by Louis Sachar
Mrs. North looked lost.…
“Are you all right?” asked Kenny.
“We are going to have a visitor today,” Mrs. North said finally.
Marvin couldn’t wait to hear who it was. From the way Mrs. North was acting, he thought it must be somebody weird.
“Who is it?” asked Warren.
“Is it somebody I’ve heard of?” asked Nick.
“Oh, I hope so, Nick,” said Mrs. North. Then she took a deep breath and said, “The president will becoming here.”
The Marvin Redpost series by Louis Sachar
Marvin Redpost #1 Kidnapped at Birth?
Marvin Redpost #2 Why Pick on Me?
Marvin Redpost #3 Is He a Girl?
Marvin Redpost #4 Alone in His Teacher’s House
Marvin Redpost #5 Class President
Marvin Redpost #6 A Flying Birthday Cake?
Marvin Redpost #7 Super Fast, Out of Control!
Marvin Redpost #8 A Magic Crystal?
More books by Louis Sachar!
The Boy Who Lost His Face
Dogs Don’t Tell Jokes
Holes
Stanley Yelnats’ Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake
There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom
Text copyright © 1999 by Louis Sachar.
Illustrations copyright © 1999 by Amy Wummer.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.randomhouse.com/kids
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sachar, Louis, 1954-
Marvin Redpost: class president / by Louis Sachar.
p. cm. “A stepping stone book.”
SUMMARY: Even though they have all come to school in holey clothes, Marvin and his third-grade class manage to impress their surprise visitor—the president of the United States.
eISBN: 978-0-307-80572-0
[1. Schools—Fiction. 2. Presidents—Fiction. 3. Citizenship—Fiction.]
I. Title. PZ7.S1185Mao 1999 [Fic]—dc21 98-14313
Random House, Inc. New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks and A STEPPING STONE BOOK and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
v3.1
To Zach and Max
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
About the Author
1
There was a red post out in front of Marvin Redpost’s house. The rest of the fence was white. Marvin tapped the post for luck as he walked through the gate on his way to school.
He wore a pair of blue jeans with a hole over each knee. It was “hole day” at school.
Every day had been special this week. Monday, he had to wear socks that didn’t match. Tuesday, everyone wore T-shirts that came from a vacation. Wednesday, yesterday, had been hat day. And today, everyone had to wear clothes with holes.
His two best friends, Nick and Stuart, were waiting for him at the corner.
“Do you think Mrs. North will wear clothes with holes?” asked Stuart.
“Sure, why not?” asked Marvin.
“No way!” said Nick. “I’ll bet you a million dollars!”
Nick had also said there was “no way!” Mrs. North would wear mismatched socks. He had also said there was “no way!” she would let the kids wear hats in class.
So far, he owed Marvin two million dollars.
Nick was wearing a T-shirt that had a large hole under his right armpit. It had been torn in a fight.
“She probably doesn’t even own any clothes with holes,” Nick said. “How could a teacher get holes in her clothes?”
“Moths,” said Marvin. “She might have a wool sweater. Moths eat wool.”
“Actually, moths don’t really eat wool,” Stuart pointed out. “Everybody thinks that, but really, it’s the caterpillars that eat the wool.”
Stuart was wearing a T-shirt that also had a large hole under the right armpit. It had also been torn in a fight.
It was the same fight.
Nick and Stuart had fought each other. But now they were friends.
“You want to come over after school today?” Nick asked.
“Okay,” said Stuart.
“I can’t,” said Marvin. “My mom is taking me to the shoe store. I’m going to my cousin’s bar mitzvah on Saturday.”
When they got to school, everybody they saw had holes in their clothes. Travis wore a shirt that was more hole than it was shirt. Clarence had a hole in his sneaker and his sock, so his big toe stuck all the way through.
“You should clip your toenail,” said Marvin.
“You should clip your mouth!” said Clarence.
That didn’t really make sense, but Marvin got the point. Clarence was the toughest kid in his class.
The bell rang, and everybody lined up and went inside.
Mrs. North was waiting in the classroom. She had a large hole in her shirt, over her stomach.
Marvin stopped and stared. He could see Mrs. North’s belly button.
Nick now owed him three million dollars.
2
Casey Happleton usually sat at the desk next to Marvin. She was absent today.
Marvin was disappointed to see her desk empty. She was a funny girl, and he knew she would have liked “hole day.”
“I must say,” said Mrs. North, “you are all so well dressed today. I’ve never seen a better-looking group of third graders.”
Everybody laughed.
“How’d you get a hole in your shirt?” Kenny asked.
“I was working in my garden,” said Mrs. North. “My shirt got snagged on a thorn from a rosebush.”
Marvin nodded. He should have guessed.
“We should dress this way all the time,” said Judy Jasper. “That way, nobody would feel bad if their parents were too poor to buy them new clothes.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Mrs. North.
Marvin thought so, too.
“And the holes keep you cool on a hot day,” Stuart pointed out.
“You’re right,” said Mrs. North.
Marvin agreed. Holes made perfect sense. He wondered why nobody had thought of it before.
A child’s voice came over the P.A. system. “Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.”
Every day, a different kid got to lead the school in the pledge.
“That’s Casey!” said Judy Jasper.
Marvin recognized Casey’s voice as she recited the pledge. She sounded very serious.
He put his hand over his heart and said it along with her.
When Casey came back to class, she told Mrs. North that Mr. McCabe wanted to see her. Mr. McCabe was the principal.
“Did he say why?” Mrs. North asked.
Casey shook her head.
Casey wore a shirt that was way too big for her. Marvin guessed it was her father’s. Not only did it have holes in it, but it also had paint spilled on it.
Mrs. North told the class she would be gone for only a minute. She said she expected everyone to behave and to use their time wisely.
After she left, Nick said, “I bet you Mrs. North got in trouble for wearing torn clothes!”
“No, Mr. McCabe is also wearing tor
n clothes,” said Casey. “I saw his elbow.”
“What did it look like?” asked Judy.
“Pink and bumpy,” said Casey.
Casey had a ponytail that stuck out of the side of her head instead of the back. She sat down next to Marvin. The ponytail was on Marvin’s side. Sometimes, when Casey laughed really hard, her ponytail went around in circles.
Mrs. North was gone for a lot longer than a minute. When she returned, she had a very strange expression on her face. She looked lost. She opened her mouth, but didn’t say anything.
“Are you all right?” asked Kenny.
Mrs. North looked at Kenny, but still didn’t say anything. Finally, she spoke. She said, “We are …” then stopped.
She started again. “There will …”
That was as far as she got.
She tried again. “I expect …”
Her mouth shut tight. She tapped her desk with her fist.
At last she managed to say a complete sentence. “We are going to have a visitor today.”
Marvin couldn’t wait to hear who it was. From the way Mrs. North was acting, he thought it must be somebody weird.
“Who is it?” asked Warren.
“Is it somebody I’ve heard of?” asked Nick.
“Oh, I hope so, Nick,” said Mrs. North. Then she took a deep breath and said, “The president will be coming here.”
Everybody gasped.
Marvin was a little confused. He wasn’t sure which president Mrs. North meant. Did she mean the president of the United States? Or did she mean the president of something else, like the president of a shoe company?
Marvin’s school was in Maryland. It was less than twenty miles from Washington, D.C. His father worked in Washington, D.C. So it was possible that Mrs. North meant the president of the United States. But why would the president of the United States come to his school?
He raised his hand.
Patsy Gatsby raised her hand, too.
“Yes, Patsy,” said Mrs. North.
“The president of what?” Patsy asked.
Mrs. North stared at her as if she thought Patsy was an alien from another planet. “The president of the United States,” she said.
“Duh!” said Travis.
Patsy blushed.
“Sometimes I wonder about you, Patsy,” said Mrs. North.
“What’d you think? The president of Mexico?” asked Clarence.
Marvin turned red, too, but nobody noticed. He lowered his hand.
“Yes, Marvin, did you have a question?” asked Mrs. North.
He shook his head. “No, I was just stretching.”
Mrs. North explained that even Mr. McCabe hadn’t known the president was coming until ten minutes ago. It had been kept secret for security reasons.
“Now, I know I don’t have to tell you how to behave when the president gets here,” she said.
Then she told everybody how to behave.
“Be respectful. Be attentive. If you get a chance to speak to him, remember to speak loud and clear. You should call him ‘Mr. President.’ ‘Yes, Mr. President.’ ‘Thank you, Mr. President.’ Remember to—”
Mrs. North suddenly stopped talking. “Oh, my gosh!” she exclaimed. “I have to change my clothes!”
3
Mrs. North didn’t know what time the president would come. So she couldn’t go home and change out of her torn clothes.
“I hope it’s not during recess,” said Nick.
“We’ll adjust our schedule,” Mrs. North assured him.
“Good, because I don’t want to miss recess,” said Nick.
While they waited for the president to show up, Mrs. North told everyone to write down a question he or she would like to ask the president.
“Like what?” asked Nick.
“Anything,” said Mrs. North. Then she looked at Nick and said, “Well, not anything. There must be something you’re curious about, Nick. What’s it like to live in the White House? What does he have for breakfast? Does he ever just sit around and watch TV? Think, Nick.” She tapped on the side of her head with her finger. “Use your brain.”
Marvin tried to think, too.
He remembered that he was going shopping for new shoes right after school, along with his brother and sister.
He wondered if the president bought his own clothes. It would be pretty strange, he thought, for the president just to walk into a store and try on a pair of shoes. But if someone else bought them for him, they might not fit. Or he might not like the color.
He wrote down his question.
Do you buy your own shoes?
No, that’s stupid, he decided. He thought he should ask the president something more important. He should ask about war or pollution.
He tried to erase what he wrote.
He looked over at Casey. She had her finger in her mouth. Then she took it out, picked up her pencil, and wrote very fast. She laughed, then wrote some more.
It was a long question. Her ponytail bounced up and down.
“What will you ask him?” Marvin asked.
“I’m not telling you,” said Casey.
Marvin wrote down a new question:
Are we going to get into a war anytime soon?
He hadn’t done a very good job erasing the old question. His paper was messy and hard to read. He hoped the president wouldn’t see it.
“Does spelling count?” asked Judy.
“You’re not being graded on this,” said Mrs. North. “It’s not a test. It’s an opportunity. Try to make the most of it.”
Clarence raised his hand and asked, “Does the president have a dog?”
“Um, I don’t know,” said Mrs. North. “But that might be—”
“I want to ask him his dog’s name,” said Clarence. “But first I have to know if he has a dog, don’t I?”
“Well, why don’t you ask him if he has any pets?” suggested Mrs. North.
“Oh, yeah,” said Clarence. “Thanks.”
Marvin wrote down his second question: What are you doing about pollution?
He was still trying to think of a third question when the classroom door opened.
Marvin dropped his pencil.
4
A tall man stepped into the classroom.
Marvin stared at him in awe. He was pretty sure it was the president. He was certain he’d seen the man’s face on the news.
Marvin’s father watched the news every evening before dinner.
The man was tall and wore a suit and tie. He looked very important.
Behind him was a woman carrying a big camera. CHANNEL 2 was printed in big letters on the camera.
Marvin stood up. He put his hand on his heart, as if he was saying the Pledge of Allegiance. He could feel his heartbeat.
“Are you the president?” asked Kenny.
The man laughed. So did the woman holding the camera.
“What an idiot,” said Heather.
“Don’t you even know what the president looks like?” said Gina.
“Duh!” said Nick.
Kenny blushed.
“Marvin, why are you standing?” asked Mrs. North.
“Uh, just stretching,” said Marvin. He sat back down.
“Did you get that on camera?” the man asked the camera woman.
“No,” she said.
“All right, let’s do it again,” said the man. “I’ll walk in again, and you …” he pointed to Kenny. “What’s your name?”
“Kenny,” said Kenny.
“I’ll walk in again, and Kenny, you ask me if I’m the president. And try to look cute.”
Kenny seemed very confused.
“No, he will not,” said Mrs. North.
The man looked at Mrs. North’s belly button. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I am Mrs. North. This is my classroom. Who are you?”
The man seemed surprised she didn’t know. “I am Clark Rogers from Channel Two News.”
“Well, Mr. Rogers,” s
aid Mrs. North. “I do not like the way you walked in without knocking. You disturbed my class. And I don’t want you embarrassing any of my students on television. Now, if you want to stay, you may wait, quietly, in the back of the room. Otherwise you will have to leave.”
Clark Rogers stared at her a moment. Mrs. North stared right back at him.
“Sorry,” he said. He and the camera woman moved to the back of the room.
Marvin felt very proud of his teacher.
5
More news people came from other TV stations. They all crowded into the back of the room. There were three television cameras, and also a photographer from the newspaper.
Mrs. North went ahead with the arithmetic lesson.
They’d been learning to add big numbers. Mrs. North put a problem on the board.
She said the numbers out loud. “Sixty-three million, eight hundred and eighty-eight thousand, two hundred and twenty-seven plus seventeen million, one hundred and six thousand, five hundred and forty-seven.”
Marvin’s mouth dropped open. He had never heard anyone add such big numbers.
“Marvin,” said Mrs. North, “would you like to come to the board and give us the answer?”
He closed his mouth.
Then he stood up and made his way to the board. He looked at the problem.
It was impossible.;
Mrs. North gave him a you-can-do-it smile.
He looked at all the people at the back of the room. They were all watching him. The three television cameras were pointed at him.
He looked back at the problem.
“You add it up just like smaller numbers,” Mrs. North gently reminded him. “Start at the ones column.”
He stared blankly at the board.
“Seven plus seven,” said Mrs. North.
His brain had turned off.
“Don’t think about the cameras,” said Mrs. North. “Seven plus seven, Marvin.”
Marvin looked around helplessly. Casey Happleton was making funny faces at him. She stretched her mouth in different directions.