Heidi Heckelbeck Lends a Helping Hand Read online

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: SLIME TIME!

  Chapter 2: SODA SPLAT

  Chapter 3: TRASH PARK

  Chapter 4: BACK IN THE SLIME-A-TORY

  Chapter 5: SURPRISE DAY

  Chapter 6: NO MAGIC ANSWER

  Chapter 7: ACTION PLAN

  Chapter 8: ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES!

  Chapter 9: MAKEOVER

  Chapter 10: LIVE ON 5!

  Heidi Heckelbeck and the Wacky Tacky Spirit Week Teaser

  About the Author and Illustrator

  SLIME TIME!

  Splurt!

  Splurt!

  Splurt!

  Heidi Heckelbeck squeezed a glob of craft glue into a mixing bowl. Then she squirted some shaving cream on top.

  Next she sprinkled some contact lens solution into the mix. Finally, she added the special liquid activator.

  Heidi swirled the ingredients together like a magic potion—only this wasn’t actually a potion.

  Today, in her art class, she was making a huge bowl of slime. Fluffy slime, to be exact.

  She stirred until the slime pulled away from the bowl and became a big fluff-o-luscious blob. Then she pulled the slime with all ten fingers.

  “It’s so squishable!” she said, squeezing it with her hands.

  Lucy Lancaster, who was sitting next to Heidi, peeked into Heidi’s bowl.

  “Oooh!” she exclaimed, stirring her own mix faster to catch up. “Your slime looks so marshmallowy!”

  Heidi grabbed her slime and kneaded it like bread dough. The slime spoke a language all its own: Skloop! Sklorp! Skleep!

  “Time to add some color!” Heidi announced. She plopped the slime back in the bowl and opened a package of neon-green powdered food coloring.

  She dumped the whole package of dye into the bowl. Then she slapped the slime with her hand. POOF! The powder burst into a neon-green cloud and speckled Heidi’s face. The palm of her hand turned bright green too.

  She squished and squashed the dye into the mix until it all blended.

  “And now for some slime mix-ins!” Heidi grabbed a fistful of Styrofoam beads and then smooshed them into her slime to make slime-a-floam. Squish! Squash! Snap! Crackle!

  Melanie Maplethorpe, who was sitting across from Heidi, poured a whole tube of pink-silver sparkles into her slime and mashed them in. Then she held up her hot-pink slime for everyone to see.

  “MY slime is the pinkest slime in the WHOLE world!” Melanie declared. “And the sparkliest!”

  By the end of the class, the art room was a gloopy, gloppy, capital M Mess. Puddles of glue and shaving cream dotted the tables. The chairs and the tabletops had splotches of green, pink, purple, and yellow dye. Glitter twinkled on top of everything like fairy dust.

  “Cleanup time!” Mr. Doodlebee called. He handed out plastic containers to store the slime. But everybody kept right on squishing and squashing.

  Mr. Doodlebee had to whistle through his fingers to get the students’ attention. “Please put your slime away and clean up your areas! It’s time for lunch.”

  Now the children hopped to it. They stored their slime and washed their hands.

  Mr. Doodlebee looked at his watch. The desks were still a mess and the bell was going to ring in three, two, one . . .

  Ring!

  Mr. Doodlebee laughed and waved the kids out. “Saved by the bell. I’ll finish cleaning, class.”

  The students filed out of the room. Heidi noticed Mr. Doodlebee cleaning up some of the Styrofoam beads she had spilled. She stopped for a moment. I really want to help him clean up, she thought.

  Then Lucy called out, “Hurry up, Heidi! I’m hungry.”

  Heidi turned to her friend, then looked back at her teacher.

  Mr. Doodlebee DID say he’d finish the cleaning, she thought.

  “Wait up, Lucy!” Heidi called as she grabbed her lunch box. “All that squishing made me hungry too!”

  SODA SPLAT

  Back at home Heidi and her little brother, Henry, checked the kitchen counter for the popcorn popper. Mom always left the popper out on Fridays—that’s because Friday was Movie Night at the Heckelbecks’. And Movie Night meant popcorn!

