Recess Rebels

by Emma Wunsch

  “Blgrrrehhhammmm!” Donut spit out the whole disgusting mess into a mountainous heap on his desk.

  Everyone stared at Donut.

  “Donut?” Miss Kinde said.

  Donut opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say. Also, he had to get over his embarrassment, stand up, get some paper towels, and clean his desk.

  “Thanks for the delicious doughnuts, Agnes,” Maude said loudly. She winked at Miranda.

  Miranda, who didn’t like sweets, looked at her uneaten non-cheese doughnut. Maude might be her best friend, but right now Miranda felt too bad or maybe too sad or maybe too mad to wink back.

  Donut looked at his disgusting desk and felt madder than ever.

  But then he noticed a curly feather on the floor. It must have fallen out of Maude’s bag. And suddenly, even though he had the worst taste in his mouth, Donut had the best idea ever!

  22

  VERY EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING

  Extremely early Wednesday morning, at the moment the sun was changing places with the moon, a student in 3B got to work. The student checked their supplies and nodded. Revenge, the student thought. Revenge, revenge, revenge!

  23

  WHERE’S ROSALIE?

  Wednesday morning, Maude hollered through the megaphone she’d borrowed from Hillary, “EMERGENCY MEETING!”

  Everyone on the playground stared at her.

  “EMERGENCY MEETING FOR THE GIRLS OF THREE B,” she corrected.

  The girls of 3B followed Maude over to where the swings had been.

  “A terrible crime has been committed,” Maude told them. “I discovered early this morning that my best and only Frizzle chicken, Ms. Rosalie Esmerelda Clementina Pickled Beets Kaye, has been . . . STOLEN!”

  The girls gasped. “Stolen?” they said.

  “Are you sure?” Miranda asked.

  “Positive. When I went outside to get her for breakfast, she was gone!”

  “Isn’t she a house chicken?” Desdemona asked.

  “Yes,” Maude said. “But her limited bathroom skills limit her house time. She slept outside last night. It’s not important. What’s important is that I looked everywhere! In the coop, in the tire swing, in the mailbox. Then I wondered if she’d snuck into the house—she does that sometimes—so I looked in all of the cabinets and closets. I looked in every drawer and under every desk. I looked under books and beds and in a briefcase.”

  “How could a chicken be in a briefcase?” Agatha asked.

  “Never mind,” Maude said. “Trust me, Rosalie is gone!”

  “Perhaps she flew the coop,” Hillary said. “Took a vacation.”

  “Rosalie can’t fly,” Maude said. “She just sort of jumps. And chickens don’t take vacations.”

  “Maybe—” Agnes said.

  But Maude stopped her. “I know one of the boys from Three B stole my favorite chicken. And we’re going to prove it.”

  No one said anything.

  “Do you know how we’re going to solve the great chicken-napping?” Maude asked.

  The girls shook their heads.

  “With the next issue of the Girls Gazette! Our second issue will dig deeper, be more investigative!” Maude took the rusty lunchbox out of her bag and stood on it. “Plus, this time we’ll have color photographs, and I’ll ask the little kids who used to hang out at the sandbox to deliver it.”

  For a long time, nobody said anything. Hillary looked at Agnes, who looked at Agatha, who looked at Desdemona, who looked at Miranda, who looked at her sparkly shoes.

  Finally, Hillary spoke. “Sorry, Maude,” she said. “I’m sorry about your chicken, but what you did to Donut’s doughnut was really gross. I’m done with the news biz. Being managing editor took too much time. Since there’s no balance beam on the playground, I have to practice more after school.”

  Agnes nodded. “If I’d known why you wanted doughnuts, I never would’ve done it!”

  “Yeah,” Desdemona said. “My grandpa laughed so hard at my cartoons he cried. Not because they were funny. Because the hands I drew were so bad! So, no more cartoons until I can draw hands.”

  “It turns out that I actually don’t know anything about commas,” Agnes said. “My mom said I need extra comma help from Miss Kinde after school.”

  “What?” Maude sounded angry. “What happened to my recess rebels?”

