Who's Afraid of Fourth Grade? (5 page)

The teacher shook his head. “Sorry, Mandy. You're a robin, remember? Robins don't eat with forks. They use their beaks to dig for worms.”

“Like this!” Kadeem exclaimed. He buried his face in his bowl of mud and worms.

Soon all the kids were digging for worms.

“Yum! I found a blue-and-red one!” Andrew squealed happily. He held the gummy worm between his lips, and dangled it in front of Emma W.

Emma laughed, and began to dig through her own bowl of mud. “Here's a red-and-yellow one!”

“How about you, Katie Kazoo?” George asked her. “Aren't you going to dig for worms in the mud?”

Katie didn't answer him. Instead, she buried her face in her big, gooey mound of pudding and cookies. “Check it out, George!” she exclaimed, lifting her head from the mush. “I found half a green-and-yellow one.”

“Where's the other half ?” George asked her.

“I don't know. I'd better get back in there and look for it!” She buried her face in the mud again.

Yum!
Maybe having a weird teacher like Mr. Guthrie wasn't so bad, after all. Chocolate and gummy worms for a snack! Katie figured that not even Ms. Sweet would do that! She had a feeling being in class 4A was going to be a lot of fun. At the very least, it wasn't going to be boring.

Who was afraid of fourth grade? Not Katie!

Over the next few weeks, Mr. Guthrie taught the kids lots of fun stuff. One afternoon, he made them all stand on one foot and hide their heads under their arms—just to see how birds slept. Another day, he showed them how to do birdcalls, and the kids started a 4A birdcall chorus. Mr. Guthrie also took them on a field trip to a bird sanctuary, so they could see the animals in their natural habitat.

The kids in 4A were kind of cool too. Emma W. was really nice, and she liked dogs almost as much as Katie did! George and Kadeem kept everyone laughing with their joke-offs. And Kevin was still trying to break his tomato-eating record. He'd already eaten one hundred and thirty-five tomatoes—and it was just the beginning of the school year!

So far, fourth grade was great.

Except for Jeremy and Suzanne.

Katie understood why she didn't see Jeremy so much anymore. He was busy with soccer.

But Suzanne didn't have an excuse. Suzanne was acting like she didn't want to be Katie's friend at all. Katie talked to her mom about Suzanne. And her mom said that Suzanne had a point. It was good to try to make new friends. And she was sure that Suzanne was still her best friend. No matter what.

One day, Katie and Suzanne arrived at the playground at the same time on Friday morning.

“Hi!” Katie greeted her friend. “Aren't you glad it's Friday?”

“Nope,” Suzanne said. “Friday's not my favorite day anymore.”

“It's not?” Katie sounded surprised. “But the weekend starts right after school!”

“I know. But Wednesdays are my favorite days now. That's my modeling day.”

“I love Wednesdays too,” Katie agreed. “It's my cooking class day. Last week, we learned how to make cinnamon rolls from scratch. And we dipped strawberries in chocolate. You would have loved them.”

“In modeling class, they told us to drink eight glasses of water a day,” Suzanne said, changing the subject back to herself. “It's good for your skin. Next class, we're working on our hairstyles. The teacher is going to tell us what shape our faces are and . . .” Suzanne stopped suddenly. “Oh, there's Jessica,” she said. “I have to tell her something really important. See you later, Katie.”

Katie tried to remember what her mother had said about how it's okay to make new friends. But right now, she just felt like she wanted to cry.

Luckily, when Katie got into the classroom, Mr. Guthrie had some news that really cheered her up!

“It's time for beginning band sign-ups,” the teacher announced. “I've got the forms right here.”

Katie nearly burst out of her nest. “Oh, wow!” she exclaimed. “Can I have one right now?” Then she blushed. She was so excited, she'd forgotten to raise her hand.

But Mr. G. wasn't angry that she'd called out. In fact, he was happy to see her so excited. “That's the spirit! What instrument do you want to play?”

“The clarinet,” Katie told him.

“Oh, the licorice stick,” Mr. G. said.

“No, the clarinet.”

Mr. G. smiled. “A lot of people call the clarinet a licorice stick because it looks a bit like licorice candy.”

“I love licorice,” George interrupted. “Especially strawberry-flavored; it's delicious.”

“Then maybe you'd like to play the clarinet too,” Mr. Guthrie suggested.

