Polly Diamond and the Super Stunning Spectacular School Fair

by Alice Kuipers

  For my son, Felix.

  A. K.

  To my sister Laura.

  I love you, chu.

  D. T.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Alice Kuipers.

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Diana Toledano.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  Names: Kuipers, Alice, 1979- author. | Toledano, Diana, illustrator.

  Title: Polly Diamond and the super stunning spectacular school fair / Alice Kuipers ; Diana Toledano [illustrator].

  Description: San Francisco : Chronicle Books, [2019] | Summary: Today is the school book fair, which is very exciting for Polly Diamond, who loves books and writing, and who possesses a magic book which turns anything she writes into reality—but she also has to be careful because sometimes her book, Spell, does not quite understand a word and misinterpretations can be catastrophic.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018009423 | ISBN 9781452152332 (alk. paper) | ISBN 9781452152738 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Magic—Juvenile fiction. | Books and reading—Juvenile fiction. | Fairs—Juvenile fiction. | Schools—Juvenile fiction. | Humorous stories. | CYAC: Magic—Fiction. | Books and reading—Fiction. | Fairs—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Humorous stories. | LCGFT: Humorous fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.K9490146 Pr 2019 | DDC 823.92 [Fic] —dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018009423

  Design by Sara Gillingham Studio.

  Typeset in Chapparal and Crayon Nouveau.

  Chronicle Books LLC, 680 Second Street, San Francisco, California 94107

  Chronicle Books—we see things differently. Become part of our community at www.chroniclekids.com.

  ONE

  Three Reasons Today Will Be Spectacular

  1. Spectacular is my Word of the Day. My dad got me a word calendar so I’d remember the date. Instead, I remember the new words. I love words. Especially words like spectacular because it has four syllables. My name, Polly Diamond, also has four syllables. My teacher, Ms. Hairball, told us that a syllable is a beat in a word. She beat her hands on her knees. Pol-ly Dia-mond.

  2. Spectacular means a large, fantastic display. Which is an extra-good word for School Fair Day— which is today! The school fair is all about books. And I love books.

  3. Also, I have a super-spectacular book. A magic book. Everything I write in my book comes true. I know! Spectacular!

  My magic book is sitting next to my breakfast muffin. It—my book, not my muffin—has a turquoise cover. Turquoise is my favorite color. My glasses are turquoise, my sneakers are turquoise, my T-shirt has turquoise triangles. Turquoise is a hard word to spell. But I am an excellent speller. I can spell turquoise! I love spelling so much that I named my magic book Spell. Spell means THREE things!

  A moment in time.

  To spell a word.

  And a magic spell.

  Perfect! Because Spell IS magic!

  I turn to a blank page in my magic book. I write: Hi, Spell! Today is going be SPECTACULAR!

  A tiny black dot pops onto the page. My book is writing back to me!

  Spectacular?

  I write: It’s School Fair Day.

  Does everyone have to play fair on School Fair Day?

  No! Silly! Fair also means an exhibition! A celebration! A party! And I want to make it spectacular—with you!

  My little sister, Anna, runs into the kitchen and jumps on Dad. “ARRGH,” he groans dramatically. He wrestles Anna into his arms.

  “Daddy, stop!” Anna shrieks. “My wings!”

  She wriggles free and straightens her fairy wings. “I’m a fairy today, Polly,” she tells me. She snatches my muffin.

  I stick my tongue out at her and take a new muffin from the tin. I eat it quickly. If I wrote Anna is a muffin in Spell, then, POP!, Anna would turn into a muffin! Maybe later.

  Anna reaches a sticky hand for Spell.

  “Don’t touch my book,” I say. I turn back to Spell and write: I don’t have any ideas for the school fair. But I will soon. Ideas are my specialty.

  Fantastic.

  Fun. Fantabulous. I love it when words all start with the same letter. Ms. Hairball says this is called alliteration. I call it fabuloso!

  I don’t think fantabulous is a word.

