As soon as she woke up, Nancy swallowed a few times, testing to see whether her throat was sore. If it was, then she could stay home and avoid everybody at school. But her throat felt fine.
“Look, honey. Sure, kids are going to ask about the email,” Mom said at the kitchen table, spreading peanut butter on an English muffin for JoJo. “And you’ll feel embarrassed. But you don’t need to go into a long story. Just say again that you’re sorry. Believe me: after today, it will blow over and be forgotten.”
“Your mother is a wise woman,” her dad added. “There’s nothing as stale as yesterday’s news.”
Her mom nodded. “Exactly. What seems like a big deal now won’t be for long.”
“I wish this day was over,” Nancy said, shouldering her backpack.
“It won’t be so bad,” Bree said a little while later as they walked to school. “I’m right here to stick up for you.”
Sure enough, even before they reached the classroom, Grace came hurrying over to Nancy. “Don’t you feel dumb for starting a big rumor?” Several other kids from 3D were in the hallway. They all stopped to listen.
“Cut it out, Grace,” Bree said. “Nancy just . . .”
Nancy didn’t let Bree finish. “Yes, I do feel dumb,” she said to Grace. “I’m sorry it happened.”
“So why’d you do it?” Grace tailed after them into room 3D. “Is Mr. D talking to you?”
“I misunderstood something that he said. That’s all. I didn’t mean to start trouble. Mr. D knows and he’s forgiven me. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Nancy shrugged off her backpack and took her seat. “That’s all I have to say.”
Bree gave Nancy a thumbs-up.
Mr. D waited until everyone was at their desks. Then he said, “I guess some of you have heard that I’m moving to a new apartment. Once I’ve settled in, you’ll all be invited to a housewarming party. I’d love any of your artwork. There’s lots of wall space.”
Right away Nancy knew the perfect gift for Mr. D. Not a painting—but her clay unicorn.
Her parents were right. A day later, everything at school went back to normal. The rumor was forgotten. Other news took its place. Clara came in with a short new haircut. Lionel got braces with little rubber bands that he could twang and shoot out of his mouth.
Also that week, building started on the annex. Over the next month, as the Clancys’ house got bigger, their yard got smaller.
On most days after school, Nancy and Bree watched the workmen putting up the frame. It looked like something made from a giant set of Legos. Soon the walls went up; the floors were down and the annex was starting to look real.
Nancy’s parents pointed out where her dad’s office would go, as well as a new bedroom with a bathroom. It was going to be Nancy’s. Her own private bathroom! She could scarcely believe it.
“Can it have gold faucets on the sink and zebra-stripe wallpaper like at that model house?” Nancy asked. “And maybe towels with my initials!”
“Those decisions will be made at a later date,” her mother said, which told Nancy that the answer was no. It was dinnertime and Mom was serving herself a generous second helping of meat loaf.
Lately, Nancy had noticed, her mother seemed hungry all the time. Perhaps she was making up for all those weeks when she hadn’t had any appetite and lived on saltines.
“However,” Mom added, spooning more mashed potatoes onto her plate, “your room and bathroom may be whatever color you want.”
At the hardware store, Nancy selected dozens of paint chips to take home. They were free. They were gorgeous. She and Bree spent hours poring over them. The choices were endless. Should her new room be flamingo pink or sunflower yellow or perhaps seafoam blue? In the end she settled on a color called twilight, which was a beautiful shade of purple. Just a little darker than lavender.
As for the bathroom, Nancy wanted it to be white with polka dots that she’d paint on herself in the same purple as her room. “It’ll look very coordinated,” Nancy told Bree, which meant everything would go together perfectly. And her mother agreed to new matching towels, but ones without her initials.
The day the workers started painting was the same day Nancy came home with the next issue of the Third Grade Gazette. Nancy’s interview with Mr. D appeared on the front page. The bottom half of it.
“The Gazette! The Gazette! It’s here!” she shouted as she burst into the house. But the only people to hear her were Mrs. DeVine and JoJo. They were playing Candyland.
“Where’s Mom?” Nancy asked.
