“We’d better not get blamed for this,” I whisper to Darby. Suddenly, Sonja screams and jumps up onto her chair.
“RATS!” she yells. “The rats are loose!”
A bunch of kids jump up onto their chairs, too, dropping their sandwiches on the floor. A rat runs right between Mrs. Larson’s legs. She screams. Then Tillie squats down to pick up her sandwich, and a rat runs right up her tights and under her skirt. She lets out a funny half-scream, then rolls back on her heels and faints, falling flat on the floor! The rat runs away.
“Tillie’s dead!” Sonja yells.
“Oh, my goodness!” says Mom. “I’ll go get the nurse.”
I watch Mikey get out his cell phone and call someone, yelling into the phone about Tillie being dead. Mrs. Larson kneels next to Tillie, then runs over to the sink, gets a wet paper towel, and puts it on Tillie’s forehead. Then another rat jumps from the counter onto the back of Gabriella’s head. She shakes her head, and the rat starts to fall but grabs her ponytail and hangs on, flipping from side to side. Gabriella starts screaming louder than anyone I’ve ever heard. The rat drops from her ponytail, catches her sweater, then drops to the floor and scurries away. Gabriella keeps screaming.
Principal Walker, Nurse Feverfew, and Mom run into the room. Nurse Feverfew runs to Tillie, bends down over her, and starts checking her pulse. Tillie’s eyes are open now, so she looks like she will live. Mom and Principal Walker surround Gabriella and try to get her to calm down.
“Make her stop!” David shouts, plugging his ears. “She sounds like a fire truck!”
“Isn’t that a fire truck?” Iris asks.
It is a fire truck — a real one!
I look at Jill. She’s sitting on her desk, smiling, like this is the best day of her life.
Suddenly, two firefighters run past our window, then burst into our classroom. I recognize one of them. It’s Mikey’s dad. That’s who Mikey called!
The not-Mikey’s-dad firefighter hurries to Tillie, who is definitely awake now but still lying on the floor.
Mikey’s dad walks over and starts talking to Mrs. Larson. She’s about to say something, but a rat runs right over her shoe and she screams, tips off of her shoe heel, and falls right into Mikey’s dad, who catches her. She quickly stands up, straightens her skirt, and turns bright red. She looks like she has a crush on Mikey’s dad!
I look over at Darby to see if she’s watching Mrs. Larson, too, but she’s busy clearing plates covered in half-eaten tea sandwiches and biscuits. She’s stacking them in her arms like a waitress.
“What are you doing?” I ask Darby.
“Collecting food!” she says. “Help me!”
I start picking up plates, too. When Darby’s arms are full, she sits down on the floor, her legs splayed in front of her, and dumps the food between them.
“Heeeeere, rat, rat, rat!” she says. “Heeeeere, rat, rat!”
She’s calling the rats like we call the ducks! And they come! One after another, the rats run to the pile of sandwiches and start nibbling. She reaches down and picks one up.
“Put it in its cage, Lily!” she says.
I’ve never held a rat before, but I guess it’s time to learn. I pretend like it’s a frog, carry it to its cage, and shut the door.
“Here’s another one!” Darby says.
One by one, I put the rats back into the cages.
“Thank you, Lily and Darby!” Mrs. Larson says. “Thank you!”
Mrs. Feverfew and the other firefighter each take Tillie by one arm and slowly lift her so she’s standing. She looks all wobbly and pale. They walk her out of the room. Mikey’s dad packs up their firefighter stuff, then walks over to Mrs. Larson. Now Mom’s standing next to Mrs. Larson, and both of them are acting funny and turning red — like they both have a crush on Mikey’s dad! I start blushing watching them. Luckily, he leaves.
As the door swings shut behind Mikey’s dad, Billy Snitch starts shouting, “Mrs. Larson! Mrs. Larson! You told me not to tell on people unless it’s important. But this is important!”
“What is it, Billy?” Mrs. Larson says.
“I saw Jill open the cages, Mrs. Larson!” Billy shouts. “I SAW her!”
“Jill Johnson?” Mrs. Larson asks, as if there has to be another Jill, because this one certainly wouldn’t do such a thing.
She looks at Jill. Jill shrugs and smiles. She looks at Principal Walker, who is still standing there.
“Jill Johnson, please gather your things and come with me,” Principal Walker says.
As Jill walks out of the classroom, she drops a folded note onto my desk. I open it.
“What a sneaky rat Jill is!” Darby says to me after school as we walk to the bus together. “Having her own revolution.”
“She left with a bang, just like she wanted, that’s for sure,” I say.
“Yep,” Darby says. “It’s too bad she had to go. Now I’ll miss her all over again.”
“I’ll probably miss her, too,” I say. “But I think we’ll get in a lot less trouble with her on the other side of the ocean.”
“I think you’re right,” Darby says, following me onto my bus.
We sit down and take out paper and pens to do heads and bodies.
“Let’s send it to her in the mail,” I say.
“She’ll love it!” says Darby.
