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From the look on his face, she knew the answer.

Judy Moody wrapped the too-good-for-a-paste-eater present in boring newspaper (not the comics). Even though the party started at two o’clock, she told Mom and Dad that the party didn’t start until four o’clock, so she would only have to go for the last disgusting minutes.

The whole family rode in the car to Frank Pearl’s house. Even Toady went along, carried by Stink in a yogurt container. Judy held Frank’s lumpy present and fell into a bad-mood back-seat slump. Why did Rocky have to go to his grandma’s TODAY of all days?

“She’s crying!” Stink reported to the front seat.

“Am not!” she said back with her best troll eyes ever.

“Wait here,” Judy told her family when they got to Frank’s house.

“Go ahead. Have fun,” Dad said. “We’ll be back for you in half an hour. Forty minutes tops.”

“We’re only going to the supermarket,” said Mom. But they might as well have been going to New Zealand.

Mrs. Pearl answered the door. “Judy! We thought you’d changed your mind. C’mon out back.”

“Fra-ank. Judy’s here, honey,” Mrs. Pearl called out to the backyard.

Judy looked around the yard. All she could see were boys. Boys hurling icing insects at each other and boys mixing chocolate cake with ketchup and boys conducting an experiment with Kool-Aid and a grasshopper.

“Where are the other kids?” asked Judy.

“Everybody’s here, honey. Frank’s little sister, Maggie, went off to a friend’s. I think you know all the boys from school. And there’s Adrian and Sandy from next door.”

Sandy was a boy. So was Adrian. That Frank Pearl had tricked her — the girls next door were boys! She, Judy Moody, was definitely the one and only girl. Alone. At Frank Pearl’s all-boy-except-her birthday party!

Judy wanted to climb right up Frank Pearl’s tire-swing rope and howl like a rain forest monkey. Instead she asked, “Do you have a bathroom?”

Judy decided to stay in the Pearls’ bathroom forever. Or at least until her parents came back from New Zealand. Frank Pearl’s all-boy party had to be THE WORST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED to her.

Judy looked for something to do. Uncapping an eyebrow pencil, she drew some sharp new teeth on her faded first-day-of-school shark T-shirt. Rare.

Knock knock.

“Ju-dy? Are you in there?” Judy turned on the water in a hurry so Mrs. Pearl would think she was washing her hands.

“Just a minute!” she called. Water sprayed her all over, soaking her shirt. The sharp new shark teeth blurred and ran.

Judy opened the door. Mrs. Pearl said, “Frank was about to open your present, but we couldn’t find you.”

Back outside, Brad pointed at Judy’s wet shirt. “You guys! It’s a shark! With black blood dripping from its mouth!”

“Cool!” “Wow!” “How’d you do that?”

“Talent,” said Judy. “And water.”

“Water fight!” Brad took a glass of water and threw it on Adam. Mitchell threw one at Dylan. Frank poured one right over his own head and grinned.

Mrs. Pearl whistled, which put a stop to the water battle. “Dylan! Brad! Your parents are here. Don’t forget your party favors.” Mrs. Pearl gave a baby Slinky to each kid as he went out the door. By the time she got to Judy, there were no more baby Slinkies left.

“I must have counted wrong,” said Mrs. Pearl.

“Or Brad took two,” said Frank.

“Here, Judy. I was going to buy these for party favors, but I couldn’t find enough.” Mrs. Pearl handed her a miniature rock-and-gem collection in a plastic see-through box! Tiny amethyst and jade stones. Even a crackly amber one.

“Thank you, Mrs. Pearl!” Judy said, and she meant it. “I love collecting stones and things. Once my brother thought he found a real moon rock!”

“Frank’s a collector too,” said Mrs. Pearl. “All the boys are gone, Frank. Why don’t you take Judy up to your room and show her while she waits for her parents?”

“C’mon. Last one up’s a rotten banana!” said Frank.

He probably collects paste jars, Judy thought. He probably eats it for a midnight snack.

Frank Pearl’s shelves were lined with coffee cans and baby food jars. Each one was filled with marbles, rubber bugs, erasers, something.