CHAPTER 17

“Now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” said Miss Greer. “Let the voting begin!”

Sofia wheeled the voting booth to the front of the room.

One by one, Sofia’s classmates went into the booth, closed the curtain around it for privacy, and voted. As they came out, Sofia gave each student a special I VOTED sticker from Clerk Clark at City Hall.

When the voting was done, the vote counting began. Sofia opened the box and took out a ballot.

“Bird!” she said.

Miss Greer made a mark on the board in the Bird column.

Team Bird cheered.

“Turtle!” said Sofia, reading the next ballot.

Team Turtle cheered.

Sofia tallied the votes. At first, the Bird team led three votes to one. But soon, Turtle caught up. Then it took the lead.

Turtle—5

Bird—4

The voting continued. Once again, Bird took the lead, but not for long. Turtle caught up again.

Turtle reached eight votes. Bird had six.

“One more to win!” said Ada. “Go Turtle!”

“C’mon, Bird!” said Rosie.

Sofia pulled out the next vote.

“Bird!” she said. “Eight Turtle to seven Bird!”

She unfolded the next vote.

“BIRD!” she said again. “It’s a tie! And the final vote will be the winner!”

The class stood up and eagerly watched as Sofia reached into the box for the final vote.

“The winner of the election,” she said, “and our new class pet is . . .”

The class leaned closer.

Sofia felt around inside the box.

“Is . . .”

She opened the lid of the box and looked inside.

“Is . . .”

“Is?” asked Miss Greer.

A terrible look crossed Sofia’s face.

“Is nobody!” she said.

She flipped the box upside down. Nothing fell out.

One vote was missing!

“It’s been stolen!” someone yelled.

The class erupted into chaos.

“Thief! . . . It’s unconstitutional! . . . Call the police! . . . Call Congress! . . . Call the president! . . . Call the free press!”

The confusion startled Gizmo. She flapped frantically around the room and landed on Miss Greer’s hair.

“Good gracious!” said Miss Greer, trying to shoo Gizmo away. “Double dear me!” She twirled around and bumped into the turtle cage.

Gizmo flew to the tiptop of the window frame and chirped loudly while seventeen cheering students and a flustered teacher tried to coax her down. Nobody noticed George make his escape down the hall.

It took the whole school the rest of the afternoon to find the turtle, who had fled all the way to the music room and hidden in the big bass drum.

Sofia left school angry and disappointed. She had worked hard to make sure the election went as smooth as silk, but instead it was bumpy as the bumpiest thing in the world. Sofia was so mad she couldn’t even figure out what that was.

Abuelo watched Sofia as they walked home together. He could tell she didn’t want to talk. He knew all of Sofia’s expressions. This look told him she was thinking. They walked together silently. At last, they passed the library. They were almost home.

“I know just the thing for you,” Abuelo said.

“What?” asked Sofia.

“You’ll see.”