  I take my old, tattered dictionary down from the top bookshelf. My granny gave it to me. I love the smell of the pages. I love all the words. I go to the letter F. I look for fantabulous. It is not there. Upstairs, I hear our new baby brother, Finn, yelling. His name is Finn Basil Diamond. I love his middle name—it is a boy’s name AND it is the name of an herb. Finn yells again. He is a very yelly baby. Yelly is not a real word. But it should be. It describes baby Finn perfectly. I look for the word yelly in my dictionary. It is also not there.

  I have invented TWO new words! I imagine a dictionary with the words fantabulous and yelly in it. Under both words would be written: Invented by Polly Diamond.

  Dad taps my arm. He pops my imagination bubble. “Tick-tock, look at the clock.”

  Time for school! I pick up Spell and run out of the kitchen. I put on my turquoise rubber boots and grab my raincoat. It has huge pockets. I put Spell in one pocket. Then I shout goodbye to my family.

  Dad calls out, “Did you remember your backpack?”

  Whoops. I grab it.

  I run to the door. Then turn back. Double-whoops. I put my shiny new dictionary in my backpack. We are donating a book today, but I can’t donate my old dictionary! I love it too much!

  “See you at the Super Stunning Spectacular School Fair,” I call as I run out the door.

  TWO

  Outside I wade into the biggest puddle I see. I imagine I’m exploring a huge lake. I imagine a monster at the bottom. I get to the other side of the puddle. I pull out Spell. I lean on my knee and wibble-wobble write:

  A Story About the Puddle Monster

  The Puddle Monster is splashy and splooshy. It leaps out of the puddle, but I vanquish it.

  I don’t think splooshy is a word.

  I made up another word! I am an inventor! I imagine that I am an inventor. With a laboratory of inventions. Spell distracts me from my inventor dream.

  Spell writes: One splashy, splooshy Puddle Monster coming up.

  A mucky, muddy circle of water leaps up from the puddle. It is HUGE! Much bigger than I imagined. Bigger than me. I throw myself forward and try to vanquish it. The puddle screams and splooshes away down the block!

  I write. Spell! I didn’t vanquish the puddle! It ran away.

  I, um, wasn’t sure what vanquish means.

  It means FIGHT AND WIN! It means TO DEFEAT!

  I notice a little bit of water on Spell. Whoops! Luckily, it’s only a few drops.

  I shake the water off Spell and me. Then I put Spell in one of my deep pockets. Deep is an adjective. Like super. And stunning. And spectacular. Ms. Hairball calls adjectives describing words because they describe things. I love adjectives. I love describing words because I want to be a writer when I grow up. Writers love describing things.

  Trixie is my best friend. Her purple house is five houses down my block. Purple is an adjective, too. I try to think of more adjectives for her house: pretty, modern, spandangly. I don’t know if spandangly is a word. Maybe I made up another word!

  I splash through puddles to her pristine front door. Pristine means perfect and tidy—Trixie and her mom are both perfectly tidy all the time! I knock our secret-code triple-knock. One loud KNOCK!
And then two little quick ones—knock, knock.

  Trixie glides out of her house. She thinks walking like this makes her look like a movie star. She wants to be a movie star more than anything.

  “Hurry up, girls,” Trixie’s mom says.

  Together, Trixie and I wade through another gigantic puddle. I check around for the Puddle Monster, but it is gone.

  Trixie and I race the one block to school. I win. Before we go in, we wave goodbye to Trixie’s mom. Then we join the crowd of kids rushing to get to their classrooms before the late bell.

  We arrive at Room 3B as the bell rings. Ms. Hairball has the nicest classroom in the whole school. She has fairy lights dangling all over the room, every wall is decorated with poems, and she has a book corner. Ms. Hairball is sitting in her reading chair. She is small and round like an apple. She has a smiley, rosy face. Also like an apple. Best of all, Ms. Hairball is a published author. Not like an apple.

