The Miraculous Makeover of Lizard Flanagan

The Miraculous Makeover of Lizard Flanagan

Lizard Flanagan, Book One

Carol Gorman

Many thanks to Amy Lemen, Dwight Codr,

Sheila and Calaneet Balas,

and Ben Johnson for their help

To my editor, Ginee Seo,

with thanks for her patience, enthusiasm,

and terrific ideas

1

“Lizard Flanagan!” yelled my friend Mary Ann Powers. “Hurry up! We're going to be late!”

It was the first day of school, and Mary Ann was waiting for me at the footbridge over the ravine.

I looked at the watch that I'd gotten for my eleventh birthday. (It was a beaut—it had a chronograph with an eight-lap memory for timing races and stuff.) “What are you talking about?” I hollered to Mary Ann. “It's only seven thirty-two in the
A.M.
We've got almost a half hour until they open the prison doors!”

“But I want to get there early,” Mary Ann said.

That gave me an idea, and I sprinted the rest of the way to the bridge. “Maybe we can get up a game of football before the first bell.”

Mary Ann didn't say anything.

“I told Sam to tell Zach and Ed and Stinky that we'd be walking because my bike's in the shop. I said we'd meet them at the flagpole. They'll be up for a quick game, I bet. I've got my second-best ball in my backpack; I'm going to keep it in my locker.”

Mary Ann stayed quiet.

“So what do you think?” I said. “You up for one last game before the drudgery starts?”

“Well, I'm not really dressed for sports,” she said, turning away and starting off toward school.

It was only then, when she walked away from me, that I noticed what she was wearing. A short denim skirt, a red-and-white print shirt, and flat dress shoes. I couldn't believe it. The last time I'd seen Mary Ann wear a skirt to school was in third grade when she dressed up as a witch for the Halloween parade, and she wore a long, black skirt of her mother's, safety-pinned at the waist to hold it up.

I scowled. “A
skirt?
” I hurried to catch up. “Aren't you going a little overboard?”

Mary Ann bit her lower lip the way she always does when she gets self-conscious. “Well, gee, it's the first day of middle school,” she said. “I thought I should dress up a little.”

“You think you're a
little
dressed up?” I said. “No, Mary Ann,
I'm
a little dressed up.” I looked down at my shorts (new this summer), my favorite Chicago Cubs T-shirt (not a stain on it), my Adidas running shoes (no holes), and then I looked at her. “
You're
dressed for a wedding.”

“Oh, for Pete's sake,” she said. “I am not.” She leaned over, midstride, and scratched her leg where a mosquito had bitten her yesterday.

I glanced down at her leg, then stopped her.

“
Hose?
” I said, touching her knee with all the scab scars. “You're wearing panty hose? Are you nuts? It's going to be eighty-five degrees this afternoon, and Truman Middle School isn't even air-conditioned.”

“They're not panty hose, they're tights,” Mary Ann corrected me. “And I'll probably survive.”

“I didn't even know you owned a pair.”

“Lots of people own tights,” she said.

“I don't even know where you
get
them,” I said.

“A department store.”

I shook my head. I couldn't figure out what had gotten into Mary Ann.

She and I are a lot alike and agree on almost everything, like our Favorite Ice Cream: rocky road; our Most Hated Chore: washing dishes; our Favorite Baseball Team: the Chicago Cubs; and our Worst Nightmare: having to go to school during the summer.

And we never dress up. Ever.

We were the only girls in our class at Washington Elementary School who played in the metro baseball and flag football leagues, or climbed trees, or caught frogs down at the creek. In other words, we're the only girls at school who had any fun.

We've always hung out with the guys: my twin brother Sam, Zach Walters, Ed Mechtensteimer, and Stinky Porter. They're the best friends anybody could have. They're fun, they like baseball and football, and they know how to have a good time.

The girls are another story. You wouldn't believe what they do for fun. Heather Parks and Jennifer Wilkes and Tiffany Brady and some of the others spend hours polishing their nails and curling their hair. They have big slumber parties where they read beauty magazines and try out new hairstyles and talk about boys.

I can't believe they do such boring stuff and
like
it.

Mary Ann and I always said we'd rather spit into the wind than act as stupid as those girls. So I couldn't believe that Mary Ann, one of my very best friends, was standing here in front of me all dressed up and wearing
panty hose
, for crying out loud.

I could see she wasn't about to change her mind, though. Besides, it was probably too late for her to run home and get normal anyway. So I figured we'd better start walking. I knew she was going to be hot and miserable in those panty hose. That would teach her.

“Come on,” I said. “Let's go.”

Truman Middle School is on the edge of town, and a lot of the kids take buses or come in car pools. Mary Ann and I usually ride our bikes with the guys, but since my bike was getting fixed, she had said she'd walk with me today.

We got there before the buses did and leaned up against the big ash tree near the circular drive and watched the kids arrive. The familiar faces belonged to kids who'd been in our class at Washington Elementary. I recognized some who'd gone to Wash ahead of us who were now seventh and eighth graders. A few of them hardly looked like the same people, they'd changed so much since elementary school.

Mostly, though, I watched the new faces, the kids from Mark Twain and Jefferson elementary schools.

