Charlie Bumpers vs. the Perfect Little Turkey Read Free Page B

Josh, who was patiently holding his arm in the air. Josh is always patient.
    “It means some of your cells are the same,” he explained.

    “But what if you’re adopted?” Ellen asked. “My friend Alicia has parents who adopted her.”
    “Like me,” said Robby Rosen. “I’m adopted, too. But my mom and dad are still my family.”
    A lot of kids nodded. I already knew Robby was adopted because he told me in first grade.
    I read my definition again. Now that I’d had time to cool down, it didn’t look so good to me.
    I glanced over at my friend Hector Adelia, who sits next to me. “Hector,” I whispered. “Can I see yours?” He was usually a little shy, so I figured he wouldn’t volunteer to read his aloud.
    He handed it to me. Hector’s handwriting is very neat, just like he is.
I think family is anyone you care about,
Hector had written.
Once you know someone really well, it begins to feel like they are family. So I think they are.
    “That’s awesome,” I said, handing the paper back. I slipped my definition under my notebook.
    Crystal Medeiros, who doesn’t talk a lot, was reading hers in a low voice. “My definition of family is the whole world. I think we’re all related.”
    I wondered if this meant Samantha Grunsky was related to me. Matt and the Squid were bad enough—being related to Samantha would be a catastrophe.
    Mrs. Burke stood up. “Okay, citizens. Please pass in your definitions. I’d like to look at them—we can talk about them more tomorrow.”
    Everybody but me passed their assignments to the front. “What are you waiting for, Charlie?” Mrs. Burke asked. “Pass yours up, too.”
    So I did.
    What a bozo.
    The next morning in class, everyone was excited about getting out of school early.
    I love half days.
    The teachers realize they can’t get everything done, so they don’t even try. And since tomorrow was Thanksgiving vacation, we were about to have
two
extra days off.
    During math, Mrs. Burke split us into pairs towork on problems together, then sat at her desk to grade papers. Hector was my partner. The math problems were pretty easy. When we finished, I asked Hector if they had Thanksgiving in Chile, where he’s from.
    “No,” he said. “In Chile right now, it’s almost summer.”
    “Wow, that’s weird,” I said. I told him a little about Thanksgiving at our house.
    “It sounds like it’s mostly about food.”
    “Yeah, except I try not to eat too much in the morning,” I said, “so I’m really hungry for the gigantic dinner.”
    “Good idea,” Hector said.
    “And this year Uncle Ron is coming,” I said. “I wish you could meet him. He’s really fun. He usually brings something for us kids to do when he comes.”

    “Like what?” Hector asked.
    “Well, once he brought this really stretchy surgical tubing that we turned into a giant slingshot that fired water balloons into the air. It was so cool. Three of them went over the roof of our house!”

    Hector’s eyes got big. “Really? Where did they land?”
    “I don’t know. We couldn’t find them,” I said. “And then one summer Uncle Ron brought these old tire inner tubes and we floated down the river really far and by accident we floated past where we were supposed to get out and then he dropped his cell phone in the water so we had to get a ride from someone we didn’t know back to the car and were late for dinner and Mom was afraid we had all drowned.”
    “Really?” Hector’s eyes got even bigger.
    “Yeah, and Uncle Ron makes awesome stuff and he can fix almost anything.”
    POW! POW! POW! Mrs. Burke snapped herfingers. “Hector and Charlie, if you’re done with your math, please find something quiet to do so others can work.”
    When everyone had finished, Mrs. Burke handed back the definitions of “family.”
    Mine didn’t come back. She still had one paper in her hand.
    “I’ve made notes on your papers,” Mrs. Burke said to the class. “I’d like you to rewrite them here in