by Sally Warner
“I was just saying, who’s the boss of the Cardboard Challenge?” Hanni asked. “For our team, I mean?”
“No one,” Alfie said. “Or maybe Mr. Havens will tell us who.”
“This is supposed to be a free country,” Hanni said, already outraged.
And they were still eating their sandwiches!
But Hanni was the kind of girl who liked to get mad in advance, just in case, Alfie had learned over the past two or three weeks. “Nothing bad has happened yet, Hanni,” she said in her most soothing voice.
“But it could,” Hanni insisted. She looked worried.
“Yeah,” Lulu chimed in, backing up Hanni. Again!
“I guess so,” Alfie said, hurrying to agree with both girls. “So maybe we should vote.” Hadn’t Hanni wanted to vote on what their class name should have been?
“Voting takes way too long,” Hanni announced. “I’m not gonna fall behind in my work just because people want to vote. See, my mom says it’s not too early for me to start thinking about college,” she tried to explain. “And how am I gonna get into college if we sit around voting all the time?”
College? Alfie could feel her cheeks get hot. What was she supposed to say now? They were only seven! She couldn’t even imagine being in third grade.
Lulu looked impressed, hearing Hanni’s remark. Her straight bangs bobbed up and down as she nodded.
Phoebe just looked as if she were wishing she’d sat at a different lunch table—even a table with two or more boys sitting there.
Boys cramming food into their mouths.
Boys burping out the alphabet.
Boys having a belching contest.
Or worse.
“Maybe we won’t have a boss,” Alfie said, trying for a careless shrug.
“Then that boy will just grab all the good cardboard stuff,” Hanni warned.
“He’d better not try,” Lulu said, ready to spring to Hanni’s defense—and help her get into college when the time came, too, if she possibly could.
Now it was feeling like two-against-one, Alfie thought, shocked.
And she, Alfie Jakes, was the one. How had that happened?
“We won’t let Scooter take over and grab the good stuff, that’s all,” she assured both Lulu and Hanni. “There’s three of us, and only one of him. Also, the parent helper and Mr. Havens will be there. Scooter can’t be the boss just because he’s a boy.”
“Because this is a free country,” Hanni said, returning to her former argument. “Alfie’s right. Three-against-one. That means we can squash him!”
Alfie almost gasped, she was so surprised. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “And anyway, Scooter hasn’t done anything—”
“The point is, we’ll squash him,” Lulu repeated, her eyes shining with excitement. “Like you said, Alfie.”
It was Hanni who had said the word “squash,” Alfie thought, her heart thudding.
“Okay? Okay,” Hanni said, taking her own quick version of a vote.
“Yes-s-s,” Lulu agreed, giving a triumphant fist-pump as she hissed out the word.
Alfie busied herself trying to open her sweaty carton of milk with clumsy fingers.
The three first week friends were finally coming together, she told herself—even if it was in an unexpected way.
But—poor Scooter Davis, who did not have a clue that any of this was going on!
9
Teamwork
After lunch, Mr. Havens sorted the kids into teams as they came through the classroom door. The Cardboard Challenge teams were meeting for the first time. But Mr. Havens looked frazzled, Alfie thought. That was weird.
“Our parent helper isn’t here. Maybe she had car trouble,” Mr. Havens told his students. “So we’re on our own this afternoon. But everything will be fine.”
It was as if he was saying that last sentence to himself, Alfie thought.
Most of the kids had to sit at different tables for the challenge, not the tables where they did their normal work. “You better not mess up my space over there, or you’ll be so-o-o sorry,” Suzette called over to shy Alan Lewis, who was at Phoebe’s table. Mr. Havens shushed Suzette.
Alan looked worried in spite of the shush.
“We should take attendance,” Hanni announced to Alfie’s team.
She was putting herself in charge without any vote at all!
Alfie stared hard at the cardboard objects piled in the middle of the table.
Two empty cereal boxes.
At least three cardboard tubes, one of them very long.
Lots of little gift boxes of different sizes.
One big cardboard box.
Two shoe boxes.
And two or three pieces of plain brown cardboard.
“I don’t think we really need to take attendance,” she objected with what she hoped was a friendly smile. “There’s just four of us, Hanni. Counting you.”
There’s me, Alfie thought, counting on her fingers under the table to make sure.
And Hanni, who was now frowning, in spite of that friendly smile.
And Lulu, who was smoothing down her perfect hair.
And Scooter, who was busy peeling a strip of rubber off one of his sneakers. He didn’t seem to care that Hanni had basically crowned herself queen of their Cardboard Challenge.
“We just got two days to do this thing,” Scooter said, looking up from his sneaker. “So we better get going. The parent-and-guardian deal is on Friday night.”
Hanni made a snorting sound. “Tell that boy it’s called ‘Back to School Night,’ and it’s not a deal,’” she said to Alfie without looking at Scooter.
“Why can’t you tell him?” Alfie asked, confused. She knew Hanni, an only child, was shy around EllRay. But Scooter was their own age!
“The point is, we’d better start,” Lulu said. “If it’s okay with you, Hanni,” she added hastily. “Because other kids are already making stuff. ‘Build today, decorate tomorrow,’ Mr. Havens told us,” she reminded the others.
