Milo Speck, Accidental Agent

Text copyright © 2015 by Linda Urban

Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Mariano Epelbaum

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

www.hmhco.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-0-544-41951-3 hardcover

ISBN 978-0-544-93523-5 paperback

eISBN 978-0-544-63373-5

v2.0317

For, and because of, Jack

1

Where Would You Be?

Milo had read about magic before. He knew that kids in stories sometimes found magic in secret drawers or hidden away in attics, and he had always hoped that if he were to find magic, it would appear in the form of a mysterious silver coin or a doorway to an enchanted world. But when magic came to Milo Speck, it came in the form of a sock.

Figures, said Milo.

Grandmother, who believed that chores built character and kept young boys like Milo out of trouble, had left him a laundry basket full of socks to sort and match in pairs. It was a dreary task, particularly when it came to matching up his father’s socks, which were all navy blue with white spots, it seemed—though Grandmother insisted that some of the spots were actually dots and that both the spots and the dots were not all white, but light blue or pale pink or ivory or gray or beige, and should Milo become careless and match a blue-spot sock with a pink-dot sock, his father might not notice the error and might wear the mismatched pair to his job at Tuckerman Fencing and Mr. Tuckerman’s assistant—who noticed everything—would surely think his father a dolt and have him sacked, and then where would they be?

Milo wished he knew. He hoped they would be someplace marvelous, like in the books he and his father had read together. A sultan’s tent, maybe. Or in the Days of Yore, with knights and giants and people eating whole turkey legs for breakfast. He hoped they would not still be in Downriver, where turkey was just for Thanksgiving and the only knights were plastic ones you got with purchase at Guinevere’s Pizza and Subs.

If he were a real knight, Milo thought, then his dad would probably be a knight too. The two of them would be heroes, riding black steeds through dark forests together, fighting ogres, and swearing oaths. His dad would not have to worry about Mr. Tuckerman’s assistant, or go on business trips like he had this week, and Grandmother—who wasn’t even his real grandmother, but a live-in babysitting lady Tuckerman Fencing provided and paid for—could go back to wherever it was she came from and Milo would never again have to tell a spot from a dot.

This is what he was thinking when he reached into the laundry basket and pulled out a sock that was neither spotted nor dotted. Nor was it navy blue. It was, in fact, yellow and as large as the Christmas stockings that Milo had seen decorating the Uptown Shopping Center. It was much larger than his father’s foot. Larger, even, than Grandmother’s.

But it must be Grandmother’s, Milo thought, and there must be a second one. He flipped the contents of the basket onto the carpet and sifted through the dots and spots. There was no other yellow sock.

Maybe it’s still in the dryer, he thought, and down he went into the damp of the basement, where the washer and dryer sat on a tall wooden platform he and his father had built to keep the appliances from shorting out when the basement flooded, which it did most every time it rained.

Milo opened the dryer door and reached into the dark of the machine. He felt nothing, not even the back of the dryer. He was too short.

He was always too short and, in the words of Grandmother, scrawny.

To her this was a blessing, for although Milo was far too old for the styles offered in the Barely Boys section at the department store, he was still small enough to fit the largest sizes offered there. Few boys beyond kindergarten age would be caught dead in puppy dog pants or yellow duckling sweatshirts, of course, and the largest of the Barely Boys clothes tended to linger on the racks and then go on sale at a significant discount. That is when Grandmother—who loved a bargain—bought them and brought them home to Milo. He saved the most humiliating outfits for weekends and snow days and other times when none of his classmates would see him. Since it was the first day of Thanksgiving break, Milo was wearing one such item now, the aforementioned yellow duckling sweatshirt. The ducky sat smack in the middle of his chest. It had googly eyes and said quank if you pressed it.

Not even quack, thought Milo. Quank.

He stood on his toes and reached farther into the dryer, but again felt nothing.

An inch of platform stuck out from under the machine. Milo got a toehold there, gripped the dryer opening, and pulled himself up. Again he reached in and again he felt nothing. He tucked his head inside, leaning his chest against the opening to gain a few inches.

Quank, complained the ducky.

Milo thought he heard a faint ripping sound and checked the seat of his corduroys. If he had split them, Grandmother would be livid. He found no tear, but his relief was fleeting, for he knew she’d be just as angry if he didn’t locate the missing yellow sock. He waved his hand around inside the dryer. Nothing. No, wait—something. Something woolly and damp. The missing sock, of course. What else could it be? Milo tugged at the sock.

And the sock tugged back.

Ack! yelled Milo. He let go of the sock and tried to heave himself out of the dryer, but the sock, or whatever it was, was too quick. It clamped on to his hand and pulled him all the way in.

The dryer door slammed shut behind him.

2

There’s Your Problem

For a very long while, Milo felt as if he were being dragged downward, and then for a long time after, he had the sensation of being pulled up and then, finally, out.

There’s your problem, ma’am. Ya got a boy wedged in here.

A boy? Heavens! How did that get in there?

Can’t say, ma’am. Used to be, dryers just got jammed with all them tiny socks coming from who-knows-where, but with these SuperDry 200s? When they ain’t exploding, we’re finding boys in ’em. Don’t worry, this one’s out now.

