by Tom Watson
Dedication
Dedicated to Mary
(TFSMFTG)
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1 Things Get Stuck in My Head
Chapter 2 Uh-Oh
Chapter 3 The Golden Ticket Idea
Chapter 4 Do You Have Any Flip-Flops?
Chapter 5 It’s Not Weird—It’s Awesome!
Chapter 6 It’s Time for Toilet Paper
Chapter 7 Let’s Do This Thing
Chapter 8 Arr-grr-grr-arj!
Chapter 9 Inside the Principal’s Office
Chapter 10 It Hurts So Much!
Chapter 11 It’s Counting Time
Chapter 12 They’re Out of My Head
Fun and Games!
Back Ads
About the Author and Illustrator
Copyright
About the Publisher
I’M MOLLY.
I get things stuck in my head sometimes.
I’ll give you a few examples.
This morning, I had Froot Loops for breakfast. Froot Loops come in six different colors—red, orange, yellow, green, purple, and blue. When I poured the dry cereal into my bowl, I took the purple and green ones out. That’s because purple and green remind me of grapes.
And I don’t like grapes because they come in big bunches and it’s hard to tell how many are in a bunch. I like to know how many things there are. That’s just me.
So, I only had red, blue, orange, and yellow Froot Loops in my bowl. I ate all the blue ones first. It’s kind of hard to get only blue Froot Loops on your spoon, but it’s worth it. When I only had red, orange, and yellow Froot Loops left, I just ate them all. They could be mixed up. That’s because red and yellow make orange, so those Froot Loops are allowed to be together.
See what I mean?
Oh, I also couldn’t be done until I knew all the Froot Loops were gone.
I needed to know that there wasn’t one hiding beneath the milk at the bottom of the bowl. I sort of splashed my spoon in the milk to make sure there wasn’t one left.
My dad asked, “Molly, what are you doing?”
“I’m making sure there aren’t any more Froot Loops in my bowl,” I answered. “It’s important.”
This made perfectly good sense to my dad. Both my parents understand me very well.
So do Rosie and Simon. They are my two best friends.
Here are a few more quick examples.
The socks in my sock drawer are folded flat. They’re not rolled up in balls. Flat things are not supposed to be rolled up.
Also, if I start a book, I can’t read anything else until I finish that book. I can’t read a different book. Or a magazine. Or a comic book. I have to finish that book first.
And my pillows need to be in a certain order before I get into bed. They need to be like this:
It’s just who I am.
Now I’m going to tell you about something that got stuck in my head last week at school.
Mr. Willow asked me to take the absentee slip to the main office. It’s the piece of paper he fills out after taking attendance in the morning. I went to the office and turned the slip in to Mrs. Beyersdoerfer. We just call her Mrs. B.
“Here’s the absentee slip, Mrs. B.,” I said and handed it to her.
“Thanks, Molly,” she said and took it from me. She put it on top of the stack of absentee slips from the other classes.
“You’re welcome,” I answered.
But right when I turned to leave, something caught my eye.
Something in Principal Shelton’s office. Her office is off to the side of the main office. It has a door with a window.
There was something colorful in her office.
On her desk.
In a big glass jar.
And it got stuck in my head.
ONE CHAPTER DOWN. OFF TO A GREAT START!
I HUSTLED BACK to Mr. Willow’s class and sat down at our table. I share Table 5, in the back, with Simon and Rosie.
“Uh-oh,” Rosie said. Rosie is a nickname for Rosa.
“What?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she poked Simon with her elbow and nodded her head in my direction.
Simon looked at me. Simon isn’t a nickname for anything. It’s just Simon. He said, “Oh no.”
They nodded at each other and then looked at me some more.
“What?” I asked again.
Rosie said, “There’s something going on with you.”
“No, there’s not.”
“Yes, there is,” Simon said. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I answered—even though I knew there really was something.
“You’re having one of your moments,” Rosie said. “We can see it in your eyes.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are, Molly,” Simon said. “We’ve seen this look, like, a million times. It’s the exact same look you got before we jumped into the leaf pile a few weeks ago. I mean, every single leaf? Seriously?”
Rosie pleaded, “Just tell us.”
“Okay,” I said. I knew they were right. This thing was not going to get out of my head. “There’s a mason jar on Principal Shelton’s desk. It’s the kind of jar my mom uses to make raspberry jam. She gives the jam out at Christmas.”
“What’s so special about the jar on Principal Shelton’s desk?” asked Simon.
I answered, “It’s full of Skittles.”
“And?” Rosie asked.
“I want to know how many Skittles are in that jar,” I whispered. I had to be quiet because Mr. Willow doesn’t like talking. I’d seen Simon get in trouble enough to know that. He can be a total chatterbox sometimes. Mr. Willow has even called Simon’s parents before. And I definitely didn’t want that to happen to me. “I need to know how many Skittles are in that jar.”
“We can’t sneak into the principal’s office, dump out a bunch of Skittles, count them, and then put them back without anyone noticing,” Rosie said. “We’ll totally get caught.”
