Fourth-Grade Disasters Read online

  “Mason, it’s not going to be horrible.”

  Another statement for which she had absolutely no evidence.

  “What if it is?”

  “How about we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Lying under the table, Dog whacked Mason’s leg sympathetically with his tail. Mason reached down and rubbed Dog’s silky ears.

  Didn’t his mother mean they’d cross that bridge after Mason had already plunged off it, catapulting into the churning rapids below?

  At Platters practice on Friday morning, Mrs. Morengo was flushed with agitation.

  “We have one week! To prepare three songs for the concert! One week!”

  The whole school would be at the concert. All the parents would be at the concert. A Plainfield Press news reporter and photographer would be there. And Channel 9 News. Yes, Brody had been right: the Plainfield Platters, after just one more week of practice, were going to be on TV.

  Mason couldn’t believe that people would watch them on TV, not if they could change the channel with their remote control. But there were probably thousands of people whose remotes had fallen down between the couch cushions.

  “We’ll do ‘Puff’—thank goodness for ‘Puff’! And the raindrop song we’ve started working on. For the third song, we’ll do a patriotic medley, since most of you know those songs already.”

  Next week, Mrs. Morengo told the students, there would be Platters practice every single morning. At least Mason wasn’t the only one who seemed horrified. One fifth grader pretended to stab himself in the stomach. Dunk staggered a few steps and fell down as if dead.

  “I know,” Mrs. Morengo said with a kindly smile. “It’s hard to get up early five mornings in a row. But think how proud you’ll all be when we perform on television on Friday night!”

  No, not all.

  Not Mason Dixon.

  The Platters began practicing the raindrop song. Mason remembered hearing about something called Chinese water torture, where people went insane from being forced to listen to the endless sound of a dripping faucet. Chinese water torture had a lot in common with the Platters’ raindrop song.

  “Drip! Drop! Drip! Drip! Drip!”

  Mason tried to finish his Pedro the piano story during writing time that morning. In the story, Pedro had just finished spilling something on himself. Mason made it be Coke. His mother kept telling him how bad soda was for his teeth, not that she ever bought any, but in case he was ever at a party where soda was served. If Coke was bad for teeth, it was probably bad for piano keys. Piano keys looked like the long, yellowish teeth of a piano.

  Sitting next to Mason, Nora was reading a thick nonfiction book about how every single machine ever invented in the history of the world worked. She was already done with her story.

  “What would you use to clean piano keys?” Mason asked her. “If Coke got spilled on them?”

  Nora looked up from her book. “People shouldn’t have Coke near a piano.”

  Mason wondered if he needed to write how Pedro had gotten the Coke in the first place. A piano couldn’t very well walk to the fridge, open it, and pour himself a glass of soda. Maybe some badly behaved kid, like Dunk, had left his Coke on Pedro.

  “Is it an electric piano or a real piano?” Nora asked. “Because if it’s an electric piano, it’s probably ruined.”

  Mason perked up on Pedro’s behalf. Could Pedro be electric? But in his heart of hearts, he knew Pedro wasn’t electric. He was a regular upright piano, like Mrs. Morengo’s.

  “Real.”

  “My mom just wipes our piano keys with a damp cloth. You don’t want to get water inside a piano, whatever kind of piano it is. But you shouldn’t have Coke near your piano,” she said again, severely.

  “I don’t have a piano. It’s Pedro. The piano in my story.”

  “Oh. Well, good luck cleaning him,” Nora said, and went back to her book.

  That evening before bed, Mason’s mother read him another chapter of Ballet Shoes.

  Dog liked the story, too; Mason could tell by the way Dog looked attentively at Mason’s mother when she read.

  Now poor Petrova, in the story, was in a play—and a play by Shakespeare, no less: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In one of her scenes, she had only two words to say: “And I.” She kept getting them wrong, saying the words too high or too low, like a squeak or a growl.

  “Which character is your favorite?” Mason’s mother asked when she closed the book for the night.

  “Petrova.”

  “I thought you’d like her best. Not to spoil the story for you or anything, but she ends up doing very well in the play.”

