Just Grace and the Terrible Tutu (4 page)

 

THEY LOOK VERY FRENCH!

WHAT IS HARD TO DO IF YOUR BRAIN IS BUSY DOING LOTS OF THINKING

Go to sleep, but I made myself do it, because I couldn't wait until tomorrow to tell Mimi.

WHAT MIMI SAID AS SOON AS I TOLD HER ABOUT OUR NEW JOB

"Grace! This is the perfect way to practice being a big sister. It's just perfect!" And then Mimi gave me a big hug. She was so happy. If your best friend is super happy and smiling, it is really hard not to be that way too. We walked to school holding and swinging hands. It's too bad boys don't get to do that sort of thing, because it feels really nice.

When we got to school we saw Sammy and Max hiding behind one of the trees near the end of the playground. From where we were standing it didn't look like a very good hiding spot. At first we couldn't see why they were hiding, but then Mimi pointed to the swings and we saw Samantha Logan looking around. She is one of those girls who love to play chasing-boys games. Lucky for Sammy and Max, the lineup bell rang and Samantha ran off to find her class.

 

Mimi and I must have been smiling a lot, because while we were waiting to go in, Sammy and Max wanted to know what we were so happy about. I think maybe Max thought we had won a prize or something. When we told them we were excited about being mother's helpers for the new French family moving in to Mrs. Luther's house, both Max and Sammy said, "What?" at the exact sametime. But I was pretty sure their
What?
s were meaning two very different things. Max's
What?
meant, That's it? That's why you're excited? I don't get it. And Sammy's
What?
meant, Mrs. Luther is gone? How can that be true?

 

HOW TO RUIN AN ENTIRE DAY OF SCHOOL FOR SAMMY STRINGER

Tell him that his favorite cool grownup friend has moved away. Mrs. Luther doesn't look cool on the outside, but inside she is about the only person who understands Sammy 100 percent of the time.

HOW TO MAKE SAMMY STRINGER FEEL A LITTLE BETTER AFTER SNACK TIME

Tell him that she will only be gone for four months, because you forgot to mention that part before.

WHAT ALWAYS GETS MISS LOIS A LITTLE GRUMPY

Miss Lois is our teacher, and she is slowly learning how to be more fun and interesting. Mr. Franks was our old student teacher and he came to our class to learn teacher stuff from Miss Lois, but I think she learned some stuff from him too. Especially how to not be boring and talk for too long when everyone has stopped listening. She hardly ever does that anymore, and pretty much everyone likes her much better now.

But there is one thing that changes the new fun Miss Lois back into the old non-fun Miss Lois in about two seconds. It happens so fast, it's like she's been zapped with super-grumpy power or something. And if you know our class, it's no big surprise that the zapper person is ... Owen 1.

 

Owen 1 sometimes thinks I am his friend, but mostly I am not, and this is a good thing because Owen 1 is almost always getting into trouble. His big number one troublemaking thing is his playing with his shoes. Normally this would not be a bad thing except for that Owen 1 is shoes make a lot of noise. The noise-making part is the Velcro flaps. He pulls them apart and pushes them back together, and pulls them apart and pushes them back together, and pulls them apart and pushes them back together, over and over and over again. And each time he pulls them open, it makes a loud ripping, scratchy sound that pretty much bugs the whole class.

 

WHY IT'S A GOOD THING MISS LOIS IS NOT A CARTOON CHARACTER

If Miss Lois were a cartoon character her head would get big and smoke would come out of her ears, and then she would make a loud sound like a train whistle. That's how much she hates Owen 1 playing with his shoes.

 

Even though she tries real hard, Miss Lois can't be patient with Owen 1 forever. Every day she says the same thing: "Owen 1, will you please leave your shoes alone!" But after a while she just finally has to get mad. If she was allowed to, she would probably roll her eyes, but I don't think teachers can do that kind of thing. So instead she points to the door and says, "Owen 1, you get yourself down for a visit with Mr. Harris! Now!"'

Mr. Harris is the principal of our whole school. And mostly he is not someone you want to visit in his office. I have a feeling that Owen 1 is probably going to have to change to lace-up shoes real soon.

 

MISS LOIS AND THE GIANT CLOUD OF BROWN

I am not a color expert, but I bet if grumpiness were a color it would be that brown blah color you get every time you mix all your paints together in a big mushy mess. That's the kind of color no one would ever make or choose on purpose. Even though I couldn't see it, I bet that was the color of Miss Lois's grumpy cloud. It stayed up over her head all through reading, math, and spelling, and right up until lunchtime. Miss Lois tried to make her words sound happy and normal, but we could all tell the cloud was still there. The cloud made everyone not like Owen 1 even more than they had not liked him before. This was too bad, because Owen 1 did not have a whole lot of extra liking energy to lose. I was glad I was not him.

 

HOW MIMI SURPRISED ME AGAIN

After lunch we get to have recess and go outside. Mimi and I hardly ever go over and hang out by the fake rock wall, but today Mimi wanted to go there. I was thinking that maybe she wanted to try climbing it, but mostly she just wanted to stay around where Marta and Olivia were playing with some of the other Fairy Girls. They call themselves Fairy Girls because their favorite thing to do in the whole world is to play princess fairy. Since we were standing there and Mimi was not talking, we ended up mostly listening to them play their game.

It didn't sound very fun. There was a lot of arguing about super fairy powers. "Princess Petaluna can totally fly into the cave and get the magic stone!" said Olivia. "No she can't!" shouted Marta. "She lost her wings! Don't you remember? She has to go back and ask the Violet fairy to let her have some new ones! You always want to do what you want to do. It's not fair! If my fairy has to lose her wings, then yours does too!" Marta was really mad—she was shaking her arms, and both her hands were in fist shapes. Everyone was watching. We couldn't help it.