Amelia Bedelia on the Job

by Herman Parish

  Dedication

  For Philip,

  an honest working man—H. P.

  To Bernadette,

  who is always on the job!—L. A.

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: What Do You Want to Do?

  Chapter 2: The Hawk Has Landed

  Chapter 3: “Your Father Was a Jerk!”

  Chapter 4: Getting Put Through the Mill

  Chapter 5: What Do Your Parents Do?

  Chapter 6: These Parks Mean Business

  Chapter 7: A Tale of Two Nurseries

  Chapter 8: Lobbying for a Job

  Chapter 9: Add That to Your Résumé

  Chapter 10: Draw Your Own Paycheck!

  Chapter 11: Salad Daze

  Chapter 12: Tossing Out Ideas to Kick Around

  Chapter 13: What’s the Big Idea?

  Chapter 14: Do What You Want to Do!

  Two Ways to Say it

  Excerpt from Amelia Bedelia Chapter Book #10: Amelia Bedelia Ties the Knot

  Back Ads

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Amelia Bedelia was upset. She was very upset. What made it even worse was that it was recess. Recess was usually her favorite thing about school! She loved playing on the playground and running around and hanging out with her friends.

  “Gotcha!” yelled Clay as he tagged Amelia Bedelia on her back.

  Amelia Bedelia jumped straight up in the air. She had been worrying so much, she had forgotten they were in the middle of a game of tag.

  “You’re it,” said Clay, running away.

  Instead of chasing everyone, Amelia Bedelia just stood there and burst into tears.

  Daisy raced up and put her arm around Amelia Bedelia’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did Clay hurt you?”

  “I barely touched her,” said Clay.

  “I’m okay,” said Amelia Bedelia.

  “You don’t sound okay,” said Daisy. “What’s wrong?”

  Amelia Bedelia took a deep breath. “You know how Mrs. Shauk told us that we’re going to start studying jobs and careers and what we want to do when we grow up?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” said Cliff. “Sounds like fun, for a change.”

  “Not to me,” said Amelia Bedelia. “I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.”

  “That’s okay,” said Holly. “Neither do I.”

  Everyone nodded, agreeing with Holly.

  “Yeah,” said Heather. “You don’t have to decide today what you’re going to be. You have your whole life to figure that out.”

  “I guess so,” said Amelia Bedelia, frowning. “Do you guys know what your parents do? I have no idea what my dad does.”

  The other kids were quiet. “Does he go to work?” asked Clay.

  “Yup. Every day,” said Amelia Bedelia. “Last week he came home and said he was pitching to a client.”

  “Sounds like he plays baseball,” said Dawn.

  “I thought so, too,” said Amelia Bedelia. “Then he said it was a slam dunk. That’s basketball, right?”

  “Right,” said Cliff. “Maybe he’s a coach.”

  “Maybe,” said Amelia Bedelia. “He’s always telling the players on TV what they should be doing.”

  “Then that’s it,” said Clay. “Wouldn’t it be awesome if the Hawk invited him to our class? He could coach us!”

  Everyone laughed. It had been a long time since anyone had called Mrs. Shauk by her nickname, the Hawk. She’d earned it because of her ability to spot any kind of mischief or trouble brewing.

  “Hey, Cliff,” said Amelia Bedelia. “What does your dad do?”

  “He’s a custodian, or something,” said Cliff.

  “Your dad doesn’t dress like a janitor,” said Heather. “He’s always wearing a suit when he picks you up.”

  BRRRRRR-INNNNNNNG! The bell rang to signal that recess was over.

  Amelia Bedelia looked at Clay. “Clay, there’s one last thing I forgot to tell you,” she said softly.

  Clay leaned toward Amelia Bedelia so he could hear what she was saying. “What?” he asked.

  Amelia Bedelia tapped him on the shoulder and hollered at the top of her lungs. “YOU’RE IT!”

  Amelia Bedelia took off for the school door. Clay chased her, but she raced inside before he could tag her back. The others were running after them, but it is hard to run and laugh at the same time.

  Mrs. Shauk clapped her hands twice and faced the board. “Amelia Bedelia and Clay, stop sticking your tongues out at each other,” she said, with her back to them.

  Holly and Heather giggled. Dawn laughed. Cliff made a V sign with his fingers, pointing them at his own eyes and then at Clay, to signal “I’m watching you!” Clay flapped his arms like a bird and called out, “Awwwk!” Now nearly everyone was giggling or trying not to, which was harder.

  Mrs. Shauk was still facing the board, and she kept right on writing. “And Clay,” she said, “if you’d like to be a bird, you can fly straight to the principal’s office and perch there for the rest of the day.”

  Clay stopped flapping his arms and whirled to face the front of the room with his hands folded neatly on his desk. “Yes, Mrs. Shauk,” he said, just as she turned around.

  Mrs. Shauk pointed at the board and read aloud what she had just written. “What will you be when you grow up?

  “Of course,” she continued, “I hope that someday each of you will actually grow up.” She glared at Clay, who was studying his hands. Now the whole class was utterly quiet, paying close attention to her every word.

