon winced at the memory. “I should’ve been paid double for that chore.”

  Napoleon chuckled. “Sometimes, Monsieur Leon, I wonder whether you live in a hotel or in a zoo.”

  “Mom says the same thing. She thinks we should sell tickets and peanuts to the folks who sit in the lobby. But that’s the great thing about our all-pets-welcome policy. We get the best guests in town—except for that super-annoying Trudy Lite.”

  “I am sure you can control her,” Napoleon said confidently. “You have a way with the beasts.”

  “You think so?” said Leon.

  “I do,” said Napoleon.

  “Hope you’re right,” said Leon, giving the pouch in his backpack a squeeze.

  THREE

  A Spitting Image

  Leon climbed the limestone steps of the Classical School and planted himself under the entrance flag ten minutes before the morning bell. He looked around nervously for his two best friends: Lily-Matisse, the strong-willed (and strong-armed) daughter of the school’s art teacher, and P.W., a smart-alecky kid from Thailand whose full name—Phya Winit Dhabanandana—was too long for attendance forms.

  Leon hadn’t seen his buddies all summer. P.W. had spent the time with relatives in Bangkok. Lily-Matisse had gone off to gymnastics camp. The two, rounding the corner soon after Napoleon honked good-bye, made a beeline toward Leon.

  “So?” said P.W. “Did you finish?”

  “Yup,” said Leon.

  “When?” Lily-Matisse demanded.

  “Two days ago.”

  “You brought him with you, right?” P.W. pressed.

  Leon gave his backpack a tender pat. “He’s right in here.”

  “Excellent,” said P.W. “This is going to be so unbelievably sweet.”

  “If it works,” Lily-Matisse cautioned.

  “Have you guys seen you-know-who?” asked Leon.

  P.W. lifted his wrist to his mouth and made a staticky sound. “That’s a negative.”

  Lily-Matisse rolled her eyes.

  “Okay,” said Leon. “Where should we set up?”

  “Over behind the trash can,” P.W. suggested. “It’s protected and in range. Plus it’ll give us a clear shot of the entrance.”

  “Sounds good,” said Leon.

  Crouched behind the trash can, Leon unzipped his backpack and removed the large purple pouch. He turned to Lily-Matisse. “Care to do the honors?”

  “Definitely!” she said.

  “Hold it,” said P.W. “Aren’t we forgetting something?”

  “What?” Leon asked.

  “The pledge,” said P.W.

  Lily-Matisse made another face. “We already pledged last year.”

  “Maybe,” said P.W. “But it’s like a magazine subscription. You gotta renew.”

  Lily-Matisse and P.W. both looked at Leon. He could tell P.W. was a bit jealous that Lily-Matisse got to hold the bag. “P.W. does have a point,” he said diplomatically.

  “Whatever,” said Lily-Matisse. “Crossmyhearthopetodiestickaneedleinmyeye. There. Satisfied?”

  “No,” said P.W. “You forgot the most important part.”

  “He’s right,” said Leon.

  Lily-Matisse grudgingly sealed the oath by spitting, or at least pretending to spit. “Okay, your turn.”

  After the boys repeated the pledge (and spat copiously), Lily-Matisse slipped her hands inside the pouch and began extracting Pumpkinhead.

  “Yow!” P.W. cried as soon as he saw the face.

  Lily-Matisse was equally impressed. “He’s perfect, Leon! How did you make him so, I don’t know…”

  “Gruesome?” P.W. proposed.

  “Actually,” said Lily-Matisse, “I was going to say real looking.”

  “It wasn’t that hard,” Leon said humbly. “I had that class picture Mr. Groot took at the medieval carnival.”

  “That is one nasty scowl!” said P.W.

  “How’d you get his eyes to look so beady?” asked Lily-Matisse.

  “Beads,” said Leon.

  “C’mon, let’s see the rest of him!” urged P.W.

  Gingerly Lily-Matisse continued the extraction, pausing again when Pumpkinhead was halfway free.

  “The army jacket is incredible!” she cooed. “The buttonholes are amazing!”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” P.W. exclaimed. “Will you hurry up!”

  “Cool your jets,” Lily-Matisse snapped. “It’s not like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.”

  “No,” said P.W. “This magic is way cooler.”

  “We’ll see,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Yes, we will, Miss Skeptical,” said P.W. “Just because—”

  “Guys,” Leon interjected. “Let’s pick up the pace.”

  “But I might damage something,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “No, you won’t,” Leon reassured her. “I double-stitched every seam. After all, Pumpkinhead has to be extremely flexible.”

  Lily-Matisse giggled. “What are you planning?”

  “Guess,” said Leon.

  “A backflip?”

  Leon smiled and shook his head. “Nah.”

  “Yeah, that’s not nearly harsh enough,” said P.W.

  “You’re going to make him do a striptease in the lunchroom, aren’t you?”

  “Not exactly,” said Leon, “but you’re getting warmer.”

  “So it’s clothing related?” Lily-Matisse conjectured.

  “Yup,” said Leon, his smile widening.

  “Don’t tell me he’s going to moon Principal Birdwhistle!” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Nope,” said Leon. “But you guys are so hot you’re burning up!”

  There was a brief silence before P.W. came up with the answer. “Got it!” he exclaimed. “A wedgie!”

  “Bingo!” Leon said. “Only not your ordinary standard-issue wedgie. I’ll be taking things turbo.”

  “A turbowedg
ie?” Lily-Matisse said dubiously.

  “Right,” said Leon. “Instead of just yanking on the underwear, I’m going to add a spinning motion, like this.” He jerked his hand upward and twirled it overhead, as if handling a lasso. “I got the idea watching an old western on TV.”

  “Well, yee-ha!” P.W. whooped. “Ride ‘em, cowboy!”

  Lily-Matisse sighed. “Couldn’t you have Pumpkinhead make him do something acrobatic, like a handstand on the salad bar?”

  “Trust me,” said Leon, “a turbowedgie is acrobatic.”

  Lily-Matisse gave a shrug and freed Pumpkinhead from the purple pouch. “Here,” she said coolly, handing the figure to Leon.

  “Thanks,” he said, miffed by her lukewarm response.

  “And can you give me the bottle, too?”

  Lily-Matisse grimaced. Without a word, P.W. took over, grabbing the pouch and removing the bottle of brown liquid.

  “That stuff is so gross,” Lily-Matisse said from a safe distance.

  “Just think of it as starter fluid,” said P.W.

  “It’s not starter fluid,” she said. “It’s teacher’s spit and chewing tobacco and I’m not going anywhere near it.”

  “In that case,” said P.W., “make yourself useful and recon the perimeter.”

  “Huh?”

  “He means, be lookout,” Leon explained.

  “Oh,” said Lily-Matisse. “What’s the sign if I see him coming?”

  “Just whistle,” said P.W., before turning his attention to Leon. “Ready?”

  Leon took a deep breath and nodded.

  P.W. gave the spit bottle a vigorous shake. “Commence spit application in three, two, one …” He unscrewed the lid.

  Leon did a quick squinch-and-cluck before accepting the bottle. Slowly and steadily he tilted it, watching as the spit traveled down the side of the glass like cold molasses. After a glob of the liquid landed on the midsection of the figure, he righted the bottle. “Done,” he announced solemnly.

  “You sure?” said P.W.

  “Positive.”

  P.W. reclaimed the bottle. Just as he finished screwing the lid back on, Lily-Matisse, posted at the top of the school steps, began whistling like a songbird.