Keena Ford and the Secret Journal Mix-Up (6 page)

I decided to just tell Linny what I wrote before Tiffany could tell her. “I wrote that I didn't believe you stayed up all night at your sleepover,” I said. “I think I wrote it because I was very sad that my dad didn't let me go to the sleepover. I'm sorry.”

Linny moved her shoulders up and down in the same way that Tiffany does to act like she knows everything. Except when Linny did it I didn't mind, because I knew it meant that she wasn't mad at me. I felt about two million times better in one second.

Just then Tiffany's mom walked over and said she thought I was a good little speaker and that I should always remember to stand up nice and straight when giving a speech.

“Tiffany read Keena's journal!” Linny said to Mrs. Harris. “You should tell her not to read someone's private stuff.”

Mrs. Harris looked surprised that Linny said that to her. “Tiffany certainly did not,” she said. “I took that diary away from Tiffany as soon as I saw that Keena left it, because Tiffany needed to do her extra workbook pages. Tiffany is learning to do third-grade math.” Then Mrs. Harris turned to me. “I'm not sure where I put your diary, but I'll try to remember to look for it.”

“That's okay,” I said. “I got a new one.”

Mrs. Harris walked away to go talk to Ms. Campbell. I looked at Tiffany. She didn't look too happy. “You lied!” Linny said to her.

“I played Airplane Princess Twins for no reason!” I said. “Why did you lie?”

Tiffany said she didn't know, and she moved her shoulders up and down.

“It's not nice to lie,” Linny told her. Then she asked Tiffany if third-grade math was hard. Tiffany said it wasn't that hard but that she didn't like it. Then she just talked to us normally for a few minutes. She didn't say she was sorry about lying, but she didn't say anything else mean. So after Tiffany left, Linny and I decided that we will ask Tiffany to play with us at recess next week as long as we can play just regular games and not the princess kind.

 

 

 

I am at Dad's. I decided to just go ahead and finish writing in this plain old notebook since I'm almost done with it. This morning when Dad came to pick up Brian and me, Mom showed Dad Brian's chart that had three stickers on it already. Dad said, “Wow, what a beautiful chart! Did you buy that from a professional chart maker? It must have been very expensive.” And I told Dad that I was the one who made the chart! Brian only has to get two more stickers. I think he can do it, but if not, I will make him another chart for the next week.

Before we left with Dad, Mom made everyone watch the video of my speech. Mom, Brian, and I sat on the couch, and Dad sat in this old rocking chair from Grandma Haypo's. When I started talking about Brian, all of a sudden you could hear this sniffing sound on the video. But you could still hear me talking because I talked loud. Then when the video was over, Brian said my speech was pretty good! Dad said he thought I was fantastic. Everyone asked me questions about the part of my speech that was about Eric. Mom said the sniffing sound was from her crying because she was proud of Brian and me for being nice people even if Brian was trying to make her crazy with all his clowning. Then Brian said Mom's crying sounded like a horse breathing. And Mom said Brian better watch out.

FRIENDSHIP

A Speech by Keena Ford
Dedicated to Bob Morgan

 

Hello, my name is Keena Ford. I am going to give you a speech that has two parts. The first part is about my three best friends. The second part is going to be a fable.

I have three best friends. One of my best friends is named Eric. Eric lives in my building, and he goes to this school. Except he is in the boy class. Eric and I have been best friends since we were four years old. Eric and I do a lot of projects. One of our projects was making a Homework Hut out of a big refrigerator box. When I have a problem, Eric tries to help me fix it. He helped me a few weeks ago when I cut off my hair by accident. We tried to make a yarn braid to go where my real braid used to go. And this week he helped me with another problem. The way we fixed the problem might have been against the law, so I won't say what it was, but I will just say thank you, Eric.

My next best friend is Linny. Linny is in my class. I like Linny because we play fun games together. I also like her because now that we're in second grade she doesn't get mad about little stuff anymore. If someone tries to make her mad, she just says, “So what?” and “Whatever,” and stuff like that. I like Linny because we can have disagreements but then we can still be friends.

My other best friend is my big brother, Brian. He is the best big brother in the whole world. He lets me come in his room when he's not busy, and he talks to me about my problems. Sometimes he says mean stuff to tease me, but when I feel sad he tries to make me feel better. I am so happy that I have a big brother, and I am happy he is not moving to Maryland. He has a beanbag chair.

Now it's time for the fable. This fable is called SKIPPO IS NOT NICE TO BIPPO AND PECKY.

Once upon a time two best friends named Bippo and Pecky were at the zoo. They are the same Bippo and Pecky from Bob Morgan's book, so I hope it's okay that I used them for my fable. Anyway, Bippo was mad because this mean hippo named Skippo knew a secret about Bippo. And Skippo said he would tell Bippo's secret to EVERYBODY if Bippo didn't do everything Skippo said. Skippo wanted Bippo to play with him all the time instead of playing with Pecky. Then Pecky got sad. So Bippo told Skippo, “You are not the boss of me.” Skippo started to tell Bippo's secret, but Bippo sat on him so that no one could hear what Skippo had to say. And you didn't know this at the beginning, but Bippo was a lot bigger than Skippo and that's why he could sit on him.

The moral of the fable is that if you want to be someone's friend you should just be nice.

Now you learned a lesson and you learned about my three best friends. I love you, Bob.

 

THE END