Posey, the Class Pest

by Holly Anna

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: Sweet Dreams!

  Chapter 2: Stowaway

  Chapter 3: A Close Call

  Chapter 4: The Glitter-Litter Incident

  Chapter 5: Lunchtime Disaster

  Chapter 6: Loopy Library

  Chapter 7: The Lecture

  Chapter 8: The Posey Pause

  Chapter 9: HICCUP!

  Chapter 10: Pretend Friends on the Loose

  Pop Goes the Bubble Trouble Excerpt

  About the Author and Illustrator

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sweet Dreams!

  “Sweet dreams, Daisy Dreamer!” Mom and Dad say as they turn off the lights.

  “Wait! I’m not tired!” I tell them, but the door clicks shut. I stare up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling and yawn.

  Then I hear a familiar voice. “I’m not tired either!”

  I squint my eyes to see in the dark. I wish I were a cat, like Sir Pounce, so I could have super-duper night vision.

  “Posey?” I call out. “Is that you?” My heart is beating so thumpety fast. Then I spy a light tracing a new imaginary door on my wall. The door swings open, and there’s my imaginary friend, wearing a big silly grin on his face.

  “Hi, Daisy!” he says.

  I breathe a sigh of relief. “You scared me!”

  He slaps his knee and laughs, like he thinks that’s so funny. “Sorry. I heard you weren’t tired. So, do you want to have an adventure?”

  I open my mouth, and another big fat yawn rolls out. “Isn’t it kind of late to start an adventure?” I ask.

  Posey jumps onto my bed. “Not in the WOM!” he says.

  The WOM is the World of Make-Believe. Obviously.

  “We could go to Roller-Coaster Raceway!” Posey suggests. “Or Bouncy Town, which is a whole town made out of bounce houses!”

  I get up on one elbow. That does sound fun . . . but my eyes feel so heavy. . . .

  “And you’d love the Pet Post Office!” Posey cheers. “It’s a post office completely run by dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and more!”

  I flop back down on my pillow. “Maybe tomorrow . . . ,” I say through another yawn. “I’m totally zonked.”

  Posey shakes my arm. “But you said you weren’t tired.”

  I pull my arm back and shut my eyes. “I know, but I’m so sleepy now. Plus I have school tomorrow.” Now I can feel myself fading fast.

  “May I go to school with you?” Posey asks.

  I snuggle deeper into my pillow. “Sure, Posey. Whatever you say,” I murmur, before falling completely and totally asleep.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Stowaway

  Mr. Roberts slaps me five as I walk into the classroom. I say hi to Jasmine and Lily, my two best friends. Then I unzip my bag and unload my school stuff.

  “Good morning, my candy-scented pencils!” I say because I’m really happy to see them. “Good morning, my rainbow unicorn notebook! And good morning, Posey. . . . Wait, Posey?!”

  I cover my backpack before anyone sees him, but it’s too late. Jasmine and Lily come right over.

  “Wait! Is that who I think it is?” Jasmine asks.

  “I saw him too!” Lily adds.

  I put a finger to my lips.

  “Shh,” I say. Then we gather around my backpack so nobody can see—and I open it again.

  “HI, GUYS!” Posey shouts. All three of us squeal. How did my goober imaginary friend cram his entire imaginary self into a kid-size backpack?

  “What are you doing here?” I whisper.

  Posey looks confused. “Last night you said I could come to school with you!”

  Hmm, I do not remember saying that at all, but I was very tired. “Posey, you can’t come to school.”

  His smile vanishes. Posey sticks out his lower lip, and boy, do I feel like a big meanie. Obviously.

  “Okay, okaaay,” I whisper. “But you have to promise to behave! And you have to stay invisible!”

  Posey leaps out of my backpack and cries, “I PROMISE!”

  Then he sits in my chair. Jasmine and Lily try not to laugh. I sigh and put my backpack and lunch box in my cubby. Gabby is there too. She gives me a sideways glance.

