That was just what Shirley was thinking when she came to the next book, Henry and Beezus. “Goody,” whispered Shirley. Now she could find out what a Beezus was, too. Shirley glanced down the row of books. The next book was about Henry. So was the next one—and the next one and the next one. Then came a bunch of other books, including a couple about a mouse, then a whole lot about that girl named Ramona. And then Shirley found a book that was called simply Ribsy.
“Ribsy!” Shirley exclaimed softly, and pulled that book off the shelf and set it on top of Henry and Beezus. She hadn’t liked Ribsy quite as much as she’d liked Henry in Henry and Ribsy, but she’d liked him an awful lot.
There were a few more of Beverly Cleary’s books at the right end of the bottom shelf, but Shirley didn’t look at them. She was too busy deciding between Henry and Beezus and Ribsy, and wondering where she could read the book she chose. She needed a private place.
But where could she find one? How about Joe’s room? Nah. Jackie had long since moved back in with Shirley, but anyone could find Shirley in Joe’s bedroom. The attic? Maybe, but there were spiders in the attic. The tree house? That was a good idea. Joe and Mr. Basini had built a really spectacular tree house in the backyard, and Shirley could easily—
“Shirrey! Shirrey! Hi, Shirrey!”
Shirley’s stomach flip-flopped. She didn’t have to look up to know who was standing over her.
“Hi, Jackie,” said Shirley in a small voice, “what are you doing here?”
“Mommy and I came. Mommy remember something she has to do here. She—”
“Shirley! I thought you were playing at Erin’s this afternoon,” said Mrs. Basini’s voice.
Shirley finally looked up. “I was going to,” she said, “but Erin had to, um …”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Basini jumped in. “The point is, you came to the library instead.” She sounded amazed. And very pleased. But then she said the last thing Shirley would have expected: “Well, I’ve got a few things to take care of, so I’ll meet you girls at the checkout desk in half an hour. How’s that?”
“Fine,” replied Shirley. So her mother wasn’t going to bug her after all. She relaxed.
Jackie dropped onto the floor beside Shirley. “What are these books?” she asked, as Mrs. Basini hurried off.
“They’re by Beverly Cleary … Don’t you know her?” Shirley had thought Jackie knew everything there was to know about books.
“No,” said Jackie. She looked at the two on the floor and read the titles out loud. “Exprain ‘Beezus,’ prease, Shirrey.”
“I don’t know what it is either,” Shirley told her honestly, “but I’m going to find out.” She picked up the books and hugged them to her. “These are mine,” she said. “I’m taking them out.” Suddenly she wanted both of them. But she felt a little greedy, so she said, “You should read this book. It’s really great.” She pulled Henry and Ribsy off the shelf and handed it to her sister.
“Okay,” replied Jackie. “Thank you. You think I am going to rike stories by Beverry Creary?”
“I know so. Oh, and hey! There’s another author, Judy Blume, only I don’t know where her books are. …”
“Brume, Brume,” said Jackie. “I think they must be over here.” She moved down the stack of books. “Here they are, Shirrey!”
“How did you know that?” asked Shirley.
Jackie explained how the library worked, and Shirley wished she’d paid more attention when Mr. Bradley had talked about alphabetical order. Then Shirley showed Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, A Bear Called Paddington, and Pippi Longstocking to Jackie who decided to take out all three, plus Henry and Ribsy. Jackie couldn’t believe that Shirley had already read them.
After that, Jackie showed James and the Giant Peach and Stuart Little and Winnie-the-Pooh to Shirley. Shirley was interested, but she didn’t take them. Two were enough.
That night Shirley and Jackie did their homework together in their bedroom. Lately Shirley had been doing her homework a little more easily. And she got lots more of the answers right. Plus, the more she read the easier reading became.
“Lights out!” Mrs. Basini called at nine-thirty, and Shirley decided it was time to teach Jackie another American custom. She found her flashlight in her top bureau drawer. Then she tiptoed into Joe’s room and found his flashlight. She gave it to Jackie.
Both girls ducked under their covers and stayed up late reading. Jackie read Henry and Ribsy, and Shirley read Henry and Beezus.
