Amber Brown Wants Extra Credit

by Paula Danziger

  AMBER BROWN IS IN HOT WATER.

  “Can I do extra credit?”

  She shakes her head. “In this case, you may not. Extra credit’s reserved for people who have tried their best and need an extra boost, or for people who are already doing their best and want to do more. YOU are not in either of those categories.”

  She closes her marking book. “You have a chance to bring up your grade. Just make sure you turn in all of your missing work.”

  I take the list of missing assignments that she hands me.

  She continues. “Tomorrow, the class will be given a major project. Do well on it. I can’t emphasize this highly enough. It will help bring up your grade for the marking period and will show me that you’re serious about doing well.”

  I nod.

  I, Amber Brown, may not be serious about a lot of things, but I am serious about this.

  Read all the Amber Brown books!

  Amber Brown Goes Fourth

  Amber Brown Is Feeling Blue

  Amber Brown Is Green with Envy

  Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon

  Amber Brown Is Tickled Pink

  Amber Brown Sees Red

  Amber Brown Wants Extra Credit

  Forever Amber Brown

  I, Amber Brown

  You Can’t Eat Your Chicken Pox, Amber Brown

  Paula Danziger

  AMBER BROWN

  WANTS EXTRA CREDIT

  Illustrated by Tony Ross

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Acknowledgments

  To everyone at the American School of

  London—especially some of the most

  terrific fourth graders ever (1994-95)

  To Bruce Coville—for listening

  To the Evans family—Gill, Greg, Dan, and Isobel

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 1996

  Published by Puffin Books, a member of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2008

  Copyright © Paula Danziger, 1996

  Illustrations copyright © Tony Ross, 1996

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Danziger, Paula, 1944-2004

  Amber Brown wants extra credit / by Paula Danziger.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Unhappy over her parents’ divorce and her mother’s boyfriend Max, nine-year-old Amber finds her schoolwork suffering.

  Puffin Books ISBN: 978-1-101-66063-8

  [1. Divorce—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction.]

  I. Ross, Tony, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.D2394At 1996

  [Fic]—dc20 95-586 CIP AC

  Puffin Books ISBN 978-0-14-241049-3

  Book design by Donna Mark.

  Lettering by David Gatti.

  Text set in Bembo.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  To Ben Danziger

  Your book, with love from Aunt

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter

  One

  AMBERINO CERTIFICATES

  I, Amber Brown, being of sound mind and no money (I spent it all on a book, a computer game, and some junk food), do hereby give my mother five Amberino Certificates for her birthday.

  Amberino Certificates allow The Mother (Sarah Thompson) to ask her beloved only child (Amber Brown) to grant her five wishes . . . . Just remember, these have to be wishes that I can actually do . . . . not stuff like move the Empire State Building or eat spinach or find the cure for dandruff (not that you have it or anything). Just remember, I’m just a nine-year-old kid, so make the wishes doable . . . but then you always do!!!!!!!

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND LOVE FROM

  Chapter

  Two

  I, Amber Brown, am being held captive by a madwoman.

  That madwoman is my mother, and she’s very mad at me for having a messy room.

  She’s also very mad at me because my teacher, Mrs. Holt, sent home a note saying that I’m “not working up to the best of [my] ability.”

  My mother is very, very mad at me because of the note. Actually what she said is that what she’s very angry about is the reason for the note . . . . me not doing my schoolwork the way I should.

  Now I’m supposed to be a perfect little student.

  And she’s using one of the Amberino Certificates to make me clean up my room.

  She says that I can’t leave my room until it’s “neat as a pin.”

  How can a room be neat as a pin? Does a pin have a bed in it—a dresser, curtains, a person living in it?

  The words “neat as a pin” are the second-silliest thing I’ve ever heard.

  The first-silliest thing is expecting me to have a neat room.

  I wish I never gave her those Amberino Certificates for her birthday.

  Doesn’t she know that if my room is neat, I can’t find anything?

  It makes me nervous if everything is too organized.

  She never used to mind that my room wasn’t neat.

  She never used the Amberinos to make me clean it up.

  The telephone rings.

  I rush out to answer it.

  My mother gets to it first, picks it up, and listens.

  Then she says, “Brandi, I’m sorry, Amber can’t come to the phone. . . . .”

  “I’m at the phone . . . . I don’t have to come to the phone.” I pull on my mother’s sleeve.

