Read Online Gertie's Leap to Greatness by Kate Beasley - Free Book Online Page A

dropping test papers on desks. Most people stuffed their tests into their books before running out of the classroom to wait for the buses and car pickups. Roy grimaced at his grade and rolled his test into a tight scroll that he used to whack people as he left the room. At least he didn’t have his cast anymore. When he had whacked people with that it had hurt a lot.
    Then Ms. Simms dropped Jean’s test onto her desk, and Jean leaned over her paper so Gertie couldn’t see. But by craning her neck and grabbing Jean’s hand and prying her fingers away from the paper, Gertie just managed to see Jean’s grade: 97.
    â€œLet go,” said Jean, tossing her head so that her hair whipped Gertie’s face.
    A test paper fell in front of Gertie, and Ms. Simms’s big neat handwriting jumped off the page at her. Great job! 99.
    Gertie screamed. She clapped her hands over her mouth. She had never before made a 99 on a test. Ever. And it made her feel like a new person, like the kind of person who could make 99s on tests. Gertie pulled her hands an inch away from her mouth. “Oh my Lord.”
    Ms. Simms smiled. “Well done, Gertie,” she said.
    Junior was stealing glances at Jean and eating his own shirt collar. Jean stood up and slammed her chair under her desk.
    â€œOf course, I made a one hundred on that test.” Mary Sue’s voice floated across the room from where she was standing by the cubbies, fastening her shiny silver coat buttons and talking to Ella.
    Gertie’s hands were still at her face. She lowered them slowly.
    â€œSchools are much more advanced in California,” Mary Sue said, then smirked at Gertie over her shoulder as she walked out of the room.
    Gertie looked back at the 99 and the Great job! She wanted to rip the exclamation point off the page, brandish it like a sword, and chase Mary Sue Spivey down the halls. She stuffed her test in a book and banged the cover on it.
    When she looked up, Ms. Simms was watching her. Her teacher tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Gertie, may I speak with you,” Ms. Simms said. It wasn’t a question.
    Gertie frowned at her friends. Junior shrugged to show that he didn’t know what she wanted either. But Jean didn’t even look at Gertie. She headed for the door, her back ruler-straight.
    Gertie waited until everyone had left and she was alone with her teacher. She walked to Ms. Simms’s desk, which was heaped with papers and calendars and referral slips and glue sticks.
    Ms. Simms put her elbows on a stack of worksheets and folded her hands. “Gertie, is anything bothering you?”
    Gertie stared.
    Itchy tags in her shirt bothered her. Having to sit still in church bothered her. Audrey Williams plucking leaves off her bonsai tree to feed her imaginary friend bothered her.
    But right now she wasn’t bothered. She was panicked. She had sharp pains in her chest and maybe it was a heart attack and she was going to be the first ten-year-old in the world to have a heart attack and when the doctors asked what happened, she’d moan, weakly, Mary Sue Spivey did it to me.
    Ms. Simms cleared her throat, snapping Gertie out of her daydream. “I’ve noticed that you’re working harder than ever on your schoolwork,” Ms. Simms said, “and I’m proud of you. But it also seems like something’s upsetting you.”
    Of course, it wasn’t some thing upsetting Gertie. It was some one . But Gertie couldn’t tell Ms. Simms about Mary Sue. She wouldn’t believe her. Mary Sue always pretended to be nice when teachers were around. Ms. Simms hadn’t seen Mary Sue’s smile when she’d basically ripped a Swiss chocolate out of Gertie’s hands. She hadn’t seen the scheming look in Mary Sue’s eye as she broadcast to the whole world that she’d made a perfect grade on her test. Gertie felt she could bear it if her teacher knew how awful Mary Sue