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Just Grace and the Flower Girl Power
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
THE FIVE BIG I-CANNOT-BELIEVE-ITS OF MY LIFE SO FAR
FIVE THINGS ABOUT AUGUSTINE DUPRE THAT YOU CANNOT TELL BY JUST LOOKING AT HER
WHAT I DID TWO SECONDS AFTER AUGUSTINE DUPRE TOLD ME SHE WAS GETTING MARRIED
WHAT HAPPENED TEN SECONDS AFTER AUGUSTINE DUPRE TOLD ME SHE WAS GETTING MARRIED
WHAT IS SAD BUT TRUE
HOW I FOUND OUT ABOUT NOT BEING THE FLOWER GIRL
WHAT MY BRAIN WAS THINKING NEXT
WHAT MY MOUTH SAID NEXT
WORDS CAN BE POWERFUL
WHAT WAS NOT AN EXCELLENT SUGGESTION
WHY THIS WAS NOT AN EXCELLENT IDEA
WHAT IS NOT EASY
WHAT I SAID
WHAT I COULD NOT BELIEVE
WHAT IS UNFORTUNATE
AUGUSTINE DUPRE'S BOYFRIEND
WHAT MOM SAID WHEN I TOLD HER ABOUT THE WEDDING
WHAT MOM SAID NEXT
WHY CEREAL CAN MAKE ME HAPPY
MY HOUSE AS A HAPPINESS GRAPH
WHAT I USED TO DO
HOW I HELP CRINKLES
WHAT SQUIRRELS MIGHT REALLY BE SAYING
WHO WAS OUTSIDE
THE TWO IMPORTANT THINGS I SAID TO ROBERT
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
WHAT ROBERT SAID TO MIMI
WHAT MIMI SAID TO ME
WHAT BEST FRIENDS CAN DO
WHAT I SAID TO MIMI
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
WHAT I 100 PERCENT FORGOT TO TELL MIMI
WHAT I SAID TO MIMI THE MINUTE SHE OPENED HER DOOR
WHAT HAPPENED IN MIMI'S ROOM
MIMI'S QUESTIONS
MY ANSWERS
WHO CUTELY INTERRUPTED US
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER I HAD A BIG DRINK OF WATER
WHAT I SAW ON THE WAY HOME
WHAT SAMMY SAID
WHAT IS NICE ABOUT COMING HOME
WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE DINNER
GETTING READY
WHAT I COULD NOT BELIEVE
THE TRANCE BREAKER
WHY MR. SCRUFFERS LOVES WALKS
MY GOOD NIGHT TO MIMI
IS TODAY A SCHOOL DAY?
WHY TODAY IS NOT A NORMAL DAY
ANNOYERS
WHAT HAPPENED AT LUNCHTIME
MR. FRANK'S PROJECT
THE BAD THING ABOUT COMICS
THE BAD THING ABOUT MR. FRANK
WHAT I DID NOT WANT TO HAPPEN
MY BIG IDEA
WHAT EVERYONE SAID ABOUT THE PHOTO BOOTH IDEA
WHAT MR. FRANK SAID ABOUT THE PHOTO BOOTH IDEA
MR. FRANK'S NEW PROJECT
THE TWO REASONS WHY I WAS SUPER HAPPY
WHAT MR. FRANK SAID BEFORE WE LEFT AND AFTER MAX SPILLED HIS SOUP ON THE LIBRARY CARPET
WHAT CAN MAKE YOUR DAY GO FROM GOOD TO EXCELLENT
WHAT I SAW WHEN I GOT HOME
WHAT I WAS 100 PERCENT SURPRISED ABOUT
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
WHAT HAPPENED FOR THE REST OF THE VISIT
THE BIG QUESTION I ASKED AUGUSTINE DUPRE WHEN SHE WALKED ME TO THE DOOR
THE ANSWER
THE REST OF MY NIGHT
TUESDAY
WHAT MIMI'S FACE SAID
WHAT MIMI'S MOUTH SAID
WHAT WAS DID THE REST OF THE DAY
WHAT WAS NOT IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE
SOMETIMES EVEN IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE REALLY GOOD, THEY CAN STILL SURPRISE YOU
MOM'S GAME
WEDNESDAY
THE COMICS CLUB
MY FAVORITE PROJECT
WHAT MIMI LOOKED LIKE THE WHOLE TIME
THE ONE BAD THING ABOUT HAVING THE COMICS ON THE WALL FOR EVERYONE TO SEE
WALKING HOME WITH MAX, SAMMY, AND MIMI
THE BACKFLIP THAT NEVER HAPPENED
WHAT WAS IMPOSSIBLE
WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA
WHAT SAMMY SAID
WHAT BROKE THE SPELL
WHAT MOM SAID
WHAT IS TRUE
THURSDAY
WHAT HAPPENED AT SCHOOL
LUNCHTIME
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE AFTERNOON
