Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally) Read online

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1: The Fish and the Fiesta

  CHAPTER 2: Meet Rover

  CHAPTER 3: The Route to School

  CHAPTER 4: Robert Carver Ellis-Chan?

  CHAPTER 5: Wilbur, the Finest Dog

  CHAPTER 6: Bad News Bobby

  CHAPTER 7: PTA Lady Dad

  CHAPTER 8: Wandee’s Magic

  CHAPTER 9: Field Trip Fun

  CHAPTER 10: The Rare Koloff Tree

  CHAPTER 11: N-o-m-i-n-a-t-i-o-n-s

  CHAPTER 12: Boys vs. Girls

  CHAPTER 13: Poster Problems

  CHAPTER 14: The Funeral Suit

  CHAPTER 15: Election Day

  CHAPTER 16: Farewell

  CHAPTER 17: New Friends

  CHAPTER 18: The Parting Place

  A Sneak Peek of Bobby the Brave (Sometimes)

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The Ellis-Chan family heard the screams before they even entered Wild Acres Amusement Park. Once inside, all five of them tilted their heads back and looked up. Casey covered her ears. Annie broke into a grin. Mr. and Mrs. Ellis-Chan held hands. And Bobby wondered if anyone would notice if he ran away.

  “Look!” Annie sounded awestruck. “It’s Monstroso!”

  Mr. Ellis-Chan glanced down at Bobby. “What do you say, son? Do you want to try it this year?”

  Bobby swallowed hard as the cars of the giant roller coaster chugged up the rickety wooden rails. When they got to the very top, it was as if the world stood still for a split second before the riders plunged down Monstroso’s death drop.

  “Um, maybe later,” Bobby croaked.

  The whole town of Rancho Rosetta, California, turned out for the annual Labor Day Fiesta at Wild Acres. Bobby could hear a rock band playing in the distance as the riders exited Monstroso, laughing and giving each other high fives. Some people got right back in line to go on again. Bobby shook his head. The only ride worth going on over and over was the bumper cars. He also loved the Circus Train, but that was a little kid ride.

  “Casey and I are going to KiddieLand,” Mrs. Ellis-Chan declared.

  “KiddieLand! KiddieLand!” Casey echoed. Her crown fell off as she hopped up and down, waving her wand in the air. “They have a bouncy castle in KiddieLand!”

  “I’ll keep an eye on Annie and Bobby,” Mr. Ellis-Chan assured his wife.

  “I don’t need anyone to watch me,” Annie protested. “I’m in high school, remember? I’m practically an adult!” She paused and adjusted her football helmet. “Dad, can I have some money? I want to play some games.”

  “Games!” Bobby jumped in. “That sounds like a good idea.” Games were much more appealing than possibly dying on Monstroso. Plus, last year Bobby almost won a giraffe at the Spin-a-Wheel.

  As Annie, Bobby, and their father made their way toward the games, people all around them froze with one arm out and then growled. Even though this happened all the time, Bobby didn’t think he’d ever get used to it.

  Mr. Ellis-Chan was a former linebacker with the Los Angeles Earthquakes pro football team. He had been nicknamed “The Freezer” for his ability to stop his opponents cold in their tracks. Bobby’s dad would dig in his heels, hold one hand straight out in front of him, and make such a ferocious noise that a sports announcer once declared it “the growl heard ’round the world.”

  Mr. Ellis-Chan was now retired. But even though he had traded in his football jersey to become a stay-at-home dad, many of the residents of Rancho Rosetta were thrilled to have an ex–football star living among them.

  “Look!” Annie cried as they neared the Football Throw. “I’m going to win that giant panda!”

  Annie played quarterback on the Rancho Rosetta High School football team. When she won the job, the headline in the local newspaper read, “Freezer’s Daughter Follows in His Footsteps.” Mr. Ellis-Chan had been so proud that he burst into tears.

  “Here, little lady.” The man in the Football Throw booth handed Annie a ball. He winked at Bobby and whispered, “Girls can’t throw.”

  Bobby glanced at his sister, who was staring steely-eyed at the tire hanging from a rope on the ceiling. When Annie’s ball spiraled straight through the tire, the Football Throw man’s smug smile fell off his face.

