by
Simone
hapter One:
"Can you get me a soda? Diet would be most preferable." Karen said with her mouth full of microwave popcorn. " Sure, wait a sec!" I yelled when I was entering the kitchen. We were over at my house, watching Scream 8. I, Crystal Taylor love watching horror movies. You always scream or shiver when somebody or something is killed, threatened etc. Anyway, I'm Crystal Taylor. I'm 11 and I'm in grade 6 of Olaska Pearson School. Karen Masey is my best friend. We met when we were only 3 years old. She is a red head and I'm blond. We have thousands of things in common. We like to hang out at Reily Park and play ball or just bike on the trails. Sanlyd, Alabama is a beautiful cit. It is filled with blossom trees. Sanlyd is surrounded by several lakes, which are Cathlina, Herosila, Telm, and Jolena. Next time when you plan a vacation, consider Sanlyd.
My mother and Mrs. Masey are also good friends. My mother is busy all the time. She goes on about 32 business trips a year. That's why our maid, Ms. Salormony (we call her Sal) moved in to live with us.
You're asking me, what about your father? Well, he works for the EWE (Environmental World Effort). He travels on trips that make you stay at least a month. He only comes home for about 14 days each year. I write letters to him everyday. My letters are sort of like Diary entries. I miss him truly though.
Mrs. Masey is very friendly. She's a real good cook. Mrs. Masey isn't as busy as my mother at all. I bet that's because she works at home. Mrs. Masey is very pretty too. She has silky brown hair. Sometimes I think she can be Mrs. America.Mr. Masey is the meanest man in the community. He tells people to get off his lawn and not trespass ever again, or he'll sue. Sometimes, he yells at Karen and her mother so loud that you can hear him from one block away! Karen is a very strong girl so she can take all this. I think that her parents are going to drive into a divorce anytime now. School is going to start in 6 days. Karen and I have already picked out what we're going to wear on the first day of school. We usually get really nervous thinking about the new things like new classmates, new teachers, new furniture, new etc. The days passed by really quickly. Before you knew it, I was in line to enter the auditorium for a First Day assembly. Everyone found a spot on the floor and sat down. Our principal, Mrs. Jacklyn crawled up the stage and grabbed the microphone. " Good morning students!" she began. " Welcome to your first day back. I hope you had a refreshing summer. Olaska Pearson has some new equipment. In our gymnasium, you might have noticed a set of new basketball hoops. Our computer lab has got some new Macintosh computers, thanks to Mrs. Mlare's fundraiser. Now, we should warmly welcome our 3 new staff members. Mr.Dallete, our new science teacher." A tall, skinny man with a crooked nose stood up. Then suddenly, he turned and stared at me. Then, he gave me a very nasty smirk. I was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable. I mean he looks scary and mean. He's our science teacher? Oh no! Ever since I've been here, all of the science teachers lasted just one year. You want to know why? That's because they have been extremely mean. But this one is far worst since he's got a type of evilness in his eyes.
The rest of the assembly was just boring. The other 2 new staff was new kindergarten teacher named Mr. Cloy Petreson and our new homeroom teacher, Mrs. Harmoni Luany. No one stood up so I figured that she must be in the classroom. Then suddenly, I just had to go to the washroom. So I stood up and ran out the door.The hall was very quite and still. I was near the girl's washroom when I heard a firm and scary yell. It was, Just where are you going Miss? I turned around to see Mr.Dallete standing there with his hands on his hips. I thought that he wanted to know my name so I said " Taylor, Crystal Taylor"
"Did I tell you to speak?" Mr.Dallete said.
"No, but I"
"But nothing!" Mr.Dallete interrupted." You were not supposed to run in the hall. You don't have a hall pass and playing dumb with me? You should have a week of detention but since it's my first day teaching here at Olaska, I will let you go. But if you do this one more time, you'll find yourself in detention hall as fast as you can say "trouble" until you graduate!" Mr. Dallete said as he turned around and walked down the hall. OK, that didn't go too well. I better go to the washroom now!When I got out of the girl's washroom, I realized that everyone was already in his or her classes. I walked slowly down the hall. I got into room 306 and saw a woman writing the word respect on the board. I figured it was Mrs. Luany. Mrs. Luany had beautiful brown hair. Her eyes were dark green. She was wearing a spotted dress. It looked pretty stupid and a bit like Ms. Frizzle's dresses which were from The Magic School Bus. I sat down in a chair beside Karen. Mrs. Luany told us a bit more about her. Just when she was going to ask me what I'd like to learn this year, Mrs. Jacklyn came in.
With her was a girl. The girl had freckles and looked like she was from France. I turned out to be right about her being French. Mrs. Jacklyn said that her name was Saralee Warner. Mrs. Jacklyn explained to us about Saralee being an exchange student. Saralee wore her hair in a bun. Her clothes was very French. Mrs. Luany asked if anyone wanted to be her guide for the day. Every girl's hand shot up, except Ann-Maly Flington, the nerd. Karen and I both knew that if Mrs. Luany picked either one of us, we'll both be Saralee's guide. Guess what? She chose Karen! Amazing isn't it?The bell rang which meant it was recess. Saralee had to go to the washroom. We showed her where it was. I have to tell you something. Saralee says everything thing with no accent at all! I think Karen, Saralee, and I will make the perfect Three Musketeers.