Chapter Seven: March
BY THE BEGINNING OF March, Shirley had read both Henry and Beezus and Ribsy. She and Jackie had returned their books to the library. With Jackie’s help, Shirley had chosen a new one, James and the Giant Peach, and had checked it out. It looked like a very difficult book (even the author’s name was hard—Roald Dahl), but Shirley wanted to try it anyway. She liked the idea of traveling around inside a giant peach with giant insects as your only companions, which is just what happens to James, the boy in the story.
She liked the idea so much that she’d decided to put giant insects on her March bulletin board. Since spring began in March, the Class Artist had wanted to create a garden scene. But not just a regular garden scene. Shirley was making a garden the way she imagined one would appear if she could look at it under a microscope.
She had cut out a two-foot-long grasshopper, a fly with eyes the size of pot lids, a ladybug that looked like a spotted basketball, and a butterfly with the wingspan of a crow. She also added a snake so large she could only show its head peeking into the garden, and a gigantic rabbit’s paw about to step into the scene. All these animals were playing among flower stalks—big strips of paper that stretched from the top to the bottom of the bulletin board like green pillars. Shirley’s classmates were fascinated by her newest project. Every day they looked at it to see how it was coming along.
One windy Tuesday, Shirley asked Mr. Bradley for permission to stay inside during recess. She was almost done with her garden and wanted to work on the final touches. Mr. Bradley gave her permission, even though he was going to be at a meeting.
“No wild parties in the room while I’m not here,” was all he said to Shirley.
Shirley had been hard at work for the first ten minutes of recess when she heard the door to the classroom open quietly. Without looking up from the gigantic flower bud she was making, she said, “See, Mr. Bradley? No wild parties. It’s just me and the insects.”
“Shirrey?” said a tearful voice.
Jackie was standing inside the classroom. She was trying very hard not to cry.
“Jackie, what’s wrong?” exclaimed Shirley. She put down the bud and her scissors. “Are you sick?” Jackie hadn’t had trouble in school since those days in the first-grade classroom when everything had been new and scary for her.
“No,” replied Jackie, “not sick.”
“What, then?” asked Shirley.
“Shirrey, those boys tease me,” Jackie began. “They car me yerrow. They car me Srope-eyes. They car me Shorty.”
Shirley stood up angrily. “Who? Who calls you those things?” she demanded. (Shirley thought Jackie was beautiful—even if she was short. There was no denying she was short.)
“They are in fifth grade, I think. Big boys.”
Shirley paused. She’d wanted to run to whomever had been teasing Jackie and teach them a thing or two. But … fifth-grade boys?
“Do you know their names?” asked Shirley.
“Onry first names. Rester and Rance.”
“Lester and Lance?” asked Shirley. She hoped Jackie hadn’t tried to pronounce their names. That was probably one of the reasons they’d teased her.
Jackie nodded. “Yes. Rester and Rance.”
“Jackie,” Shirley began, “can you say ‘el,’ like this? Listen, little, light, lamb, lump. Say the ‘el’ part really carefully.”
“That is very hard,” replied Jackie, “but I try. Risten, ritter—”
“No
, listen, little.”
Jackie was concentrating so hard that her face was screwed up like an apple doll’s. She tried again.
“You know, that was better!” exclaimed Shirley. “It really was!”
“Thank you. But what about Rester and Rance?”
Shirley sighed. “Lester and Lance,” she said under her breath. Then she added more loudly, “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“We are in cafeteria for runchtime,” said Jackie. “My crass eats at taber next to fifth graders. Mr. Hunt’s crass. I am carrying my tray over to taber and I bump into Rester. He says, ‘Say excuse me, Srope-eyes.’”
“Slope-eyes?”
Jackie nodded.
“Then what?” asked Shirley.
“So I say ‘excuse me’ but he won’t ret me go by. His friend—Rance—he comes to stand next to him. So I say ‘excuse me’ to Rance, too. But they do not move. One says, ‘How come skin is so yerrow? You are a yerrowbird.’ Other one says, ‘Go ahead, try to get by, Shorty.’ So I try, but Rester knocks tray out of my hands and everything fars on froor.”
