The Schnoz of Doom Read online

  They scanned the article. Except for the advertisements plastered all over the rocket, it was almost identical to one they had seen at Camp Whatsitooya, where they went to summer camp. That rocket had transported three deadly alien rabbits to Earth. Alien rabbits that had nearly taken over Earth, we might add.

  What might this one have transported?

  “This is bad,” said Joules. “Really bad.”

  “I know,” said Kevin. “Listen to this! The mayor says that ‘the rocket is absolutely safe and there’s nothing that could possibly be dangerous about it. There is no need to worry. Really! What could possibly go wrong?’ ”

  Joules sighed and shook her head.

  “Famous Last Words,” she said.

  “Yep,” said Kevin.

  “You know what that means,” said Joules.

  “Yep,” said Kevin.

  “I hate Famous Last Words,” said Joules.

  “Yep,” said Kevin.

  Joules and Kevin Rockman adjusted their backpacks and trekked down the boring sidewalk of their boring town toward their boring school. As they went, they had an uneasy feeling that none of these things would remain boring for long.

  The History of TBD School

  People say that TBD School was named after Dr. Tom B. Deter. That is not true. Dr. Tom B. Deter is an imaginary doctor made up by the school secretary responsible for ordering the school’s sign. She used the common placeholder—TBD, which means To Be Determined—on the order form. When the board met to decide the actual school name, it was her job to change the form and mail it in. Alas, the board meeting was the same night as the finale of her favorite television show: America Lacks Talent.

  Instead of going to the meeting, she mailed in the form and stayed home. To be fair, the finale was a real nail-biter between a real nail-biter (Chewie Larue) who chewed his fingernails and his toenails and a lady who could grow her nose hairs really fast. (Spoiler: Chewie Larue won.)

  Three days later, the sign arrived and was hoisted onto the school roof. It announced to the world that the school was named TBD School. Instead of sending it back, which would take minutes of effort, the secretary made up a story to explain the name. She invented Dr. Tom B. Deter (Dr. TBD), the famous scientist who had cured Stiff Upper Lipitosis. The board members did not protest, because they had also stayed home to watch America Lacks Talent and missed the school-naming meeting.

  The town citizens did not protest, either. They believed that since nobody in town had Stiff Upper Lipitosis, someone must have cured it. Nobody wanted to look stupid by saying, “Hey, that sounds like a bogus disease. Are you sure that happened?” Instead, they all looked stupid by pretending it was true. Everyone was happy.

  The town embraced the new school identity and named the school basketball team the Fighting Question Marks.

  School chant: “Go? Go? Go?”

  When the twins reached the front door of TBD School, they were greeted by Principal Posner. Principal Posner was a plump woman who rarely smiled. She believed that smiling took too much time, and she was far too efficient for that. When the Rockman twins arrived, she stood in the entryway beside a kid wrapped from head to ankle in Ace bandages. Only the kid’s red high-top sneakers showed.

  “Hey, Andrew,” said Joules to the mummified student.

  “Mmmmmm,” the kid mumbled through the Ace bandages.

  “That’s not Andrew,” said Kevin. “It’s Katie. Or maybe Derek.”

  “Whatever,” said Joules.

  “You’re late!” said Principal Posner.

  Kevin looked at his watch. There were five minutes left until the bell rang.

  “I’m early,” he said.

  “Hmmmm,” said the principal, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at him.

  Being on time was a form of tardiness to Principal Posner. She was a precise person. She could tell the time to the exact second without looking at a clock. Timekeeping wasn’t the only thing Principal Posner took to the extreme. She was a former member of the U.S. Army Ambulance Corps and current national champion on the Tourniquet Drill Team. She took any and every opportunity to stay in tip-top bandaging form. Thus, any kid slow enough to catch her eye became an unwilling practice “patient” and ended up looking like King Tut. Principal Posner reached into the satchel she carried with her at all times and pulled out a thick roll of cotton bandages.