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE WAY HOME
MOM'S BIG BAD PRESENT
WHAT I SAID TO MOM
WHAT MOM SAID
WHAT IS NOT EASY
WHAT I SHOULD NOT HAVE DONE
WHAT I SAID TO MR. SCRUFFERS
THE BEST WEDDING PRESENT THAT I EVER THOUGHT OF IN MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE THAT AUGUSTINE DUPRE IS GOING TO 100 PERCENT LOVE AND REMEMBER FOREVER
WHAT I DID NEXT
FRIDAY
MIMI'S BIG EXPLANATION
WHAT I COULD HARDLY WAIT FOR
WHAT MIMI LOVED
WHAT I NOW KNOW ABOUT TRAINING CATS
WHAT I NOW KNOW ABOUT WEDDINGS
WHAT WAS NOT GOOD NEWS
WHAT IS REALLY HARD TO DO
WHAT I WANTED TO HAPPEN AT AUGUSTINE DUPRE'S WEDDING
WHAT MIMI SAID
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER SCHOOL
SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO DO STUFF THAT IS NOT EASY
BAD CHOICE OF WORDS
GOOD CHOICE OF WORDS
WHAT CAN HAPPEN EVEN IF YOU USE THE GOOD WORDS
WHAT MIMI AND I SAID TO EACH OTHER AT THE EXACT SANE TIME
WHAT MOM SAID WHEN I GOT INSIDE
WHAT I SAID WHEN I OPENED THE BOX
MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT THE NEW OUTFIT
THE PLAN FOR SUNDAY
QUIET TO CRACY
WHAT MOM SAID
WHY ROBERT WAS SUPER HAPPY
WHAT MIMI SAID ABOUT MY SHOES
WHAT I KNOW
WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ON THE LIST
WHAT CAN MAKE MR. SCRUFFERS STAY IN ONE PLACE AND NOT MOVE
CAN YOU BE A FLOWER CAT WITHOUT A FLOWER BOW?
SUNDAY
WHAT MOM FINALLY SAID YES TO
WHY AUGUSTINE DUPRE WAS HAPPY TO SEE ME
HOW I HELPED DELPHINE
WHAT IS REALLY FUN
WHAT MOM WAS WRONG ABOUT
THE REHEARSAL
THE TWO BEST PARTS
MY LITTLE FLOWER CAT PROBLEM
WHAT WAS SURPRISING TIMES TWO
MIMI’S CAT FLOWER
WHAT I REALLY HATE
WHAT THERE WAS NO TIME FOR
MONDAY
THE BAD THING ABOUT TODAY
THE GOOD THING ABOUT TODAY
THE FLYING DONUT
TUESDAY
WHAT CRINKLES CAN DO
WEDNESDAY
THE WEDDING PROBLEM SOLVER
WHAT SAMMY SAID
MAKING THINGS RIGHT WITH MAX
WHAT I ASKED MAX TO DO
THE TWO OTHER GREAT THINGS THAT HAPPENED TODAY
THURSDAY
SCHOOL
WHAT CRINKLES GETS TODAY
FRIDAY
MOM’S GREAT IDEA
SATURDAY
WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN MRS. LUTHER’S YARD
WHAT I SUDDENLY THOUGHT OF
WHAT I SAID TO AUGUSTINE DUPRE
MY ALMOST LAST THOUGHT BEFORE FALLING ASLEEP
MY LAST THOUGHT
SUNDAY
WHAT WAS BAD ABOUT THE MORNING
MRS. LUTHER’S YARD
THE BEST THING ABOUT BEING IN MRS. LUTHER’S YARD
WHAT IS A GOOD IDEA
WHAT WAS PERFECT
WHAT WAS A BIT OF A SURPRISE
WHAT WAS NOT A SURPRISE
WHAT I WAS EXPECTING
WHAT WAS A HUGE SURPRISE
WHAT I DID JUST TO BE SAFE
MY FIRST WEDDING JOB
MY SECOND WEDDING JOB
WHAT I WASN’T EXPECTING
TWO THINGS I WAS GLAD ABOUT
MY PRESENT FOR AUGUSTINE DUPRE
FLOWER CAT
THE SLOW-MOTION PART
THE FAST-MOTION PART
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
WHAT I DID NOT KNOW UNTIL THE VERY END
FIVE THINGS THAT ARE GOOD TO KNOW ABOUT A WEDDING
TWO NEW GOOD THINGS
MY FAVORITE DAY
A Peek Inside Community Comics
Acknowledgments
Book 9
Coming Soon from Charise Mericle Harper
Buy the Book
About the Author
Copyright © 2012 by Charise Mericle Harper
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
Houghton Mifflin Books for Children is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
www.hmhbooks.com
The illustrations are pen-and-ink drawings digitally colored in Photoshop.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Harper, Charise Mericle.
