Planet Tad by Tim Carvell

8/2/2019 Planet Tad by Tim Carvell

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understand. But Im beginning to think you justlike having people rescue you.

Well, today was the big math exam. I dont wantto get my hopes up, but I think I did really well. (If nothing else, I did better than Doug Spivak, whogot really angry when he found out that, whileit was multiple-choice format, the test wasnt likeWho Wants to Be a Millionaire , and he wouldnt beallowed to phone a friend on any questions.) After

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the exam, I talked to Todd Ross, whos the biggestmath geek in our class, and he and I had the sameanswers for almost everything. So I think I mightactually do okay this semester. Which is good,cause I cant wait to forget all the stupid math I

just had to learn.

This morning in homeroom, while pledging alle-giance to the flag, I had an awesome idea for ahorror movie: What if a flag became possessed

with the soul of a serial killer? And then all thesekids pledged allegiance to it, so they had to dowhatever the flag told them to do? Itd be sortof like Children of the Corn , only with a flag. Itwould be called Pledge of Darkness .

OK, now that Ivewritten it out, it lookssort of stupid. But Iswear, it seemed likea really good idea thismorning.

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Ive been thinking more about the pledge. I thinka really good prank a country could pull on Amer-ica would be changing its name to Forwichistan,because then itd sound like kids were saying, I

pledge allegiance to the flag of the United Statesof America, and to the republic Forwichistan. If Iwere the president of, like, Luxembourg, Id totallydo that.

My results from the standardized tests came backtoday. The good news is, I did OK in most subjects.The bad news is, I got only 18% of the questionsright on the math test. Ms. Bolton gave us back ouranswer sheets, so we could check them against theactual answers and figure out what we did wrong.And thats when I saw that Id accidentally startedfilling in ovals on the second question, so all myanswers were off by one.

And if that werent bad enough, Ms. Bolton

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announced to the class that everyone did OK onthe tests, except for one student, who finished inthe dull-normal range, who did worse than amonkey filling out the form randomly, and who

was, according to the exam, brain damaged. Andthen she stared right at me.

After class, Doug Spivak came up to me andsaid, Dont feel so bad, man. Dull-normal is stillhalf-normal, right? It was nice of him to try andmake me feel better. But I wish he hadnt.


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May

Sophies reading The House at Pooh Corner right now. I liked those books when I was a kid,even though it bothered me that they neverexplained what two kangaroos were doing inthe middle of England. Did they escape froma zoo? Are they runaway circus animals? Ialways sort of wished there was a whole book

just about how Kanga and Roo got to the Hun-dred Acre Wood.

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OK, this is weird. After math today, I came back tomy locker and found this note had been stuck in it:

I have a secret admirer! Which is kind of cool,

and kind of creepy. I dont know who it could be. Ishowed it to Kevin and Chuck. Kevin wants to be aforensic investigator like on CSI , and he suggestedthat we put it under a black light or dust it for finger-prints. But I dont have a black light, or fingerprintdust. (We tried rubbing regular dust on it, but it justgot all smudgy.) Then Kevin said it was too bad thenote wasnt written in blood, cause then we coulddo a DNA match. I pointed out that we dont have aDNA-matching machine, either. Also, as Chuck said,its probably a good thing that my secret admirerdoesnt write her notes to me in blood.

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Today I found another note stuck in my locker:

I showed it to Kevin. He asked if he could seethe first note, and he looked at them side by side

for a while, then said, I think its definitely fromthe same person who sent you the first note.Kevin can be a little slow sometimes.

At lunch today, Kevin actually had a good idea:Hed brought in last years yearbook, and we wentthrough our class and crossed out every girl whodever told me she didnt like me, or that I was gross-ing her out, or to stop talking to her. That got rid of

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a lot of them. Then we crossed out every girl whoalready was dating somebody, which got rid of alot more. And Chuck pointed out that we couldalso cross off every girl in an advanced Englishclass, cause my secret admirer doesnt know thedifference between youre and your . And then hehad to spend five minutes explaining the differ-

ence between youre and your to Kevin.Anyway, now were down to just twenty-eight

girls. On Monday, Im going to go down the listand try talking to each of them, to see if I can fig-ure out which one it is.