“She had a doctor appointment. Your father’s meeting her there.”
“What? Is something wrong? Is Mom okay?” Nancy asked.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Mrs. DeVine said, turning over the card for Ice Cream Raft. “She said it was just a checkup.”
But why, then, had her dad bothered going? That was unusual. His boss, Mr. Castle, never liked him leaving work early.
A short while later, her parents returned home. As Mrs. DeVine waved good-bye, Mom took Nancy’s hand and steered her into the living room while Dad scooped up JoJo. They all sat on the sofa.
“We have some big news!” her mother announced.
It sure was. It was bigger than big. It was ginormous news!
Nancy tried to take it all in. The news explained a lot of things, like why her mom hadn’t been feeling well a while ago. Like why her family needed more room—it wasn’t just for her dad’s office. And why her parents had taken down all the baby stuff from the attic. Their friends didn’t need baby clothes. The Clancys did!
JoJo was sitting on Dad’s lap. She looked puzzled. “Mommy’s having a baby?” she asked.
“Babies, JoJo, babies!” Nancy’s father corrected. “We’re going to have twins! The doctor is sure.”
JoJo, however, didn’t look sure about this. “I like it the way we are.”
“But JoJo. You finally get to be a big sister,” Nancy pointed out.
Hearing that, JoJo looked much happier.
“And I,” Nancy suddenly realized, “won’t only be an older sister. I’ll be the eldest of four!”
A strange warm feeling had seized hold of Nancy and was spreading all through her. She felt almost as if she were glowing. Twins! Twins with tiny ears, tiny noses, tiny fingers, tiny toes. Tiny everything! It was too adorable for words. They could share her little tutu! Nancy hardly remembered JoJo as a baby. Nancy had been too young. But now she was almost ten. “I can feed them and dress them and rock them to sleep!”
“I want that in writing,” Dad said.
The babies would be born six months from now, Nancy found out. And no, her parents had not given any thought to names.
“No plain ones, please. Maybe their names could be French? Like Françoise and Felice or Elise and . . .”
“Well, those are nice names,” her mother said. “But they’re for girls . . . and the doctor . . . Well, he’s pretty sure they’re boys.”
Jojo started squealing. “They can be my posse!”
Suddenly Nancy’s visions of miniature pinafores and sunbonnets and party dresses vanished. “Oh!” was all she said. Then she thought to herself: babies were babies. She would love them anyway. And there were plenty of French boy names. “I’m still overjoyed,” she said. Then in the next breath, she asked if she could tell Bree.
“Absolutely. It’s not a secret anymore.” Before her mother had even finished the sentence, Nancy was already out the door to share what, so far in all her nine and a half years on this planet, was the biggest, most unexpected news of her life. A new chapter was about to begin.
Six months later:
BACK AD
JANE O’CONNOR is truly a native New Yorker. She was born and raised on the glamorous Upper West Side and, after graduating from Smith College, returned to the metropolis (that’s fancy for city) to begin a career in publishing. Currently Jane works as an editor for Penguin Books for Young Readers.
Jane has written more than sixty books for children, includin
g the bestselling Fancy Nancy books, seven of which were #1 New York Times bestsellers.
Jane is married to Jim O’Connor. They have two grown sons and a rambunctious canine (that’s fancy for naughty dog) named Arrow.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
ROBIN PREISS GLASSER, a former professional ballet dancer, has illustrated more than fifty children’s picture books, including the New York Times bestselling Fancy Nancy series, written by Jane O’Connor. Robin lives in San Juan Capistrano, California, with her husband, Bob. She has two grown children, Sasha and Ben, and a dog, Boo, who looks exactly like Nancy’s dog, Frenchy!
CREDITS
Cover art © 2017 by Robin Preiss Glasser
Cover design by Jeanne L. Hogle
COPYRIGHT
FANCY NANCY: NANCY CLANCY, LATE-BREAKING NEWS! Text copyright © 2017 by Jane O’Connor. Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Robin Preiss Glasser. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
* * *
ISBN 978-0-06-226973-7
EPub Edition © February 2017 ISBN 9780062269744
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FIRST EDITION
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