Just Grace Read online

  POSTCARD NUMBER ONE

  Writing the postcard was not very easy, and not as fast as we thought it would be. There was a lot of hard stuff to figure out right at the start of the postcard. "Dear Mrs. Luther" sounded too official-like, and we decided that "Human Mommy" sounded too weird—like maybe Crinkles was an alien or something. That's why we had to just write "Hi." It was the only thing that would work.

  After that we had to decide why Crinkles would want to send a postcard from the grocery store in the first place. Projects sure get a lot more complicated once you are really doing them and not just thinking about doing them.

  Writing postcard number two was easier because most of the hard stuff was already figured out from doing postcard number one. Mimi did the writing on the postcard just in case Mrs. Luther would recognize my handwriting style since I lived right next door to her.

  POSTCARD NUMBER TWO

  Mimi wanted to write all the postcards at once, but I said this would not be a good idea, because then it would be too hard to not mail them all right away. When something is super fun, it is hard to make yourself stop doing that something, even if you say, "We should not do this super-fun thing anymore." And then what would happen is that Mrs. Luther would get all her postcards on the same day, which was not the way the big idea was supposed to go. Mimi made me promise that we could make some more postcards tomorrow. And she made me promise that I would not put any more in the mailbox if she was not with me.

  These were not hard promises to make, because Mimi is my best friend and it is always more fun to do stuff with her than to do stuff by myself. I could hardly keep my joy inside me, I was so excited. We ran to the mailbox and mailed postcard number one. I couldn't wait for Mrs. Luther to get it and start feeling better right away. This is my favorite part of being a sort-of superhero.

  Wisconsin And Lion Poop

  Grace F. did not get to go first about telling two interesting facts about Wisconsin. This was like a big present for me. Miss Lois said she was very impressed about my Wisconsin discoveries and said that an elephant ride sounded like an exciting thing to try. This was kind of a surprise, since I could not even imagine Miss Lois riding on a bicycle, which is a more normal thing to ride than an elephant.

  Grace F. seemed really mad when it was her turn and said that her number one interesting fact about Wisconsin was the giant muskie, but that since I had already used it up she didn't want to talk about it again. I said, "Well, you can tell about the honeybee or the ice cream sundae. I didn't use those ones."

  "Just Grace! What have I told you about speaking out of turn without raising your hand!" Miss Lois was mad at me.

  "She's ruined it! Now I don't have one single thing to tell about Wisconsin! She told everything!" Grace F. was mad too. She was pointing at me, and she was talking, and she was not raising her hand.

  Miss Lois was shaking her head again. "Okay, girls. Let's just all calm down." Then she made Grace F. tell us her two facts even though I had already told about them. When she said the honeybee was the insect of Wisconsin, she did not say that honeybees and wasps are not the same thing and that it can be confusing to tell the difference. This is something I would have said, but I was not going to help her with her part of the project anymore.

  WASP

  HONEYBEE

  Sammy brought lion poop in a glass jar for his show and tell for animal week. Most people bring books about animals or a photo of their favorite pet. I am certain that no one in the entire class has ever brought real poop to school before. Everybody except me was impressed. What is so great about lion poop? Even Miss Lois seemed impressed, which was the second surprise I had about her in one day.

  Sammy looked over and smiled at me. I did not smile back. I did not want him to think that I shared his joy about animal poop, which I certainly do not. Olivia Berchelli brought in a picture of her cat, Pookie. Sammy Stringer put his hand up and said, "I don't like cats." This was a not nice thing to say and also a very strange thing to say, since a lion is really just a very big cat. It is hard for me to think nice things about him. He is too much hard work.

  Spying For A Good Reason Is Not Bad

  As soon as I got home from school I ran up to my room to look out my window. I was hoping I would see Mrs. Luther smiling and holding up my postcard, but instead I saw nothing. Her drapes were closed! This was very mysterious and confusing. She had never closed the drapes before. What was she doing in there? A dance of joy or a dance of sadness and crying? I couldn't decide what to think.

  Augustine Dupre was not around to talk to, and I did not feel like drawing a comic, and I could not watch TV because it was before dinnertime, so I went outside for a walk around the house. Maybe Mrs. Luther was outside too. She was not. Even Crinkles was not.

  Walking around the house is not a very interesting thing to do if you do it more than three times in a row. I closed Augustine Dupre's window, which she had left open by mistake, and went back inside.

  WALKING AROUND HOUSE

  I called Mimi and told her we had to have an emergency mailing and mail postcard number two right away. She couldn't come over, so I had to go do it by myself. It was not as much fun as mailing postcard number one. Then there was nothing more to do. Just wait. Waiting is not fun no matter where you are. It is always mostly boring and long, even if you try to find something to do.

  After dinner we all watched a new episode of Unlikely Heroes. Mom is right! It is a feel-good show. It made me feel so much better.