I nudged Mary Ann. “There's Al Pickering. He was a great quarterback for the Cougars last year.”

“Where?” said Mary Ann. “Don't point. Just tell me where he is.”

“You can't miss him,” I said. “He's wearing a purple T-shirt, and he's looking over this way. Hi!” I waved and Al waved back.

“Now he knows we're talking about him!” Mary Ann whispered, turning her back to him. Her cheeks turned pink.

“So what?” I said. “He's a great guy. Don't you remember? He and I QB'ed when the Raiders played the Cougars last year.”

“Sure, I remember,” she said, smiling. “The Raiders were awesome. We won that game.”

“Just barely, remember? I sneaked through that hole in the defense and scored that touchdown in the last five seconds of the game.”

“Yeah,” Mary Ann said, grinning. “I was wide open in the end zone, but you decided to take it in yourself!”

I stared at her. “Wide open, are you kidding! Guys were all over you!”

“That's not the way I remember it.” She was still smiling.

That's Mary Ann. She likes pulling my chain.

“You're full of it, Mary Ann,” I said. “Just ask Zach about that last play.”

“He'd side with you no matter what you said.”

“Yeah, 'cause he knows I'm right!”

Football is a lot of fun, but baseball's my specialty. Mary Ann's, too. In the metro leagues, the positions get passed around a lot to give everyone a chance to do what they like best. But I have to say that when I pitched last year, we won more than we lost. I have a great curveball. Mary Ann and I—and the rest of the guys—are going out for the middle-school baseball team next spring. The Truman Tigers need a good pitcher.

I tapped her arm. “There's Josh Clinton and Ben Peterson from the Warriors. They broke league records for hitting last year.”

“Some of these kids look really
old
,” Mary Ann said. “Check out that girl in the white shorts. She looks sixteen.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Probably an eighth grader.”

“She looks so sophisticated.”

Most of the girls were dressed like Mary Ann, in skirts or dressy walking shorts. I didn't examine any other legs closely, but I think there were more than a few pairs of panty hose walking around in the heat that morning.

My brother Sam arrived with Zach and Ed and Stinky on their bikes.

“Hey, Sam! Zach!” I yelled.

The guys looked over and grinned. They locked their bikes to the rack and came over. Zach punched me on the arm. “No more freedom,” he said. “We're prisoners for nine long months, Lizard.”

A girl standing close by looked over at me and frowned, mouthing my name:
Lizard.
She looked at her friend and they laughed.

That didn't bother me. I get that a lot. I mean, Lizard is a pretty unusual name. Of course, it's not my real name. Mom and Dad named me Elizabeth, and when Sam was two, he couldn't say that. It came out more like “Lizard,” and the name stuck. It's a fine name, I think. It sure beats the heck out of Elizabeth.

“What group are you in?” Zach asked.

“Orange,” I said.

His face fell. “I'm in the black one. I was hoping we'd get into the same group.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

The Truman mascot is a tiger, so every grade is divided into two groups with tiger colors, orange and black. All the kids in one group have the same teachers and move through their classes together. We were sent letters almost a week ago telling us which group we'd be in. Within an hour of the mail delivery that day, we all knew who was in what group. Except for Zach. He was on a fishing trip with his dad.

“Ed and Stinky are in your group,” he said.

“I know. Mary Ann and Sam are in yours,” I said.

Zach looked into the sky. “I guess it's just as well,” he said. He had that look in his eyes that always comes before one of his stories.

“What do you mean?”

“There was a school on the other side of the state,” he said. “It was taken over by alien invaders. The aliens marched everybody down to the gym, then divided the kids into two groups, just like our orange and black groups. Made them stand across the gym from each other. Then the aliens told the kids they were going to play basketball. Every kid had to participate in one play of the game. The losing team would have to go with the aliens back to their planet.”

By this time, Sam, Mary Ann, Ed, and Stinky were leaning in to hear. No one ever gave up a chance to hear one of Zach's stories.

“Half the school had to go with the aliens?” Ed said. He was grinning, but he was listening hard.

Stinky snorted. “How was there room on the spaceship?”

“They could shrink people to the size of a golf tee,” Zach said.

“So what happened?” I said.

“The game went on all afternoon. The aliens said each quarter would be thirty minutes long. Every kid played as if his life depended on it, and of course, it did. First, one team was ahead. Then the other. At the end of the final quarter, with the game tied up and five seconds left on the clock, my cousin Wally stood on the free-throw line. He knew his life depended on the next few seconds.

“Then he looked across the room and saw his best friend on the other team. He didn't know what to do. If his team won, his friend would have to go with the aliens. If his team lost,
he'd
have to go.”

“What did he do?” Mary Ann asked.

“He threw the ball. It arced, and came clean through the basket. The game was over. Wally's best friend and the other half of the school had to get shrunk and go with the aliens.” Zach looked at me. “So you see, with the six of us divided between the orange and black groups, we're pretty evenly matched.” He grinned. “We'd have a great game, wouldn't we?”

Zach loved telling stories as much as we loved hearing them.

“Well, I just want to know one thing,” Stinky said.