Keena Ford and the Secret Journal Mix-Up (4 page)

Tiffany would not let us play triplets. She said we were playing twins only. I told Linny I was sorry but that I had promised Tiffany in the morning that I would play with her. Linny looked sad, but she went to play with Shay and Royann on the monkey bars.

Eric came over after school today so we could do our homework in the Homework Hut. It was pretty cold, so Mom gave us some old blankets and towels for the hut. Eric was talking about the visit from Bob Morgan and he was very excited, but I just kept thinking about Tiffany.

“I am going to ask Bob Morgan if he thinks I should write a book about spies living on a ship,” Eric said.

“Tiffany has my journal and she won't give it back,” I blurted out.

“Huh?” Eric said.

I reminded him that I had to go to Tiffany's when he was at the Wizards game. I told him that Tiffany read the journal and there was some stuff I had written in there that wasn't too nice. But I said the not-nice stuff was about people in my class. I didn't tell Eric I had written some not-nice stuff about HIM.

“You should go on a mission to get your journal back,” Eric said. “You should go to Tiffany's to play, and when she isn't paying attention, you should take your journal back.”

“But Tiffany will be mad if I take it,” I said. “Then she will be SURE to tell the bad stuff.”

“But you can say she is lying,” Eric pointed out. “You will have your journal back, so you can say that you never wrote anything bad. Maybe the kids in your class won't believe her.”

“Maybe,” I said. I was not too sure.

“Hmmm,” Eric said. He sat thinking for a few minutes. I let Eric do his thinking. I used to say “Hello!!” when he was thinking for a long time, but now I know that when Eric thinks very slowly, he can come up with a very good idea. I kept working on my math homework while Eric was thinking.

Most of the time when Eric gets a good idea, he'll say “Ta-daaaa!” or something like that. But this time he just let lots of air out of his lungs. I put my math book down. “Do you have an idea?” I asked him.

“I think so,” Eric said. He didn't sound very happy. At first I didn't know why, but then when Eric explained the plan to me, I understood why he wasn't excited about it. Eric's idea was that HE would go over to Tiffany's to play, and then he would take my journal when Tiffany wasn't looking. Then Tiffany would be mad at Eric and not at me.

“But you hate playing with Tiffany,” I said to Eric.

“But I am going to be a spy when I grow up,” Eric pointed out. “Sometimes a spy has to pretend to like doing stuff he hates because it is part of his special mission. Like in lots of spy movies the spy will have to dance with girls because he wants to get secrets from them.”

I could not believe that Eric was going to play with Tiffany just to help me fix my problem. He was the nicest kid ever. I felt sad that I had written bad stuff about him in my journal. If I hadn't written the bad stuff in the first place, I wouldn't have to worry about Tiffany telling my secrets.

I told Eric “Thank you” about a million times. I knew he would not read my journal because he takes his missions very seriously, and plus he only likes reading about spies, boats, and what people eat for dinner in other countries. I told Eric that when he was a spy I would try to help him with his missions. Then we pretty much just talked about spy stuff until Eric had to go home.

Tonight was a lot better than last night. Mom told me that Brian got a sticker on his chart, and Mom and Brian did not have a big disagreement at dinner. I decided that it would be okay to ask Brian about something I had been wondering, so I went in his room after dinner. He was sitting on his bed listening to music on his earphones and reading a book for middle school kids called SOMETHING SOMETHING OUTER SPACE. The first two words were too long for me to really read them, but I got the outer space part. His door was open so I had not knocked on it, but I don't think he heard me come in, so I just walked up to him and knocked on his leg.

He jumped about a million feet into the air. Then he shouted, “WHAT?!?” He took one of his earphones out of his ear.

Then I decided maybe it was not such a good idea to ask Brian my question. “Never mind,” I said. I started walking to the door again.

Brian told me to wait and said he was sorry he shouted. He said I surprised him. Then he asked what I wanted.

“Um, well, I was wondering if you would show me some of your tricks,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Brian said. He looked confused.

I closed the door so Mom wouldn't hear. “Will you show me some of your clown tricks? That you do in class? I won't tell Mom,” I said.

Brian looked confused for another second, but then he rolled his eyes at me. He took out his other earphone. “When my teachers say I'm being a clown, it doesn't mean like a clown at the circus. They are just saying they think I should be quiet and sit still all day long. And when I try to talk to my friends or joke around, they tell Mom I'm breaking the rules,” Brian said.

“Oh,” I said. I felt my shoulders go down a little bit. I was disappointed.

