But not Mrs. Granger. The day after the class picture she made an announcement to each of her classes, and she posted a notice on the main bulletin board by the office.
Anyone who is heard using the word frindle instead of the word pen will stay after school and write this sentence one hundred times: I am writing this punishment with a pen.
—Mrs. Granger
But that just made everyone want to use Nick’s new word even more. Staying after school with The Lone Granger became a badge of honor. There were kids in her classroom every day after school. It went on like that for a couple of weeks.
One day near the end of seventh period, Mrs. Granger asked Nick to come talk to her after school. “This is not detention, Nicholas. I just want to talk.”
Nick was excited. It was kind of like a conference during a war. One side waves a white flag, and the generals come out and talk. General Nicholas Allen. Nick liked the sound of it.
He stuck his head in Mrs. Granger’s doorway after school. “You wanted to talk with me?”
“Yes, Nicholas. Please come in and sit down.”
When he was settled she looked at him and said, “Don’t you think this ‘frindle’ business has gone far enough? It’s just a disruption to the school, don’t you think?”
Nick swallowed hard, but he said, “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. It’s just fun, and it really is a real word. It’s not a bad word, just different. And besides, it’s how words really change, isn’t it? That’s what you said.”
Mrs. Granger sighed. “It is how a word could be made up brand new, I suppose, but the word pen? Should it really be replaced by … by that other word? The word pen has a long, rich history. It comes from the Latin word for feather, pinna. It started to become our word pen because quills made from feathers were some of the first writing tools ever made. It’s a word that comes from somewhere. It makes sense, Nicholas.”
“But frindle makes just as much sense to me,” said Nick. “And after all, didn’t somebody just make up the word pinna, too?”
That got a spark from Mrs. Granger’s eyes, but all she said was, “Then you are not going to stop this?”
And Nick looked right in her eyes and said, “Well, me and … I mean, a bunch of my friends and I took an oath about using the word, and we have to keep our promise. And besides, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. I like my word.” Nick tried to look brave, like a good general should.
“Very well then. I thought it would end up this way.” Mrs. Granger pulled a fat white envelope from her desk drawer and held it up. “This is a letter I have written to you, Nicholas.”
Nick held out his hand, thinking she was going to give it to him. But she didn’t.
“I am not going to send it to you until all this is over. I want you to sign your name and put today’s date across the back of the envelope. When you read it, whenever that may be, you will know it is the same letter, and that I have not made any changes to it.”
“This is weird,” Nick said to himself. But to Mrs. Granger he said, “Sure,” and he signed his name in his best cursive, and put the date under it.
Then Mrs. Granger stood up abruptly and said, “Then that is all for today, Nicholas. And may the best word win.”
There was a frown on her face, but her eyes, her eyes were different—almost happy.
And Nick was halfway down the hall before it hit him—“She likes this war, and she wants to win real bad!”
Walking to school the next day, Pete had a great idea. “How ’bout we see if we can get every kid in the whole fifth grade to go up and ask Mrs. Granger, ‘Can I borrow a frindle?’ ”
“You mean ‘Mrs. Granger, may I borrow a frindle?’ ” said Dave. “Got to use good grammar. Don’t wanna upset Dangerous Grangerous.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Nick. “She can’t keep everyone after school, can she?”
Almost eighty kids stayed after school with Mrs. Granger that day. They filled her room and spilled out into the hallway. The principal had to stay late to help, and they had to arrange two special late buses to get all the kids home.
And the next day, all the fifth graders did it again, and so did a lot of other students—over two hundred kids.
Parents called to complain. The school bus drivers threatened to go on strike. And then the school board and the superintendent got involved.
And about this time the principal of Lincoln Elementary School paid a little visit to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Allen. She wanted to talk to them about their son. The one in fifth grade. The one named Nick.