Just Grace and the flower girl power / written and illustrated by Charise Mericle Harper,
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-547-57720-3
[1. Weddings—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H231323Jth 2011
[Fic]—dc23
2011039908
eISBN 978-0-547-68133-7
v2.0812
Thank you, Penny and Pepper!
THE FIVE BIG I-CANNOT-BELIEVE-ITS OF MY LIFE SO FAR
1. That my teacher, Miss Lois, decided to call me Just Grace instead of my real name, which is Grace, without the Just part in front of it. This happened a while ago, but it still bugs me! Even just thinking about it can make me grumpy. Yesterday I drew a cartoon explaining how the whole thing happened. Sometimes drawing cartoons helps me feel better. I don’t know why it works, but it does. I’m glad about that.
HOW I GOT MY JUST GRACE NAME
2. That I finally got a real live pet, and it’s NOT a turtle or a fish! A while ago I had a big idea to make a pretend dog. I called him Chip-Up and I made him out of cardboard boxes. I took care of him like he was real. That way Mom and Dad could see how responsible I was and then they’d let me get a real dog. Chip-Up looked super good, and even though I worked really hard to take care of him, Dad did not seem like he was ever going to turn into a dog-loving person. But one day he surprised me and did. The day I got Mr. Scruffers was the best day of my entire life! A cardboard dog is okay, but a real dog is 100 percent better. And even though Mr. Scruffers is a girl dog and has a boy name, she is still amazing and perfect for me!
3. That Augustine Dupre is getting married in two weeks and I didn’t even know she had a boyfriend.
4. That Augustine Dupre is having her wedding in the middle of Mrs. Luther’s backyard. Mrs. Luther is one of my next-door neighbors, so if I wanted to, I could spy on the wedding and see the whole thing right from my bedroom window. Of course I am 100 percent invited to the wedding, so the spying part doesn’t matter, but still even just knowing that I could do it is kind of cool.
5. That I am NOT going to be the flower girl at Augustine Dupre’s wedding!
FIVE THINGS ABOUT AUGUSTINE DUPRE THAT YOU CANNOT TELL BY JUST LOOKING AT HER
1. She is a very good listener. If there is something you want to say, she can make the air around her quiet and still so the words just float out of your mouth without you even having to think about pushing them.
2. She is in love with Mrs. Luther’s cat, Crinkles. Even though Crinkles lives next door with Mrs. Luther, he spends a lot of time visiting with Augustine Dupre and sitting on her sofa.
3. She has great ideas and is a good problem solver. She can make an idea go straight from her head into your head so easily that your brain might even forget that she thought of it first.
4. She is funny and likes to make jokes.
5. She is my best grown-up friend who is not related to me.
WHAT I DID TWO SECONDS AFTER AUGUSTINE DUPRE TOLD ME SHE WAS GETTING MARRIED
I screamed. "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” It was a long, happy scream, so Augustine Dupre was mostly surprised and not mostly scared. That was good. I couldn’t help the scream. Sometimes you can’t help but be crazy if your head is suddenly feeling combustible. The extra energy has to get out of there somehow.
WHAT HAPPENED TEN SECONDS AFTER AUGUSTINE DUPRE TOLD ME SHE WAS GETTING MARRIED
My brain went through a superfast list of everything to do with a wedding: wedding dress, flowers, flower girl ... and then it stopped. I looked up at Augustine Dupre and said, “I will be the best flower girl ever! I promise! I promise! I promise!” And then I threw my hands into the air and said it one more time, extra big for special meaning: “I PROMISE!”