  “We are going to study careers and occupations,” she said. “Some jobs that you will do haven’t even been imagined yet.”

  “So how can we study them?” asked Chip.

  “You can’t,” said Mrs. Shauk. “Life is changing so fast that new technologies come along all the time. You’ll need to be flexible even after you’ve got a job.”

  “That’s exactly what my dad says,” said Wade. “He goes to school two nights a week, and he works all day at a plant.”

  Amelia Bedelia could not believe her ears. How could one person work all day at a plant? How much attention did one plant need? Her mom grew lots of plants, and she only worked in her garden every now and then.

  “How interesting,” said Mrs. Shauk. “Maybe we can set up a field trip to see your dad at work.”

  That sounded super boring to Amelia Bedelia. All of a sudden, she felt sorry for Wade’s dad, standing alone in a big field, tending his one little plant.

  “Yes, let’s go visit him,” said Amelia Bedelia. “He must get very lonely.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Wade. “More than forty people work with him.”

  “Really?” said Amelia Bedelia. “Is there that much to do?”

  “Yup,” said Wade. “He comes home tired every day.”

  Amelia Bedelia shook her head. She had a lot to learn about occupations. She tried to picture forty people crowding around one tiny plant. No weed would dare appear with forty people ready to pounce on it and pull it out. How could any plant even grow? That many people would block out the sun.

  “Forty people for one tiny plant?” asked Amelia Bedelia.

  “My dad’s plant is huge,” said Wade.

  “It must be,” said Amelia Bedelia. “Does it grow up to the sky like in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’?”

  For a second, the class was completely silent. Then everyone exploded with laughter.

  “Hey, Wade, tell your dad I want to work with him!” yelled Clay. “I’ll be like Jack and climb up the beanstalk and steal the goose that lays golden eggs.”

  “Me too,” yelled Cliff. “Then I won’t have to work at
all!”

  The class laughed even louder. Mrs. Shauk wasn’t laughing, but Amelia Bedelia could tell that she was trying really hard not to.

  “Okay, everyone!” said Mrs. Shauk, clapping three times to quiet them down. “Amelia Bedelia has given us a good example of how confusing the world of work can be. Every business has its own language, and every profession has its own terms. Don’t be afraid to ask questions along the way.”

  She turned to Clay. “Now, Clay, since you want to work in a plant, please give us a brief report tomorrow. Be sure to tell us what the difference is between a plant and a factory. I would hate for you to show up at the wrong place and miss out on a golden egg.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Shauk,” said Clay.

  “And, Cliff,” said Mrs. Shauk. “Since your friend Clay will be reporting on plants and factories, I would like you to tell us about mills.”

  “Mills?” said Cliff, opening his assignment book.

  “Yes, mills. Why are some factories called mills?” said Mrs. Shauk. “Steel mills, for example.”

  “Oh, I thought you meant water mills and windmills,” said Cliff.

  “You can tell us about those too,” said Mrs. Shauk.

  Cliff decided to stop talking before his assignment grew any bigger.

  Mrs. Shauk had the last word, without saying a word. She made a V sign with her fingers and pointed at Cliff and then at Clay. The whole class got that message.

  Amelia Bedelia was happy that Mrs. Shauk had not called on her. She was even happier that she did not get an extra homework assignment. She had heard of water mills and windmills. But the only other mills she knew about were those things in restaurants that waiters used to grind fresh pepper onto salad and pasta. Amelia Bedelia always said, “No, thank you,” but her parents always let them do it.

  Dinnertime at Amelia Bedelia’s house was like recess, but with food. She couldn’t play with her food, of course, because she had to eat it. But that was no problem, because her mom was a great cook.

  That night Amelia Bedelia and her parents were talking about where they wanted to go on their next vacation. They were laughing about everything that had happened on their last vacation, when Amelia Bedelia thought they were going to Rome, Italy, and instead they roamed around in their car.

  After the main course (yummy lasagna) Amelia Bedelia’s mother served the salad (just like they do in Italy) and her father asked her to pass the pepper. Then everything clicked: pepper . . . mill . . . factory . . . plant . . . work.

  “We are learning about occupations at school,” she said, passing the pepper mill to her dad.

  “I’m happy to hear that,” said her father. “I’m afraid that I’m going to have to do some work tonight after dinner.”

  “Did you bring work home with you?” asked Amelia Bedelia’s mother. She sounded pretty disappointed.

  “Sorry, honey,” he said, shrugging.

  Amelia Bedelia was not disappointed. This was a clue! If her dad brought work home with him, that meant his job fit into the little satchel he carried every day.

  Amelia Bedelia and her father usually did the dishes and cleaned up after dinner, but tonight Amelia Bedelia’s mother helped out so that her father could do what he needed to do. As soon as the dining room table was cleared, he spread out some notes and papers, opened his laptop, and went to work.

  While she rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher, Amelia Bedelia peeked in at her dad, trying to get a glimpse of what he was doing. She thought of a question she had always wanted to ask her mom.

  “Where did you meet Dad?” asked Amelia Bedelia.

  “I met your father at work,” said her mom. “Back then, he was a jerk.”

