The Third Mushroom Read online

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Jennifer L. Holm

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2018 by Tad Carpenter

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Photograph credits: this page © Jennifer L. Holm, this page © Science History Images/Alamy Stock Photo, this page © Keystone Pictures USA/Alamy Stock Photo, this page © Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo, this page © Classic Image/Alamy Stock Photo, this page © Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo, this page © Alan King engraving/Alamy Stock Photo.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Name: Holm, Jennifer L., author.

  Title: The third mushroom / Jennifer L. Holm.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Random House, [2018] | Summary: When thirteen-year-old Ellie’s grandpa Melvin, a world-renowned scientist in the body of a fourteen-year-old boy, comes for an extended visit, he teaches her that experimenting—and failing—is part of life.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017043070 | ISBN 978-1-5247-1980-7 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-5247-1981-4 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-1-5247-1982-1 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Grandfathers—Fiction. | Scientists—Fiction. | Aging—Fiction. | Middle schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.H732226 Thi 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781524719821

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v5.3.2

  ep

  For Mr. Frink

  Contents

  Cover

  More Novels by Jennifer L. Holm

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1: Mushroom War

  Chapter 2: Criminal

  Chapter 3: Goldilocks

  Chapter 4: Chicken Nuggets

  Chapter 5: Doodle

  Chapter 6: Genus and Species

  Chapter 7: Mice Are Nice

  Chapter 8: We Are the Herschels

  Chapter 9: Shakespeare

  Chapter 10: Accidental Mold

  Chapter 11: Games

  Chapter 12: Quiche

  Chapter 13: A Happening

  Chapter 14: Earthquake

  Chapter 15: Burgers and Malteds

  Chapter 16: Emergency!

  Chapter 17: Horror Movie

  Chapter 18: Real-Life Zombies

  Chapter 19: Bad Dream

  Chapter 20: Anything

  Chapter 21: Time

  Chapter 22: The Tempest

  Chapter 23: Hypothesis of Us

  Chapter 24: Prizes

  Chapter 25: Interesting Result

  Chapter 26: Comet

  Chapter 27: Experiment

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Recommended Resources for Continuing the Conversation

  Mellie’s Gallery of Scientists

  One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.

  —Alexander Fleming

  Maybe it’s because I’m an only child, but my parents have always been a little obsessed with my eating. They insist that I try everything on my plate. That I eat what they eat. No chicken tenders off the kids’ menu for me. If they have calamari or chicken livers, that’s what I have to eat, too.

  And the truth is: I’m a pretty good eater. Growing up in the Bay Area, you get to try a lot of different kinds of cuisine. I’ve had Indian, Burmese, Mexican, Chinese, Peruvian, Vietnamese, you name it. I even like the raw-fish kind of sushi.

  My parents agree that I’ve never been really picky except when it comes to one thing.

  Mushrooms.

  The first time I tried a mushroom I was in kindergarten. My parents are divorced, but they’ve always stayed good friends, and we have family dinner once a week.

  We were at a favorite Italian restaurant and my mother had ordered a pasta dish for the table—ravioli. I loved pasta of all kinds, so I was happy.

  Then I took a bite.

  To my horror, instead of creamy cheese being in the cute pasta pocket, there were weird brown chunks. It tasted awful. Like dirt.

  “What is this?” I asked my mom.

  “Mushroom ravioli. Don’t you like it?”

  I shook my head. I definitely did not like it.

  My parents seemed a little disappointed.

  The second time I tried a mushroom, it was at a Chinese restaurant. We’d gone to see a play and it was late and I was really hungry. My parents talked me into ordering a chicken-and-mushroom dish.

  Try new things, they told me.

  But this time the mushroom had a horrible texture: rubbery and slimy. What was the deal with mushrooms, anyway? Why were they so gross?

  I didn’t starve (I ate the plain rice and fortune cookies), but I was annoyed. At the mushrooms. And at myself for trying them again.

  Then and there I resolved never to eat another mushroom.

  That’s when the Mushroom War started.

  Because my parents took it as a personal challenge that I didn’t like mushrooms. They started putting them in everything. They put mushrooms in stir-fry and lasagna and salad. I guess they figured I’d cave and eat them.

  But there was no way I was making that mistake again.

  Eventually, my parents gave up and I won the Mushroom War. They moved on to brussels sprouts, which didn’t deserve such a bad rap, in my opinion.