  As football after football sailed through the tire, the Football Throw man sank down onto a stool in the corner of the booth. At last, Annie stopped. She looked at her father and asked, “Dad, do you want to go next?”

  The Football Throw man stared at the huge figure looming before him and stammered, “You’re … you’re … you’re The Freezer!”

  Mr. Ellis-Chan smiled modestly, then turned to his son. “Bobby, do you want to give it a try before I go?”

  Just as Bobby was trying to think up an excuse not to play, he heard a familiar voice calling, “Bobby! Bobby, over here!”

  He spun around and broke into a grin when he spotted Holly Harper racing toward him. The two friends high-fived with their right hands, high-fived with their left hands, stuck their thumbs in their ears, wiggled their fingers, and then shouted “Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!” They had been doing this for as long as they could remember. At school Bobby tried to avoid Holly, since it was considered weird to have a friend who was a girl. But they were miles away from Rancho Rosetta Elementary.

  “Bobby, I missed you!” Holly exclaimed. “How was your trip?”

  They hadn’t seen each other for a whole month. Holly had been on vacation with her family, and before she got back, Bobby had gone on the road with his grandparents.

  “It was so great!” he said. “Grammy, Gramps, and I drove up and down the Pacific Coast Highway.” He could picture his grandparents’ shiny silver trailer being pulled by their battered red Jeep. “We visited Zuma Beach and Hearst Castle and went all the way up to Oregon! Here, I got something for you.” Bobby dug around in his pockets. He fished out a worn piece of string and a nickel that had a hole in it before he found what he was looking for.

  Holly eagerly examined the smooth reddish rock that Bobby handed to her. “Wowza! It’s almost totally round, like a marble,” she exclaimed. “This one’s even better than the one I found in the Arroyo Seco last year.”

  Bobby nodded. “I thought you’d like it. I picked it up on the beach at Big Sur.” Holly loved rocks almost as much as he did. “When we go to the Arroyo Seco tomorrow, let’s look for rocks with funny shapes.”

  Holly hesitated. “Um, I can’t go tomorrow.”

  “But we always go rock hunting the day before school starts,” Bobby reminded her.

  “I know,” Holly said, refusing to meet his gaze. “But, well, I forgot and promised Jillian I’d go shopping with her….” Her voice trailed off for a moment. “I know! We can go rock hunting next weekend.”

  Bobby shook his head. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

  There was an awkward silence as Holly studied the rock and Bobby studied her. He didn’t like it that she looked sad, but he also didn’t like it that she had forgotten about their tradition. Something about Holly was different. It wasn’t her freckles, which looked the same. He had always admired Holly’s freckles. One time she even let him do a dot-to-dot on her face with a marker. (They both got in big trouble for that one.) But there was something else….

  Bobby stepped back. “Your h-h-h-hair!” he said, pointing. “It’s all straight and shiny.”

  “Thanks,” Holly said, flashing her familiar smile.

  Holly used to have a tangle of brown hair that was big and bushy and perfect. She and Bobby could hide paper clips and plastic army men in it. Once they even put a frog in her hair to conceal it from Holly’s mom. Bobby sighed. There was no way you
could hide a frog in straight hair.

  “Hooray!” someone shouted behind them.

  “Thanks, Freezer!!”

  “Woooooo woooooo!!!”

  “Look!” Holly pointed over Bobby’s shoulder. “Annie and your dad have a lot of fans.” Sure enough, the mob around the Football Throw booth was cheering his dad and sister as they won prize after prize. The roar got even louder as they tossed some of their prizes into the crowd. The only person who didn’t look happy was the Football Throw man.

  Bobby had never won anything in his life, and he could barely throw a football, no matter how much his dad tried to teach him. He turned away as Annie won a stuffed giant panda. It was bigger than Casey. “Let’s walk around,” Bobby suggested. “We just have to be able to see my dad at all times.”

  “That won’t be hard.” Holly gestured to the group of adoring fans mobbing Mr. Ellis-Chan. When Bobby winced, she reassured him, “Remember, you’re the one who gets to go home with him. He’s your dad, not theirs.”

  She always could make him feel better.

