Clementine's Letter

by Sara Pennypacker

  Text copyright © 2008 by Sara Pennypacker

  Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Marla Frazee

  Many thanks to Grace McAllister for her drawings in chapter 4 and for her handwriting in chapters 4-8 and 10.

  And thanks to her parents for their handwriting contributions in chapters 5-8 and 10.

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion Books, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  ISBN 978-1-4231-9862-8

  Visit www.disneyhyperionbooks.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  More Honors and Praise for Clementine

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Sneak Peek of Clementine, Friend of the Week

  For my kids, Hilly and Caleb, who opened their hearts so that Clementine’s would beat.

  —S. P.

  This makes three clementines for my big brother, Mark Frazee, the produce guru.

  —M. F.

  “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of…ouch!”

  There is a lot of poking that goes on in third grade. It was Norris-Boris-Morris. “Horace,” he whispered.

  “I’ll think about it,” I whispered back.

  Norris-Boris-Morris’s name is really Norris. I know that now. But in the beginning of the year, I used to call him all three “Orris” names because I could never remember which one was his. He liked that. And now he’s always trying to get me to add another one. Last week he tried for Glorris, but I said No. It has to be a real name.

  “Okay,” I said after the pledge. “Norris-Boris-Morris-Horace.”

  My teacher caught my eye and tugged on his ear. This is our secret code for Time to Be Listening. So I sat up and listened to him, even though it was just “Raise your hand if you’re absent” and “Who’s got milk money?” stuff.

  But right after that, it got interesting.

  “Clementine, would you please go to Principal Rice’s office to get her.”

  Whenever my teacher needs someone to run an errand to the principal’s office, he sends me. This is because I am so responsible. Okay, fine, it’s also because I get sent so often I could find my way with my eyes closed.

  Which I tried once. You’d be amazed at how many bruises you can get from just one water fountain.

  When I got to Principal Rice’s off ice, she stuck out her hand for a note from my teacher to tell her what the problem was.

  “Nope, no little chats today!” I told her. “Today I’m just here to bring you back to our classroom.”

  “Oh, right,” she said. “It’s time.”

  As we walked down the hall, I reminded her that I hadn’t been sent to her office for a little chat on Friday, either. “Did you miss me? My teacher said I had a red-letter day. He said I was really getting the hang of third grade.”

  “I did notice you didn’t come in, Clementine,” Mrs. Rice said. “In fact, I heard you had a very successful week. Congratulations. Your teacher said you and he were really in sync these days.”

  “In sink?”

  “In sync. It means you work well together. You understand each other.”

  Back in the classroom my teacher sat down at his desk and let Mrs. Rice take over, because she is the boss of him. But he was smiling. Mrs. Rice was smiling, too, when she said, “Class, we have some news to tell you.” This tricked me into thinking it was good news.

  “As I’m sure you all know,” she went on, “your teacher has a special interest in ancient Egypt.”

  We knew that, all right. Mummies and sphinxes and pyramids were scattered all over the classroom, and for the past month, everything had been Egypt this and Egypt that.

  Which I was glad about. My last year’s teacher had been nuts about Ye Olden Prairie Days. This would have been okay except she only liked inside stuff…making bonnets and cooking johnnycakes. I wanted to do some Ye Olden Prairie Days outside stuff, like lassoing buffalo and digging for gold and catching outlaws drinking beer in saloons. But my last year’s teacher said, Nope, it was bonnets and johnnycakes and sitting in your seat all day. Besides, she said, all that other stuff was from Ye Olden Wild West Days. Just remembering how boring last year was practically made me fall asleep.

  But I didn’t, because I wanted to know what the good news was.

  “When I learned that this year’s Adventures for Teachers program was an archaeological dig in Egypt,” the principal continued, “I nominated your teacher.” Mrs. Rice looked proud of herself, but I didn’t see what was so great yet. “And I am delighted to tell you that over the weekend, we learned Mr. D’Matz is a finalist!”

  When Principal Rice said our teacher’s name, all the kids sucked in their breath at the same time. This is because “D’Matz” is almost a swear. Actually, it’s almost two swears. If you say the first part wrong, it could sound like a word that also means a wall that holds back water. If you say the second part wrong, it could sound like a word that also means a donkey. But no one would think you meant those words.

  On the first day of school, I was trying so hard not to make a mistake with either part of his name that I made a mistake about both parts. I am not even kidding about that.

  At recess, I apologized and explained that I only said his name wrong because I was so worried about saying his name wrong. Mr. D’Matz said he understood and besides, it was bound to happen one day.

  But since then, all the kids just call him “Teacher.” We aren’t taking any chances.

  I guess Mrs. Rice didn’t care about making a mistake. She probably thought, So what if I get sent to the principal’s office? I live there!

  “Mr. D’Matz will be leaving after lunch today—he’ll spend the week with the Adventures for Teachers Committee. But we’ll see him again on Friday at the statehouse. There’ll be a ceremony there to name the winning teacher, and we’re invited. Then, if he’s chosen, Mr. D’Matz will fly off to Egypt for the big adventure.”