My parents just started reading the Harry Potter books to Sophielast night, I heard them read-ing the beginning of the first book to her. Hereswhat I dont understand about Hogwarts: Okay, sothe school has a sorting hat that can figure outeach students true nature, and assign him or herto the appropriate house, right? But there are fourhouses. Three of themGryffindor, Hufflepuff,and Ravenclaware full of normal people. And

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then theres Slytherin, which has NOTHING BUTEVIL PEOPLE. If I ran Hogwarts, when the sortinghat assigned a student to Slytherin, Id send himhome, or maybe to, like, wizard reform school. Imean, duh.

Ugh. So today I managed to talk to six of the girlson my list. I dont think any of them are the one. Iasked Julie Kahn how she was doing and she said,Who wants to know? I asked Samantha Scanlon

if I could borrow a pen, and she sighed and mademe give her a dollar as a deposit,so she could be sure to get it back.Three different girls, when theysaw me coming, pretended theircell phone had just rung andthey had to answer it, which was

really obvious when Violet Paterson did it, becauseshe doesnt even own a cell phone, so she used hercalculator instead. And Nina Liuwas really friendly to me, whichI took as a good sign, until she

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asked me, Do you think yourfriend Kevin likes me? Which isgood news for Kevin, I guess, butdoesnt help me.

OK. I give up. I tried talking to three more of thegirls on my list. I asked Kate McLean, Hows itgoing? and she told me, None of your business.When I asked Sara Jacobsen what time it was, shesaid, Time for you to stop bothering me. And

Deb Chang just stared at me as I talked to her,then turned to one of her friends and said, Didyou hear something? Its like someone was speak-ing, but I didnt see anyone.

Thats it. Im done trying to figure out who itis. Im going to spend my time doing other stuff.Like figuring out what you call a Hot Pocket whenit gets cold. Is it a cold Hot Pocket? Or just a ColdPocket?

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Well, the secret admirer mysterys solved. I gotanother note in my locker today:

So I went down to the bleachers, and I waited,and I waited, and I waited, but nobody showedupthe only person there was Stu Lawrence, whoalso seemed to be just waiting around. So westarted talking, and he asked me why I was hang-ing around, and so I told him about my secretadmirer. And he got sort of pale and asked to seethe note, so I showed it to him. And he said, Isyour locker near Tara-Ann Dillons? And I toldhim, yeah, I had the locker next to hers. And hesaid, Aw, crap, and he turned super bright red.

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And then neither of us said anything, but he justtook the note out of my hand.

So I guess Stu Lawrence was accidentally mysecret admirer. He asked me not to tell anyoneabout the whole thing. I told him thatd be fineby me.

In art today, Mrs. Sweeney gave us each a can-vas and told us to paint something that feelsvery familiar to you. Which seemed like kind of

a dumb assignment, because why would anyonewant a picture of something they see every day?Boy, its a good thing I painted that picture of myshoes! It saves me the trouble of looking down!But Mrs. Sweeneys kind of weird and artsy likethat. (Shes a sculptor, and I remember one time,she showed us one of her sculptures and said itwas called Reclining Woman, but to all of us, it

just looked like a pile of rusty metal. Chuck leanedover and said, If shes in there, I hope that womanhas a tetanus shot.)

Anyway, I decided to paint a picture of our fridge

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at home, and Id gotten pretty far along whenChuck looked over at it and said, Why are youpainting a robot? Once hed pointed it out, I real-ized he was right: It totally looked like a robot. Infact, it looked a lot more like a robot than a fridge.