  “Does she end up liking being in the play?” Mason asked.

  His mother hesitated. “Well, no. She never likes the stage the way that Pauline and Posy do. But she does find a way to do the thing that she loves: flying airplanes.”

  Luckily, Mason had already found a way to do the thing that he loved, which was sleeping next to Dog. After his mother turned off the lights and left the room, that’s what he did.

  He dreamed about a flying teapot, spilling Coke on a shy piano.

  8

  The weekend was pleasant. Brody didn’t have any plans with his other friends, so after his soccer game on Saturday morning, he came over to play a good hour of fetch with Mason and Dog.

  On Sunday afternoon, Nora joined them. This time she was the one who called Mason, proof that she did indeed want to be his second-best friend, although since Brody was there, too, maybe now she was also Brody’s sixth-best friend.

  Nora knew a new game to teach Dog. Being a golden retriever, Dog was already an expert at fetch the stick, and also very talented at go get, the game where he had to get Mason’s sock, or Brody’s hat, or Nora’s shoe.

  “This game is called the shell game,” Nora said. “But we’re going to play it with buckets instead of shells. Or pots and pans. Anything that can cover up a dog biscuit. And we need dog biscuits. You do have dog biscuits, don’t you?”

  From the kitchen Mason collected a box of dog biscuits. In the garage Brody found three buckets of different sizes. Because Brody spent so much time at Mason’s house, he knew where everything was, sometimes even better than Mason.

  “Okay,” Nora said. “Now line up the buckets, and while Dog isn’t looking”—Mason turned Dog’s head away and held on to it so he couldn’t see the buckets as Brody placed them in a row—“put a dog biscuit under one of them.”

  Brody did as Nora instructed.

  “Now let Dog try to find which bucket has the dog treat.”

  It took a little while for Dog to understand the game. Mason had to lead him over to each bucket in turn and allow him to sniff at it. But once Dog caught on, he ran from bucket to bucket, his nose aquiver, yelping with triumph when he found the right one, and nosing it aside to pounce on his reward.

  They played until the box of dog biscuits was empty. It had been three-quarters empty when they started, so Mason didn’t feel guilty for overfeeding Dog. Once he’d had a goldfish, named Goldfish, who had died from overfeeding, so Mason was careful never to feed Dog too much.

  “Now what?” Mason asked Nora and Brody.

  “We could go to my house and work on my bridge,” Brody suggested.

  So they did. Mason wouldn’t have pointed this out, but Nora was a much better bridge builder than Brody, even though Brody was the one who wanted to be a professional bridge builder when he grew up. Nora’s bridge had rock supports underneath it and stone steps leading up to it.

  Even Brody noticed how much better Nora’s bridge was.

  “Maybe you should be a famous bridge builder, and I’ll be a famous something else,” Brody said. “I’ll be a famous singer!”

  In preparation for his new career, he began singing the Platters raindrop song, starting in the middle, heading toward the exciting part.

  “Drip, drop, drop, drop, drip, drip, DRIP!”

  Dog barked along with Brody’s singing
. For a dog who was terrified of thunder, he did a pretty good thunder imitation. Maybe Mrs. Morengo would let Dog be in the concert instead of Mason.

  Nora said, “I have an idea.”

  Brody’s rainstorm was over, the last little drop fallen. The mighty thundering Dog lay panting on the grass.

  “What is it?” Mason asked. Nora’s ideas didn’t make him nervous. Nora always had good ideas.

  “You don’t want to sing in the concert, right?”

  Mason didn’t remember ever telling Nora that. Maybe it was obvious, at least to someone as observant as Nora.

  “Tell Mrs. Morengo you want to flash the lights on and off to be like lightning. And you can turn the audience lights off at the start of the concert and turn them back on at the end. Tell her you’ll be the stage crew. That way you’re in the concert but not in the concert.”

  “Nora,” Mason said, “how did you get to be so smart?”

  Nora shrugged. “It’s just how I am.”

  When Nora said it, it wasn’t bragging.

  It was true.