  But instead of the popcorn popper, the kids found two pairs of safety goggles and two white lab coats lying on the counter.

  “Why are these here?” Henry asked.

  Heidi shrugged. “I dunno, but I sure could have used one of these lab coats in art today,” she said. “Because we made slime.”

  Henry’s face lit up. “SLIME?! Wow, you’re SO lucky! All we got to do today was work in the school garden. BOR-ing!”

  Heidi laughed. “The school garden isn’t THAT bad,” she said. “I like digging in the dirt.”

  Henry scrunched up his face. “Not me.”

  Then the door creaked open and Mom and Dad walked in from Dad’s lab.

  “Hey, kiddos! Time to put on your lab coats and goggles!” Dad said.

  Heidi and Henry looked at each other.

  “Wait. But what about Movie Night?” Heidi asked.

  Dad patted Heidi on the shoulder. “We are going to mix things up tonight,” he said, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically. “Because this Friday night, the Heckelbecks are going to invent a new healthy soda!”

  Heidi’s father worked for a soda company called The Fizz. He always came up with wild ideas, but this might be his wildest.

  The kids stared blankly at him.

  “Who ever heard of healthy soda?” Heidi said uncertainly.

  Dad pointed both pointer fingers at Heidi like she had just won a door prize.

  “Nobody has!” he cheered. “That’s why we’re going to be the first ones to invent it.”

  Heidi considered that for a moment.

  It’s kind of a cool idea, she thought. And even if healthy soda never caught on, Heidi loved to do new experiments with her dad. So she reached out and grabbed a lab coat and a pair of goggles from the counter.

  “Okay, I’m IN,” she said.

  Then Henry grabbed the other white lab coat and nodded. “Me too!”

  The kids put on their gear and tromped into their father’s basement laboratory. Dad and Mom had set up four workstations. Each station had a blender, three bottles of bubbly water, and a whole bunch of healthy foods to choose from.

  “The goal is to use these ingredients to create a delicious, healthy soda,” Dad said. “We’ll each make two sodas, and then we’ll have a sampling session.”

  Everyone got to work.

  In round one, Mom made sweet corn soda. Dad mixed together kale, spinach, and avocado into a very superbright green and sparkling soda.

  Henry dreamed up something that he called Dark Chocolate Mulberry Fizz. And Heidi tried blending fresh strawberries with cold vanilla almond milk for a strawberry-vanilla soda.

  In round two, Mom made a bubbly carrot-and-cucumber soda. Dad brewed a fresh ginger–cinnamon–turmeric ale. Henry whipped up peanut butter and jelly soda, while Heidi prepared a watermelon fizz.

  “Now to taste our creations!” Dad said. He poured the drinks into paper cups.

  Heidi sipped Dad’s green soda first and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Blech!” she cried. “This tastes like pond scum cola!”

  She chugged some water to get the taste out of her mouth.

  Henry glugged down a glass of his peanut butter and jelly soda. “Mmmmmm!” he said. “This one tastes like my favorite LUNCH—only with BUBBLES!”

  Heidi tried it and liked it too.

  After tasting all the sodas, the family wrote down their favorite flavors. Dad counted the votes, and it was a tie.
/>   “And the winners are . . .” Dad paused for a moment to build the excitement. Then he did the big reveal. “Strawberry Vanilla Almond Milk soda and PB and J soda!”

  Heidi and Henry both pumped their fists triumphantly.

  “Congratulations, kids!” Dad cried. “I’ll tweak your recipes over the weekend and present them to my group on Monday. But first we have to clean up the lab.”

  Heidi looked around. It was every bit as bad as Mr. Doodlebee’s art room after a slime session.

  “Don’t worry about the mess,” Mom said. “It’s getting late, so I’ll help Dad clean up. You kids get ready for bed.”

  As Heidi took off her stained lab coat, she watched her parents get to work. They were laughing and playing while cleaning! It looked like they were actually having fun! Heidi thought that was pretty cool.