  “Where is my splint?” she said, digging through the satchel.

  Joules and Kevin did not stick around to find out. They sprinted down the hall to their first class, biology. It was the first class of the day that they would have together. It would not be the last. Unlike some schools that put twins in separate classes so each student could have a “unique educational experience,” TBD School had put the Rockman twins in all the same classes since their very first day of kindergarten.

  This was not a function of educational philosophy but bad eyesight on the part of the school secretary who’d registered the twins for kindergarten. She’d looked at the two registration forms and thought she was seeing double. Instead of finding her glasses, which were atop her head, she simply enrolled one student: Kevin Joules Rockman. Being enrolled as a single student had very few drawbacks, but it had two big advantages: half the amount of homework and twice the brainpower on tests. Kevin excelled in some subjects and Joules in others. Between them, they made one exceptional student.

  The twins had their own strengths and talents. Kevin was organized and methodical. He took great notes and kept charts of anything that might be important: due dates for assignments, vocabulary words, and information about the teachers’ children and pets. This last item was very useful for distracting teachers from giving pop quizzes. For instance, a timely question about Fido’s struggle with fleas could disrupt any pop quiz in English class. (Note: Fido McMallow is the English teacher’s son and should not be confused with her dog, Billy.)

  Where Kevin was methodical, Joules was spontaneous. Rather than face a situation with facts and figures as Kevin might, Joules liked to poke new situations with a stick. For many students like Joules, school presents challenges, but Joules learned early on that while sticks from trees were forbidden in school, small pointy sticks with graphite tips were encouraged. Armed with a fine set of No. 2 pencils, Joules thrived.

  Upon arriving in Mr. H’s biology class, the twins settled into seats next to each other at a long lab table. They looked around to see what was new in the classroom. There was always something new to see in biology class. Mr. H was a collector of all things scientific. And since everything that exists involves science, the room was stuffed. In fact, the shelves were stuffed with stuffed stuff like taxidermied chipmunks, snakes, sloths, and other animals. The counters were piled with petri dishes and jars of odd-colored liquids.

  Joules and Kevin liked biology class. Partly because of all the weird things to look at, but mostly, they liked Mr. H. He was a quirky man. Clueless even. But his cluelessness came from being too busy to notice unimportant things like matching socks or shoes or correctly buttoned shirts. Mr. H was too busy for those things because he was so busy being passionate about science. Other kids made fun of Mr. H behind his back, and sometimes to his face, even though it skipped right past him. Joules and Kevin never did that. In truth, they felt a little protective of Mr. H. They didn’t have to think further back than breakfast to know that sometimes passionate but clueless people have the biggest hearts.

  A Field Guide to Scientists

  Not all scientists look like Mr. H. That is a good thing. If they did, it would be very confusing for his children. How can you tell if a person is a scientist? If they are doing science, they are a scientist. Phew. That was incredibly easy.

  It took only a second for Kevin and Joules to find the day’s new object in the cluttered biology classroom. It was a dog crate on the floor by Mr. H’s desk. The cage was intended for a medium-sized dog. Perhaps a Labrador or a poodle, or a Labradoodle or a cocka-doodle-do-poo.

  However,
there was not a dog in the dog cage. There was, instead, a rabbit. A small gray rabbit the color of swamp slime. It did not look like any rabbit the twins had seen in their yards. However, there was something familiar about it. It was something about the swirly eyes. The twins wanted to investigate, but before they could get up, Mr. H entered the room and tossed his tweed hat onto the table. He hung his tweed jacket on a coatrack. Correction: Mr. H did not hang his jacket on a coatrack. He hung his jacket on Mack Buckley, who was sitting at his lab table with his hand raised. Mack was an eager student and was always the first to answer questions. Often before they were asked. His hand was perpetually raised, leading Mr. H to confuse him with a coatrack.

