Grandy shook off Ms. Fleegerman’s grip. Then she whisked among the desks, cackling and muttering to herself.
“My tiger-frog orchid is so valuable, I can exchange it for anything without any hassle. The question is, what do I want in return? Hmm, these magazine pictures are nice. Or what about that nice volcano to brighten up my library? I must say, teachers have become quite talented at what they can do with your basic plain, four-cornered room.”
Then Grandy spied Frieda Gunderson, frozen in the middle of copying the morning spelling words. Her mouth was dropped open in the start of a yawn, and her eyes stared sleepily at the blackboard.
Grandy’s own eyes lit up. “Maybe I’ll take that girl,” she said to Claire with a little wink. “She looks like hard worker. And I need somebody to help me with my tomato plants.”
“No, Grandy, please! Don’t take Frieda!” Claire pulled on Grandy’s wrist.
“I bet I wouldn’t even have to feed her much,” Grandy mused. “Maybe a handful of oyster mushrooms now and then.”
“Grandy,” Luna said in her strictest voice. “Stealing Frieda is not a good idea.”
“Oh, you girls are too serious for your own good!” Grandy snapped. “Child-snatching was outlawed from the Decree at least five hundred years ago. But I’m not going back from my shopping trip empty-handed, and my time-spell is running out. Eh, what’re these?”
Over the blackboard, Ms. Fleegerman had taped up cutout letters from all different colors of construction paper. The letters spelled out:
IN HAWAII, ALOHA MEANS HELLO AND GOOD-BYE!
“Now, that’s handiwork!” Grandy reached up and plucked off the first I. “She did this with nail scissors. Very dedicated. Okay, I’ll take them.” In a blink, she pulled off all the letters from the wall and stuffed them into her silver-buckled black purse. She had just buckled it shut and plunked her tiger-frog orchid smack in the middle of Ms. Fleegerman’s desk when time unfroze.
Everybody continued what they were doing, from word copying to nose picking to hair brushing.
“Arianna Bramblewine? Are you the woman who is giving the assembly with the trick monkeys?” asked Ms. Fleegerman.
“What? Oh, for goodness’ sakes, no. I’m a cat person.” Grandy lifted her chin. “But since you asked, as a matter of fact, I’m the regional school inspector,” she said mischievously.
“Really!” Ms. Fleegerman began to flip through her teacher’s notebook. “Mrs. Hass did not say you were coming! I had no idea … I would have made some special preparations. I hope my classroom presentation is satisfactory.” She looked around the room, then drew a sharp breath. “My letters are gone!”
“What letters?” asked Grandy, more mischievously.
“My aloha letters,” said Ms. Fleegerman. She pointed to the empty space where the letters had been. “They were just there, a minute ago. Class! Class!” Her voice was shrill. “Would whomever took my letters kindly return them to me!”
The first bell rang.
“Oh, where does time go? I’m usually finished roll call by now.” Ms. Fleegerman shook her wristwatch and held it to her ear. She glanced at her roll book. “Why, where did this orchid come from?”
“Compliments of the Inspectors’ Bureau. Now, then, I must be getting on,” said Grandy, “but as regional school inspector, I should warn you, madam, that you seem both disorganized and overly emotional. Come along, Wilbur.”
With that, Grandy picked up Wilbur (who had fallen asleep in the trash basket) and swept out.
Ms. Fleegerman watched her leave, then wilted behind her desk. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Claire and Luna. “Whichever one of you is Claire Bundkin, please go to your classroom,” she said in her regular strict old Ms. Fleegerman voice.
“See ya,” said Claire. She felt bad. It had been mean for Grandy to exchange those letters without telling. Claire knew that Ms. Fleegerman was having a hard enough time in 5A without having her words taken. Some kids called her Fleegermonster, and of course everyone wanted Mrs. Sanchez back. In fact, when Mrs. Sanchez had popped in last week for a quick visit and to show off her new baby Olivia, 5A had gone berserk, jumping all around and hugging her.
Nobody would jump around and hug Fleegermonster. No way.
