Chapter 1
I'm Ida May, and there's one thing I know. Fourth grade isn't fourth at all.
Fourth
means you've done something at least three times before. But fourth grade is nothing like third grade. Or second grade. Or first grade.
In fourth grade there is no more printing. There is only cursive. I hate cursive.
In fourth grade you are not allowed to add and subtract. You are only allowed to multiply and divide.
In fourth grade you're a baby if you still want to play with Barbies. Or if the Tooth Fairy still comes to your house. Or if you want your mother to walk you to the bus stop. Third grade is the last grade you can get by with any of that. Trust me.
In fourth grade you start to smell funny. So you get your first stick of teen deodorant, even though you won't actually be a teen for at least three years. Your mom leaves it on your bed in a little brown paper bag. You rub some on. After five tries you finally hit your armpit. When your mom smells you, she smiles and starts talking about stuff like "body image" and "healthy attitude" and "girl power."
Fourth grade is when your parents worry you are spending too much time alone and insist you hang out with Jenna Drews, the daughter of your school's PTA president. Your mom is on the PTA and just assumes the president's daughter is a nice, friendly girl.
Jenna may have your mother convinced that she is the nicest girl in the whole town of Purdee, Wisconsin, but the truth is, when Jenna isn't busy saving the planet, she's busy being mean.
Just before school starts, your dad calls Jenna's mom and arranges to drop the two of you off at the movies. While you wait for Jenna to order her natural spring water to go with the organic popcorn she had to bring from home, you open your jumbo box of Choco-chunks and dig in.
Hmm...
you say to yourself.
How many Choco-chunks can a person of average intelligence cram into her mouth without creating an emergency situation? Five? Ten?
You do a little test. But just when you shove the eighth chunk into your mouth, you hear someone say, "Excuse me? What time is it?"
You look up and see a strange girl looking back at you. She's smiling at you with the kind of smile you don't see on a real person very often. The kind you see a little kid draw with a big fat crayon on a piece of white paper. The kind you have to force yourself not to smile back at.
Trust me, you don't want to get too close to big-crayon smiles. That's because people with big-crayon smiles don't stick around very long. They move away just when you've gotten used to the way their hand feels sticky when you hold it, or the way they hiccup when they talk fast, or the way they whistle by sucking in instead of blowing out, or the way they can touch their nose with the tip of their tongue.
I know because my last best friend, Elizabeth Evans, moved away. She was the only friend I needed because we liked all the same things. Messy art projects. Corny jokes. Mild cheddar cheese.
Oh sure, we promised to always be best friends and to write to each other every week, which I did even though I'm a better drawer than writer. But she never wrote back. I did get a birthday card from her, but it was really from her mother. I could tell by the cursive. And that's the last time I didn't hear from her.
"The time?" the strange girl says again.
You look at your watch, rearrange the Choco-chunks in your mouth, and say, "Fofurdy."
"Four thirty?" she repeats like you're speaking another language or something.
You nod, which apparently she is capable of understanding because she says, "Thank you!"
Just then Jenna arrives with her or
gagic
food, sees the smiling girl, shoves you out of the way, and says, "Hi!" The girl says hi back, and right away Jenna starts asking her a million questions about herself. It doesn't take Jenna long to find out that her name is Stacey Merriweather, she just moved here, she's in the fourth grade, and she's planning to see the same movie you're planning to
I'm Ida May, and there's one thing I know. Fourth grade isn't fourth at all.
Fourth
means you've done something at least three times before. But fourth grade is nothing like third grade. Or second grade. Or first grade.
In fourth grade there is no more printing. There is only cursive. I hate cursive.
In fourth grade you are not allowed to add and subtract. You are only allowed to multiply and divide.
In fourth grade you're a baby if you still want to play with Barbies. Or if the Tooth Fairy still comes to your house. Or if you want your mother to walk you to the bus stop. Third grade is the last grade you can get by with any of that. Trust me.
In fourth grade you start to smell funny. So you get your first stick of teen deodorant, even though you won't actually be a teen for at least three years. Your mom leaves it on your bed in a little brown paper bag. You rub some on. After five tries you finally hit your armpit. When your mom smells you, she smiles and starts talking about stuff like "body image" and "healthy attitude" and "girl power."
Fourth grade is when your parents worry you are spending too much time alone and insist you hang out with Jenna Drews, the daughter of your school's PTA president. Your mom is on the PTA and just assumes the president's daughter is a nice, friendly girl.
Jenna may have your mother convinced that she is the nicest girl in the whole town of Purdee, Wisconsin, but the truth is, when Jenna isn't busy saving the planet, she's busy being mean.
Just before school starts, your dad calls Jenna's mom and arranges to drop the two of you off at the movies. While you wait for Jenna to order her natural spring water to go with the organic popcorn she had to bring from home, you open your jumbo box of Choco-chunks and dig in.
Hmm...
you say to yourself.
How many Choco-chunks can a person of average intelligence cram into her mouth without creating an emergency situation? Five? Ten?
You do a little test. But just when you shove the eighth chunk into your mouth, you hear someone say, "Excuse me? What time is it?"
You look up and see a strange girl looking back at you. She's smiling at you with the kind of smile you don't see on a real person very often. The kind you see a little kid draw with a big fat crayon on a piece of white paper. The kind you have to force yourself not to smile back at.
Trust me, you don't want to get too close to big-crayon smiles. That's because people with big-crayon smiles don't stick around very long. They move away just when you've gotten used to the way their hand feels sticky when you hold it, or the way they hiccup when they talk fast, or the way they whistle by sucking in instead of blowing out, or the way they can touch their nose with the tip of their tongue.
I know because my last best friend, Elizabeth Evans, moved away. She was the only friend I needed because we liked all the same things. Messy art projects. Corny jokes. Mild cheddar cheese.
Oh sure, we promised to always be best friends and to write to each other every week, which I did even though I'm a better drawer than writer. But she never wrote back. I did get a birthday card from her, but it was really from her mother. I could tell by the cursive. And that's the last time I didn't hear from her.
"The time?" the strange girl says again.
You look at your watch, rearrange the Choco-chunks in your mouth, and say, "Fofurdy."
"Four thirty?" she repeats like you're speaking another language or something.
You nod, which apparently she is capable of understanding because she says, "Thank you!"
Just then Jenna arrives with her or
gagic
food, sees the smiling girl, shoves you out of the way, and says, "Hi!" The girl says hi back, and right away Jenna starts asking her a million questions about herself. It doesn't take Jenna long to find out that her name is Stacey Merriweather, she just moved here, she's in the fourth grade, and she's planning to see the same movie you're planning to
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