Eyes on the Prize

by Nicole C. Kear

It feels absolutely terrible when Miss Mabel’s disappointed in you. It feels worse than having to do homework on the weekend when everyone else is making ice-cream sundaes.

  I gulped hard and nodded. Matthew Sawyer stared at the floor and mumbled, “Sorry.”

  “Part of the point of this project is to learn how to work together,” Miss Mabel said. “I’m here to help. But you’ve got to give it your best shot.”

  Then she patted us on our backs and sent us to the rug to work with our group.

  As we walked over, Matthew Sawyer said to me, “I love your shirt.”

  “Really?” I was surprised because Matthew Sawyer has never, in three years, ever given me one compliment. But I was wearing my favorite shirt, with a picture of a black cat and the words Meow’s It Going? in a talk bubble coming out of the cat’s mouth.

  “Thanks!” I said to him. “I like your shirt. It’s so, so…” I tried to think of a compliment about it, but he was just wearing the same kind of striped shirt he always wears, every single day. “So stripy!”

  Matthew Sawyer nodded.

  “And yours has a cat on it,” he said. “Cats are my favorite.”

  “I thought you hated cats,” I said. “Because they eat bugs and bugs are your favorite.”

  “I hate bugs! They’re the worst. I also hate recess and summer vacation and my birthday. And I am so, so, so happy to be in your group.”

  I was totally bewildered. Then he started to cackle and said, “And it is definitely not opposite day!”

  I was so shocked, my jaw dropped open.

  “Which means it is opposite day!” I cried.

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “Which means you are saying that!”

  Matthew Sawyer grinned a wicked grin, just like a wolf. Well, if he was the Big, Bad Wolf and I was a little pig, I would not be one of those blockheaded pigs who made its house out of straw or sticks. I’d be the clever one that made wolf stew at the end.

  I leaned in close to him and whispered, “Matthew Sawyer, if you make me lose this trophy, you are going to regret it. If you think I’m kidding, think again. I know kung fu. And my dad has a chain saw.”

  “I’m t-t-terrified,” Matthew Sawyer pretended to stammer. But he only said that because it was opposite day.

  Well, fine, I thought. Two can play at this game.

  “This is going to be great!” I said, gritting my teeth. “Best group ever.”

  Chapter 5

  The good news is, everyone in our group had a ton of ideas for the 100 Days project.

  The bad news is, they were all terrible!

  Matthew Sawyer’s ideas were gross.

  “We could do a hundred burps,” he said

  “Are you saying that because it’s opposite day?” I asked him.

  “No.” He snorted. “Opposite day is so childish. Grow up, would you?”

  Cora wanted to make a necklace with one hundred beads, and Minnie wanted to write a song with one hundred musical notes. They were both perfectly fine ideas. But they didn’t have one iota of pizzazz.

  I came prepared, of course: “We’ll find a person who is a hundred years old—maybe Mrs. Mackenzie, Principal Powell’s secretary. She looks about a hundred. And then she can wink a hundred times or stand on one leg for one hundred seconds or—oh! I know! She can bring in a one-hundred-dollar bill!”

  “You’re talking about Mrs. Rose,” squeaked Cora. She has a high voice that sounds like a hedgehog talking. “But she’s not one hundred. She’s seventy-one.”

  Cora knows everything about the grown-ups at our school because they think she’s super cute and they love to chat with her. This is one of the reasons she makes such a good Fix-It Friend. I was about to ask her if she could find out how old Miss Mabel was when I heard Miss Mabel make an announcement.

  “Guys, don’t forget to break your project down into small steps,” she said. “Your final project’s due on the hundredth day of school, which is next Thursday. But I want you to give yourself due dates before that for each step.”

  “Ugh,” I groaned. “There’s so much to do! We need to think, think, think!”

  Cora pulled on her red curls, which is what she does when she is concentrating.

  Minnie bit the top of her pencil. She’s a think-and-chew-er. When she chews on the ends of her braids, I wag my finger and say, “¡Comer cabello humano es malo para la digestión!” which cracks us up. It means “Eating human hair is bad for the digestion” in Spanish. Minnie taught me how to say it. She has taught me all the Spanish I know.