  We all sucked in our breath again when she said his name, and so I almost missed what she said next. But I heard it: “Which means he will be gone for the rest of the year.”

  Mrs. Rice went on talking, but my ears were so full of gone for the rest of the year that I couldn’t hear anything else.

  I looked over at my teacher. I waited for him to jump up and say, “Nope, sorry, Mrs. Rice. I can’t go away for the rest of the year because I promised to be here. I stood right in front of my students and said, ‘I will be your teacher this year.’ It’s still this year, so I have to stay and be their teacher. I won’t break my promise.”

  But he didn’t do that. He just sat at his desk smiling at Mrs. Rice!

  “This is a Tremendous Opportunity,” Principal Rice was saying in her capital-letters voice. “We should all be very proud of Mr. D’Matz.”

  All the kids clapped and made faces like they were happy about the Tremendous Opportunity and proud of our teacher. Not me. I don’t think breaking a promise is a reason to be proud of someone.

  When we lined up for lunch, my teacher said, “Good-bye, see you all Friday!”

  All the kids said, “Go
od-bye, see you Friday,” except me. My mouth made the words, but my voice wasn’t working.

  I guess my feet weren’t working either. Everybody left, and I was stuck standing at the door.

  “Yes, Clementine?” my teacher asked. “Is everything all right?”

  “Of course,” I said. Except my voice still wasn’t working right because it came out sounding exactly like “No!”

  “No?” my teacher asked. “Want to tell me what’s wrong?”

  “How come you didn’t tell us? How come on Friday you said, ‘See you next week’?”

  “I didn’t know then. Principal Rice nominated me in secret. Those were the rules,” he said.

  “Well, what about all the things you said we were going to do this year? What about Fraction Blasters? What about our Weather-Across-the-World project? What about Friend of the Week?”

  “I’ll leave my lesson plans for the substitute. You’ll do them with her.”

  “But you said we’ll do them.”

  “You don’t need me to learn those things.”

  “But what about me getting the hang of third grade? What about us working well together in the sink these days?”

  Mr. D’Matz leaned back in his chair. “Oh,” he said. “I see. Clementine, I think you are getting the hang of third grade. All by yourself. I think you’d be successful with any teacher.”

  I gave him a look that said I’d heard that joke before and it was N-O-T, not funny.

  “Really,” he said. “And it’s part of my job to know when students are ready for things. Do you remember the story about the mother bird and the baby birds?”

  I did, because it was his favorite story. When-ever he would start to tell it, all the kids would make secret here-we-go-again faces at each other. Since there were no other kids there, I made the face inside myself when Mr. D’Matz started.

  “The mother bird lays her eggs and takes very good care of them. She sits on them until they hatch and then she keeps them warm and feeds them in the nest,” he said.

  Everybody knows about that part—the nice part. It’s the end part that’s so bad.

  “And then one day, after the babies have been sitting on the branch outside the nest for a while, do you know what the mother bird does?”

  “Yes, I do,” I said. “Whack! Out of the blue, she kicks them off the branch. I think there should be a bird jail for mothers like that.”

  “But she has to do that. If she doesn’t push them off the branch that first time, they’ll never know they can fly. The mother bird knows when they’re ready.”

  “Well, I still don’t think she should do it. I think she should say, ‘Hey, kids, some day when you feel like it, just flap your wings like this.’ And then they can say, ‘Not today, thanks,’ if they want to.”

  “And you’re saying, ‘Not today, thanks,’ about my leaving the class?”

  I looked out the window and made my mouth into a ruler line so it wouldn’t say, “No, I’m saying ‘Not this year, thanks,’ about that.”

  Mr. D’Matz sighed and nodded to my lunch box. “Why don’t you head on down to the cafeteria before lunch is over. When you get back, Mrs. Nagel will be here. I think you’ll feel better when you meet her.”

  Sure enough, when we came back, a lady in a green dress was sitting in my teacher’s chair. She was unpacking a big bag.

  I went up to her desk to watch.

  She put an “I ♥ HOMEROOM” mug where my teacher usually kept his TEA IS 4 TEACHERS MUG.

  Then out came a package of YOU’RE A STAR! stickers.

  A tissue box with buttons and shells glued onto it.

  A framed photo of a pink rat wrapped in a blue blanket.

  Wait a minute. I picked up the photo for a closer look. Its tail and paws were hidden by the blanket and it was hard to see the whiskers, but that’s what it was all right: a pink rat in a blue blanket. This substitute might not be so bad after all.

  The substitute took the picture from me and asked what my name was. I told her, and then she said, “Well, Clementine, shouldn’t you be at your desk?”

  “Not yet,” I told her. “Our teacher lets us visit until twelve thirty.”

  “Well, I’m your teacher now. So why don’t you go find your seat?”

  So I had to walk back to my desk with everybody looking at me, which I hate.

  The substitute stood up and clapped her hands. “Good afternoon, students! My name is Mrs. Nagel.” Then she went over to the board and wrote her name in big letters right next to our real teacher’s name. As if it belonged there!