“And totally suspended,” Simon added.
“I need to know,” I said.
“It’s one thing to not jump into the leaves until every single leaf in the yard is in the pile, Molly,” Rosie said, shaking her head. “And then if another leaf falls, we have to stop jumping, go get that leaf, and add it to the pile. But this is different.”
Simon agreed, “Way different.”
All I said was, “I need to know.”
“This could mean, like, getting into serious trouble at school,” Rosie said, still shaking her head.
“And at home,” added Simon.
“I need to know.”
Rosie looked at Simon. Simon looked at Rosie. Then they both looked at me. We were good friends. Best friends even. They knew me. They knew nothing would change my mind.
“You need to know,” Simon said.
“I need to know.”
“Okay,” Rosie said. She twirled her hair around her left index finger. I knew this was a good sign. “We’re going to need a plan.”
But we couldn’t come up with a Skittles-snatching-and-counting strategy right then. That’s because Mr. Willow was already walking toward us.
“Table 5,” he said in a voice a little louder than usual. “Quiet down. Everybody get your composition books out.”
“Lunchtime,” I whispered.
“Lunchtime,” Rosie and Simon whispered back in unison.
ROSIE, SIMON, AND I sat at the table farthest away from the food—and farthest away from everybody else. Lunch was grilled cheese, tater tots, apple slices, and a chocolate chip cookie.
I counted my tater tots. There were eleven. So I gave Simon three.
I like to eat warm things in even numbers—and never double digits. So, for tater tots, I could eat two, four, six, or eight. And I was hungry, so I chose eight.
I eat even numbers for cold things too. But double digits doesn’t matter for cold things. I had seven apple slices and I gave one to Rosie.
I had been putting some of my food on Rosie’s and Simon’s trays for a couple of years now, so they barely even noticed.
“Anybody come up with a plan to count the Skittles?” I asked in a low voice. It wasn’t quite a whisper. There wasn’t anyone around us.
“Not yet,” Rosie answered.
“I thought of something,” Simon said. “It’s kind of a bad idea though, I think.”
“There are no bad ideas,” Rosie said.
“Okay, here goes,” Simon said after that encouragement.
When Simon talks about something he’s excited about, it can be kind of strange. He tilts his head a bit to the left and gets this glazed look in his eyes. Once he gets going, he talks faster and faster—and it’s hard for him to stop.
“We need to get Principal Shelton out of her office,” Simon began after tilting his head and getting that look in his eyes. “And I was thinking there must be a reason why she has all those Skittles on her desk. She must love Skittles. I mean, she doesn’t have Tootsie Rolls or Nerds or Sour Patch Kids on her desk, right?”
“Right,” Rosie said slowly. She sounded a little suspicious.
“She loves Skittles,” Simon repeated. “So, we go to the store after school and buy a pack of Skittles. Then we tear it open real careful like. When we get the pack open, we slip in a golden ticket. You know, like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We can design it on my mom’s computer and print it out. We have a color printer. After we insert the ticket, we glue the Skittles packet back up and then put it on her desk the next day.”
“What’s the ticket say?” I asked.
Simon told us proudly.
“Then when she leaves, the hard part’s done,” he said. “With her office empty, Molly just needs to sneak in. You know, through the window or the heating vents or whatever. Dump out the Skittles and start counting. Easy stuff.”
“Umm, Simon,” Rosie said slowly. “You know how I said there are no bad ideas?”
“Yeah,” he answered as he untilted his head.
Rosie giggled. “That’s sort of a bad idea.”
“Yeah,” Simon said. His feelings weren’t hurt or anything. “I know. I just thought I’d throw it out there. Get the conversation started. I don’t think she’d ever fall for it.”
“But you’re right about a lot of stuff,” I said. I didn’t want Simon to feel discouraged. “I need to get into her office—and get her out of it.”
Then the bell rang.
“Does one of you want my chocolate chip cookie?” I asked.
“Don’t you want it?” Rosie replied.
“No,” I said and shook my head. “It’s impossible to tell how many chocolate chips are inside.”
“Oh, right,” Rosie said. “I forgot. I’ll take it if Simon doesn’t want it.”
Simon said he was full.
“We can talk about the plan after school,” I said as I put my cookie on Rosie’s tray. Then I reached across the table and grabbed Rosie’s left hand and Simon’s right hand. “We have to come up with something. I have to get those Skittles out of my head.”
SIMON, ROSIE, AND I either ride bikes or walk to school together. This was a walk day. So it was the perfect time to work on our plan.
“Where were we?” Rosie asked.
“We were trying to come up with a way to get me into Principal Shelton’s office,” I said. “That’s step one. Step two is to get Shelton out of the office when I’m in there. And step three is to count the Skittles.”
“Okay, let’s tackle step one,” Rosie said. “We need to think about this logically. Why do students go to the principal’s office?”
“It’s usually when somebody gets in trouble,” I answered.
“That’s it then,” Simon said. “You just need to get into trouble.”
