Amelia Bedelia leaned back in her chair to admire her handiwork. Then she made the mistake of looking to see what her classmates were doing. She spotted a lot of lists, with numbered ideas. She had only had one idea. She felt a little foolish.
Amelia Bedelia shook her head and folded her drawing first in half, then in quarters. Then she scrunched it up with both hands into a ball. Glancing over her shoulder, she tossed her idea over her head toward the wastepaper basket by the door. Her wadded-up idea missed the basket, bounced off the wall, and rolled across the floor.
“Hey,” said Clay. “Amelia Bedelia just tossed out an idea!”
Cliff jumped up and began dribbling her idea between his feet as if it was a soccer ball. “Look, he said. “I’m kicking an idea around!”
“Goofball,” said Clay, reaching down to grab the scrunched-up paper. He pretended to dribble away from the trash can and then whipped around and executed a jump shot that sent the paper ball arcing up, up, up—and straight into Mrs. Shauk’s outstretched hand.
Clay froze. No one else moved, either. Mrs. Shauk was clutching the bright white wad of paper with gleaming red fingernails, just like a hawk that had snatched a tiny bird out of the sky.
“No fair!” said Clay. “You were goaltending!”
“I was not,” said Mrs. Shauk. “The ball was still going up, not coming down.”
“But—”
“I played on the basketball team in college, young man,” said Mrs. Shauk.
Gosh, thought Amelia Bedelia. Our teacher is a basketball-playing French major with the eyesight of a hawk. No wonder we never get away with anything. . . .
“Now it’s my turn,” said Mrs. Shauk, making the official referee hand sign. “I’m calling you for illegal procedure. You were goofing off when you should have been working.”
“I was throwing out an idea,” said Clay.
Just then, the conference-room door opened and Amelia Bedelia’s father entered, along with a tall man in a dark blue suit, bright white shirt, and colorful bow tie. They stood together against the back wall, chatting quietly.
Mrs. Shauk tossed the wadded-up paper back to Clay and said, “Okay, let’s hear your idea.”
“But it isn’t mine,” said Clay, tossing the idea to Cliff.
“Cliff, go ahead,” said Mrs. Shauk.
“It’s not mine either,” said Cliff.
“Whose idea is this?” asked Sandy.
No one even squeaked. They were not rats. They would never squeal on one another.
But Sandy and Mrs. Shauk were patient. The room was silent. Even Amelia Bedelia’s father and the other man stopped talking.
Finally Amelia Bedelia slowly raised her arm. “That is . . . was . . . my idea,” she said. “I tried to throw it out, for real, but missed. Clay was actually helping me throw it in the trash can.”
“Looks like he threw it under a bus,” said Amelia Bedelia’s father.
Sandy smiled and said, “Well, if it doesn’t embarrass you, Amelia Bedelia, would you share your idea with us?”
Amelia Bedelia nodded.
Cliff tossed the idea to Sandy, who uncurled the paper ball and held up the page.
“It’s upside down,” said Amelia Bedelia.
Amelia Bedelia’s father took the paper, turned it around, and flattened it out as much as he could. He stuck pushpins in to hold it up on a corkboard, where everyone could see it. “Okay, sweetheart, we’re all ears.”
For a second, Amelia Bedelia imagined that every person in the room had turned into a giant ear, ready to hear her say something dumb. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and with the same courage it takes to dive into an ice-cold lake, jumped up from her chair and began talking.
“Well, when you asked us for ideas outside the box, I didn’t know what you meant. Do ideas come in a box?”
“I wish,” said Amelia Bedelia’s father. “I would order a case!”
Everyone laughed, helping Amelia Bedelia to relax a bit.
“It’s hard to think about being outside the box,” she said, “when we spend so much time in boxes. This room is a box. So is our classroom. This building is one big box.”
The man with the bow tie standing next to her father said, “Hmmpf!” He squinted his eyes at Amelia Bedelia and nodded his head.
Amelia Bedelia hoped he was agreeing with her, but she wasn’t sure. She kept on talking anyway. “All the buildings around here are boxes. Offices, warehouses, factories—”
“Or plants,” said Clay.
“Or plants,” added Amelia Bedelia. “The signs say these are parks—business park, office park, professional park, and corporate park.” As she named each one, she pointed to the squares on her drawing labeled BP, OP, PP, and CP. “But these parks aren’t for playing at all. They’re for working.”
Dawn raised her hand. “What’s that big circle in the middle? What do those letters I and P mean?” she asked.
“IP stands for idea park,” said Amelia Bedelia.
“Where’s that?” asked Dawn.
“It doesn’t exist . . . yet,” said Amelia Bedelia. “That’s my idea. To build a round building, not a box, with a glass dome for a roof. At night it would look like the top of a giant lightbulb.”
“Like in cartoons,” said Pat. “When a person in a cartoon gets an idea, a little lightbulb turns on over his head.”
