SAMPLE - Braidy von Althuis and the Pesky Pest Controller

Chapter 03

And converted to a mixed fraction is... 1 and 2/15ths. Braidy finished the last problem on his math quiz and put his pencil down. He hoped it was right; he excelled at math, but he always second-guessed himself and ended up changing answers, which ended up being wrong. Braidy disliked these tests less than he disliked the minute long math quizzes the teacher asked him to take on other days. If there was anything that Braidy hated the most, it was the time pressuring his decisions. He felt as though he was more concerned with how much time remained rather than whether he multiplied or divided correctly.

He glanced over all the answers one more time on his paper before raising his hand. Ms. Winsby came by and picked his paper up. Ms. Winsby was a nice teacher, whose curly, long hair enveloped her head like a cloud. She always wore button up shirts with cartoon characters or little animals on them. Braidy thought she was a friendly person though she was almost always incapable of preventing people from hurting him. Despite all this, she helped him when he had trouble reading his dense science textbook.

A few other children raised their hands as well, and she swept by to remove their quiz papers from their desks before returning to her own. Braidy glanced around himself and put his pencil down. Jesse Martinez and Neal Salter were not in class today.

Braidy, with moments to spare, looked around his classroom and sighed. He wanted to remember it all before his mother pulled him out so she could homeschool him. Ms. Winsby filled the classroom with many fun things, like a rainbow-colored attendance board, large, comfy bean bag chairs, and shelves filled with books. His least favorite decoration hung on the wall: the behavior bulletin board, which illustrated a paper decal of a gumball machine. Whenever the class displayed good behavior, Ms. Winsby added a gumball to the machine. When it filled up, she rewarded the class with an extra-long recess or some of Ms. Winsby's puppy chow. Ms. Winsby rarely filled the gumball machine, unfortunately, due to Neal Salter, Jesse Martinez, and Rita Easley.

The three of them blamed Braidy most often for the lack of gumballs in the gumball machine. Neal Salter told Braidy once that Braidy looked so dumb he would do the class a disservice if he did not pick on him (which Braidy found offensive and wondered what made a person dumb-looking). Braidy and Blockhead scoured the Internet for a sassy comeback that Braidy could use against Neal the next day. Braidy had been too nervous to spit out such a vicious reply and also feared for the state of the gumball machine. Other students told Braidy that if he was not so weird, the bullies would not have reason to pick on him, and Braidy wondered if that was true. Today was the day he would test that theory.

After another five minutes of Braidy playing with the lint in his pocket, Ms. Winsby dinged a bell, and stated, "All right, class. Pencils down. Go ahead and pass your papers forward to me. Once I get all the papers collected we'll go to the assembly."

Braidy pulled the lint out of his jeans' pocket and dropped it onto the floor after twirling it in his fingers a little. The QuarryCreate shirt he wore (one of his favorite computer games) was too small for him. He had gotten it on his eighth birthday and had refused to wear anything else for a month. Now, the graphic of the little spherical character with his science-fiction laser chisel faded and cracked. The jeans had been Blockhead's when he was a young boy; small enough to fit. Mrs. von Althuis purchased running shoes for Braidy's gym class and those he wore on his feet. He felt lackluster, at best, but it was necessary. He made that decision when he woke up that morning. So far, he avoided chaos and gumballs stayed on the behavior board, which Braidy counted as a small victory.

Ms. Winsby moved to the door and everyone stood out of their seats, readying for the journey between the classroom and the auditorium. When everyone lined up in order and when Rita Easley stopped pulling on Michelle Villani's hair, the class moved out into the hallway. Other fifth grade classes collected outside as well and everyone moved in one unified stream into the auditorium. Ms. Winsby counted the class, making sure all students were accounted for, and then sat.