Max Saves the Day

Chapter One
 
 
The way Jeffrey Becker was racing and rushing around his bedroom meant that it had to be a Saturday morning. On Saturdays, Jeffrey always hurried to get out of the house in twelve and a half minutes flat. On this particular Saturday morning, though, Jeffrey was six minutes into his wake-up routine when he hit a problem.
 
When he opened the top drawer of his bedroom dresser to grab a pair of socks, he saw only one red sock, one blue, one white, one white with green stripes, and one white with blue spots—from stepping on blueberries. “Hey!” Jeffrey said out loud. “Nothing matches!”
 
Then he opened the second drawer. Everything looked normal, so he took his hairbrush out and began to brush his thick brown hair. But after only a couple of strokes, he looked as if he had just stepped out of a snowstorm. There was talcum powder buried in the bristles of his hairbrush.
 
The missing socks and the hairbrush were a mystery—for about five seconds. “Okay, where are you, Max?” Jeffrey asked, looking around his empty room.
 
The room may have looked empty, but it wasn’t. There was a ghost in it somewhere, and Jeffrey knew it.
 
“Max,” Jeffrey said, calling the ghost’s name again. “I know you’re here. Stop making yourself invisible.”
 
“Hey, Daddy-o. Like, what big dandruff you have,” a voice in the room said suddenly. And slowly Max appeared, floating up near the ceiling. Max was a third-grader, just like Jeffrey. But he didn’t look or sound like any of Jeffrey’s other friends. With his baggy jeans, his white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up almost to his shoulders, and his hair greased back, Max looked like a kid from the 1950s. And that’s because he was one!
 
“Never fear, Max is here,” the ghost said. “Start shakin’ and movin’ cause this cat is groovin’.”
 
Jeffrey rolled his eyes and laughed. “Most people just say hi. What’s with the poetry?”
 
“Don’t be cruel. It isn’t cool,” the ghost answered. “Besides, I’m in a rhyming mood today. It’s hipper than hip.”
 
Jeffrey grabbed his baseball glove. It was an old glove that Max had given him. “Let’s go,” Jeffrey said.
 
“Like, where?”
 
“Where do you think?” Jeffrey answered. “You said we’d play some baseball today.”
 
“Like, that’s what I fell by to tell you, Daddy-o,” said the ghost. “I can’t make the scene. Like, sorry, cat.”
 
“Max,” Jeffrey said, “you’ve canceled three weeks in a row. You said this time for sure.”
 
“Like, did I say ‘I promise’?”
 
Jeffrey nodded.
 
“Did I say ‘I promise,’ did I cross my heart and hope to die, kiss my pinkie, and spin around three times?”
 
Jeffrey nodded again.
 
“Like, did I say ‘I promise,’ cross my heart and hope to die, kiss my pinkie, spin around three times, walk like a duck, and stand on my head?”
 
“Well, no,” Jeffrey admitted.
 
“Then, like, it doesn’t count as a real promise, Daddy-o. Aren’t you hip to how things are supposed to work?”
 
“Nothing works the way it’s supposed to when you’re around, Max,” Jeffrey said with a sigh.
 
The ghost smiled. “You’re just saying that because you dig me the most,” he said, punching Jeffrey’s arm lightly. “Like, next Saturday for absolutely sure, Daddy-o.”
 
“Never mind,” Jeffrey said. “I’m going to the park without you. I have lots of other friends who’ll play ball with me.”
 
But when Jeffrey got to the park on his bike, there was only one kid in sight: Brian Carr. And Brian was one of Jeffrey’s least favorite people.
 
Brian Carr was down the hill by the playground. He’s probably waiting around for someone to pick a fight with, Jeffrey thought. Brian was throwing rocks into a large mud puddle that looked almost big enough to swim across. Every rock splashed waves of muddy water all over the playground equipment.
 
As Jeffrey got closer, he saw that Arvin Pubbler was there, too. Arvin was trying to convince Brian to play baseball with him. “Come on, Brian. Let’s play some baseball, huh, Brian? Baseball, huh, Brian? Baseball?”
 
“Arvin, you’re a broken record,” Brian said.
 
Arvin had a bad habit of always asking a question three times.
 
“Come on, Brian. Baseball, what do you say? Baseball, huh? Baseball?” Arvin repeated.
 
Just then, Brian stopped throwing large rocks into the large mud puddle—but only because he wanted to throw Arvin’s baseball glove into it. Then Brian walked away. He didn’t even look back.
 
Things like that always happened to Arvin Pubbler. Everyone, including Arvin, expected it. And usually everyone except Arvin laughed about it. But Jeffrey didn’t laugh. He put his bike in the park bike rack and walked down the hill to Arvin.
 
Arvin gave Jeffrey a small wave. “Hi, Jeffrey.” He stood staring at the mud puddle as if he hoped his baseball glove would magically learn to swim.
 
“I saw what Brian did,” Jeffrey told him.
 
“Yeah,” Arvin said sadly. “At least he didn’t throw me in.”
 
