“I don’t get why it’s such a big whup,” Harry whispers to Mason.
“Harry, my friend,” says the teacher, “please don’t whisper. I am explaining about counting by tens.”
“But Wyatt was going woo-hoo,” says Harry.
“I get to go woo-hoo,” says Wyatt, “ ’cause I’m number one hundred.”
Fine.
Harry makes a silly face at Mason.
Mason makes a silly face at Harry.
And Ms. Peek-Schnitzel doesn’t notice, because silly faces don’t make a single sound.
DAY 6. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
At the center of Goat Table is a plastic box of bead wires. Each wire has ten orange beads on it. The kids use them for counting.
Harry counts to ten, five times.
Then he tries counting backward.
Then he makes a square with four bead wires. And a triangle with three.
He pretends his bead wire is a sword. Ooh, that’s more fun.
He stabs Mason, just a little bitty stab.
Mason grins and stabs back.
Sword fight! Slash, cut, cut, poke!
Ms. Peek-Schnitzel comes over. She coughs on purpose. “Mr. Harry, Mr. Mason. Bead wires are not for battles.”
That makes Harry and Mason laugh, even though the teacher is serious.
“Friends?” says Ms. Peek-Schnitzel. “I’m going to try changing our seating a bit. Okay?” She is nice about it, but she makes Harry trade seats with Amira. Now Harry sits at Rabbit Table. “I think we’ll all learn better this way,” she says.
For the rest of the day, Harry does not see the tiny horses Mason keeps in his pocket. Or the big smile Diamond always has on her face. He does not hear the sniffy noises Abigail makes during silent reading or the drumming Wyatt does when he is thinking.
He misses Goat Table.
Ms. Peek-Schnitzel is a big mean guinea pig, Harry thinks. She is not a nice teacher at all.
DAY 7. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
Over the weekend, Harry played with Mason. He even met Mason’s dog, Pebble. Pebble is a Yorkipoo. She is very small and hairy. Mason has a big bin of Legos and a whole collection of Lego people; plus his dad made grilled cheese. The whole afternoon was awesome, and now Harry and Mason are best friends.
“Can I go back to Goat Table?” Harry asks the teacher right after morning meeting.
“Aren’t you happy at Rabbit?” says Ms. Peek-Schnitzel. “I think that might be a good place for you to do your best learning.”
“Goat Table, please and thank you.”
“Hmm.” The teacher looks thoughtful. “How about you do really good listening all day today? If everything goes well, I’ll move you back to Goat.”
Harry says okay, but he is frustrated. He asked super nicely and she didn’t say yes. She is such a strict teacher!
He doesn’t talk to anyone at Rabbit Table.
During math, he counts his bead wires quietly and thinks mean things about rabbits. How they’re so hoppity and only eat vegetables. Goats are much better.
He doesn’t put his hand up for help during reading, even though he is stuck on a bunch of hard words. He knows you’re supposed to look at the pictures to help you, but the book just shows a girl and a blob in a bowl. The blob might be pudding, or cake batter, or soup, or even a magic potion. It’s a mystery. Also, he can’t figure out silent E.
Harry plays at recess, but he mopes all through story time, social studies, and even music and writing. He hopes Ms. Peek-Schnitzel will notice how miserable he is. Then she’ll feel sorry for scolding him on Friday.
But she does not. She doesn’t seem to feel sorry.
DAY 8. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18
“Harry, you were a super listener yesterday,” says Ms. Peek-Schnitzel right after morning meeting. “We didn’t have any problems, did we?”
What Harry wants to say is “I had a problem! I missed Goat Table. I don’t even have friends at Rabbit Table.” But instead, he just shakes his head no.
“I am putting you back at Goat Table,” says the teacher. “I expect great behavior from you. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready,” says Harry.
He is worried, though. There is so much sitting still in first grade. It is hard to be a super listener all the time, when his friends are being funny.
During writing, Ms. Peek-Schnitzel introduces the children to her Sight Word Wall. It is a list of words the students will learn to recognize. She writes on a big sheet of lined paper: yes, no, me, and you. The class reads:
Yes, no!
Me, you!
Yes, no!
Me, you!
Diamond raises her hand. “Is it a poem?” she asks.
“Not really,” says the teacher.
“Yes, no! Me, you! I sneeze. A-choo!” says Diamond.
Hee hee! “Now it’s a poem,” whispers Harry.
“Diamond and Harry, please don’t talk while I’m teaching,” says Ms. Peek-Schnitzel.
“Sometimes I think she’s a stinky pants,” whispers Harry to Diamond.
“Me too,” whispers Diamond. “But then other times I like her.”
“Excuse me, my friends,” says the teacher. “What did I just tell you?”
“Not to talk while you’re teaching,” mumbles Harry.
He stays quiet for the rest of the lesson.
DAY 9. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19
Today is science with Mr. Daryl for the first time. Mr. Daryl doesn’t look anything like the scientists in cartoons. He has a short ponytail and big muscles. He wears track pants and rubs his hands together a lot when he’s excited. His science room has field mice and tiny turtles.
