by Tom Watson
Simon said, “But you would know there are pretty close to 395 Skittles in the jar.”
“You don’t want to be ‘pretty close,’ right?” Rosie asked.
“Right,” I confirmed. “I have to know the exact number. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
Rosie and Simon are such good friends. They didn’t question why I had to be exact. They knew it was important to me. It was just as important as eating my food in even numbers or only jumping in the leaf pile after every single leaf was raked up.
They understood.
“Okay, Molly has to get an exact count. But she also has to be fast,” Simon summarized. “How in the world can she do that?”
“We do need to be exact,” Rosie said and paused. She held her half-eaten toast midair in her right hand. She twirled some hair with her left hand. “But we don’t have to be fast.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I know how to do it,” Rosie said.
Simon asked, “How?”
Rosie explained how she figured out step three—how to count the Skittles.
And I thought it might just work.
We only needed to do two more things before launching our mission the next day at school.
For the first thing, I went to the sink and turned on the hot water. Rosie brought me the jar of raspberry jam.
Simon ran to the store to do the second thing.
WE SKIPPED LUNCH the next day. I think we were all too nervous to eat anyway. It was time to launch our plan. I couldn’t wait to find out how many Skittles were in Principal Shelton’s jar. I thought about that a lot the previous night. It kept me up for a while.
As everybody else in third grade went to get their lunch, I met Rosie right outside the girls’ bathroom. The boys’ bathroom was across the hall from the girls’ bathroom. That worked out perfectly for our plan. Simon got there less than a minute after Rosie and I met.
He asked, “Did you fill it up?”
I shook my backpack so he could hear that we did.
He nodded and said, “Great.”
“Do you have your flip-flops?” Rosie asked him.
Like me, he shook his backpack a little. “They’re in here.”
“Here are your supplies,” Rosie said to him and reached into her pocket. She pulled out a small plastic baggie with a tube of superglue, a thumbtack, and some nail clippers inside. “You know what to do.”
I said, “We’ll meet back here in a few minutes.”
Simon tiptoed into the boys’ bathroom. He didn’t have to tiptoe or anything. He just did it for fun and to be dramatic.
Rosie and I went into the girls’ bathroom.
And we got started.
Rosie pulled out the toilet paper from the giant roll in the first bathroom stall. It ran all the way from the dispenser, under the stall door and, ultimately, to Rosie’s hand.
I stood in front of the sinks. I spread my legs apart and stretched my arms out wide.
Rosie wrapped that toilet paper all around me, starting at my ankles and working her way up each leg. When she got to my stomach, Rosie held the toilet paper in one place as I turned slowly around a bunch of times. That worked much faster.
“Halfway there,” Rosie whispered, biting her lip. I think she was afraid the toilet paper might tear. She definitely didn’t want to start over. We didn’t have a whole lot of time. Lunch period would be finished in ten minutes.
When Rosie got up to my armpits, I stopped spinning and she took over again. She wrapped my left arm and then my right arm. Finally, she wrapped my head, leaving plenty of room for my eyes, nose, and mouth.
When she was done, Rosie tore off the toilet paper and tucked that loose end underneath one of the layers at my back.
“Oh my—” Rosie said and slapped her hand over her mouth. I could see her smiling behind her hand.
“What?!”
She shook her head and put her hands on my shoulders. She turned me around to look in the mirror above the sink.
When I saw myself, I knew one thing for sure.
I was just a few minutes away from those Skittles.
HOW DO YOU THINK THIS PLAN WILL WORK OUT?
I WAS A mummy.
“You’re not a very scary-looking mummy,” Rosie said and panted. She needed to catch her breath a bit from laughing.
“There aren’t very many mummies who are four feet, two and a half inches tall,” I added, catching my breath too.
“It will have to do,” Rosie said, giving her head a definitive nod. “Besides, we’re not doing this to make you look scary. We’re doing it so you get into trouble.”
“Right,” I said.
“You stay in here while I see if Simon is ready,” Rosie said and began to push the bathroom door open. “You can’t be standing out in the hallway like that. Once you step out this door, it’s mummy time.”
I nodded my mummy head.
Rosie went out in the hallway. I could hear her talking to Simon.
“You’re ready?” she asked.
“Ready.”
“Did the nail clippers work?”
“Totally,” Simon said. I couldn’t see him, but I figured he was lifting a foot up to show Rosie the bottom of his flip-flop. “They cut the head off that thumbtack perfectly. I put a little dab of superglue on it and stuck it to the bottom of my flip-flop. Easy stuff. I got some superglue between my fingers, but that was the only problem.”
“Awesome,” Rosie said. “I’ll get Molly.”
Rosie stepped back into the girls’ bathroom. The second she saw me, she slapped her hand over her mouth to stifle another laugh.
“Don’t laugh!”
“I can’t help it,” she said, taking three seconds to get control of herself. “Simon’s ready. Are you ready?”
I nodded my mummy head again.
