It was Monday morning, and Smashie McPerter and her best friend, Dontel Marquise, stood with the rest of their third-grade class at the back of Room 11, jigging excitedly up and down. All last week, their teacher, Ms. Early, had been hinting that a surprise announcement was forthcoming on Monday. And now it was Monday, and not only were the members of Room 11 present, but the front of the room was crowded with Room 12 as well — the other third-grade class — still bulky with their not-yet-put-away backpacks. Their very presence suggested that something big was afoot. And from the way Room 12’s eyes were bright as they whispered amongst themselves, Smashie could tell that they were as excited about the announcement as she and Dontel and the rest of Room 11 were.

Smashie and Dontel had been best friends practically all their lives. They lived across the street from each other and had so much in common they were more like cousins than just regular best friends. Both loved mathematics and desserts involving plenty of whipped cream but no fruit. They had been the co-champions of both the lower-school spelling bee and the Mathathon last year, titles they hoped to achieve again this year. And they both loved thinking. In fact, their thinking had recently led them to solve a terrible mystery that had plagued Room 11. Patches, the class hamster, had gone missing, and it was only through Smashie and Dontel’s intense investigation that he had been recovered and was, even now, wheeling determinedly about in his cage in the back of the room.

“Class!”

The heads of Room 11 whipped round at the call of their teacher.

Ms. Early stood at the front of the room, a sheaf of papers in her hand. “Please finish tidying your things in your cubbies and come to the meeting area.”

“Here we go,” said Dontel. He glanced at Smashie’s hair as she stuffed her hoodie into her cubby.

“I know,” said Smashie. “My hair is very sticky-outy today. I combed it and combed it, but it won’t calm down.”

“Never mind,” said Dontel. “The kids are used to your hair being sticky-outy.”

“Hey,” said Smashie.

“It looks very nice,” said Dontel hastily.

“Well, the special announcement will be more important than my hair, I hope,” said Smashie. “It must be something super if it involves us and Room 12 together.”

“Maybe we’re going to finally get to build a rocket!” Dontel wanted to be an astrophysicist when he grew up, and he and Smashie never lost hope that Room 11 would do an astronomy unit in science and a working rocket would be its glorious culmination. “We could take it out on the athletic fields and let her rip!”

“That would be great!” said Smashie. “Or maybe we are going to start a cookie factory, using recipes of our own invention!”

“Now, that,” said Dontel, “would be some kind of good project.” The two friends grinned at each other as they headed over to the meeting area.

Smashie and Dontel both loved projects. Dontel liked plans and ideas that took good, deep thinking, and Smashie liked ones with a lot of flair and complications. Their two ways of thinking about things was what made them such a good team.

“We could invent the recipes, and Miss Dismont’s class could do the baking,” Dontel suggested.

“That wouldn’t be fair,” said Smashie. “We’d never get a chance to use a mixer.” Dontel stayed tactfully silent. Smashie’s difficulty with scissors and any kind of machinery with sharp parts was legendary. But she refused to let anybody help her and, consequently, tended to have a lot of Band-Aids on her person. Even now, she had one covered in sparkling stars on her forefinger.

“It also wouldn’t be fair not to let Room 12 invent cookies, too,” Dontel pointed out. “If you think about it.”

“Grark,” said Smashie as they arrived at their spots on the meeting rug. But she had to admit that Dontel was right. And besides, it was pretty unlikely that a cookie factory was what the teachers had in mind.

“Make room for Miss Dismont’s class,” Ms. Early directed as the members of Room 11 started taking their places in their customary circle in the meeting area. “We might have to sit in a double circle today.”

“I wonder what the surprise is!” Jacinda Morales said to Joyce Costa as the children sorted themselves out.

“Maybe we’re getting a joint class pet to learn about together,” said Willette Williams, eyes hopeful. Willette particularly loved Patches, and she was always hoping yet another animal would come to live in Room 11.

“It’d be tricky to share a pet with another class,” John Singletary pointed out.

“Not if it’s a boa constrictor,” said Billy Kamarski. Billy was known for his pranks and over-the-top suggestions. “One of those would be long enough to stretch into both rooms at once!”

“Oooh . . .” breathed Smashie hopefully, but Dontel shuddered. Smashie looked at him in surprise.

“Snakes are slimy,” he whispered, tortured.

“No,” said Smashie. “That is a myth! Snakes are cool and dry!”

But a joint pet was not the surprise project at all.

“Room 11 and Room 12,” said Ms. Early, “Miss Dismont and I know that you are children with a lot of loves and talents. Alonso’s singing, for example, and the way Siggie alphabetizes things so quickly. So we came up with an idea.”

“A musicale,” said Miss Dismont. “A third-grade musicale!”

The children were puzzled.

“What’s a musicale?” asked Jacinda.

“Is it us singing?” Smashie asked hopefully. For she loved to sing, and although Smashie did not have the prettiest voice in the class, she certainly had the loudest. By far.

“Partly,” said Ms. Early, glancing at Smashie.

“A musicale,” Miss Dismont explained, “is a small, private showcase of talents. Long ago, people had parties at which their guests would take turns performing. In our case, we will invite your families to the school next Wednesday evening, and you will be the ones entertaining them!”

“Yay!” cried Smashie. But a silence filled the rest of the room.

John was the first to break it. “Entertaining them?” he asked skeptically. “Entertaining them how?”

“Well, historically, guests sang, or danced, or spoke pieces for the entertainment of the other guests,” said Ms. Early.

“How do you ‘speak a piece’?” asked one of the children from Room 12.

