SIMON, ROSIE, AND I either ride bikes or walk to school together. This was a walk day. So it was the perfect time to work on our plan.

“Where were we?” Rosie asked.

“We were trying to come up with a way to get me into Principal Shelton’s office,” I said. “That’s step one. Step two is to get Shelton out of the office when I’m in there. And step three is to count the Skittles.”

“Okay, let’s tackle step one,” Rosie said. “We need to think about this logically. Why do students go to the principal’s office?”

“It’s usually when somebody gets in trouble,” I answered.

“That’s it then,” Simon said. “You just need to get into trouble.”

“I don’t know how,” I said as we passed the mailbox on the corner. “I’ve never been in trouble before. I get good grades, I don’t skip class, I always help with decorations for the school play. What should I do?”

Simon had lots of ideas.

“You could let all the class pets loose,” he said quickly. “There would be turtles and hamsters and bunnies everywhere. Or you can start a food fight. You know, throw a handful of french fries across the cafeteria and squirt some ketchup at somebody’s head.”

“Umm—” I said, trying to interrupt. But Simon was on a roll.

“Or you could go into the bathroom, unroll the toilet paper, and wrap it around the outside of the school,” he went on, walking backward in front of me and Rosie as he talked. “Or you could crumple up hundreds of pieces of paper and fill up a bunch of lockers with them. Then when people open their lockers, there’s this big cascade of paper pouring out at them. Or you could turn the sink on in Mrs. Bruton’s science room, plug the drain, and flood the school. Or you could—”

“Simon?” Rosie interrupted.

“Yeah?”

“How do you come up with your ideas?”

“I’m just really clever, I guess.”

“Okay, umm, those are all great suggestions,” I said. There was something Simon said that had sparked an idea in me. It was right at the edge of my mind—and I knew if I concentrated I could figure it out.

“Listen, you gave me an idea, I think. I’ll use the toilet paper. Not quite the way you suggested. But I’ll use it to get into trouble. So, I’ll take care of step one—getting into the principal’s office.”

“Now, we need to take care of step two,” Rosie said. She stopped on the sidewalk at the end of my driveway. “Once Molly is in, we have to get Principal Shelton out of the office.”

She twirled some of her hair around her left index finger. She does that when she’s thinking. Rosie is super smart. Simon and I knew not to interrupt her. It took her about thirty seconds to come up with a solution.

“Okay, Molly will be inside,” Rosie said, lifting her head to look at Simon and me. “Simon, it’s our job to get Principal Shelton out of her office.”

“How?” asked Simon.

But instead of answering Simon’s question, she asked him something instead. She said, “Do you have any flip-flops?”

“Why would I need flip-flops?”

Rosie pointed toward my house and said, “I’ll tell you inside.”

YOU’VE READ FOUR CHAPTERS. THAT’S 2,382 WORDS!