by Emma Wunsch
It took a while, but Miranda finally discovered Donut in the sandbox under a mountain of sand, surrounded by the little kids who used to play in the sandbox before the 3B boys took it over. When the sandbox kids saw the princess, they ran off. (Then they slowly crept back, since it was cool to see a princess so close.)
“We need to talk,” Miranda said softly.
“You’re the enemy,” Donut said. “We cannot speak.”
“But I wrote the note about the cheese.” Miranda held out a sparkly pink envelope. “And I know about the chicken.”
Silently, Donut pushed his left arm through the sand. Miranda handed him the envelope and then, just as quickly as she’d appeared, she was gone.
31
MAUDE AND DONUT’S LONG WALK TO THE CASTLE
The rest of the day dragged for Maude and Donut, who wanted to know why Miranda had suddenly and rather formally invited each of them to the castle. But Miranda stayed silent and busy. When she wasn’t taking a practice exam, she kept writing things down in Hillary’s old managing editor notebook.
When the dismissal bell finally rang, Miranda told Maude that Blake, her driver, was picking her up because she needed to run a small errand. Would Maude meet her at the castle?
“Sure,” Maude said. “Being alone will give me time to think about some new revenge plan for the boys.”
Except a few feet from school, Maude discovered she wasn’t alone.
Donut was right in front of her.
It would be just like Donut to go to the castle when he wasn’t invited, Maude thought angrily.
Donut, who didn’t know Maude was behind him, was thinking about doughnuts. He hoped he’d be able to eat them without thinking about cheese. He also wondered if any of them would have pink sprinkles.
When Donut got to the castle, he stopped at the ornate gate. Since he’d never been inside, he wasn’t sure what to do.
But then, from out of nowhere, Maude appeared, reached her hand inside an opening in the gate, and pushed a tiny button.
Just like that, the gates opened.
Maude walked in.
Donut followed.
Maude turned around and stared at him.
Donut stared back.
“What are you doing here?” they asked at the same time.
“I’m here about a chicken,” Maude said.
“Well, I’m here about some doughnuts,” Donut replied.
“What?!” Maude shrieked. “Miranda wouldn’t invite you! You’re the enemy!”
“I was invited!” Donut held out his invitation, which had been neatly tucked into his jacket pocket.
It took Maude several minutes, but eventually she dug her crumpled invitation out of her bag.
“They say the same thing!” Donut said.
“Except for the doughnut and chicken parts,” Maude said.
“Where’s Miranda?” Donut asked.
Maude and Donut looked all around the huge lawn surrounding the castle, but Miranda was nowhere.
“Look!” Donut pointed across the lawn at a long table on a patio. “I think my doughnuts are there!” He took off running.
Maude ran, too. At the exact same time, they saw an elaborate display of doughnuts, and right in the middle of the table, Rosalie was resting on a fancy chicken bed.
“Hooray!” Donut and Maude hollered.
But just as Donut reached for a doughnut and Maude reached for her chicken, Miranda appeared on the royal steps and, using the megaphone she’d just borrowed from Hillary, yelled, “STOP!”
32
THE TRUCE
“DON’T TOUCH THAT CHICKEN, MAUDE!” Miranda hollered. “DON’T TOUCH THAT DOUGHNUT, DONUT!” Miranda walked down the long flight of stairs. When she reached the bottom, she put the megaphone on the table.
“Welcome,” she said quietly. She stepped in between Maude and Donut and the table.
“Sorry I’m late!” The impartial referee with the big ears and enormous backpack panted as he sprinted across the lawn. Once he was on the patio, he rummaged through his bag and pulled out his referee shirt, the whistle, and an old-fashioned judge’s wig.
“What’s going on?” Maude sputtered.
“I invited the impartial referee so there’d be two girls and two boys,” Miranda said. “But mostly because he’s so impartial.”
The referee-judge nodded.
“But why?” Maude and Donut asked.
“We need a truce,” Miranda said.
“A what?” Donut asked.
“A truce is a noun that means a stop to fighting,” the referee-judge explained.
“You want a truce between me and Donut?” Maude asked.