  As the years went by, they would occasionally serve me something with mushrooms. And every single time, I picked them out and left them in a neat pile on the side of my plate.

  At least no one could say I didn’t have good table manners.

  My mom and I like to watch courtroom dramas on TV. She says they’re great character studies. She loves the scenes with lawyers arguing, especially when they shout “Objection!” My mom’s a high school theater teacher, so she’s a fan of anything dramatic.

  While the lawyers are interesting, my heart’s been with the criminals lately. Because I know just how they feel. Middle school is like jail: the food is
terrible, you’re forced to exercise, and it’s the same boring routine every day. Mostly it’s the buildings that make you feel like a prisoner. There’s no color, no style, and everything smells like dirty socks.

  The only exceptions are the science classrooms. They redid the labs over the summer, and now they look like the Hollywood version of a high-tech lab. But my science teacher, Mr. Ham, doesn’t look anything like a Hollywood scientist. He’s young and likes to wear loud, silly ties instead of a lab coat. This is the second year in a row I’ve had him, because he moved up a grade.

  “We’ll be hosting the county science fair this spring,” he announces. “I’d encourage you all to enter. You’ll earn extra credit. It’s also fine if you want to buddy up with another student and enter as a team.”

  Even though I’ve already got a good grade in class, I’m tempted because of my grandfather. I know he’d want me to enter: he’s a scientist.

  I haven’t seen my grandpa Melvin in over a year. He’s been traveling across the country, visiting places by bus, on an extended vacation. I miss everything about him. His old-man fashion style of wearing black socks. How he always orders moo goo gai pan at Chinese restaurants and steals the packets of soy sauce. Most of all, I miss talking to him. He’s bossy and opinionated and thinks he’s smarter than everyone else because he has two PhDs.

  And maybe he is.

  * * *

  —

  When the last bell of the day rings, everyone rushes out of the classrooms like criminals being released.

  I spot Raj waiting for me by my locker; he’s hard to miss. He’s tall and lean and towers over most other kids. But that’s not the only reason he stands out. Raj has the whole goth thing going on: he’s got piercings and is dressed entirely in black, right down to his weathered Doc Martens. Even his thick hair is black. Well, except for the long blue streak in the front. It’s striking and makes him look like a wizard.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “So, you decided not to go for it, huh?” he asks, studying my hair.

  It was my idea in the first place. I wanted a change of some kind. To maybe stand out. Look a little different. My hair is pretty boring, so I thought I would dye it. My mom was all for it. She’s always dyeing her hair crazy colors and makes it look easy.

  Still, I was nervous. It seemed like a big step.

  Raj suggested I just get a streak in my hair. He said he’d do it, too. A buddy thing.

  We endlessly debated colors. He liked the idea of red. I liked pink. We were both against green (it only looks good on leprechauns). Finally, we settled on blue.

  But when I went to the hair salon this past weekend to get mine done, I panicked. What if it was a mistake? What if I looked terrible with a blue streak? Like a blue skunk?

  In the end, I got my hair cut same as always (one inch) and no streak.

  “I couldn’t do it,” I admit.

  “That’s okay,” he says.

  “You’re not mad?”

  “Of course not.”

  I feel better immediately. Raj wouldn’t lie.

  Because he’s my best friend. I know his locker combination and he knows mine.

  We didn’t start out being best friends. But over the last year, it just kind of happened. My mom says having a best friend is like learning to speak a foreign language. You stumble around for the right words, and then one day it clicks and you understand everything.

  “I’ve got a chess meet next week,” Raj says. “I was wondering if you wanted to come? It’s here at the school.”

  “Sure!” I say. I’ve never been to a chess match before.

  He smiles. “Great. Well, I gotta roll. Chess club. Catch ya later.”

  “Bye,” I say.

  I watch as he disappears into the crowd.

  * * *

  —

  Sometimes I wonder if my life would be different if I had a sibling. My parents can be a bit overprotective. I’ve noticed that the parents of big families are more laid-back. My old friend Brianna is the youngest of four, and when she turned ten, her mom let her stay home by herself. Me? I had a babysitter up until last year.

  This year my mom finally caved on the sitter thing.

  “But you have to text me the minute you get home from school.” She made me promise her.

  I’m not nervous about going home to an empty house after school, because I know Jonas is waiting for me.

