The next day, we stood by Lucy’s desk during snack time, talking about new names. Other kids wanted to change their names, too. Maddie said she would be Candace, since Candy was a good nickname for Candace. And Asher said he would be Mike, like Mike and Ike candies. Even Joshua wanted to change his name. He said he wanted to be Richard.
“You can’t change your name to Richard because it’s not a candy,” Lucy told him.
“So what?” he said. “Sherry isn’t a candy either.”
“It could be short for Sherbet,” I said, even though that wasn’t my name. I just didn’t want Joshua to get the name he wanted, because he was always so mean to us—except that he hadn’t called me Smella since I’d changed my name.
“That’s right,” Lucy said. “And sherbet is practically a candy.”
“I don’t care,” Joshua said. “From now on, I’m Richard.”
“He probably only wants to be Richard because it has the word ‘rich’ in it,” Lucy told the rest of us.
Clark was sitting at his desk, two seats down, on the other side of Willa. “Can I change my name too?” he asked.
“Sure you can,” Willa said.
“But your name is already a candy,” Lucy pointed out. “You know, like a Clark Bar.”
“Actually I really like the name Zach,” Clark said.
“I know that name!” Talisa said. “My mom’s friend just had a baby named Zach. They live in Florida.”
“Sherry and I are going to Florida to swim with dolphins,” Willa said.
Once on this show we love, Superstar Sam, the main girl named Sam and her friends went to a place in Florida called The Dolphin Sanctuary. They got into the water with the dolphins and held onto their fins. Then the dolphins started swimming fast and pulled the kids along.
Willa and I decided one day we would go there, too. It wasn’t right for her to talk about going without me. She knows how much I love dolphins. It was strange, because she’s not a meanie.
“But I thought I was going to go to Florida with you,” I said.
“You ARE coming with me. YOU’RE Sherry,” Willa reminded me.
“How could you forget your new name when it was your idea?” Talisa asked.
“I thought it was Truffle’s idea,” Clark said.
“Nope, it was Sherry’s,” Willa said.
“But I made the announcement,” Lucy reminded everyone.
Then Mrs. Finkel clapped her hands, so we had to go back to our desks.
It was raining outside that day, which meant that after lunch we had indoor recess. Indoor recess is when we stay in the lunchroom and play games. There are all sorts of board games, or you can play tag or Red Rover or Red Light Green Light. Usually I don’t mind it, but I hate when Mr. Moyers is in charge. He walks up and down the room and yells if anyone gets too loud, even though it’s recess and we’re supposed to be loud.
Willa, Lucy, and I decided to have a Spit tournament. I don’t mean spit like saliva. I mean Spit the card game. It works best when there are two players, because you each get half the cards. Once we tried to play with two decks of cards and four people, but it was too hard to keep track of everything. So Willa and Lucy would play first. Then I would play whoever won. The final winner would get to be champion of the tournament.
Willa counted out the cards for her and Lucy. I pulled out my notebook. As long as I was waiting for my turn, I could work on my book.
“What’s that?” Lucy asked.
“It’s my autobiography,” I told her.
“Your what?”
“My book I’m writing that’s about me.”
I flipped it open and Lucy leaned over my shoulder. “Hey, you wrote Lucy,” she said.
“I was writing a part that you were in,” I said. “Don’t worry, I didn’t write anything bad.”
“But my name is Truffle!” she said.
“I know that,” I said. “It’s just easier when I’m writing to use people’s old names.”
“That’s not allowed,” she said. She pulled my notebook from my hands. “Give me an eraser. I’m going to correct all the parts where you wrote the wrong names.”
“No, you can’t!” I said. “It’s my book!”
“But you put my name in it,” Lucy said.
“It’s still mine! I’m allowed to write what I want!”
Just then Mr. Moyers walked up the aisle. He stopped at our table and stared down at me, his arms folded across his chest. His eyes are sort of too small for his face, like the size of Goobers. “What’s the problem here, Miss Batts?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Nothing?” he repeated. “Is that why I could hear you screaming from across the room?”
“I wasn’t screaming,” I said. And it was true—I hadn’t been screaming at all. I had just raised my voice the littlest eensy weensy bit, and only because Lucy took my notebook.
Mr. Moyers pulled the notebook from Lucy’s hands. “Whose book is this?” he asked.
I was afraid to say it was mine, but Lucy is never afraid. She said, “I was just borrowing it. It’s hers,” and she pointed to me.
Mr. Moyers flipped open the front cover. Right then I wanted to scream for real. I wanted to say, “That’s MY BOOK! Give it back RIGHT NOW!” What if he kept it forever and never gave it back? I had been working so hard on it. It wasn’t fair. I thought about clicking my heels together to make a wish, but I was afraid he’d see me and get even madder. I looked at my book in his hands. A couple of the pages were crumpled from when Lucy pulled it away. I wanted to hold my book and smooth the pages out, even though you can’t unbend paper.
“I’m going to hold onto this until the end of recess,” Mr. Moyers said, glaring at me with his mean little goober eyes. “Miss Batts, if you and your friends manage to keep your voices down for the rest of the period, then you can have it back.”
He walked away to go yell at some other kids. Lucy didn’t even say she was sorry. “Let’s just play Spit,” Willa said. “Sherry plays the winner.”
“She shouldn’t get to be Sherry if she keeps writing our old names,” Lucy said. “Besides, she picked a name that’s not a candy, and no one even knows how to say it.”
“She’ll practice the new names, right Sherry?” Willa asked.
“I can’t practice without my notebook,” I said.
“You’ll get it back at the end of recess,” Willa said. “We’ll be extra quiet to make sure, right Truffle?”
“Okay,” Lucy said. “But I’m not going to call you Sherry until you stop writing Lucy, because that’s not my name anymore.”
I nodded. I just wanted my notebook back, even though I wasn’t in the mood to write anymore.