Stink and the Incredible Super-Galactic Jawbreaker - Megan Mcdonald [2]
Stink’s jawbreaker went from super-galactic to just plain galactic. From golf-ball size to Super-Ball size.
“Are you still eating that thing?” asked Judy. Stink stuck out his tongue.
“Well, you look like a skink,” said Judy. She pointed to his blue tongue.
Shloop! went Stink.
Stink ate his not-super-galactic jawbreaker for one whole week. He ate it when it tasted like chalk. He ate it when it tasted like grapefruit. He ate it through the fiery core to the sweet, sugary center. He ate it down to a marble. A teeny-tiny pea.
Then, in one single bite, one not-jaw-breaking crunch, it was G-O-N-E, gone.
Stink was down in the dumps. He moped around the house for one whole day and a night. He stomped up the stairs. He stomped down. He drew comics. Ka-POW! He did not play with Toady once. He did not do his homework. He went outside and bounced Judy’s basketball 117 times.
“Somebody got up on the WRONG side of the bed,” said Judy. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were in a MOOD.”
“I can have moods too, you know.” Stink kept counting. “One hundred eighteen, one hundred nineteen . . .”
“Is it because your jawbreaker’s all gone?” asked Judy.
“It’s because that jawbreaker lied. They should call it World’s Biggest UN-jawbreaker. I ate and ate that thing for one whole week, and it did not break my jaw. Not once. It didn’t even make my mouth one teeny-weeny bit bigger. See?” Stink clicked and clacked his teeth open and shut.
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” said Judy. “I mean, if it did break your jaw for real, wouldn’t you be mad?”
“Yeah, but instead I’m madder.” Stink had an idea.
A brilliant what-to-do-when-you’re-mad idea. Stink would write a letter. A real-and-true official snail-mail letter. A letter with a greeting and a body and a closing, just the way Mrs. D. taught them in their how-to-write-a-letter unit at school.
Exactly eleven days later, a package arrived for Stink. A box that thumped and clunked when he shook it. A box that rattled and crunched when he opened it. A big box full of . . . jawbreakers!
Stink read the letter. “Dear Mr. Stink Moody, blah blah. While we are not in the business of breaking jaws . . . blah blah blah . . . sorry that our jawbreaker did not meet your satisfaction . . . more blah . . . please accept an assortment of fun, exciting and brand-new jawbreakers you might like . . .”
“Holy jawbreaker heaven!” There were mega jawbreakers, mini jawbreakers, monster jawbreakers, black, rainbow, and psychedelic jawbreakers, asteroids and alien heads, glow-in-the-darks and gobstoppers, even jawbreaker lollipops on a stick with a bubblegum center.
“Leaping lollipops!” squealed Judy. “Where’d you get all these? There’s more jawbreakers here than in Willy Wonka’s house.” She tossed a handful up in the air.
“Ten whole pounds!” said Stink. “It says so right here. Wait till I tell Webster!”
“That’s 21,280 jawbreakers!” Judy pointed to the number on the box.
“What am I gonna do with twenty thousand million jawbreakers?”
“Get twenty thousand million cavities, of course,” said Judy. “C’mon, let’s divide them up. We can each set up our own jawbreaker store and trade them with each other. Or we could start our own jawbreaker museum.”
“What do you mean WE?” asked Stink.
“You and me,” Judy said. “Two heads are better than one. I mean two jawbreaker eaters are better than one.”
“No way are you getting half!” said Stink. “They’re mine-all-mine, and I get to decide.”
“Stink, you never share!”
“You know what they say . . . You can’t teach an old dog new tricks! A leopard can’t change its spots! Besides, I’m the one who wrote the letter.”
“What letter?”
“I wrote a letter to the jawbreaker company about how my super-galactic jawbreaker did not break my jaw.”
“No fair!” said Judy. “I wrote a letter once that you, my little brother, wrecked my Hedda-Get-Betta doll, and all I got from the doll company was a get-well card.”
Stink cracked up.
“Are you sure you didn’t win a contest for being short or something?” Judy asked.
“Honest! All I did