Write On! Read Free Page B

exactly. I . . .” Katie stopped. Suddenly, borrowing a story from someone else didn’t seem like such a great idea.
    “What is your homework assignment?” Katie’s mom asked her.
    “I’m supposed to write a story.”
    Mrs. Carew looked at the book again. “A tall tale?” she asked.
    Katie nodded. “But I didn’t have any ideas. So I thought maybe if I read a few, I could . . .”
    “You wanted to use one of these stories?” Mrs. Carew asked. She sounded surprised . . . and disappointed.
    “Sort of,” Katie admitted. “I didn’t know what else to do. The story is due tomorrow, and I couldn’t come up with anything.” Katie looked down at the ground.
    Mrs. Carew shook her head. “I’m sure you can come up with something. I think your mind is full of all kinds of stories.”
    “It’s not,” Katie insisted.
    “Sure it is,” Mrs. Carew told her. “You’re very good at writing stories.”
    “Not this kind of story,” Katie replied. “I don’t know anything about lumberjacks like Paul Bunyan.”
    “You don’t have to write about a lumberjack,” Mrs. Carew said. “Your main character should be the kind of person you’re familiar with. Really great authors write about things they know.”
    Katie considered that for a moment. “Well, I could write about a red-haired girl with X-ray eyes,” she said. “And she could have a cocker spaniel. I could make him the fastest digging dog in the history of the world,” she told her mom.
    “I think Pepper would like that very much,” Mrs. Carew said with a grin.
    “They could solve mysteries. Like they could be searching for a stolen dinosaur bone,” Katie continued. “And the girl sees all the way to China. But she can’t get to the bone . . . until her dog digs a tunnel through the earth, all the way to China!”
    “Oh, wow! That’s going to be a terrific story, Katie,” Mrs. Carew told her daughter. “And you came up with it all by yourself.”
    Katie stared at the ground. She understood what her mother meant.
    “It’s not right to take someone else’s ideas,” Mrs. Carew continued.
    “I know,” Katie agreed.
    “You wouldn’t be very proud of the story if you didn’t write it yourself, would you?”
    Katie shook her head. “No.”
    “It wouldn’t be fun doing your homework, either.”
    “I know,” Katie agreed. “But this story is going to be a lot of fun to write. I think I’ll draw a picture, too.”
    “That’s a great idea,” Mrs. Carew said with a smile.
    Katie looked at the pile of books on the floor around her. “I can help you put those away,” she told her mom.
    “That’s okay. I’ll do it,” Mrs. Carew assured her. “You’d have to be a giant fourth-grader to reach all the way up to the top shelf.”
    “Hey, that’s a pretty good idea for a tall tale,” Katie said. “Maybe you should write it.”
    Mrs. Carew laughed. “I think one writer in the family is enough.”

Chapter 6
    On Thursday morning, Katie proudly placed her tall tale in the purple, black, and yellow homework box that was perched on one of the cabinets in the corner of class 4A. She couldn’t wait to read her story to the class. She knew they would love it.
    But Mr. Guthrie had other plans. “We’ll present our stories after lunch,” he told the class. “Right now, we have to get ready for Nellie Farrow’s visit tomorrow. After her speech in the auditorium, she’s going to come see the fourth-grade classrooms.”
    “Are we going to make a big banner that says ‘Welcome Nellie’?” Emma W. asked.

    Mr. Guthrie shook his head. “Ms. Sweet’s class is already doing that.”
    “Oh,” Emma S. sighed. “That would have been fun.”
    “It would have,” Mr. G. agreed. “But I have something just as exciting planned for our classroom.” He pointed to the big plastic trees that were standing in the four corners of the room.
    Katie hadn’t even noticed that they were there. Weird things were always popping up in Mr. G.’s