Mom and I went straight to the library. A bunch of kids from my class were already there in the big front room. Mostly the boys. They were all wearing pajamas, and unrolling their sleeping bags on the floor.
The librarian, Mr. Ramos, was at his desk. He was wearing blue-and-green plaid pajamas—a button-down top and pants. I’d never seen a teacher (or a librarian) in pajamas before!
“Hey there, Batts ladies,” Mrs. Anderson said, walking toward us. She’s my friend Lucy’s mom. She was also in pajamas. Hers were purple fleece. My mom was wearing regular clothes—brown corduroy pants and a blue shirt.
“Were parents supposed to wear pajamas to drop us off?” I asked.
“Only the parent chaperones,” Mrs. Anderson said. “That’s me and Asher’s dad.” She pointed across the room. I saw Mr. Haskell—Asher’s dad—in the computer area.
“I didn’t know parents could stay over too,” I said.
“Sorry, Stel,” Mom said. “I chaperoned the last field trip.”
The last field trip was to our candy store, Batts Confections.
“A field trip means a trip outside of school,” I said. “This isn’t a field trip because we’re staying in school. But that’s okay. It’s my first sleepover and it wouldn’t really count if you were here.”
“Of course,” Mom said. She gave Mrs. Anderson a wink.
“I saw that!” I told her.
Suddenly there was a crash across the room. We all turned to see Joshua standing next to a pile of board games that had fallen off a shelf and onto the floor. “It wasn’t my fault,” he said quickly.
Mom and Mrs. Anderson went over to help him, and I followed. I’ve never actually played any of the library board games before, but maybe they were for special occasions. Like sleepovers.
Joshua picked up the Monopoly money and stuffed it into the box. “Let’s try and do this neatly,” Mrs. Anderson said.
Mom bent to pick up another fallen game. “Oh, a Ouija board,” she said. “I haven’t seen one of these in years.”
The word on the box said: OUIJA. But Mom was pronouncing it like: WEE-GEE.
“Is it a good game?” I asked.
“It’s not exactly a game,” she said. “My friend Dawn and I used to play.” She scrunched up her face like she was deciding whether to tell me something.
“What?” I asked.
“Well, the point of it is to talk to ghosts,” she said.
“Ghosts?!”
“It was just a game,” she told me.
“I thought you said it wasn’t a game.”
“It’s make-believe,” she said. “Ghosts aren’t real.”
“I still don’t want to play it,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” Mrs. Anderson said. “The Ouija board is not on the schedule tonight. None of the board games are. We have a lot of other fun things planned. Why don’t you set up your stuff with your friends? The girls are all in the back half of the library. Mrs. Finkel and I will be sleeping back there with you. Mr. Haskell and Mr. Ramos will stay in front with the boys.”
“Okay,” I said.
I hugged Mom good-bye, and then I skipped to the back of the library. Well, I skipped as well as I could while also carrying all my stuff.
“Hey!” I called to my friends—Lucy, along with Arielle, and Talisa. They’d set up in the Young Readers reading corner. That meant the books that had pictures in them. Those books used to be on the shelf by Mr. Ramos’s desk, but now they had a whole corner. It was Penny’s favorite spot in the library. I felt a little bit bad that she didn’t get to be here, since I’d be sleeping in her favorite spot.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Lucy said.
Everyone had unrolled their sleeping bags onto the floor. But there was space for two more sleeping bags—one next to Lucy, and one next to Arielle.
I put my sleeping bag down. “Can you guys move over a little so Evie can sleep next to me? We’re wearing the same pajamas tonight.”
Lucy looked me up and down. “You’re not even wearing pajamas,” she said. “I saw you wear that shirt to school last week—it’s a regular shirt. And those are regular leggings.”
“Evie and I didn’t have real pajamas that matched,” I explained. “But these are comfy enough to sleep in.”
“I like them,” Arielle said, softly of course. Arielle always talks softly. And Lucy is always a bit loud. I wished she would be more quiet about my not wearing real pajamas.
Everyone squished over so there was room next to me for Evie’s sleeping bag. Then Mrs. Finkel came over to tell us we had three minutes before we had to meet the group at the big table to learn about the first activity of the night.
“What’s that?” Talisa asked.
“You’ll have to come out to the big table to find out,” Mrs. Finkel said.
In case you were wondering, Mrs. Finkel was wearing pajamas too. Sort of. She had on gray pants that looked like they could be pajamas, or they could just be regular pants. On top she had a gray sweatshirt that said COLUMBIA on it.
“What’s Columbia?” I asked.
“It’s a college,” she said.
“Is it where you went to college?” Lucy asked.
“No, my husband did,” she said.
Usually your teachers are just your teachers and you don’t get to know anything about their outside lives. But now I knew a few things about Mrs. Finkel when she wasn’t at school:
1. She has a son named Evan
2. She has a dog named Shadow
3. She has a husband who went to college at Columbia
“What’s your husband’s name?” I asked.
“Mr. Finkel,” she said. “Now there are just two minutes left, girls.”
She left us to go tell the other kids about our meeting at the big table. Lucy, Arielle, Talisa, and I walked over. There weren’t four seats left together so we sat two and two. Lucy and Arielle sat on the side of the table with Clark and Asher. Talisa and I sat on the other side of the table . . . with Joshua.
In case you haven’t read my other books or you forgot, I’ll remind you: Joshua is the biggest meanie in our class. Except sometimes he’s not a meanie. Sometimes he’s even my friend. I never know which way he’s going to be—a meanie or my friend. It’s very confusing.
The only empty seat was right next to him so I took it.
“Hello, kids,” Mr. Ramos said.
“Hello, Mr. Ramos,” we said back.
“First I want to congratulate you on being such good readers.”
Mrs. Finkel, Mrs. Anderson, and Mr. Haskell started clapping for us, so us kids clapped, too.
When the clapping stopped, Mr. Ramos went on. “Reading is its own reward,” he said. “But this sleepover is a bonus. We’ve planned a very fun night. There are just a few rules we need to go over before we get started.”
“Ugh, rules!” Joshua said. “We shouldn’t have rules on weekends!”
“One of the rules is being quiet when Mr. Ramos is talking to the group,” Mrs. Finkel said. Mrs. Finkel has a lot of rules for weekdays, in our class. She calls them Ground Rules. If you break them, you get sent to the principal’s office.
Mr. Ramos told us the rules for the sleepover, which were things like, “No bringing food back into the library,” and “Lights out at nine o’clock.”
“That means all twenty of your flashlights, too,” Mrs. Finkel added. “Flashlights are for emergencies only.”
“Any questions?” Mr. Ramos asked.
I raised my hand. “Yes, Stella?”
“Didn’t Mrs. Finkel mean twenty-two flashlights?” I asked. “There are twenty-two kids in our class, so we have twenty-two flashlights.”
“I meant twenty,” Mrs. Finkel said. “Maddie is away with her family, and Evie wasn’t able to come at the last minute.”
“But Evie is coming,” I said. “She’s just a little bit late.”
“No,” Mr. Haskell said. He glanced at Mrs. Finkel, and she gave a slight head shake. “I spoke to her mother a little while ago. She’s a bit under the weather.”
Lucy looked over at me and my non-pajama pajamas. “That’s bad luck that you’re wearing that outfit and she’s not even here,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” I whispered back.
“Any more questions?” Mr. Ramos asked.
There weren’t any, so Mrs. Finkel asked for a volunteer to hand some papers and pencils out for our first activity. Lots of kids raised their hands, but I didn’t. I was too busy wondering about Evie. Why hadn’t she called me to say she wasn’t coming?
Joshua called out, “Pick me! Mrs. Finkel, pick me!” But Mrs. Finkel never picks on kids who call out. She picked Talisa and a boy named Cooper instead.
Joshua leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Hey, Smella, want to know a secret?” he said.
“Sure,” I told him.
“Ghosts are too real,” he said. “And I can prove it.”