  Jonas is our cat.

  Even though I’d always wanted a dog, Jonas was the perfect cat. He came to us litter-box trained and didn’t claw the furniture. We got him at a local animal shelter called Nine Lives. The day we went, the place was filled with adorable kittens. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the calm, older gray cat in the corner. There was something about him. The lady at the shelter said he’d been there for a while. He’d probably been abandoned by a person who’d moved away. It’s crazy but true: people sometimes leave their animals behind like old sofas. We took him home that day.

  Jonas is sitting on the front porch when I walk up the driveway. He twines around my legs.

  “How’s my favorite babysitter?” I ask him. It’s our little joke.

  I text my mom that I’m home and unlock the front door.

  The house is quiet. I kick off my shoes and drop my keys in the junk bowl by the door. It’s full of ticket stubs to movies, half-melted lipsticks, and single earrings missing their mates. Some boy stuff has made its way into the bowl since my mom married Ben: cuff links and dry cleaner tickets and wintergreen breath mints.

  I head toward the kitchen. The smell of warmed-up cheese burritos lingers in the air. This seems odd to me. I’m the burrito eater, not my mom. Also, she’s got rehearsals today after school for the new play.

  “Mom?” I call, but no one answers.

  As I approach the kitchen counter, I see an empty burrito box by the microwave. Next to it is a carton of almond milk.

  I would never in a million years have left a carton of milk on the counter. That’s when it hits me.

  Someone is in the house!

  And that someone is drinking our milk and eating our frozen burritos.

  For a brief moment it seems cute, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Then my eyes land on the back door, which leads out onto our small deck. The glass has been smashed in around the handle, and it’s all over the floor. That’s when I realize this is no cute blond girl who has come into our house to try out porridge and beds. It’s someone who breaks glass doors.

  A real-life criminal.

  I pull out my cell phone and dial quickly.

  “This is 911. What is the nature of your emergency?” a perky voice asks.

  “Someone’s in my house,” I whisper urgently.

  “Are you by yourself?” the voice asks calmly.

  “Yes! I mean, no!” I struggle to explain. “The person who broke in may still be in here! He ate the burritos!”

  “Are you near an exit?”

  I debate this for a second. I don’t want to go out the broken back door in case the person is still there.

  “Uh, yeah! The front door!”

  “Try to get outside, and stay on the line with me.”

  “Roger that!” I whisper. It’s something a cop would say. I think maybe I’m watching too much TV.

  I creep down the hallway. I’ve almost reached the front door when I hear something that startles me so much that I freeze in my tracks: the sound of a toilet flushing.

  The criminal is using our bathroom?

  Then I hear splashing water hit the bathroom sink. At least the criminal has good hygiene, I think a little hysterically. I should be out the door, but my feet have frozen in place.

  The bathroom door bangs open and I gasp.

  A boy with long brown hair tied back in a ponytail wa
lks out, an annoyed expression on his face. He’s wearing khaki pants, a button-down shirt, and loafers…with black socks.

  “I need the plunger,” he says. “The toilet’s clogged.”

  The emergency operator’s voice jolts me. “Are you still on the line?”

  I exhale slowly and hold the phone to my ear.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “It’s just my grandfather.”

  I assure the emergency operator that the stranger is actually my grandfather.

  “Are you positive?” she asks me.

  “He was in the bathroom the whole time,” I say.

  She laughs.

  “My dad’s the same way,” she says. “Must be an old-man thing.”

  Then I hang up and rush across the hallway.

  “Grandpa!” I cry, and hug him tight.

  He tolerates it for a moment, and then a thunderous expression crosses his face. “Did you know the key to the front door doesn’t work anymore? I tried to squeeze in the cat door, but I couldn’t fit. So I had to break in.”

  “Mom’s not gonna be too happy about that.”

  “It’s not my fault,” he insists. “Who changed the locks?”

  “Ben did. He’s really into safety.”

  He snorts. “He can’t be that ‘into’ safety if I broke in so easily.”

  My grandfather looks and sounds just like a belligerent teenager, even though he’s really seventy-seven. I know it sounds bizarre, but my grandfather has figured out a way to reverse aging and has turned himself young again.

  “Where’s your babysitter?” he demands.

  “Mom says I’m old enough to stay home by myself now,” I explain. “I’m in seventh grade.”