Pardon Me

by Courtney Sheinmel

  Praise for Stella Batts:

  “Sheinmel has a great ear for the dialogue and concerns of eight-year-old girls. Bell’s artwork is breezy and light, reflecting the overall tone of the book. This would be a good choice for fans of Barbara Park’s ‘Junie B. Jones’ books.”

  — School Library Journal

  “First in a series featuring eight-year-old Stella, Sheinmel’s unassuming story, cheerily illustrated by Bell, is a reliable read for those first encountering chapter books. With a light touch, Sheinmel persuasively conveys elementary school dynamics; readers may recognize some of their own inflated reactions to small mortifications in likeable Stella, while descriptions of unique candy confections are mouth-watering.”

  — Publisher’s Weekly

  Other books in this Series:

  Stella Batts Needs a New Name

  Stella Batts: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

  Stella Batts: A Case of the Meanies

  Meet Stella and friends online at www.stellabatts.com

  Stella Batts

  Pardon Me

  Courtney Sheinmel

  Illustrated by Jennifer A. Bell

  For Daniel Whelan Moyers

  —Courtney

  For my good friend Alisa

  —Jennifer

  Text Copyright © 2012 Courtney Sheinmel

  Illustrations Copyright © 2012 Jennifer A. Bell

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles. All inquiries should be addressed to:

  Sleeping Bear PressTM

  315 East Eisenhower Parkway, Suite 200 •Ann Arbor, MI 48108 • www.sleepingbearpress.com

  © Sleeping Bear Press

  Bubble Wrap® is a registered trademark of Sealed Air Corporation. Life Savers® is a registered trademark of the Wrigley Company, a subsidiary of Mars, Inc. Maltesers® is a registered trademark of Mars, Incorporated. Oreo® is a registered trademark of Kraft Foods. Pop Rocks® is a registered trademark of Zeta Espacial S.A. Red Hots® is a registered trademark of the Ferrara Pan Candy Company. Twizzlers is the product of Y&S Candies, Inc., of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, now a subsidiary of The Hershey Company.

  Printed and bound in the United States.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data •Sheinmel, Courtney. • Stella Batts : pardon me / written by Courtney Sheinmel ; illustrated by Jennifer A. Bell. • p. cm. • Summary: “Thirdgrader Stella Batts needs to find a new best friend after her friend, Willa, moves away, but finding a new best friend is not easy” • ISBN 978-1-58536-193-9 (hard cover) -- ISBN 978-1-58536-194-6 • (pbk.) • [1. Best friends—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Family life—Fiction.] I. Bell, Jennifer A., ill. II. Title. III. Title: Pardon me. • PZ7.S54124Sti 2012 • [Fic]--dc23 • 2012008122

  Table of Contents

  Carpool

  We’ll See

  Raining Cats & Dogs

  The Surprise

  Good Things Come in Small Packages

  Pardon Me

  Coming Clean

  The Candy Circus

  Biscuits & Other Things

  Best Friends

  CHAPTER 1

  Carpool

  Remember me? I’m Stella Batts. This is my third book. Maybe you’ve read my first two books. If you haven’t, you can start right here.

  My mom says if you write at least three books that are all connected then you have a series. So when this book is finished I’ll be the author of a series! Hooray!

  But so far I’m only on Chapter 1. Here’s a list of things that happened since the end of my last book:

  1. My best friend, Willa, moved away to Pennsylvania.

  2. I changed my favorite color from yellow to blue.

  3. My hair grew an eensy weensy bit so it isn’t as short as a pixie cut anymore, but it’s still not long enough for a ponytail. Sometimes I clip the sides up with barrettes.

  Friday afternoons, it’s Mom’s turn to drive us home from school. “Us” means me, my little sister, Penny, and her best friend, Zoey. It used to mean Willa too, before she moved.

  Today Dad’s car pulled up in the school parking lot. Mom is pregnant, and her stomach has gotten super big. It’s hard for her to squeeze into the driver’s seat behind the steering wheel. So Dad has been doing carpool instead. That’s another thing that changed since my last book.

