Roosevelt Banks Good-Kid-in-Training Read online

  One Elm Books is an imprint of Red Chair Press LLC

  Red Chair Press LLC PO Box 333 South Egremont, MA 01258-0333

  www.redchairpress.com

  Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

  Names: Calkhoven, Laurie, author. | Palen, Debbie, illustrator.

  Title: Roosevelt Banks : Good-Kid-In-Training / Laurie Calkhoven ; with illustrations by Debbie Palen.

  Description: [South Egremont, Massachusetts] : One Elm Books, an imprint of Red Chair Press LLC, [2020] | Summary: “When ten-year-old Roosevelt Banks discovers that his two best friends are planning a bike & camping trip, he wants more than anything to go along. There’s just one problem--he doesn’t have a bike. Roosevelt’s parents agree to buy him a new bike IF he can manage to be good for two whole weeks. How can Roosevelt be good and be the same fun guy his friends want on the camping trip?”--Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: ISBN 9781947159181 (library hardcover) | ISBN 9781947159198 (paperback) |ISBN 9781947159204 (ebook PDF)

  Subjects: LCSH: Boys--Conduct of life--Juvenile fiction. | Friendship--Juvenile fiction. | Bicycles--Juvenile fiction. | Camping--Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Conduct of life--Fiction. | Friendship--Fiction. | Bicycles--Fiction. | Camping--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.C12878 Ro 2020 (print) | LCC PZ7.C12878 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019934117

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Main body text set in 17/24 Baskerville

  Text copyright © 2020 by Laurie Calkhoven

  Copyright © 2020 Red Chair Press LLC

  RED CHAIR PRESS, ONE ELM Books logo, and green leaf colophon are registered trademarks of Red Chair Press LLC.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in an information or retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical including photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission from the Publisher. For permissions, contact [email protected]

  Printed in Canada

  619 1P S20FN

  For the good kids in my life

  —Logan, Bennett, and Madison

  CHAPTER ONE

  Listen, Roosevelt

  So far it was a regular Monday.

  Tommy and I burped during silent reading time and made the whole class laugh.

  At recess I squatted down really fast while Josh ripped a piece of paper and made everyone think I had split my pants. Fake out!

  All three of us smeared ketchup on our mouths after lunch and lurched around after the girls like zombies. Emily Park screamed!

  Now it was time for some real fun. I jumped off the school bus and zoomed down the hill to the creek. I teetered on the edge for a second and then popped onto a rock in the middle of the water. Safe! Tommy and Josh were right behind me.

  “Want to meet back here and hunt frogs?” I asked.

  The three of us hung out almost every day after school. We were the only three best friends in fourth grade. All the other best friends came in pairs.

  Josh and Tommy didn’t answer.

  “Frogs?” I asked again.

  Josh’s eyes slid sideways toward Tommy.

  Tommy’s eyes slid sideways toward Josh.

  I came up with a new idea. “If Mrs. Crabapple isn’t home we can slither through her yard and spy on Tommy’s brothers. Maybe they’ll start talking about what girls they like again—gross!”

  Crabby old Mrs. Crawford doesn’t like kids in her yard for any reason. Not for slithering. Not for running after balls. And especially not for petting the rabbits she keeps in a hutch in her backyard.

  Now Josh’s eyes blinked at Tommy.

  Tommy’s eyes stared at his sneakers.

  Neither one of them said a word. That was definitely weird.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  “Can’t hang out today, Roosevelt,” Josh mumbled. “I have to ride my bike.”

  “Me, too,” Tommy said. He scuffed the toe of his sneaker in the mud on the creek bank. “I have to ride my bike.”

  “Have to? What do you mean have to? Nobody has to ride a bike.” I didn’t have a bike. Not anymore. And they both knew it.

  Now Josh and Tommy’s eyes started acting even weirder. Their eyeballs darted up, down, and sideways. They blinked like crazy.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Why don’t you want to do something we can do together?”

  Finally Josh’s eyeballs looked right into mine. “Listen, Roosevelt,” he said.

  Sentences that start with ‘Listen, Roosevelt’ never end with something good. But usually it’s Mom or Dad or a teacher saying, ‘Listen, Roosevelt,’ not one of my two best friends.

  “My dad’s taking me and two of my friends on a bicycle trip. We’re going to bike all the way to the state park on the old railroad trail. And camp. It’s for the three-day weekend next month,” Josh said, all in a rush. “He told me last night. He said you and Tommy could come, but you don’t have a bike.”

  “Josh called me on my cell phone last night,” Tommy said, still staring at his sneakers.

  Cell phone. Another thing they had that I didn’t.

  “My parents already said I could go,” Tommy added.

  I started to feel like the rock I was standing on was sinking into the creek bed and I was sinking along with it.

  “He said you could bring two friends. Who’s taking my place?” I asked.

  Josh’s ears turned red. “I don’t know yet.”

  I thought of reasons why they couldn’t go. “How are you going to get camping stuff there on your bikes?” I asked.

