Tyler is the best soccer player in the whole school. He'll tell you himself. Eleven times before lunch.

Then a strange little creature struts out from behind the goal: puffy chest, peacock tail, skinny deer legs, nose stuck high in the air. It's a Pridestag, a beast made of bragging, and only Tyler can see it. Every boast makes it grow. POOF. Soon it snores beside his bed like a tuba, and the kitchen smells like old gym socks.

Help shows up sitting on the back fence. Mick is an Agent Angel who loves soccer and tells the worst knock-knock jokes in heaven. He left his wings at home (they break lamps), and he loses a fight with a garden hose in his first five minutes on Earth. Mick can wrestle the beast, but he can't shrink it. Only Tyler can do that, and it starts with the hardest word a third grader knows: sorry.

But Sam won't talk to Tyler anymore. And the Pridestag is learning to talk back.

What kids take away from this book