  “I want regular recess,” Agatha said. “I’m done rebelling.”

  “You’re our friend, but we don’t want you as commander anymore,” Desdemona said.

  “But—” Maude sputtered. “But my chicken is stolen, and none of you will help?”

  “I’ll help you look for her,” Miranda said softly.

  “But will you publish the Girls Gazette issue two?” Maude asked. “Or are you surrendering the fort like everyone else?”

  Miranda didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, Miranda agreed with the other girls that Maude had been wrong to sneak cheese into Donut’s doughnut. On the other hand, Maude’s beloved chicken was missing, possibly stolen! And they were best friends! Wasn’t friendship the most important thing of all?

  “I’ll print it,” Miranda said after a long pause. “If you write it, I can print it.”

  24

  MAUDE CAN’T PROVE IT

  Try as she might, Maude couldn’t prove that one of the boys in 3B had stolen her chicken. She couldn’t interview the boys without talking to them—and she was planning on never speaking to them again. To take her mind off her missing chicken and the fact that she’d been fired as commander, Maude focused on the second issue of the Girls Gazette.

  Without any other reporters, she did the reporting herself. The first story was easy, because it was all about Rosalie. Then she described, in great detail, how delicious Agnes’s birthday doughnuts had been and how disgusting it was that Donut had rudely spit his out.

  Then she copied the pet vaccination ad from the first issue.

  But after that, she was stuck. She looked at Onion the Great Number Eleven for inspiration.

  “I could write about your missing eye,” Maude told the cat. “That was such a good, gruesome story.” But what did a cat’s eye have to do with the girls in 3B? Nothing, Maude thought sadly. “I wish I had more gruesome stories about the boys,” she said.

  And then Maude remembered something that had happened a long time ago. It wasn’t gruesome, but maybe it was interesting. And possibly extremely embarrassing. Maude hesitated but then wrote it all down. After that, in a fantastic burst of inspiration, Maude wrote down a bunch of other possibly interesting, extremely embarrassing stories!

  25

  GIRLS GAZETTE ISSUE TWO

  Late the following Monday afternoon, Maude delivered the second issue of the Girls Gazette to the castle. “Sorry I’m so late,” she panted as she burst into the printing-press room. “It’s amazing I made the deadline without a staff.”

  Miranda nodded, truly impressed that Maude had written an entire paper by herself.

  “Can you run the press alone?” Maude asked. “I’d help, but now that the paper is done, I must continue to search for my chicken.”

  “Okay,” Miranda said. She wasn’t excited to print all by herself, but she knew a deal was a deal.

  “Let’s print three hundred more copies this time. We can’t deliver them, because the sandbox kids said they’re not allowed to walk around town by themselves. But we can give copies to all the boys at school, not just the boys in our class.”

  “You want three hundred more copies?”

  “Yup!”

  Miranda yawned. Just thinking about how late she’d have to stay up to print that many papers made her exhausted.

  “Thank you,” Maude said. “I’m going to look for Rosalie now.”

  “Good luck,” Miranda said. “I hope you find her.” And good luck to me, she thought, for agreeing to be publisher on another school night!

  After Maude left, Miranda wished that KD wasn’t at a royal ribbon-cutting ceremon
y. She knew he’d help her when he got home, but she figured she should get started or they’d be up all night. She was putting on her printing apron when she heard a strange chirping noise from the direction of the Unknown Forest. She put her ear against the window. What was it? Was one of the castle’s ducks in trouble? She looked down and counted all eight ducks in the moat below.

  Miranda looked away from the ducks and picked up the Girls Gazette issue two. She glanced at the main story, which was about the stolen chicken. Miranda nodded. That was certainly news! But then she glanced at the story below it and blinked. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She must be tired. She put her glasses back on. But no. The story was still there: “Donut Peed His Pants in Kindergarten!”

  26

  MIRANDA WONDERS WHAT TO DO

  Miranda read the second issue of the Girls Gazette cover to cover. Then she read it again. Then she sat down on a small footstool next to the printing press and put her head in her hands.