The truth was, it was perfectly possible for Ms. Fleegerman to think that any single one of the 5A kids had stolen her letters.
Later that morning, Ms. Fleegerman marched into 5B. “I will be putting this manila envelope on a chair outside my door,” she said. “Would the person who borrowed my letters kindly put them in this envelope at his or her convenience?” she said. Her voice was haughty, but Claire knew that Ms. Fleegerman tended to get haughty when she felt unfairly treated. “My room is not the same without these letters,” continued haughty-voiced old Ms. Fleegerman. “And I worked very hard to make it perfect.”
A few kids snickered.
Claire did not snicker. She thought about the time she had practiced walking backward on her hands every afternoon for a month until she got it just right. Even though practice had roughened the skin off her palms and given her shoulder cramps, something inside her had needed to walk backward perfectly.
Claire bet that Ms. Fleegerman’s feelings about her room were a lot like her own feelings about walking backward on her hands.
With the letters, 5A had been perfect.
A plan began to form in Claire’s mind. On the way home from school, she told her plan to Luna.
“What? I don’t want to waste my time cutting out dumb letters. It would take forever,” said Luna. “Besides, Galaxy Murk is on TV tonight.”
“It’s a repeat,” said Claire.
“And since when is old Ms. F your best friend? She pushed you out of Five A! You should be happy that Grandy bought her letters!”
“Grandy took them,” said Claire. “Taking is not the same as buying.”
“She exchanged them,” said Luna. “And exchanging is the same thing as buying. Almost.”
“Is not.”
“Is.”
“Is not.”
“Is, and either way,” said Luna, “count me out. I don’t like old Ms. Fleegerman, and I don’t want to do her any freebie favors.”
“You girls got some packages,” said Grandy when they got home. Two identical brown-paper-covered boxes rested on the kitchen table.
The girls pounced and opened them. “Maybe this is something about the GSTs,” whispered Claire.
But the packages turned out to hold their ugly bumblebee bridesmaids’ dresses, newly fitted, from Regent’s department store.
“Yick!” yelped Grandy. “What are these revolting bee costumes? It’s not Halloween for another five months, three weeks, six days, and eight hours.”
“Those are our junior bridesmaid dresses,” said Claire.
“Did Furry pick them out?”
“Fluffy,” corrected Luna. “And no, she didn’t. We did.”
“Well, what horrible picks,” said Grandy. “You should be ashamed of yourselves. I’m going for a walk.” She picked up her pigeon-shooer cane and whisked out the door.
The twins rushed upstairs to their room and tried on the dresses.
They were so ugly, they weren’t even funny.
So ugly, that the only thing to do was to take them off. Fast.
“Maybe we should be ashamed of ourselves,” Luna mentioned as she wriggled out of her dress. “Especially you. You picked them out.”
“Who cares?” Claire swept the dresses into her arms and shoved them into the farthest back part of their closet. She slammed the closet door.
But she did care.
She decided to make up for it by doing something good.
“I’m cutting out letters,” she said dramatically, her mind made up.
“Yuck. I’m not,” said Luna, and she scooted out of the bedroom.
Claire sat on the floor and got out her ruler, colored construction paper, and her scissors. Thirty-three letters plus one comma, one
hyphen, and one exclamation mark. Ugh! It would take forever.
With a long sigh, she began to trace the letters.
After about ten minutes, the bedroom door opened. Luna was holding their mother’s first-aid kit scissors. She sat down next to Claire and gave a big long sigh of her own.
Claire handed her a few pieces of construction paper.
They worked until Grandy called them to dinner. They hurried through their homework and continued working until late into the night. They finished the last E and the ! a few minutes before they heard the cab pull up to the front door, and they were safe in bed just in time to get their good-night kiss.
The next morning, the girls ran to school very early. While Luna watched the hall, Claire poked the letters into the manila envelope.
Then they both dashed into 5A to see what would happen.
When Ms. Fleegerman walked into the classroom, she was holding the envelope. She shook the letters onto her desk. For a moment, her face melted with relief.
Then she looked closer. She seemed puzzled.