“I don’t know how,” I said as we passed the mailbox on the corner. “I’ve never been in trouble before. I get good grades, I don’t skip class, I always help with decorations for the school play. What should I do?”
Simon had lots of ideas.
“You could let all the class pets loose,” he said quickly. “There would be turtles and hamsters and bunnies everywhere. Or you can start a food fight. You know, throw a handful of french fries across the cafeteria and squirt some ketchup at somebody’s head.”
“Umm—” I said, trying to interrupt. But Simon was on a roll.
“Or you could go into the bathroom, unroll the toilet paper, and wrap it around the outside of the school,” he went on, walking backward in front of me and Rosie as he talked. “Or you could crumple up hundreds of pieces of paper and fill up a bunch of lockers with them. Then when people open their lockers, there’s this big cascade of paper pouring out at them. Or you could turn the sink on in Mrs. Bruton’s science room, plug the drain, and flood the school. Or you could—”
“Simon?” Rosie interrupted.
“Yeah?”
“How do you come up with your ideas?”
“I’m just really clever, I guess.”
“Okay, umm, those are all great suggestions,” I said. There was something Simon said that had sparked an idea in me. It was right at the edge of my mind—and I knew if I concentrated I could figure it out.
“Listen, you gave me an idea, I think. I’ll use the toilet paper. Not quite the way you suggested. But I’ll use it to get into trouble. So, I’ll take care of step one—getting into the principal’s office.”
“Now, we need to take care of step two,” Rosie said. She stopped on the sidewalk at the end of my driveway. “Once Molly is in, we have to get Principal Shelton out of the office.”
She twirled some of her hair around her left index finger. She does that when she’s thinking. Rosie is super smart. Simon and I knew not to interrupt her. It took her about thirty seconds to come up with a solution.
“Okay, Molly will be inside,” Rosie said, lifting her head to look at Simon and me. “Simon, it’s our job to get Principal Shelton out of her office.”
“How?” asked Simon.
But instead of answering Simon’s question, she asked him something instead. She said, “Do you have any flip-flops?”
“Why would I need flip-flops?”
Rosie pointed toward my house and said, “I’ll tell you inside.”
YOU’VE READ FOUR CHAPTERS. THAT’S 2,382 WORDS!
ROSIE SAT AT the kitchen table with Simon. She could see the confusion on our faces. We had no idea what her plan was.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rosie said. “I’ve got it. Simon and I will take care of step two—getting Principal Shelton out of her office. And, Molly, you’re sure you can take care of step one—getting into trouble?”
“I’m sure,” I said as I put three pieces of bread into the toaster. “I’m going to use toilet paper. You’ll see.”
“Are you okay with getting into trouble?” Simon asked.
“No, I’m definitely not okay with getting into trouble,” I explained and shook my head. “But what choice do I have? I need to know how many Skittles are in that jar. That’s way more important.”
“Okay. Then that only leaves step three—counting those Skittles,” Rosie said. She scrunched her mouth to one side a little bit. She was sort of talking to herself as much as to us. And she was twirling her hair again. “How can we do that?”
“That part should be easy,” Simon said. “With Principal Shelton gone, Molly just dumps out the jar and starts counting, right?”
“No,” Rosie said and shook her head. “Step two gets Shelton out of her office. But I don’t know how long she’ll be gone. Plus, there could be people hanging around outside the office. Mrs. B. or somebody else.”
; “Right,” Simon agreed. “Molly needs to find a way to count the Skittles really fast.”
“I don’t think I can,” I said, picturing that jar on Principal Shelton’s desk. I got a jar of Mom’s homemade raspberry jam from the refrigerator. “There must be hundreds in that jar.”
Rosie snapped her fingers. She can snap extra loud.
“We could get a separate container—something smaller,” Rosie said, explaining her idea. She’s good at math—like, really good. “We could get a Styrofoam cup or something. We go buy some Skittles and see how many fit into the cup.”
“How would that work?” I asked. I gave Simon and Rosie each a piece of toast and set the raspberry jam on the table.
“Well, let’s say 127 fit into the cup,” Rosie said. Using her empty hands, she pretended to pour Skittles from the jar into the Styrofoam cup. “Then when you’re alone in Shelton’s office you can just see how many times it takes to fill the cup. Like, maybe you can fill the cup three times and then there’s 14 left over. That would be 127 times 3, which is 381. Plus 14 would be 395. That would be way faster than counting 395 Skittles individually.”
“How do you do math so fast?” asked Simon, spreading jam on his toast.
“I don’t know,” Rosie answered modestly. “I’m weird, I guess.”
Simon said, “It’s not weird, it’s awesome!”
Something about Rosie’s idea didn’t work for me. And I guess she could tell.
Rosie asked, “What is it?”
“It just doesn’t sound very precise,” I said. I wiped some raspberry jam from the corner of my mouth. Mom’s raspberry jam is really good, but it’s sticky. “I mean, it won’t be the same number of Skittles in the cup every time. Sometimes it will be 127. But other times it might be 129 or 118. There’s no way to be exact.”