Mellie's Account

When there’s an adventure coming, my fingernails get really itchy like there’s something crawling through them. My mom’s always telling me that I shouldn’t go looking for trouble, but it’s just like I said, the trouble comes to me. It walks right up to me.

And sometimes it walks like a funny-looking old man, and what am I supposed to do, then? I mean, you get it. If you only saw this guy, I’m talking about Ole Man Grody, if you only saw this man, you’d have followed him to the bakery shop, too.

Of course I didn’t follow him, alone. I mean, of course I had my crew with me. I’m talking about Jemmy and Hugo, of course. But you know them. And Hugo never really liked Ole Man Grody, on account of his appearances. But that was the best of it, and that’s what I told Hugo, too, his looks was the best of it. Because how do you go on looking like that in Plankton, of all places, and stink and not even care, anyway? It was because he had a treasure. There was something he had that none of Plankton knew about.

And we found it at the duck pond. Hugo didn’t get it. He thinks he’s so smart sometimes, it’s dumb. And Jemmy… well, yeah, that’s Jemmy. He had two kids with him. Ole Man Grody, at the duck pond. Keep up with me here. Two kids that none of us knew, not even Jemmy. And they were all friendly. No… more than friendly. They were family. Can you believe it? Ole Man Grody had a family, a real family, of all things.

Hugo says Jemmy was the one to see him first. Jemmy! Does that even sound like Jemmy to you? No, it was me. I saw him first. I saw him first after I fell off that big twisty tree on Grove Street. I meant to jump off, but falling’s close enough to jumping sometimes. Just as I was falling, well, Ole Man Grody, I swear, he was walking by. He caught me, mid-air.  It was like some dorky movie scene. Man, did he stink, but I kept my manners, I said thanks, anyway. And he just set me down and kept walking that funny walk of his. So, yeah. That’s when I had noticed him and a few days later I told the crew we should follow him.

I’m always falling off stuff like that, but I never get more than a scrape or two, anyway. My mom, she freaks out really bad sometimes. But I never see her much, anyway because she works the late shift and sleeps during the day time. Huh? No, I don’t got any brothers or sisters or anything like that. Anyway, I got my crew and that’s gotta count for something.

Let’s see, how I met my crew… Well, Jemmy, I met him since we was both in Ms. Kishta’s class. But the funny one is really Hugo. I didn’t meet him that much ago, actually, well… just this summer. I was running to the train tracks to wait for the train that goes to Penn Station to go by. It’s always packed with people and I like to wave at them and make funny faces and sometimes they wave back. So I was running to the train tracks and there’s Hugo, reading, actually reading and it’s summer. And he’s not even in summer school! I thought that was really funny. The way he talked too. So I knew he had to join my crew.  He said, “Ok. But I must be home by 2:45pm, not a minute later.” Oh, Hugo.