  “What?” called Amelia Bedelia’s father from the dining room.

  “Sorry, sweetie!” Amelia Bedelia’s mother called back. “We didn’t mean to disturb you. What I meant was that you were a real jerk.”

  “Honey!” Amelia Bedelia’s father bounded into the kitchen. “What are you talking about?”

  Before Amelia Bedelia’s mother could even open her mouth, her father said, “Once upon a time, way back when your mother and I were in high school, we both worked in the same drugstore.”

  “Did you sell medicine and beach toys and candy?” asked Amelia Bedelia.

  “Well, I ran the cash register,” said Amelia Bedelia’s mother.

  “And I was in charge of the soda fountain,” said Amelia Bedelia’s father. “There used to be soda fountains everywhere, and the old-fashioned drugstore in our town still had one. I made sodas using various flavors of ice cream. To add the soda water, I had to jerk a handle back and forth, like this—” He swung his hand to demonstrate. “Anyone who made sodas like that was called a ‘soda jerk.’”

  “Jerk, for short,” said her mother.

  “Jerk Forshort?” said Amelia Bedelia, struggling to keep a straight face. Then she burst out laughing. “Dad, you’ve told some giant fibs before, but that was a whopper—you are making that up!” As her chuckles began to subside, she noticed that her father was not laughing. In fact, he looked a little hurt.

  “It’s true, sweetie,” said her mother, smiling. “Your dad was well known as a jerk. He once won a cream-soda contest.”

  “That’s Mister Jerk to you,” said Amelia Bedelia’s father, kissing her mother on the cheek. “I met your mom in the store. I won her heart with a banana split made with so much rocky road ice cream that it cost me a week’s wages.”

  “That was the best investment you ever made,” said Amelia Bedelia’s mother.

  Her parents hugged and kissed again. Amelia Bedelia got up and put her arms around them for a family hug. This totally explained her dad’s weakness for rocky road ice cream, she thought.

  “Ah, well,” said Amelia Bedelia’s father. “That was a fun trip down memory lane. Now I have to get back to work on some slides.”

  That gave Amelia Bedelia another important clue about what her father did for a living. He had already put together the slide for her swing set years ago, so he wasn’t working on that kind of slide.

  Then she remembered how excited her father got when ballplayers on TV would slide into second base or home plate. So . . . Dawn had been right about baseball. That must be the kind of slide he was working on, a baseball slide.

  But how could he be working on those kinds of slides on his computer? If he slid into his laptop, he might break it. Maybe her dad was writing instructions on how to slide and score without being tagged out. So, Cliff had been right too. Her father must be a coach—a baseball coach. Now that was a job she could be proud of.

  She certainly wasn’t going to tell her class that her father was an award-winning jerk.

  The next morning Clay gave his report about plants and factories. “The word ‘plant’ is used to describe any place where things are manufactured (that means ‘made’). The word ‘factory’ is actually short for manufacturing plant. Facturing, factory. Get it? So the words ‘plant’ and ‘factory’ actually mean the same thing. A lot of times, in a plant or factory, things are made on an assembly line.”

  “Good job, Clay,” said Mrs. Shauk. “Very nice.”

  Clay broke into a big smile and sat back down in his seat.

  Amelia Bedelia remembered dancing in a conga line at an assembly, but that line only made kids smile.

  Mrs. Shauk turned to Cliff and said, “Cliff, can you tell us why some factories are called—”

  “Or plants,” interrupted Clay.

  “Factories or plants,” repeated Mrs. Shauk, “are called mills? That is, unless you’ve amassed enough money since yesterday to retire?”

  Cliff stood up and cleared his throat. “Water running in rivers and streams provided the power for many of the first factories or plants,” he said. “For example, water power was used to grind—or mill—grain into flour for making bread. The place where the grain was ground became known as a flour mill. When water was used to power other types of machinery, to make differ
ent things, the name ‘mill’ stuck. That’s why today we have steel mills and paper mills, even though they are not powered by water anymore.”

  “Excellent, Clifford!” said Mrs. Shauk, clapping her hands. A couple of other kids applauded along with her, including Amelia Bedelia. Cliff bowed.

  “Now, before you sit down,” said Mrs. Shauk, “please share with the class what your mother and father do for work. Then we’ll go around the room and hear what everyone’s parents do.”

  Cliff cleared his throat again and said, “I think my dad is a janitor.”

  “You think?” asked Mrs. Shauk, looking confused. “Are you sure that your father is a custodian?”

  “Yup. Pretty sure,” said Cliff. “That’s how he talks about his job.”

  “Ha! I see,” said Mrs. Shauk as Cliff sat down.

  Amelia Bedelia slipped down in her seat, trying to shrink out of sight so that the Hawk would fly right over her and dive on a different victim. But Mrs. Shauk could be sly. She was looking right at Dawn when she called out, “Amelia Bedelia!”

  “Yeeeeha!” shouted Amelia Bedelia, jumping up as if her bottom had been pricked by a thumbtack. “I mean, yes, Mrs. Hawk.”

  Mrs. Shauk narrowed her eyes. “Please share with the class a little bit about your parents’ occupations,” she said.