  When I need to think, I tap my fingers. The harder I have to think, the faster I tap. That’s just my system.

  But of course, Matthew Sawyer snapped at me, “That tapping is distracting me! Cut it out!”

  He was busy scribbling on his loose-leaf paper. It looked like he was hard at work. For a second, I thought maybe I was wrong about him. Then I peered over to see what he was writing, and it was just his name over and over again.

  “Would you pay attention!” I exclaimed.

  “I am paying attention! Doodling helps me.”

  I snorted. “Nice try, Matthew Sawyer.”

  “Do you have to say my whole name every time? Can’t you just call me Matt like everyone else?”

  I was about to tell him some other names I could call him that were a lot less nice, but I heard Miss Mabel call out, “I’m seeing a lot of grim faces. Do we need to doo-wop?”

  Everyone said, “Yes!” so she put on “Rama Lama Ding Dong.” Or she tried to, at least. Without the speaker, the sounds of everyone dancing drowned out the soft music. So halfway through the song, she turned it off and we sat back down.

  “I know!” Cora squeaked. “How about we glue one hundred sequins onto something?”

  Minnie and I gave each other worried looks.

  “It’s a good idea,” Minnie said, “but when you were in charge of gluing sequins on the costumes for the play, you, umm…”

  Matt finished her sentence: “You went totally overboard.”

  “That’s not true!” Cora protested. Her big brown eyes were open wide.

  “Cora,” Minnie said. “You tried to glue sequins on the piano I was playing.”

  “You know how, if you give a goldfish too much food, it gobbles all the food up and its stomach gets so overstuffed, it dies?” Matt asked Cora. “That’s how you are with sequins.”

  I glared at Matt. “Why don’t we write the idea down as a maybe? It does have razzle-dazzle. But I still think we need something bigger to win the trophy. We need something never seen before! Something that will knock people’s socks off!”

  Suddenly, Matt gasped. “I have it!” He leaned over and whispered, “What’s something everyone has but you don’t usually find in one place?”

  “Toothbrushes?” asked Minnie.

  “Teddy bears?” asked Cora.

  “Hot dogs?” I asked.

  “Nope,” said Matt. “Boogers!”

  “If you don’t cut it out, I’m going to give you one hundred kicks!” I exclaimed. “And for crying out loud, stop doodling your signature!”

  All of a sudden, he did stop.

  “Hey, that’s it!” he exclaimed.

  “A hundred kicks?” I asked. “Really? You would let me do that? I do think it is kind of a great idea.”

  “No, no, no.” He shook his head. “One hundred signatures! We’ll collect a hundred signatures! It’ll be like a petition.”

  “Huh?” I asked.

  “A petition,” he repeated. “People sign their names on a piece of paper to show they agree with whatever the petition says. My stepdad works for an environmental rights organization, and he writes petitions all the time.”

  Even I had to admit it was a good idea.

  We decided we’d make a really long piece of paper with one hundred lines on it, and we’d roll it up into a scroll so it looked old-fashioned. That way, it would be small enough that we could pass it around at lunch and take it ho
me and stuff.

  “And when we get all the signatures, we can attach the petition to a big poster board, which we can decorate!” said Minnie.

  “With sequins!” squeaked Cora.

  “Maybe sequins,” I said.

  By the time math was over, we had finished our schedule. Minnie wrote it down because she has the best penmanship. I think it’s because she has such strong fingers from playing piano.

  Step 1: Make petition.

  Due date: Wednesday

  Step 2: Collect 100 signatures.

  Due date: next Tuesday

  Step 3: Make fabulous poster (maybe with sequins).

  Due date: Thursday, the 100th Day of school!

  There were more steps that I suggested, but Minnie would not write them down. They were:

  Step 4: Accept trophy.

  Step 5: Cry for joy.

  Step 6: Pause for applause.

  Chapter 6

  The next day, during math, Miss Mabel called our group to her desk to review our project idea and schedule.