So I tried startingover, and painted over

it with white paint,but everything startedsmearing and runningtogether and turninggray. I was worried Idhave to ask for another

canvas, until I had agreat idea: Id paint overit with black paint, andput a yellow line down

the middle of it, and then paint in a dead opos-sum. Which is totally familiar to me, because itssomething I see from the school bus all the time.Id painted it black and was just adding the yellowline for the divider when Mrs. Sweeney came byand said, My, Tad! This looks interesting! Whatreyou painting? And I said, The dividing line. Andshe said, A dividing line? That feels familiar to


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you? And I said, Um, yeah. Then she got excitedand said, You feel divided? Torn? Ambivalent?Torn between two worlds?

I could tell from the tone of her voice that therewas only one right answer. So I said, Yes. Thatis exactly what I feel. She got even more excited,and said, This painting is the only one that truly

fulfills the assignment! Which is weird, becauseit just looks like this:


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I still think itd look a thousand times betterwith a dead opossum in the middle of it.

We went to the grocery store tonight, and I saw

a little kid riding around in the shopping cart, inthe backward-facing seat near the handle. I donteven remember the last time I sat in one of those.I mean, I know that there was a time when I wasreally little, and I used to sit in there and just chillout for the whole shopping trip. Then there was a

time when I stopped, and I had to walk all the wayaround the store while my mom tried to figure outwhich of her coupons hadnt expired yet.

I kind of wish my mom had told me when I wastaking my last ride in that shopping-cart seat. Ithink I wouldve enjoyed it more.

Tomorrow is Mothers Day, so Chuck and I went tothe mall to find presents for our moms. I found a

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really good book for her, called Drop 15 Pounds in 30 Days! , because shes always talking about howmuch she wants to lose weight. But I showed it tomy dad when I got home, and he took me back tothe bookstore to exchange it. I asked him what Ishould exchange it for, and he said, Anything else.

Today was Mothers Day. Sophie and I got up earlyto make my mom breakfast in bed. We decided tomake her French toast, and I think we did OK. I

mean, the only bread we had left in the house wasrye bread, so we had to use that. And we were outof milk, so we just mixed together some some non-dairy creamer and water. And we didnt have anyvanilla, so Sophie crumbled up some Nilla Wafersand stirred them in. But my mom seemed to reallylike itwhen we brought it up to her, she said thatshe wanted more maple syrup, and by the timewed gone downstairs and gotten it and brought itback up, shed eaten everything. I asked her if shewanted us to make some more, but she said no,she was full.

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Big news: Chuck and I were walking home fromschool this afternoon when this dog startedfollowing us home. (Well, I guess it didnt start fol-lowing us until Chuck gave it some of his leftover

nachos.) Anyway, after we got to my house, thedog kept sitting outside and whining. At first, mymom said to leave it outside, and itd get bored andfind its way home. But it just sat there whining,and my mom said to let it in, because it was reallydistracting her from watching So You Think You

Can Dance (which, by the way, is a stupid namefor a show. Its like if, instead of American Idol ,theyd called it Nice Singing, Jerkface ).

Tomorrow, were going to put up signs sayingthat we found the dog, to see if we can track downits owner. But if we cant, my mom said maybe wemight keep it. I might have a dog! Here is a pictureof it:

His name isRex. Its short forDogasaurus Rex.

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Here is the first thing I have learned about havinga dog in your house: Dont feed them nachos. Notever.

Anyway. After spending the morning cleaning

the living room rug, my dad and I went to thestore and put up signs with a picture of Rex on it. Ireally hope nobody calls. (I tried leaving one digitoff our phone number, but my dad noticed.)

You know what I bet would suck? If you died andwent to heaven, but really hated harp music.

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Well, its been five days, and nobodys called toclaim Rex. I think my parents are growing to likehim, too. Weve figured out that he knows howto fetch, sit, roll over, and stay. My mom says that

means he probably has an owner, but I think it just means hes a really smart dog.