  She didn’t know what to do. The second issue of the Girls Gazette was nothing like the first. The first issue had mostly great things about the girls, while the second issue, with the exception of the story about Rosalie and the ad for pet vaccination, had nothing but truly terrible things about the boys. Miranda wouldn’t feel proud printing three hundred and sixteen copies of this newspaper. She would feel . . . how would she feel? Truly terrible, she thought. How did Maude know Fletcher’s dad had picked him up at a sleepover? And anyone could have farted during music! There was no way Maude could know it had been Saeed. Was Maude making this stuff up? Even if the story about Donut was true, why would Maude write about something that had happened so long ago? Maude herself slept with an enormous group of stuffed animals and part of an ancient baby blanket mysteriously called Todd. Miranda had QM sing her to sleep most nights, and even though she wasn’t really embarrassed by that, she certainly didn’t want it in the paper! Wasn’t a newspaper supposed to print news?

  Miranda’s head began to ache the way it had before she’d gotten glasses. If Miranda told Maude she wouldn’t publish issue two, Maude would give a brilliant speech with a million reasons and quotes about why she should. If Miranda did print it . . . Miranda didn’t want to think about what would happen then. She leaned her face on the cool window and looked out at the grounds below. Maybe she should check on the ducks after all. Perhaps she’d counted wrong.

  She walked out of the printing-press room, down a flight of winding steps, and onto a narrow path above the moat. She looked down, where the ducks, all eight of them, bobbed along. Jealously, Miranda watched them. They didn’t have to decide about printing a paper! None of them had to stand up to someone who was always standing up for what she believed in! I wish I were a duck, Miranda thought, walking along the path and running right into Chef Blue.

  “Ooof,” Chef Blue said.

  “Sorry,” Miranda said. “I didn’t see you.”

  “No problem.” Chef Blue sighed sadly.

  But I do have a problem, Miranda thought.

  “Duck,” Chef Blue said. “That’s waterfowl, right?”

  Confused, Miranda nodded.

  “I have a problem,” Chef Blue said.

  “Me too,” Miranda said softly.

  “You first,” Chef Blue said.

  So Miranda told Chef Blue about the Girls Gazette issue two. Chef Blue asked a lot of questions, like Was the newspaper some kind of homework?, and when Miranda said no, Miss Kinde knew nothing about it, he asked more questions, so Miranda told him about the first issue and about the Boys Bugle, which led to her talking about the swings being taken away, the Limburger cheese doughnut, her secret note, and rule eighty-one. All this information led to more questions, and so, as the sun dipped behind Mount Coffee, Miranda told the beginnings of the girls-versus-boys battle in 3B, which, she realized, had started with a game of tag.

  “Wow,” Chef Blue said when Miranda had finally finished. “That is a problem.”

  Miranda nodded. “I don’t know what to do!”

  “I’m sure if you put your mind to it, you’ll think of a plan,” Chef Blue said.

  “That’s the problem,” Miranda said. “Maude’s the planner. She was the commander and the editor in chief. Not me.”

  Chef Blue nodded thoughtfully before saying, “Well, as Eleanor Roosevelt said, ‘You must do the thing you think you cannot do.’”

  Miranda looked at the ducks. Do the thing she thought she couldn’t do? What would that be? Maude had all the ideas and speeches. Maude had all the buttons!

  “What’s your problem?” she asked to be polite and to take her mind off of her own problem.

  Chef Blue’s problem was nearly as complicated as Miranda’s. He was in a pickle about a royal dinner. Except pickles would not be on the menu, because all of the guests had a range of food allergies and dislikes.

  “You see,” Chef Blue said, “the Duke of Salisbury won’t eat waterfowl, poultry, red meat, or anything green. Or orange.”

  Miranda nodded.

  “And the Lady of Wiffle, who is nuts for nuts, has a terrible seafood allergy. Duchess Adelina loves fish stew but can’t eat rice, nuts, sugar, wheat, pasta, potatoes, or cheese.”

  “Wow,” Miranda said.