  It was an easy mistake for anyone. It was a daily mistake for Mr. H, who was a keen observer of science and completely blind to everything else. It is important to note that besides being passionate, he was also brilliant. In fact, Mr. H was an actual college professor. He was the head of biological studies at South-Northwestern University. One day, while driving to campus, he was distracted by a migration of Canada geese and ended up at TBD School. He went into the biology classroom, where he found a group of ridiculously short college freshmen. Assuming that their shortness was due to a vitamin deficiency (and not to the fact that they were fifth graders), he suggested they eat taller vegetables and got on with the day’s lesson. He had been teaching at TBD School ever since.

  Mr. H sat down at his desk, pushed his round glasses up the bridge of his nose, and shuffled through a mountain of papers. After twenty-five minutes, he looked up and noticed twenty-six short college freshmen staring at him.

  “AAAAHHHGH!” he screamed. “Who are you?”

  “Your class,” said the class.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Having class?”

  “What am I doing here?”

  “Teaching class?”

  Mr. H thought about it for a moment, flipped through his appointment book, and then slammed it shut.

  “You’re late!” he said. “We should have started twenty-five minutes ago.”

  Tom Barton snickered. Joules gave Tom the stink-eye. He quit snickering. It was a typical day.

  Here is a handy-dandy chart for those of you who have been too busy doing useful things to keep up with the ever-growing list of dog breeds.

  Labrador

  Poodle

  Labradoodle

  Labrador retriever

  La-Z-Boy recliner

  Labrador get-it-yourself-er

  Scooby-Doo

  Poodle

  Scooby-doodle

  Poodle

  Snickers bar

  Snicker-doodle

  Cocker spaniel

  Poodle

  Cockapoo

  Cocker spaniel

  Rooster

  Cocka-doodle-do

  Cockapoo

  Rooster

  Cocka-doodle-do-poo

  Cockapoo

  Boxer

  Box-a-poo

  Chihuahua

  Saint bernard

  Chihuanard

  Great Dane

  Awful Dane

  So-so Dane

  Pomeranian

  A very hard rock

  Pome-granite—get it? Huh? Huh? like the fruit? Pomegranate.

  Mr. H began his lecture. The topic of the day was taxonomy, which is the study of taxes. Ha! No, it’s not! Made you look.

  Actually, taxonomy is the study of grouping things. Classification systems, if you want to get fancy. Mr. H did not want to get fancy. He liked things simple and had developed his own system of classifying things in the universe. He called it the Birds and Others Classification System of Things in the Universe. In his system, things are identified by the answer to one simple question: Can it fly? If the answer is yes, it is a bird. If the answer is no, it is an Other. Those of you interested in learning more should refer to the chart in Kevin’s notes. Those of you not interested in learning more should remember that education is an important part of every meal. (This message paid for by another bribe from your English teacher.)

  BIRDS AND OTHERS CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM OF THINGS IN THE UNIVERSE

  BIRDS

  OTHERS

  Canaries, parakeets, hawks, eagles, and other feathered creatures that fly

  Butterflies

  Moths

  Helicopters

  Airplanes

  Paper airplanes

  Penguins—Honestly. Who are they kidding with those feathers?

  Ostriches—Except ostriches on airplanes

  People—Except when riding ostriches on airplanes

  Fish—Except flying fish

  Cars—Except flying cars, which really should be invented by now

  Rocks, scissors, and paper

  BIRDS

  OTHERS

  Paper wads

  Baseballs

  Footballs

  Soccer balls during a goal kick

  Flying squirrels

  Flying fish

  Flying Wallendas

  Gymnasts

  Kites

  Ski jumpers

  Snowballs

  Leaves in October

  Skiers who don’t jump

  Skiers not on ski lifts. Anything flying through the air on a ski lift is a bird.

  Trees

  Books—Except the kind they talk about in movies when they say, “Throw the book at ’em.” While the books are actually being thrown, they are flying, and therefore they are birds.

