Free Shoebag Returns by M. E. Kerr Page A

Betters
    Better at Everything!
    Better when we dance and when we sing!
    Better at everything!
    Better at science and history,
    Better at solving a mystery,
    Better than a queen, better than a king,
    Better at everything!
    We’re Betters!
    We look better, read a book better,
    Swim a brook better, and we cook better,
    We are the Betters!
    C. Cynthia Ann Flower then found a seat in the audience, right next to Josephine Jiminez.
    “If the Butters had been better, you might have been up on stage yourself, Josephine. But not everyone can be better, particularly a Doll Smasher like you.”
    Josephine said nothing, for she was in a slump.
    She was imagining herself somewhere in Tennessee going to another new school, seeing more unfamiliar faces, hearing some new teacher say, “We have a new girl in our midst, so everyone welcome her,” which no one would do.
    On the other side of Josephine sat Stanley Sweetsong. He leaned over Josephine and said to C. Cynthia Ann Flower, “Just you wait!”
    “Wait for what? Wait for you to get taller so you’ll be the size of other ten-year-olds? For Josephine to lose some of her freckles so we can see her face? Haw! Wait for what?”
    Now Miss Rattray was standing before the assembly waiting for absolute silence.
    “I have two announcements!” she said. “One is that we are losing Josephine Jimenez after Career Day, and we are sorry to lose her.”
    “We are?” C. Cynthia Ann Flower muttered under her breath. “I don’t know anyone who is.”
    “The other announcement,” said Miss Rattray, “is that Stanley Sweetsong will be the personal escort of Gregor Samsa when he comes for Career Day next week. Anyone who wants to shake the hand of this famous spokesboy and actor must go through Stanley.”
    C. Cynthia Ann Flower’s hand went up instantly.
    “Yes, dear?”
    “But a Better has always been the personal escort!”
    “This year, since we are asking a male actor, we shall have a male escort, dear! There is no male Better.”
    “There is no male better than me!” Stanley Sweetsong whispered at C. Cynthia Ann Flower.
    Now there were two of Miss Rattray’s girls in a slump that morning. One with the dread of starting all over again in Tennessee. The other with the dream of meeting Gregor Samsa dimming.

Twenty-five
    “H OW WOULD THEY LIKE it,” Under The Toaster used to say of humans, “if someday creatures a hundred times their size gassed them — pffft — like they were mindless, heartless, unfeeling flecks of flesh, put on earth only to annoy them?”
    Shoebag’s heart broke remembering his father’s tirades against the human race.
    Ever since he had come flying out of the Dustbuster, into the kitchen wastebasket, he had wondered what would become of him, alone in this place, without a family or another roach anywhere in view.
    How could he think of being Bagg again? Why would he want to become the very enemy who had uprooted his family’s home, invented a noxious substance like Zap (which had nearly killed him), and through the years stepped on his kind, designed lethal Roach Motels for his kind, and always looked upon any critter from roachdom with loathing?
    Still, one thing cockroaches were known for was loyalty. Gas them, they would return. Smoke them out, they would be back. Tear down their buildings, they would remain in the neighborhood.
    And so it was that Shoebag, frail and shaken from everything that had happened to him, found himself finally back in the Changing Room.
    “You have to judge humans individually,” Drainboard was fond of saying. “One in a million is decent.”
    Shoebag believed Stanley was one of those one in a million.
    High in the eaves of the small room were the clothes Bagg had hidden so many weeks ago … before he had been orphaned and Zapped.
    Now came the next step: “Flit, flutter, quiver, quaver, totter,” and as always, on the word “totter” he felt himself begin the change.

Twenty-six
    S OMETIMES, IF YOU PUT the top of a