  “My dad has a trailer thing that attaches to the back of his bike,” Josh said. “He can bring everything. The tent. The food. The sleeping bags. The fishing poles.”

  Tommy’s eyes flashed. “We’re going fishing? Awesome.”

  Josh raised his hand for a high five. Slap!

  “We’ll tell ghost stories around the campfire,” he said. Slap.

  “And roast marshmallows,” Tommy added. Slap.

  “And swim in the lake.” Slap.

  “And not take showers or wash our hair for three days.” Slap.

  “And pee in the woods.” Slap.

  Each high five made me feel worse and worse. I wanted to pee in the woods, too.

  “Maybe we’ll see a bear.” Slap.

  Tommy cracked up. “But not while we’re peeing!” Slap.

  “My dad’s gonna love it!” Josh said. “I bet he even moves closer to me so we can go all the time.”

  Oh, great, I thought, so they can go on even more fun trips without me.

  “Why can’t you tell your dad to plan a trip without bikes? Just plain camping?” I asked.

  A flicker of surprise crossed Josh’s face, like he never even thought about how he could include me. “My dad just got a new bike,” he said. “It was his idea.”

  “You can’t ride your bikes all the way to the state park,” I told them. “It’s too far. You’ll keel over and die and a bear will eat you.” Okay, maybe I didn’t say it. Maybe I was yelling.

  “We will too make it,” Josh said. “We’re gonna ride our bikes every day after school. And Saturdays and Sundays, too.”

  “It’s thirty miles,” Tommy said quietly. “We have to train to get ready.”

  “You can’t bike thirty miles,” I yelled.

  “Can, too!” Josh yelled back. “We’re gonna work our way up. We’re BDTs, bike-dudes-in-training,” Josh said.

  BDTs? They already have a secret nickname?

  “You know I’d invite you if you had a bike, Roosevelt,” Josh said. His voice trailed off.

  I was starting to think that was a big lie. “You’re the reason I don’t have a bike anymore,” I yelled.

  “That experiment was your idea,” Josh yelled back. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “If you were really my friend, you’d tell your dad you didn’t want to go without me,” I said.

  “If you were really my friend, you’d be happy my dad was taking me on this cool trip.”

  Tommy’s eyes darted from me to Josh and back to me. He looked sorry, but not sorry enough to skip the trip. “I’d let you borrow Dante and Malik’s bike,” he said, “but they took it apart to make a Ferris wheel for their gerbil. Maybe you can ask your parents for a new bike,” Tommy said. He turned to Josh. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”

  Josh shrugged. He was still mad. “I guess,” he said.

  “Will you ask them?” Tommy asked me.

  I didn’t trust myself to say yes without maybe sounding like I was about to cry—not that I was, there was something in my throat—so I only nodded.

  “It would be awesome if you could come,” Tommy said. He turned back to Josh. “Wouldn’t it?”

  “I guess I can wait to ask someone else,” Josh mumbled.

  I wasn’t so sure my parents would say yes to a new bike. They were steamed whe
n my bike got broken. And even though Tommy was trying to find a way to include me, Josh was ready to put another kid in my place. He and Tommy were going to be BDTs every day after school and on the weekends. I’d be alone.

  What if Tommy and Josh replace me with a new best friend?

  That’s what I was thinking when Tommy pointed and shouted. “Frog!”

  I spun on my heel to look, forgetting that I was on a slippery rock. The next thing I knew I was ankle-deep in creek water. Splash!

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sploosh, Squeak

  I slammed the front door and threw my backpack down with a thud. Our border collie, Millard Fillmore, should have been waiting for me and wagging his tail. He wasn’t.

  My mother looked up from her computer in the corner of the living room. “Welcome home, sunshine,” she said. “How was school?”

  “Horrible,” I said.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Mrs. Anderson didn’t call. Did she send you home with a note?”

  “No,” I said.

  “What about Principal Esposito?”

  “I’m not in trouble.” Geez, a guy can’t win, even at home.

  “Did something happen?” Mom asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Okay.” Mom took a big breath. Parents and teachers do that—a lot. I guess when you’re old you need extra air.

  “Do you have any homework?” she asked.

  “Just my stupid story,” I answered.

  “I thought you liked your story.”

  “Not anymore,” I said.

  “Why don’t you think about how you can fix it while you have your snack. Then you can change clothes and go play.”

  “I don’t have anyone to hang out with,” I said, stomping toward the kitchen. Except because my shoes and socks were filled with creek water, my stomping was really splooshing and squeaking.

  I splooshed, squeaked, splooshed, squeaked across the living room.

  “Roosevelt Theodore Banks,” Mom said.

  If anyone ever wondered which President Roosevelt I was named after, all they had to do was wait for my mom to get mad at me.

  “I thought we agreed you were only going to wear your old sneakers in the creek. Now your new ones will smell, too.”

  “It was an accident,” I said.

  “You accidentally jumped in the creek?” Mom asked.

  You’d think that at least a guy’s mom would believe him, even if his two best friends were traitors who planned cool bicycle trips without him.

  Mom’s computer pinged and she took another big old person’s breath. “I’ll talk to you about it when I finish up here.”

