by Nancy Krulik
“Those Paul Bunyan stories are really cool!” George Brennan exclaimed. “Do you know any more tall tales?”
Mr. Guthrie shook his head. “I don’t know any others . . . at least not yet. But I will on Thursday.”
The kids all looked confused.
“That’s because on Thursday, you’re all going to read your own tall tales to the class,” Mr. Guthrie continued. “I want each of you to create your own character and write a tall tale about him or her.”
“Oh, wow!” Kadeem exclaimed. “Cool.”
“I’m going to write about a guy who plants tomato seeds all over the world,” Kevin thought out loud.
Katie giggled. That made sense. Kevin was the tomato-eating king of the fourth grade.
“I could make up a guy who tells jokes that are so funny, all the wars in the world stop because the soldiers are laughing too hard to fight,” George said.
“How about a story about a mom who has a hundred kids, and they start their own country?” Emma W. suggested.
“Sounds like your house,” Mandy Banks teased.
“We only have five kids,” Emma W. reminded her with a laugh.
Everyone in class 4A was excited about the tall-tales project. They couldn’t wait to get started!
Chapter 4
“Katie! Wait up!” Suzanne shouted as she spotted Katie leaving the school later that day.
Katie stopped and turned around. “Hey, Suzanne!” she called. “What’s up?”
Suzanne raced up to Katie. “My mom said we could borrow her digital camera—if we took the pictures at my house,” she said, taking a deep breath.
Katie had no idea what Suzanne was talking about. “Huh?”
“You know. The pictures,” Suzanne said. “For our fashion website.”
“You mean our fashion and animal-rights website,” Katie corrected her.
Suzanne put her hands on her hips. “Whatever,” Suzanne said. “Anyway, why don’t we work at my house today?”
“I can’t,” Katie told her. “I have homework to do.”
“So do I,” Suzanne said. She made a face. “Math. I’m in no hurry to get started.”
“Well, I am,” Katie said. “Mr. G. wants us to write a tall tale. I have to work on it. It’s due on Thursday.”
“Thursday?” Suzanne asked. “That’s not until the day after tomorrow.”
“But I have to come up with a character and a story and . . .”
“That won’t take you long,” Suzanne assured her. “You can do it tomorrow after your cooking class.”
“I don’t know, Suzanne . . .” Katie began.
Suzanne looked at her. “My mom said we could try making some of your vegetarian recipes in our kitchen,” she said. “Then we could take pictures of the food for the website. Just think of all the animals you could save if people ate vegetables.”
Katie thought about that. It was an important thing for her to do. “Okay,” she said finally.
The girls began to walk in the direction of Suzanne’s house. But before they could get very far, Katie stopped again. “Wait a minute,” she said suddenly. “I still have to read Only Orangutans Hang from Trees. If I don’t start today, I’ll never finish by Friday.”
“You don’t have to,” Suzanne told her.
“What do you mean? Of course I have to,” Katie replied. “Nellie Farrow is coming on Friday.”
“So what?” Suzanne said. “She’ll never know if you read her book or not. We’ll just sit in the back of the room and be very quiet.”
“But . . .”
“Oh, come on, Katie,” Suzanne pleaded. “More people will check out our website than will ever read Nellie’s book. A website is more fun than a book any day.”
Katie didn’t know if that was true. She loved reading books. And lots of other kids she knew did, too.
Still, working on the website would be a lot more fun than doing homework. “Okay,” she said finally. “Let’s go to your house. I have a great recipe for vegetarian lasagna.”
“Mmm . . . that sounds good. We’ll definitely do that,” Suzanne agreed. “After I model my outfits, of course.”
Katie sighed. “Of course.”
The next morning everyone in class 4A was buzzing about their tall tales. They all seemed to be having a great time writing stories about superhuman characters that did really hysterical things.
Everyone but Katie, that is. She hadn’t even started her story yet. Not that she hadn’t tried. It was just that when she got home from Suzanne’s house, she had been really tired. Not one idea had popped into her head.