  She turned around and clapped her hands again. “The first thing we’re going to do today,” she said, “is make Mr. D’Matz a good luck card.”

  She took a stack of folded sheets of paper and handed them out. When we each had one, she said, “Don’t make a mark on it yet.”

  I crossed out the picture of outlaws drinking beer in a saloon I had already drawn. My teacher calls me “Quick-draw McGraw” sometimes. He knows to give the “Don’t make a mark on it” rule before he passes out the paper. This substitute was going to be a lot of trouble.

  Mrs. Nagel told us to write “Good Luck!” inside our cards, and when everyone was finished, she said we could draw a picture on the outside. “Something that will make him feel lucky!”

  Next to me, Lilly started to draw her usual: tulips under a rainbow. In front of her, her twin brother, Willy, was starting his usual, too: a zombie shark with long pointy teeth.

  I used to be afraid of pointy things. I’m not anymore.

  Okay, fine, I still am.

  Lilly leaned over to poke his neck. “Willy,” she reminded him, “he’s probably a nervous wreck worrying about whether he’s going to win. It’s supposed to be something to make him feel lucky.”

  Willy shrugged. “Zombie sharks make me feel lucky,” he said. He added a few more teeth.

  I am such a good artist that I don’t have a “usual.” I can draw anything. So I took out my markers and tried to think of something lucky to draw for my teacher. And for the first time in my life, all I could think of was…NOTHING.

  I just sat there looking at my scribbled-over drawing of outlaws and my no-ideas hand until I felt a poke in my side.

  “Brontosaurus,” Norris-Boris-Morris-Horace whispered.

  I almost said No, it has to be a real name. But then I thought: well, I have a name that’s a fruit, so why can’t someone have a name that’s a dinosaur? “Okay,” I whispered back. “Norris-Boris-Morris-Horace-Brontosaurus. But that’s it. Only one dinosaur name. No stegosaurus. No brachiosaurus.”

  “Clementine?” Mrs. Nagel had sneaked up on me. “Are you and Norris having a lesson on dinosaurs? Because you need to be working on your Good Luck cards.”

  I felt my ears get so hot and embarrassed I thought my hair was going to catch fire.

  At recess, Norris apologized for getting me in trouble. “Are you mad at me?”

  “No,” I told him. “I’m mad at her. And our teacher. He shouldn’t have left.”

  “He probably couldn’t help it,” Norris said. “Mrs. Rice probably made him.”

  “You’re right! She’s the boss of him, so he probably had to say yes! And you know how he was always saying how much he enjoyed being with us? Well, he’s probably missing us right now!”

  “Yep,” said Norris. “Probably.”

  Suddenly I felt a lot better. “Hey,” I said. “How about Doris?”

  Norris-Boris-Morris-Horace-Brontosaurus thought about that for a while, and then he sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not sure a girl’s name is a good idea. It’s been hard enough being stuck with Norris.”

  When we came in from afternoon recess, I saw a good surprise: a paper plate with an apple slice on each desk. Mrs. Nagel was probably trying to make up for how mean she’d been. I didn’t think an apple slice was enough, but it was a start.

  But then I saw a bad surprise, too. Zippy and Bump were lying in their cage. Not moving.
I had never seen this before. Then I remembered something: on Monday mornings, first thing, Mr. D’Matz picked a Hamster Helper for the week. The Hamster Helper’s job was to give Zippy and Bump food and water right away, since on Fridays we only left them enough to last the weekend.

  Mr. D’Matz hadn’t picked a Hamster Helper. He’d forgotten about his promise to them, too. And now it was Monday afternoon.

  I ran over to the cage and filled their food tray and water bottle. I patted Zippy and Bump while they ate and told them how sorry I was that we forgot them. They still seemed kind of skinny, so I got my apple slice and put it in their cage.

  “Clementine, you need to take your seat now,” Mrs. Nagel yelled. Okay, fine, I guess she didn’t yell it. But it made my ears hurt just the same. “And where is your science experiment?”

  “My science experiment?”

  “I left a slice of apple on each desk. We’re going to do a science experiment with it. Yours is gone.”

  “I thought it was a present,” I explained. “I gave it to Zippy and Bump. They were almost dead because we hadn’t fed them today.”

  Mrs. Nagel was probably mad I’d thought of this good reason, because she said, “I’m sorry. There aren’t any more apples. You’ll have to look on with someone during the experiment.”

  “She can have mine,” Lilly said.

  “She can have mine,” Willy said at almost the same time.

  “She can have mine,” Norris-Boris-Morris-Horace-Brontosaurus said.

  I guess the class was sick of Mrs. Nagel being mean to me, because all the kids offered me their apple slices.

  But Mrs. Nagel decided, No. “It’s fine. Clementine can watch the rest of us.”

  So I did. And let me tell you, I did not miss out on anything.

  Leave a slice of apple out in the air. The apple turns brown because of oxidation. Big deal.

  Just before school ended, Principal Rice came back. She went over and whispered with the substitute for a minute. Then I saw her reach for the framed picture. I listened hard for the substitute to tell Mrs. Rice to go find her seat.