“That’s a great idea, Lulu,” Alfie said, beaming. “Isn’t that a great idea Lulu had, Hanni?”
She was determined to keep Hanni and Lulu together, now that they seemed to like each other so much.
Leadership and cuteness.
All that was left was for her to squeeze in there somehow and add her own cricket energy, Alfie thought. And then the three perfect ingredients would be complete.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m making a truck,” Scooter announced, grabbing the sturdiest-looking shoebox and a couple of long cardboard tubes. “Or maybe an ATV or a tank.”
“I think I’ll turn two of the little boxes into a jewelry box for the locket I got in Maine last summer,” Lulu said. She selected several boxes from which to choose, lining them up in front of her. “I’m putting the littlest one on top, like they do with wedding cakes,” she continued. “And then tomorrow, I’m gonna paint the whole thing pink, with lots of glitter on top, and—”
“I’m making a computer,” Hanni interrupted. “To show Mr. Havens and the parents and guardians what a good student I’m gonna be this year. And then I’ll wrap the whole thing in foil, so it looks like silver metal. Really expensive silver metal,” she added as if the description alone might impress the other three kids.
“Who ever heard of a silver metal computer?” Scooter asked, rolling his shoebox on a cardboard tube to test how well it moved.
Alfie could not believe her ears—or her eyes, as she saw their heap of cardboard getting smaller by the second. “You guys,” she finally exclaimed. “Don’t you get it? Mr. Havens said we’re supposed to be a team. That means we have to work together. Make something together. Just one thing. Teamwork!”
She looked around for their teacher. There was a line of kids at the craft closet door,
so he must be in there, using the paper cutter or hot glue gun.
“That’s not what Mr. Havens meant,” Lulu informed Alfie, reaching for a white plastic glue bottle. “He just meant we shouldn’t fight. So we’ll be that kind of team. The not-fighting kind.”
“Yeah,” Hanni said, squinting at the box she had chosen for her computer. “And he meant we should share the materials like a team, too.”
Oh, great, Alfie thought. They were agreeing with each other again?
They were getting along like crazy!
What about her?
10
Nightmare Twist
“But—but—look over there,” Alfie sputtered at Hanni, Lulu, and Scooter as she pointed to a nearby table. “That team is making something really cool. Together. It looks like a robot,” she added, trying to tempt them to turn their heads and take a peek.
“Ew,” Lulu said, busy with her jewelry box. “Robots.”
“You can put your box of jewels next to my awesome ATV when we’re done,” Scooter told Lulu. “That’s kind of like working together, isn’t it? And then my ATV can run over that girl’s computer until it’s smashed flat.”
“Her name’s Hanni,” Alfie said. “And all you guys should just look around, for once.”
Phoebe’s table was putting together a castle. It even had a drawbridge. And kids were laughing!
At another table, Bryan was blowing wadded-up balls of paper through a tube. His team was probably making a cannon or something.
Everyone was cooperating. Nobody was getting squashed. They were teams.
Except at Alfie’s table.
“You’re not the boss of us, Alfie,” Lulu informed her.
“But you better get started,” Hanni said, sounding almost sorry for her summer friend. “You’re really falling behind. Why don’t you make a poster out of one of those pieces of cardboard, Alfie?” she suggested, pointing. “It can say ‘Welcome!’ Then we’ll all have something to show on Back to School Night. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing,” she added, as if explaining a difficult idea to some kid who just wasn’t getting it.
“Yeah,” Scooter said. “Because so far, Alfie, you got nothin’.”
“Nobody asked you,” Lulu told him, not looking up.
“Listen. We are really supposed to be working on only one project,” Alfie said for the third time. “All four of us. Together,” she repeated. “And we shouldn’t be mean to each other,” she added.
She looked around the room. Where was Mr. Havens when you needed him? Still in the craft closet?
He was huge! How could he just disappear like that?
“Yeah, right,” Hanni scoffed, laughing. “Like I’m gonna wreck my grade by letting a bunch of random kids work with me on a big assignment like this. An assignment that everybody’s gonna see. Even grownups. Even my mom.”
Alfie blinked. Grades? Random kids? But she and Hanni had been pretty good friends for the past two weeks. Hanni had even given her Princess. For free! And Hanni had known every single kid at their table in first grade.
Even “that boy” Scooter Davis.
“But working together as a team is supposed to be the assignment,” Alfie said, her voice weary. She was giving it one last shot.
“Good going, Alfie, trying to get me to help you with your challenge,” Hanni said in a jokey voice. She wrestled with a strip of duct tape so she could turn a flat, skinny box into an upright computer monitor, Alfie guessed. “Here. Hold this, would you?” Hanni asked Alfie.
“I’d like to,” Alfie said, trying not to sound too huffy. “But I’m kind of busy right now, working on my own project. You know, so I can get into college.”
In about a million years.
“You are not working on a project,” Lulu said. “She isn’t,” she tattled to Hanni, as if Hanni couldn’t see for herself. “She hasn’t even started yet!”