The boy in question was, of course, Milo, who was at that moment dangling by his wrist, which was pinched between the thumb and forefinger of a very large, very hairy, very sour-smelling sort of someone. What was going on? Had he shrunk in the dryer? Grandmother had told him such things happened to sweaters and fine linens, but he had not considered the possibility that people might shrink as well.

You didn’t happen to find a baby bootie in there too, did you? A yellow one?

Just this boy, said the sour fellow, shaking Milo as if he were a tiny bell. Milo did not ring, but he did consider throwing up. You want I should dispose of him?

Dispose of him?

Drop him in there, won’t you? I’m sure my husband will want him for tea.

A sweaty hand closed around Milo, blocking his view and making it even more difficult to manage the short panicky breaths he now realized he had been taking.

He ain’t that big what’ll satisfy.

I’ll take him just the same.

The hand opened, and Milo glimpsed an enormous kitchen counter, orderly and clean, with a row of large porcelain jars set upon it, each labeled in cheery cursive letters: SUGAR and FLOUR and ROADKILL and BOYS. He guessed his fate and was right. The lid was lifted off the BOYS jar and he was dropped inside. Before he could get to his feet, the lid was replaced and Milo was left in the dark.

The dark, as it turns out, was not such a horrible place to be. Or maybe it was horrible, but it had its usefulness, for there in the dark Milo had nothing to look at and was thus able to replay what had just happened and try to sort out the details of it all. It was quite unbelievable. Moments ago, he had been sock sorting, and now here he was on the kitchen counter of a . . . well . . . of a someone. A large someone.

Milo had gotten a glimpse of her. She was enormous—so tall, he figured, that she’d need to crouch to fit into the gym at his school. Her arms and legs were thick as telephone poles, and a dense tangle of ginger hair sprouted along them. A similar shade covered her head, which was round and so disproportionally large that its weight would likely have snapped her neck in two, should she have had much of a neck at all. She wore a housecoat, much like Grandmother’s, and glasses—the old-fashioned sort that made a person want to call them spectacles.

She had been holding something that Milo had initially registered as a woolly ham, but seeing as that made no sense at all, he revised his recollection to think of it as a baby. Yes, it must have been a baby, for the hairy woman had held it to her shoulder and patted it once or twice, which is hardly the sort of treatment one would expect a ham to receive.

As if in reply to his conclusion, Milo now heard a muffled cry that could only belong to an infant or a goat. I’m nearly positive I did not see a goat, Milo thought, although a goat might explain the peculiar smell of the place.

It struck him then that whether or not he had seen a goat was rather beside the point. He was in a canister on a counter in who-knows-where. What had happened? Where was he? Milo felt his head for lumps. Did he have a concussion? Was he dreaming?

The crying reached a higher pitch and was soon joined by the dull sound of humming. It was that Hush, Little Baby tune that Milo’s mother used to sing. Mom had changed the words, telling the baby in the song not to snore, an alteration that allowed her to rhyme her name, Eleanor, and remind Milo that she would love him forever more. How long had it been since he had heard her sing? Certainly not since she left last year, but before that, how long? Two years? Three?

The song outside the canister continued, now with lyrics that varied greatly from both the standard and his mother’s version.

"Hush, little headache, don’t make a peep;

Mama won’t be happy till you’re fast asleep.

And if you cannot sleep, dear soul,

Mama’s going to feed you to a mountain troll."

Milo found the song unsettling, but the baby was soothed by it. A grating whine replaced the infant’s full-on wail.

What is it, Woodchuck? Milo heard the woman say. What do you want? You want a biscuit? A biscuit? Is that what you want?

Woodchuck increased the volume of his cries. He did not want a biscuit.

A rock? A rubber band? Chopsticks? Savings bonds? Woodchuck did not want any of these things either.

Oh! I know what you want. You want this. An earthquake struck, or that’s how it felt to Milo, but it was simply his canister of temporary residence sliding across the gleaming countertop and into the meaty arms of the woman. A moment later, the lid lifted and Milo squinted in the light.

Daddy would not like hearing that I let you play with his food, but I won’t tell if you won’t, the woman boomed.

Woodchuck must have agreed, for once again, Milo felt himself pinched and lifted. The shaggy woman held him at nose level. He was no bigger than the glasses on her face. She sniffed and shuddered. Disgusting, she said. But if this will keep your daddy from noticing that you have misplaced yet another bootie, then I suppose it’s worth it.

Milo was deposited onto a long table in front of the drooling baby, who made a grab for him. No, Woodchuck, said the woman. Dirty. Dirty little boy. Don’t touch.

At first Milo was resentful. He had bathed just yesterday and, since his father had left the bottle on the counter, had put on a splash of aftershave as well. He was not dirty, and he did not smell disgusting. Still, if such an opinion would keep him out of the drooly hands of young Woodchuck, he knew he ought to be pleased by the description.

Do something, boy, said the woman. She repeated it slowly and loudly—Do. Something.—as if Milo were daft or hard of hearing.

What should I do? he asked.

You talk? Don’t talk. Oh, don’t talk. The woman shuddered again. Gives me the willies. She wrung her hands. "Dance or something. Juggle. My great-aunt told me she had a boy one time who could juggle. She did say he ended up being salty and tough, though, didn’t she? Don’t juggle after