“Oh, yeah?” cried Shirley. Suddenly she didn’t care how big or how old Lester and Lance were. She stood up quickly, dumping the scissors and a bottle of Elmer’s Glue-All out of her lap. She didn’t bother to pick them up. She ran to Jackie, grabbed her by the hand, and pulled her all the way down the hall. When they reached the doors to the cafeteria, she said, “Now you show me Lester and Lance, Jackie. You show them to me this minute.”
Jackie looked nervous, but she led Shirley across the cafeteria. When they were standing at the end of a long table, Jackie whispered to Shirley, “These boys. These boys right here are Rester and Rance.”
Shirley glared at the two boys sitting at the end of the table. They were calmly eating their lunches.
They were very big.
After a moment, they glanced up and saw Shirley and Jackie looking at them. They grinned at each other.
“Hey, it’s Slope-eyes again!” said one of the boys.
Jackie tugged urgently at Shirley’s elbow. Then she stood on tiptoe and whispered in Shirley’s ear, “That’s Rester.”
Shirley nodded.
“What are you doing back here, Slope-eyes?” Lester went on.
“You want to buy another lunch—I mean, runch?” asked Lance, grinning a mean grin.
Shirley doubled up her fists and took a step toward the boys.
“So who’s this?” Lester asked Jackie. He was pointing to Shirley.
“My sister,” Jackie whispered.
“Figures,” said Lance. “It figures that the slope-eyes would have a four-eyes for a sister.”
Lester and Lance laughed hysterically.
That did it. Shirley had had enough. “I just want to get a few things straight,” she said to the boys. “You called Jackie Slope-eyes, right?”
“Yup,” said the boys.
“You called her Shorty.”
“Right.”
“You told her she was yellow.”
“Right again.”
“You made her drop her lunch tray.”
“Her runch tray. That’s right.”
“And you called me a four-eyes.”
“You got it.”
Shirley nodded. “Just checking,” she said.
“How come?” asked Lance.
“Because I don’t want to get chocolate pudding on the wrong people,” Shirley replied. Then, in one fast movement, she reached out her right hand, picked up Lester’s dish of chocolate pudding, and dumped it over his head. At the same time, she reached out her left hand, picked up Lance’s dish of pudding, and dumped it over his head.
For a moment, no one said a word.
Lester and Lance, with chocolate pudding dripping down their foreheads and into their eyes, just stared at each other.
And Jackie stared at Shirley. Her big sister had done something for her. She had stood up for her. But she had done something wrong, too, hadn’t she?
The kids sitting around Lester and Lance looked on in awe.
Out of the corners of her eyes, Shirley tried to glimpse a cafeteria monitor. She didn’t see one. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or worried. On the one hand, she didn’t want to get in trouble. On the other hand, Lester was reaching for his mashed potatoes …
“Duck!” Shirley ordered Jackie.
But Jackie knew only one meaning for “duck”—and it didn’t have anything to do with crouching down.
The potatoes hit Jackie in the face. She gasped.
Shirley stood up, this time ready to deck Lester—and was hit by Lance’s potatoes. She wiped them out of her eyes just in time to see Jackie pick up Lester’s carton of milk and pour it over his head. The milk made little white trickles in the chocolate pudding.
“All right, Jackie!” Shirley cried.
“No way!” exclaimed Lester. “No way!” He stood up.
The other kids at Lester and Lance’s table were no longer just watching. They were laughing and shouting. “Food fight! Food fight!”
“Come on, Jackie, we better get out of here,” said Shirley. Now she did see a cafeteria monitor, and the monitor was heading their way.
“Not yet,” said Jackie through gritted teeth. “One thing more.” And she reached for the peas on Lance’s plate, picked them up with her hands, and smushed them in his face. “That’s for carring me Srope-eyes … Rabbit-teeth,” she said.
“Oh, boy,” muttered Shirley. She was as proud as could be of Jackie, but the cafeteria monitor was closing in. And Lester and Lance looked awfully angry.
Shirley took Jackie by the wrist and pulled her away.
Just in time.
Someone from the other end of Lester and Lance’s table had thrown a glob of mashed potatoes at Shirley and Jackie. It missed them.
