“What about a present?” I asked my friends. It was Wednesday. We were on the playground. But we were not playing. We were talking about the party again. “We have only two days to buy her something.”
“I know!” said Hannie. “Everyone should bring some money to school tomorrow.”
“Right,” agreed Nancy. “Then Karen can collect the money — ”
“And I will buy the present after school,” I finished. “Oh, but I will need someone to come with me. I don’t want to choose all by myself.”
“I will come with you,” offered Ricky.
And he did. The next day, we collected almost eight dollars. When school was over, Mommy picked up Ricky and me. She drove us downtown. She drove us to the dime store. The dime store has very beautiful jewelry.
“Can you stay in the car, please?” I asked Mommy. “Ricky and I want to buy the present like grown-ups.”
Mommy sat in the car. Ricky and I went into the store.
“The jewelry is over here,” I said. I led Ricky to a big bin. It was filled with necklaces and bracelets and pins and earrings. Nearly everything was plastic. And gorgeous. We would probably have trouble making up our minds. We looked and looked.
Ricky held up a necklace made of red and white beads.
“Nope,” I said.
I held up a pair of huge gold earrings.
“Nope,” said Ricky.
Then we both reached for the same thing. A blue pin shaped like a flower. Ricky and I grinned at each other.
“Can we afford it?” I asked.
Ricky checked the price tag. “Yup,” he replied.
So we bought the pin.
Good-bye, Mrs. Hoffman
On Thursday night I could hardly fall asleep. I was too excited. The next day, we would give Mrs. Hoffman her good-bye party. The party would be fun. Saying good-bye would not be fun. But on Monday Ms. Colman would be back! She would sit at her desk. She would remind me to use my indoor voice and to wear my glasses. Maybe she would make a Surprising Announcement.
The rest of my friends were excited, too. We had a little trouble thinking about our work. But we tried very hard to use our best manners. (Or to find our best manners after we had lost them.) We did all the chores that used to be on the Chore Chart. (I cleaned Hootie’s cage again.) We lined up neatly. We did not talk in the hallway (much). And we almost always remembered to raise our hands. I thought this was amazing. We were keeping such a big secret. Actually, I was keeping two secrets. I had my own surprise to give Mrs. Hoffman after the party. But I would give it to her in private.
We were writing compositions in the afternoon, when I glanced at the door. There were the room mothers.
“They’re he-ere!” I whispered to Ricky.
Mrs. Hoffman frowned at me. I think she was going to ask me what had happened to my best manners. But the room mothers came in then. One of them was holding a plate. The cake was on it.
“Surprise!” shouted Nancy and Hannie and Ricky and Bobby and Natalie and Pamela and Tammy and Terri and I. “Surprise!”
Mrs. Hoffman certainly acted surprised. She jumped about a mile. Then she calmed down. She smiled. She looked at the cake. It was decorated with pink roses. In the middle was written: GOOD-BYE, MRS. HOFFMAN!
“Thank you very much,” said Mrs. Hoffman. “Thank you, boys and girls.”
I raised my hand. “Can we put away our compositions?” I asked.
Mrs. Hoffman laughed. “Of course you may.”
We cleared our desks.
Mrs. Hoffman cut the cake. The room mothers passed a piece to everyone. Then they passed around cups of juice.
When we had finished eating, I said, “Let’s play a game.”
Mrs. Hoffman let us play Seven-up. After that, we divided into teams and played Hangman on the blackboard. (My team lost.)
Then Mrs. Hoffman said, “How about one last song?”
She got out her guitar. We sang two last songs. First we sang “The Big Rock Candy Mountain.” Then we taught Mrs. Hoffman the song about underwear. She said that this is her favorite part of the song: “BVDs make me sneeze, when the breeze from the trees hits my knees!”
Soon, only ten minutes were left until the bell would ring.
I nudged Ricky. “It’s time,” I said.
Ricky nodded. He reached into his desk. He pulled out the present we had bought at the dime store. It was wrapped in a gigundoly beautiful way. Ricky’s father had wrapped it. He had used silver ribbon, which was a nice touch.
Ricky and I stepped to the front of the classroom. Ricky held the present toward Mrs. Hoffman. I said, “Mrs. Hoffman, this is for you.”
Mrs. Hoffman opened her present. “Oh, it’s perfect!” she exclaimed. She pinned on the blue flower. It looked really nice against her orange sweater. Then Mrs. Hoffman began to look serious. Ricky and I sat down. So did everyone else. “The day is almost over,” said Mrs. Hoffman. “I just want you to know that you are one class I will never forget!”
Karen’s Last Surprise
The party was over. Almost everyone had left our classroom. Even the room mothers. I was helping Mrs. Hoffman clean up the napkins and paper plates. (I had told Mommy I would be ten minutes late that afternoon.) Ricky was washing the blackboard. When he finished, he left.
The room was quiet.
“Mrs. Hoffman?” I said. “I have some homework for you.”