  A Note About Taxonomy

  (Warning: If you find this boring, do not panic. Some people do. Others do not. And by Others, we mean not birds. See the chart on this page.)

  Scientists use taxonomy to group and name organisms. It helps scientists understand how living things are similar and how they are different. It also helps them remember which drawer in the lab contains live snakes and which one contains mice. That’s good to know before you reach inside a drawer.

  You might be familiar with a system of taxonomy created by the famous eighteenth-century Swedish botanist named Carolus Linnaeus. Carolus was famous for having a girlish name (and figure). He was also famous for organizing and naming living things based on the origins of their physical structures. It is the system used by most scientists in the world. He used two Latin names to describe each organism. He called it binomial nomenclature, which—any way you cut it—was a better name than Carolus Linnaeus.

  Other famous systems of taxonomy classify organisms by color, ability to dance, or how they look in a dress. Note: All scientists agree that, despite their knobby knees, giraffes look much better in dresses than tree sloths, which have no fashion sense at all.

  Mr. H ended his lecture with a challenge.

  “I will give extra credit to anyone bringing in specimens of Birds and Others,” he said.

  A muffled “Woo-hoo” escaped from beneath Mr. H’s jacket. Mr. H had just made Mack’s day. Mack was a professional extra-credit collector and had earned 257,143 extra-credit points since kindergarten. Mack had enough extra credit to ensure As in all his classes through graduate school—for his whole family. If extra-credit points could buy things, Mack would have a personal jet.

  Joules, on the other hand, did not care about extra credit. With a little bit of work (from Kevin), they would probably get an A in the class, or at least a B or maybe a C. After all, what was the point of doing extra credit when you could spend your time doing something useful like not doing extra credit?

  Your English teacher would like to insert an emergency announcement here suggesting that you follow Mack’s example and not that of Joules in regard to extra credit. After all, extra credit is an important part of every meal.

  We would also like to warn you not to take Joules’s lack of interest in extra credit as a lack of intelligence. Doing so would be unwise. Just ask Mack Buckley about that. Mack had been completely obliterated (which means being stomped flat) by Joules at last year’s Math & Science Quiz-O-Rama and Sushi Festival.
Joules didn’t care about extra credit, but she was smart and she liked a competition.

  In either case, Joules had spent the class digging a hole in her biology book with her sharp stick (a.k.a. pencil). But Mr. H’s next words made her drop her pencil and pay attention. Mr. H walked to the cage on the floor and lifted it up for everyone to see.

  “I must show you a very unusual specimen I discovered near the old Snottie’s Tissue Factory!” said Mr. H. “I have never seen another Other like this Other, and I wish to study it further. I will give an automatic A in this class and a piece of cake to anyone who brings in another Other like it!”

  Normally, the word “cake” would have gotten Joules’s attention immediately. Saying that Joules loved cake is like saying that cats love video cameras. The abundance of adorable videos on the Internet proves that is true. If cats did not love video cameras, why would they make so many funny movies?

  This time, however, the mention of cake barely registered with her. The words that got her attention were “old Snottie’s Tissue Factory.” She looked at Kevin, who looked back at her with a worried expression.

  What were the odds that Mr. H would send his students on a quest to find a weird swirly-eyed rabbit near an abandoned tissue factory on the very same day that the newspaper reported a crashed rocket near the same factory?

  We can tell you the odds. They were very, very odd indeed! Nobody knew that better than the Rockman twins. They had seen enough science fiction thrillers on The Late, Late, Late Creepy Show for Insomniacs to know that coincidences did not happen. Ever. Anyone who thought otherwise was destined to die a terrible, horrible sci-fimovie death. As terrible, horrible deaths go, those are the most terrible and most horrible. If you doubt that, just ask the guy from Koalas of Death. Oh wait, you can’t! He’s dead!

  Kevin leaned closer to Joules.

  “We need to get a better look at that rabbit,” he whispered.