That Monday, Miss Mabel announced that we were starting our 100 Days projects, just as Jude had predicted. I was super excited and just a little worried about who would be in my group.
Miss Mabel doesn’t let us pick our own groups, because she says it causes too much drama. This is the only thing I don’t like about her … well, this and how she makes us meditate sometimes. Everything else about Miss Mabel is marvelous.
I don’t know exactly how old Miss Mabel is, because my mom said it’s rude to ask, but she looks really young, almost like a teenager. She isn’t married and doesn’t have kids. Instead, she has a roommate and two black cats named Trick and Treat. Mabel is her first name, and she lets us call her that because her last name is very long and hard to say. It starts with a y and has four i’s and three l’s and three a’s in it.
This is what makes her my BTF (Best Teacher Forever):
1. She plays music for us while we work. Miss Mabel says music is like fertilizer for your brain—it helps ideas grow. Miss Mabel has a lot of cool music on her phone. She used to play it through a little speaker on her desk, but that speaker stopped working just after the holiday break. I have no proof, but I suspect Matthew Sawyer. I always suspect Matthew Sawyer.
2. She lets us dance to doo-wop. Sometimes school gets so boring, and it’s hard to pay attention because it sounds like the teacher is just saying “So you blah blah blah blah blah, and then you blah-de-blah-de-blah, and finally, you just blaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.” When school gets this boring, we just talk or horse around. Instead of getting mad at us, Miss Mabel plays a really fast, old-timey song called “Rama Lama Ding Dong.” We stand up and dance in our spots like crazy until the song is over. After that, it’s easier to pay attention.
3. She has the best outfits. Grown-ups usually wear super-boring colors like black or brown or gray and hardly any patterns. But Miss Mabel wears bright clothes with flowers or zigzags or even animals on them. She sort of looks like a beautiful, bright piñata. It is exactly the way I want to dress when I am a grown-up.
That Monday afternoon when Miss Mabel announced the groups for the 100 Days project, she looked extra great. She was wearing green corduroy pants with red boots and a button-down shirt that had swans all over it!
“Your attention, please!” she said in a funny voice, like she was the ringmaster of a circus.
Then she told us to get our math notebooks out, so we could take notes for our 100 Days projects.
I looked in my desk, but I couldn’t find my notebook anywhere. Just as I was about to tell Miss Mabel that I didn’t have it, I heard a huge crash. Whose desk was it coming from? Take one guess.
Matthew Sawyer’s, of course.
Matthew Sawyer is like a pebble in my shoe. Every year, he is in my class, and every year, he drives me bonkers. Here’s how:
1. He grosses me out.
2. He plays dumb.
3. He copies me.
4. Other ways that are too many to even count.
The huge crash was the sound of absolutely everything sliding out of Matthew Sawyer’s desk. It was an avalanche! Out fell papers and books and broken pencils and dried-up glue sticks and dried-up markers and granola-bar wrappers and winter gloves and hats and dirty tissues. There was even a whole carton of mushrooms in the pile. Why would someone have a carton of mushrooms in their desk?
In the middle of the pile was a math notebook.
“Just what I was looking for.” He grinned. But when he picked it up, he frowned. “Ugh, kittens! This isn’t mine!”
I recognized a sticker of a tabby cat wearing an astronaut helmet.
“Hey, that’s mine!” I said. I marched over and grabbed it out of his hands.
“Stop taking my stuff!” I whispered to him, so Miss Mabel wouldn’t hear.
“Why would I want a dumb notebook covered with disgusting kittens?” He made a grimace. “You stop leaving your stuff on my desk.”
“I would rather leave my notebook in a volcano than—” I started to say, but then Miss Mabel walked over, so I piped down and went back to my desk.
Miss Mabel helped him shove all the stuff back into his desk and asked him, “Did you forget your notebook at home again?”
Matthew Sawyer rubbed his head, which is what he does when he is nervous. He has a buzz cut, so his brown hair is very short. It looks like it would feel fuzzy and soft, but I will never know because I will never, ever in a billion years touch Matthew Sawyer’s head.
“I guess I left it in my room,” he said. His face got red like he was embarrassed. “Sorry.”
He’s so forgetful that he’d lose his teeth if they weren’t stuck to his gums. Practically the whole Lost and Found belongs to him. There should be a sign on it that says: PROPERTY OF MATTHEW SAWYER.
Miss Mabel told him to just use a piece of loose-leaf paper. Then she read the list of kids in group one and two and three and four and even five. My name wasn’t called. I was beginning to think she had forgotten about me when she said, “Last but not least, in group six, we’ve got Veronica, Cora, Minnie, and—hold on, I can’t read my own handwriting here.”
As Miss Mabel squinted, trying to see what she had written, Cora and Minnie and I clapped our hands in delight.
Not only are Minnie and Cora my two closest friends, but also they are both great students. Cora is an absolute math whiz! With them in my group, I knew I’d get the trophy for sure. I was so happy, I was bouncing up and down in my seat.
Then Miss Mabel read the name of the last member of our group.
I instantly stopped bouncing. In fact, I felt like my butt had turned into a block of concrete.
I wanted to grab the sides of my face with my hands and howl, “Nooooooooooooo!”
The name she read was Matthew Sawyer.