  “You’re weird sometimes,” she says.

  I finish shoving my stuff into my cubby. “Why?”

  “Because I saw you talking to your backpack,” she says, like it’s a crime or something.

  I laugh because that’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard.

  “I was not!” I say. I was talking to someone inside my backpack. But she doesn’t need to know that.

  Gabby scowls. “You’re up to something, Daisy Dreamer, and I’m going to find out what.”

  Oh, no, you’re not! I say in my head. Because I am too smart for that!

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Close Call

  “It’s Team Report time!” Mr. Roberts announces after attendance. “I’m going to divide you into groups, and each team will present a report.”

  Jasmine, Lily, and I get to be on the same team. I think it’s because we all crossed fingers at the same time.

  “Today the report will be on video games!” our teacher goes on. “And part of your grade will be how well you work as a team.”

  Oh yay! I think. I love video games. Plus we are a perfect team, so of course we’ll work well together! Obviously.

  Lily, Jasmine, and I all sit at our team table, with Posey in the middle.

  “We’re going to crush this report!” Jasmine says.

  Posey scratches his head. “Why would we want to crush it?” he asks. “Oh, and what is a video game?”

  Jasmine and Lily snort-laugh.

  “It’s a game you play on your TV or computer,” Lily explains. “It’s like a story, and you get to be a player in the story.”

  Posey points to himself and Jasmine nods. “Yes, you!” she says. “And you can do just about anything in a video game. You can even win stuff!”

  But Posey still doesn’t understand. “Why don’t you just play the game in real life?”

  “Because!” I whisper-shout. “Not everybody can visit the World of Make-Believe, so this is like the next best thing! I promise, video games are fun. So can we dream up some ideas already?”

  Lily goes first. “Let’s have our game be about fairies!”

  I roll my eyes because of course Lily wants a fairy video game. “Fairies are fine, but I was thinking our game should be about skateboards!”

  Then Jasmine sighs loudly. “Fairies and skateboards are so bor-ing. Our game should be about stuffed animals. They never go out of style.”

  Then I stand up because I have to stick up for what I like.

  “Skateboards are cool!” I say.

  Then Lily stands up. “Well, fairies are magical!”

  Now Jasmine gets up. “And stuffed animals are adorable!”

  Everything is getting totally out of control—until Posey holds his hand up like a stop sign.

  “I have an idea,” he says. “Why not make a game about a fairy who rides a flying skateboard to save a bunch of stuffed animals?”

  We all look at one another and smile because that is not a bad idea. It is not a bad idea at all! Then Posey snaps his fingers. And—POOF!—a fairy on a skateboard with a stuffed animal appears in the middle of our table! We quickly block the skateboarding fairy so no one will see.

  “Posey!” I whisper desperately. “You can’t do magic in the classroom!”

  Posey shrugs. “Okay, fine. Have it your way!” He snaps his fingers again and the fairy disappears.

  As we plop back down onto our seats, my heart is hammering against my ribs. I scan the classroom to make sure no one saw an
ything. Luckily, everyone is busy working on their own projects. Phew!

  That was way too close.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Glitter-Litter Incident

  “Okay. We have a fairy on a skateboard and stuffed animals,” I say, trying to get us back on track.

  Jasmine and Lily nod.

  “And where should our story take place?” Lily asks.

  I pick up my pencil and start to write everything down. “Probably in an imaginary world since we don’t have fairies in the real world.”

  Posey gives that idea two big thumbs-up.

  “And are the fairies nice?” Jasmine asks.

  Lily sighs heavily. “Of course they’re nice!” she says. “They’re fairies.”

  I quickly write down nice fairies.

  “What about the skateboards?” I ask. “Should we make them alive?”

  Jasmine gives me a funny look. “How can a skateboard be alive?”

  I flick my pencil down. “A skateboard can be alive if it’s magical.”

