Dory Fantasmagory: Head in the Clouds Read online

  For Ivah, Alexandra, and Henry

  DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  Penguin Young Readers Group

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street | New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2018 by Abby Hanlon

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780735230484

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data | Names: Hanlon, Abby, author. | Title: Head in the clouds / Abby Hanlon. | Description: New York, NY : Dial Books for Young Readers, [2018] | Series: Dory Fantasmagory ; 4 | Summary: Dory, nicknamed Rascal, has her first loose tooth, but her excitement turns to concern when imaginary evil robber Mrs. Gobble Gracker captures the tooth fairy.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017043440 | ISBN 9780735230460 (hardback) Subjects: | CYAC: Teeth—Fiction. | Tooth Fairy—Fiction. | Imagination—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Readers / Chapter Books. | JUVENILE FICTION / Imagination & Play. | JUVENILE FICTION / Humorous Stories. Classification: LCC PZ7.H196359 He 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017043440

  Version_1

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Dory Land

  Chapter 1: Such a Bunchy Coat

  Chapter 2: Sticky Licorice

  Chapter 3: Baby Teeth

  Chapter 4: Cooked Eggs

  Chapter 5: Nighty-Night

  Chapter 6: The Bulldog

  Chapter 7: Lost and Found

  About the Author

  HEAD IN THE CLOUDS

  If your head is in the clouds, it means your thoughts are far away and you are in your own world, daydreaming or living in a fantasy.

  CHAPTER 1

  Such a Bunchy Coat

  My name is Dory, but most people call me Rascal. I have an enemy named Mrs. Gobble Gracker—you might have heard of her. She has been trying to catch me and bring me to her cave. But today I have a problem that’s even bigger than Mrs. Gobble Gracker. It’s this coat.

  My mom says, “Oh! I just can’t stand how cute it is. It’s adorable on you.”

  “It’s bunchy,” I say.

  “It’s nice and cozy,” she says.

  “It’s all puffed up and bunchy!” I cry.

  “It’s a fabulous coat,” she says, kissing me.

  “Someone put pillows in it. That’s why it’s all BUNCHY! I’m not wearing it!”

  “Oh, stop,” says my mom. “You are wearing it, Rascal. No matter what. It’s freezing out.”

  “PILLOWS! Bunchy pillows!”

  “Stop saying pillows. You’re wearing it.”

  “You always make me wear bunchy pillows!!”

  “Come on, fluffball,” says my big brother, Luke. “We’re leaving.”

  “Hey, that used to be my coat,” says my big sister, Violet. “But I’m pretty sure it looked a lot better on me.”

  When I get to school, I see my friends Rosabelle and George in the school yard. As soon as I see them, I take off my coat. “Nobody!—and I mean NOBODY!—can make ME wear this Ugly Garbage Bunchy Pillow Coat!!!!!!”

  “Okay,” shrugs George. “Raise your hand if you want to play hamsters.”

  But right in the middle of our game, it’s time to go inside.

  “Dory, you’re going to remember our morning routine today, right?” asks my teacher.

  When it’s time to line up for lunch and recess, everybody goes to the closet to get their coats.

  I walk to the closet, too, but when I see my bunchy coat on the floor . . . my arm won’t bend.

  So I line up without the coat. It’s not cold out. My teacher won’t even notice.

  “I still hear talking,” says the teacher. “When I have a quiet line, we’ll go . . . wait . . . what’s this?” She picks up the bunchy pillow coat from the closet floor.

  “Whose is this?”

  I’m about to say, “It’s mine,” but now . . . my mouth won’t open.

  “Everybody look up here, please. Does anyone know whose coat this is?”

  Rosabelle is about to say my name, but then she sees my face. She seals her lips shut. Tight.

  “I know this coat must belong to somebody. It didn’t just magically appear in this classroom.”

  George is looking at me, too. His eyes are bulging out of his face.

  I look down at my sneakers.

  “Dory . . . you’re not wearing a coat. Isn’t this yours?”

  My head shakes itself.

  I didn’t tell it to, but it does anyway! First my arm, then my mouth, now my head! Are my body parts under some kind of spell?

  Now everyone is looking at me, not just Rosabelle and George.

  “Are you sure?” asks my teacher.

  “Yes,” I lie.

  “Dory, are you saying your mom sent you without a coat?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “On this freezing cold day?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hmmmmmm. Well, then you can borrow this one,” she says.

  Then I realize—it must be the coat that has put a spell on me. An evil spell that made me lie! Now I really HAVE TO get rid of it!

  So . . . after we eat lunch and everybody is putting their coat on, I leave the coat on the bench by mistake and run out to play.

  In the school yard, I run around so fast that nobody notices I’m not wearing a coat.

  But as soon as I walk into the classroom, the teacher says, “Dory, where’s that coat you borrowed?”