  After we were all buckled in, Dad started to drive away. “Okay, what game are we playing?” he asked. When Dad carpools, we play car games.

  “Geography,” I said.

  This is how you play Geography. You think of the name of a place, like Arkansas. And then the next person has to use the last letter of your place, which would be an “s.” So they could say something like Salt Lake City. The person after that would have to use the “y.” It goes on and on until you can’t think of any more places.

  “I hate that game,” Penny said. “Stella knows more places because she’s eight, so it’s not fair. How about I Spy?”

  You probably already know the game I Spy, but just in case, it’s when you say, “I spy with my little eye,” and then you describe something you see out the window. Like, “something green,” or “something metal.” The other players try to guess before we drive by and can’t see it anymore.

  “We ALWAYS play that game,” I said.

  “Zoey will be our deciding vote,” Dad said.

  Penny clasped her hands together and leaned toward Zoey. “Please, pretty please, pick I Spy,” she said. “I’ll be your best friend.”

  Zoey giggled. “You already are my best friend,” she said. “Okay, it’s I Spy.”

  If Willa were the deciding vote, it would have been Geography, but of course Zoey picked I Spy.

  “Yay!” Penny said. “I’ll go first. I spy with my little eye.”

  “What?” Zoey asked.

  “Hold on, I’m still spying.”

  We drove past Lee Avenue, which is the street Willa used to live on. I knew she wouldn’t be there, but I turned my head to look anyway.

  “Dad, what time is it?” I asked.

  “It’s two-fifty,” he said.

  I had been trying to call Willa, but it’s hard because of the time change. Pennsylvania is three hours later than California, which meant it was 5:50 there. That’s a good time to call. “Can I use your cell phone please?”

  “I’ll get it for you at the next red light.”

  There was a traffic light up ahead, and it turned red just as we got to it. Dad handed me his phone.

  “I spy with my little eye something yellow and red,” Penny said.

  Zoey started guessing as I dialed. I pressed the phone against my ear. Mrs. Getter answered after two rings.

  “Hi, it’s Stella Batts. Is Willa there?”

  “Stella Batts, how lovely to hear your voice. She’s just in the other room. Hold on a moment.” I heard her put the phone down, and then I heard her call out, “Willa! Stella’s on the phone!”

  And then I heard Willa say, “I don’t want to talk to her.”

  Those are exactly the words I heard: I don’t want to talk to her.

  But I knew I must have heard her wrong. Why wouldn’t Willa want to talk to me? I didn’t do anything wrong.

  Or did I? I thought about the things we did before Willa left Somers. We played a hundred games of Spit, we had a bunch of sleepovers, we went to Brody’s Grill and sat by ourselves at the table. We never fought. She was never mad at me, not once!

  Mrs. Getter picked up the phone again. “I’m sorry, Stel. We’re headed out for a picnic dinner, but I’ll make sure she calls you back another time.”

  A picnic
with Willa in the redwood forest had been number 4 on my wish list of things to do before Willa moved away, but we didn’t have time to go. Now she was going without me—not to the redwood forest, but somewhere in Pennsylvania. Maybe somewhere she liked even better. And she wouldn’t even talk to me first. That seemed kind of mean. I didn’t understand. Willa is NEVER a meanie.

  Is it possible that she moved to Pennsylvania and turned mean? Oh no, I hoped not.

  Mrs. Getter said goodbye. I heard the phone click when she hung up. I kept the phone pressed to my ear for a few more seconds, just waiting. Maybe Willa would come to the phone after all. But I knew the line was dead and she really wouldn’t.

  “Willa wasn’t there?” Dad asked when I finally handed the phone back to him.

  “She’s going on a picnic,” I said.

  “Hurry up and guess!” Penny said. “You didn’t guess yet, and it’s about to be too late!”

  “I don’t want to play,” I said.

  “Then I win,” Penny said. “It was the lady in the car next to us. She had a yellow and red clip in her hair, and her car just turned down that street.”

  “That was a good one, Pen,” Dad said.

