EllRay Jakes The Recess King! Read Free

about it, maybe none of these five guys is
perfect
, but like I said about Nate, I can fix that. All I have to do is to hang out with them more, get to know them better. Starting tomorrow morning.
    And then I can choose which kid I want to be my spare friend.
    Who will it be? Major, Marco, Nate, Jason, or Diego?
    Maybe the winner can even become
my
personal assistant some day! I know Corey’s way too busy winning swim meets and polishing his medals to take on that role, even if he would. But having a personal assistant does sound pretty cool.
    Now, all I need is to figure out who the lucky kid will be.
    It would be great to have a new friend by Friday, the day of Alfie’s show. But my long-term goal is to have one by the end of this month.
    January.
    Then I’ll have a happy new year for sure!

3
    SECRET PLAN
    â€œHurry up, EllRay,” Mom says as I shovel a last spoonful of cereal into my mouth. The spoon is heaped so high that the milk in it trickles down my wrist. It makes my sleeve feel wet and sticky.
    What’s the big deal about making me take a shower and then put on clean clothes every morning, when messy stuff like trickling cereal milk happens before I’m even out the door?
    Give it up, Mom! It’s hopeless.
    â€œDon’t forget your lunch,” my mother reminds me.
    Like I
would
. Food is just about my favorite thing. Also playing, and TV. “Where’s Alfie?” I ask, trying to turn the mom-spotlight away from me for a second.
    â€œShe’s upstairs, changing her barrettes,” Mom says, shaking her head. My mom is tall, thin, and pretty, and her skin is the color of the best caramel you ever saw. She likes to wear headbands, but not the scary plastic kind with teeth that Cynthia Harbison wears to school. Cynthia’s headbands look like they’re mad at her head. “Alfie forgot that she already wore the barrettes she put on this morning,” Mom tries to explain. “Just last Thursday. It was a narrow escape,” she adds, laughing.
    Alfie is turning into a fashion diva, Mom says. Whatever a diva is.
    I think it means spoiled.
    â€œShe better not make me late for school,” I say.
    See, Dad has already left, because he has an hour-long drive to San Diego. Like I already said, he teaches geology at a college there. So Mom has to drive both Alfie and me to school every day. Alfie gets dropped off first each morning, and sometimes it takes her a long time to leave the car.
    Here is an example of how hard it can be to get Alfie to leave Mom’s Toyota. One morning when Alfie was about to get out of the car at school, she discovered that she had put on shoes from two different pairs of sneakers, one pink and one blue. That was a
major
meltdown. Alfie cried so hard that she yakked out the car window, and then she and Mom had to go home and lie down after they dropped me off at Oak Glen and Mom hosed off the car.
    I’m glad I missed that part of the morning.
    Another time, Mom caught Alfie trying to sneak a new doll into school. That’s against the law at Kreative Learning and Daycare—which has a sign outside that my dad just loves, for some reason. The sign reads,
Featuring Spanish, Computer Skills, and Potty Training.
Dad sometimes makes a joke about how hard it would be to teach all three things at once.
    I guess that’s how teachers think. Even college teachers.
    But like I said, Alfie sometimes refuses to leave Mom’s car, which is why I’m worried about being late on this very important Monday.
    Day one of my secret plan.
    The day when I figure out which new friend to choose.
    â€œEllWay,
c’mon
,” Alfie is saying, hands on her hips as she stares at me from the kitchen doorway. “Wake up!”
    â€œI’m awake,” I tell her. “Anyway, Mom and I were waiting for
you
, slow-poke.”
    â€œMom’s already in the car,” Alfie informs me. “And me and my cute barrettes don’t