WHAT IS SAD BUT TRUE
Just because you really, really, really want be a flower girl and you know you’d be perfect at it, and even if it’s probably the only time in your entire life that you’ll have the chance to be one, this does not mean that your wish of being the flower girl is going to come true. This I did not know.
HOW I FOUND OUT ABOUT NOT BEING THE FLOWER GIRL
I opened my arms to give Augustine Dupre a big I’m-so-happy-I-get-to-be-the-flower-girl hug, but instead of letting me hug her she held my hands and looked down at me with a sad face. “Oh, Grace! I’m so sorry,” she said. “You can’t be the flower girl. Luke has promised being the flower girl to his little cousin. We’ll find something else for you to do. I promise! Something special.” Augustine Dupre was saying lots of words, but the only ones that I was hearing over and over again were “You can’t be the flower girl. You can’t be the flower girl. You can’t be the flower girl.”
It was surprising, because even though I had only been thinking I was going to be the flower girl for about two minutes, it was still super disappointing and sad to find out it wasn’t going to happen.
WHAT MY BRAIN WAS THINKING NEXT
WHAT MY MOUTH SAID NEXT
“What’s her name? The girl who gets to be the flower girl?” I don’t know why it was important, but suddenly I wanted to know everything about her. It was 100 percent easy for me to imagine that I was not going to like her even one teeny tiny bit.
Augustine Dupre looked worried. Probably because I was wearing my unhappy face—sometimes I’m not very good at hiding it. She made a little sigh and said, “Her name is Delphine. She’s five years old and she is Luke’s only niece. I’m sure you will like her, and I know she will love you!” Augustine Dupre put her hands on my shoulders and studied my eyes like she was trying to see into my brain to know what I was thinking. It was a good thing she didn’t have those kind of powers. Sometimes the things that go on inside your head are better kept private.
WORDS CAN BE POWERFUL
I don’t know why it happened, but suddenly my whole mood was different. Augustine Dupre’s words had changed me. She had changed my mad to sad.
Mad is easier than sad.
Sadness is not easy.
WHAT WAS NOT AN EXCELLENT SUGGESTION
“Maybe you can help Delphine practice,” said Augustine Dupre. “She will need some help. What do you think?”
WHY THIS WAS NOT AN EXCELLENT IDEA
I looked up at Augustine Dupre and smiled. I gave her my best fake smile—the one I had practiced tons of times. It worked great for the school photo, and I wanted it to work on Augustine Dupre too. I didn’t want her to be sad. Being a bride is super special. It’s the only time a grown-up girl gets to be like a princess. Lucky for me, I’m really good at the smile—it worked. So far Mom’s the only one who can tell it’s not for real.
THE SMILES
WHAT IS NOT EASY
It’s not easy to think of the exact right thing
to say when someone is looking at you and expecting you to say the exact right thing. And what I didn’t want to do was to say something wrong and ruin Augustine Dupre’s bride-happiness.
WHAT I SAID
I took a deep breath, looked up at Augustine Dupre, and said, “I might have a lot of homework. I don’t know yet, but I’ll really try, you know, to be helpful.”
Augustine Dupre smiled and opened her arms for the hug from before. “Of course, Grace,” she said. “I know you’ll do your best. It’s going to be fun. You’ll see.” I hugged her back real tight. Sometimes a hug can say things that a mouth just can’t.
WHAT MY HUG WAS SAYING EVEN THOUGH I WAS NOT TALKING
I had a few more questions for Augustine Dupre before I ran upstairs to tell Mom the wedding news. She was going to be crazy surprised.
WHAT I COULD NOT BELIEVE
I couldn’t believe that Augustine Dupre was going to be marrying someone I had never even met before. That part was weird—really weird.
MY QUESTIONS
Who is Luke?
Does he live in France?
Is he going to visit soon?
Does he speak English?
As soon as I finished asking my questions, Augustine Dupre’s hands shot up to her mouth. It was wide open. She was shocked. “But, Grace,” she said, “you’ve met him. How can you not know Luke?” She held up a you-wait-here finger, then turned and ran off into her kitchen. From the doorway I could see her pull something off the fridge. I was patient and still, but she ran back anyway, like maybe she was worried I was going to leave or something. “Look,” she said. She held out a long piece of paper. It was a photo strip from an automatic photo machine—the kind where it’s fun to make all sorts of silly faces. “There,” she said, and she pointed to one of the pictures. A smiling man was posing next to her. “You know Luke, right?” she asked. I squinted. He looked familiar, but somehow my brain just couldn’t remember from where. Dumb brain!