  Now we were on Zoey’s street, and Dad pulled up in front of her house. Zoey’s mom came out to meet her. Dad rolled down the window to talk to her for a couple of minutes, because Zoey and Penny are having a play date on Saturday and they needed to decide what time.

  I clicked my heels three times, which is what I do when I want to make a wish, but I didn’t know exactly what to wish for.

  After that we drove away. We were going to Batts Confections so that Penny and I could see the candy garden one last time. Dad said it was time for a change, so he’s taking out the garden and putting in a candy circus. I would have put it on my list of things that have changed since my last book, except it hasn’t changed quite yet.

  Batts Confections is in an outdoor shopping center. There wasn’t a parking spot in front of our store, so we parked near Man’s Best Friend. That’s a pet store 109 steps away. Once I counted. “Give a Home to a Pet Who Needs One,” read the sign by the door. Penny ran right up to see the window dogs—you know, the dogs they keep in the cage in the window.

  Dad and I walked up behind Penny. There was only one window dog and she was curled up so the top of her head was nestled right by her toes. All you saw was her white fur, like she was a marshmallow. She was kind of a big marshmallow, but still an eensy weensy dog.

  The sign in front said “Maltese.” When I was Penny’s age, which is five, I thought those signs were nametags. Now I know it just means the kind of dog. Like I’m a human, but my name isn’t “Human.”

  I couldn’t remember ever seeing a Maltese before. It made me think of the malted things we sell at Batts Confections. Malt balls, Maltesers, malted milkshakes.

  “Can we go in and look at the other dogs?” Penny asked.

  Before Dad had a chance to answer, the door opened and two people came out—a woman and a girl. The girl was tall enough to be at least ten years old. She was dressed like a grown-up. Instead of jeans, she had on slacks, and a white blouse tucked in. She was holding the woman’s hand, but she dropped it as soon as they stepped out onto the sidewalk, and she ran up to the window.

  “C’mon, let’s go,” the woman called.

  “Not until you promise we’re coming back.”

  “Fine, I promise.”

  “When, Mom?”

  She was speaking with an accent, and actually she didn’t say “Mom.” She said “Mum.” I happen to know that’s the way they say “Mom” in some other countries.

  “After lunch,” her mom said. “In about forty-five minutes or so.”

  Her mom DIDN’T have an accent. How weird is that? Aren’t kids supposed to sound like their parents? Maybe she was just pretending to have an accent. Willa and I did that sometimes, but ours never sounded as real as this girl’s did.

  “And then we’ll play with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Forty-five minutes, and then we’ll play with you, sleepyhead,” the girl said, still with an accent. They started to walk toward Brody’s Grill, which is the restaurant in the shopping center, and I heard the girl say, “Can I have a plate of chips for lunch?” A plate of chips? Didn’t she mean a bag of chips?

  Penny tugged on my arm. “C’mon, let’s go,” she said.

  CHAPTER 2

  We’ll See

  When you walk into Man’s Best Friend, there are more cages. Each cage has a sign on the side so you know what kind of puppy is inside.

  “Hey, what kind are those?” Penny asked. She pointed to a cage at the end of the second row with one brown puppy and one black one.

  “It says Chow Chow,” I told her.

  “One Chow and another Chow?” Penny asked.

  “Nope, they’re each a Chow Chow,” Dad told her. “It’s a name so great you have to say it twice.”

  “Why are they different colors?” Penny asked.

  “Because Chow Chows come in different colors,” Dad said.

  “It’s a weird name for a dog,” I said, “since you can chow down on food.”

  “That’s true,” Dad said. “I can’t wait to chow down on the brussels sprouts Mom is making for dinner tonight.”

  “Oh gross, really?” I said, at the same time Penny said, “Yummy!” She actually LIKES brussels sprouts.

  “Really,” Dad told me. “But if you promise you’ll eat at least five of them, you can pick out something at Batts Confections to bring home for dessert. Are you girls ready?”

  “No,” I said. “I want to see if we can play with a dog.”

  “We can play with a dog?” Penny asked.

