Calvin Coconut #9: Extra Famous

Calvin Coconut #9: Extra Famous

There are zombies at Kailua beach!! Well, kind of. Fourth-grader Calvin Coconut and his friends have been recruited by Benny Obi (the boy from  Kung Fooey  who liked to tell crazy stories and ate bugs) to be extras in his uncle's movie:  Zombie Zoomba!  And who ends up with an actual part? Calvin's babysitter, Stella. GRAHAM SALISBURY is the author of seven other Calvin Coconut books: Trouble Magnet, The Zippy Fix, Dog Heaven, Zoo Breath, Hero of Hawaii,Kung Fooey, and Man Trip , as well as several novels for older readers, including the award-winning Lord of the Deep, Blue Skin of the Sea, Under the Blood-Red Sun, Eyes of the Emperor, House of the Red Fish, and Night of the Howling Dogs . Graham Salisbury grew up in Hawaii. JACQUELINE ROGERS has illustrated more than 100 books for young readers. She studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. 1 Deja Vu It was Saturday morning. High above, the sun was an egg yolk sizzling in a big old Hawaiian-sky frying pan. I was sitting on the grass in my friend Julio’s front yard, dreaming of a new bike. Mine was too small now, and it didn’t have gears. Riding that thing uphill set my legs on fire, and it was getting so I could hardly keep up with Julio and Willy, who had bigger, newer bikes. My bike was embarrassing. It had fat tires and looked like something an old man would ride down a dirt road in a cow pasture . . . wearing a straw hat . . . with one pant leg rolled up. For sure, I needed a new one. Metallic red, or midnight black. But who had money for fancy bikes? Not me. I was jarred out of my daydream when Julio shouted, “Go away!” Not at me, at his brothers. We were waiting for Julio’s mom to get back from the grocery store. Julio’s dad was at work, like always, and Julio was babysitting his four younger brothers . . . or the pests, as he called them. Right now they were running around us, yelling, zipping in, zipping out, trying to touch us as they passed by. Julio covered his head with his hands. “Please! Make them go away!” I laughed. “It’s not funny. How would you like to grow up in a zoo?” Julio was my best friend. We’d been in the same class at school since kindergarten. I knew him inside and out, and I was used to him complaining about his brothers. But this time he really seemed mad. “I can’t stand them! All they want to do is mess up my life. I’m serious! Please! Send them to the Humane Society. No! Send me, so some nice family can rescue me.” “Good idea. You do kind of look like a dog.” I cracked up. “Shuddup.” He shoved me. “Okay, I’ll help you. Let’s see. I need a new bike and you need . . . what?” “New brothers.” “They’re not so bad,” I said. “They just want you to play with them.” He gave me a look that said, You want me to run over you with a steamroller or an airplane? I put my hands up. “Just saying they’re--” “Pests!” Julio clammed up. He yanked up hunks of grass in his fist and tossed them at my feet. When Julio’s mom finally came home, the brothers ran over and grabbed at the grocery bags. “Ice cream! Ice cream!” they all shouted. “Thanks for babysitting, Julio,” she said. “You can go play now.” “Play?” he said. “Play? Like what? I’m a little kid, like them?” “My, my, aren’t we testy,” she said. Julio turned away. “Aw, forget it.” His mom herded the brothers into the house. “What’s up?” I asked. “You’re really being weird today.” “It’s boring.” I nodded. “True. Listen . . . you hear ants snoring?” Julio humphed. My dog, Streak, who’d been sniffing around in Mrs. Costello’s yard, trotted over to us. She licked my hand. “You’re bored, too, huh?” I rubbed her head. “What do you know that we don’t, girl?” She sighed and plopped down beside me. But her ears were perked up like somebody was coming. I looked up the street. Nope. “I know,” Julio said. “Let’s go to your house and look for money in your couch.” “Are you kidding? Stella’s home.” Stella--who wasn’t my sister but lived with us to help Mom--was in a bad mood because Mom had to work, so Stella had to stay home to watch my little sister, Darci. “What’s wrong with Stella?” Julio asked. “Same thing that’s wrong with black widows.” Julio laughed. I tapped Julio’s arm when I saw this kid heading toward us, walking right down the middle of the street. It was like in the movies, some guy coming toward you with heat waves shimmering over the road. The kid was wearing mirror sunglasses that flashed in the sun, and he had a way of walking that told you he had the whole world in his pocket. “I don’t believe it,” I said. “Benny Obi.” Benny was a weird kid who’d moved to Kailua from the Big Island. He was in our fourth-grade class at school for a few wild weeks. Then he disappeared. “I thought he was long gone,” Julio said. “After what Tito did to him.” Tito was a sixth-grade bully who liked to embarrass people, make them look bad so he could look good. Which was what he’d done to Benny. And Benny vanished. Never came back to school. “I know kung fu,” Julio said, low. I coughed u