This morning was a little exciting. We got a brand-new school bus for our ride to school. Rocky, ourschool bus driver, was super psyched about it. Hesaid, Ive been asking the district for a new schoolbus for three years now. And then he whispered,I wasnt supposed to say anything, but the brakeson our old bus were shot. It was just a rolling deathtrap.

I kind of wish he hadnt told me that.Anyway, its nice having a brand-new bus. Its

the first time Ive ever been in a school bus that

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didnt smell just a little bit like vomit mixed withorange-scented disinfectant. I wonder how longitll last.

Well, this afternoon, I got an answer to my ques-tion. A school bus can go approximately thirty-onehours without smelling like vomit. Becky Keetonhad a bad tuna-fish sandwich at lunch, and lostit just before my stop. When I was getting off thebus, Rocky was sadly getting out the paper towels

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and the sawdust and thedisinfectant. I looked athim and said, It was nicewhile it lasted, and he sortof smiled and said, Yeah,it was.

Hooray! Rex has been with us for eleven days now,and nobodys claimed him, so my parents saidwere gonna keep him! Tomorrow, were going to

take him to the Lakeville Cat & Dog Hospital toget him checked out. Sophie got really excitedabout the idea that we were going to the Cat &Dog Hospital, until my mom explained that that

just means veterinary clinic, and not a hospitalwhere all the doctors are cats and dogs.

Great news about Rex: The vet said the dog seemshealthy, he just needs to be fixed. (Sophie asked

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what fixed means. My mom said it means a dogneeds to be repaired. I said, Yeah, repaired by cut-ting off his but then my mom asked me whetherI liked having my Wii, and whether Id like to haveit taken away for a month, and I stopped talking.)

Well, Rex is back from the vet. Its probably a goodthing he doesnt know how stupid he looks withthis cone on:

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Sophie asked why he has to wear the cone. I toldher it was so he could pick up satellite radio.

Ugh. Bad news. We got a call today. Turns out,

Rex has an owner. Also, his name isnt Rex. ItsMr. Kensington. I guess his owners were off ona cruise for the past three weeks, and their dog-sitter didnt want to ruin their vacation, so shedidnt call to tell them he was missing. The ownerswere super gratefulapparently, Rex is a purebred

German Spitz, and hes, like, won prizes at dogshows. They said it was a good thing we foundhim, because theyre planning on making a lotof money by breeding him. My parents just kindof looked at each other, and then my mom said,Good luck with that.

I dont get the plot of Jurassic Park . Like, if youre bringing back dinosaurs from the dead

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M AY 3 0[mood: roaaaaaaar!]


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for a theme park, why not just bring back a fewbrontosauruses? Why would you bring back thevelociraptors and the tyrannosauruses? Are therethat many people who, when they find out theresan island full of dinosaurs back from the dead, aregoing to go, Which ones? Because if its just the

vegetarians, Im not interested?


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J u n e

Just one more week left of school before summer.I cant wait for vacation to start. Our teachersseem even more excited than we areMr. Parkerwas walking around the class whistling andhumming today. And our principal, Dr. Evans,stopped Doug Spivak in the hallway to tell himthat hed managed to get a D-plus average, so hedbe going on to eighth grade. Do you know whatthat means? Were almost done with you! shesaid, and they both started jumping up and down

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happily. I guess its nice that she cares so muchabout Doug.

Oof. This morning, we found out that the seventhgraders are all going to have to sing a song at theeighth graders graduation on Friday afternoon. Iguess it was an idea dreamed up by the chorusteacher, Mrs. Valeri, whos super meanlike, eventhe other teachers are afraid of her.

So were all supposed to sing I Believe I CanFly. Which is just stupidI thought the idea was,we were done with school for the year, so wedidnt have to do what our teachers said anymore.

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And if we have to sing a song, why does it have tobe some lame song about some stupid guy whothinks he can fly? And worst of all, we have torehearse it every day with Mrs. Valeri during ourlunch period. I cant wait till Im out of middleschool and people cant force me to do stupid stuff I dont want to do ever again.

