Just Grace Gets Crafty Read online

  WHAT EMPATHY POWER IS

  Having empathy power means I am extrasensitive to other people’s feelings. When someone is sad or unhappy, I have to help him or her—no matter what. The no matter what part is the only not-good thing about my power. It sometimes gets me into trouble.

  MISS SUMMERS’S PROJECT

  When Miss Summers described the project we were going to do, I could hardly believe it. It was perfect for me. It was a project with many parts, and I loved each one of them!

  PART ONE OF THE PROJECT

  Draw a picture of a character you would like to write about.

  There were a few questions after she said just this first sentence. Robert Walters wanted to know if he could draw a toaster. I know Robert Walters, so I knew the toaster thing was a joke. As soon as he asked the question, about five people started laughing. In Robert’s world that was a giant success. It wasn’t hard to imagine what his brain was thinking.

  I thought Miss Summers might get mad, but she didn’t, not even one bit. She just smiled and said, “Toasters can be mysterious—you never know what is going to pop out of them.” Robert must have liked that idea, because he nodded, put his head down, and then started drawing right away. That was kind of a surprise—normally he’s not such a good student.

  The other person who had a hand up for a question was Sandra Orr. I knew what her question was before she even opened her mouth.

  The whole class was probably guessing the same thing as me, because Sandra Orr is pretty predictable. Predictable means you can tell that something is going to happen before it happens—usually because it has happened a lot before. With Sandra Orr it was easy to predict her question because every time there is a project she asks the same thing.

  PART TWO OF THE PROJECT

  Part two of the project was my favorite part. Once we finished our drawings, Miss Summers was going to take them and shrink them down so they were small—so small that they could fit into a pocket. Then she was going to put clear tape on them to protect them and we were going to cut them out. This part was a little confusing, so she had to explain it a couple of times. Crafts aren’t easy to explain with just words—that’s why craft books have lots of pictures. It’s easier that way.

  WHAT A POCKET PAL IS

  It’s what we are going to end up with when we are finished.

  I loved the name “pocket pal.” It made the project even more exciting. Who wouldn’t want a pocket pal? There is always someone in our class who has to make trouble, so it wasn’t a huge surprise when Owen 1 started talking without raising his hand.

  Miss Summers was not as patient with Owen 1 as she had been with Robert Walters. She didn’t say anything mean, but there was a difference in her face. Even though she was trying to hide it, I could tell that she was gritting her teeth. Mostly I knew that because listening to Owen 1 sometimes makes me do the exact same thing. If Owen 1 were smart, he would have noticed and kept his mouth shut, but Owen 1 is not smart. He kept on talking.

  I was wondering what Miss Summers was going to do, because Owen 1 was already sitting at the front of the class. Would she move him farther away? To the hallway? To the principal’s office? If it were my choice, I know exactly where I’d move him, but teachers probably can’t do that kind of thing.

  I looked at Owen 1. He didn’t look at all nervous. That’s the kind of person he is—a person who doesn’t know that certain words can equal trouble. If Miss Summers yelled at him, he’d probably be completely surprised. He wasn’t like the rest of us, knowing that the yelling was about to happen. I looked back at Miss Summers, but instead of being mad like before, she was smiling. There is only one reason that a teacher changes from mad to happy so fast. Miss Summers had a plan!

  WHAT OWEN 1 SAID

  Nothing. I think he was too surprised. Owen 1 is not good at crafts. If he made paper pockets, they were going to be terrible. No one was going to want to use them. Miss Summers didn’t know this, but she’d just done the perfect thing to make everyone remember to wear clothes with pockets.

  WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

  Miss Summers explained the rest of the pocket pal project.

  POCKET PAL PROJECT

  We will carry around our pocket pal and show him/her our world.

  We will try to imagine what it would feel like to be so small.

  We will write a story from the point of view of our pocket pal (meaning we will pretend we are our pocket pal).

  Miss Summers is smart. She knew that projects are not always easy to explain with just words, so she gave us some examples.

  WHAT MISS SUMMERS IS NOT

  Good at drawing. Her pocket pal looked like one of Mimi’s little brother’s drawings, but she didn’t care. She waved it around, had it talk in a silly voice, and made us all laugh. When it was finally time for us to start our character drawings, we were all pretty excited.

  We’d been working for about five minutes when Miss Summers made another announcement. She had been walking around looking at everyone’s drawings, and now she was stopped at Brian Aber’s desk.

  Of course, the only people who made complaining groaning noises were the boys.

  I thought it would be easy, but I had trouble thinking of what to draw. Sometimes this can happen when all you have in front of you is a blank piece of paper. All I could think of was Owen 1’s toaster, and I couldn’t draw that.

