Martha Snapdragon (rhymes with wagon) lived with her father, Luther Snapdragon, in the boiler room of Horace E. Bloggins (rhymes with noggins) School. Nobody remembers what Horace E. Bloggins did to get a school named after him. Maybe it was for surviving the name Bloggins.The boiler room was like an oversize cracker box. A maze of steam pipes ran side to side along the walls, up and down, every which way, carrying steam to all the other rooms, heating the school in winter. Unfortunately, Horace E. Bloggins School was as old as mold. Nothing worked right, especially not the ancient steam pipes. So they also heated the place in summer.The constant blup and phlut of water gargled in the metal throats of the boiler-room pipes. Some clunked and clanked in an everlasting racket. Year-round, Martha and her father wore earmuffs to muffle the cacophony. (It didn't help much.) But their voices got muffled, too, so they had conversations like this:Luther: "How was school, dear?"Martha: "I don't think so."Luther: "Drat! Whacked my finger with the hammer!"Martha: "That's nice, Daddy."On a daily basis, the Snapdragons were nearly cooked, like crustaceans in a pot. They sweated a lot and their skin was as pink as SPAM. But even though the boiler room was sweltering hot, they were grateful that the principal, Dr. Klunk (rhymes with junk), gave them a roof over their heads, as part of Luther's (very low) pay.Luther Snapdragon was the school janitor, on call both day and night. Dr. Klunk woke him up whenever he felt like it (sometimes just for fun). Luther didn't mind. Times were tough and he was happy to have a job and a place to live for his little daughter and himself.Martha's mother had died some years before. Since then Luther Snapdragon had seemed a bit lost. But he loved his daughter and tried valiantly in his cloudy way to take care of her."Look to the positive, Martha," he often said, trying to keep their spirits up. "Imagine something wonderful about our little home."Martha was always hungry. So she would scrunch her eyes shut and imagine her favorite thing, bacon, looped over every inch of pipe. Scrumptious bacon, popping and sizzling.But the Snapdragons were too poor to buy bacon. Sometimes they poached eggs in a pot on the pipework instead. They had to sling their laundry there, too, both clean and dirty. The light was bad, so often they wore dirty clothes instead of clean. Oh well. That didn't matter. They had each other.Martha was proud of her father for his hard work and devotion (thirty-seven years come July) to Horace E. Bloggins School. She knew how hard he worked, for the school and for her. So she tried to take care of him, too.Bloggins was a good school in lots of ways. It had some great teachers. It had nice lawns. And trees. It had cool brick hallways with great sayings chiseled into them. Sayings like:LEARNING IS GOOD.SLACKING IS BAD.MATH IS TONS OF FUN.READ YOUR BRAINS LOOSE.One bad thing about Horac Excerpted from The Spoon in the Bathroom Wall by Tony Johnston, Tony Johnston All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