  Trouble

  Sammy Stringer is in trouble. He took the glass jar with the lion poop from Mrs. Luther's house without asking her permission. This is stealing, but Sammy said he was just borrowing it, which is probably true but still bad if you do it without asking.

  The principal made Sammy go and give it back to Mrs. Luther, and then he had to apologize to her. The worst thing about this is that he had to do it in front of her class, which was filled up with all the big kids. Some of them were being mean and laughing until Mrs. Luther made them all be quiet. This is probably what made Sammy cry, all the big kids being quiet and watching him. It is really hard to say you're sorry when you are trying to stop your eyes from crying in front of lots of people you don't know. Poor Sammy.

  After the whole thing happened he had to go to the nurse's office for a while to calm himself down and try to make his face not look like it had been crying. He is going to know that we all know he cried, even if we pretend we don't know a thing about it. It is going to be hard for him to walk around and pretend everything is normal when it most certainly is not. I was feeling sad for him. I couldn't help it. When he came back to our class I turned around, and when he looked at me I smiled. This was probably a bad idea, but I had to do it.

  More Postcards

  After school Mimi came over and we glued two more postcards together. Writing the message on the back is the most fun part. We signed these ones with a big heart next to the pawprint so that Mrs. Luther would know that Crinkles loved her. Even though I am a little bit mad at Mrs. Luther for making Sammy cry in front of the big kids, we still mailed postcard number three. She probably didn't know he was going to cry, so maybe it wasn't so much her fault.

  POSTCARD NUMBER THREE

  POSTCARD NUMBER FOUR

  Mimi wanted me to take more photos of her with Crinkles, but I had an even better idea—I told her she could have the extra cardboard Crinkles to take home. She was so happy, she hugged and hugged me until I had to tell her to stop, because it was not feeling so nice to be hugged so much. Too many hugs is not a good thing. It is too bad that she has her allergy. I can just tell that she would love real cats if she could get close to them. I am extra lucky that way.

  It Was A Bad Idea

  Smiling at Sammy Stringer yesterday was a bad idea. Today he was smiling back at me every single time I just-by-accident looked at him. He probably thinks I like him and that we are going to be friends. All because I gave him a teeny tiny I-feel-sorry-for-you smile yes
terday. If he thinks we will have lunch together and pick each other as partners in gym class, he is totally wrong. I would never give up Jordan, who is my best gym friend, and even if she went on vacation to Hawaii, like she is going to do in two months, I would still not pick Sammy Stringer as my gym partner. I would for sure pick someone else instead.

  Sammy's smile-at-me would not go away! It smiled at me for the whole entire school day! I could not get rid of it no matter how hard I tried, and even after I mean-looked at him, it was still there. I was glad to go home!

  Spying Is Hard

  After school I saw Mrs. Luther on her front porch. She was carrying lots and lots of papers, so I couldn't tell if some of them were my postcards. I also couldn't tell if she looked happy. She was having a lot of trouble holding on to all her stuff while she was trying to open her front door. It's probably not good to watch someone have trouble and not do anything about it, but I didn't want her to know I was spying on her. I wish she would open her drapes so I could see if she looks happy when she is inside her house.

  I went outside and walked to the mailbox on the corner to mail postcard number four. Mimi said it would be okay if I did it by myself. If this one doesn't work I don't know what else we can do.

  There was no one outside anywhere. I didn't even see Crinkles. He might be hiding and sad because Augustine Dupre is in France. I am starting to get sad about that too. I thought that Crinkles and I could maybe be sad about that together, but he is not around, so we will both have to be sad alone instead. This project is not working as perfectly as I thought it would. I made some Not So Super comic drawings in my notebook, but it did not cheer me up even one little bit.

  Trouble Times Two

  Sammy is in trouble again. He got called into the principal's office right in the middle of reading class, which is a very unusual thing to happen. Jordan was in the nurse's office right next door. She tripped while she was running and hurt her ankle, so she got to miss reading class. It is much more fun to read in the nurse's office because the nurse has lots of magazines to look at and for some reason Miss Lois says, "Magazines are not the same as books and they don't count for reading," so we don't get to have them in our classroom.

  BOOK VERSUS MAGAZINE

  Jordan told Mimi and me all about Sammy's trouble when she came back from the nurse's office at lunchtime. Jordan said the principal was in the office with Mrs. Luther and she got to hear everything they said to Sammy, but she could not understand what Sammy said back because he was crying and it was too hard to understand him.

  What they are thinking is so crazy that I cannot believe they would think such a thing could be true. They think that Sammy catnapped Crinkles to be mean to Mrs. Luther because she got mad at him for stealing the lion poop. Mrs. Luther said that Crinkles has been missing for two days and it is not like him to not come home to eat, even if he is scared of her orange cast. When they said, "Revenge is a serious crime," Sammy started crying so hard, they had to make him breathe into a paper bag so he wouldn't choke and die. After that they called his mom to come to the school and get him.

