Keena Ford and the Second-Grade Mix-Up by Melissa Thomson Read Free Book Online Page B

second cartoon is about funny animals on a farm. When you have to watch one stupid cartoon before you get to watch a good cartoon it is called a compromise.

     
     
    6:30 P.M.
    I am at Dad’s house. Brian is playing with his friend Maryland Jason. I call him Maryland Jason because Brian has another friend named Jason in DC. Brian says not to say “Maryland Jason,” because it sounds dumb, and he also says not to call it “playing,” because once you are older you just call it “hanging out.”
    Since Brian went to Maryland Jason’s, that means I got to talk to Dad alone. When I told him I was going to be in a class with a bunch of girls he just smiled at me like it was funny. And I said, “It’s NOT funny! How would you like to be covered in pink and drinking paper-bag tea every day?” Then he looked at me like I was a little bit crazy. And he said maybe we should go out for coffee and talk about it.
    Going out for coffee with Dad is pretty much my favorite thing ever. For one thing, I get to order for myself. I always order a “decaf with skim milk, hold the coffee.” When you say “hold” something, it means “Do NOT put that on my food.” Like if you think spinach is nasty, you say, “Hold the spinach.” And then you don’t get nasty spinach on your plate. This only works when you go out to eat, though. It doesn’t work on moms or dads. They will never, ever hold the spinach.

    Anyway, I know that when I order a “decaf with skim milk, hold the coffee,” that means I’m not really drinking coffee. I am just drinking milk. But the coffee shop smells like coffee, and I get to drink out of a coffee mug. So I feel like a real grown-up.
    Dad and I like to have grown-up talks at the coffee shop. Sometimes we talk about how it can be a little bit hard for me to live in two different places. Sometimes we talk about how I will try to stay out of trouble so my teacher stops calling my dad’s cell phone and using up his daytime minutes.
    Today we were talking about how SUPER-SAD I was that Eric and I weren’t going to be in the same class. And how I was going to be in a class with all girls. Not that I have a problem with girls—after all, I am a girl, right?—but I don’t like to wear skirts very much. Or play with dolls. I used to play with them sometimes, you know, when I was really bored, but Brian would make fun of me. So now when I am really bored I just play tic-tac-toe against myself.
    There is another teeny-tiny reason why I don’t want to be in a class with all girls. If all of the second-grade girls are in one class, it means that Linny Berry will be in my class for sure. And we don’t exactly get along. I think it started when I might have taken her green crayon. Linny got mad, and she didn’t invite me to her birthday party. It was on a Saturday, and she invited all the other girls in our first-grade class. So on Monday they all came to school wearing these necklaces they got at Linny’s birthday party. And I felt really bad that I didn’t have one.
    So I called her a bad, awful, horrible name. I called her the bad name three times in a row. That’s how mad I was about that stupid necklace. And Linny started to cry. The teacher called my mom but she was in a meeting, so then the teacher called my dad and used up some more of his daytime minutes. Linny whispered that she hated me, but the teacher didn’t hear. Then I got sent to Mr. Lemon, the time-out teacher, and we had that little mix-up with the jump rope.
    And that is why I can’t be in the same class as Linny Berry.
    While I was thinking about Linny Berry, Dad asked, “Remember when you and Eric didn’t speak for three days last year?”
    I said I remembered. We got in a great big fight because . . . well, I can’t remember why. I remember being really mad, though. “I can’t remember why we were fighting,” I admitted.
    “It was probably because you were spending too much time together,” Dad said. “Sometimes if you