  I can tell that Jasmine thinks this is too weird because she huffs. “Let’s just make the skateboard able to fly all by itself—like a magic carpet. So it’s magic but not alive.”

  “Fine,” I say, feeling a little grumpy. And for the sake of finishing the project, I let it go. Then we all agree the fairy is saving the stuffed animals from a giant named Rewdus. Rewdus wants to keep all the stuffed animals for himself. Then I sketch a picture of Rewdus.

  “He needs a bigger nose and sharper teeth!” Posey directs. “He’s a giant. He has to be scary!”

  I erase the nose and draw a larger one. That’s when I see Carol and Gabby leaning over from another table and spying on us!

  “Hey! NO PEEKING!” I shout at them. “That’s cheating!”

  Mr. Roberts hears me yelling and comes over. “Is there a problem, girls?”

  Gabby and I both shake our heads.

  “Okay,” Mr. Roberts says, “then let’s get back to work.”

  As Gabby turns back to her team’s table, Posey slips something into her pink pencil bag. Then a foxlike grin spreads across his face.

  “Posey, what did you just do?” I ask.

  Posey rocks back and forth.

  “Oh nothing,” he says innocently. “I just put a little glitter-litter in Gabby’s bag. The next time she opens it, she’s in for a sparkly surprise!”

  My eyes bug out. “Posey! You can’t do that!”

  Quickly I sneak over to try and remove the glitter-litter from Gabby’s bag while she’s not looking. That’s when things get messy.

  POP-BANG-BOOM!

  The glitter-litter explodes all over me. I look like a disco ball. Then the whole class breaks out laughing and Mr. Roberts runs back over. Uh-oh.

  “I’m so sorry!” I tell him. “I only meant to use a little glitter for our game.”

  But instead of getting me in really big trouble, the shiny mess makes Mr. Roberts laugh. “It’s all right, Daisy. Just clean yourself up and get back to work.”

  Wow, that was another close one, I think as I brush off the glitter over the wastebasket.

  Posey floats over and asks if he can help. That’s when I taste the glitter. It is even in my mouth. Yuck!

  “No, thank you,” I say in my calm voice. “You’ve helped enough already.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lunchtime Disaster

  BBBRRRRRRING-A-DING-A-DING!

  The lunch bell rings, and wow, do we need a break.

  I sure hope things get better after lunch because they couldn’t get any worse. After the glitter-litter bag, Posey broke the pencil sharpener, made (and destroyed) a tower of rulers, and let a squirrel into our classroom.

  Jasmine laughs. “Wow! That squirrel wouldn’t stop chasing Carol. Gabby must have screamed the whole time!”

  This gets Lily going. “Oh, and poor Mr. Roberts almost slipped twice trying to shoo that little squirrel back out the window!”

  Posey frowns. “I really thought the squirrel was a student. He looked ready to learn.”

  Posey can’t understand why animals don’t go to school. I keep telling him that only kids go to school in the real world—not animals. But whenever I say the word “kids,” it makes Posey giggle. That’s because he thinks I mean baby goats. I quickly correct myself again.

  “I meant only human kids go to school,” I say. “Not baby goats!”

  Jasmine puts her arm around Posey. “Come on. Let’s get lunch. A little food might help our mood.”

  Posey hops to his feet. “Okay! I’ll meet you there. I just have to grab something!”

  My friends and I sit at our usual table for lunch. Posey comes through the door with a giant brown bag.

  “Whoa, what did you bring for lunch?” Lily asks.

  Then Posey smiles and cries out, “FRIENDS!”

  As soon as he opens his bag, a bunch of crazy creatures fly out! Pretty Pixies, Cloud Critters, Golly Ghosts, Moonsters—you name it. It looks like all of the WOM is here, and they’re hungry!

  They grab trays and stand in the lunch line. Oh no! This is beyond bad. I jump up from my seat.

  “Posey!” I cry. “Are you trying to get me kicked out of school?”

  Posey laughs. “Of course not! My friends look like ordinary kids to all the real-world people. No one will notice!”

  I hope he’s right. But when I look around, all the real-world kids are asking questions like:

  “Hey! Where’d all the new kids come from?”

  “Do you think we are being invaded by another school?”

  “Are we going to run out of pizza?”

  I glare at Posey and clench my fists. “Your friends need to leave—now!”

  He catches my drift and whistles loudly. The WOM group stampedes out of the cafeteria and onto the playground.

  Hmm, that’s not exactly what I meant!

  Now the playground looks like a circus. The new kids are hogging all the slides, swings, and monkey bars. There’s no room for the real-world kids to play!

  “Daisy, you have to fix this,” Jasmine says as an octopus-shaped Cloud Critter takes over the top of the monkey bars.

  I grab Posey by the shoulders and shout, “Enough!”

  Posey bats his eyes innocently and asks, “What’s wrong? Isn’t this what kids do at recess?”

  “Yes!” I answer. “But this playground is for kids who go to this school!”

  Posey rubs his chin thoughtfully. “That makes sense,” he says. Then he pulls out his bag and invites his friends back inside.

  Jasmine, Lily, and I groan. Then we head to the library to work on our project—in peace.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Loopy Library

  First we stop by our classroom to pick up everything we need for our project: colored pencils, markers, poster board, tape, and notecards. Then we hurry down the hall to the library.

  It’s so quiet there, you could hear a Pretty Pixie sneeze. We sit at a table beside an open window that is not facing the playground. Then we get to work. I start coloring, and Jasmine looks at my drawing.

  “Way too many skateboards,” she grumbles.

  Then Lily looks over and adds, “Yeah, who cares about skateboards, anyway?”

  And of course this makes me mad because I care. Obviously.

  But Lily ignores my angry face and keeps going. “Let’s forget skateboards for now. We need to figure out the end of the game. In my opinion, the fairies should save the stuffed animals from the giant.”

  Jasmine lets out a loud harrumph. “No way! The stuffed animals should definitely save the fairies from the giant.”

  Then Lily balls up her paper and throws it in the wastebasket.

  “SHHHH!” Mrs. Page, the librarian, shushes us from behind her desk.

  Jasmine plants her elbows on the table. “Maybe we should each do our own projects,” she whispers grumpily. “Then at least mine will be good.”

  Lily folds her arms. “Excuse me, but mine will be b
etter,” she whisper-yells back.

  I can’t believe we’re fighting again, but I agree. “Okay, fine! At least with my own video game I can have as many talking skateboards as I want! And they can be alive!”

  We split up and go to different tables. I make a poster for my game. Lily writes a story for her game and Jasmine draws scenes for her game. That’s when trouble walks in.

  “There you are! I’ve been looking for you guys everywhere!” Posey says from the doorway.

  I look at Mrs. Page for a reaction and then I remember she can’t see or hear Posey. He is imaginary. Obviously.

  The library is the last place Posey should be! Lily, Jasmine, and I pause. We are terrified of what might happen. Then he flies over with his arms flapping every which way like crazy. All that flapping kicks up a gust of wind that blows Lily’s cards everywhere!

  “Oopsies!” Posey says. He dances around, trying to catch the cards, and that’s when a bag of imaginary friend dust falls out of his pocket and spills on Jasmine’s work. Now her markers and pencils begin to draw by themselves.

  “Quick, catch them before they ruin everything!” I shout.

  We don’t ever hear Mrs. Page shushing us because we’re too busy trying to catch the pens and pencils before they rewrite all the books in the library!

  Poor Jasmine has a yellow highlighter buzzing around her head like a bee. Lily and I barely hold on to the rest of the pens and pencils. The magic makes them rattle in our hands.

  “GIRLS!” Mrs. Page shouts in a not-so-library-ish voice. “What in the world is going on?”