It hit the cafeteria monitor.
Shirley rushed toward the doorway, yanking Jackie along.
“Come on,” said Shirley urgently.
“Where?” puffed Jackie, trying to keep up with her sister.
“Girls’ room. We have to get cleaned up before anyone sees us. Oh, I hope there’s no one in here.”
Shirley barged into the girls’ room, then came to a dead stop. She listened. Nothing. The stalls were empty. They were alone.
“Thank goodness,” muttered Shirley.
“We get creaned up easy. I mean, easiry,” said Jackie. “Nothing on our crothes. Onry on our faces.”
“Yeah,” agreed Shirley. She turned the water on full blast and reached for a stack of paper towels. Suddenly she burst out laughing.
“What?” asked Jackie.
“Rabbit-teeth!” cried Shirley. “How did you think of that? I didn’t even notice that Lance was bucktoothed until you called him that.”
“Bucktoothed?” repeated Jackie. “That is how you say it?”
“Yeah, but I like Rabbit-teeth much better.”
“I think I read about Rabbit-teeth in a book,” said Jackie. She was grinning. “Okay to do that? To put mirk on Rester and peas on Rance?” She began to rinse the green pea goo off of her hands.
“Very okay,” agreed Shirley. “I mean, Mom and Dad might not think so—if they hear about this—but I’m glad you stuck up for yourself.”
“It was fun,” said Jackie, wiping at the mashed potatoes that were drying on her cheeks.
“Yeah, it was … Jackie?”
“Yes, Shirrey?”
“I’m really sorry I made fun of you during the spelling bee.”
Jackie paused in her washing. “Why did you do that?”
“Because, um, I’m not a very good speller,” said Shirley slowly. “I was embarrassed when you did better than me. You’re my little sister. I should be better than you.”
Jackie had finished cleaning up. She looked at Shirley seriously. “But you teach me many, many things, Shirrey,” she said. “You show me how things work. You exprain about Christmas and Santa Craus. You save me from Rester and Rance.
You are very good at those things. Much better than I am. I am onry good at rearning how to read and write and make my math.”
“Do your math,” Shirley corrected her.
“Do my math,” repeated Jackie. “I have to be good at something. I have to make Mommy and Daddy prease with me.”
“Are you kidding?” cried Shirley. “They’re pleased with everything you do.”
“But when I first come here, I know nothing,” said Jackie. “You show me everything. I was scared of first grade and my teacher and even Mommy and Daddy. How could they be prease?”
“Well, they were. You learned so fast.”
Maybe … maybe I can teach you some things, Shirrey,” said Jackie eagerly. “I teach you sperring words. I show you how to make, I mean, do your math.”
“I don’t know—” began Shirley.
But she didn’t get to finish. The door to the girls’ room opened then and in walked the cafeteria monitor.
“Ah-ha!” she exclaimed.
It was a long time before everything got sorted out. The cafeteria monitor, Mr. Bradley, Mrs. Rockwell, Lester and Lance’s teacher, Shirley, Jackie, and Lester and Lance themselves gathered in Mrs. Hillier’s office.
“I am in principar’s office,” Jackie kept whispering to Shirley. She held Shirley’s hand tightly.
Mrs. Hillier listened to everything anyone had to say. The only ones who didn’t talk were Lester and Lance. Jackie had plenty to say. In fact, Shirley had never heard her say so much.
When everybody was done talking, Mrs. Hillier looked at Lester and Lance sternly. She told them that they would have to stay after school for a week. And that if there was any more trouble between them and Shirley or Jackie, they could expect to stay after school again. Then she dismissed everybody but Shirley and Jackie.
When the three of them were alone in the office, Mrs. Hillier said, “I’m not going to punish you—”
Hurray! thought Shirley.
“—but I have one thing to say. And then I’m going to call your parents.”
“Oh, no!” cried Jackie.
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Hillier said. “I’m going to tell them about the food fight, but only because I want them to know that there was trouble today. What I really want to tell them is that, Jackie, you stood up for yourself, and, Shirley, you stood up for Jackie. They’ll be pleased to hear that.”