  Uh-oh. If I don’t lie now, she’ll know I was lying before. “Ummm . . . I put it in my backpack. In the closet,” I lie.

  “Wait. So it was yours?”

  “Yeah . . . I . . . uh . . . just forgot how it looked cause . . . sometimes it looks . . . bunchy,” I lie.

  “I knew it had to be yours! But when did you put it in the closet?” She looks super-duper confused.

  “Uhhhh . . . when I was . . . was . . . going to the bathroom,” I lie.

  “Hmmm, okay,” says my teacher. Then she turns her head away from me.

  I walk back to my desk thinking, I did it! I got away from the evil coat. I imagine the coat blowing away, up to the clouds, gone forever.

  But then Benji, who works in the cafeteria, comes into our classroom during writing time . . .

  AND HE’S HOLDING THE COAT!!!!!

  “Hey, kids! This coat was left in the cafeteria. Does this belong to anyone in here? Before I take it to the lost and found . . . I mean, what a good-looking coat!”

  My teacher’s head turns very quickly to look at me. Now she doesn’t look super-duper confused anymore. She looks like she’s going crazy! “Dory . . . I thought you just said your coat was in your backpack. Isn’t this your coat?” asks my teacher.

  I slip down low in my chair.

  “Didn’t you say . . . wait a minute . . . Go show me the coat in your backpack. And please ask your mom to label your coat!”

  I walk slowly to the
closet.

  “Alrighty, kiddos, I hate to bring such a snazzy coat to the lost and found, but that’s where it will be,” says Benji.

  I don’t know what to do when I get to the closet. I don’t even have my backpack! I stand in the closet. Deep in a corner. How do I break this evil spell? Do you get in trouble if you tell on yourself? I wonder.

  “Rascal, come out. The teacher forgot all about you!” It’s George.

  “How come?”

  “Because Charlie threw up in the water fountain!”

  “He did?”

  “And he gets to go home!” George says.

  “No fair!” I say. I hand Charlie his backpack since I’m in the closet anyway.

  When I come out of the closet, I see that George was right.

  She definitely forgot about me!

  At the end of the day, my mom picks me up in the school yard. She says, “Rascal, where on earth is your coat? It’s freezing out!”

  “Yes, I would really like to talk to you about that,” says my teacher who did not forget.

  I slowly walk backward away from them. Then I watch from far away. My teacher keeps talking and talking and talking. Her hands move around a lot. My mom is surprised.

  As I watch my mom’s face, I start crying because I know I’m in really big trouble.

  Finally, my mom walks over to me. “Come on,” she says in an angry voice. “We are going to the lost and found.”

  We don’t have to look deep in the bin, because the coat is right on top. She hands it to me and I put it on.

  “How many lies did you tell today, Rascal?”

  I try and count on my fingers. “One . . . two . . . three . . . seven, I think. Or maybe eight?” A hundred tears run down my face.

  “Oh boy,” she says. “You are in really big trouble.”

  Then she looks up at the sky and whispers, “Oh, why, why, why, why?” She takes a long breath. When she’s done breathing, I ask her, “Do I have to wear this coat again?”

  “No, you don’t,” she says.

  I wipe my tears and smile. I love my mom so much. I hug her leg so tight that she can’t shake me off. My body is stuck to her leg. I think it must be the spell.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sticky Licorice

  When we get home, my mom says that I have to write an apology letter to my teacher.

  “A letter? That’s it?!” asks Luke.

  “Yeah! I would have been grounded for a month if I lied to my teacher!” says Violet.

  “Rascal is always going to be bad . . . if all she has to do is write a letter!” says Luke.

  “She’s not bad, she just made a mistake,” says my mom. “Well . . . several mistakes.”

  “You’re bad!” Luke says to me.

  “Bad to the bone,” says Violet.

  “That’s enough,” says my mom. She picks me up and carries me away from them.

  “It was an evil spell,” I whisper back at them. “The coat put an evil spell on me.”

  But this makes them even angrier.

  “Just because you have a stupid imagination . . .” says Luke.

  “. . . doesn’t mean you can get away with everything!” says Violet.

  “Can my punishment be time-out instead?” I ask my mom. If I had time-out, I could play with Mary in my room.

  “First write the letter,” she says.

  I stare at the blank piece of paper for a long time.

  Then I ask my mom, “How do you spell ‘sorry’?”

  “S-O-R-R-Y,” says my mom, looking pleased.

  “How do you spell ‘bunchy’?” I ask.

  She sighs. Then she says, “B-U-N-C-H-Y.”

  “How do you spell ‘world of danger’?”

  “W-O-R-L . . . you know what . . . just sound it out.” She leaves the room and I keep writing.

  “How do you spell ‘meat loaf’?” I call to her.