“All right then,” Rosie said and leaned down to pick up my backpack. She was real careful putting my arms through the straps and positioning it on my back. She didn’t want to tear the toilet paper.
“Feel okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
Rosie said, “Let’s do this thing.”
And then we did that thing.
WHEN I STEPPED out of the bathroom, Simon made the funniest sound I ever heard. It was like he laughed, snorted, and coughed at the same time. His whole body shook, trembled, and convulsed. He didn’t just hold in a laugh. He held in the biggest laugh he had ever wanted to laugh in his entire life.
“Shh!” Rosie said and giggled. “Shh!”
“I’m trying,” Simon said and squeezed his arms around his belly like he was hugging himself super hard. “I’m really trying.”
Rosie said, “You better get moving, Molly. Before Simon passes out.”
I raised my arms in front of me mummy-style and started down the hallway. I needed to pass the third grade classrooms and the second grade classrooms before I would walk past the principal’s office.
“Make some growling noises or something,” Rosie said as I took my first few steps. “We’ll be a few minutes behind you.”
I started growling.
Arr-grr-grr-arj! Arr-grr-grr-arj!
I walked past a couple of third grade classrooms.
I started to pass the second grade classrooms.
Arr-grr-grr-arj!
But that’s as far as I made it.
I heard a door open behind me.
It was Mrs. Brooks, a third grade teacher.
“What in the world?!” she said. I heard her heavy footsteps approach me from behind.
She took hold of my left elbow when she reached me.
Arr-grr-grr-arj!
“You can stop growling now,” Mrs. Brooks said, shaking her head.
I stopped growling. And when I did, Mrs. Brooks said the exact thing I wanted to hear.
“You’re coming with me to the office. We’ll see what Principal Shelton has to say about this.”
I was one step—actually, several mummy
steps—closer to counting those Skittles.
It has to work, I thought to myself. It has to work.
YOU’VE READ MORE THAN 4,320 WORDS! YOU MUST BE SUPER FOCUSED.
PRINCIPAL SHELTON STOOD before me, leaning back against the front of her desk. I sat awkwardly in a chair. Some of the toilet paper had torn as I sat down.
She didn’t look real mad, to be honest. She wasn’t happy, that was for sure. She looked kind of angry and amused all mixed up together.
She stared down, examining me from my mummy feet to my mummy head. I think she was trying to figure out who I was. Whenever I got the chance, I peeked around the side of her and eyeballed that big jar of Skittles. It was right where I saw it the first time.
I couldn’t wait to count those things.
“You know, you’re not a very frightening mummy,” Principal Shelton said.
“I know,” I answered.
“And I don’t think mummies typically wear backpacks.”
I nodded my mummy head again.
She walked behind her desk, retrieved a trash can, and placed it next to my chair. As she did, I heard the main office door open and close. I heard Rosie cough a little. I think she was trying to signal me. Rosie wanted me to know that she and Simon were there.
“All right,” Principal Shelton said. “Let’s find out who you are, Mummy.”
I started to tear at the toilet paper around my head first.
“Molly!” Principal Shelton cried. She was obviously surprised. “Molly Dyson?!”
I nodded my non-mummy head at her.
I took my backpack off and put it on the floor. I needed it to be easy to reach when the time came.
And the time was coming soon.
I could hear Simon and Rosie talking with Mrs. B. They seemed to be stalling for time. They asked Mrs. B. about her dog, Bingo. Bingo is a beagle and Mrs. B. really likes to talk about him.
She has pictures of Bingo taped up all around her computer screen.
I tore off the toilet paper from around my arms and stomach, dumping the shreds into the trash can. Principal Shelton just stood there above me. She didn’t say anything.
I was just getting to the toilet paper on my legs when I heard Rosie ask Mrs. B. if she could borrow some masking tape.
“Owww!” Simon screamed from the main office. “Oh, man! That hurts so much!”
Principal Shelton snapped her head toward the door.
Simon had initiated step two—getting Principal Shelton out of her office.
“Keep working on it, Molly,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“WHAT IS GOING on out here?” Principal Shelton called as she went out to the main office.
“I stepped on a tack!” Simon exclaimed. “It hurts so much!”
I leaned back in the chair and looked out the doorway. Mrs. B. and Rosie knelt in front of Simon as he held his foot up for them to see. I could see the thumbtack top on the bottom of his flip-flop. It sure looked like there was a thumbtack stuck all the way in.
But I knew that wasn’t true.
I knew the top of it was just glued there. Simon had clipped off the pointy part with the nail clippers back in the boys’ bathroom.
“Aaa-oooh!” Simon groaned some more in pain—and Principal Shelton leaned down to look at his foot too.
Now was my chance.
I didn’t have much time.
I unzipped my backpack and pulled out the mason jar full of Skittles.
Rosie and I had emptied the jar the day before when we were done with our after-school snack of raspberry jam on toast. We got the rest of the jam out by running hot water into the jar. While we did that, Simon ran to the grocery store and bought a bunch of Skittles.