Mr. Daryl tells the kids they’re going to study apples. He assigns each student a partner. Harry is with Abigail. He hasn’t talked to Abigail much, even though she sits at his table.
Now Mr. Daryl gives each kid a red apple. “Don’t eat them,” he says. “We are going to cut them in half.” He asks everyone to draw on small whiteboards. “What do you think you will see when I cut your apples?”
Harry draws an apple with ten seeds in it. He knows apples have seeds.
Abigail draws an apple with an apple tree inside it.
“You really think there will be an apple tree inside your apple?” asks Harry.
Abigail wrinkles her nose. “I hope so.”
Mr. Daryl stops at their work space. He cuts Harry’s apple in half from top to bottom, starting with the stem. Abigail’s gets cut through the center.
There is no apple tree inside. The insides look different, cut different ways. Harry’s has a round shape, and in it, he can see four brown seeds. Abigail’s has five seeds, all meeting together in the center.
“It’s not a tree. But it looks like a flower,” says Abigail.
“It does,” says Harry, in wonder.
“I love my apple!” cries Abigail.
“Mine is uglier,” says Harry.
“So let’s eat yours and keep mine for a treasure,” says Abigail.
“Okay.” They take bites from opposite sides of Harry’s ugly apple.
“Don’t eat your apples yet,” calls out Mr. Daryl. “We’re going to draw them.”
“Oh, no!” whispers Abigail. “We bit ours.”
Harry raises his hand. “If we bit ours, can we just draw the bites?”
“Sure,” says Mr. Daryl. “That’s okay, I guess.”
Harry and Abigail draw the beautiful apple and the bitten, ugly one, showing the insides of the fruit and the seeds. When they write their names on their papers, Abigail shows Harry how to put a smiley face on the inside of the a in his name.
And just like that, Harry has a new friend.
DAY 10. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20
Fo
r math, Ms. Peek-Schnitzel gives each table ten clothespins. The kids drop all ten into a bowl from up high.
How many clothespins land in the bowl? And how many land out of it?
The members of Goat Table keep a record on a piece of paper. Diamond and Wyatt take turns dropping. Kimani and Mason are counting. Harry is writing.
Six pins in and four pins out makes ten.
Three pins in and seven pins out makes ten.
Crash! go the pins.
Where is Abigail? Harry suddenly realizes she is not helping.
Crash! go the pins, again.
Oh, look. She is under the table. Her hands are over her ears.
Harry feels bad for Abigail. He knows she doesn’t like loud noises. He hands the paper to Kimani and climbs under Goat Table, too. “Hi, Abigail,” he says. “Want me to cover your ears for you?”
Abigail doesn’t say anything. She turns away and crawls underneath Cow Table.
The classroom gets louder.
Wyatt and Mason start throwing clothespins at each other. Over at Sheep Table, Isabella and Maddie are putting the pins in each other’s hair.
Suddenly, Ms. Peek-Schnitzel claps her hands three times. “One two three, eyes on me!”
“One and two, eyes on you!” the kids shout back.
“I can see clothespins on Isabella’s head,” the teacher says. “And some people are throwing their pins, not dropping them nicely into the bowl. Also Harry and Abigail are under the tables.”
Oh, no. Is Ms. Peek-Schnitzel going to scold Harry again?
“My friends,” the teacher continues, “we are going to take a break from clothespins.” She turns on the SMART Board and puts up a list. She reads it out loud.
March in place to the count of ten
Ten jumping jacks
Run in place to the count of ten
Ten jumps in place
Ten hops in place
Ten knee lifts
Ten toe-touches
Ten arm curls
Ten arm shakes
Twist in place to the count of ten
“What is this?” she asks the students.
“It’s a poem,” says Diamond.
The teacher looks surprised. “Well, yes,” she says. “It could be. It’s also a list of one hundred exercises, ten sets of ten. Do you think you can do one hundred exercises?”
“Yes!” they shout.
And they do. They do one hundred exercises, all together. All except Abigail, who opts to stay under Cow Table.
Then they fall on the rug because they are so tired.
DAY 11. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21
The cafeteria is in the basement of the Graham School. It’s painted pale green and has long tables and tiny windows. First grade and fourth grade eat at the same time, so Harry always looks for Charlotte. When he sees her, he waves, but the two grades aren’t allowed to sit together. Harry sits with his friends.
Every Friday is Pizza Friday. Almost nobody brings lunch on Pizza Fridays, because pizza is delicious! Harry waits in line to get cheese pizza, fruit cocktail, and a carton of milk.
“Yummy yum,” he says as he sits down with his tray.
“Yummy yum, too,” says Diamond, slurping her milk.
“Yummy yum yum,” says Mason.
“Yum,” says Abigail.
“Hey,” Harry says. “Maybe I could become a pizza-eating expert. That could be my first-grade expert thing!” He is only half joking.
“That’s not a school kind of expert,” says Kimani. “That’s like, a thing you do on weekends.”
“Watch this,” says Diamond. She rips off her pizza crust and shoves the whole thing in her mouth at once.
Wow.