  Then came Monday, with Platters practice at 7:45, because this was the week of the concert, the week of having Platters practice every single day.

  Mrs. Morengo looked flustered that morning.

  “Are we starting with ‘Puff’?” a fourth grader asked her.

  “No!” Mrs. Morengo almost barked. “We have five days! To learn two new songs! To perform on television! We don’t have time for ‘Puff’!”

  Mason noticed that stuffed-dragon Puff had completely tipped over and was lying halfway off the chair, with his feet on the chair and his head upside down on the music room floor.

  Brody apparently saw, too. He darted out of his place in the front row and set Puff back upright on his chair again, frowning as he studied Puff’s turned-up tail.

  “Mrs. Morengo?” Brody asked. “Did you know that Puff’s tail is ripped in a couple of places, and his stuffing is starting to come out? Should we get him fixed before the concert? In case the television cameras zoom in on him for a close-up?”

  Mrs. Morengo clutched her head with her hands.

  “Brody, right now Puff is the least of my problems.”

  “Mason’s mom can fix him,” Brody persisted. “She’s a famous knitter, and knitting is sort of like sewing, so Mason and I could take him to Mason’s house after school today, and she can probably sew him.”

  Mason’s stomach clenched. The last thing he needed was for Mrs. Morengo to be talking to his mother about repairs to Puff—or about voice lessons.

  Mrs. Morengo forced a smile. “All right, Brody, that would be very helpful. We want Puff to look his best for our concert. But now, Platters, we cannot focus any more on Puff. You need to be raindrops. Mr. Griffith?”

  Mr. Griffith played the first raindrop note on the piano. The chorus of drips and drops began.

  Mason didn’t think he was going to be able to ask Mrs. Morengo today about being the lightning guy and stage crew for the concert. He’d have to wait until she was in a better mood, not so stressed. But was she going to be in a better, not-so-stressed mood between now and Friday?

  During the class writing huddle that day, to Mason’s surprise, Dunk volunteered to read his story.

  “Is it about a toilet?” one kid asked.

  Everyone laughed, including Coach Joe. Mason wondered if Coach Joe was secretly nervous. A story about a toilet was bound to have words in it that somebody’s parents might not like. And then the parents might complain to the principal, and Coach Joe might get fired.

  “Does someone poop in it?” another kid called out.

  Before Dunk could answer, Coach Joe said, “Team, I think it’s cool for you to write about whatever character you choose, and we’re going to listen to everybody’s story with attention and respect. If Dunk’s story is about a toilet, we’re going to help Dunk make sure that he has created an interesting toilet with a well-developed problem. We’re not going to judge Dunk’s story one way or another just because of his choice of a character. It’s what he does with it that matters. Okay?”

  The class settled down.

  “All right, Dunk, go ahead. Introduce us to your main character.”

  “It’s not a toilet,” Dunk said sadly.

  Some of the boys groaned in disappointment.

  “My dad wouldn’t let me write about a toilet. So my story is about a football. His name is Footie.”

  Dunk began to read. Footie the football played in a football game. The center snapped him to the quarterback, who passed him to a wide receiver, who ran down with him to the end zone, and Footie won the game.

  “And Footie was very happy,” Dunk concluded.

  Dunk’s story was very short, as Sheng pointed out.

  “I like stories that are short,” Dunk said. “Then nobody gets bored reading them.”

  “Yeah, but some stories are too short,” Sheng shot back. “I mean, you could have just said: ‘Footie was a football. Someone kicked him over the goalposts. He won the game. The end.’ ”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Dunk demanded.

  “Well, it isn’t very much of a story.”

  “Okay, boys,” Coach Joe said. “Dunk, I think Sheng just means that readers would like to hear more about Footie’s adventures, right?”

  Sheng gave a half nod. Mason knew that Sheng really meant he thought Dunk’s story was bad. Which it was.

  “My dad should have let me write about the toilet,” Dunk muttered.

  Mason himself didn’t want to hear very much about a toilet’s adventures. Then again, he didn’t want to hear very much about Footie the football’s adventures, either.