  As the kids come in, they sit on the rug in front of the reading chair. The other kids are all squirming. Dawson Dawsons squirms the most. (I know, he has a splendid name! I wish my name was Polly Pollys!)

  Ms. Hairball is extra shiny today. Her gray dress is sleek, too. Sleek is a word my dad uses to describe cabinets.

  He is a contractor, and he knows a lot of contractor words! Ms. Hairball is sleek and shiny and smiling. (Three S adjectives. Super!)

  She sits silently. (More S words. This is getting SILLY!)

  Finally, 3B settles down. Even Dawson Dawsons.

  Ms. Hairball announces, “As you all know, today we are having our school fair.”

  Everyone starts talking excitedly. Dawson Dawsons jumps and bounces and whoops. Like he has fireworks in his pants. Obviously, he doesn’t really have fireworks in his pants. That is a simile.

  A simile is when you say something is like something else. And simile is one letter away from the word smile. An extra reason for me to love similes.

  “One, two, three, eyes on me,” Ms. Hairball says. She lifts her fingers one, two, three.

  “One, two, eyes on you,” we all reply.

  “Who can remember the theme of the school fair?” she asks.

  Uh, so easy! “It’s books!” I call out.

  “Remember to raise your hand, Polly. But yes, you’re right. Our school fair theme is books. We are partnering with S.T.O.R.Y. Utopia.”

  Utopia is the name of our town. Utopia means perfect place. But Utopia the town is a perfectly ordinary and boring place. S.T.O.R.Y. Utopia helps kids and families read together.

  Ms. Hairball continues, “S.T.O.R.Y. Utopia will set up the fair for us. I hope some of you were able to bring a used book to donate to their reading programs.”

  I put my shiny new dictionary on the pile. “I’m donating my new one, Ms. Hairball. My ancient dictionary is too precious.”

  “Thank you, Polly. That is very kind.”

  I beam.

  Without putting up his hand, Dawson Dawsons asks, “When can we get popcorn?”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, class. S.T.O.R.Y. Utopia says their popcorn machine is broken. No popcorn.”

  We all groan.

  “Time for quiet reading and writing, class.”

  We all go to our desks. I open Spell. I remember how Ms. Hairball told me that I am very kind! I fill up with happiness, like I am a cup filling up with hot tea.

  Helping feels good. I am helping by donating a book.

  I feel an idea floating in my mind like a shiny bubble. Everyone is going to be SO happy with my help.

  THREE

  I write in Spell: We can’t have a school fair without popcorn. We need to fix this problem. Popcorn PLUS books will be extra delicious. We can call it Pop-Open-A-Book-Corn!

  Spell writes back: Pop-Open-A-Book-Corn—perfect!

  Exactly!

  More names for things at the fair:

  Title-Tastic-Photo-Booth

  Book-Face-Painting

  Oooh, I hope they have cotton candy! But I can’t think of a punnier name for it!

  Punnier?

  A pun is a word-joke. Get it? Punnier instead of funnier!

  Very funny! Very punny! What is cotton candy, anyway?

  It’s like fluffy sugar clouds!

  Wow! We could call it Cotton-Cloud-Candy!

  Super!

  More ideas:

  A Read-A-Coaster

  A Book Odyssey

  How about a Book Carousel?

  Book-A-Look?

  Look! A book!

  I giggle. Ms. Hairball tells us to put away our books. I tuck Spell into my cubby very safely.

  Ms. Hairball loves lists. I do, too.

  She gives each kid five blank index cards. We all write five book titles, one on each card. Everyone in the school is doing it. It’s for the school fair. All the cards will go in a huge jar. Then people can guess how many different books are in the jar to win a prize. I bet the prize is a book.

  A List of Incredible Books for the Book-Title Jar

  I can’t decide what number five should be:

  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

  Or:

  Ivy + Bean

  I spend so long not deciding that Ms. Hairball gives me another index card. I am allowed to write them both!