“Any more questions?” Brian asked me.

I looked around his room for a second. “Um, can I sit in your beanbag chair?” I asked him.

Brian asked if I would be quiet so he could read, and I said yes, so he said yes, I could sit in his beanbag chair. I walked over to the other side of his bed and sat in the squashy chair under the window.

Brian picked up his book again, but he didn't put his earphones back in. I decided I would ask him one more question.

“Brian?” I said.

He said “What?” again, but a little bit nicer.

“Why do you like to be a clown at school?”

Brian said that he didn't really like to be a clown, he just didn't like people always making him do stuff he didn't think he should have to do. I nodded my head a LOT when he said that. “I know that's right!” I said. I don't like people making me do stuff I don't want to do either. Especially people like Tiffany Harris.

“Now are you going to be quiet?” Brian asked me. I nodded, and he started reading again. I sat and watched. It was pretty boring to watch somebody read a book, but I felt safe sitting all smooshed down in Brian's beanbag chair.

After a lot of quiet, boring minutes, someone knocked on Brian's door and opened the door at the same time. I couldn't see over the bed, but I knew it was Mom because she always opens the door at the same time as knocking, and plus she is the only other person who lives in our apartment. She said in a kind of worried voice, “Do you know where your sister is?” and Brian pointed at me in the beanbag chair. Mom walked around the bed so she could see me.

“Sorry, Mommy. I will go back to my room now,” I said. I started to get up, but it was kind of hard because I was smooshed down in the beans very well.

Mom looked at me and then at Brian. Then she said I could stay in Brian's room for a little while! Then she left.

I was excited that I was getting to hang out with Brian, but pretty soon it got boring again because he was just reading, reading, reading. After I got really bored, I thanked Brian for letting me sit in his chair, and then I went back to my room to write in my notebook. My notebook isn't so super-bad to write in, but I will be happy when I get my journal back tomorrow after Eric's special mission.

 

 

 

I really hope I feel happy after Eric's special mission, because right now I don't feel happy at all. Today we got our jobs for when Bob Morgan from BIPPO AND PECKY comes to visit. My job is to say a little speech about friendship. Ms. Campbell said I can talk about why some of my friends are important to me.

I would have liked my job of making a speech except it has caused two problems. The first problem is that Tiffany said I have to write my friendship speech about HER or she will tell the bad stuff in my journal. The second problem is that I think Linny is feeling sad that I'm playing with Tiffany all the time now and not playing with Linny, because she told me she wishes that we could play together sometimes. Then she said that if her job was writing a speech, she would write about me because she thinks I am a very fun friend and she thinks we have fun playing games like Foursquare and Airplane Twins. So now I don't know what to do for my speech. If I don't write it about Tiffany, she will tell everybody all my private stuff and Linny might not be friends with me anymore. If I do write about Tiffany, then Linny still might not be friends with me anymore, because she might think I am friends with Tiffany only. And I'm not friends with Tiffany. Not even for one second!

Linny's job for the visit is to go get Bob Morgan from the school office and walk down the hall with him until he gets to our classroom. Tiffany's job is to ask some of the questions we all said. That's not a good job for Tiffany, because she does not really like to ask questions. She just likes to boss people around all the time.

 

 

 

Eric is doing his special mission right now! I really, really hope he can get my journal back.

 

 

 

Eric got my journal back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He didn't give it to me yet, though. That is part of the plan. Tiffany is not supposed to know that Eric is giving the journal back to me. There are these video cameras in our building that make sure no robbers come in or that people don't litter. Eric said if the cameras see him bringing the journal to me, Tiffany might find out. So instead Eric called me when he got back from Tiffany's.

“Mission accomplished!” he shouted, and then he just hung up.

I called him right back to ask him how he got my journal.

“At first I was just looking around Tiffany's room, but I didn't see your journal anywhere. So I thought maybe she hid it somewhere,” he said. He was breathing really loud, like he had done a million jumping jacks. “So I told her I wanted to play hide-and-seek. But Tiffany said no. She said we had to play Princess Rescue.”

“Oh no,” I said.

“It was kind of like hide-and-seek, except Tiffany was the princess who had been captured by the bad zoo guy, and she wanted me to be the prince who saved her,” Eric told me.

“Yuck,” I said.

“So I said no, I would only play if I could be Spider-Man. And she said okay. So I went out of the room and she hid in the closet. And I knew she was in there because she was making crying princess sounds. But I didn't rescue her. I just looked everywhere else in her room for your journal. But it wasn't anywhere!” Eric was still breathing really loud.