Phineas L. MacGuire . . . Gets Slimed! (4 page)

Then we'd both have something to put on our résumés.

My new and improved Fourth-Grade Goal List:

1. To make everyone like mold as much as I do
   
2. To convince Ben not to run for class president
   
3. To be the best fourth-grade scientist ever
   

I knew that to get everybody else to like mold as much as I did, I would have to come up with some good mold publicity.

Scientifically speaking, Aretha Timmons was just the person to help me.

Normally, I am allergic to girls. I am allergic to thirteen things altogether, including nuts, cats, cottage cheese, grape jelly, and anything purple. Also kisses that come with lipstick attached, especially the kind my aunt Tiffany wears, which is not quite purple but close enough to make me break out in hives just thinking about it.

Aretha Timmons is the only girl I know that I am not 100 percent allergic to. I think it's because she is a fellow scientist and almost never wears purple. If we had to dissect a frog for fourth-grade science, Aretha would be the first person
in line. She would not squeal or scream or cry because the frog was cute. She would get right down to business.

It's hard to be allergic to a girl like Aretha Timmons.

“Mold is a tough sell, Mac,” she told me on the jungle gym at recess. “Number one, it's gross and slimy. Number two, nobody is ever excited to see mold.”

“I am,” I said.

“Yeah, Mac, but you're not like everyone else. Listen, last year in Ms. Perry's class, when we were cleaning out our desks for Spring Cleaning Day, Justin
Fenner found a bologna sandwich in his desk that he'd forgotten about. It'd been in there for two months, and by Spring Cleaning Day it was just one big square of green mold. Do you think anyone said, ‘Hey, pass that over here so I can see'? Do you think anyone asked to take it home to give to their mom for a present?”

“Well, no,” I said. “But if Ms. Perry would have put the sandwich under a microscope and let everyone look at it, they would have seen how fascinating it was.”

Aretha shook her head. “Ms. Perry screamed and ran to get Mr. Reid to come take Justin's desk out of the room. Ms. Perry was more grossed out than anybody.”

“People like that should not be allowed
to teach,” I said, pulling myself to the top of the jungle gym.

“It's true, we never did any interesting experiments in her class,” Aretha said. “When it came to science, mostly we collected leaves.”

“You know what would be cool?” I asked, dropping down to the ground. “A mold museum. It would be this place where all kinds of different molds were growing, like slime molds and mildew, and you could have information about everything so people would understand just how great mold really is.”

Aretha nodded. “That's what you should do, then. You could ask Mrs. Tuttle if there's a shelf or something in her classroom.
Or else ask Mr. Reid if there's someplace in the basement you could use. I'll help you get set up. Mold doesn't bother me a bit.”

Somehow I knew it wouldn't.

Mrs. Tuttle blew the whistle to let everyone know that recess was over. As I got closer to the building, I saw Ben standing on the steps, smiling a big, goofy fake smile and shaking hands with everybody in our class as they were about to walk through the door.

“What are you doing?” I asked him when I got to the front of the line.

“Running for president, just like I said I would,” Ben said, shaking my hand. His hand was all sweaty. Who would vote for a kid with sweaty hands for president?

I mean, okay, I would, but only because he's my best friend.

“You've got to get over this idea,” I said. “It won't work in a million years.”

Ben flashed his fake grin at me. “Move along, move along, I've got more hands to shake.”

I walked to Mrs. Tuttle's room. I was trying to feel excited about the mold museum idea, but instead I was feeling worried about Ben's running for president. The only thing Ben had ever won in his life was honorable mention for the fourth-grade science fair. He still
had that dumb ribbon pinned to his backpack like it was the Nobel Prize in Physics, which is a very important award that the most genius scientists of all win.

If Ben lost the election—make that
when
Ben lost the election—he would probably be dark and scowly all the time, and then it wouldn't be fun to be best friends with him anymore. Only, I'd have to stay best friends with him, because otherwise it would seem like I'd stopped being best friends with him because he lost the election.

I was starting to feel sorry I lived in a democracy.

“I see the campaign for class president has already begun,” Mrs. Tuttle said after everyone was back in their seats from recess. “Since Ben has gotten the
ball rolling, let me see a show of hands from everyone who plans to run.”

I looked around the classroom. Ben's hand was stretched a mile into the sky. Three seats behind him, Stacey Windham fluttered her hand in the air like a queen waving to all the little people. On the other side of the room, Chester Oliphant stuck his hand in the air, and so did Roland Forth, the only kid less likely to win than Ben.

Aretha popped her pencil on the back of my head. When I turned around, she nodded toward Ben. “That's not your idea, is it?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Do I look that dumb to you?”

“No, you don't,” Aretha said. “Even Ben doesn't look that dumb to me. So why is he doing it?”

“It's his dad's idea.”

Aretha rolled her eyes. She has a bossy dad too. “Well, his dad needs to wake up and smell the coffee, because Mr. Superhero Comic Book Man over there has a zero percent chance of winning this election.”

I knew she was right. Everybody in the world knew she was right.

Everybody, that is, except for Ben.

And I had a feeling I wasn't going to be able to convince him that he was wrong.