  My mother points her finger at my room. “Back, Amber . . . . I’m serious. You have to clean your room before you do anything else.”

  “But Mom. . . .”

  “No ‘But Mom’s,’ ” she says. “CLEAN YOUR ROOM . . . . NOW.”

  She starts talking on the phone. “Brandi, she can call you back as soon as her room is clean . . . . . Yes, I’ll remind her to bring her new game cartrid
ge when she goes to your house tonight . . . if she gets her room organized by then, you will see her and the game. Otherwise, I’m not sure you’ll see either.”

  I stomp into my room.

  This isn’t fair.

  My room is a little messy, but I, Amber Brown, don’t think she’s really angry about my messy room.

  I think that my mom is really angry because I don’t want to meet her dumb boyfriend.

  That’s one of the big reasons why she’s in such a bad mood.

  Just because she wanted to use one of her Certificates to have me finally meet Max and go out to dinner with them . . . and just because I said, “No, I’m not ready yet, and you promised I don’t have to until I’m ready. You promised that a long time ago . . . . so the Certificate can’t make me go.”

  If I meet Max, I’ll have to actually know that he’s a real person . . . . a real person who is going out with my mom . . . . and if my mom is going out with him . . . . . that really means that there’s less chance that she and my dad will get back together.

  And what if I meet Max and actually like him? That wouldn’t be fair to my dad, who’s in Paris, France, which is so far away.

  So, I’m not ready to meet Max, and I may never be ready.

  I stomp some more and then I start throwing things into garbage bags . . . . . . my dirty clothes, my clean clothes, the book report I’ve been working on for the last week.

  And then I put the garbage bags in my closet.

  Next, I put in all of the important things from the top shelf of my bookcase . . . the Dad Book that I keep so that I can look at pictures of my dad and talk to him sometimes . . . . the ball that Justin and I made from our used chewing gum . . . . the scrapbook that my aunt Pam and I made up of our trip to London. (It even has a chickenpox scab in it to remind me of how I got sick there.)

  I open the top drawer of my dresser and shove everything on top into it.

  I get into bed, and from under the covers, I start to make my bed, pulling up the sheets and then the blanket and then the bedspread . . . . then I get out and kind of smooth everything down . . . . the Amber Brown Way to Make a Bed.

  Then I throw my stuffed animals on my bed.

  I guess there’s not only a madwoman in the house but a mad kid.

  There’s no madman in the house, though, because he, my father, and my mother got so mad that they got divorced, and now he’s in France because of his dumb job.

  I, Amber Brown, wish things would go back to the way they were before . . . . before my dad left . . . . . before Justin, my first best friend, moved away . . . . . before my mother changed her last name back to the name she had before she got married so that we don’t even have the same last name anymore . . . . before Max, the dumbhead boyfriend, met my mother . . . . before it was so important to get me to keep my room neat.

  I wish.

  Chapter

  Three

  I’m escaping.

  I’m out of the house.

  My room passed inspection.

  I’m really lucky that my mother didn’t look in the closet or dresser drawers, or I would still be in my room instead of getting a ride to Brandi’s sleepover.

  My mother and I are in the car, not saying much of anything.

  What she did say is that she is “really not happy with the way I’ve been acting.”

  Well, I’m really not happy with the way she’s been acting.

  I keep staring straight ahead.

  Then I look over at my mother.

  There are tears rolling down her face.

  She hardly ever cries.

  I’ve only seen her cry big time four times . . . . . . Once was when she got a call that my grandfather, her father, had died . . . . . and once was right after my father left. Even though she’d said she wanted him to leave, she still cried. And once I saw her cry when I was about five and I ran out into traffic and almost got hit by a car, but it stopped in time. She yelled at me and then picked me up, hugged me, and told me never to do that again. Then she told me how much she loved me and then she cried.

  And now she’s crying.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” I touch her arm.

  She pulls the car over by the sidewalk and looks at me. “Amber, it’s so hard. I want to be a good mother.”

  “You are.” I tell her that to make her stop crying and because even though I get mad at her, I know it’s true.

  She wipes her eyes. “And I want to be good to myself, too.”

  I sit quietly.

  “You are making it very hard for me,” she says.

  I continue to say nothing.

  “It’s not all your fault,” she says. “I’ve read all the books. Sometimes I’m even afraid that I’m beginning to sound like one of them . . . . . I understand that sometimes, many times, it’s very hard for a child to accept the fact that parents divorce and then start dating other people. I understand . . . . . but I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t like it either,” I tell her. “This isn’t a book. This is my life. I can’t help it if I want you and Daddy to stay together and for both of you to not go out with other people.”