  "I knew that Sammy Stringer was no good!" said Mimi.

  "He's disgusting and mean!" said Jordan.

  "That's true," I said. "But he doesn't like cats." I remembered in my imagination him flapping around Mrs. Luther's yard with the big red oven mitts over his hands.

  "Exactly," said Jordan. "He's a catnapper!"

  "Poor Crinkles," said Mimi, and she looked like she was going to cry.

  "No! He doesn't like cats because he's scared of them! He's a scaredy-cat. But scared of cats! He wouldn't hurt Crinkles. He's probably even too chicken to touch him." I was just like one of those super-smart detectives on Mom's TV crime show. They always put their hands on their hips when they have finished solving a very tricky crime, so I did it too. "Ta-da!" I said. "He is innocent!"

  "Ta-da," said Jordan, "he is not! They have proof! Sammy sent Mrs. Luther ransom notes that had cat photos on them and everything. He even made her cat sit in a grocery cart. So see? He had to touch it!"

  Trouble For Me

  It is no fun getting in trouble, and it is very much no fun knowing that you are going to be in trouble, even if the trouble part hasn't happened yet. Mimi and I didn't know what we were going to do. I knew that Mimi didn't catnap Crinkles and she knew that I didn't catnap Crinkles, but we knew that it was us that had sent the ransom notes, only they weren't ransom notes but feel-good postcards. And right now they were not making me or her feel very good.

  I wasn't feeling so bad for Sammy Stringer anymore—I was feeling more bad for me! He was going to be fine. He probably hadn't done any more wrong things at all.

  I wished some kind of empathy superhero could come along to save me. I wanted it really bad, but even if you close your eyes and wish real hard for superhero help, nothing is going to happen, so I kept my eyes open.

  And then, because we had to, because we are good people, Mimi and I went to the principal's office by ourselves, on purpose, and told Mr. Harris, our principal, everything.

  After we finished our explaining of the big idea, Mr. Harris was not as mad as we thought he was going to be. I was feeling good that I did not cry and that Mimi did not cry. Crying is something that sometimes happens even if you don't want it to. It is hard to keep control of it and make it not happen.

  Mr. Harris said he was glad that we had been filled up with lots of "good intentions." These are the I’m-sure-this-is-the-perfect-thing-to-do feelings you have right before you do something to help someone else. Real superheroes must have a lot of these.

  Mrs. Luther was not as glad about the "good intentions" as Mr. Harris was. She looked at us like we were maybe not 100 percent telling her the truth. She said it was troubling and strange how Crinkles disappeared right when we started sending her the postcards.

  We nodded our heads to say, "Yes, you are right, that is very strange and very troubling," but that didn't make her any happier. The way Mrs. Luther was being made me think that maybe she was not the kind of person who deserved the feel-good postcards in the first place. She was making me have bad feelings about my empathy superhero powers, which is not a good thing to feel.

  Then Mrs. Luther surprised us and said, "I'm relieved none of this had anything to do with Sammy Stringer. He really is quite an interesting boy, very curious. I must apologize to him.

  Grownups hardly ever say they are sorry to kids, and I don't think I have ever heard of a teacher doing an apology to a student before. Mrs. Luther gave us one more look and then walked away to go say she was sorry to Sammy Stringer. He was going to be shocked and surprised!

  Mimi was right. The helper does not get in as much trouble as the number one planner.

  Mr. Harris said he had to call my dad to explain everything, not because he wanted to get me in trouble but just because parents had a right to know certain things and this was one of those certain things. And I knew that it was exactly the kind of certain thing that Dad and Mom would not understand and do lots of loud talking about, which would end up with me getting in trouble.

  Mr. Harris didn't call Mimi's dad. He said that dad could drop Mimi off at her house on our way home.

  Thing I Did Not Get In Trouble For

  Wanting to help someone else. Dad said this is an important thing, but not so important that it makes all the other things I did get in trouble for disappear right out of his memory. This is too bad, because if that happened I would not be getting in trouble and would maybe be getting a medal or something instead.

  Things I Got In Trouble For

  1

  Making Mom take me to the copy store for a project that was not for school.

  This was not really fair, since it is impossible to make Mom do anything she does not want to do, but when I said this Mom said, "Do not press your luck, young lady!" and then I didn't say anything more because when Mom calls me "young lady" she is really mad. This I know from when it has happened before.

&
nbsp; NAMES MOM CALLS ME WHEN SHE IS ANGRY

  2

  Using the computer and the expensive photo paper without asking Dad.

  Dad did not act really really mad about this, and I could tell that he was maybe a little bit proud that I had done so much computer work all by myself without anything going wrong. Mom was standing right next to him so he had to pretend to be mad, and she did not see him wink at me.