Read Online Fourth-Grade Disasters by Claudia Mills - Free Book Online Page A

expected, her T-shirt fit just right.
    Mason and Brody took one look at each other and began peeling off their T-shirts to trade. Mason heard the seams of his rip as he yanked it over his head.
    More mending for his mom to do. Mason hoped that by the time he got home from school, Puff would be mended and cleaned and ready to go back to his nice, safe display case at school tomorrow.
    There was a quiz in math: multiplication and division, mainly a review from third grade. Mason was pretty good in math, so he thought he got most of the answers right. In social studies, they were going to spend all year studying the first half of American history, starting with the Native Americans. Coach Joe told the class that next month they would have an Indian powwow, complete with costumes and war paint.
    Mason hated costumes; he despised Halloween. Although he had never yet worn any war paint in hisalmost ten years of life, he strongly suspected that he would not enjoy war paint, either. Maybe he could be absent that day.
    But, as his mother would say, he’d cross the war-paint bridge when he came to it. Far more terrifying bridges lay closer at hand.
    During writing time, Mason finished the scene with the piano cleaner who came to school to scrub the spilled Coke from Pedro’s sticky keys. Then he started writing the climax scene: Pedro’s stunning refusal to play on the night of the big concert.
    Then it was the night of the concert! The gym was filled with hundreds of people. The people could hardly wait for the concert to begin.
    A TV crew was there, too. They set up a big camera, the biggest camera Pedro had ever seen. Soon thousands of people from all around the state of Colorado would be watching Pedro play.
    Maybe even from all around the country
.
    Maybe even from all around the world
.
    Mason put down his pencil. His fingers were sweaty from gripping it so tightly. He didn’t think he could stand writing any more today.
    He heard Dunk’s voice. “My story’s long now!” Dunk was saying to Sheng, who sat next to him.
    Dunk picked up his story and waved it in Sheng’s face. Even from where he was sitting, Mason could see that Dunk had three sheets of paper entirely covered with his messy writing.
    “So?” Sheng asked.
    “So, you can’t say it’s too short anymore.”
    Sheng shrugged, as if to say that he hadn’t been lying awake at night worrying about the length of Dunk’s story. Sheng’s own story was about a B-52 bomber that won World War III practically all by itself; he had shared part of it with the class last week.
    “Do you want to hear it?” Dunk asked Sheng.
    “Not really.”
    Despite this lack of encouragement, Dunk began to read:
    “The Tigers won the toss and chose to receive, but their first possession resulted in a punt of Footie after going three and out. The Lions took the field for the first time, with Footie at their own twenty-seven-yardline. The Lions put together a drive that went fifty-three yards and resulted in a thirty-eight-yard field goal by the kicker who kicked Footie.”
    Sheng cut Dunk off before he could read any more. “So it’s long. Long isn’t the same thing as good.”
    But Dunk’s story
was
good—maybe not good as a story, but good as a description of a football game.
    “Wow, Dunk,” Brody said. “You should be a sportswriter for the
Plainfield Press
.”
    Dunk beamed at Brody’s praise.
    Mason looked over at Nora. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. But he could tell that she was thinking something.
    After school, Brody had soccer practice with Julio; Julio’s dad drove them. So Mason walked home alone.
    If Nora was going to be a famous scientist or bridge builder, and Brody was going to be a famous bridge builder or singer, and even Dunk was going to be a famous sportswriter, what was Mason going to be?
    Maybe he didn’t have to be a famous anything. His own parents weren’t famous, but they were happy, most of the time, give or take their worries about