Judy Moody Goes to College - Megan Mcdonald [5]
“Do you have a salad bar?” Judy asked.
“Salad bar is for teachers only.”
“At college, anybody can eat at the salad bar. Even kids. What kind of cafeteria is this? They should call it cafeterrible.”
“Hey, College,” yelled a fifth-grader at the back of the line. “Move it along. Some of us want to eat lunch today.”
Judy took her not-wet, no-whip, heart-less chocolate milk and went to sit with her peeps.
“Shh, here she comes.”
“What’s she going to brag about now?”
“Yeah, she thinks she’s so college.”
Soon she, Judy Moody, was eating alone at the lunch table. Fact of Life: Rocky minus Frank minus Jessica Finch minus Amy Namey equaled a big fat zero. Not a peep.
Judy stared at her lunch tray. Her peanut butter and jelly sandwich looked so . . . kindergarten.
At recess, nobody wanted to play Judy’s game — finding polygons hidden on the playground. Judy found a triangle in a tree branch, an octagon where the fence was ripped, and six rectangles on the ladder going up to the slide.
All by herself.
For the first time ever, Judy could not wait for math class. She, Judy Moody, owned the times tables. Look out. Here comes the Multiplication Maniac. The Polygon Princess. The Graph Guru. The Fraction Freak. Just wait till they see me score candy for all the right answers.
At last it was time. Mrs. Grossman started writing on the board. Judy sat up straight. She pricked up her best-ever listening ears, the ones she usually saved for Mr. Todd. She squinted at the board.
Words? Why was Mrs. Grossman writing so many words? What did words have to do with math? Hello? Where were all the numbers?
And the fractions and the plus signs and the equal signs?
Judy raised her hand. “Excuse me,” she said. “I thought this was math class. What’s with all the sentences?”
“We’re starting something new today,” said Mrs. Grossman. “Multistep word problems. You have to read the problem first, then do the math one step at a time. That’s why we call them word problems,” said Mrs. Grossman.
Judy had a word problem, all right. A problem with words that were pretending to be math.
Mrs. Grossman pointed to the board. “Jill had twenty-four valentines. She gave one-half of her valentines to her friends at school —”
Judy raised her hand again. “Who’s Jill?”
“Jill isn’t a real person. She’s just somebody in a word problem.”
“So her name could be Chloe,” said Judy. “And her school could be a college.”
Mrs. Grossman shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “Judy, please let me finish. Then Jill gave the other half of her valentines to friends who live in her building, except for —”
Judy raised her hand again. “Building? Like maybe a dorm?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s just an example.”
“Will we get to draw a graph for this word problem? With hearts for valentines?” asked Judy. “Because in college we get to draw graphs.”
“Judy, I’m going to have to ask you again to stop interrupting.”
“I was just saying . . .” said Judy.
Mrs. Grossman let out a big breath, but her face looked all pinched up. “Jill had enough valentines left over to give to her mom, her dad, and her little sister.”
“Jill sounds like a pill,” said Judy.
“Judy, that’s it,” said Mrs. Grossman. She pointed to the tent in the back of the room.
“You mean I have to go in that tent?”
“That’s why we call it the Attitude Tent,” said Mrs. Grossman.
“But I’m not really in a camping attitude,” said Judy.
“Go sit in the tent. Don’t come out until you can show me an attitude adjustment. And not another word about college, Judy.”
Eesh! Mrs. Grossman was the reason she went to college in the first place. She wished Mrs. Grossman would go back to where she came from in the first place. New England. Probably Math-a-chu-setts.
Judy hung her head and slunk to the back of the room. She crawled inside the tent. It was kind of like the Toad Pee Club clubhouse inside. Minus any peeing toads, of course. Natch.
She, Judy Moody, did not even play with her Ask-a-Question Watch 5000. She thought about what she’d done, but she could not