When we get to my stop, we grab our things and Abby follows us off the bus. We sprint past Zach, who’s barking as wildly as Gabriella was screaming. He has big globs of slobber hanging from his mouth, catching the sunlight. It looks impressive. We get home and throw down our bags, then open the refrigerator.
We find a few leftover tea sandwiches and a biscuit.
“Let’s eat them in honor of Jill,” Darby says. “But we need real biscuits!”
We can’t find anything close to a cookie, so we spread butter on eighteen-grain bread and sprinkle chocolate chips on top.
“A biscuit!” I say. “Isn’t it amazing how creative we are when we have nothing to work with?”
“To Jill!” Darby says.
“To Jill!” I say.
We wash it all down with some tomato juice and clear our dishes. Then Darby and I walk down to the edge of the lake, followed by Snort.
We sit down next to each other along the bulkhead and look across the lake. There’s a warm breeze, and the sun is reflecting on the water like shiny diamonds.
“Remember the first time I came over?” Darby asks me.
“How could I forget?” I say. “Quack!”
“That seems like forever ago!” Darby says. “Way back when you were just a duck.”
“Yeah, a lot has happened since then,” I say. “Actually, I think I’m more of an amphibian than a duck now. Don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” Darby says. “I mean, it’s like we were just little pollywogs back then, and now we’re grown-up frogs — with arms and legs and everything. It’s metamorphotastic!”
Snort starts barking at a bush, so we get up to inspect what she’s barking at. I can’t believe what we find.
“One of the frogs you brought must have decided to stay!” I say. “Don’t be shy, froggie!”
I pick up Snort, and the frog hops out from under the bush. Then a second frog hops out behind it. Then two more!
“A family of frogs!” Darby says. “Four of them. It’s just like your family!”
I bend over and look at the frogs.
“You are so brave, little froggies!” I say to them. “You left your swamp just to come and live with me. And you know what? I think you’re gonna like it here!”
One of the frogs croaks. Darby and I laugh.
“Now we just have to keep the big bully bullfrog ghost from scaring them away,” Darby says.
As if on cue, we hear a rumbling MWAARP from across the lake. Then we actually see it for the first time. And it is huge — it’s MONSTROUS! “It’s as big as a mountain lion!” Darby says.
“It’s as big as a whale!” I sa
y. “No wonder all the froggies are too scared to live here.”
The bullfrog takes a long leap from the shore. There’s a huge splash and it disappears.
“That is one scary ghost frog,” Darby says. “I’m telling my dad about that one.”
“I don’t think that’s a ghost frog, Darby,” I say. “That was the real thing. It was as real as Snort.”
“Nah,” Darby says. “Definitely a ghost. Anyway, dead or alive — it keeps coming back to haunt us.”
“Just like Jill!” I say.
We look down and the four brave frogs are still sitting there. Then I look up at Darby — my still-newish bestest friend.
“You know what, Darby?” I say. “If we made it through the Ghost of Jill, we can get through anything together.”
“Anything,” she agrees.
“We’re like superglue,” I say.
“Yep,” she says. “I’m the finger, and you’re the forehead. We’re stuck with each other!”
“Rizzlerunks forever,” I say, doing a Rizzle Sizzle.
“Best buds, under frogs!” says Darby.
“With loyalty and honesty for all!” I finish.
And I mean it. Darby and I have already been through so much since we became friends — what else could happen?
Thanks to my family and friends for making life seem like a comedy. Lucky me — I’m surrounded by people who turn life’s ups and downs into hilarious stories.
Thanks to my parents, who, despite tearful protests, moved my sister and me to a beautiful little lake where we could live a life of outdoor adventure.
Thanks to my scientist sister, Gail, for inspiring Abby.
Thanks to my lifelong best friend, Di, who’s as funny and full of fascinating (albeit questionable) stories as Darby.
Thanks to my other lifelong BFF, Michelle, whose witty sense of humor and devious ideas gave life to Jill.
Thanks to Ken, Mary Ellen, David, Cindy, and Jim Arasim for inspiring Darby’s family and for having me around all those years.
Thanks to my agent, Rebecca Sherman, for getting me started on this project.
Thanks to my editor, Joan Powers, for guiding me through the process to finish it.
Thanks to Kristen Nobles and Lisa Rudden for the inspired art direction and design.
Thanks to Tatum Vontver for Darby’s “bad” frog drawing; Addi Bevers for the lovely horse drawing; Marit Kaiser for crafting candy-wrapper bracelets; Mary and Amelia Krouse for reading the drafts; and many others who found themselves giving kid-input on demand.
Thanks to Scott Slonim at Hemingway Elementary School for the inspiration for SHTV.
Thanks to my husband and at-home editor, Jason, for managing home and hearth when I’m locked in my (well-lit, second-floor) dungeon, writing and illustrating.
Thanks to my kids and additional at-home editors — Beck, Tia, and Tatum — who each passed through their own fourth-grade years, giving me first-hand insights into their own emotions and adventures at that age.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2018 by Leslie Patricelli
Cover illustrations copyright © 2018 by Leslie Patricelli
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2018
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2013957522
The illustrations were created digitally.
Candlewick Press
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Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
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