Big Whopper (3 page)

“Arigato,”
Sumiko said. “That means ‘thank you.’”

Destiny gave a plain vanilla pudding to Gina.

That was only fair, too. Gina had a pearl necklace. Besides, she didn’t deserve chocolate. She was going around breaking glasses with her wiggly voice.

Mr. Randolph, the principal, came along.

Destiny gave him the biggest pudding on the tray.

She reached for a chocolate one for herself.

And that was fair, too. She had helped the lunch lady. Destiny licked her spoon, back and front.

Then she headed for the art room.

Right now, Ms. Katz was in charge of art. That was because Mrs. Farelli wanted to go home after the bell rang this week. “Enough school is enough,” Mrs. Farelli had said.

Great! Ms. Katz was one of Destiny’s best friends. That was if you counted grown-ups.

Destiny knew a lot about Ms. Katz. Her first name was Vivian.

But something else. Ms. Katz wasn’t glamorous.

She didn’t polish her nails.

And her hair! Plain brown.

Sometimes she wore glasses. They were plain, too. Poor Ms. Katz.

She should give orange or purple hair a try.

Habib walked in front of Destiny. He was juggling with one apple again. An almost-rotten apple.

“Great purple hair,” he told her.

He didn’t wait for her to say thanks. His apple had just thumped away.

He ran to catch up with it.

Apple mush was all over the stairs. All that was left of the apple was the core.

Destiny jumped over the mess.

She stopped at the art room.

Terrible Thomas was curled up in front of the door. He was fat. And sleepy.

“Excuse me,” Destiny told him. “How did you get in here again?”

She leaned over him and opened the door.

The room was filled.

Every seat was taken.

“No room.” Gina waved her necklace around. “Try something else today.”

That Gina!

Humpf!

CHAPTER 4
STILL TUESDAY

D
estiny bit her lip. She loved art.

You could work with paper—all different colors, even purple. Just like her hair stripe.

There were paper clips and doilies.

Scissors and crayons.

Pipe cleaners and—

Just everything in the world for art.

Sumiko slid over in her seat. “We can share.”

“You saved my life,” Destiny said.

“Lovely,” Ms. Katz told Sumiko.

Lovely
was Ms. Katz’s favorite word.

Gina looked up. “I was going to give Destiny my seat,” she said.

Ms. Katz tapped her lip. “Someone could sit at my desk.”

Gina was up in a flash. “You can have my seat,” she told Destiny.

Destiny was just as fast. They raced to the front. They slid into Ms. Katz’s chair at the same time.

“Good sharing,” Ms. Katz said.

But Gina was taking up the whole seat.

Destiny held on to Ms. Katz’s desk. She tried to give Gina a tiny push.

No good. Humpf! That Gina was as strong as a coyote.

Then Destiny had an idea. “I’ll give things out to everyone.”

“Me too,” said Gina.

Gina raced to the closet ahead of Destiny. She began to slap stuff on tables.

She was making a big mess. Crayons were rolling around. Paper clips flew all over the place.

Destiny tried to be neater.

She gave Charlie brand-new markers.

She gave Angel a pack of pipe cleaners.

She put a thick piece of paper on her half of the desk.

It was purple, her favorite color.

She put pointy colored pencils on top of it.

But she didn’t sit down. She watched Habib and Mitchell. They were making clay robots.
The robot heads looked squashed.

Sumiko was drawing a cherry tree. “My mother said cherry trees are very Japanese.”

It didn’t look exactly like a cherry tree. It was more like a Christmas tree with pink ornaments.

“Lovely,” Destiny said in a Ms. Katz voice.

Ms. Katz was standing next to her desk.

Ms. Vivian Katz with her plain brown hair and no-nail-polish fingers.

Poor Ms. Katz.

Destiny tried to give her a hint. “My mother works at Cut and Curl,” she said.

Ms. Katz smiled.

“You’d look great with blue hair,” Destiny said. “To match your eyes.”

She didn’t have time to say anything else.

Gina was listening.

Destiny slid into her half-seat.

She spread out her paper. It was a little on Gina’s space.

It was a big piece of paper, after all.

What could she draw?

A flower?

Everyone drew flowers.

A picture of the Zelda A. Zigzag School?

Too hard.

Habib juggling an apple?

Habib would be thrilled.

She drew a nice long body and a skinny head.

It actually didn’t look like Habib.

It looked more like an old man.

All right. She’d make a wizard.

Did wizards have beards? Yes. She gave him a nice black beard.

Gina’s elbow was sticking out over the wizard’s foot.

Destiny didn’t bang her own elbow into Gina’s. That was not the way they did things at the Zelda A. Zigzag Afternoon Center.

She took a peek at Gina’s side of Ms. Katz’s desk. Gina had cut up bits of shiny paper. She was pasting them to a black piece of paper.

It was better than anything Destiny could ever do.

She thought about what Mrs. Farelli had said.

“That’s nice artwork,” she made herself say.

“I know.” Gina frowned. She pointed at the wizard. “What’s that?”

Destiny looked down at her picture.

It was a
humpf
drawing.

Her wizard’s feet looked like horses’ hooves. The legs looked like pipe cleaners.

He didn’t look one bit like a wizard.

What did he look like?

She had to think fast. “It’s a president.”

“It doesn’t look like any president I know,” Gina said.

Destiny’s mouth flew open. The words came out before she could stop them. “Do you remember my last name?”

Gina raised her shoulders in the air. “Destiny Washington, everyone knows that. Just like I’m Gina Maria Arlia.”

“Yes, Destiny Washington.” She said the
Washington
part loud. “That’s because my great-great-greatest-grandfather was President Washington. The Father of Our Country.”

Now Gina’s mouth flew open.

Destiny wrote on top of her paper:

Gina didn’t look. She bent over her gorgeous cutout drawing. She didn’t say another word.

Good
, Destiny thought. Then she swallowed. Telling fibs was not the way they did things at the Zelda A. Zigzag Afternoon Center.

CHAPTER 5
WEDNESDAY

Y
esterday, Tuesday, was Mrs. Washington’s day off.

She was there when Destiny got off the bus. “What’s the matter, cookie?” she asked.

Destiny couldn’t tell her.

What would Mom think of her Abraham Washington picture?

What would she think of Destiny’s fib?