  I splooshed, squeaked on my way to the kitchen.

  “Take your shoes off!” Mom yelled.

  When I finally got to the kitchen after all that stuff, Millard Fillmore was sitting at my four-year-old sister Kennedy’s feet. Millard Fillmore’s eyes were trained on the cookie she was trying to feed to a doll. He thumped his tail when he saw me, but he didn’t move.

  “Another traitor,” I muttered. But Fillmore doesn’t speak human, so his tail only thumped harder. I scratched his head for a second.

  “Rosie want tea?” Kennedy asked, raising her blue-and-white teapot.

  “Roosevelt is a boy and doesn’t play tea party,” I snapped. That wasn’t true. Sometimes I did when no one was looking, but not today.

  Kennedy’s lower lip started to tremble. Mom would be really mad if I made Kennedy cry. Plus I felt a little bad. She’s just a kid.

  “Dolly wants tea,” I said, pointing to her doll.

  That was enough to make her happy. Kennedy poured pretend tea into little blue cups. Too bad nothing that small could cheer me up.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Smash Your Face, Not Your Brains

  Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and milk didn’t make me feel better. Neither did lots of licks from Fillmore. While Kennedy chattered about dolls and preschool drama, I thought about how much fun I’d be missing while the BDTs rode their bikes.

  I escaped from the kitchen before Mom could come and talk things over. Upstairs, I made sure to blow my breath out when I walked past the door to the Attic of Doom. Tommy’s older brothers Dante and Malik told us that ghosts can slip into your body while you’re breathing in. And late at night when everyone’s sleeping I can hear ghost noises coming from up there.

  The first thing I did when I got to my room was check my bank. Maybe I could buy my own bike. I had only $1.47. I guess I shouldn’t have bought that exploding volcano kit for $14.95, especially since it made a huge mess in the kitchen and got all over Kennedy.

  If I looked out the window, I’d see Tommy pedaling toward Josh’s. Instead I sat at my desk and looked at the story I was writing for school. It was about three best friends who discover they have super powers. One has super smarts (that would be me), one has super strength (that would be Josh), and one has ESP and can read minds (that would be Tommy). But now I didn’t feel like finishing. I pushed it aside and started a new story.

  TRAITORS

  by Roosevelt Banks

  One day, two boys named Josh and Tommy sneak away on a bike trip without their best friend Lincoln. The traitors run into a bear on the old railroad trail. The bear roars and snaps its teeth. It’s a hungry bear and Josh and Tommy will make a tasty meal—even if they are traitors.

  The boys scream. “Help! Help! We’re going to be bear food!”

  Lincoln has super hearing. He can hear his ex-friends’ screams from miles away. He knows Josh and Tommy can’t out run a hungry bear, but Lincoln has a secret. It’s a magic jet pack. He uses it to fly to their rescue, even though they don’t deserve it.

  When Lincoln gets there—seconds later—the bear has Josh in one hand and Tommy in the other. He is deciding which head to chomp off first with his big bear teeth when Lincoln flies by and kicks that bear in the face.

  The bear is so surprised he drops Josh and Tommy. He swats at Lincoln, but Lincoln dances away in the air before bravely coming in for another kick and another.

  Josh and Tommy huddle on the ground, too scared to run.

  “Get moving, boys!” Lincoln yells. “Hop on your bikes and race away.”

  That gives them the push they need. As soon as Lincoln sees his ex-friends are safe, he flies home. An hour later, they knock on his door.

  “You saved our lives!” Tommy exclaims.

  “We were bear food for sure until you came along,” Josh says. “You’re the bravest person I know.”

  Tommy gives Lincoln a high-five. “We’re sorry we left you out. We’ll never do it again. Will you forgive us?”

  “You’re our best friend—and our hero,” Josh adds.

  Lincoln forgives his friends and gives them each their own jet pack so they can all fly together, because that’s the kind of good guy he is.

  The End

  I wrote really fast and it was messy, but it was a great story. I started over at the beginning, neater this time, and added cool details like blood and guts dripping from the bear’s teeth from his most recent meal and beads of sweat on Josh’s and Tommy’s foreheads. It was A+ work.

  I sat back and put my feet up, feeling a little better. On the bulletin board above my desk was a picture of Josh, Tommy, and me each holding a blue ribbon we had won at the Science Fair. Next to it were pictures of my bike at the bottom of the big hill on Third Street with a partly smashed melon wearing my bike helmet. In another picture, a melon head with no helmet was smashed into a million pieces with melon brains all over the street. The front bike wheel was bent, too.

  We proved that it’s better to crash your bike wearing a helmet. We made a big sign that said:

  Wear a helmet.

  Smash your face, not your brains.

  Josh’s father planned a bike trip after my broken bike won Josh a blue ribbon. That was not fair. And it wasn’t fair that Tommy said he would go without me.

  Plus I never even got a reward for thinking up my excellent idea. Instead I got called Roosevelt Theodore Banks a whole bunch of times by Mom and Dad for breaking my bike. You’d think it was people heads that got smashed, not melon faces.