  Miss Mabel has all sorts of cool stuff on her desk. She has a timer that’s in the shape of an owl, so you don’t lose track of time. She also has a basket full of fidgets, which are toys you can fiddle with if you are getting antsy. She also has lots of framed photos.

  My favorite is the picture from when Miss Mabel was in second grade, just like me. In the photo, she is at a fancy party with her mom, and she’s wearing the most beautiful outfit I have ever seen. It is purple and silky, with gold around the edges, and it comes in two pieces—a long skirt that reaches to the floor and a matching top that wraps around her body and hangs over her shoulder like a scarf. Her mom is wearing the same kind of outfit, only in orange.

  Once I asked her where she got the outfit, and she said, “It’s from India. It’s a sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” I asked.

  She laughed. “S-a-r-i. It’s a traditional kind of clothing in India.”

  “Well, I am sorry I don’t have a sari,” I said. “Do they come in turquoise?”

  On that Tuesday, while Cora explained our project idea to Miss Mabel, I was looking at that picture and daydreaming about how, if I had a sari, I would wear it to accept my trophy at the 100 Days celebration. Maybe Miss Mabel could wear one, too, and we could be twins.

  When Cora was done talking, Miss Mabel said, “I love it! It’s fresh and new and very collaborative.”

  We all beamed, even Matt.

  “Today, you can decide what you’re going to write on your petition. It should be something all of you can agree on.”

  “If there is such a thing,” I muttered. I didn’t think Matt and I would ever agree on anything!

  And I was right. We spent most of math time arguing about what the petition should say. While we were in the middle of brainstorming, Matt bent over to look at something on the floor.

  “Matt!” I exclaimed. “You’re not even paying attention!”

  He said “Shhhhhhhh!” without even looking at me.

  That got me curious, so I bent over to see what he was looking at.

  It was a water bug. They are basically the same as cockroaches, just with a nicer name. Sometimes one will appear in our house, because it’s a very old house that was built in the Pilgrim times, or around then. Whenever my grandmother sees a bug, she shrieks at the top of her lungs and stands on a chair. But I’m not scared of bugs, so I just run over and smash it with my shoe for her. Nana is always very grateful and gives me a cookie.

  As soon as I saw that water bug, I jumped up and stomped on it.

  “HEY!” Matt shouted. He looked at me with a horrified expression that said, How could you do such a terrible thing, you heartless monster?

  “What did he ever do to you?” Matt asked very bitterly.

  “I was trying to help!” I exclaimed. “And if you were paying attention and working on our petition, instead of looking at bugs, this wouldn’t have happened!”

  “That’s not the point!” he cried. “You murdered an innocent creature!”

  “He was a gross cockroach!”

  “He may have been a cockroach, but he was not gross,” Matt said in a huff. His eyes were flashing with fury. “You’re the gross one.”

  I was so angry at Matthew Sawyer that I thought I might sock him. So I stood up to get a drink of water and cool off, like my mom always tells me to do.

  On my way back to the group, I passed Miss Mabel, who was putting new batteries in her speaker. She pressed the power button, but nothing happened.

  “Can’t get the speaker to work?” I asked.

  “Nope,” she said, tossing it in the trash. “It’s too bad. Our doo-wops have been a bit lackluster lately.”

  “Why don’t you just ask Principal Powell for a new one?”

  “I did,” Miss Mabel said. “But speakers cost money, so—”

  “Eureka!” I shrieked. Miss Mabel looked at me like I was growing wings out of my ears.

  “Sorry, Miss Mabel, it’s just … I had a great idea! Gotta tell the group.”

  I raced over to the rug, where Matt was trying to persuade everyone to make a petition that said, “Ban the murder of water bugs! Water bugs are people, too.”

  “First of all, water bugs are not people,” I said. “They’re bugs.”

  Matt opened his mouth to say something, but I stopped him.

  “But it doesn’t matter, anyway, because I’ve got the perfect idea!” I exclaimed. “The petition should ask for a new speaker for Miss Mabel! So she can doo-wop again!”

  Everyone agreed it was perfect. Minnie wrote the petition in her best handwriting:

  “Miss Mabel is the best teacher ever! Please give her a new speaker. She needs it to teach us!”

