The Judy Moody Double-Rare Collection - Megan Mcdonald [12]
RARE!
Judy wrote a note to herself:
Judy was first to arrive in Room 3T on Monday morning.
“Judy, would you pass out crayons to everybody?” asked Mr. Todd.
“What for?”
“Today we’re going to do all our writing with crayons.”
“What for?” Judy asked.
“For fun!”
“Magic Markers are better,” said Judy. Mr. Todd frowned.
“I’m just saying.”
“But don’t you just love the smell of crayons?” asked Mr. Todd.
Judy hurried up and passed out the not-Magic-Marker crayons. Then she asked Mr. Crayon Smeller if she could conduct a scientific experiment on his desk.
She set a bowl of water with twenty-six paper letters next to his pencil jar.
She could hardly wait to see which letters turned right side up. Soon she, Madame M, would know the name of Mr. Todd’s secret love! She would no longer be Madame M for Mistake. No more Phoney-Baloney.
During Science class, Judy watched the letters float upside down in the bowl of water. Mr. Todd was talking away about cumulus clouds. Judy drew puffy clouds with her Blizzard Blue crayon. She drew skinny clouds. She drew clouds shaped like hearts and crayons.
As soon as Science was over, Judy rushed up to Mr. Todd’s desk. Lots of the upside-down paper squares had turned over! But all the Magic Marker letters had gotten runny and blurry in the water. She could not read one single letter!
“Did your experiment work?” asked Mr. Todd.
“No,” said Judy. “It came out a big fat zero.”
“Try again,” said Mr. Todd. “True science takes time.”
Yes, thought Judy. But this time she would use an apple seed.
Judy ate the apple at lunch. At recess, she found Mr. Todd on the playground talking with Rocky and Frank. “Mr. Todd,” Judy asked, “will you help me with another experiment?”
“Anything for science,” said Mr. Todd.
“Put this apple seed on your forehead. Then say the alphabet.”
“Fun-ny!” said Frank.
“Are you going to?” asked Rocky.
“Somehow this doesn’t exactly sound scientific,” said Mr. Todd. He stuck the apple seed to his forehead. He started singing the alphabet song. “A B C D, E F G . . .” All the kids laughed.
“Is this a joke?” asked Mr. Todd.
“Don’t stop!” cried Judy. “You’ll wreck the experiment!”
Mr. Todd sang all the way to the letter T before the apple seed fell off.
The letter T, thought Judy. Hmm. Same as Todd.
“How’d I do?” asked Mr. Todd.
“We’ll see,” said Judy. “True science takes time.”
“Glad I could help. Now we’d better head back inside. Don’t forget, today’s the big day. Our special guest author is coming to visit 3T.”
“You mean the Crayon Lady?” asked Frank. “Today?”
“How could you forget?” asked Judy. “Mr. Todd’s had crayons on the brain for a whole week.”
Who cared about crayons anyway? Crayons were for kindergartners. She had grown-up things to think about. Important things. Like L-O-V-E, love.
Class 3T washed the blackboard and picked up scraps of paper under their chairs. They fed the fish and emptied the trash and erased pencil marks on their desks. Mr. Todd wanted the room to look extra special, extra sparkling.
“We’ve never had to clean this much for anybody,” said Frank.
“Tell me about it,” said Judy. “Who’s going to look in the trash anyway?”
“Her?” said Frank, pointing to a woman tapping on their door.
As soon as she came in, Class 3T put on their best third-grade listening ears.
“Class 3T,” said Mr. Todd, “I would like you to meet a special friend of mine, Ms. Tater. As you know, she’s an author and an artist, and she’s here today all the way from New York to tell us about the book she wrote called Crayons Aren’t for Eating.”
Everybody clapped. The Crayon Lady looked like a crayon! She wore a lemon yellow top and a skirt like a painting. She had short, curly boy-hair and a fancy scarf around her head. She even had on crayon earrings. Best of all, she had melted orange crayon wax on her boots!
Ms. Tater showed 3T her book about how crayons were made. She told the class it was non-fiction. Non-fiction meant the opposite of fiction. It meant true.
Ms. Tater was non-old (young). She was non-ugly (pretty). And she was non-boring