So, when the other kids were all discussing their homework assignments, Katie just sat on her beanbag quietly. She couldn’t even talk about the website she and Suzanne were planning. So far, all they’d done was take pictures of Suzanne wearing different clothes. No one would be interested in that.
Katie had hoped that they could make the vegetarian lasagna, but Mrs. Lock didn’t have any spinach or tomato sauce in the house. So Katie’s part of the website didn’t even get started.
“Did you finish Only Orangutans Hang from Trees?” Emma W. asked as she plopped down next to Katie.
Finish? She hadn’t even started!
“No, not yet,” Katie said.
“Oh, then I won’t tell you anything. It’s a total surprise!” Emma exclaimed. “Nellie Farrow is an amazing author. I wish I knew how she comes up with her ideas.”
“So do I,” Katie said.
“Is your dad still away on business?” Emma asked, changing the subject.
Katie nodded. “He won’t be home until Saturday. That means I have to spend tonight at the mall with my mom. She’s working late.”
“Would you want to come to my house instead? My mom said I could invite a friend to dinner,” Emma told her.
Katie knew that would be so much fun. But she couldn’t go. She had her cooking class right after school. And then she needed to write her tall tale.
Katie scowled. If it wasn’t for her homework, she would be able to have dinner at Emma’s tonight. And maybe Emma’s fifteen-year-old sister, Lacey, would let her listen to some of her new CDs, like she did the last time Katie was over.
But no. Instead of having all that fun, tonight Katie was going to be stuck in the back office of the Book Nook, writing. That stupid story was spoiling everything! Writing was no fun!
Right then and there Katie decided that she didn’t want to be an author after all. Writing was too hard.
Instead, she would just grow up to be a dog-training teacher who cooked.
Chapter 5
That evening, Katie sat in the back office of the Book Nook, staring at a blank sheet of paper. She was waiting for a story to pop into her head. But she couldn’t think of anything . . . except how mad she was that she couldn’t think of anything.
Grrr. It wasn’t fair. The Book Nook was filled with books written by people with great ideas for stories. Some of the authors had come up with lots of ideas. Katie couldn’t even think of one.
Then, suddenly, Katie did get an idea. A really great idea. There had to be tall-tale books in the store. She could read a few of them. Then she could use one of those ideas for her story!
Katie dashed out of the office and ran to the children’s section of the store. She couldn’t wait to find the tall-tale books. If she could find a good story and write it down fast enough, maybe she could still go to Emma’s house for dinner.
Katie looked at the shelves. There were biographies, chapter books, picture books, and even a few pop-up books. Finally, she spotted the tall-tale books. They were all the way up on the top shelf.
She looked around for a ladder. There wasn’t one anywhere. Still, she was going to reach those books somehow. Maybe if she jumped . . .
Boing! Katie leaped up as high as she could. Her fingers brushed against the bottom of one of the tall-tale books. But she couldn’t grab it.
Boing! She jumped again, reaching up her arm re
ally, really high. This time she was able to grab the spine of one of the books and . . .
CRASH! A whole row of tall-tale books flew off the shelf! One of them hit Katie right in the head. Ouch.
All of the customers in the store turned around. A few started toward Katie to help her.
“It’s okay, folks,” Mrs. Carew said as she hurried over. “I’ll take care of her.”
Katie blushed. This was so embarrassing. She wanted to hide under the pile of books.
“Katie, are you all right?” Mrs. Carew asked her.
“I’m fine,” she murmured.
“What were you looking for?” Mrs. Carew asked her.
“Um, just a book.”
Mrs. Carew picked up one of the books that had fallen to the floor. “Oh, tall tales. These are funny.” She looked at her daughter. “You finished your homework already? That was fast.”
Katie shook her head. “Not exactly. I . . .” Katie stopped. Suddenly, borrowing a story from someone else didn’t seem like such a great idea.