“Eggplants and eyeballs, she knows,” Claire whispered. “Our letters probably weren’t as good as the ones she made herself.”
But if she did know, Ms. Fleegerman didn’t let on. “I see the mystery borrower has returned my letters,” she declared. “To that person, I would like to say thank you. Now, who will volunteer to help me tack them up?”
“I will,” said Claire.
“I will,” said Adam Chow, thinking that Claire was Luna.
“Good. Let’s do it during lunchtime. And whichever one of you is Claire Bundkin, please report to Five B.” Ms. Fleegerman’s regular strict voice was back.
“See ya,” said Claire.
Wasting lunchtime to do teacher-helping stuff was kind of unfair, Claire thought, but it didn’t turn out to be all bad. Ms. Fleegerman brought a special lunch; some sandwiches, peanut butter cookies, and grape soda from the teacher’s lounge.
When all the words were pinned back in the right place, Ms. Fleegerman surveyed the room.
“It’s not Hawaii,” she said, a bit dejectedly.
“All the kids say your room is the best decorated,” Claire told her. “Honest.”
“Really?” Ms. Fleegerman sounded surprised.
“Yep.” Adam Chow nodded. “I think the person who took your letters didn’t do it from meanness. He or she probably couldn’t resist them.”
“Exactly!” said Claire.
“I had never thought of it that way,” said Ms. Fleegerman, who now seemed content to think of it exactly that way. Her face brightened, and she took a big bite of her cookie. “I love beautiful words like aloha,” she confessed. Her voice was almost shy. “I always feel an early-morning Hawaiian breeze in that word.”
“Another good word is prickly,” said Claire before she could stop herself. “It would hurt your fingers to pick up that word.”
“I like the word besotted,” said Ms. Fleegerman. “It’s a fat, sleepy word.”
Claire had not exactly planned to have Ms. Fleegerman turn into her word friend. And kids sometimes gave Claire strange looks when Ms. Fleegerman called out “Heliotrope!” or “Pumpernickel!” or “Hugger’ mugger!” whenever she saw Claire in hall rotation. (After becoming her word friend, Ms. Fleegerman never again mistook Claire for Luna.)
As well, Claire never again could see her as an awful word like Fleegermonster.
Which made the friendship, all in all, a change for the better.
Like the transformation of a haughty old caterpillar into a lovely mariposa.
7
The Princess and the Peep
THE FIRST WEEKEND OF MAY was when Tower Hill Middle School’s fifth and sixth grade would perform The Princess and the Pea. Since Luna and Claire both were involved with the play, they would have to miss their usual weekend in Bramblewine.
“Then you may come out next weekend,” said Grandy.
“Are we especially invited?” asked Luna worriedly. She wanted to make sure, after what had happened the last time.
“Yes,” said Grandy. “You are extra-especially invited. And good luck with your play. Sorry I won’t be there, but I hate-hate-hate school plays. There’s always too much chorus singing.”
Everyone else was coming. “Mom and Steve, Dad and Fluffy, and Justin.” Claire ticked off the names on her fingers while she and Luna sat in the audience watching a dress rehearsal. Aside from being on crew—Claire for stage-managing and Luna for scenery painting—the twins had non-speaking roles as ladies-in-waiting in Act Three.
The rest of the time, they helped out by being the audience.
“We need to buy five tickets,” said Claire. “Frogfeet and fiddleheads, I wish I could figure out a way to get Fluff seated behind someone really tall!”
“Mmm.” Luna was not paying attention to Claire’s schemes. She was listening to Angelica Antonio sing.
Angelica Antonio was a sixth grader. She had waist-length hair and wore ankle-length skirts, and she played the lead role of Princess Winifred, the princess who felt the pea under twenty mattresses.
“She’s the greatest singer I’ve ever heard,” said Luna. She wondered if Angelica Antonio would be available to sing at her wedding one day.
“She’s also the snootiest girl in the sixth grade,” Claire answered. “I can’t stand how she swishes her hair over the back of her chair when she sits down. Hey, maybe we could put some chair-colored bubble gum on Fluffy’s seat!”
