Because of Mr. Terupt Read Free Page A

would say, “Anna, get ready. I’m calling on younext.” Or if we were talking about something and there wasn’t just one opinion, he would say, “Anna, what do you think?”
    He wasn’t going to let me hide all year. This made me nervous, but it turned out to be a good thing in the end.

october

Peter
    I never ever had something in school excite me before, but the plant unit we did with Mr. T had me fired up. We grew these bean plants from seeds, and—once they got big enough—we started doing different tests with them. Variables, Mr. T called them. First we stuffed the plants in boxes, with just a little tiny hole in the side, and we waited to see what the plants would do after a few days in the dark.
    Anna had a meltdown about it. “I don’t want to put mine in a box!” she cried. Mr. T had to take her out in the hall to calm her down. I was kind of shocked. Usually she doesn’t say anything. What a weirdo, I thought. It’s no wonder she doesn’t have any friends. It’s a good thing Danielle was her partner. She’s the patient kind. Anyone else would have beenfuming. My partner was Lexie, which was fine. She let me do what I wanted.
    Next we put the plants on their side to see how they would grow. I couldn’t believe it. The plants bent and still grew up toward the ceiling. That was pretty cool. But the best part was what we got to do in the end.
    Mr. T let us feed our plant any concoction we wanted to over the course of a week. There was just one rule: We couldn’t use an ingredient that would spoil and stink up the classroom, like milk, or something that wasn’t good for us to breathe, like gas.
    There were some pretty wild concoctions. David and Nick used salad dressing because according to them, “Plants make salad, so the plant will like salad dressing.” Brenda and Heather used orange juice mixed with ketchup and Pepto-Bismol. I don’t know what they were thinking. Mine was the best, though.
    I brought in cat litter (used), soda, and a little maple syrup. I did my best to mix it together and feed it to my plant. Lexie wasn’t real happy about my choice of ingredients. I didn’t tell her I had peed in my soda bottle some, too.
    “Peter, you moron. This stuff is gonna kill our plant,” she whined.
    “Shut up. You never cared about the plant before,” I said.
    “Well, I care now,” she said.
    “Lexie. Maple syrup comes from trees. I drink soda a lot, and I’m growing—and farmers put animal manure on their fields all the time. So zip it. It’s going to work.”
    Our plant was dead in two days.
    Danielle and Anna did the best. Danielle used somenatural ingredients her grandmother had taught her about. Something the old-time farmers really did use, I guess. Danielle lives on a farm, so she had a big advantage. Her concoction worked. Big-time! She and Anna were the only ones to come up with food that the plant liked.
    Anna was all smiles until Lexie said, “Like, you’re just lucky Danielle was your partner. She did everything.” Then Lexie turned to me and added, “Even if she is fat.” I don’t think anyone else heard, but I laughed. I know I probably shouldn’t have. Anna’s smile disappeared, and she stared at the floor.
    Poor old Luke sure tried. I think he put too much brainpower in it. And he’s got a lot of brainpower. He’s been the smartest kid in school since kindergarten. His partner was Jeffrey, but he never does anything. He just let Luke take charge. Maybe he should have helped.
    “I’ve brought in a number of different ingredients,” Luke said, “and they’ll interact perfectly because of the electron balance and resulting bond formations.” He even said something about a periodic table, or some crazy thing.
    Well, you’re never going to believe this, but Luke mixed his junk together and it started smoking. The next thing we knew, the stupid fire alarm was going off. The whole school had to go outside and even the fire department showed up. It was