Every day, Stink ate a little more and a little more of his jawbreaker. He ate it in bed first thing in the morning before he brushed his teeth. He ate it at recess in between playing H-O-R-S-E with his super-duper best friend, Webster. He ate it on the bus and all the way home from school.
He gave a lick to Mouse the cat. He gave a lick to Toady the toad. He even tried giving a lick to Jaws the Venus flytrap.
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.
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STINK AND THE INCREDIBLE SUPER-GALACTIC JAWBREAKER by Megan McDonald, illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds. Text copyright (c) 2006 by Megan McDonald. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Copyright © 2006 by Megan McDonald. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