Luna nodded distractedly. She was thinking of the perfect compliment to give Angelica after rehearsal. Something to express exactly how the music danced like butterflies in her stomach whenever she heard Angelica’s voice.
But it was hard for Luna to speak up to people she didn’t know. She decided to proceed with caution.
After rehearsal, she stood next to Angelica backstage and tried to say her compliment. She stood there for a long time. She began to feel stupid. When Angelica turned to her and raised an eyebrow in a way that meant why are you standing next to me? Luna hurried off.
That night after dinner, Luna tried to sing as she dried the dishes. Just to test the sound of her own voice, which she did not remember as being very good.
“Uh, did you swallow a tongue depressor?” asked Justin. Then he and Claire laughed and gave each other high-fives.
“Shut up,” Luna muttered. It didn’t seem fair that a person who loved-loved -loved singing as much as herself should have such a bad, crackly voice.
The next afternoon at rehearsal, Luna had an idea. She was just finishing up some back-drop scenery for Act Two, which showed the palace hall. She had been painting a silver mirror. But in a burst of inspiration, she decided to turn it into a portrait of Princess Winifred.
She worked hard to get the portrait to look like Angelica, with long hair and silvery musical notes floating from her mouth. As a final touch, she painted a tiger-striped kitten in Angelica’s arms.
“Who’s that supposed to be?” The sound of Angelica’s voice made Luna turn with a start.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Luna, stepping back and looking at the picture as if she just noticed it herself.
“It looks dumb to put a face there,” said Angelica. “I liked it better when it was an empty window.” Then she walked away before Luna could explain that it was not a window, but a mirror.
Quickly, Luna painted over the portrait and turned it into a window.
On the evening of the performance, Luna had another idea. She bought Angelica a white rose and a card. Inside the card she wrote, I think you sing perfectly!
She left the rose and note on the makeup table backstage, where Angelica would be sure to see it.
“Does anyone know gave this to me?” asked Angelica when she came into the dressing room. She held up the rose and spun around so that her hair swished. “Was it Zack? Adam? Peter? Who? Come on, guys! I know it was one of you!”
Luna could not bring herself to say any thing. She kept her
head down.
“See? That’s what you get for being nice to snotty Angelica Antonio!” snapped Claire after Angelica left the dressing room. She turned so that Luna could button up the back of her lady-in-waiting costume. “Let me cast a throat-scratch spell on her!”
“Don’t even dare.” Now Luna turned so that Claire could button up the back of her costume. “That would wreck the play for everyone.”
“Well, guess what I did do? I put a wobbly chair in the place where Fluffy’s sitting. I peeked out into the audience and she looks all crooked! Ha ha!”
Luna was not really listening.
She waited until Act One was over before she steeled her nerve.
It was now or never.
Angelica was in the wings, sitting on one of the Styrofoam tree stumps and drinking hot lemon-and-honey water. Lindsey Berger, a sixth grader who played the Queen, was braiding Angelica’s hair. (There was always one girl or another braiding Angelica’s hair.)
“It’s me who thinks you sing perfectly, Angelica,” Luna said, so quiet she could hardly hear herself.
Angelica shrugged. “Okay,” she said. Then she realized. “Oh, you were the one who gave me that card and the rose. Thanks, Claire.”
“I’m Luna,” said Luna.
Angelica smiled in a way that didn’t really look like a smile at all. “Listen. Luna. That’s nice of you and all, but sixth graders and fifth graders are like oil and water,” she said. “They don’t mix. Get it? No offense.”
Lindsey Berger began to laugh, and then Angelica giggle-snorted. It was a mean, sixth grade giggle-snort, as awful as if Angelica had crushed the rose underneath her shoe.
Luna couldn’t think of a thing to say. Her eyes felt hot. She hurried off.
She watched Act Two from the wings. Angelica’s voice still was beautiful.
That almost made it worse.
In Act Three, when she and Claire were onstage for the Princess’s royal wedding, Luna forgot all the chorus lyrics. She did not even remember to mouth along. All she could hear was Angelica’s giggle-snort.
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