  Their first stop was the cotton candy booth, Holly’s favorite. They watched with awe as the lady wove a huge web of spun sugar around a paper cone, so that it resembled a fluffy pink beehive. Holly pulled off a big piece of cotton candy and let it melt in her mouth.

  Now it was Bobby’s turn to decide where to go. As they hurried toward Marv’s Marvelous Mini Donuts, he asked, “So why did you straighten your hair?”

  “Jillian thought it would look better,” Holly said. She offered Bobby some cotton candy, but he shook his head. “She even gave me some special shampoo that makes your hair straighter and shiny. Do you want to try it?”

  “Why?” Bobby asked. “Is there something wrong with my hair?”

  Holly just smiled. Bobby’s thick, dark brown hair looked like a tornado had blown through it in twelve different directions. No amount of combing could tame it.

  “There’s nothing wrong with your hair if that’s the way you like it,” Holly assured him. “But Jillian offered to help me with mine and I let her.”

  “Since when did you start listening to Jillian Zarr?” Bobby asked.

  “Well, when you were on vacation, Jillian invited me to a sleepover. And then I invited her to the movies, and we ended up spending a lot of time together. She’s really nice once you get to know her.”

  Bobby shrugged. He had no desire to get to know Jillian Zarr.

  As they continued walking, a wonderful scent led Bobby to his destination. Marv’s Marvelous Mini Donuts were Bobby’s favorite part of the Fiesta. A small group of people stood at the booth, watching the donuts being made. Bobby slipped up to the front. A metal tube dropped small perfect halos of dough into a vat of boiling oil. The donuts floated happily in the oil, turning golden brown as they made their way down to a rack that rose up and flipped them over so the other side could fry. When the donuts were done, the machine dropped them onto a cooling tray.

  Bobby loved the smell of fresh donuts. He could practically taste them as the donut man sprinkled them with generous amounts of sugar and cinnamon, then popped them into brown paper sacks while they were still hot.

  “I’ll take six,” Bobby called out. If he ever got rich, the first thing he’d buy would be his very own donut machine.

  As they headed toward the game booths, Bobby happily munched on his donuts. Mr. Ellis-Chan was still entertaining his fans with stories about his football days. Annie ran by with her friends and yelled, “Hey, Squirt, look what I won!” She had the stuffed giant panda tucked under one arm and an enormous purple elephant under the other.

  Holly finished her cotton candy and wiped her hands on her shorts. “How are the donuts, Bobby?”

  Bobby peered into the bag. There was only one left. He looked at Holly and then he looked at the donut. Then he looked at Holly again; then he looked at the donut. “Do you want one?” he asked.

  “No, thanks.” Holly patted her stomach. “I’m full of cotton candy.”

  Bobby sighed with relief. As he savored the last donut, Holly stopped in front of a booth lined with balloons. “Let’s try this.”

  “You go ahead. I’m still eating,” Bobby said with his mouth full. He watched Holly try to pop the balloons with darts. She missed each time.

  “Oh well. How about we do something else?” Holly said. “Maybe something easier.”

  Bobby pointed to the Coin Toss. “What about that?”

  Players tossed coins into shallow glass bowls and plates. If one of your coins stayed in, you got to keep whatever object your coin landed in. The loud pinging sounded like music. Bobby wanted to win something nice like the yellow candy dish for his mother. But all of his and Holly’s coins kept bouncing out. A few didn’t even land near anything.

  “Come on, let’s go over there,” Holly suggested, tugging on his sleeve.

  The Goldfish Toss looked simple enough. All you had to do was throw a Ping-Pong ball into a goldfish bowl. If you made it, you got to keep the fish. “I don’t think so,” Bobby said. He only had a dollar left, and that was enough to buy three more mini donuts.

  “Well, I’m going to try,” Holly announced. She handed over her dollar in exchange for three Ping-Pong balls.

  One. Two. Three. Holly missed each time.

  “Want to try again?” the man said, holding out three more Ping-Pong balls. “You were pretty close that last time.”

  Holly bit her lip. “I don’t have any money left,” she said glumly.

  Bobby could feel the dollar in his pocket.

  “I was pretty close, though, wasn’t I?” she asked him.