  HOW I FINALLY GOT MY IDEA

  WHAT HAPPENED AT LUNCH

  I sat with Mimi and Grace F. and we mostly talked about Miss Summers. Grace F. was excited about her, because she said that Miss Summers had a lot more style than Miss Lois. She said she was going to keep track of Miss Summers’s outfit each day, and then she showed us the drawing she’d done of today’s outfit. Grace F. is really good at art. It’s the kind of good that can make you feel a little bit jealous. I’ve practiced, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t make my hand draw like she does.

  THE SAD AFTERNOON

  I was hoping that Miss Summers would have our pocket pals all ready for us when we got back from lunch, but she didn’t. She said we’d have to wait until tomorrow, and instead of doing anything else new and fun, we just did our regular work. Even though it was the same stuff we do every day—math, spelling, and worksheets—it somehow felt worse.

  WALKING HOME

  Mimi and I walked home with Sammy and Max. They weren’t as interested as we were in making last memories about the walk home, so they finally left us and walked ahead, because we were being too slow. I wasn’t expecting it, but last memories can be a little bit sad. That’s probably why people talk more about first times—they’re more exciting.

  WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I GOT HOME

  Mr. Scruffers jumped all over me like usual. I put my stuff down and took her straight outside to play ball in the backyard. When your dog has been waiting for you to play ball with her all day, it’s not fair to make her wait one second longer, even if you really feel like having a snack. Mr. Scruffers could probably play ball forever—she loves it that much. Sometimes I wonder what that would feel like, to love something so much you never want to stop doing it. It would be nice if Mr. Scruffers could talk—just for a day. Then she could explain it to me.

  Sometimes when I am outside with Mr. Scruffers, Augustine Dupre, my downstairs neighbor, will come out to say hi. She lives in the fancy apartment in our basement with her husband, Luke. They are both French. Augustine Dupre is a flight attendant, and Luke is a UPS delivery man. They both have jobs that make people happy.

  If they ever had a team-up of their jobs, they could make people super happy.

  I always like it when Augustine Dupre visits with me, so I kept looking at her door to see if she was going to come out, but the only thing I saw was Crinkles’s tail under the bushes. He was lucky that Mr. Scruffers was busy with her ball. Chasing Crinkles is another one of her favorite things to do.

  WHAT MR. SCRUFFERS DIDN’T SEE

  Even though Crinkles belongs to my neighbor Mrs. L
uther, he loves Augustine Dupre more. He comes over to visit her all the time, and it’s not easy for him because he has to get past Mr. Scruffers, but I guess true love is worth it.

  Just as I was throwing Mr. Scruffers’s ball for maybe the twentieth time, Mimi came bursting out my back door. Two seconds later she was standing next to me. Mimi can run fast if she wants to. “Guess what?” she asked. That kind of question is impossible to answer, so I said, “What.”

  Mimi was a lot more excited about this news than I was. I’m more of a drawer than a maker. She already had a whole list of things that she wanted to make.

  I tried to act excited, but Mimi knows me: She could tell I was pretending. I thought she’d be disappointed, but she was smiling. “I saved the best part for last,” she said. I shrugged. “We get to keep half the money for ourselves!” Now things were different. Money was something to get excited about, especially since we were both saving up for the summer carnival. Mom and Dad were going to take us again. We’d gone last year, and it had been great. Tons of rides, great food, and lots of fun stuff to look at, but Mom only gave us five dollars to play the games. The games are one of the best parts, so this year Mimi and I were saving our money. We were going to win as many stuffed animals as we could carry—plus I had my secret wish.

  WHAT I WANT TO WIN

  Now I was trying to think of things I could make too. “We should make a list,” said Mimi. “Okay, I said. “Just five more throws for Mr. Scruffers.” When I was done, we all went inside and had a snack—a dog cookie for Mr. Scruffers and chocolate chip cookies for Mimi and me.

  WHAT IS SURPRISING

  Once you start thinking about it, there really are a lot of things you can make just by decorating. Mimi’s list was huge, but I had one too. The only bad part was that we didn’t have a lot of time. “I wish we’d known about this sooner,” I complained. Mimi nodded and said, “We’re just lucky we got it at all.” I nodded and popped the last bite of my cookie into my mouth. Mimi was right. This was our lucky day.

  MY LIST

  After our snack, Mimi went home to get all her supplies together and I went upstairs to make a list of all the things Mom needed to help me buy. I already had a plan in my head of how to convince her. Thinking about it made me smile.

  WHAT HAPPENED AFTER DINNER

  Mom took me shopping. We went to the craft store and the dollar store. I was a little surprised about how easy it had been to convince her. I was expecting her to say no. Maybe I suddenly had a superpower of mind control. I tried it out on the way home as we drove by The Big Scoop, my favorite ice cream place, but my powers were gone. She didn’t stop.