Miranda nodded. “And between all the girls and boys in Three B. You’re the . . .” Miranda paused to think of the right word. “Representatives!” she spit out. “This whole thing started with you two, so it should end with you two.”
The referee-judge nodded.
“I don’t want a truce with Donut,” Maude said.
“I don’t want a truce with Maude,” Donut said.
“Then no chicken and no doughnuts.” Miranda sounded serious.
“Miranda!” Maude gasped. “What are you doing? I thought we were best friends!”
“We are! You’re the one who said actions speak louder than words. I’ve been trying to use my words, but it hasn’t worked. So this”—Miranda put the chicken down in front of Donut and the doughnuts in front of Maude—“is my action.”
Miranda took a deep breath. “And this is my speech.” She glanced one last time at the managing editor notebook. “As you both know, at first, I didn’t want to go to school. And there are still many things I don’t like about it. School lunches. Practice exams. Music. PE. Did I say school lunches?” Donut, Maude, and the referee-judge nodded.
Miranda continued. “But once I got used to school, it turned out there were some things I really liked. I love Miss Kinde, of course. And the smell of newly sharpened pencils. I love swinging with Maude at recess. I like Norbert’s stories and Felix’s gluey creations. I loved our class play.”
“Banana Pants forever,” Maude said quietly.
Donut, who’d been a reluctant (but excellent) lead, nodded slightly.
“But Three B doesn’t feel like a class anymore. I liked being a class most of all. And that’s why Three B needs a truce. The end.” Relieved that her speech was over, Miranda took a deep breath and bowed.
“That was a brilliant speech, Miranda,” Maude said. “I am extremely impressed with your action and your words.”
“Thank you,” Miranda said. “And also, Maude, I won’t publish the Girls Gazette issue two. I think you know that it’s just not the kind of stuff we’d want anyone to read.”
Neither Donut nor the referee-judge had any idea what Miranda was talking about, but Maude nodded.
“I put the original in the fireplace last night,” Miranda said. “The burning was witnessed by royalty with a range of food allergies and diets. No one else will ever see issue two.”
“Thank you,” Maude said, suddenly extremely relieved. What had she been thinking when she wrote all those stories? And if issue two had been printed! Maude didn’t dare imagine the paper the boys would’ve written, and then the girls would’ve written another issue, and things would have gotten even worse. Miss Kinde definitely would have found out! Parents would have been called! Perhaps great fortunes would’ve been lost!
“Thank you,” Maude said again. “And a million thanks for finding Rosalie.”
Miranda looked at Donut.
“I stole your chicken!” Donut blurted out. “Because you put cheese in my doughnut.”
“You got the swings taken away!”
“Because you stopped tag!”
“Because it was really annoying when you played it inside.”
“It was?” Donut sounded surprised.
Maude nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Donut asked.
“I . .
.” For the first time, Maude wondered why she hadn’t just told Donut to stop. “Well, you crashed into me.”
“Because I didn’t see you bending over your bag,” Donut said. “And I said sorry.”
Maude looked at Miranda. Miranda nodded. “He did. It was quiet and quick, but he did say sorry.”
“Well . . . but.” Maude was feeling unusually speechless. What was happening? And then she remembered the biggest injustice of all! “But you forbade Desdemona from playing tag! Because she’s a girl.”
Donut made a face.
“You said girl tag was forbidden. At last Monday’s recess.” Maude looked at Miranda. “You heard! Tell him.”
“Well, Desdemona did say something about ‘girl tag’ and . . .” Miranda felt worried. What if her big action was a terrible mistake?
Donut looked confused. Maude looked furious. Miranda looked troubled. The impartial referee-judge looked, well, impartial. But then Donut jumped up and yelled, “Squirrel tag!”
Everyone looked at him.
“Desdemona didn’t say, ‘girl tag.’ She said, ‘squirrel tag’!” He sounded excited. “I forbade Desdemona from squirrel tag, but not because she’s a girl.”
“What’s squirrel tag?” Maude asked.
“Desdemona pretends she’s a squirrel. Which is fine. Squirrels are great. But when Desdemona plays squirrel tag, she just twirls around singing, ‘I’m a squirrel, I’m a squirrel’ a million times.”
The girls looked at him.