“Right,” said Amelia Bedelia. “This a park where you could get ideas. People who work in the boxes around here could come and share their ideas and get new ones. They could learn about the latest improvements. College professors and scientists and interesting people could come to talk about computers and technology and art and music . . . and there could be really good food. Maybe even a bakery.”
“Sold!” boomed the man with the bow tie. He leaned forward and slapped the table with the palm of his hand. POP! Everyone jumped, including Amelia Bedelia’s father.
The man in the bow tie walked to the front of the room.
“Everyone, I would like you to meet our client, Mr. Biggley,” said Amelia Bedelia’s father. “His company makes salad dressings.”
“Before we talk about that,” said Mr. Biggley, “I just want to say how impressed I am with this young lady’s idea.” He shook Amelia Bedelia’s hand. “That is the best example of outside-the-box thinking that I can recall. I’m glad your friends and teachers stopped you from throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
Amelia Bedelia looked around the room, including under the table. First a cat, now a baby and a bath. All invisible. This was an interesting conference room.
“I’m meeting with the mayor next week,” said Mr. Biggley. “He wants to talk about how the city can encourage businesses to move here. How about you come along and show him your idea?”
Amelia Bedelia’s father was nodding his head back and forth like a bobblehead.
“I think we can spare Amelia Bedelia from school to talk with the mayor,” said Mrs. Shauk. “As long as she gives the class a full report when she gets back.”
Amelia Bedelia sighed. She had known that an assignment would come her way sooner or later.
“Great!” said Mr. Biggley. “In the meantime, Amelia Bedelia, you may want to work out a few of the wrinkles in your plan.”
“And creases,” said Amelia Bedelia.
“I can help her with that,” said Amelia Bedelia’s father, smiling proudly.
“I also want to thank the entire class,” said Mr. Biggley. “Your comments today gave us loads of insight into what young people would like in their salad dressings. We are planning to introduce a whole line of salad dressings just for kids. We figure that if kids actually like the taste of the dressing, they would eat more salads.”
“That would be a healthy habit,” said Mrs. Shauk. “Better than soda and candy.”
“But will they taste as good as the dressings Amelia Bedelia’s mom made?” said Dawn.
“We hope so,” said Mr. Biggley. “We’re hiring her to c
reate the flavors and recipes.”
Amelia Bedelia looked at her dad and smiled. Wow! Her mom’s recipes were going to be famous!
“Awesome,” said Clay. “They taste like a skrillion.”
“I like that line,” said Mr. Biggley. “Tastes like a skrillion!”
“That might be a super tagline for an ad,” said Amelia Bedelia’s father, writing it down. “If we use your idea, Clay, you’ll get credit. And payment.”
“Yes!” said Clay, pumping his fists in the air.
Amelia Bedelia smiled as she thought about Clay getting paid to tag something. She hoped her mom would make some actual money, not lettuce. Her mother already grew plenty of that.
After that, everyone got the chance to get up and present their ideas one by one. Amelia Bedelia liked listening to her friends. There were so many good ideas and so many possibilities and things to talk about and think about.
Best of all, no one said, “You can’t do that because it’s never been done before” or “You can’t do that because you’re too young” or “. . . because you’re a girl” or “. . . because you’re a boy.” From the way her classmates were talking and smiling, she could tell that they all had the same feeling she did. Amelia Bedelia felt like she could do anything she really wanted to do.
Excerpt from Amelia Bedelia Chapter Book #10: Amelia Bedelia Ties the Knot
When Amelia Bedelia got home from school, there was a familiar car in their driveway. She jumped off her bike and ran inside, shouting, “Aunt Mary? Jason? Where are you?”
“In the kitchen!” called her mother.
Amelia Bedelia was so happy she began skipping. She skipped through the living room to the kitchen. Her mother and aunt were talking in low voices. The only word she caught was “notices.”
Amelia Bedelia skipped to her aunt and gave her a giant hug.
“Hi, sweetie,” said Mary. “It’s great to see you again.”
Aunt Mary and her mother were having an afternoon treat. “Pour yourself some lemonade while I cut up fruit,” said her mother.
Amelia Bedelia looked around. She stuck her head into the dining room. “Is Jason hiding in here?” she asked. “I hate it when he jumps out and scares me.” She kind of liked the thrill too, but she would never tell anyone that.
“No, your cousin couldn’t come,” said Mary. “He loves to stay after school for sports. The only thing he’s jumping for is joy. What’s new in school for you, Amelia Bedelia?”
“We just started studying flight and airplanes,” said Amelia Bedelia.
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Credits
Cover art © 2016 by Lynne Avril
Cover design by Sylvie Le Floc’h
Copyright
Gouache and black pencil were used to prepare the black-and-white art.
Amelia Bedelia is a registered trademark of Peppermint Partners, LLC.
AMELIA BEDELIA ON THE JOB. Text copyright © 2016 by Herman S. Parish III. Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Lynne Avril. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-0-06-233413-8 (hardback)—ISBN 978-0-06-233412-1 (pbk. ed.)
EPub Edition © February 2016 ISBN 9780062334145
“Greenwillow Books.”
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Amelia Bedelia on the Job Page 4