  By the time we got home, it was too late to start making anything, so I just organized it all. I like unpacking things from the store, especially when it’s not groceries. Pretty soon all my new stuff was ready for tomorrow. I am happy to go to bed when there is something fun happening the next day—sleeping makes time go by faster. Tomorrow was going to be a great day. I just knew it. I flashed my light three times for Mimi and then got into bed. Mr. Scruffers jumped up like normal. She usually sleeps down at the bottom of the bed near my feet, but tonight I pulled her up close. If we cuddled, there would be room for everyone: me, Mr. Scruffers, and Rainbow Tail Cozy Kangaroo.

  WALKING TO SCHOOL

  Usually Mimi comes to my house to get me, but today I was ready earlier than normal. I ran across my yard to her door, and this time I did not use the mail slot. Instead I just knocked. Mimi opened the door on my second knock. She was like me, excited, because she was ready to go too. Sometimes things can feel different even with only little changes, and we had two big ones—a new way to walk to school because of a new crossing guard, and a new teacher! When we got to the corner where we usually went straight, we both stopped. “This is it,” said Mimi. This was the exact spot where our old way of walking to school ended and our new way of walking began. Today we were going to turn left.

  I looked down the sidewalk at our old path and then stepped to the left. Mimi followed beside me and we were on our new route. Up ahead I could see the crossing guard. Even from far away crossing guards are hard to miss. It’s because of the super-bright clothes they have to wear.

  “When we get there we should introduce ourselves,” I said. “So the crossing guard feels welcome.” “And shake his hand,” said Mimi. “That’s important too.” Up ahead of us, a group of kids were already at the corner. I’d hoped that Mimi and I would be the first people to meet the new crossing guard, but I guessed that wasn’t going to happen. Out of everybody, I wanted the new crossing guard to like us best.

  WHAT I IMAGINED IN MY HEAD

  “Look!” said Mimi. She grabbed my arm. For a second I didn’t know what she was talking about, and then I saw it. The crossing guard wasn’t a man—she was a woman. I don’t know why I’d never thought of that before, but I hadn’t. It was a surprise, and a nice one.

  As soon as we got close enough to talk to her, the crossing guard smiled and said, “Hi, girls.” Mimi and I both said hi back at the exact same time, and then we introduced ourselves and shook her hand. The crossing guard didn’t talk very much, but she said her name was Marie, and smiled again. She was older than I thought she would be—older than Mom, but not as old as a grandma. I wanted to ask her if it was fun to be a crossing guard, but we didn’t have time. Once she stopped the cars for us, we had to walk to the other side. When we got there, we waved and shouted thank you.

  WHAT IS KIND OF IMPOSSIBLE

  To have a conversation with someone when you are standing across the street from them. It was a little disappointing. I had lots of questions for Marie, and now none of them was going to get answered.

  “Maybe we can talk more on the way home,” said Mimi. I nodded and smiled, because I knew just how to make that happen. I was going to make Marie a card—a Welcome to the Corner card.

  Mimi and I got to school much earlier than normal, probably because we’d left early and the new walk was shorter. We had a whole ten minutes before the line-up bell was going to ring. Grace F. was talking to Jordan, so we went over and stood with them. Jordan is usually playing some kind of chasing game, so it was nice to get time to talk with her when she wasn’t running. Grace F. was talking about Miss Summers and showing Jordan the sketch she had done of her outfit from yesterday. “I wish I were in your class,” said Jordan. “Me too,” I said. Jordan was fun to hang around with. It was too bad we couldn’t trade people between classes. If that kind of thing could happen, I knew exactly who I’d trade to get her.

  WHAT HAPPENED IN CLASS

  Miss Summers had our pocket pals all shrunk down, taped up, and waiting on our desks. It was exciting. I couldn’t believe how cute my little squirrel looked. Miss Summers said if we wanted to, we could cut our characters out. Once I did that my squirrel was even cuter than before. All I wanted to do was play with him.

  Other kids were liking their characters too, because soon there was lots of talking and moving around the classroom. When I looked over toward Mimi, I caught sight of Sandra Orr. She was making her unicorn pocket pal fly through the air. That was double imagination.

  Miss Summers let us play around for a lot longer than I was expecting. It was hard to imagine Miss Lois letting us make all this noise. She’s more of a regular old-fashioned kind of teacher.

  THE REST OF OUR POCKET PAL INSTRUCTIONS

  Play with your pocket pals.

  Imagine what the world must be like for them—they are so small.

  Pretend you are your character. What are your feelings? Write them down.

  Write a story.

  Of course, everyone liked the number one part of the project the best, especially two boys who sit right near me.

  I wasn’t sure if they were supposed to be fighting, but I didn’t say anything. I’m not a tattletale kind of person—plus if they were busy with each other, then they weren’t bugging me. Since Miss Summers was letting us move around, I went over to Mimi’s desk. It
was safer on her side of the room. There was less chance of being attacked by vegetables or a zombie.

  Mimi’s character was cute. She always says she can’t draw, but that’s not true. If she wants to and tries, she can do a pretty good job. Mimi held it up for me. “It’s a sandwich,” she said. “Her name’s Sandy.”