CHAPTER 2

It was lunch, and I was eating the fried-egg sandwich Grandma makes for me every day even though I always tell her it’s cold and soggy by lunchtime. She reminds me she’s making do with the wartime shortages and rations, and since the hens are laying lots of eggs, we’re eating lots of eggs.

I sat there on my lonely side of the classroom dreaming of the jam sandwiches Mama used to make me, back when she was alive and the war wasn’t changing everything for everybody. I was taking another bite of that cold, soggy sandwich, minding my own business, when I spied the ugliest bug crawling across the floor. But my bug watching was interrupted when something hit me smack in the middle of my forehead. I reached up to touch it—and wouldn’t you know—it was the slimiest spit wad ever thrown at a living person.

Right then, I saw, plain as day, that boy whose name is Ricky looking at me—the boy I call Rotten Ricky (not having any friends here gives me lots of time to make up my own names for everyone). Rotten Ricky had this innocent look on his face, and he even had the nerve to smile at me!

I didn’t hold that slimy, sticky, wet spit wad for a second before I threw it right back at him.

It wasn’t my fault that Miss Meany-Beany picked that very moment to walk by—or that my perfectly aimed slimy spit wad landed smack in the middle of her forehead.

And the moment it did, time stood still. Every single student in the entire fifth grade stopped what they were doing, including breathing. I’d bet anything that dang bug even stopped crawling across that floor.

Miss Meany-Beany turned her head so slow, like she’d just figured out how to turn her head for the first time. That spit wad stayed right in the middle of her forehead like it belonged there. And as soon as her eyes focused on me, the hate shot out of them like chickens running from a fox.

I wanted to run too.

Instead, I tried to speak, except my mouth must’ve forgot how. “But . . . not . . . me . . . Rotten . . .” was all I could manage.

Miss Meany-Beany’s mouth must’ve had the same problem as mine. “You . . . what . . . why? Closet . . . now!”

She pointed her bony finger straight to the coat closet.

But I didn’t move. Even though the calendar says it’s fall, someone must’ve forgot to tell the sun that, ’cause it burned down on us like it was still those dog days of summer. I imagined that coat closet had to be over a hundred degrees.

“Now!” Miss Meany-Beany yelled, and as she did, the spit wad lost its place on her forehead and rolled down her face, in a slower-than-molasses way, and landed on her lace collar.

A look of horror flashed across her face, and I knew I’d have a better chance of convincing our cow never to moo again. So I went into the hottest, stinkiest place in the entire school.

I heard the rattle of the door closing right behind me before feeling something land in my hair that fell from the rafters.

I needed to scream right then but feared the laughs of the other kids even more than I feared whatever was crawling on me. I started flapping my head back and forth, but whatever was crawling on me hung on, probably enjoying the ride. Ripping out the braids Grandma had spent half an hour on after bath night last week, I ran my fingers all over my scalp and through my hair.

After I’d worked up a real sweat jumping around in that roasting-hot closet, that crawly thing must’ve slipped right off. I imagined I looked so frazzled that Grandma would’ve clucked her tongue at me the way she does sometimes when I’m not presentable.

I finally settled myself and noticed two old desks stacked one on top of the other. If I unstacked them and set them side by side, I could make a place to lay myself down.

So that’s just what I did.

And as soon as my head hit the softness of my arm resting on the desk, my eyes shut fast.

But that’s not even the worst part of my day. Oh no; getting hit with the spit wad, getting sent to the closet, getting dang near ate up by some mystery bug—all that was bad enough for my day—but that didn’t hold a candle to the part of my day that began when I woke up from that nap.