  Finally, we could move on to the fun step: getting signatures. We decided we’d each get to take the petition home for one day.

  Petition Schedule

  Cora: Wednesday to Thursday

  Minnie: Thursday to Friday

  Veronica: Friday to Monday

  Matt: Monday to Tuesday

  I made sure I got the longest turn because I knew I could get a billion signatures if I just had enough time.

  I also made sure Matthew Sawyer got the last turn.

  Told you I was the clever piggy.

  Chapter 7

  Cora asked for her signatures very sweetly and got lots of them, especially from the teachers, who cannot resist her. By the time her turn was over, she had gotten seventeen signatures.

  Then it was Minnie’s turn, and she did a good job, too. She got fifteen signatures.

  “I would have gotten more, but my piano lesson last night was extra long,” she said. “I have a really big recital in a few days. I have to play allegro!”

  “Hey! That’s not Spanish; that’s Italian!” I said. “It means ‘happy.’ My grandmother says it sometimes.”

  “Well, in music it means you have to play really fast, which is really hard,” she said. “And right now, it does not make me happy! It makes me stressed out! So I have to have extra lessons to get ready, and I only got fifteen signatures.” She stuck the end of her braid in her mouth.

  “Minerva Ramos!” I exclaimed. “¡Comer cabello humano es malo para la digestión!”

  She burst out giggling.

  “Don’t worry!” Cora said. “We have tons of signatures—thirty-two all together.”

  Next, it was my turn. I don’t mean to brag, but you will never guess how many signatures I got.

  Sixty-six.

  Yep, that’s right.

  Sixty-six!

  Want to know my secret? It’s easy. Just ask absolutely everyone. Also, don’t take “no” for an answer. Also, give away free doughnuts.

  I got a bunch of signatures during math time, at recess, and during lunch, too—until Miss Tibbs noticed what I was doing. As soon as she saw my petition, she rolled it right up and put it in her pocket. She said it was “not an appropriate lunchtime activity.” Big surprise! Acc
ording to Miss Tibbs, even laughing is “not an appropriate lunchtime activity.” She doesn’t know the meaning of fun.

  I used to think Miss Tibbs was an evil witch like in The Wizard of Oz because she wears all black and frowns all the time. Then she gave me a homework pass for helping out a friend who has trouble reading, and I decided she’s probably not a witch. But, even so, she is the strictest teacher I’ve ever met and definitely a party pooper.

  So I was not surprised when she snatched up my petition at lunch. But I was surprised when she gave it back to me after lunch, and I noticed she had signed it. Yippee-ki-yay!

  On Saturday, Nana and Nonno and Jude and Mom and Dad signed. Even Pearl wanted to sign!

  “She can’t even write yet!” protested Jude.

  I glared at him. “Toddlers are people, too, you know.”

  Then I put my hand on top of Pearl’s hand to help her write her name. It looked pretty messy, but you could still sort of read it.

  Right after she finished her signature, she went potty. Except she didn’t go in the potty. She went on the floor. Right next to my feet!

  “Pearly Pie,” I said. “You really have to remember to go into the bathroom.”

  “When you weally have to go—” she started singing.

  We all yelled, “No! Please!” but it was too late. I had that dumb tune stuck in my head all day, and even all night. Dad said he heard me singing “So don’t forget to wipe when you don’t wear a diape-rrrrrrrrr” in my sleep.

  On Sunday, Dad had to go into work. He’s a super in a big apartment building close to my school called the Monroe. His job is to fix stuff that breaks. Not stuff that belongs to people, like a teapot or a saxophone or someone’s tooth. Stuff that belongs to the building, like heaters and doorbells and windows.

  The elevator in the Monroe stopped working on Sunday, so Dad had to go check things out. I begged him to let me come. Here’s why: The Monroe has ten floors, with a whole bunch of apartments on each floor. I don’t know multiplication yet, but what I do know is that adds up to tons of people, which adds up to tons of signatures.

  Dad has worked in the Monroe ever since I can remember. So I have gone there a lot, and I have been banned from doing a lot of things there, including: