Barfing in the Backseat
Read Barfing in the Backseat Online
Authors: Henry Winkler,Lin Oliver
by
Henry Winkler
and
Lin Oliver
HANK ZIPZER
The World’s Greatest Underachiever
in the
Backseat
How I Survived
My Family
Road Trip
Grosset & Dunlap
Cover illustration by Jesse Joshua Watson
GROSSET & DUNLAP
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Doodles by Theo Baker and Sarah Stern
Text copyright © 2007 by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver Productions, Inc.
Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Grosset & Dunlap. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark
of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Printed in the U.S.A.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Winkler, Henry, 1945-
Barfing in the backseat : how I survived my family road trip / by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver.
p. cm. – (Hank Zipzer, the world’s greatest underachiever; 12)
Summary: Hank must work on a huge homework packet during a family trip to North Carolina or he will spend the day with his father at a crossword puzzle tournament rather than riding roller coasters with his mother, sister, and friend Frankie.
ISBN: 978-1-4362-5239-3
[1. Automobile travel–Fiction. 2. Homework–Fiction. 3. Family life–Fiction. 4. Crossword puzzles–Fiction. 5. Learning disabilities–Fiction. 6. Humorous stories.] I. Oliver, Lin, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.W72934Bar 2007
[Fic]–dc22
2007009836
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I dedicate this to every road trip I’ve ever
taken, and to those I dream about. And of
course, always, to Stacey.—H.W.
For Trudi Ferguson, my best friend and
favorite road tripper, awake or asleep.—L.O.
“R
OAD TRIP
!”
MY FATHER
shouted, bursting into the kitchen. He waved his arms around with such force that he knocked over the Raisin Bran and spilled half the box on the floor. Fortunately, our dog, Cheerio, pounced on the Raisin Bran, sucking it up like the vacuum cleaner dog that he is. None of the Zipzers have had to pick up even a speck of spilled food since Cheerio joined our family. However, we do have to walk him more than the average dog.
“Did you hear me, guys?” my dad repeated, like not hearing him was even a possibility. “I’ve decided to take a road trip! And am I ever excited.”
My mom, my sister, and I were sitting at the kitchen table, just finishing breakfast. My dad continued to flap his arms around like a happy chicken. This happy chicken behavior is not like
my dad. He’s more of an angry rooster type.
“Do we get to go, too?” I asked.
“What do you think?” my sister, Emily, piped up. She likes to answer any question out there, whether or not it was intended for her. That’s because she’s a fourth-grade know-it-all.
“Emily, I think it’s a fair question,” I said, answering her with my mouth full of half-chewed Raisin Bran with brown sugar. I made sure to leave my mouth open even after I finished talking, just to give her a good shot of the yucky mess on my tongue. It’s a ton of fun to gross her out first thing in the morning.
“Honestly, Hank,” she sighed, sounding like my teacher Ms. Adolf, which, trust me, is not a compliment. “Do you think they’re going to leave us at home with the TV remote and a stack of microwave fried chicken dinners?”
“Emily, don’t even say those words,” my mom shuddered. “Frozen dinners are full of additives like BHT and MSG and the rest of the alphabet that isn’t good for you.”
“Of course we’re taking you guys,” my dad said. “The trip is planned for next week, during your winter break. And guess where
we’re going? Here’s a clue,” he added without waiting for our answer. “It’s a fantastic amount of fun.”
“Disney World!” I shouted, doing a victory dance around the kitchen. But I never got farther than the dishwasher, because my dad said, “Guess again.”
“The Grand Canyon,” I guessed next. “Okay, so it doesn’t have rides like Disney World, but you can ride a donkey down to the bottom.”
“Robert did that last year with his mom,” Emily said.
Wait, did I hear her voice get all soft and gooey when she said Robert’s name?
Yes, I did. I’m telling you, no one but my totally weird sister could manage to get all soft and gooey over Robert Upchurch, the king of the fourth-grade nose-blowers.
“Did Robert and his mother have a good time?” my mom asked as she got up to rinse a few remaining clods of granola off her cereal dish. No Raisin Bran for her. She’s definitely a homemade-granola-goop type of person.
“They did until Robert developed a nasty butt rash,” Emily said. “The trip got better
when he figured out that if he put a washcloth in his pants, the donkey saddle wouldn’t irritate his behind.”
Emily’s skinny boyfriend using terry cloth to fight a rash on his bony butt is just not a picture I want living inside my brain. Unfortunately, it was already there, so I had to shake it loose as fast as I could. I closed my eyes and filled my head with a picture of a pepperoni pizza. Yeah, that was better. The thought of a hot, sizzling slice of pepperoni pizza calms my brain every time.
“Will you guys stop all this yammering about the Grand Canyon?” my dad said. “We’re not going there. Where we’re going is even better.”
What could be better? A million places raced around in my mind. Sea World. Wild Gator Land. The Baseball Hall of Fame.
“I’ll give you another hint,” my dad said. “It’s in North Carolina.”
“Oh, Dad! You didn’t!” I screamed. “You got us courtside seats at a University of North Carolina basketball game. You are the coolest! Go, Tar Heels!”
I started my victory dance again, but my mom
put her hand on my arm to settle me down.
“Maybe you should just tell them, Stanley,” she said to my dad, “before their expectations get too high.” She was looking a little nervous, as if she knew something we didn’t know.
“All right, kids,” my dad said, putting one hand around my shoulder and the other around Emily’s. “The Zipzer family is going on a road trip and heading straight for…are you ready…fasten your seat belts…the Grand National Crossword Puzzle Championship Tournament!”
I involuntarily let out a sound. It was somewhere between a moan, a groan, and a shriek. That was followed by a big silence, and I mean a gigantic one.
“Let me get this straight, Dad,” I said finally, “because I think my ears might have gone wacko while you were talking. They think they heard you say that we’re going to a
crossword puzzle tournament.
Tell them they’re wrong. Please, tell them.”
“You heard correctly,” my dad said. “Isn’t it the most exciting idea?” He looked like a two-year-old who had just gobbled up a big
chocolate birthday cake. He was smiling so big, you could see his molars, and that’s saying a lot for a guy who is not one of your world-class smilers.
I tried to get my mouth to tell him how great it was, but it just wouldn’t cooperate. No words came out. Even my brainiac sister, Emily, was shocked into disbelief. I mean, what’s a kid supposed to say when he’s told that he’s going to spend his winter break at a crossword puzzle tournament?
TEN THINGS TO SAY WHEN YOU’RE
TOLD THAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE
SPENDING YOUR WINTER VACATION AT
A CROSSWORD PUZZLE TOURNAMENT
1. Wow.
2. Oh wow.
3. Wowee wow wow wow. (Hank’s note: I’m running out of wows, so I’ll have to come up with something else.)
4. Well, at least it isn’t a lemon-sucking tournament.
5. Sorry, I’m allergic to crossword puzzles. Last time I tried to do one, my upper lip swelled up so much that I pulled it over my head and wore it like a hat.
6. Excuse me? What did you say? I can’t hear you. My ears have suddenly turned into cauliflowers.
7. I’d love to go, but I get panic attacks in large crowds of nerds who enjoy writing letters in thousands of little boxes.
8. I have a policy that I only do crossword puzzles on the last Thursday of months beginning with X or Z.
9. I can’t make it because I’ll be hibernating all winter, since I’m half polar bear on my mom’s side.
10. Okay. What’s number ten? I can’t think of number ten. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t be able to either if you just found out that a crossword puzzle tournament was in your future.
