If You Meet the Devil, Don't Shake Hands

By Sylvia Whitman

Twelve-year-old Gavin Baker, son of a warrior, is a born worrier. With his father serving overseas, Gavin assumes that he' s already imagined the worst that can happen— until he shakes hands with his best friend Javi' s long-lost grandfather and finds himself trapped in the old magician' s ailing body. Help! As the trickster takes over Gavin' s life, fooling the girl of his dreams and even his own family, Gavin wonders if the imposter is a better version of Gavin than Gavin himself. He has to convince Javi that the real Gavin now has hairy knuckles and a love of Pablo Neruda' s poetry. Then the boys can try some tricks of their own. But will the two friends be able to reverse the old devil' s magic? Or will both of their families get their hearts broken?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fitzroy Books
• Release date: Sep 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781646033775

Sylvia Whitman

Sylvia Whitman, a writer and educator, has published a slew of articles and a handful of children’s history books as well as a picture book, Under the Ramadan Moon. A folklore and mythology major in college, she has always liked proverbs, particularly this one: “A book is a garden carried in the pocket.” She lives with her husband and two kids in Arlington, Virginia. Visit her at SylviaWhitmanBooks.com.

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Praise for If You Meet the Devil, Don’t Shake Hands

Young readers will be turning pages eagerly to find out how Gavin manages to stave off worry, live in a body decades older than his own, and find the secret magic to reverse the switcheroo before he’s trapped forever. Author Sylvia Whitman has assembled a compelling cast of characters, crafting a high-spirited adventure which explores identity from various points of view."

—Dianne Ochiltree, writing coach and author of Molly, By Golly! The Legend of Molly Williams, America’s Female Firefighter

Gavin Baker, age twelve, is an overly cautious kid, excellent student, average in soccer but that’s okay (for now), and a bit of a worrier. He’s part of a four-person family, with a father serving in the military, an active mom, and older sister, a/k/a The Scorpion, whose role is to make his life miserable. Gavin feels there are more important things than scoring a goal for his soccer team, but he has a need to warn everyone about the dangers of everything. That is, until some magic from his best friend’s grandpa changes his life and plunges his life into turmoil. Gavin’s struggles reveal to him what’s important in life, friends, and family. It’s a crazy and sometimes frustrating journey. From silly to serious, the situations in which Gavin finds himself are intriguing and eye-opening. An exciting read for middle graders and also their parents.

—Gail Hedrick, author of Something Stinks

If You Meet the Devil, Don’t Shake Hands

Sylvia Whitman

Fitzroy Books

Copyright © 2023 Sylvia Whitman. All rights reserved.

Published by Fitzroy Books

An imprint of

Regal House Publishing, LLC

Raleigh, NC 27605

All rights reserved

https://fitzroybooks.com

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN -13 (paperback): 9781646033768

ISBN -13 (epub): 9781646033775

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022949396

All efforts were made to determine the copyright holders and obtain their permissions in any circumstance where copyrighted material was used. The publisher apologizes if any errors were made during this process, or if any omissions occurred. If noted, please contact the publisher and all efforts will be made to incorporate permissions in future editions.

Cover images and design by © C. B. Royal

Regal House Publishing, LLC

https://regalhousepublishing.com

The following is a work of fiction created by the author. All names, individuals, characters, places, items, brands, events, etc. were either the product of the author or were used fictitiously. Any name, place, event, person, brand, or item, current or past, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Regal House Publishing.

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

To Majida and Munir, who cast a marvelous spell on my life and turned me into a mother

1

The Worst That Can Happen

A sound—lips smacking—gooses my heart rate until I remember. Javi.

I lean over the left edge of my bed. My best friend is lying on his stomach, half out of my sleeping bag, face smooshed into the air mattress where his head has slid off the pillow.

Javi’s better than I am at a whole lot of things, including sleep. The numbers on the nightstand glow green: 6:25 a.m. Do digital clocks give off radiation? Mine’s about a foot from my brain.

I should move it to the bureau. The clock, not my brain.

My eyes always pop open before my alarm goes off. Even on Saturdays. Since Mom let me and Javi stay up to finish our movie last night, I didn’t lie down until 11:34 p.m.