  “Huh? What are you writing?” she calls back.

  “Sound it out!” she yells.

  “How do you spell ‘five little ducklings’?”

  “What on earth?” says my mom, walking back into the kitchen.

  “How do you spell ‘electric can opener’? How do you spell ‘cemetery’?”

  “Rascal, shush! Listen to me. What is the important thing that you need to say in this letter?”

  “That I’ll never lie again—cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”

  “Okay, so did you write that?” she asks.

  “No, that happens at the end. When I’m riding a powerful black horse. And all the animals cheer. And there’s a sunset.”

  “Okay, let’s just skip to that part,” she says. “I’ll help you.”

  Finally, I’m done. My mom puts my letter in an envelope, and I run up the stairs to my room as fast as I can.

  But when I open my door, the first thing I see are these:

  Then this:

  And then this:

  “What the heck!?” I yell at Mary. “What is Mrs. Gobble Gracker doing here?”

  “She rang the doorbell in her bathrobe. She said she’s sick! I felt so bad, I didn’t know what to do. She said she had no one to take care of her,” says Mary.

  “She’s not sick! She’s faking! It’s a trick! Haven’t you ever read Little Red Riding Hood? She’s the wolf! Look at her! She’s lying!”

  “I’d love some hot coffee,” croaks Mrs. Gobble Gracker in a fake-sick voice.

  “This is ridiculous!” I shout at Mary.

  “And I wouldn’t say no to some soup,” says Mrs. Gobble Gracker.

  “Mary! I have had A VERY HARD DAY! AND NOW THIS? You get her out of here right now!”

  “But how? Wait . . . where are you going?”

  “Somewhere safe! Out of this house!” I say. I grab the first thing I see—my goggles—and run downstairs to find my mom. “Be careful she doesn’t eat you!” I call back to Mary. “HIGH DANGER ALERT!”

  “It’s not safe for me to stay in this house,” I tell my mom.

  “Not today,” she says.

  “How come?”

  “’Cause it’s winter,” she says, “and the pool is outside. Remember?”

  “You always say no. Can we go to the post office then?”

  “What? No.”

  “How about the library? The hardware store? Don’t we usually have errands? Or remember that time we went to the shoe repair? Can we go there again? I know! How about you get your hair cut? Don’t you like doing that? And remember that time when I went with you? And everyone said how good I was. All the hair ladies were saying it!”

  “We are staying home,” says my mom. “And guess what! Melody and her mom are coming over.”

  “Melody is coming over?! Why!!!” Melody lives on my block. Her mom is friends with my mom. She cries about everything. She even cried one time because her straw bent.

  And she always wants to clean things. One time, she spent the whole playdate vacuuming.

  Ding-dong!

  “Who’s that?”

  “Oh, great, they’re here,” says my mom. “Go answer the door. And take your goggles off.”

  Melody’s mom says quietly to me, “Melody is a little scared of your game about that evil witch . . . Mrs. What-was-it?”

  “Gobble Gracker.”

  “Yes. . . . So could you maybe . . . not talk about her . . . and try and play something else?”

  “Like what?” I say in a grumpy voice.

  “Like a board game,” says my mom.

  “Oh hey, kids, Melody is here,” says my mom to Luke and Violet as they are coming downstairs. When they hear Melody’s name, they quickly turn around and run back upstairs as fast they can.

  My mom gives me a look like I better behave.


  “Wanna play Candy Land?” I ask Melody.

  “I guess so,” she says.

  The moms go into the kitchen to have tea.

  I let Melody go first. Luckily, she keeps getting double color cards, so she’s ahead of me on the path. I cross my fingers behind my back that she wins because I don’t want her to cry. I’m secretly happy when I get a green card, which means I get stuck in a licorice space.

  But she starts crying anyway!

  “No! I’M stuck in the sticky licorice!” I say. “Not you. See, I’m red! You’re yellow.”

  “I know.”

  “So why are you crying?”

  “’Cause I feel bad for you,” she says, crying.

  I always think she’s fake crying because of the things she cries about . . . BUT THEN right after I’m positive that she’s faking, these ENORMOUS tears spill out of her eyes. Tears so big that the board gets wet!

  “No, it’s okay! I just miss one turn. I don’t mind. It’s no big deal,” I tell her.

  “Can we clean it up?” asks Melody.

  “Clean up the licorice? That’s a great idea!”

  “No, I meant the game,” she says.

  “The licorice is a sticky mess! It’s all over the floor! Come on,” I say. “Get up!”

  We run to the bathroom and grab a pile of rags and a bottle of soap. Suddenly Melody is not quiet at all anymore. “Turn on the shower!” yells Melody. “It will wash the licorice away!”

  Then she starts scrubbing the hallway.

  I think it was the goggles that made it hard to see after they got foggy from the shower.