We rehearsed our stupid song today at lunch. Mrs.Valeri kept getting angry at us because we werent

singing it right. She kept saying, Youre all off-key! and I kept thinking: If were all off-key, thenisnt it possible that the key were singing it in isthe key that it should be in?

Today in rehearsal for the graduation song, Mrs.Valeri got really mad at Charlotte Regan for beingpitchy and sounding like a bag full of cats,until Charlotte started crying and left the room.

J U N E 5 [mood: even more annoyed]

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Mrs. Valeri said, Imsorry, but I just wantto make sure theeighth graders havea good time at theirgraduation. I guessshe doesnt care if

anyone else has agood time at theirgraduation.

Rehearsal today was even worse than yesterday.Mrs. Valeri shouted at Chuck and me and saidwe were ruining the song on purpose, and thensaid that anyone who she thought was deliber-ately singing poorly during graduation would getdetention. Im not even sure how you get detentionduring summer vacation, but Chuck and I agreedthat we werent going to take that risk. So tomor-row during the song, were just going to mouththe lyrics.

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Well, Im now officially an eighth grader! We sangat graduation tonight, and were done.

But that wasnt even the best part. The best partwas, at lunch, Chuck told some other people at our

table about our plan to mouth the words. And Iguess they told some other people, and they toldsome other people, and everyone agreed that it wasa really good idea. Because tonight, at the gradu-ation ceremony, when it came time for all of us tosing, every single kid in our class just mouthed

the words to the song. All you could hear was Mrs.Valeri playing the piano, and this slight smackingsound of everyones mouths opening and closing.

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My dad said it was the funniest thing hed everseen. Mrs. Valeri ran after everyone afterward,threatening to keep them in summer school, untilour principal, Dr. Evans, put her hand on Mrs.Valeris shoulder and said, Give it a rest, Con-stance.

It was a good day.

Yesterday was the last day of school!Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ha! Summer!!!!! This

is going to be the best summer ever!I spent the day doing nothing but watching TVand playing video games. I could get used to threemonths of this.

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Another day just sitting on the couch doing noth-ing. Watched The Shawshank Redemption on TNTtwice in a row. I think The Shawshank Redemption may be the only movie they own.

Today, my dad came home while I was watchingThe Shawshank Redemption for the fourth timeand said, Howd you enjoy your weekend off?And I was like, Huh? And he said, Well, youknow that youre getting a summer job, right?Were not going to just let you sit here and rot your

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brain for three months. Besides, working teachesyou valuable lessons. I told him that Id beenworking really hard for nine months straight, anddidnt I deserve three months off to recover? He

just laughed and laughed and laughed, and whenMom came home, he made me repeat it to her, andthen they both laughed together for a really long

time.

Well, I went to the local newspaper today to see

if they needed anyone to deliver papers for them.The woman there gave me an application to fillout, and so I did.And then she askedme whether I hada bike, and where Iwent to school, andwhat my favoritesubjects were, andwhat hours I was

available to work. And then she told me that theywerent hiring anybody, because they had all the

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paperboys they needed. I asked her why shedgone to the trouble of asking me all those ques-tions. She just shrugged and said, Nobody evercomes to visit me in the circulation department.

Fathers Day is tomorrow. I never know what to getmy dad. Today while he was watching a baseballgame, I went in to ask him what he wanted, and hesaid, Just a little peace and quiet.

Which seemed like an

odd thing to ask for as apresent, but I went to thestore and bought him fivesets of earplugs.

Fathers Day is today. My dad really seemed to likethe gift Id gotten himhe said to my mom, I canuse these when we visit your family! She didntseem to think that was funny at all.

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Today, I noticed something weird on a dollar bill:Next to George Washingtons picture, theres atiny signature. But its not George Washingtonssignatureits the Secretary of the Treasurys,

whoever that is.