Less than seven hours of sleep. The National Sleep Foundation recommends nine to eleven hours for kids in the six to thirteen age bracket.

Hello, heart disease and attention deficit disorder.

I close my eyes and picture my skittish heart. I can see it pretty clearly since Javi’s mom made us watch one of her homework videos about circulation.

Bright red blood, fresh from my lungs, sloshes into the left atrium.

Squeeze.

Blood squirts down into the left ventricle.

SQUEEZE. The thick, muscular walls of the left ventricle contract. Blood thunders toward the aorta and…stops. Inflammation caused by sleep deprivation has swollen my arteries shut.

Instead of a pounding release, there’s a pounding backlash, blood flooding and swelling the chambers of my heart, muscle walls stretching, thinner and thinner.

Just before my heart POPS, I inhale sharply through my nose.

Arthur would be pleased. As a counselor, Arthur believes in deep breaths. Also drumming, gummy worms, exercise, pets of all kinds, and the question, What’s the worst that can happen?

Now that he’s gotten to know me, Arthur’s changed the question to Realistically, what’s the worst that could happen?

Long-term, insomnia is setting me up for a heart attack. Today, realistically, I’ll just be grumpy. Unless I get salmonella poisoning. Last night Mom left the egg carton on the counter after she made us omelets for dinner. The main symptom of salmonella is diarrhea, which can dehydrate someone to the point of kidney failure. At the very least, I’ll probably end up in the hospital, where something like 250,000 people die every year from medical errors, which are the third leading cause of death in the United States.

I inhale again. I’m quiet about my deep breaths. Unlike Javi. He’s going to deny that he snores. I pull my phone off the charger and record a video.

Then I lean over the right side of my mattress and grope under my bed.

Scrapbook. Glue stick. Printouts.

Very quietly I slide them out and lift them onto my camouflage comforter.

I’m making a catalog of IEDs, Improvised Explosive Devices. Homemade bombs, in other words. Last month one exploded near the front of a convoy Dad was riding in, which I wasn’t supposed to know, but I overheard him Skyping with Mom in the middle of the night. From what I’m finding on the Web, IEDs often look like roadside trash. I’ve got pictures: an old pot, a paint can, a bottle of Coke.

Before Dad deployed in June, he told me that worrying’s not crazy, but after a while it’s counterproductive. He advised me to listen to my worries and then do something about the bad things I might be able to prevent and just ignore the rest.

Pretty soon I’m going to mail this IED catalog off to Dad, so he knows what to watch out for. I’m preventing the worst that can happen.

After a page and a half, I hear a ping. Text message on Javi’s phone.

He doesn’t stir.

Wake up, Java Boy! You’d be surprised how many people don’t know that Spanish Js sound like English Hs. Whenever an Anglo stranger is writing down his name, Javi tries to head off the misspelling. "It starts with a J as in Java." He figures they either drink coffee or know the software.

Javi grunts.

Your phone, I say.

What?

Phone.

He gropes around the pillow, then wiggles out of the sleeping bag. His phone falls out with him. Was he sleeping on it? Cell phones really are radioactive. I hope it was by his feet, far from any vital organs susceptible to cancerous mutations.

What’s up? I ask.

I don’t get mi mama. Javi reads the text aloud: "Stay with Gavin. Don’t come home until I tell you."

Call 911, I say.

Javi starts typing.

What are you waiting for? Someone probably broke into your apartment and is holding your mom and your grandma hostage. She’s risking her life to text you.

Javi’s phone pings again. He reads and laughs.

Unexpected visitor, he says.

Code for home invasion.

Chill, dude, Javi says. She put a poop emoji in there. You don’t do that if someone’s pointing a gun at you.

I would probably poop if someone were pointing a gun at me. Hard to believe I’m the son of a decorated army sergeant.

What is it with moms and emojis? My mom’s always sending hearts and chickens and the occasional frowny face, but that isn’t exactly Ms. Annabella’s style. Javi calls her Jefa, which means boss.

Javi shows me the message, poop punctuated with a purple devil.

Looks like a home invader to me, I say.

Looks like somebody who doesn’t know that Jefa studies on Saturday mornings and does not appreciate interruptions, Javi says. This visitor’s risking his life.