George shook his head. “Not me. I want to play the tuba.” He stood up in his nest and pretended to wrap a giant tuba around his body. “Oompah, oompah,” he said in a low, deep voice.

“I want the trombone,” Kadeem added. “Whaa whaa, whaa whaa.” He imitated a trombone's sound as he pretended to play one.

“I want to play the trumpet,” Kevin piped in. “My big brother, Ian, can play Reveille on his. I want to be able to do that too.” Kevin began singing the army's wake-up song.

Mr. Guthrie covered his ears. “Let's save the music for the school band director, Mr. Starkey,” the teacher chuckled. “He's paid to listen to it! My job's just to hand out the forms.”

That afternoon, Katie raced out of school, carrying her permission slip tightly in her hand. On her way out the door, she ran into Suzanne and Jessica.

“Hi,” Katie greeted them. No matter what, she was going to be friendly toward Suzanne.

“Are you joining the band too?” Katie asked.

“Not me,” Suzanne replied. “I'm going to be too busy modeling to practice an instrument.”

“But your modeling class is after school on Wednesdays. That's just one afternoon,” Katie reminded her. “I've got cooking then, and I'm still taking band.”

“You never know what can happen. I might become a world-famous model and be traveling all the time. I couldn't be in the band then, could I?” Suzanne countered.

Katie knew better than to argue with Suzanne when she got like this. “How about you, Jessica?” she asked instead.

“Well, I was thinking about the flute, but . . .” Jessica began.

“Jess is going to be my manager and personal assistant,” Suzanne interrupted. “I'm going to need her with me all the time. There's no way she can fit band into a schedule like that.”

Just then, the girls heard three loud, shrill whistles. Katie turned around and waved to Mandy, Emma W., and Emma S.

“What was that noise?” Suzanne asked her.

“Birdcalls,” Katie told her. “Mr. G. taught them to us.” She answered her classmates with a high-pitched trill of her own.

“That's bizarre,” Suzanne told her. “In
our
class, we made bird mobiles from wire hangers and construction paper. We glued feathers to the birds.”

“Sounds like fun,” Katie admitted.

“It was,” Suzanne told her. “
Everything
we do in our class is fun. That's why we're 4B.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Katie.

Jessica laughed. “Don't you know? B stands for
better
. We're in the better class.”

“No you're not,” Katie argued. “Both classes are great.”

“Katie, come on,” Suzanne said. “You know you wish you were in our class. Just admit it.”

“I don't wish anything!” Katie exclaimed.

Just then, Emma W. walked over to the group of girls. “Hi, Jessica. Hi, Suzanne,” she said. Then she turned to Katie. “Are you still coming over today? We can practice birdcalls. Let's make up a bird song and do it for the class on Monday.”

Suzanne and Jessica started to laugh.

“What's so funny?” Emma asked them.

“Oh, don't worry about them. They're just jealous because we're having so much fun in
our
class,” Katie said finally.

“B is for better,” Jessica and Suzanne began to chant. “4B is better.”

Emma looked like she was about to cry. Katie knew how she felt. Jessica used to be Emma's best friend. Now Jessica was being really mean. Just like Suzanne was being.

“Come on, Emma,” Katie said, pulling her new pal by the hand. “We can't stand here talking to these birdbrains. We've got beautiful music to make.”

“Look at this place!” Katie exclaimed as she walked into Emma's house. She blushed. The words had left her mouth before she could stop them. But she couldn't help it. Emma's house was so different from Katie's. At Katie's house, everything was neat and orderly. The coats were always hung up in the closet, the magazines were stacked on the coffee table, and the dishes were put away.

But the Weber house was a mess! Baby socks were scattered on the floor of the front hall. There were toys everywhere. Katie had to be careful not to trip over a small truck or airplane as she followed Emma into the kitchen.

The mess came from having babies in the house. Katie remembered how clean and neat Suzanne's house had been—before her sister Heather was born. After that, there were bottles and toys all over the Lock house, too.

Suzanne!
Just the thought of her made Katie angry. She decided not to think about her anymore. Instead, she followed Emma into the kitchen.

The kitchen wasn't any neater than the front hall. The sink was stacked high with unwashed baby bottles, and there were crumbs and part of an uneaten bagel on the floor just below the two high chairs.

Katie bet Mrs. Weber never made Emma clean her room the way Katie's mother always did. Emma sure was lucky! She could be messy if she wanted to.