“When she’s playing squirrel tag, she just collects acorns and sings. She never tags anyone! Which is not how you play! That’s why I said I won’t play squirrel tag with her anymore. I’ll play squirrel soccer with Desdemona and I’ll play tag with Desdemona, but not squirrel tag.”
Miranda looked at Maude. “That does sound like Desdemona,” she said.
Maude had to agree. She looked at Miranda, at her chicken, at the impartial referee-judge, and finally at Donut. Squirrel tag, she thought. How silly. But what wasn’t silly was how quickly everything had happened and how she’d forgotten the most important thing of all: Donut was her friend!
Maude took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about the cheese in your doughnut, Donut. It was a truly terrible thing to do.”
Donut nodded. “I’m sorry I stole your chicken, Maude. I know how much you love her. I tried to take good care of her. Did you know she loves pink doughnut sprinkles? She’ll do anything for them. But I’m sorry. About the swings and, well, everything.”
“Me too.”
Sorrowfully, Donut and Maude looked at each other.
“I think the Three B truce could be that there’s no more inside tag,” Miranda said excitedly. “Since that’s why this whole mess started.”
“I won’t break that rule,” Donut said eagerly.
Miranda and Donut looked at Maude. But Maude, to their surprise, hesitated. “I like a rule as much as the next person, but . . . what about if there’s just no more inside tag in school or in grocery stores or operating rooms? Places like that.”
Donut, Miranda, and the referee-judge stared at her.
“I’m just thinking that inside tag inside a castle could be fun.” Maude pointed toward the enormous castle in front of them.
Donut’s eyes grew wide as he looked at the castle and then at Maude. He stuck out his hand.
Maude shook it.
34
TUG-OF-WAR IS REALLY AWESOME
Early Thursday morning, Maude walked over to the girls and resigned as commander.
“You can’t resign,” Hillary told her. “We already fired you.”
“I know,” Maude said. “And it was a good move. From now on I’m only commanding myself. I’m resigning to make it extra-official.”
Then she walked across the playground and over to Donut and said, “Good morning!” She was even louder than normal so that, even without Hillary’s megaphone, everyone on the playground would hear her.
“Hello, Maude!” Donut boomed back.
“Want a doughnut?” She took a mound of lumpy dough out of her bag and held it out toward him. “My dad didn’t use as much sugar as he should’ve, but they’re still tasty.”
Donut hesitated but then picked it up and took a bite. “Delicious,” he pronounced. “How’s training Rosalie with pink sprinkles?”
“Great,” Maude said. “She didn’t pee inside at all last night!”
Then, without much fanfare, the boy and girl representatives made it so that the girls and boys of 3B simply began doing things together again. At lunch, Maude sat with Fletcher and Felix, who both had colds, so they didn’t mind the smell of her Roquefort cheese sandwich. Donut sat with Desdemona and Agatha and helped invent a new game called salamander soccer. During recess, which was inside because it was raining, Norris, Fletcher, and Hillary started working on a ten-thousand-piece puzzle of a tree in a famous forest. Saeed asked Agnes if she wanted to study comma rules, which she did.
After recess, one boy and one girl told Miss Kinde that they needed to meet with Principal Fish.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“One million percent,” Donut and Maude said.
Miss Kinde was neither sad nor confused by this. In fact, secretly, she was thrilled.
Together, Maude and Donut carried a large box into Principal Fish’s office. Principal Fish stroked his long mustache while Maude and Donut confessed to faking their innocent-bystander injuries. Once they were done, he told them that they’d broken rule number six in the Official Rules of Mountain River Valley Elementary by lying to the principal.
“Yes,” Maude and Donut said. “We know. We’re sorry.”
Principal Fish tugged the left side of his mustache and then the right. “PERHAPS A SUITABLE PUNISHMENT WOULD BE FOR BOTH OF YOU TO STAY AFTER SCHOOL AND ASSIST THE THREE VERY TALL MEN WITH FANCY SUITS, SUNGLASSES, AND TOOL BELTS, WHO WILL BE REINSTALLING SOME OF THE PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT THAT HAS RECENTLY BEEN REMOVED.”
Donut and Maude agreed instantly.
