Keena Ford and the Secret Journal Mix-Up (5 page)

“So then did you rescue her?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “She just kept crying louder and louder and then she yelled I AM A BEAUTIFUL PRINCESS TRAPPED IN A ZOO YOU BETTER RESCUE ME RIGHT NOW ERIC, and then her mom came in and asked what was going on. And then she rescued Tiffany even though she wasn't part of the game. And she said if I could not behave, then I would have to go home. And she gave Tiffany some extra math to do. Then it got really boring.”

“So when did you get my journal?” I asked. I started to wish that I had not asked Eric how he got my journal. He was taking a very long time to explain it.

“So then I went to the bathroom, and when I came out, I saw there was a big bookshelf in Mrs. Harris's room. So I just went in her room,” he said.

“Oh no,” I said. I could not believe it. Eric never did dangerous stuff like that!

“I saw that your journal was on the tippy-top shelf,” Eric said. “So I climbed up the bookshelf like Spider-Man. Then I put the journal under my shirt. And as soon as I went back in Tiffany's room I told her I had to go home because I felt very sick and I was afraid I was going to throw up all over her bed.”

“Good one,” I told him.

“So like I said, mission accomplished!” Eric shouted. And I said good job. Then we hung up.

 

 

I will never write anything bad about Eric in my journal ever again. He was so nice to get my journal back. The only problem now is that I won't be able to write in my journal at school because then Tiffany will know that Eric gave the journal back to me, and plus Ms. Campbell thinks my journal is gone forever.

Since I didn't have my journal tonight, I was going to sit in bed and write my speech, but I was having a hard time getting comfortable. I tried to think of a more comfortable place to sit and write, and I decided that it would be more comfortable to sit in Brian's beanbag chair again. When I went to his room, he said, “Oh boy, it's you again.” Then he said, “What, are you going to start coming in here every night?”

“Okay!” I said. I was happy that he invited me to start visiting every night. I walked right over to the beanbag chair and sat down.

“What's that notebook?” Brian wanted to know.

“It's my journal for right now,” I told him. “I had some problems with my other one.”

“I like that notebook much better,” Brian said. “It doesn't look so girly.”

When Brian says stuff like that, most of the time I stick my tongue out at him. But I thought if I stuck my tongue out, he might ask me to leave his room. Instead, I asked him if he had gotten a good behavior report that day.

Brian rolled his eyes, but then he said yes. And he said, “It's kind of annoying that you want to check up on my behavior all the time, but I guess you are just trying to be a good kid.”

Then all of a sudden I just started crying. “I'm not a good kid,” I told Brian. “I'm a bad kid.” I told him I wrote all kinds of bad stuff in my journal. I even wrote bad stuff about my very best friend.

Brian laughed at me. I told him it was not nice to laugh at a crying little sister, and he said, “It doesn't make you a bad kid just because you wrote some stuff in your journal that wasn't nice. You can write what you want in your journal.”

“But everybody might find out the bad stuff I wrote,” I said. I told him all about Tiffany, and how Eric got my journal back but that Tiffany still knew all the bad stuff I wrote. I told him about Bippo and Pecky and how I had to give a speech in front of the whole second grade. I said that Linny would be sad if I wrote my speech about how great Tiffany is. But Tiffany said I HAD to write about her.

“So what, you're going to let Tiffany boss you around for the rest of your life?” Brian asked.

“I don't know,” I told him. “I guess so. Maybe I should move to Maryland too. But I would miss Mommy. But if you move to Maryland and I stay here, I will miss you,” I said, and I started to cry again.

“I'm not moving to Maryland, dummy,” Brian said. “Dad has to travel too much for work, and there would be no one to stay with me. I just said that because I was mad.”

“Oh,” I said. I felt about a million times better in about two seconds.

“Plus I have to stay here to make sure you don't do dumb stuff like let Tiffany Harris boss you around,” Brian said. “Just let her say what she wants to say and don't worry about it. That's pretty sad that she thinks she has to force people to play with her. Even though she's mean, it's sad no one likes her.”

“I guess,” I said. “But I would like her if she would just be nice! I can't like her if she is mean all the time! And I can't like her if she just wants to play princesses all the time and won't let anyone else pick the games. And I can't like her if she tells all my private stuff. If she tells what I wrote, all my friends will be mad at me.”

“Even if she tells what you wrote, your friends won't be mad for very long,” Brian told me. “Your friends are pretty cool. And plus, little kids don't have very good memories.”

“We do too!” I said. I can remember almost every time someone has made me mad since kindergarten. I can't really remember from preschool, though. “Do you really think my friends are cool?” I said with lots of surprise.

“Yeah, they're okay,” Brian said. I couldn't believe it!

“Am I cool?” I wanted to know.

“You're cool if you don't let Tiffany Harris tell you what to do,” Brian said. “Just say whatever you want to say in your speech, and if she tries to tell you what to do, just say, ‘It's a free country.' ”

“It's a free country,” I said. “That's true.” Then Brian asked me if I would be quiet so he could read. I turned to the back of my notebook and started writing my speech.

 

 

 

TODAY WAS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE. I met a famous writer, people clapped for my speech, and I found out Tiffany Harris is a LIAR. And Mom let me drink two cups of punch even though it is loaded with sugar.

First, I met a famous writer! Bob Morgan! He has written TEN books. Five books are about Bippo and Pecky. He answered lots of questions from the second-grade kids. And he even answered some questions from the parents! Mom was there with her video camera, but she didn't ask any questions. I wrote down Bob Morgan's answers to the questions in the back of my notebook so I wouldn't forget what he said.

Next, I gave my speech! Five kids gave speeches, but mine was the longest. I got a little nervous about making a speech in front of kids and grown-ups and a famous guy. But I gave my speech in a loud voice anyway because I would NOT have been cool if I had gotten scared and run away or something. I did not look at Tiffany for my whole speech because I knew she was not going to like it.

My speech was about how I am very lucky to have three best friends. I said I have a best friend in my class named Linny, a best friend in my building named Eric, and a best friend in my family named Brian. Then after I talked about my three best friends, I told a fable that I made up. It was about Bippo and Pecky, but I also made up this other hippo at the zoo named Skippo. I named him Skippo because I know Bob Morgan really likes hippo names that rhyme, and I wanted him to like my fable. So anyway, Skippo is mean to the other hippos and Bippo tries to teach him to be nice. After I said the moral of my fable, I said THE END. People started clapping, so I bowed. Then Ms. Campbell told me good job and I could take my seat now.

After all the speeches we had a little party with fruit punch and cake. Addy's mom made the cake, and Addy used icing to make Bippo and Pecky on the cake. Then at the bottom she wrote THANK YOU, BOB MORGAN, but she ran out of space, so the THANK YOU part was extra big, BOB was a little smaller, and MORGAN was all jammed up so you couldn't really read it. But I told Addy it looked really good because I know it is hard writing on cakes.

I was having a really fun time at the party because lots of people were telling me they thought my speech was very, very good. And Linny gave me a hug and said I was nice. She said she liked the part of my speech where I said that even though Linny and I have disagreements sometimes, it's okay because we are still very good friends.

I was standing beside Linny and eating my cake when Tiffany came over to me. She looked mad. She said, “I'm going to tell Linny what you wrote about her in your journal.”

“What are you talking about?” Linny asked Tiffany.

“Keena wrote something mean about you in her journal,” Tiffany said.

I felt very brave after I gave my speech and Linny said that yes, even though we had disagreements, we were still friends. “I don't care what you say,” I told Tiffany. “It's a free country. You can say everything you read in my journal. I don't even care.”

“You READ Keena's journal?” Linny sounded very shocked.