The AMAZING ADVENTURES OF JOHN SMITH, JR. AKA HOUDINI by PETER JOHNSON DEDICATION For George Nicholson CONTENTS COVER TITLE PAGE DEDICATION MY NAME WHY THEY CALL ME HOUDINI HOUDINI WEENIE NO SWEARING OR SEX TEN RULES FOR WRITING A KID’S NOVEL MY NEIGHBORHOOD WHAT’S IN A NAME? “MY FRIENDS, I THINK WE HIT THE BIG TIME” TEN CREATURES MR. GREGORY GREGORY COULD HAVE BEEN IN A PREVIOUS LIFE MY FAMILY THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CRAZY AND MEAN EVERY NOVEL NEEDS A VILLAIN “A BUNCH OF WIZARDS WITH THEIR BUTTS STUCK IN BOOKS” OLD MAN JACKSON GEARS OF WAR TEN THINGS I MISS ABOUT FRANKLIN THAT ARE REALLY ONE THING BEING A WRITER AIN’T EASY A MOUNTAIN OF LEAVES “TAKE A HIKE” TWO HOUDINIS INSIDE JACKSON’S HOUSE: PART ONE TEN URBAN LEGENDS ABOUT JACKSON AND DA NANG “A LOT CAN HAPPEN TO A PERSON” WAR IN THIS CORNERR THE IMPORTANCE OF BRAINS TEN OTHER QUOTATIONS FROM HOUDINI THE FIRST ANNUAL LEAF-DIVING CONTEST ONE GOOD REASON NOT TO INVITE ANGEL DIMITRI TO A LEAF- DIVING CONTEST A WORM OF AN IDEA NINE IDEAS FOR REVENGE ON ANGEL I DIDN’T USE, AND ONE CRAZY ONE OFFERED BY JORGE “FOUND TO BE MISSING” “GET YOUR BEHIND IN HERE, BOY” INSIDE JACKSON’S HOUSE: PART TWO RIP TEN THINGS YOU CAN DO TO CALM DOWN YOUR FATHER WHEN HE LOSES IT, WITH THANKS TO THE THESAURUS FAMILY REUNION AT THE POLICE STATION A WHOLE NEW ENEMY NO EXPLANATIONS THE WORM CRAWLS OUT OF ITS HOLE TEN THINGS THAT MAKE YOU HIP IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD THE STORM “CAN WE TAKE A HAND VOTE ON THAT?” BARBER SCHOOL OLD MAN’S JACKSON’S HOUSE YET AGAIN TEN WAYS TO DESCRIBE ANGEL’S SHAVED HEAD “VERY CREEPY” THE ZOO “DON’T TELL ME ABOUT FAIR” THE STUPID LAW ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY TEN OTHER GUESSES ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO ANGEL AT OLD MAN JACKSON’S “TAKE A PILL OR SOMETHING” JOHN SMITH AND SONS “JUST LET IT END, DUDE” BOOKS JOHN SMITH, JR., AKA HOUDINI, MIGHT HAVE READ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR CREDITS COPYRIGHT ABOUT THE PUBLISHER MY NAME M y name is John Smith, Jr., but everyone calls me Houdini. If you can be patient, I’ll explain the Houdini part, but first you should know what it’s like to be named John Smith, Jr. It sucks. It’s like calling your dog Fido, or your cat Mittens, like plain white bread dipped in skim milk, spaghetti without meatballs, or an old Ford Focus with roll- down windows and no CD player. My father’s name is John Smith, too. Well, really, it’s John Smith, Sr. I guess we’ve had hundreds of years of this John Smith nonsense in our family, which would be fine if we were related to the guy who knew Pocahontas, but we’re not. In the future, if some other John Smith decides to trace our family tree, he’ll find a few other John Smiths hanging from one of its branches or stealing silverware from some rich guy’s house. But we are English, though none of us were born in England. My father even has our coat of arms hanging in the living room next to a very ugly painting of an October sunset. He says hundreds of years ago someone in our family owned a castle with servants and hunting dogs, though I find that hard to believe. All I’m really interested in is why my parents didn’t call my brother John Smith, Jr., because he was born twelve years before me. His name is Franklin, and if you call him Frank or Frankie, he won’t even respond. He was a big-time quarterback at my high school, and he played in college before joining the Marines. Now he’s stationed in Iraq, fighting a war my father calls the “stupid nightmare of the most colossal goofballs of all time,” meaning the politicians who voted for it. When he says this, my mother responds, “John, I’ve asked you not to use that word,” but the “goofballs” (that’s not really the word he uses) keep flying like spitballs. It’s weird, though, that my father hates a war my brother is fighting in. He’s proud Franklin is a marine but says every time he gasses up the car he wants to strangle someone. By that he means Franklin is risking his life so rich guys who own oil wells in Iraq can get even richer. He’s also mad about the economy, but then everyone in my neighborhood is afraid of losing their jobs. WHY THEY CALL ME HOUDINI F irst of all, I’ve read everything written on Harry Houdini. One day in study hall, I found a book in our library on magic tricks and magicians. The first page I opened to had a picture of Houdini, dressed in a pair of what looked like white Jockey shorts, hanging upside down and handcuffed in a Chinese Water Torture Cell. When I turned the book around, he seemed to be smiling while holding his breath underwater. I laughed because that’s something my friend Lucky or I would’ve done, though Lucky would’ve drowned because he’s the unluckiest person I know, which is why we call him Lucky. That day in the library I became obsessed with Houdini. I read biographies on him and books he’d written on tricks and on other magicians. Most people think Houdini was crazy, but he was actually very smart and disciplined. “Genius is repetition,” Houdini supposedly said. What an amazing concept. When I first read it, I thought, “Brilliant, now all I have to do is find something I like, then do it over and over until I’m great at it.” Because Houdini meant that there were no secrets to his acts. He used to pretend he was a wizard because his audience needed to believe that, but, in fact, he’d practice a routine until he perfected it. And here’s the cool part. After wearing himself out from all this practice, sometimes even he couldn’t explain how he escaped. He’d just zone out, like he had tapped into some power from above. I explained this to Lucky and to my other friend Jorge one day while we were shooting baskets. “It’s like he had a religious experience where he could leave his body and watch himself escape.” Lucky laughed and said I sounded like an altar boy. Jorge said he loved me like a brother but that I was a flake. And that was the first day they called me Houdini. HOUDINI WEENIE U nfortunately, it didn’t take long for some wise guy to add Weenie to Houdini, so sometimes I was called Houdini, other times Houdini Weenie, but at least no one ever called me Weenie, which would have been worse than John Smith, Jr. Well, almost no one, except for Angel Dimitri, who is one of the bad guys in this story, and so, like Lucky, has a name that doesn’t fit him.