Junie B., First Grader: Cheater Pants by Barbara Park Read Free Book Online Page A

whispered
thank you
to May for letting me borrow her homework.

May got back from the office.
    She stood at the door and waved again.
    “I did it, everyone! I got the attendance sheet to the office. Just like I promised.”
    She looked at Mr. Scary. “It went very well, too,” she said. “There were no problems I couldn't handle.”
    Mr. Scary raised his eyes from what he was doing.
    “Okay … well, thank you, May. You can take your seat now, please,” he said.
    But May kept right on talking.
    “At first, I didn't know where to put it. But then the secretary told me to put it in the wire basket. So I followed her directions perfectly,” she said.
    Mr. Scary pointed at her seat. “Excellent,” he said. “Now please sit down, okay?”
    May didn't pay attention again.
    “When I was in kindergarten, I got an E+ for following directions,” she said. “E+ is better than excellent. The plus sign means extra,
extra
excellent.”
    Just then, Mr. Scary stood up. And he took May's hand. And he walked her to her seat.
    As soon as he went back to his desk, I strained my brain for something nice to say to her. ’Cause I was still happy at May for leaving her homework out.
    Finally, I tapped on her arm. And I smiled.
    “Welcome back, madam,” I said real friendly.
    May did a frown at me. “What kind of crack was
that?
” she said.
    I just looked at her.
    Friendly does not come natural to us, I think.
    Pretty soon, Mr. Scary stood up at his desk. Then he walked to the board and he wrote these words:
    This weekend, one thing I did for fun was
…
    “Okay, everyone,” he said. “For your homework over the weekend, I asked you to complete that sentence, remember?”
    Room One nodded.
    “Good,” said Mr. Scary. “Because thismorning, I'd like for each of you to read your homework paper to the class. That way we'll find out what our classmates do for enjoyment. Doesn't that sound fun?”

    Room One nodded again. Even if it doesn't sound fun, you still have to nod.
    Mr. Scary smiled. “We'll go up anddown each row until everyone gets a turn.”
    He pointed at Lucille. “Lucille, why don't you start us off?” he said.
    Lucille sits in the first row by the window. Last year, me and her were bestest friends. But this year, we're just regular.
    Lucille stood up and fluffed herself. Then she picked up her paper. And she started to read.
    “This weekend, one thing I did for fun was … my richie nanna took me to her expensive beauty salon. And both of us got manicures and pedicures.”
    Mr. Scary looked surprised at that news.
    “You got a pedicure, Lucille? Wow! That's pretty fancy stuff, isn't it?” he said.
    Lucille shrugged. “For some people, maybe,” she said.
    She looked down and kept on reading.“Also, we each got a papaya-fruit facial. And Nanna got an herbal body wrap. Plus I got a seaweed scalp massage.”
    Mr. Scary stood there for a second. Then he nodded very slow.
    “All rightie, then,” he said.
    After that, he pointed to Camille.
    Camille is the sister of Chenille. Those two are twin sets.
    Camille stood up. “This weekend, Chenille and I made a puppet theater out of a cardboard box. And we put on a show for our little brother, Neil.”
    Mr. Scary beamed at that news.
    “Oh, that's
great
, girls,” he said. “I bet doing a puppet show for your brother was a lot of fun, wasn't it?”
    “Not really,” said Camille. “Neil kept on grabbing the puppets off our hands. Andhe made them kill each other.”
    “We don't like Neil,” said Chenille.
    “Neil is a boob,” said Camille.
    Mr. Scary just stood there some more.
    Then finally, he moved on to Roger.
    Roger was the best one so far.

    “This weekend, one thing I did for fun was … I went to get pizza with my dad. And I ate a whole entire
anchovy
! And I didn't throw up till I was almost home!”
    Room One clapped and clapped for that amazing story.
    Mr. Scary was right.
    It
was
fun to learn what our classmates did on the weekend.
    I couldn't