Mrs. Hoffman looked puzzled. “You don’t owe me any homework, Karen,” she said.
“Yes, I do.” I opened my notebook. I took out a piece of paper. I handed it to Mrs. Hoffman. (It was some of my best work ever. It was my last surprise.)
Mrs. Hoffman looked at my paper. “A composition,” she said. “Is this the one you were writing this afternoon?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I did this at home.”
Mrs. Hoffman read the title. “My New Teacher.”
“It’s to take the place of this,” I said. I held up The Worst Teacher Ever. Then I tore it in half. “I am really sorry,” I said. “I am sorry for the things I wrote here, and I am sorry I called you Mrs. Hoffburger. It was nice of you to give me a good grade. But I would rather have a good grade on My New Teacher.”
Mrs. Hoffman sat down. She read the new composition. It was about a girl named Karen Brewer and her substitute teacher, Mrs. Hoffman. It told how Karen missed her old teacher, Ms. Colman, very much. And how she and her friends were confused by Mrs. Hoffman’s rules. It said that Karen was used to a teacher who understood that she was the youngest one in the class. And who would remind her to use her indoor voice. And who had never sent her to stand in the corner.
It was seventy-nine words long.
“Do you know what?” I said to Mrs. Hoffman. “I sent Ms. Colman three get-well cards. She sent me a letter. Once, we talked on the phone. But I was still afraid she would not come back.”
“And you did not want me to replace her,” said Mrs. Hoffman with a smile.
“I did not want anyone to replace her.”
“So you were afraid to give me a chance.”
I nodded. “But I am glad about what happened on Backward Day,” I said. “And I will miss your guitar. And singing songs in the afternoon. I will not forget those things.”
“And I will certainly not forget you.”
“Good-bye, Mrs. Hoffman,” I said.
“Good-bye, Karen.”
Hello, Ms. Colman!
Monday, Monday! It had come at last! It was almost as good as my birthday or Halloween. At breakfast, I could not sit still.
“Karen!” exclaimed Mommy. “You are acting like a Mexican jumping bean.”
“Ms. Colman’s coming back!” I replied.
I poked Andrew. He poked me. I poked him again. He poked me again.
Seth separated us.
“What if she does not come back?” I asked suddenly. I was sitting at the counter. (Andrew got to stay at the table.)
“I am pretty sure she will be back,” said Mommy.
>
* * *
“What if she does not come back?” I said to Nancy on the way to school.
“I thought about that,” replied Nancy.
“We better tiptoe to our room. We should keep our fingers crossed.”
Nancy and I tiptoed all the way to our classroom. Our fingers were crossed. We said softly, “Please be back, please be back, please be back.”
We looked into the room.
Empty!
“She’s back!” cried Nancy.
Natalie came in. Then Hannie came in. Then Pamela arrived. Then Bobby and Tammy and Terri arrived.
And then … Ms. Colman walked through the door!
“Ms. Colman! Hello, Ms. Colman!” I cried. “You came back!”
I ran to my teacher. I hugged her.
Ms. Colman hugged me.
Soon everyone had crowded around Ms. Colman. We were one big hug.
“Are you all better?” asked Nancy.
“I’m all better,” said Ms. Colman. “I feel fine.”
“You do not look tired anymore,” I told her.
“I had a long rest.”
“What was the hospital like?” asked Natalie.
Well, for heaven’s sake. Everyone knows that the hospital is no fun.
But Ms. Colman did not get impatient. She said, “It’s a nice place to visit, but I would not want to live there.”
We laughed. Then I said, “Did you get to watch the soaps on TV?”
“I could have watched them,” Ms. Colman answered, “but … Karen, where are your glasses? What are you doing without them?”
“I forgot them,” I said. (I had forgotten on purpose.) Then I yelled, “Hey, Ms. Colman!”
“Indoor voice, Karen,” she reminded me.
I smiled. Everything was back to normal.
The other kids drifted away. Not me. I stood right by Ms. Colman’s desk. I watched her take out the attendance book.
“I was afraid you would not come back,” I said to her.
“Well, sometimes people go away and they don’t come back,” replied Ms. Colman. “That happens. I think you would have gotten along all right, though.”
“Yeah. I would have.”
“I missed you last month.”
“We missed you, too. But Mrs. Hoffman turned out to be okay. She taught us a lot about manners.”
“So I hear.”
I almost went to my seat. Then I remembered something. “Ms. Colman? Are we going to have our pizza party soon?”
Ms. Colman smiled. “I was just going to make an announcement about that,” she said.
About the Author
ANN M. MARTIN is the acclaimed and bestselling author of a number of novels and series, including Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), A Dog’s Life, Here Today, P.S. Longer Letter Later (written with Paula Danziger), the Family Tree series, the Doll People series (written with Laura Godwin), the Main Street series, and the generation-defining series The Baby-sitters Club. She lives in New York.
Copyright © 1991 by Ann M. Martin
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First edition, 1991
e-ISBN 978-1-338-05600-6
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