“What is your homework assignment?” Katie’s mom asked her.
“I’m supposed to write a story.”
Mrs. Carew looked at the book again. “A tall tale?” she asked.
Katie nodded. “But I didn’t have any ideas. So I thought maybe if I read a few, I could . . .”
“You wanted to use one of these stories?” Mrs. Carew asked. She sounded surprised . . . and disappointed.
“Sort of,” Katie admitted. “I didn’t know what else to do. The story is due tomorrow, and I couldn’t come up with anything.” Katie looked down at the ground.
Mrs. Carew shook her head. “I’m sure you can come up with something. I think your mind is full of all kinds of stories.”
“It’s not,” Katie insisted.
“Sure it is,” Mrs. Carew told her. “You’re very good at writing stories.”
“Not this kind of story,” Katie replied. “I don’t know anything about lumberjacks like Paul Bunyan.”
“You don’t have to write about a lumberjack,” Mrs. Carew said. “Your main character should be the kind of person you’re familiar with. Really great authors write about things they know.”
Katie considered that for a moment. “Well, I could write about a red-haired girl with X-ray eyes,” she said. “And she could have a cocker spaniel. I could make him the fastest digging dog in the history of the world,” she told her mom.
“I think Pepper would like that very much,” Mrs. Carew said with a grin.
“They could solve mysteries. Like they could be searching for a stolen dinosaur bone,” Katie continued. “And the girl sees all the way to China. But she can’t get to the bone . . . until her dog digs a tunnel through the earth, all the way to China!”
“Oh, wow! That’s going to be a terrific story, Katie,” Mrs. Carew told her daughter. “And you came up with it all by yourself.”
Katie stared at the ground. She understood what her mother meant.
“It’s not right to take someone else’s ideas,” Mrs. Carew continued.
“I know,” Katie agreed.
“You wouldn’t be very proud of the story if you didn’t write it yourself, would you?”
Katie shook her head. “No.”
“It wouldn’t be fun doing your homework, either.”
“I know,” Katie agreed. “But this story is going to be a lot of fun to write. I think I’ll draw a picture, too.”
“That’s a great idea,” Mrs. Carew said with a smile.
Katie looked at the pile of books on the floor around her. “I can help you put those away,” she told her mom.
“That’s okay. I’ll do it,” Mrs. Carew assured her. “You’d have to be a giant fourth-grader to reach all the way up to the top shelf.”
“Hey, that’s a pretty good idea for a tall tale,” Katie said. “Maybe you should write it.”
Mrs. Carew laughed. “I think one writer in the family is enough.”
Chapter 6
On Thursday morning, Katie proudly placed her tall tale in the purple, black, and yellow homework box that was perched on one of the cabinets in the corner of class 4A. She couldn’t wait to read her story to the class. She knew they would love it.
But Mr. Guthrie had other plans. “We’ll present our stories after lunch,” he told the class. “Right now, we have to get ready for Nellie Farrow’s visit tomorrow. After her speech in the auditorium, she’s going to come see the fourth-grade classrooms.”
“Are we going to make a big banner that says ‘Welcome Nellie’?” Emma W. asked.
Mr. Guthrie shook his head. “Ms. Sweet’s class is already doing that.”
“Oh,” Emma S. sighed. “That would have been fun.”
“It would have,” Mr. G. agreed. “But I have something just as exciting planned for our classroom.” He pointed to the big plastic trees that were standing in the four corners of the room.
Katie hadn’t even noticed that they were there. Weird things were always popping up in Mr. G.’s classroom. The trees seemed pretty normal to her.
“I brought my digital camera to school today,” Mr. G. told the class. “I’m going to take your pictures, and we’ll hang them from the trees.”
George started to laugh. “I get it,” he told the class. “We’re showing Nellie Farrow that fourth-graders hang from trees, too!”
“Exactly,” Mr. G. told him.