Arvin and Jeffrey searched the park for the longest tree branch they could find. Then, after many tries, Jeffrey finally hooked Arvin’s dripping, muddy glove on the end of the branch and pulled it out of the mucky puddle.
 
“Thanks, Jeffrey,” Arvin said. “Wanna play some baseball?”
 
“Uh, no thanks. Gotta go, Arvin,” Jeffrey said. “My mom’s calling me.”
 
“effrey ran up the hill to get away from Arvin and to get his bike. But at the top, he stopped cold in his tracks. The bike rack was still there. The tree by the bike rack was still there. The metal trash can under the tree by the bike rack was still there. But his bike was gone.
 
“Great,” he said to himself. “How could I have been so dumb that I forgot to lock my bike?” But then Jeffrey relaxed. He even smiled. “Max,” he called. “Where are you? Bring back my bike!” He waited for the ghost to laugh or to show himself. But nothing happened.
 
Suddenly from behind him a voice yelled at Jeffrey. “Get out of the way, imbecile!”
 
Jeffrey turned around and jumped out of the way just in time. A kid zipped past him on a bike. And he almost ran right into Jeffrey! The bike rider was someone Jeffrey had never seen before. He had curly bright red hair and was wearing white shorts and a green T-shirt. Where’d he come from? Who was he? For a second, Jeffrey didn’t even notice the most important thing: The boy was riding his bike!
 
“Hey! That’s my bike!” Jeffrey shouted.
 
The boy did a wheelie and stopped the bike about twenty feet from Jeffrey. “How do you know this is your bike?” he asked calmly. “I’ll bet you don’t even know what kind of a bike it is.” As he talked, the red-haired boy spun a bike pedal with his foot.
 
“It’s the kind that belongs to me,” Jeffrey answered.
 
The boy shook his head and smiled. “Most bikes are either sport bikes or touring bikes. Sport bikes are lightweight and faster. Touring bikes are heavier and their longer frames absorb road bumps better. Which is this?”
 
“Read my lips,” Jeffrey said. As he walked up to the boy, Jeffrey noticed that the name Robin was stitched in blue thread on his green T-shirt. “I didn’t ask for an oral report on bicycles. I said, Get off mine!”
 
“You interrupted me. This is my point,” the boy said. “Your bike represents a new category, a class by itself.”
 
“Yeah? What?” Jeffrey asked coldly.
 
“It’s a piece of junk.”
 
The boy laughed, and Jeffrey jerked the handlebars, trying to grab the bike away. He hoped the boy would lose his balance and fall off. “If it’s so crummy, why don’t you just get off?” Jeffrey demanded.
 
“I’m not ready to, that’s why,” the red-haired boy said. “Can you do this?” He pulled away from Jeffrey. Then he leaned forward on the handlebars. With a quick jerk, he lifted the back wheel off the ground. For a minute, the bike did a perfect front wheelie.
 
“I haven’t done that trick since I was two, but I probably still remember how,” Jeffrey said quickly.
 
The boy smiled, but it was a mean smile. “You’re lying,” he said. “Sometimes lying means people are creative or have an independent spirit. Sometimes it just means they’re complete jerks.”
 
“Just get off my bike,” Jeffrey said. “You can’t steal it.”
 
Jeffrey and the red-haired boy stared at each other. Their eyes didn’t blink.
 
“I didn’t steal your bike,” the boy answered. “I’m just riding it. Stealing is taking and keeping property that doesn’t belong to you. Do you know what petty theft is? It’s when you steal something that costs less than five hundred dollars. Like this bike.”
 
“What did you eat for breakfast? An encyclopedia?” Jeffrey asked. He’d never before met such a know-it-all.
 
The red-haired boy took off on the bike again. Jeffrey was about to chase him, when a familiar voice made him turn around.
 
“Hey, wow, Jeffrey, I thought you said you’d never let anyone ride your bike.” It was Kenny Thompsen, one of Jeffrey’s good friends. He was the only other person in the world who could see and hear Max.
 
“Kenny, I didn’t let that geek ride my bike,” Jeffrey snapped angrily. “He stole it.”
 
“That’s not right,” Kenny said, shaking his head.
 
The two friends ran after the boy on the bike. But he was too fast for them. He rode the bike around the park, then zipped down the hill, bouncing toward the playground.
 
“Get off my bike!” Jeffrey shouted at the top of his voice.
 
“Whatever you say,” answered the red-haired kid. Quickly he jumped off the bike. But, of course, the bike kept rolling until it came to a stop. Splash! It rolled right into the middle of the large mud puddle.
 
That did it. Jeffrey charged down the hill full-speed. He and the stranger glared at each other from opposite sides of the mud puddle.
 
“It’s your fault. You told me to get off,” the boy said. Then before Jeffrey could catch him, he ran away and disappeared over the hill.
 
For a minute, Jeffrey and Kenny just stared at the bike. One handlebar was the only thing sticking up out of the mud.
 
“Too bad Max wasn’t here,” Kenny said quietly to Jeffrey.
 
Jeffrey sighed. “Yeah, then we really would have been in trouble!”