TOM    TOWNSEND

award  WINNING  AUTHOR


                                              email: Tom@tomtownsend-toyland.com

      Phone:  713-502-4377               3123   CR  2407            Rusk, TX   75875


TRADER WOOLY & THE TERRORIST
By
Tom Townsend

TRADER WOOLY & THE TERRORIST

Read the excerpt below

     HISTORICAL FICTION

 Trader Wooly has a crush on the new girl in his class. The only problem is, she's a terrorist planning to blow up the school.  Will he save her?
Reading Level 5th grade and up.

Published by Eakin Press
ISBN 0-89015-670-0
$12.95 hardback


     Terrorists were a long way from anyone's mind that day in the school cafeteria when Arty Sue Braggston al-
most drowned in her vegetable soup.
     "Honestly, John Wooly," she scolded, and dumped half a shaker of salt into the big bowl of blood-red broth on
her tray, "if you don't straighten up, you are going to be in the seventh grade for the rest of your life." She slammed
down the salt shaker and slurped a spoonful of the lumpy liquid. "You're not in middle school anymore. This is junior                                                     high school, and you're going to have to really get with it and study. What is that you're reading, anyway?"
She leaned across the table and turned up her nose. "I'll bet that hasn't got a thing to do with school. It's full of
pictures of stupid old toy trains. How many times have I told you it's . . ."
     Arty Sue was about the only person at Munich American Junior High School who called John T. Wooly "John."
Everyone else just called him "Trader," because trading things was what he did best and most. He was a small
and wiry boy with rather thick glasses that made his eyes look bigger than they really were. His hair was rarely
combed, his clothes never seemed to fit quite right, and he always seemed to be late.
     At that moment, Trader Wooly had his nose in a large picture book and was trying very hard to ignore Arty Sue.
When vegetable soup spattered across the page he was reading, he finally looked up and saw that Arty Sue's head,
all except for her ears and pigtails, was in the soup bowl while most of her soup was on the table.
     "Come on, Arty Sue!" he said sarcastically. "Use your spoon,"
     "I think she fainted," his friend Wes McCaully said from beside him.
     "You never know—she'll do anything for attention,"  Trader answered and then noticed little air bubbles coming                                                         up around her ears. "Uh-oh, I think she's drowning!"  Both boys quickly reached across the table. Each of them
grabbed a pigtail and lifted Arty Sue's head up out of the soup just as several girls at the next table started screaming.
     "Wow, she's out like a light!"
     "Gross!" Trader groaned. "She looks even gunkier than usual." Soup was dripping from her turned-up nose, and
a half-dozen squashed peas stuck to her cheeks like green pimples. Diced carrots and green beans were trapped be-
hind her glasses, and bits of celery were tangled in her hair.
     Arty Sue coughed suddenly, choked on a green bean, and opened her eyes to see nothing but carrots. Very slowly,                                                   she reached up and removed her glasses, wiped the assorted vegetables from her eyes, and looked down at her dress.
     "Aaaeeeh! Look at me!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. By this time, everyone in the cafeteria was
doing just that. There was a lot of yelling and laughing, and about half of the seventh-graders were climbing up
onto the tables for a better look. All of the teachers on lunchroom duty were running toward Arty Sue.
     "She was talking pretty fast. Maybe she hyperventilated or something," Trader told Coach Macintosh, who arrived                                                        first after easily outrunning two English teachers and the librarian.
     The coach just frowned and pointed a suspicious finger at Trader and Wes. "You two just sit down and wait
for the bell," he growled and started leading the soup stained Arty Sue off toward the nurse's office.
     Trader and Wes watched them go and sat down again.  "What a mess," Trader said as he tried to wipe the soup
stains off his book.
     Except for the spilled soup and the near riot in the cafeteria, Munich American Junior High School did not
look much different from a school in any city of the United States. The only real difference was that this school was
located in West Germany, just outside the city of Munich.  Most of the students had fathers or mothers who were in
either the United States Army or Air Force. Trader's mother was an army nurse and Wes's father was captain
of a tank company. Arty Sue's father was the commanding general, and she always made sure everyone knew it.
     Wes had lived in Munich for almost a year and a half. Up until last spring, when he met Trader, he had not
liked living in Germany all that much. He soon found that Trader knew all the really neat places to go and things
to do. Together they had explored old tunnels in search of war souvenirs and even found an abandoned German
tank.
     Of course, Trader had also gotten them both into a great deal of trouble and, along with Arty Sue, they had
almost been killed last spring.
     Trader had lived in Munich for almost five years. This was unusual since most families stayed in Germany for
only three years before being transferred back to "the States." That was a normal tour of duty, but Trader's
mother liked living in Germany enough to extend her tour for another three years.
     "That was really weird about Arty Sue," Wes said thoughtfully as he ate the last of his sandwich. "She was
just talking and . . . zap! Out like a light."
     "With Arty Sue, everything is weird."
     The bell rang just as Trader was wiping vegetable soup off the salt shaker. A girl he had never seen before
stepped suddenly in front of him and said, "May I have that, please?"
     She wore jeans and a gray sweater. Her hair was very short and reddish-brown — the same color as the autumn