  She was about to offer to help when Henry yelled, “Race you upstairs!”

  “You’re on!” cheered Heidi as she sprinted after him.

  TRASH PARK

  Heidi’s stomach rumbled. “Wow! I am starving,” she told Lucy as they both walked to Bruce Bickerson’s house for a Saturday cookout. Heidi could almost smell the hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill.

  Then Lucy’s stomach rumbled back. “Me too!” Lucy said. “Let’s take the shortcut through Trash Park.”

  The park near Bruce’s house was really called Trace Park, but it had been dumpy for so long that everyone called it “Trash Park.”

  The girls found the entrance path. It had become a tunnel of twisted, overgrown shrubs.

  Heidi swished the twigs and creepers away from her face. “This park is more like a JUNGLE!”

  Lucy unhooked her sleeve from a pricker bush. “You’re not kidding!” she said.

  The girls continued down the cracked walkway and crossed a meadow of weeds. In the middle of the meadow stood some rotted picnic tables and some old tires. Heidi stared at a broken-down teeter-totter and a swing set without any swings sticking up from the weeds.

  “It looks haunted,” Heidi said.

  Lucy nodded as the girls passed some forgotten gardens choked with weeds. Then Heidi and Lucy noticed an elderly couple sitting on a rundown bench in the sunshine. The woman sprinkled bread crumbs onto the ground.

  “Look!” Lucy whispered. “That lady is feeding the birds.”

  Heidi stopped and watched the birds peck at the crumbs. The couple laughed as the birds fluttered around them.

  Wow, Heidi thought. That couple looks so happy—even though they’re in the middle of this dingy old park. A warm, fuzzy feeling washed over her.

  Then Lucy tapped Heidi on the shoulder. “Hello? Earth to Heckelbeck!” she said. “This is supposed to be a shortcut. Remember?”

  Heidi shook her head and snapped out of her daydream. “Oh yeah!” she said. “What are we waiting for?”

  BACK IN THE SLIME-A-TORY

  “Slime time!” Heidi exclaimed in art class on Monday. Mr. Doodlebee had let the kids bring their own mix-ins this time.

  “Instead of a laboratory, we should call this the SLIME-a-tory!” Bruce said as he lined up his ingredients. He had brought in toothpaste, baby oil, shower gel, and glow-in-the-dark paint.

  Melanie reached into her pink polka-dot shopping bag and pulled out a sack of sparkly purple sand. She mixed some into her fresh, new slime.

  “Everyone look at my beautiful slime!” she cried, tilting her bowl and moving it from left to right so everyone could see. “It has shimmering swirls!” Then she bumped her bag of purple sand, and it poured onto the art room floor.

  “Oopsies!” Melanie snickered.

  Heidi rolled her eyes. What a mess! she thought.

  Melanie tried to set the bag of sand upright, but it tipped the other way, and the rest of the sand spilled onto the table. But Melanie was not the only one making a huge mess.

  Even Bruce squiggled toothpaste all over the table.

  Stanley Stonewrecker unclogged the craft glue and squirted it on himself—and the floor.

  Heidi even heard some of her own beads tick onto the floor.

  When the bell rang, the art room looked like it had been hit by a craft cloudburst all over again. Globs of different-colored slime stuck to the tables like wads of old bubble gum. Glue dribbles led to paint smears, which were topped with confetti, sand, sparkles, and tiny beads.

  Poor Mr. Doodlebee, Heidi thought. He’s stuck with another HUGE mess.

  Then Heidi had an idea. She walked up to Mr. Doodlebee and tapped him on the shoulder.

  “May I stay and help you clean up?” she asked.

  Mr. Doodlebee let out a big smile. “Why, that would be wonderful, Heidi. What a nice, caring offer! In fact, Mrs. Welli will join us too.”

  Then he handed Heidi a dustpan and brush. “Would you sweep the tabletops off?”

  “Sure!” Heidi said.