Harry rips off his own crust. He tries to get it into his mouth, but it won’t fit.
It’s too much to chew. Oof. Urgh.
Harry spits the crust into his napkin.
Maybe he won’t try to be a pizza-eating expert after all.
DAY 12. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
At morning meeting, Ms. Peek-Schnitzel tells the students they will be counting the first one hundred days of school. “Today is the twelfth day,” she says. “On the one hundredth day, we’ll have a party.”
“Yay!” cries Diamond.
“Can I bring marshmallows?” asks Wyatt.
“You can bring one hundred marshmallows,” says Ms. Peek-Schnitzel. “Or one hundred paper clips. Or one hundred stickers. Everyone will bring one hundred somethings.”
Now it is time to talk about classroom jobs. “You’ll get a job today, and you’ll keep that job for a couple of weeks, at least,” explains the teacher.
Harry’s job is Calendar. That means that today he writes the number twelve in the correct square in the blank calendar on the wall.
Calendar is a terrible job. It’s just writing in a square.
A baby could write in a square.
Okay, a baby could not write in a square. But Harry wants to be Line Leader, like Diamond. Line Leader gets to be at the front of every single line.
Diamond lifts her chin high walking to music. Everyone is behind her as they go downstairs, past the main office with the rows of mail cubbies, past the security guard in her neat blue uniform, to the auditorium.
“How come you get to be Line Leader?” Harry whispers, sitting down.
“I’m good at being in line,” Diamond whispers back.
“I’m good at it, too.”
“No you’re not. You’re always talking to Mason.”
Yeah, that does happen. Lining up is super boring, that’s why.
“That’s ’cause Mason is my best friend,” explains Harry. “But I’d be quiet if I got to be Line Leader.”
The auditorium is a big room with a stage and wooden chairs that are bolted to the floor. Music class happens on the stage, where there is a piano. Ms. Boggs, the music teacher, says hello and shows them her accordion. She has a barky voice and sleek, short hair. She holds the accordion between her hands and squeezes it in and out to make a moaning noise. Then she adds fingers on the keyboard and plays a song.
Harry knows that song! It’s “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
Ms. Boggs tells them there is a long history of boat songs and songs about the ocean. They will be learning some of them in first grade. They sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” and then she teaches them a new song.
Cape Cod girls ain’t got no combs—
Heave away, haul away!
They comb their hair with codfish bones!
Bound away for Australia!
Cape Cod kids ain’t got no sleds—
Heave away, haul away!
They slide down hills on codfish heads!
Bound away for Australia!
The teacher adds in the accordion, and they all sing it again.
Harry remembers that Charlotte told him Ms. Boggs is the teacher who yells sometimes. But she isn’t yelling now. She is making music!
DAY 13. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
During math, Ms. Peek-Schnitzel hands out charts with one hundred squares on them. Ten rows of ten. There are numbers inside the squares. She says, “Color in all the nines, my friends.”
Harry wants to color with the green pencil, but Diamond takes it first.
“You can have blue,” she says, when he complains.
Fine. Who cares?
Harry colors all his nines with the blue pencil. They make a stripe up his paper.
He keeps coloring and thinks:
Diamond is a booger head
Diamond is a booger head
I don’t LIKE her, not at all!
’Cause Diamond is a booger head.
Diamond sits next to him, still c
oloring in green. “I thought of a poem and you can’t hear it,” Harry tells her.
“Please?” she says.
“Nope.”
“Pretty please, tell me the poem?”
“No way,” he says.
Diamond raises her hand. “Ms. Peek-Schnitzel! Harry thought of a poem and now he won’t let me hear it.”
Uh-oh.
The teacher comes over. “Do you want to share your poem, Harry?”
Harry’s face feels hot. “Nuh-uh.”
“Then why did he tell me he had a poem?” whines Diamond. “He shouldn’t say that and then say I can’t hear it. It’s like saying you have candy and you won’t share.”
“It’s not exactly the same,” says Ms. Peek-Schnitzel. “A poem might be personal or private.”
Diamond huffs. “I’m going to finish my nines and not think any more about this disaster,” she says.
DAY 14. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
In science, they taste-test red, yellow, and green apples. Mr. Daryl has cut them into chunks. “Which one do you like best?” he asks. He writes the question on the whiteboard with his muscly arms.
“Green ones for sure, because green is my favorite color,” says Diamond as they sample the apples.
“It’s my favorite color, too, but color isn’t the same as yummy,” says Harry.
“It is to me.”
“Did you even taste the red and yellow ones?”
“I don’t need to. I only like green.”
“Why are you even talking to me?” says Harry. “You tell me I talk too much in line, and now you talk too much in class.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Yah-huh.”
Mr. Daryl polls the class: “Which one was the most delicious?” He draws a chart that shows the results. Most people picked yellow, like Harry. It was the sweetest. A few people liked red, and one person liked green.
“I’m the only one who liked green apples best,” says Diamond to Kimani as they line up to go back to Ms. Peek-Schnitzel’s classroom. “I win!”
Harry Versus the First 100 Days of School Page 2