  When we finish our book-jar lists, we do math. We guesstimate the number of words on a page of The Flat Earth Theory (by Ms. Hairball!). To figure out the answer, everyone in the class has to count the number of words in one line. Ms. Hairball helps us add up the words. My guess was way too low! A lot of words go into writing a book!

  The morning whizzes by. At lunch recess, Trixie talks about a movie she wants to see. Hannah and Luala do handstands.

  I practice my handstand next to Luala.

  “I bet I can stay upside down longer than you both!” I say.

  All the blood rushes to my head. My tummy and legs get wobbly. I tumble over. Hannah tumbles over next.

  Luala stays upside down. She doesn’t even seem out of breath.

  The bell rings. Luala flips right-way-up and we all head toward class. In the hallway, there is a stack of books on a table. Our principal, Mr. Love, picks up a book and opens it. As he opens the pages, out pops lots and lots of popcorn! Pop. Pop. Pop!

  “It’s a Pop-Open-A-Book-Corn stall,” I blurt out. “I wrote that in Spell!!!”

  “I seeeee,” he says. He always makes his words veeery loooong.

  Someone from S.T.O.R.Y. Utopia comes over and opens another popping-corn book.

  “Oh,” she says. “Well. Yum.” She eats some popcorn. Then she walks over to a table that has a sign that says BOOK-FACE-PAINTING! Just like what I wrote in Spell!

  We try to peek into the library, to see if S.T.O.R.Y. Utopia is setting up the Book Carousel I wrote about in Spell. But the library doors are closed so we can’t see.

  Back in class, Aarav and I work on tidying up the classroom bookshelves. I love his name because he has TWO As at the start. Although Polly has two Ls in it, it is not as good a name as Aarav. Even Anna’s name is better than mine! Anna’s name has two Ns in the middle AND can be spelled backward and forward. That makes her name a palindrome.

  I’ve asked my mom if I can get a new name. Maybe Ava or Layal or Pip or Neven. All palindromes! But Mom always tells me that my name is special because I am named after Dad’s great-great-grandmother. I try to explain that his great-great-grandmother might be double-great, but her name is still not my favorite. Mom doesn’t understand. But that’s because MOM is also a palindrome!

  I think about my favorite palindromes. We have finished cleaning up, so I go to get Spell and write:

  My Favorite Palindromes:

  Wonton? Not now!

  A man, a plan, a canal—Panama!

  Go, dog!

  Spell writes:

  A nut for a jar of tuna.

  I laugh. Then the final bell rings. Woo-hoo! The fair is about to begin.

  FOUR

  I rush through the crowd to
find my family of Diamonds. Our last name is Diamond, so I always think of my family as sparkling.

  The S.T.O.R.Y. Utopia book donation box is by the main doors. The Cotton-Cloud-Candy machine is near the recycling bins. Little clouds of cotton candy puff toward the ceiling. Kids are jumping up to catch them. The Title-Tastic-Photo-Booth is in the hallway that goes to the gym. People are lining up to take photos with props from great books. I spot a broomstick and a witch’s hat. Maybe later I’ll dress up as Winnie the Witch!

  I see my family sparkling like diamonds in the front foyer.

  Dad is holding baby Finn. Anna hangs off my Mom’s arm like a purse. I hop-skip-jump over to them.

  “This is the awesomest,” I say.

  I love how adding the letters est make a word mean more.

  “Wildest, wackiest, weirdest,” my dad replies. Like me, he loves words.

  Baby Finn yells.

  “Hey there, little Finn Basil,” I say, rubbing his tiny arm. He gives me a gummy smile. I ask my family, “Can you all come see my poster? Everyone in the class made one.”

  As we walk down the hallway, Anna begs for cotton candy. She begs for popcorn. She begs for face-painting.

  Mom says, “We’re going to look at Polly’s poster first.”

  “But Mo-o-om,” Anna says. For a three-and-a-half-year-old, she has a scary-good whine.

  “Oh, Polly,” Mom says, when she sees my poster. “You worked so hard on this. Well done. Lovely handwriting.”

  Reading Rules

  By Polly Diamond