That’s true. I don’t mess with Ms. Annabella.

I have a bad feeling about this, I tell Javi.

You have a bad feeling about everything. He points at the papers spread across my bed. The bomb book?

Want to see the latest?

Gotta pee, Javi says.

While he’s in the bathroom, I make a note to check the crime stats on home invasions in our neighborhood the next time I’m on the computer.

I may worry too much, but Javi doesn’t worry enough. If my mom was entertaining a poopy purple devil, I’d want to know.

2

Rules

After we get dressed, I brief Javi on the five components of an IED. Then we tiptoe down the hall, following the aroma of melting chocolate chips to the kitchen. Mom’s spooning batter into the waffle iron. Mom makes waffles when Dad’s gone, because no one can match his pancakes.

Mom startles. You scared me.

Sorry, Javi says.

We didn’t want to wake the Scorpion, I say.

Be nice, Mom says.

The Scorpion, aka my fifteen-year-old sister, Maddy, lives to make my life miserable.

Typical conversation: Mom, tell Gavin to throw his socks in the hamper. They make the bathroom smell like a locker room.

Never mind that she leaves all her powders and lotions and hair goo around the sink so the bathroom stinks like a poodle parlor. Never mind that I’m right there, so she could just ask me. No, my sister wants an audience. And the Scorpion’s wish is Mom’s command, so Mom gets on me about picking up and putting laundry in the hamper.

But I know Mom’s strategy. If she asks something of me, then she can ask Maddy in the next breath and the Scorpion can’t go into her rant about how life is unfair and her brother is a spoiled baby. While you’re in the bathroom, Maddy, would you tidy up the counter?

Then Maddy sighs, her overworked sigh, the one that sounds like a straw broom on stone, screeeeeech, followed by repeated scratchy huffs, like she’s sweeping all her grievances into a dustpan. My sister speaks a whole second language of sighs. The misunderstood sigh. The headache-from-English-homework sigh. The you’re-a-dork sigh (mostly for me). The you-ask-too-much-of-me sigh (mostly for Mom). The I’m-so-gorgeous sigh, which takes place hourly in front of the mirror. And, when she wants something, the I-miss-Daddy sigh.

As if she’s the only one.

Dad’s been overseas for almost four months, and even though we IM every few days and Skype whenever he can make it to the webcam, I feel like I’m talking to a ghost. I see his hands, but they’re just pixels. He can’t cup them over my ears when Maddy complains that my trombone scales disturb her concentration.

Mom just tries reason. It’s Gavin’s band homework.

It hurts my eardrums, Maddy whines.

Your voice hurts mine, I say.

Stop, Mom says. Just stop.

It’s different when Dad’s home. Ahh, Justin Bieber, Dad sighs in a girly voice, as if he’s going pop-star gaga.

Then Maddy says, Dad! all severe and laughing at the same time.

And he says, Come here, and hugs her like a python, squeezing all her crabbiness out until she begs him to quit. I will quit if you tell me something good that happened to you this week, he says.

Sometimes I feel sorry for Javi because he never knew his dad, who was too young to be a dad and dropped out of high school and left town. Sometimes we joke that we’re both Viking mutts, because his dad has some Scandinavian in him, like my mom’s family.

Please pass the OJ, Javi says. He points to the carton.

I fill my glass before his. We’re almost out, I tell Mom.

She sets the bowl of waffle batter on the table so she can scribble juice on the magnetic pad on the fridge. My mom loves lists.

I peer into the bowl. Are there eggs in this?

My mom looks me square in the face. That carton was on the counter for less than half an hour.

I pick at my waffle. Javi asks for seconds. He doesn’t die, so I finish mine. Maybe heat kills salmonella. As I lick the last of the syrup off my fork, Mom reminds me that we’re going bowling later, on post. We’ll get groceries at the PX after. Everything’s cheaper on post although getting through the gate can take a while if there’s a line of cars by the guard booth.

Can Javi come? I ask.

Sure. Then she asks Javi, When’s your mom’s game tomorrow?

"It’s a bout," I say. Ms. Annabella drilled that into me one day. She skates roller derby, and she invited Mom to watch.

Three, Javi says. But we usually go over early.