wanna be late.â
âMe neither,â I say, locking the kitchen door behind me on my way out.
Not today, of all days, I add to myself.
4
LIKE A SPY
Oak Glen Primary School goes from kindergarten through sixth grade, which puts our third grade class right in the middle, if you count kindergarten. And us third grade kids are in the middle size-wise, too, except for me. I am the shortest kidâboy or girlâin Ms. Sanchezâs class, and I have been all semester. I keep hoping that someone even shorter will transfer in, like a leprechaun maybe, but no such luck.
Dad tells me Iâll start growing taller pretty soon, but when?
If the weather is nice, which it almost always is in Oak Glen, we play outside near the picnic tables before school starts. Well, the boys play, and the girls in our class mostly just hang, talk or whisper, and make fun of us boys. My opinion is that the girls donât want to mess up their clothes first thing in the morning. Excuse me, their
outfits.
They save their running around for later in the day.
I walk toward the picnic tables as if I am seeing the guys in my class for the first time. I feel like a spy.
âHey, EllRay!â my friend Corey calls out, waving at me.
Corey has blond hair and freckles, and he usually smells like chlorine. He works out before school at a swimming pool in an Oak Glen gym, thatâs why. And then, after school, he works out at an aquatics center in a bigger town nearby.
âAquaticsâ means doing stuff in the water.
An aquatics center has more than one pool, Corey says. Also, theyâre longer and more official looking. And nobody has fun there, the way Corey tells it.
But heâs having fun now, at least. Corey is playing with a wooden paddleboard, his latest obsession. He must have sneaked it into school in his backpack. This doesnât break any
big
rule, except for the one that says you canât bring toys to school. And Cynthia and Fiona say that the paddle part of the toy could be used as a weapon. They keep threatening to tell on him.
But Cynthiaâs toothy
headband
could be used as a weapon.
So could a book, if it was thick enough!
Corey says that paddleboarding is a sportâthis kind of paddleboarding, with a red rubber ball attached to a small paddle by a piece of elastic string, not the kind you do standing on a board in the ocean.
And grownups are always trying to get us kids to do more sports, arenât they?
They have meetings about it all the time. With
cake.
Also, Corey never plays with his paddleboard in class.
Iâm not saying heâs
right
to sneak it into school. Iâm just reporting the facts.
Another fact is that until he gets caught and the paddleboard gets taken away from him, Corey is likely to keep bringing it to Oak Glen. âWatch this,â he tells me, bouncing the ball off the board about ten times in a row.
Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
âDonât you dare hit me with that thing, Corey Robinson, or Iâm telling,â Cynthia calls out from one of the girlsâ picnic tables, right on schedule. She is about ten feet away from Corey, who, of course, ignores her.
I sneak a spy-like peek over at Marco and Major, who are playing on the beat-up grass. They are huddled over these little plastic knights Marco collectsâand sneaks into school.
We donât mean to be bad. We are just trying to have some extra fun.
I think Marco would live in the olden days if he could, and Major would be right there with him!
Me, Iâm more of a modern day kind of kid. I like cell phones and tablets, and the more apps stuffed into everything the better. Most of all, I like video games. My current favorite one is
Die, Creature, Die.
I got it for Christmas. Itâs handheld but still cool.
They didnât have
that
in the olden days, Marco.
I shift my sneaky spy gaze over to Nate Marshall. His red rooster crest looks extra perky today. He
âMe neither,â I say, locking the kitchen door behind me on my way out.
Not today, of all days, I add to myself.
4
LIKE A SPY
Oak Glen Primary School goes from kindergarten through sixth grade, which puts our third grade class right in the middle, if you count kindergarten. And us third grade kids are in the middle size-wise, too, except for me. I am the shortest kidâboy or girlâin Ms. Sanchezâs class, and I have been all semester. I keep hoping that someone even shorter will transfer in, like a leprechaun maybe, but no such luck.
Dad tells me Iâll start growing taller pretty soon, but when?
If the weather is nice, which it almost always is in Oak Glen, we play outside near the picnic tables before school starts. Well, the boys play, and the girls in our class mostly just hang, talk or whisper, and make fun of us boys. My opinion is that the girls donât want to mess up their clothes first thing in the morning. Excuse me, their
outfits.
They save their running around for later in the day.
I walk toward the picnic tables as if I am seeing the guys in my class for the first time. I feel like a spy.
âHey, EllRay!â my friend Corey calls out, waving at me.
Corey has blond hair and freckles, and he usually smells like chlorine. He works out before school at a swimming pool in an Oak Glen gym, thatâs why. And then, after school, he works out at an aquatics center in a bigger town nearby.
âAquaticsâ means doing stuff in the water.
An aquatics center has more than one pool, Corey says. Also, theyâre longer and more official looking. And nobody has fun there, the way Corey tells it.
But heâs having fun now, at least. Corey is playing with a wooden paddleboard, his latest obsession. He must have sneaked it into school in his backpack. This doesnât break any
big
rule, except for the one that says you canât bring toys to school. And Cynthia and Fiona say that the paddle part of the toy could be used as a weapon. They keep threatening to tell on him.
But Cynthiaâs toothy
headband
could be used as a weapon.
So could a book, if it was thick enough!
Corey says that paddleboarding is a sportâthis kind of paddleboarding, with a red rubber ball attached to a small paddle by a piece of elastic string, not the kind you do standing on a board in the ocean.
And grownups are always trying to get us kids to do more sports, arenât they?
They have meetings about it all the time. With
cake.
Also, Corey never plays with his paddleboard in class.
Iâm not saying heâs
right
to sneak it into school. Iâm just reporting the facts.
Another fact is that until he gets caught and the paddleboard gets taken away from him, Corey is likely to keep bringing it to Oak Glen. âWatch this,â he tells me, bouncing the ball off the board about ten times in a row.
Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
âDonât you dare hit me with that thing, Corey Robinson, or Iâm telling,â Cynthia calls out from one of the girlsâ picnic tables, right on schedule. She is about ten feet away from Corey, who, of course, ignores her.
I sneak a spy-like peek over at Marco and Major, who are playing on the beat-up grass. They are huddled over these little plastic knights Marco collectsâand sneaks into school.
We donât mean to be bad. We are just trying to have some extra fun.
I think Marco would live in the olden days if he could, and Major would be right there with him!
Me, Iâm more of a modern day kind of kid. I like cell phones and tablets, and the more apps stuffed into everything the better. Most of all, I like video games. My current favorite one is
Die, Creature, Die.
I got it for Christmas. Itâs handheld but still cool.
They didnât have
that
in the olden days, Marco.
I shift my sneaky spy gaze over to Nate Marshall. His red rooster crest looks extra perky today. He