My parents were on the couch, fake-wrestling Summer Squash for the TV remote, when I walked in.
My mom looked up. “How was Plimoth Plantation?”
“Good,” I said. I dropped my backpack. “I met a chicken. I’m a vegetarian.”
My heart started to rev up again, punching me from the inside. It hurt. A lot. “Unfair…If it was Moisturizer…Who says we should…Chickens don’t eat us.…” My words tumbled over each other. My arms pinwheeled. My voice rose higher and higher. I couldn’t stop.
“Remember how you said we’re all us, and we’re all them, and we’re all on the same team, Mom? Well, that should mean chickens, too. The Pledge should be a promise about ‘liberty and justice for all, including chickens, which we won’t eat.’ ‘My Country ’Tis of Thee’ should be a song about ‘the home of the free, including chickens, which we won’t eat.’ And all other animals. We have to be fair!”
My brother let go of the remote and gaped, as if he’d never seen me before.
My father leaned back and scratched his head, repeating, “Vegetarian? As in, No bacon?” over and over, as if he couldn’t understand such a ridiculous thought.
And through it all, my mother just sat there looking at me with her head cocked and a funny expression on her face. I recognized it—it was the look she wore whenever our baby moved inside her. She says it feels like there’s a little otter in her belly, wriggling and swimming around. She always looks half baffled and half amazed at the crazy-weird miracle of that.
Except now my mother didn’t have her eyes closed. She was looking right at me. Finally she spoke. “Why, Clementine,” she said, with the same What-the-heck-is-this-crazy-weird-miracle? expression. “I think you’re going crunchy on us.”
My dad stopped, mid-“No bacon?”-ing. “You’re right,” he said. “Our daughter is going—”
“Hold on,” I said. “You know about ‘going crunchy,’ Mom?”
My mother rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Of course I know. I know everything that goes on in this family.”
My dad drew a quick secret Pentagon in the air behind her and shook his head to say, Nope, she sure does not know everything!
I winked back and stretched my hands out so I could give my mom a tug-up from the couch. “So, okay? No more eating animals, right?” I asked her.
“I don’t know, Clementine. It’s a lot to think about,” said my mom. She was wearing the crazy-weird-miracle look again. “But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you really believe in this. And tonight, that makes you the captain of this family’s team.”
Sara Pennypacker is the author of the Clementine books and many other popular books for young readers. She was born and raised in Massachusetts and lives there to this day. She was a watercolor painter before she had her two children. Then she fell in love with children’s books and decided that making them was what she would do for the rest of her life. For more information, go to www.sarapennypacker.com.
Marla Frazee has illustrated all of the books in the Clementine series, as well as several distinguished picture books, including Stars by Mary Lyn Ray. She was awarded a Caldecott Honor on two occasions: for All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon, and for A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, which she also wrote. She lives in Pasadena, California, and she works in a small backyard cabin under an avocado tree. Visit her Web site at www.marlafrazee.com.
Cover illustration © 2013 by Marla Frazee
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I have only taken Bus Seven one time, but one time was enough, let me tell you. If you took all the terrible-smelling things you could think of and mixed them together and let them rot for a good long time, it would smell like roses compared to The Cloud. The smell gets worse with every step you take toward the back of the bus, except that it gets a little better at the very last row, but that might be just because at the very last row you can smell the exhaust. Bus exhaust smells like roses, too, compared to The Cloud.
Our teacher raised his hand over his head, and everyone finally quieted down. “We need to get a lot of work done this week if we’re going to go on a field trip Thursday,” he said. “Please take out your Fraction Blaster packets, and let’s forget about Bus Seven.”
We took out our Fraction Blaster packets, but nobody forgot about Bus Seven.
Clementine and the Spring Trip Page 6