George was the first one to line up to have his picture taken. Instead of smiling nicely, he stuck his tongue behind his upper lip and curled his arms up under his armpits. He looked like an orangutan. “Ooo . . . ooo . . . ooo!” he shouted, sounding a lot like a monkey.
“Hey, that was pretty good, dude,” Mr. G. said as he snapped the picture.
Katie grinned. They were really lucky to have Mr. G. for a teacher. Their third-grade teacher, Mrs. Derkman, probably would have sent George to the principal’s office for that.
She probably wouldn’t have let George and Kadeem monkey around with a joke-off, either. But Mr. G. loved when the boys had their joking contests!
Kadeem told the first one. “What did the banana do when the monkey grabbed for it?”
“I don’t know,” Emma W. said.
“The banana split!” Kadeem laughed at his own joke.
George wasn’t about to let Kadeem be the only one to get the laughs. “What kinds of keys won’t open doors?” he asked.
“What kinds?” Kevin replied.
“Mon-keys, don-keys, and tur-keys!” George shouted out. Everyone laughed.
The morning went really quickly after that. The kids had a great time hanging their pictures from the trees. Mr. G. even snapped a photo of Slinky, the class snake. And the two Emmas worked together to make a cute sign that read: “We Hang from Trees, Too!”
By lunchtime, class 4A was ready for Nellie Farrow’s visit.
Or at least most of them were. Katie was the only one who hadn’t read her book yet. But that was going to change.
“I’ll come home with you right after track team practice,” Suzanne told Katie as the girls put on their running shoes after school.
“Not today,” Katie told her. “I’ve got homework.”
“But, Katie, we didn’t get to work on the website yesterday.”
“I know,” Katie said. “But I have to read Only Orangutans Hang from Trees.”
“We already talked about that. We’re going to sit in the back of the auditorium. We don’t have to read the book,” Suzanne insisted.
“I know I don’t have to read it,” Katie told Suzanne. “I want to read it.”
Suzanne rolled her eyes and flipped her long brown ponytail behind her. “Whatever!” she said as she raced toward the track.
Katie had a lot of homework that night. Mr. G. had given them two math worksheets, a current events sheet, and some handwriting practice. By the time she finished all that and ate dinner, it was time for bed. And she still hadn’t read her book.
But Ka
tie had a plan.
After her mother kissed her good night and turned out the light, Katie pulled a flashlight and her book out from under the covers. She began to read.
Or at least she tried to. The minute Pepper spied the beam from the flashlight, he began running wildly around Katie. He was trying to catch the light.
“Pepper, stop it,” Katie urged him.
But Pepper wouldn’t stop. He was having fun chasing the beam of light. He thought Katie was playing a game with him.
“Pepper, come on. I have to read,” Katie insisted as Pepper jumped up on his hind legs, trying to grab the light. “Mom’s going to hear you.”
“Woof! Woof!” Pepper answered, barking loudly as he ran across the room again.
Within seconds, Mrs. Carew was at Katie’s door. “What’s going on, you two?” she asked.
Katie flicked off the flashlight, but it was too late. Her mother had already spotted it.
“Are you reading in bed?” Mrs. Carew asked with a smile.
Katie nodded.
“I’m glad you like reading so much,” Mrs. Carew told her daughter. “But you really have to go to sleep now. You don’t want to be tired tomorrow. After all, you’re going to meet a real author!” She reached over and took the flashlight and book from Katie. “You want to be able to talk about her book without yawning.”
Katie frowned. She wasn’t going to be able to talk about Nellie Farrow’s book at all. “Thanks a lot, Pepper,” she groaned as she pulled the covers over her head.
Chapter 7
On Friday morning, the fourth-graders of Cherrydale Elementary School piled into the auditorium for the big Nellie Farrow assembly. Everyone was very excited.
Well, almost everyone. Suzanne was acting really bored, rolling her eyes and yawning. “I don’t know what the big deal is,” Katie heard her say. “Nobody reads books for fun anymore. When people want to have a good time, they go on their computers. Books are so uncool!”