Judy Moody Goes to College - Megan Mcdonald [7]
“No, thanks,” said Judy.
“We have mood nail polish,” said Chloe. “It changes with your mood.”
“I’m in!” said Judy. In no time, she, Judy Moody, had red-glitter toenails that turned purple. It was more impressive than sick, more powerful than rare. It was sick-awesome. Mad-nasty!
Who knew that having a roomie made life so way-not-boring?
“Let’s food,” said Chloe. “I’ll take you to the dining hall, Judy. Then you can come to class with me.”
“Class?” Judy asked. Class sounded semi-boring, even though college class sounded like something she could brag about later.
“Painting class,” said Chloe. “It’ll be fun. I promise.”
Bethany Wigmore called after them, “Hit me up later!”
On the way to lunch, they passed a big green patch of grass in the middle of the campus called the Quad. Every inch of it was filled with tents. Judy had never seen so many attitude tents. Was everybody in college in a bad mood?
“Did all the kids in these tents get in trouble and get sent to an attitude tent?” Judy asked.
“These aren’t attitude tents,” said Chloe. “This is a peace rally. Only instead of marching, people slept out in tents on the Quad last night to make a statement saying that they’re for peace.”
“I guess you could say they rested in peace,” said Judy, grinning.
“Good one,” said Chloe. “C’mon, let’s go see my friend Paul.”
There were drummers drumming and dancers dancing and people waving signs — all for peace. Chloe’s friend Paul was one of the drummers. He let Judy make loads of noise on a bongo drum, and she got to Hula-hoop for peace and even tie-dye a shirt. On the front she drew a peace sign and wrote PEACE IS CRUCIAL.
They waited for Judy’s shirt to dry, but Chloe finally said, “This is as much fun as watching paint dry, huh? Let’s check out the yoga tent.”
The yoga tent had a very peace-full attitude. Judy learned to make shapes with her arms and legs. She got to pretend to be a cat, a mountain, a chair, and a not-math triangle.
“Who knew peace could be so much fun?” said Judy, wriggling into her PEACE IS CRUCIAL shirt over her I ATE A SHARK shirt.
Next stop: cafeteria. Judy ate one pancake with three colors of syrup, a salad from the NOT-teachers-only salad bar, and half of Chloe’s burger, which was made of vegetables (minus eggplant). No lie!
She did not have to wait in line, she did not have to get bossed by bossy fifth-graders, and she did not have to eat boring old PBJ sandwiches that were so kindergarten, like at the cafeterrible. Who knew that veggies (smushed up on a bun with ketchup) could taste so rad?
“Oops, we better not be late for class,” said Chloe. They raced across campus to the art building. Judy followed Chloe down a long hall lined with colorful lockers. They passed a pottery class where people were spinning clay on wheels, a sculpture class where students were making buildings out of bubble wrap, and a . . . naked lady class!
Judy squeezed her eyes shut. “Please tell me we are NOT going to Naked Lady Class.”
Chloe almost spit out her coffee. “It’s Life Drawing. To be an artist, you have to learn to draw real life.”
“When I draw Real Life, it is NOT going to be bare-naked,” said Judy.
In painting class, Judy got to sit next to Chloe in a dark room and watch a slide show of paintings. There were paintings of bones and giant sunflowers and swirly-twirly night skies. Even soup cans. There were paintings of cut-paper leaves and moons and paintings that looked like spilled cans of paint, even though the teacher (that everybody had to call professor) said it was a masterpiece. There were black-and-white paintings of birds that hurt your eyes if you stared at them too much.
“These paintings are psycho!” Judy said, cracking herself up. Chloe put her finger to her lips.
“In third grade, you’re not allowed to talk when the teacher is talking either,” Judy whispered. “Same-same!”
The teacher, Mr. Professor-Who-Likes-Psycho-Paintings, was yakking on forever about shadows in every picture. Shadows this and shadows that. Shadows here