He dropped them off at my house before going to soccer practice. Rosie and I filled the jar up almost to the top—just like the jar in Principal Shelton’s office. Then we put it in my backpack.
I looked out to the main office. Rosie, Mrs. B., and Principal Shelton were huddled around Simon.
He groaned again and yelled, “No, don’t touch it!”
I traded our jar for the jar on Principal Shelton’s desk. I put her jar into my backpack and zipped it shut. Then I started unwrapping the toilet paper from my calves and ankles.
“Okay, okay,” I heard Principal Shelton say. “We won’t touch it. Go see the school nurse. Rosie, you go with him.”
I leaned back and peeked out the door. I saw Rosie help Simon up from his chair. He sort of walked-hopped-limped out of the office.
He’s a pretty good actor.
Principal Shelton came back to the office.
“What is this? Bizarro day?” she muttered to herself as she returned. “I’ve got mummies walking the hallway. Students stepping on sharp objects. What’s next?”
She sat down at her desk and looked across it at me.
“It’s time to call your parents, Molly.”
That was okay with me.
I had Principal Shelton’s jar of Skittles in my backpack.
Now, all I had to do was count them.
ONLY TWO MORE CHAPTERS TO GO! HOW ARE YOU FEELING?
ROSIE, SIMON, AND I stopped at Picasso Park on the walk home from school. We chose a picnic table to count the Skittles in Principal Shelton’s jar.
I was so happy.
I was finally going to get those Skittles out of my head.
Rosie and Simon started counting.
“Stop,” I said.
Simon and Rosie stopped.
“Can you guys do me a favor?”
They both nodded.
“Can we count them one color at a time?” I asked.
They smiled at me and we began to separate the Skittles into five piles—orange, yellow, green, purple, and red.
When we had them in separate color piles, Rosie asked, “Do we need to count the colors in a certain order?”
“No,” I said. “But that’s really, really nice of you to ask.”
We counted.
And counted.
And counted.
I smiled at my two best friends. We finally knew how many Skittles were in Principal Shelton’s jar.
We filled the jar back up.
Then Simon asked, “What do you want to do now?”
“I think I have to go home and get in trouble now,” I whispered. I was so, so, so happy to have the Skittles out of my head. But I really didn’t want to face my parents.
“Oh, right,” Rosie said.
Simon asked, “What do you think they’re going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I’ve never gotten into trouble at school before.”
Rosie and Simon came one step closer to me.
“Do you want us to come with you?” Rosie asked.
“We can,” Simon added.
“No,” I said and shook my head. “Thanks though.”
And then I grabbed my backpack and went home.
MOM AND DAD were waiting for me when I got home.
Do you remember when I told you that my parents understand how something can get stuck in my head and then I can’t get it out? They get it. They know me. But getting in trouble with the principal was different. I didn’t know what would happen.
They had already talked to Principal Shelton.
But they wanted to know what happened from me. So I explained to them how the Skittles got stuck in my head. And I told them how I had to find out how many Skittles were in Principal Shelton’s jar. I explained why I had to get into trouble.
I told them how Simon pretended to have a thumbtack stuck in his foot.
I detailed how I switched the jars.
“You replaced the jar?” Dad asked. “And that replacement jar was full of Skittles too?”
I nodded and told them there were exactly—exactly—473 Skittles in Principal Shelton’s jar.
“It’s okay,” Mom said when I was done explaining. “That’s just who you are. You needed to know. But next time, try not to get into
trouble at school. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Dad asked, “What happened to the Skittles?”
“Umm,” I said. It took me a few seconds to remember. I hadn’t thought about those Skittles since we finished counting them. Then I remembered. “They’re in my backpack.”
“Well, you better bring them to me,” Dad said.
“Why?” I asked and held perfectly still. I definitely didn’t know why Dad wanted them.
He looked me right in the eyes and said, “I love Skittles, that’s why.”
I smiled and went to get the Skittles.
We each got a handful.
I picked out the green and purple Skittles from my portion. They reminded me of grapes. So, obviously, I didn’t want to eat them.
Mom and Dad ate them for me.
Fun and Games!
THINK
In this book, Molly, Simon, and Rosie come up with a plan to count the Skittles in the jar on the principal’s desk. You can see a map of Molly’s route here. Draw a map of your school. What route would you take to the principal’s office? What obstacles would you face?
FEEL
Molly just has to know how many Skittles are in that jar. Think of a time when you got an idea or problem stuck in your head. What did you do to unstick yourself? Did anyone help you? How did you feel when you figured it all out? Draw your facial expression when the idea was bugging you—and what you looked like when you solved the problem.
ACT
In this story, Rosie wraps Molly up in toilet paper to make her look like a mummy. What other fun, creative things can you do with toilet paper? Here’s one idea: Draw a target on a piece of cardboard, with the highest score in the middle. Then take a wad of toilet paper, get it wet, squeeze out the extra water, and throw it at the target. It will stick! Keep score and everything.