And she and Lulu had been best friends last year, Alfie thought, frowning. But now, Lulu and Hanni were getting to be better friends with each other every second.
So her first week, second grade dream was coming true—but with a nightmare twist.
“Only half an hour more, people,” Mr. Havens’s voice boomed from nowhere, rolling over everyone’s heads like a surprise clap of late-summer thunder. “Your projects should be built by then,” he said. “We will have paint and collage materials ready for you to use tomorrow afternoon. And a parent helper will be here for sure to help you achieve your dreams.”
Good luck with that, Alfie thought, scraping some dried glue off the table with her thumbnail. That parent helper was going to have three projects to work on at her table alone! Four, if she caved in and started making something.
They were doomed. All four of them.
“You better get goin’ on something, Alfie,” Scooter said, sounding worried for her. “Even if it’s really lame. Just do any old thing,” he advised.
“Yeah,” Lulu chimed in. “Or you’ll make the rest of us look bad on Friday.”
“Be quiet,” Scooter told her. “You’re not helping.”
“And you’re not the boss of me—or Alfie,” Lulu said, still not looking up from the boxes she was gluing together. “Or the boss of anyone. So you be quiet.”
“You can do it, Alfie,” Scooter whispered.
And Alfie found herself reaching for a small white cardboard box.
11
A Word with Mr. Havens
“Alfie, may I have a word?” Mr. Havens said quietly as his second grade class headed out for recess that hot afternoon.
Alfie knew what he wanted to talk about. But why did it have to be with her?
“I want to ask you about your team’s Cardboard Challenge,” Mr. Havens said when the last second grader but Alfie had disappeared out the classroom door. “I noticed you kids were each doing your own project. But this was supposed to be a team effort, as you know. One project for each team.”
“I do know,” Alfie said. Her eyes were getting prickly and hot—a sure sign that tears were about to fall. No, no, no, she told herself.
Why was he telling her this?
“You seem to be the team leader, after all,” Mr. Havens was saying, answering her silent question. “So I thought maybe you could tell me what happened.”
“I’m not the leader,” Alfie told him.
But she wasn’t going to add anything else. She would not tattle on anyone, Alfie promised herself.
“Look. I blame myself for what happened this afternoon,” Mr. Havens said.
This surprised Alfie. Teachers made mistakes—and admitted it?
“I let you guys down,” Mr. Havens said. “I got carried away. I did not plan for enough help. I think I bit off more than I could chew,” he added.
Huh? His mouth was huge, Alfie thought, sneaking a look at it.
So how was that even possible?
“You got stuck in the craft closet,” Alfie said, hoping to make him feel better.
“Cutting up cardboard,” Mr. Havens agreed, nodding. “And using the hot glue gun to stick paper towel tubes to a castle, to make turrets,” he added. “And then I was gluing tubes together—and to my shirt—for an outer space defense machine.”
“The thing that looks like a cannon?” Alfie asked.
“The very one,” he said, nodding.
“Not that wadded-up paper balls would work very well in outer space,” Alfie said, thinking about it.
“I thought the Cardboard Challenge would be fun,” Mr. Havens explained. “But we definitely needed at least one parent helper today, and maybe even two. I should have had a back-up plan in order. I’ll organize things better next time,” he assured Alfie. “And I’ll arrange to have at least two helpers here tomorrow afternoon. Maybe your team’s projects can still be fixed.”
“It’s not my team,”
she said again. “But Hanni has already made her computer,” she said. “And Lulu’s making a pink jewelry box with glitter on top. It’s almost done. And I’m making a picture frame. And Scooter’s almost finished making some kind of car.”
“An ATV,” Mr. Havens said. “I saw it.”
Alfie blinked. He knew all that? And he still thought maybe they could “fix things tomorrow”?
A roomful of parent helpers couldn’t save them! Not now. It was too late.
“Alfie,”Mr. Havens said. “I noticed how hard you were trying to get your teammates to work together on the assignment. That counts for a lot. So don’t worry.”
Don’t worry?
“Maybe I tried to remind people about the project, and maybe I didn’t,” Alfie said, not giving anything away. “But maybe they wouldn’t listen. And who is going to tell them they did the assignment wrong?”
“I’ll do it,” Mr. Havens assured her. “I’ll take care of it first thing tomorrow afternoon. I’m the teacher, and you’re the student, Alfie,” he added. “This is not your problem.”
Alfie could feel her body relax a little. “But why didn’t you say something today?” she asked.
“There wasn’t enough time,” Mr. Havens said. “And I had already explained the assignment once,” he added. “Of course, I never thought I’d be stuck all afternoon with no help, or that some of you might not understand the assignment. But mistakes happen. And sometimes, the best example of something—such as teamwork—is to show what it looks like when things go wrong.”
“And the example of bad teamwork is gonna be us?” Alfie asked, horrified.
Poor Hanni!
Poor Lulu!
Poor Scooter!
And poor her!
Four all-wrong cardboard projects, sitting there like goofballs during the art show and Back to School Night.
In front of everyone. Kindergartners, the principal, and parents and guardians.
Surrounded by all that really cool teamwork—unless Mr. Havens and his imaginary parent helpers could magically help them “fix things tomorrow.”