Chapter Nine - Chess
MRS. MARGARET CHATHAM had been principal of Lincoln Elementary School for eighteen years. She knew Mr. and Mrs. Allen, because they had all served together on the building committee when the old Lincoln School was torn down and the new one was built six years ago.
When she telephoned on the afternoon of October first to set up the meeting, Mrs. Chatham had asked Nick to be there, too. It was 6:30 when she knocked, and Nick opened the door.
“Good evening, Nick,” she said. No smile.
“Hi, Mrs. Chatham,” said Nick, backing away as she filled the doorway. She was a large person, as tall as Nick’s dad, with wide shoulders. Nick guessed she would play linebacker on a football team, because that’s what his dad had played in college.
“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Allen,” she said, stepping into the living room. She was wearing a long black raincoat with a red silk scarf tied loosely around her neck. She kept her coat on, but took off the scarf and tucked it into her left pocket. She shook hands stiffly with both of Nick’s parents before sitting down on the chair to the left of the couch. Nick’s mom and dad sat on the couch, and Nick sat on the rocking chair that faced Mrs. Chatham across the low coffee table.
“This is not an easy visit for me. We are having some trouble at school, and it appears that Nick is in the middle of it.”
Then while Nick’s parents listened, Mrs. Chatham laid out the story as she saw it—Nick encouraging the other kids to use his new word, Mrs. Granger forbidding it, the ruined fifth-grade class picture, hundreds of kids staying after school, and a general feeling that there was a rebellion at school, with no one respecting the rules anymore.
Nick watched his mom and dad while Mrs. Chatham talked, looking from one face to another. His dad was listening carefully, nodding and frowning. He looked embarrassed about the trouble. But his mom looked—kind of annoyed.
And when Mrs. Chatham finished her story Nick’s mom was the first one to speak. “But doesn’t all this seem like a lot of fuss about something pretty silly?”
Nick sat quietly but in his mind he shouted, Hurrah for mom, hurrah for mothers everywhere! His mom wasn’t annoyed with him! She was annoyed with Mrs. Granger, maybe even annoyed with Mrs. Chatham. This was getting interesting.
Mrs. Allen was still talking to the principal. “I mean, is there really any harm in the children making up a funny word and saying it? Does there have to be a rule that a word like this may not be used?”
Mrs. Chatham sighed and said, “Yes, I suppose it does seem silly. But Mrs. Granger thinks that it’s rather like keeping children from saying ‘ain’t’—there have to be standards. That’s why we have dictionaries. And really, the problem isn’t so much the word itself. It’s the lack of respect for authority.”
Mr. Allen said, “Mrs. Granger’s right about that. There have to be standards. We can’t have kids walking around saying ‘ain’t,’ can we?”
And that’s when Nick piped in. “You know that big dictionary in Mrs. Granger’s room? The word ain’t is right there in the book. I looked it up, and there it was. I don’t see why I can’t use a word if it’s in the dictionary. Mrs. Granger even said that her big dictionary was the law.” Nick looked from face to face to face. That stumped them all. He had just launched a first-class thought-grenade.
“Well, yes … but … well, as I said, the word ain’t and even the word frindle—t
hese are not the real issue here,” said Mrs. Chatham.
Mrs. Allen said, “Well, I think the real issue is Mrs. Granger’s reaction to a harmless little experiment with language—it’s an overreaction, don’t you think so, Tom?” And Mrs. Allen looked at her husband.
It was Mr. Allen’s turn to look from face to face to face. He was lost. “Yes, well sure … I—I guess so … I mean, it’s not like anybody’s been hurt … umm … I mean, it’s not like vandalism or stealing or something like that …” His sentence trailed off, and he rubbed his chin and stared thoughtfully through the window on the wall behind Mrs. Chatham.
And while the three grown-ups sat there in an uncomfortable moment of silence, Nick had a sudden vision of what was really going on here. It was a chess game, Nick against Mrs. Granger. Mrs. Granger had just tried to end the game by using her queen—Mrs. Chatham in her black raincoat, the black queen.
Nick didn’t know it until the attack was under way, but he had a powerful defender of his own—good old Mom, the white queen. And the game was not over. It would go on until there was a winner and a loser.
Mrs. Chatham didn’t stay much longer. There was a little more talk back and forth across the chessboard about how children have a right to explore new ideas, about the importance of respecting teachers and the work they do, about everybody needing to keep up standards and make school a safe place to learn.
Then Mr. Allen offered Mrs. Chatham some coffee and banana bread, but she said, “No thanks, I really must be going now.”
She thanked Nick’s parents and they thanked her. Nick opened the door, and said, “Good night, Mrs. Chatham.” Then the black queen put on her red scarf and walked off into the October twilight.
“Nick, I think we’d better talk a little more about this,” said his mom, sitting back down on the couch. “If I find out that you have been disrespectful to Mrs. Granger or any other teacher at school, then you really will be in big trouble.”
“I haven’t been disrespectful. Honest. I did get everybody started using my word, but like you said, it’s not hurting anybody. And I’m sorry if me and Dave and Pete got everybody to ask Mrs. Granger to borrow a frindle. That was mean, I guess … but she started it by making kids stay after school and write a hundred sentences just for saying my word once. All the kids like to use my word. It’s just fun, that’s all.”
“Well,” said Nick’s dad, “if it gets everyone upset and makes the principal come talk to your mother and me, then it must not be fun for everybody, is it? And I think you should just tell all your friends to knock it off, right now … I mean, tomorrow.”
Nick shook his head. “I can’t, Dad. It won’t work. It’s a real word now. It used to be just mine, but not anymore. If I knew how to stop it, I think I probably would. But I can’t.” And Nick looked at both of their faces to see if that idea was sinking in. It was. “Like I said, I won’t be disrespectful, but I do like my word. And I guess now we’re just going to have to see what happens.”
And the chessmen—Nick’s king and queen—had to agree.
The game would go on.
Chapter Ten - Freedom of the Press
JUDY MORGAN WAS a reporter for The Westfield Gazette, the local newspaper. Westfield was a quiet little town. There was the occasional burglary, the teenagers got rowdy once in a while, and there was some shouting at the town council or the planning board now and then. But mostly, things were calm and orderly in Westfield, and every Thursday The Westfield Gazette proved it.
Ted Bell sold advertisements for the paper, and he had a daughter in fourth grade at Lincoln Elementary. He told Judy that a bunch of fifth graders were making trouble and were not obeying teachers anymore, that there was something about a secret code word they were all using. And half the students had been kept after school one day last week—including his own little girl.
The only other story Judy was working on was about eighteen new trees that were going to be planted along East Main Street. The trees could wait. This thing at the elementary school sounded like a real story.
So Judy Morgan showed up at Lincoln Elementary School at three o’clock the day after Mrs. Chatham had been to visit Nick’s parents. The sign on the door said, “All Visitors Must Report to the Office,” and she did.
On the bulletin board outside the office, Judy saw Mrs. Granger’s notice about the punishment for using the word frindle. She stepped back two paces, aimed her camera at the notice, and snapped a photo. She read the notice once more, and then stepped into the office.
Mrs. Freed, the school secretary, looked up and smiled. “May I help you?”
“Yes, I’m sure you can. My name is Judy Morgan, and I work for The Westfield Gazette. I’d like to know about that poster outside the office, the one about this word frindle. Who should I talk to?”
Mrs. Freed stopped smiling. She was sick and tired of anything to do with that word. For the past week her phone had been ringing off the hook. If it wasn’t a parent complaining about a child who had to stay after school, it was someone from the school board trying to get in touch with Mrs. Chatham or Mrs. Granger. Mrs. Freed pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. She said, “You’ll have to speak with the principal. Let me see if Mrs. Chatham is free.”
She was. There isn’t a principal alive who won’t find the time to talk to someone from the local newspaper. The reporter was invited into Mrs. Chatham’s office.
Judy noticed right away that the principal was not comfortable talking about this stuff. When asked about the poster outside the office door, Mrs. Chatham laughed and said, “Oh, that? It’s nothing really. Some kids have been playing a prank, and it was time to put a stop to it.”
The principal’s laugh sounded phony to Judy Morgan. “And did that notice put an end to the prank? I heard that a lot of children were kept after school last week. Would you tell me a little about that? Parents would like to know what’s going on.”
Mrs. Chatham looked like … well, like a kid who had been sent to the principal’s office. She squirmed a little in her chair and tried to smile. She said, “Well, we do still have a little problem, but it’s under control. Mrs. Granger may have overreacted a bit. I don’t think the children have really been trying to be disrespectful. They are just having some fun, and it’s more like a difference of opinion …” And then Mrs. Chatham went on to tell the reporter what she knew about the word frindle, and how it had become popular among the students. Judy Morgan took careful notes.
And when the principal had finished Judy said, “Would you mind if I asked Mrs. Granger a few questions?”
Mrs. Chatham said, “No, not at all.” But Judy could tell that the principal wished she would just go away. What could she say, though? Mrs. Chatham couldn’t very well keep the reporter away from Mrs. Granger because, after all, America is a free country with a free press. If Judy really wanted to, she would talk to Mrs. Granger sooner or later.
It was sooner. In three minutes Judy Morgan was standing at the doorway of Room 12, looking in at Mrs. Granger. There were about fifteen children sitting at desks scattered around the room, busy writing out their one hundred sentences. She knocked and the teacher and students looked up from their work. “I’m Judy Morgan from The Westfield Gazette, Mrs. Granger. May I have a word with you?”
Mrs. Granger stood and came out into the hallway and closed the door. Judy could see past her and saw that every kid in the room was straining to listen. Judy noticed Mrs. Granger’s eyes right away—gray, maybe flecked with a little gold, and very sharp, but not hard or mean. Just bright, and strong.
The reporter didn’t waste words. “So I hear that you plan to stop the students from using their new word. How goes the battle?”
Mrs. Granger did not smile, and her eyes got even brighter. “First of all, it is not a battle. I am merely helping my students to see that this foolishness should stop. Such a waste of time and thought! There is no reason to invent a new and useless word. They should each learn to use the words we already hav
e. But of course, all of this is just a silly fad, and when you add an e to fad, you get fade. And I predict that this fad will fade.”
Judy looked up from her note pad and asked, “Any idea how it all got started?”
Mrs. Granger’s eyes seemed to almost catch on fire at that question, and she said, “Yes, I have a very good idea how it all got started. It was one young man’s idea, a fifth-grade student named Nicholas Allen. And now you will have to excuse me, Ms. Morgan, for I have papers I must grade.” And with a brief, firm handshake, Mrs. Granger ended the interview.
The reporter didn’t leave right away. She walked back through the hallway and sat on a bench outside the office so she could look over her notes to make sure they made sense. It took her about five minutes. Then Judy stood up, put her notebook into her large black purse, waved good-bye to a frowning Mrs. Freed, and headed out the door.
As she walked to the parking lot, five or six kids who had just finished writing their sentences for Mrs. Granger came out another door. Judy walked beside them, listening to them laugh and joke. Then she asked them, “Why do you kids keep saying ‘frindle’? Don’t you hate staying after school?”
A boy who was almost falling over from the weight of his backpack looked up at her and smiled. “It’s not so bad. There’s always a bunch of my friends there. I’ve written that sentence six hundred times now.”
And then the kids said Mrs. Granger didn’t even look at their punishment papers anymore. They were sure, because where you were supposed to write “I am writing this punishment with a pen,” everyone was writing the word frindle every fourth or fifth sentence. And Mrs. Granger hadn’t said anything. One girl bragged that she had written the word frindle forty-five times on her sheets today. She grinned and said, “That’s a new record.”
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