leaves which were falling outside, Trader thought. He got lost somewhere in her green eyes and forgot to answer.
     "I need the salt shaker," the girl said again, as if she was not used to asking for anything twice. She held out
her hand and Trader noticed a large jeweled ring on one finger.
     "Oh . . . yeah, sure," he stammered, at last taking his eyes off her and noticing the salt shaker in his hand.
"Here."
     She took it and started to go just as he finally got his tongue working. "Uh, hi ... I'm Trader . . ."
     For a moment, she hesitated. "An odd name," she said.
     "Uh, yeah . . . well it's not my real name, of course, they just call me that because I trade stuff a lot and . . .
well . . . what's—?" The girl had turned her back and was walking away.
     "Oh, heck!" Trader said to himself and looked at Wes. "Wow! Who is she?"
     "Some new girl," Wes shrugged and picked up his lunchbox. "Supposed to be a contessa or something. I heard
she just escaped with her family from some communist country. Come on, get your books. We're late for class."
     Trader still looked a little dopey. "Yeah, right," he mumbled. "What's her name?"
     "Katrin, I think."
     "Katrin? Katrin what?"
     "I don't know, I just heard some guys talking. Now come on. If you're late for class one more time, Arty Sue
is gonna be right—you will be in the seventh grade for the rest of your life!"
     Trader remained in a daze as he picked up his backpack, tucked his picture book under his arm, and then
tripped over a chair.
     "What were you reading about, anyway?" Wes asked as he helped him up and they started down the hall.
     "Huh? Oh, toy trains. What's a contessa?"
     "I don't know — some kind of royalty or something."
     "Sorta like a princess, maybe?" Trader asked dreamily as he stopped at his locker and fumbled with his                                                        combination lock.
     "I think it means her mother is a countess, but I'm not even sure what that is," Wes answered.
     "You think she lives around here?"
     "Are you kidding? She's probably got some big mansion somewhere, or a castle." Again, Wes tried to change
the subject. "So why are you reading about trains? I didn't know you were into stuff like that."
     The locker door came open and Trader put his book inside. "I'm not—not exactly. I found part of one. According                                                         to this book, it's real old, made back about 1940.  If I can find the rest of it, it'll be good to trade for something."
     Wes watched as Trader removed a bundle from his locker shelf. He recognized that certain gleam in his friend's
eyes; Trader got it every time he found something really good. Inside was a rather large model of a steam locomotive.                                                       It appeared to be made mostly of heavy brass, which had now turned green with age. There was a lot of dirt
between the drive wheels and inside the tiny cab. The whistle was bent, and some of the handrails were gone,
but bits of faded gray and blue paint still clung here and there. It was plain to see that it once had been a very
well-built and expensive model.
     "It's neat," Wes said and then gave Trader a suspicious look. "And just where did you find this?"
     Trader Wooly was never one to carelessly give away any of his trade secrets. He looked both ways to be sure                                                           no one was listening and then lowered his voice. "Down at that old mansion on the river."
     Wes had figured it was someplace like that. "You've been going there?" he whispered loudly. "You're crazy!
That place is off-limits. Have you forgotten how much trouble you'll be in if you get caught messing around any-
where like that again?"
     "This is different. There's nothing dangerous there—it's just a cool place to go. The house was all bombed out
in the war, but there's a big old spooky garden and—"
     "And if Arty Sue ever finds out, she'll go running straight to her father, and then you're history, man."
     "Right," Trader agreed as he put the model back in his locker and closed the door. "So don't tell her. I won't
tell her, and she'll never know. Right?"
     That seemed simple enough, but Wes knew very well that was not the way things usually worked when Trader
Wooly was involved.
     "Okay," Wes warned, "but you're gonna get in trouble."
     The afternoon periods dragged by with the speed of a half-squashed caterpillar. Trader could not seem to think
about anything except the girl with the reddish-brown hair. For Trader, this was highly unusual. Ever since the
very first day of fourth grade, when Arty Sue had jabbed him in the behind with a lead pencil and it got infected,
he had avoided girls. He was certain that they were dangerous and always got him into even more trouble than
he could possibly get into by himself. Arty Sue was living proof of that.
     So why, Trader kept wondering, was he thinking about this new girl? He hardly knew her name and she certainly                                                      had not acted friendly. The final bell rang long before he had anything figured out.
     Outside at the bicycle rack, Wes was just loading up his books when Trader walked up. "Since tomorrow's Saturday,                                                  I thought I'd go do a little exploring. You want to come with me?" Trader asked casually.

     "Exploring? Where?" Wes was suspicious.
     Trader shrugged. "Oh, maybe down by the river somewhere."
     "Somewhere like the old mansion where you found the train?"
     "Yeah, if you want to go there, I guess it's all right," Trader answered, trying to sound like it was all Wes's
idea.
     Wes was still thinking about it when Trader noticed that a long, black limousine had pulled up in front of the
school. A chauffeur in a dark suit was holding the door open as the new girl got into the back seat.
     "Look, there she is again!" he almost shouted in Wes's ear. He waved at the tinted windows as the limousine
drove past, and hoped the girl inside could see him.