Malcolm tried to picture Dandy with a superlong tongue slurping at his own ear He shuddered I prefer to leave my ears alone Dandy sighed Me too But my mom says I have to wash them Dandy read more facts as the bus rumbled along to the zoo Malcolm learned anteaters have spiny tongues He also learned that the tongue of a blue whale weighs more than an elephant Why are all your facts about tongues Malcolm asked Dandy held up his book so Malcolm could see the title Lickity Spit Besides tongues are cool Then he grinned again In fact dogs cool down by panting with their tongues hanging out Dandy lolled out his tongue and panted 8
Malcolm crossed his arms and watched his friend Are you cooling off Dandy shook his head He slurped his tongue back into his mouth I'm mostly getting thirsty Do you have an extra water bottle I didn't have room in my backpack with the bug spray Sure Malcolm leaned forward to unzip his backpack He pushed the Ecto Handheld Automatic Heat Sensitive Laser Enhanced Specter Detector out of the way His water bottle was buried under it Malcolm tried always to be prepared On a hot day you needed water And on any day you needed to be prepared for ghosts Ghosts could be anywhere He'd learned that much as a Ghost Detector Just as he grabbed the water bottle the bus driver slammed on the brakes Malcolm 9
lurched forward He smacked his head on the seat ahead of him Ouch Malcolm yelped Look out Malcolm Dandy said He watched Malcolm rub the top of his head If only you were a giraffe dude You could have stuck your tongue up to pad your head Good to know Malcolm said He handed over his water bottle And if my best friend wasn’t so weird I wouldn’t have hit my head in the first place He looked out the bus window He saw a roller coaster towering over the trees in the distance A piece was missing from the track What’s that Rosie Main’s head poked over the seat That’s the old Super Funtime Zoo and Theme Park It was terrible 10