As best I can tell, his name is Hnnnny NnnPnnlnjn.

Being Secretary of the Treasury seems like apretty cool jobyou get to sign all the money. Iwonder if part of the job requirement is that youhave a good, official-looking signature. Like, I betTraci Williams from my class could never be Sec-retary of the Treasury, because she dots the i s in

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her name with hearts. Nobody would trust moneywith this on it:

I went to the food court at the mall today, wherethe Cinnabon manager told me I was too young for

them to hire. Stupid Cinna-bon. Im glad they didnthire me. If the managers

any indication, every-one who works therewinds up fat, coveredwith zits, and reekingof cinnamon.

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Great news! I got a job at the Hot Dog Pound!Theyre that hot-dog place up by the interstate, andI went in today because they had a Help Wantedsign, and they had an opening! I asked if I was

too young, and the guy behind the counter said,Youre sixteen, right? And I said, No, Im thir-teen. And he said, Whats that? You said youresixteen? in a way that sort of suggested that thatwas the right answer. So I told him yes. The onlyweird part is, he asked me how tall I was. When I

told him, Im five-four and a half, he said, Per-fect. Try not to grow before tomorrow. Who knewhot-dog restaurants had height requirements?

So I went to work today. I wore a pair of khakis anda button-down shirt, because Mom said it wouldimpress the boss. But I shouldnt have bothereddressing up, because I spent the day wearing ahot-dog costume.

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Let me say that again: I spent the day wearing a hot-dog costume.

It turns out that was the jobto stand out infront of the restaurant as their mascot and wave atcars as they drive by. I can understand why the lastguy to have this job quit: The costume is crampedand hot and hard to see out of, and it smells like

someone elses feet. Plus, in case I didnt mentionthis: Its a giant hot dog.

This is way worse than Cinnabon could ever be.

Today, during my fifteen-minute lunch break, Pamfrom the drive-thru told mewhat really happened to theguy who was in the suit beforeme: He didnt quithe passedout from heatstroke. She saidhe just kind of weaved allover the parking lot and thenfell down with his legs in theair. It was really funny, she

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said, and then realized who she was talking to andwas all, Oh, but Im sure it wouldnt be funny if ithappened to you.

Im trying to drink lots of fluids so I dont getheatstroke, but the restaurant makes us pay forthe drinks we buyeven water! And since Im onlymaking 7 bucks an hour5 bucks after taxesand

a drink is $1.75, I think I could wind up losingmoney this summer. Dads right: A summer jobdoes teach valuable lessons. Like, for instance:Work sucks.

My manager, Sean, came out today and told meto wave and dance more. Nobody wants to eat ata place where the food looks depressed, he said.Look happy! I pointed out that if I were really ahot dog, I wouldnt be happy to stand and wave infront of a restaurant where my fellow frankfurterswere being eaten. And he said, Maybe youre areally dumb hot dog, and you havent figured it outyet. Great. Im going to spend the summer not justbeing a hot dog, but being a really stupid hot dog.

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Sophie left for camp today. This is her first timegoing to sleepaway camp, and she was afraid of being homesick. I told her that homesickness wasnothing to worry about, and that what she should

really be afraid of are the Forest Strangler and theSummer Camp Claw-Handed Serial Killer and theFeral Wombats Who Are Able to Open Doors. Ithink her first night at sleepaway camps gonnabe great.

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Tim Carvell is the head writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart , for which he has won fiveEmmys. He has also served as a writer and editor atFortune , Sports Illustrated Women , and Entertain- ment Weekly . His work has also appeared in New York magazine, the New York Times , Esquire , Slate ,and McSweeneys ; the Daily Show books America :

The Book and Earth: The Book ; and the antholo-gies More Mirth of a Nation , Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans , and The McSweeneys Joke Book of Joke Books . He lives in New York with hispartner, Tom Keeton.

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Documents

Planet Tad by Tim Carvell