  The mini donuts were awfully good. And Bobby got them only once a year. Holly’s shoulders slumped as she started to walk away.

  “Here!” Bobby held out his dollar. “Three Ping-Pong balls, please.”

  Holly perked up. “Bobby, are you going to play?”

  He shook his head. “No, you are,” he said, handing the balls to Holly.

  Her eyes lit up. “Gee, thanks, Bobby!”

  One.

  Two.

  Holly had one more chance left. Bobby crossed his fingers.

  Three.

  Bobby and Holly were both beaming as the man handed her the bowl. The orange goldfish looked scared.

  “What are you going to name him?” Bobby asked.

  “I don’t know.” Holly had to walk really slowly so the water wouldn’t spill. “You decide.”

  “Why me? He’s your fish. You won him.”

  “But it was your dollar,” Holly insisted. “I want you to have him. You’re always talking about getting a pet. Besides, I already have Lulu and she might get jealous.” Lulu was Holly’s lizard.

  “But —” Bobby didn’t want a fish. Fish were dumb. What he wanted was a black Labrador retriever, the best animal in the entire world.

  Holly held the fishbowl out to him like it was filled with diamonds. She smiled broadly. “Really, Bobby, I want you to have the fish.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” Bobby said. As he took the fishbowl, someone tapped Holly on the shoulder.

  “Hi, Holly!” It was Jillian Zarr.

  Bobby and Holly automatically stepped away from each other. It was dangerous to be spotted by someone from school.

  “Benny, you weren’t talking to Holly, were you?” Jillian Zarr asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

  “My name’s Bobby,” he corrected her. “And, um, we just, er, happened to be standing near each other.”

  Jillian Zarr towered over Bobby. She was freakishly tall for someone who was nine years old. Even her pigtails looked intimidating.

  “Hey, Holly, you left your sleeping bag at my house,” Jillian Zarr said, turning her back to Bobby. “My mom says she’ll drop it off later. Come on, let’s go to the petting farm. They have the cutest baby goats!”

  “Oh, that sounds like fun!” Holly looked at Bobby. “Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

  Jillian Zarr made a sour face. “Why are you even
talking to a boy?”

  “I just … I was being nice?” Holly said.

  Bobby shook his head. “I couldn’t go to the petting zoo even if I wanted to. I’m allergic to fur, and it could trigger my allergies, and that could trigger my asthma.”

  “T-M-I,” Jillian Zarr cried, linking arms with Holly. “Too much information!”

  Holly glanced over her shoulder as Jillian Zarr dragged her way. “Good-bye,” she mouthed.

  Bobby gave his friend a weak wave, then watched the girls disappear into the crowd, leaving him holding a goldfish.

  Bobby sat cross-legged on his bed, reading his Encyclopedia of Dogs. His room was painted orange, but the walls were plastered with his drawings of Great Danes, Yorkshire terriers, and every size dog in between. On the bookshelf was a collage Holly had given him when they both turned nine on May twenty-first. They had been born on the same night in the same hospital. The collage had a picture of them as newborns in their clear plastic cribs, next to another photo where they sat side by side in their high chairs when they were toddlers. Then there was a snapshot from the Halloween when they dressed as Thing One and Thing Two from The Cat in the Hat, and Bobby’s favorite photo, of the two of them hugging Pluto at Disneyland.

  When Bobby looked up from his book, the goldfish was swimming in circles. He knew how it felt. Every year he and Holly went rock hunting on the last day of summer vacation. But today Holly was shopping for new school clothes with Jillian Zarr. Bobby couldn’t believe it. What kind of person would pick clothes shopping over rock hunting? Just last summer, it had been Holly’s idea to roll down Skeleton Hill in a tire. Was she turning into a girl?

  Casey pranced into Bobby’s room and waved Wandee, her favorite wand, over the fish bowl. “I thought you said he was a goldfish.”

  “He is.”

  Casey studied the fish. “But he’s not gold, he’s orange.”

  Bobby ignored her and looked at the Labrador in his book. It said that Labs were dependable and obedient and fun.

  “What’s Fishy’s name?” Casey asked.

  “He doesn’t have a name,” Bobby said, without looking up. He was still puzzling over why someone would rather go shopping than rock hunting.