  “I think so,” I said. “That other girl said she was going to.”

  “What other girl?” Dad asked.

  “The girl with the accent,” I said.

  “Maybe she was going to adopt one,” Dad said. “We’re not going to be getting a dog today.”

  What he meant was, we’re not going to be getting a dog ANY day. My mom doesn’t like them. I mean, she really REALLY doesn’t like them. I keep telling her that dogs are man’s best friend—man short for human, which includes women too. But Mom says Aunt Laura is her best friend, and not some dog that would shed all over the furniture and chew up our shoes.

  “Please Dad, can we just ask? I already know which one I want to play with,” I said.

  “Not the Chow Chow,” Penny said. “If it gets really hungry and there’s no food, it might decide to chow down on my fingers.”

  “No,” I said. “I want the one in the window.”

  Dad turned to look at the little Maltese again. “That’s a cute dog, Stel,” he said.

  “That’s the one I want too,” Penny said, copying me like she always does, but this time it was okay.

  Dad waved at the pet store man so he knew to come over to us.

  “Are you thinking about adopting a puppy today?” the man asked.

  “Yeah, the Maltese,” Penny said. “We might buy it.”

  “Now, now, Pen,” Dad said. “You know we’re not going to do that.”

  “You said we’re not getting a dog today, but you didn’t say not ever,” Penny told him. “You could get me one on a special day, like on my birthday.”

  “We’ll see,” Dad said.

  I’m old enough to know that We’ll see really just means no. But Penny still thinks that it might mean yes.

  “The Maltese is popular today,” the pet store man said. “But it looks like she’s still taking a nap and we don’t like to disturb the puppies when they’re sleeping. She’s pretty tired after the ride from the shelter this morning. Is there another dog you’re interested in?”

  “Stel?” Dad asked.

  But suddenly Penny called out. “Look! It opened its eyes!”

  I looked and sure enough, the Maltese had uncurled from her little white ball and her eyes were open. “Looks like she wants to play wi
th you after all,” the pet store man said. “Give me a minute, and I’ll meet you back in the playroom with her. It’s all the way down the aisle and to your left.”

  How cool is it that there’s a playroom for you to play with the puppies?!

  In case you’re wondering, this is what was inside the pet playroom: two red plastic chairs for people to sit on, a blue rubber ball, and a roll of paper towels. The pet store man came in with the Maltese and set her down on the floor. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. “You can shout for me if you need me to take her back sooner.”

  “Thank you,” Dad said.

  Penny threw the blue ball and called, “Fetch!” But the puppy didn’t move.

  “I don’t think she knows any tricks yet,” Dad said.

  “Then I’ll just hold her,” Penny said. She reached down to grab the puppy, and it scooted across the room and into the corner.

  “She doesn’t like me,” Penny said.

  “You’re just a giant to her,” Dad said.

  “I’m not a giant,” Penny said. “I’m the shortest person in here.” That was true. Penny is just barely shorter than I am, but it still counts.

  “If I did this I’d be a giant,” Penny said, and she climbed up on one of the red chairs and waved her hands around. “I’m a giant now.”

  “Be careful, Pen,” Dad said. “Here, watch this.” He made a fist, and bent down toward the dog. She took a couple of steps toward him and sniffed. I saw her pink tongue, like an eensy weensy stick of gum, dart out of her mouth and lick Dad’s knuckles.

  “Ew,” Penny said, as she hopped down from the chair. “She licked you.”

  “It’s just the puppy way of shaking hands,” Dad said.

  “Can I try?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Dad said.

  I made a fist, just like he did, and the puppy sniffed it. She licked me too, but her tongue was so tiny I could barely feel it. Then slowly, slowly, I moved my hand to the top of her head and petted her. She turned her head a little bit, so I could tell she wanted me to pet her some more. Her fur was soft, like a stuffed animal. When I picked her up, she was lighter even than Belinda, Penny’s stuffed platypus. It was like holding cotton candy, except not sticky at all. “Hi there, little puppy-pup,” I said in a baby voice.