“Talk only in fractions, maybe?” wondered another. His name was Carlos, and his eyes brimmed with fun. “One-fourth! One-third! One-half!”

The children laughed. Charlene tilted her head to one side, her eyes on Carlos’s curly hair. Jacinda Morales glanced at her and gave a half-grin.

Miss Dismont laughed, too, her own loaf of red hair quivering. Her love for mathematics, including fractions, was well known, and even now she wore her special math brooch — a jeweled kangaroo with silver numbers tumbling out of its pouch like a litter of numerical joeys.

“Speaking pieces is more like reciting a poem, or perhaps a passage from a book you love,” she explained.

“So singing, dancing, or speaking is what you want us to do?” asked Siggie.

“Yes, indeed,” said Ms. Early.

“Oooh!” cried Smashie. But the other children fell silent again.

“What’s the matter?” asked Ms. Early, exchanging a puzzled look with Miss Dismont. “I have to admit, we both thought you’d be very excited.”

“Yes,” said Miss Dismont. “We thought you would enjoy this opportunity to share what you love doing with your families and friends.”

But the students only shifted nervously in their spots in the meeting area.

“Will we have refreshments?” asked Cyrus finally.

“Of course!”

“At least there’s that, you all,” Cyrus said.

“Cyrus!” said Ms. Early. “I thought you would particularly love this idea.”

“I like the part about the refreshments,” Cyrus said. “But I don’t like the part about doing things in front of people.”

“Me, neither,” said John immediately.

“Count me out,” said Joyce.

“Me too,” said Alonso.

Around the circle, there was vigorous nodding.

“I can’t stand performing in public,” said John. “Makes me all full of bad feelings.”

“Really, John?” said Ms. Early. “But I know you have a talent. And we want to show off all our third-grade students.”

“You mean all of us have to perform?”

“That’s what we mean,” Miss Dismont confirmed.

John moaned. His moan was joined by many others.

Smashie glanced from the moaning students to the teachers. Both Miss Dismont and Ms. Early looked almost sad with disappointment. It was too much for Smashie to bear. Besides, she was gulping with hope. She was never selected to sing in class performances, and here was her chance to volunteer and help her beloved teacher as well.

“I love doing things in front of people,” she said stoutly. “I’ll sing, Ms. Early and Miss Dismont! I have a lot of good ideas about what song I could do.” Something heartfelt, thought Smashie. With a lot of parts that are good and loud.

“Well, Smashie —” Ms. Early paused.

But Smashie had already begun. “‘SMACKED IN THE HEART AND IT’S A SHAME — ’CAUSE YOU WON’T TELL ME YOUR NAME’!” Smashie belted out one of her mother’s favorite heavy metal songs.

The children reared back. So did their teachers. The pencils quivered in their containers on the tables.

Smashie stopped, puzzled.

John Singletary took his hands away from his ears. “Are you done?” he asked.

“No,” said Smashie. “There’s a lot more to that song.” And she opened her mouth once more.

“What about speaking a piece, Smashie?” suggested Ms. Early before Smashie could begin again. “You love to read, and you do it with so much expression. I think you’d have the audience eating out of your hand!”

“What a fine idea!” said Miss Dismont warmly.

“But . . . I was really thinking about singing,” said Smashie.

Ms. Early exchanged glances with Miss Dismont. “You certainly do sing loudly,” she said.

“With gusto,” agreed Miss Dismont, exchanging another glance with Ms. Early, this one slightly more desperate.

“Maybe Smashie should sway in the background while other kids sing,” said Billy.

“Billy,” said Ms. Early sternly.

Smashie’s heart fell. Ms. Early had chastised Billy but had not disagreed with him. And Miss Dismont was already addressing the other children.

“Let’s hear from some of the rest of you,” she said. “Does anyone else have something they want to do?”

“Music is my favorite,” said Alonso shyly. “I guess I could sing for the musicale, but only if someone else sings with me, so I don’t feel dumb doing it alone.”

“I’ll sing with you,” offered a Room 12 child. Her name was Lilia. “My aunt taught me a song that’s real pretty with two people. It’s called ‘Endless Amour.’”

“I know that one!” said Alonso.

“Super!” said Lilia. “We can do a duet.”

“That sounds like a fine idea,” said Ms. Early.

Tears pricked at the back of Smashie’s eyes. The two teachers were so quick to accept Alonso’s idea. Did they really think, as Billy did, that it would be better if Smashie just swayed in the background? Certainly Smashie knew she drowned out many of the other children when they sang as a group, but this would be a solo. They wouldn’t even have to give her a microphone. Why, she could be heard at the back of the room even if she didn’t have one. And practically no one else was volunteering to perform! She’d have thought Ms. Early would encourage her to sing in this instance.

Dontel glanced at her. Smashie knew that he knew how she felt. But before he could say anything, Tatiana broke the silence that had fallen again in Room 11.

“Count me in,” she said. “I love to roller-skate, and I know a great song to go with it.”

“Wonderful!” said Ms. Early, relieved.

Smashie sat sadly beside Dontel, trying to smooth her unruly hair.

“That’s some hair,” said John, glancing at her. “But it matches your singing voice.”

“Now, John,” said Ms. Early warningly.

“I meant it as a compliment,” said John hastily. “Smashie is loud, and today her hair looks loud, too.”

“You hush,” said Smashie, on the verge of tears. This morning was going very badly. “I tried to comb it, but it kept coming out sticky-outy.” And my teacher doesn’t like my singing, she thought, but she didn’t say that part out loud.

“Let’s get back to our musicale,” said Miss Dismont.

Smashie bowed her head and blinked. But the discussion went no further. For Charlene Stott had burst into tears for real.