  After school, Mason went with Brody to the music room to pick up Puff and bring him home for mending. Puff wasn’t there.

  “He’s probably back in his display case,” Brody figured out. “That’s where Puff lives. He just comes to Platters practice to give us moral support, especially now that we have our big televised concert coming up.”

  Sure enough, that’s where they found him. Mason noticed that Brody was right: Puff’s tail did badly need to be sewed.

  The case was locked.

  “Now what do we do?” Mason asked.

  Going home to Dog and forgetting all about Puff was one good option.

  “We’ll ask the secretary in the office if she can open the case for us,” Brody said.

  Mason was glad that Brody did all the talking. “Mrs. Morengo said we could take Puff home so that Mason’s mom can mend him before the concert,” Brody told Mrs. Boyer, who sat at a desk behind an open glass window in the front hallway by the principal’s office.

  Mrs. Boyer hesitated; then she said, “I suppose that’s all right.”

  After all, it would be hard for anyone to look less like a dragon-stealing criminal than Brody Baxter.

  The principal came up behind her.

  “Mrs. Miller, is it all right if these boys take Puff home for mending?” Mrs. Boyer asked. “Mrs. Morengo wants Puff to look his best for the concert on Friday.”

  That wasn’t quite right. Brody was the one who wanted Puff to look his best for the concert.

  Mrs. Miller smiled at Brody the way grown-ups always did.

  “That’s fine. Just get him back to school by Thursday morning. And make sure you take good care of him. Did you know that Puff is almost twenty years old? For twenty years, Plainfield students have loved Puff just the way you do.”

  The principal herself unlocked the display case and placed Puff in Brody’s outstretched arms. Puff was almost as big as Brody.

  Mason could tell that Brody was overwhelmed that such an enormous honor had been bestowed upon him. Compared to the honor of carrying home Puff the Plainfield Dragon, being named a Beulah Brighton Belvedere School for the Arts was nothing.

  “You don’t have far to go, do you, boys?” Mrs. Miller asked, her face darkening with concern.

  “Just five blocks,” Brody piped up from behind Puff’s
head.

  Then the two boys, and one dragon, headed out the front door of Plainfield Elementary School.

  Mason hoped they wouldn’t run into Dunk. Dunk might try to grab Puff (singing a few more loud la-la-las in the process), and there might be a scuffle, and Puff might fall into a mud puddle or get ripped even worse than he already was.

  Luckily, Dunk was nowhere in sight. Brody carried Puff proudly down the street, Mason bringing up the rear in their royal procession.

  Dog came bounding to the door to greet them.

  “Down, Dog!” Mason commanded as Dog tried to jump up on Brody to get a closer look at a possible new dragon friend.

  Dog definitely seemed interested in Puff.

  As interested as he had been in the stuffed monkey that no longer had an arm and the stuffed elephant that no longer had a trunk.

  9

  Mason’s mother examined Puff with care once Dog was lying obediently on the floor, his head on his paw.

  “It will be easy to fix him,” she said. “What a good idea to bring him here, Brody! I’ve been hoping for a chance to help with the Platters this year, and what better way than to do some sewing surgery on Puff himself?”

  After their snack—three Fig Newtons and milk—Mason and Brody took Dog for a long walk to give Mason’s mother a chance to sew on Puff in peace.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Mason said as they stopped in front of a neighbor’s tree to let Dog pee.

  “A bad feeling about what?” Brody asked.

  “Bringing Puff home. With Dog. You know how Dog is these days about chewing.”

  “Mason!” Brody sounded shocked. “Dog wouldn’t chew Puff!”

  Why, exactly, did Brody think that?

  “Give Dog some credit!” Brody almost sounded cross at this aspersion on Dog’s character. He stooped and gave Dog an extra-big, defensive hug when Dog finished peeing. “You wouldn’t chew Puff, would you, boy?” he asked him seriously.

  Dog barked his answer.

  “See?” Brody said. He clearly took Dog’s bark to mean, Of course not, dear Brody. How could Mason possibly think I would do such a thing?