  She held the dustpan at the edge of each table and swept the leftover mix-ins into it. Some of the scraps fell onto the floor, so she tried to be more careful with her next swipe.

  When she was done, Heidi gathered all the empty slime bowls and placed them in the sink. She squeezed dish soap on top of them and ran the water. The bubbles began to grow and grow until the foam rose higher than the sink. Heidi batted the bubbles down with a scrub brush. Then she washed the bowls and stacked them on the dish racks.

  With Mrs. Welli and Heidi helping Mr. Doodlebee, the cleanup went fast. Mr. Doodlebee stopped sweeping and admired their work.

  “Thanks, Heidi. You really helped make my classroom look beautiful again,” he said.

  Heidi beamed. “It was fun!” she said.

  As she skipped toward the cafeteria to meet up with her friends and eat lunch, a new feeling came over Heidi. Not only was helping fun, it made her feel good, too!

  SURPRISE DAY

  On Wednesday, Aunt Trudy picked Heidi up from school. Every other week Heidi and her aunt would do something fun together—just the two of them. Aunt Trudy did the same thing for Henry. She called it their Surprise Day.

  “Would you like to go to the Enchanted Forest?” suggested Aunt Trudy.

  The Enchanted Forest was the coolest toy store in town. It had a giant tree house, a play castle, and tons of toys.

  “No, thanks. Not today,” Heidi said, buckling her seat belt.

  Aunt Trudy drove out of the parking lot. “How about Happy Hollow?” she suggested.

  Heidi loved Happy Hollow. It had a petting zoo and rides.

  “No, thanks,” Heidi said again.

  Aunt Trudy switched on her blinker and pulled over to the side of the road until they knew where they were going. “Would you like to paint pottery?”

  “Not in the mood.”

  “Go to the library?”

  “Nah.”

  “Zip line?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Bowling?”

  “Nope.”

  “Ice cream?”

  “Not now.”

  Aunt Trudy frowned. “You are one tough customer today. So tell me—what would you like to do?”

  Heidi turned toward her aunt. “I’d really like to go to Trash Park.”

  Aunt Trudy thrust her head back. “Why would you want to go there?” she asked. “It’s so ugly and overgrown. We could go to the new park. They have a butterfly exhibit and Frisbee golf.”

  Heidi shrugged. “Trash Park isn’t that bad. And besides, I think the park needs us.”

  Aunt Trudy chuckled. “It needs a lot more than just us.”

  Now it was Heidi’s turn to frown. “Please?”

  Aunt Trudy took a deep breath. “Well, okay,” she agreed. “If that’s what you really want to do.”

  Heidi sat up straight in her seat. “Yup!” she said. “That’s what I really want to do!”

  NO MAGIC ANSWER

  Aunt Trudy pulled up in front of Trash Park. There were no cars around. “Here we are,” she announced. “And it looks like we’re the only ones here.”

  Heidi h
opped out of the car and waited on the sidewalk. “COME ON!” she said excitedly.

  “Are you sure this is an entrance?” Aunt Trudy asked as she looked at the archway of overgrown bushes.

  Heidi turned around. “It’s like a tunnel,” she said. “Isn’t it cool?”

  Aunt Trudy brushed a swarm of gnats away from her face. “Sooo cool . . . ,” she said uncertainly.

  They walked to the meadow. Heidi pointed out the swing set with no swings and the broken-down teeter-totter.

  Then Heidi saw the same elderly couple she and Lucy had seen the other day.

  “Look!” Heidi cried, pointing. “It’s THEM!”

  Aunt Trudy waved nervously to the couple, who had heard Heidi. They both had on work gloves and straw hats. The woman held a trowel and a watering can. The man carried a flat of white daisies and purple asters. They waved back.

  “Do you know them?” Aunt Trudy asked.

  “Not exactly,” Heidi admitted. “What do you think they’re doing?”

  Aunt Trudy and Heidi watched as the couple walked along a winding path and stopped in front of a small row of flowers blooming between a pair of overgrown bushes.