Early Friday morning, Principal Fish boomed the not-so-startling announcement that he’d been wrong about the dangers of tag. He went on to say that not only did tag not break rule eighty-one, but it was also a wonderful and healthy form of playground entertainment, and he actually encouraged the whole school to play! When it wasn’t raining, he added.
Friday afternoon, when the sun returned, Miss Kinde eagerly ushered 3B out for recess. To everyone’s delight, the swings and the balance beam were back. Naturally, Miranda and Maude headed for the swings, and Hillary sprinted to her beam. Deciding it was finally safe to put her soccer ball down, Desdemona kicked it as hard as she could. Agnes kicked it as hard as she could back. A group of 3B boys started playing tag. But then, as Saeed was leaping toward Fletcher, he spotted the long yellow rope partially buried in the sandbox.
“Tug-of-war!” Saeed hollered, holding up the rope. “Let’s play tug-of-war!”
“Sure,” Desdemona said. “Tug-of-war is awesome. I’ll be on your team, Saeed.” She kicked the soccer ball over to the sandbox kids, who finally had their sandbox back. They were thrilled, not only because they were back in their sandbox but also because they loved soccer and thought Desdemona was extremely cool.
Hillary broke rule eighty-four by doing a one-handed cartwheel on the balance beam with her eyes closed. Then she opened her eyes, jumped off the beam, and ran to Fletcher. “Victory will be mine!” she said.
“Victory will be ours,” Fletcher corrected.
Very quickly, there were two teams. There were girls on one side. And on the other side. There were boys on one side. And on the other side, too.
“You know,” Maude told Miranda, looking down at the just-about-to-start tug-of-war game from the height of her upswing, “as much as I stand by my opinion that swinging is the best part of school, that looks like it might be a lot of fun.” She pointed to her classmates below.
Miranda only heard “fun,” but she knew exactly what Maude was ta
lking about. The girls jumped off their swings. Maude went to one side of the rope; Miranda went to the other.
“Where’s our impartial referee-judge?” Maude jokingly asked Donut, who was in front of her.
“Right here,” said the impartial referee-judge, who was standing on the rusty lunchbox with the whistle in his mouth. He was wearing the referee shirt and judge’s wig.
“Wow,” Donut and Maude said.
“On your marks, get set, pull!” the referee-judge hollered. He blew his whistle long and loud.
The two teams began to pull. They pulled and they tugged and they heaved and they yanked. They also grunted, groaned, laughed, and cheered. Neither team let go, and neither team crossed the chalk line, so, despite all the tugging and heaving and yanking, neither team won and neither team lost. It wasn’t until the bell rang, indicating that recess was over, that they put the rope down. And then, the boys and girls of 3B cheerfully, and all together, walked back into class.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Book publishing can be a battle, and I’m so grateful to have the Abrams team on my side, including Amy Vreeland, Jenn Jimenez, Siobhán Gallagher, Andrew Smith, Jody Mosley, Hana Anouk Nakamura, Mary O’Mara, Elisa Gonzalez, Mary Wowk, Nicole Schaefer, Melanie Chang, Trish O’Neill McNamara, Jenny Choy, and Brooke Shearouse. I feel so fortunate to work with Erica Finkel on another book. Erica is such a thoughtful and astute editor (or possibly a book commander) that I would follow her across any playground any day of the week.
Thanks to my agent, Rachel Orr, and a special shout-out to Oliver and Amelia, who have been rooting for Donut since book one.
I feel incredibly lucky to get to work with the magnificent Jessika von Innerebner that I still haven’t had the heart to ask her to draw a horse riding a bicycle. Yet.
Thanks to Ellis Anderson, who read the first draft of this book so long ago that he might be seventeen now. Or maybe almost ten. Either way, I’ll always include his birthday in my list of weekly events.
A Texas-sized thank you to my favorite family of five deep in the heart of Austin.
Love to my supportive and generous family: the extended Wunsch clan (and those who married them), the Gaffneys, and, as always, my favorite girls: Miranda and Maude. Just kidding. My favorite girls are my daughters, Georgia and Dahlia, who are generous, hilarious, and forgiving of most of my dumb jokes.