  She sighs. “Your father is in France, doing whatever he wants to do, without your knowing, without your making it difficult for him.”

  I think about what she said.

  Even though I don’t want to admit it, she’s right.

  I say, “If I knew that he had a girlfriend, I’d tell him that I wouldn’t want to meet her any more than I want to meet Max.”

  “But you don’t even know, do you?” my mother says softly. “But you do know what I do because you live with me . . . . and, Amber, you know that I want you to live with me . . . . I’m not complaining or upset about that . . . I just want you to listen, to try to understand and to try to make things easier for me.”

  There are more tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “I’ll listen. I’ll try.” I hate to see her cry.

  She continues. “We live with each other full-time. In some divorce families, children spend some time with each parent, and that allows the parents some time to themselves. We’re not, at present, a family that can do that. So you know a lot about what I do and who I spend my time with.”

  “So . . . . . . . .” I ask, “what do you want me to do?”

  She takes a deep breath. “I want you to understand that I need to get on with my own life, to meet new people and include these new people in my life . . . . in our lives.”

  “New people . . . . . . . . you mean Max.” I look at her.

  She nods. “Especially Max. You know, Amber, it’s not as if I’m asking you to meet an ax murderer. Max Turner is one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. He’s a good man, funny and gentle and kind.”

  “Are you going to marry him? Are you going to expect me to call him Dad?” Now I feel like crying.

  She shrugs. “I don’t know if I’m going to marry him, but I do know that I like him a lot . . . and, no, I don’t expect you to call him Dad. You already have a father. You can call him Max.”

  “Max,” I say softly, thinking about how I once knew a Max, but he was a dog.

  I wonder if I said, “Roll over and play dead” to Max the person, if he would do it.

  I smile, thinking about making Max the person roll over and play dead.

  My mother smiles back. “See, it’s not so bad thinking about meeting him. You just smiled.”

  “I was thinking about the Hawkinses’ dog, Max,” I say in a mean voice, “and how they used to have him roll over and play dead.”

  My mother stops smiling and starts to cry again, just a little.

  I really do hate it when she cries.

  “Oh, okay,” I sigh, and give in.

  “Then you’ll meet him? Promise?” She sounds happier.

  “I promise to meet him. I don’t promise to like him,” I say, and think . . . . . Okay, Max . . . . . roll over. Play dead.

  “It’s a beginning.” She smiles.

&n
bsp; Chapter

  Four

  “I’m going to kill my brother.” Tiffani Shroeder pretends to wring an invisible neck.

  “There are laws against that.” Brandi laughs.

  “What did he do this time?” I ask, dipping my potato chip into the onion dip.

  Tiffani grabs a potato chip, puts it in her mouth, and crunches.

  While she swallows, I smile, thinking about how much I like her five-year-old brother, Howie. He’s very cute and does stuff that makes me laugh.

  Tiffani eats a few more potato chips, while we wait for her to tell us what happened.

  I look at Tiffani.

  She has potato chip crumbs sitting on her chest.

  If potato chip crumbs dropped on my chest, they would end up on the floor.

  Tiffani Shroeder is the first girl in our class to have to wear a bra.

  Hannah Burton wore a bra first, but she really didn’t need one.

  Tiffani speaks. “You know my Barbie doll collection? Well, you know that I don’t play with them anymore. I mean, that would just be too baby. But they are my Barbies.”

  I wonder if since Tiffani changed the spelling of her name from y to i, she’s changed the spelling of Barbie to Barbi . . . . I guess that her whole collection of the dolls, though, would still be Barbies. (I, Amber Brown, am very good at the spelling of plurals.)

  Tiffani continues. “Well, that little runt and his little runt friends were playing with their X-Men toys and they decided to declare war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I came home and found my Barbies strangled with my grandmother’s yarn and strung across the living room. Prom Barbie. Business Barbie. Lifeguard Barbie. College Barbie . . . . and all of the others. It was Barbicide,” Tiffani says.

  “Yuck. That’s weird.” Naomi makes a face.

  Tiffani nods. “They also strung up all of the little runt’s G.I. Joes.”

  “An Equal Opportunity Massacre.” I shake my head.

  Everyone groans, and Brandi empties the last of the potato chip bag on my head.