  Chef Blue nodded miserably.

  Chef Blue and Miranda looked down at the moat, where the ducks continued to float happily, free from worries of a royal dinner menu and a printing press.

  And then, from the other side of the moat, nestled along the edge of the Unknown Forest, Miranda heard that strange chirping sound again.

  “Do you hear that?” she asked.

  Chef Blue shook his head.

  “You don’t?” Miranda tilted her head. “It sounds like . . . a chicken?” Her heart leapt. Could it be?

  “Sorry, but I don’t hear anything.”

  Miranda’s heart sank. The noise had stopped, and she knew she would never figure out what to do.

  27

  MIRANDA TAKES A SICK DAY

  The following morning, Miranda informed her parents that she wasn’t going to school.

  “Are you ill?” Queen Mom (also called QM) looked concerned. For someone who, not that long ago, hadn’t wanted to go to school at all, Miranda had never asked for a day off. In fact, most days, Miranda went to school extra early and stayed super late.

  Miranda shook her head. “I feel fine.”

  “Then why aren’t you going to school?” KD asked.

  Miranda took a deep breath. Unlike Maude, she couldn’t give a speech on the spot. But in a surprising and fantastic burst of middle-of-the-night inspiration, she’d actually thought of one, wrote it down, and practiced it several times this morning. “There comes a time,” she said as nobly as she could, “when a person must do the thing they think they cannot do.”

  QM and KD stared at Miranda.

  “What I mean,” Miranda said, “is that sometimes a person must stand up for what they believe in.”

  QM and KD nodded.

  Miranda glanced at her notes. “And sometimes, for a person to stand up for what they believe in, they have to miss school to look for a chicken in the Unknown Forest.”

  “A chicken?” KD asked.

  “The Unknown Forest?” QM said.

  “Yes. I need to stop a war.”

  “A war?” QM and KD asked.

  Miranda nodded. “Just for today. I’ll go to school tomorrow.”

  KD cleared his throat. “You want to skip school to look for a missing chicken, which will stop a war.”

  Miranda nodded.

  QM and KD looked at each. Then they looked at Miranda.

  “Okay,” said her parents.

  “You don’t have to go to school today,” KD said.

  “But someone must go with you to look for the chicken.” QM sounded stern. “You’re forbidden to enter the Unknown Forest alone.”

  Miranda made a face, but secretly she totally agreed with that rule.

  28

&nbs
p; THE LOST AND FOUND CHICKEN

  In the end, it was Chef Blue who found Rosalie. He went with Miranda into the Unknown Forest because he wanted to look for mushrooms, which he had happily realized he could serve at the royal dinner party later that evening.

  “Chicken!” he hollered when he came face to face with Rosalie, who was cheerfully pecking at some pink crumbs.

  Miranda ran over. “Rosalie!” she said. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  “It looks like she’s been very well cared for,” Chef Blue said, pointing to a blanket and two bowls—one with water and the other with crumbs. Miranda smelled the crumbs, and then, feeling especially brave after giving a speech and going into the Unknown Forest all in the same day, she tasted them. They were horribly sweet, but Miranda didn’t even spit them out, because she now knew with 100 percent certainty who had stolen the chicken and how she could end the 3B war.

  29

  MIRANDA’S FIRST DELIVERY

  True to her word, Miranda returned to Mountain River Valley Elementary early Wednesday morning. She found Maude sitting on top of a soccer ball, which was on top of the rusty lunchbox, reading her chicken-training book.

  “You’re back!” Maude exclaimed. “I was dreadfully worried. Did the boys hide your glasses? Put itching powder in your fancy shoes?”

  “No,” Miranda said loud and clear. “The boys had nothing to do with my absence.”

  “Oh.” Maude sounded a little disappointed. “Where are the copies of Girls Gazette issue two? I can’t wait to see them!”

  Miranda took a deep breath. “I don’t have them.”

  “But you’re the publisher!”

  Miranda held out a sparkly pink envelope. “This will explain,” she said mysteriously.

  30

  MIRANDA’S SECOND DELIVERY