Maxie and the Grondulo
(Part 2 of 2)

Max started to think about his homework. The ringing in his ears and the growling of the monster fighters was even louder than all his brothers and sisters yelling at once so he almost couldn't hear himself think.

"Hmm," Maxie thought. "In history we learned that is isn't always the most powerful ones who win. The smart ones are the survivors." From math, he remembered that he had to cut down on the odds. Half the monsters would be easier to defeat than all four of them at once. Max ducked down behind a hill. "First I have to cut that crew in half."

Maxie saw a big machine sitting there. It was a dirt mover. He jumped on and pushed some hills down the middle of the TV screen. That trapped two of the monsters on one side of the screen and two were on the side with him. He tried to run over the two on his side, but the machine mowed them flat and they just bounced back up again, ready to fight.

"Now what was it that Ms. Andrews was trying to teach us in science the other day?" Maxie tried hard to remember. "Oh, yeah," he said to himself, "we were learning about expansion and contraction. When air is cold, it contracts, but when water freezes it expands. Hmm, I think I can play a trick on these guys."

"Time out!" Max yelled. The two monsters on his side of the hill looked startled but stopped for a minute. Max grabbed a case of soda from the side of the television screen. "Here," he said to the monsters. "But you can only drink one each. In health class we learned that too much soda isn't good for you. The acid in it can burn your stomach and the sugar will rot your teeth."

Just as Max thought they would do, the greedy monsters grabbed all of the soda and glugged it down without sharing. "Humph. If they were in my religion class they would know it is always better to share," thought Max. "I'll show them!"

Then Maxie jumped back on the dirt mover and pushed a huge pile of snow over the monsters. The snow was very cold, and the monsters were very full of soda. All the soda in those greedy monsters froze and they expanded until.... balooey! Both those monsters exploded and were out of the game.

"Hey, there is something about those fractions," thought Max. "The whole group, minus half the group leaves only one half left. Now to get the evil Grondulo and that other last monster!"

Max jumped off the dirt mover and looked under the seat for the tool kit. He got a wrench and a couple of screwdrivers and took the motor out of the machine. He turned it into an air machine. Then he took a long hose and connected it to the machine and flipped a switch to make it go in reverse. Instead of blowing air out, the machine sucked the air in through the hose. Quickly, Maxie snaked the hose over the hill to the other side of the screen where Grondulo and the other monster waited to smack him again. The machine began to suck out all the air before Grondulo knew what was happening! As the air left that side of the screen, it began to contract and pull the hill right to the edge of the screen. Soon, Grondulo and the other monster were nothing but a thin green line at the edge of the television screen.

"Whew," said Max in relief. "That takes care of that. The whole group minus both halves is no group at all. Yeah!"

Max looked around. There he sat in the middle of the television screen with a green line down one side and two green blotches on the ground on his side. "Hey! I won the game. Now how do I get out of here?"

Grondulo was gone and Max had no idea of how to get out of the television! With the monsters gone, it was very quiet, and Max began to hear some sounds from home. The sounds were faint and seemed far away, and he couldn't see home. Kathryn and Karolyn were cooing and slurping hungrily at their bottles. Tori was singing. Even if she couldn't play the keyboard, she could sing quite well. She was singing "Uno, dos, tres Inditos," a song they had learned in Spanish class. Tori was trying to get Brenden to sing the song with her. Max seemed to hear the door slam. Then he heard Mom telling Christian not to run away again because it scared her to think of losing any one of her precious children.

"Did she say `any'?" Max thought. "I guess that means she thinks all of her children are precious, even me." That thought made Maxie feel happy. The babies needed so much attention that sometimes he thought Mom and Dad had forgotten him, the oldest one.

Maxie thought Dad must be home. He seemed to get a faint whiff of the delicious smell of Mom's spaghetti and Dad's scrumptious garlic bread. His stomach was starting to growl, and he was beginning to get the "missed meal cramps." He even thought he heard Mom calling "Supper's ready, come and eat."

Maxie wanted to cry, but he was a big boy now. At least, his Mom and Dad were always telling him that. "I have to get out of this dumb game! I'm hungry and I miss my brothers and sisters and I will always do my homework because sometimes I learn things like fractions and expansion and contraction that I may need one day." But Maxie was still stuck in the television screen. Oh, what could he do?

Then Maxie remembered the science project he was doing for Ms. Andrews' class. When he blew up a balloon, and let it go, the air rushing out made the balloon whiz through the air. Maxie looked around and finally he found a big balloon. He began to blow it up. It was so big that it took a lot of air. Time and time again he sucked in some air, put his mouth on the balloon, puffed out his cheeks and blew and blew and blew! Finally the balloon was blown up bigger than Max! He grasped the side of the balloon tightly in his hand and let go of the stem. The air rushed out with a giant whoosh and the balloon propelled Maxie up in the air and right out of the top of the screen. When all the air was out of the balloon and it was fully deflated, Max fell down and landed with a thump in front of the television.

"There you are," said Dad. "It's time for supper and you have to finish your homework. You can't spend all your time playing games, Max. There are other things in this world that are more important."

"You can say that again," thought Max.

"Say," said Dad. "I wonder if something is wrong with the television. There is a green line down the side of the screen and some green blotches."

"So there is," said Max.

When Max sat down at the table, Mom asked him to say the blessing.

Everyone bowed their heads and Max said, "Bless us, O Lord, and these, thy gifts, which we are about to receive through thy bounty." Then Max continued, "And bless all my brothers and sisters, just try and keep them a little quieter so I can finish all my homework in peace. For Christ's sake, Amen."