Chapter 2:
Saralee has been with us 4 months now and we're the best of best friends. Saralee is excellent at sports. On her free time, she always goes to Reily Park. She's won 3 trophies before. They're all on athletic accomplishments. At school, we're learning about poetry in Language Arts. It's actually really fun you know. We choose our favorite TV show and then write about it. Isn't Mr. Luany great? Math is really fun and active. You see, Mrs. Luany makes us do something to make us understand something better. Like in probability, Mrs. Luany chose classmates to come up to the front. They'll put an A, B or C on themselves. Somebody will be blindfolded. He/ she would run around. They'd hit some body (not too hard) and see who it was and what letter they had. The person would do that for 10 times. That math period was a very enjoyable one. Gym is quite fun. We're studying simple gymnastics. The girls all like it. But the boys dread it. They're always getting hurt. Every "Ouch" or "Eeks" is by a boy. I definitely know how they feel, the way girls felt while we were doing basketball (most of us anyway). But before we get too happy and jolly, there's one class everyone hates, science. I just totally hate science (no offense to Albert Einstein). Mr. Dallete is the toughest and meanest teacher in teacher history! I think I'm his "enemy". Our relationship is exactly like Harry Potter and Prof. Snape. Mr. Dallete never calls me up on class. He always watches me like I'm a mouse and he's an eagle. If do anything wrong at all, he gives me a detention slip. You know what? Mr. Dallete is being so nice to Saralee and Karen. I've asked them if they knew why but they answered, no. It's really weird.
One day while I was reading Many Waters (written by Madeleine L'Engle), Karen called and boy, did she sound weird. Her tone was the combination of anger, sadness, "scaredness" and sappiness. It is really hard to explain. Anyway, Karen said something about her mother and father. She couldn't get the next words she was going to say out. "Sound it out" I said."They're going to drive into the big D!" she said breathlessly. I think she was crying. It was very hard to tell over the phone.
" What? You mean they're driving to the new donut place? Yum!" I said.
"No Crystal, "DIVORORCE!" she yelled and suddenly bursting into tears (over the phone). I was completely speechless. What should I say? What can I say? So I ended up telling her to come over. I was pretty sure mom wouldn't really mind.
Karen arrived about 14 minutes later. I explained everything to mother. Like I said, she didn't mind. We pulled a mattress to my room. We discussed everything. Karen cried a lot. I thought that at some point, she'd run out of tears. I think that by the end of the night, I made her feel a bit better, but just a little. I realized that there's only 1 remaining person of the Three Musketeers who was not in any problems at all, Saralee. She's so lucky. But one day, it all changed. It was during Mr. Dallete's science class. We were doing an experiment on friction. Mr. Dallete said "Miss Warner, please come to the front" At first, I thought she was in trouble or something. But it turned out that it was something good, really good. Mr. Dallete said that he picked her for the annual "Best Student to Enter Science Fair". Saralee was really touched. She thought that she did something really good that she didn't realize. But it turned out that Mr. Dallete had no reason at all. Everyone started calling her teacher's pet. All week now, people have been calling Saralee teacher's pet. I bet it's really hurting her feelings. I bet everyone thinks that she is related to Mr. Dallete. But I'm positive that that is not true one bit.
The Three Musketeers are all having their own problems now. I have a question stuck in my mind: Why does Mr. Dallete hate me so much?Chapter 3:
The answer to that question came to me the following week. Mr. Dallete told me to go to his desk to have a little chat. It turned out to be about when yesterday, I accidentally knocked over this weird blue liquid. Everything he said was cruel and unreasonable. I didn't want to look into his eyes, so I just stared at his desk. On it was an X-man magazine (probably taken away from Max) and a couple of papers that had F and D+ written on them in red. Then my eyes were focused on one thing, a picture of a woman. She looked exactly like me. I figured she was his wife. But what does that have anything to do with me? Then it occurred to me, maybe I reminded him of her who is long lost? Maybe that explains why he is being so mean. I told my theory to Karen and Saralee. Saralee said that it makes a lot of sense too. One thing that sort of upset me was that Karen was acting like she didn't really care, sort of like just thinking we're not very important. I bought Karen a book a week ago called "Divorces and How to Get Over Them." She just read the dedication and said it was boring. Sometimes I can't understand Karen one bit. Whatever she does, I just want her to do thing, be herself again. Saralee is trying to ignore the horrible remarks, but they just keep coming back. She can't even look at somebody correctly anymore. I do think that she is the teacher's pet but it isn't her fault. I mean what does it matter if a teacher really like you? Mrs. Luany noticed this but she hasn't said a single word about it. Oh, and speaking of Mrs. Luany, I uncovered a secret of hers. It all started one day during Math. I didn't understand how to convert fractions into percentages so Mrs. Luany came over to explain. I accidentally dropped my pencil on the ground. Mrs. Luany bent down to get it for me when her hair (which is actually a wig) fell off. I was astonished. At first, no one noticed but then, Madeleine Eloyer started giggling. She was pointing at Mrs. Luany's bald spot. Then like a rush of fire, everyone came over to my desk. I don't think Mrs. Luany really noticed her wig fell off and all those kids who were behind her. I couldn't concentrate with all of the kids around me. Mrs. Luany noticed I wasn't paying attention anymore so she turned around to see what so interesting. She saw a lot of kids, just staring at her bald spot. She felt the top of her head and touched the bald spot. Her face suddenly turned bright red o! f embarrassment. She ran out the door slamming it shut behind her with a big BOOM! It turned out that she ran into the teacher's lounge. Mrs. Jacklyn heard what happened so she came into our room. She explained everything. Mrs. Luany didn't come to school the next day. But she came back the day after. Everyone acted as if nothing happened.
Chapter 4:
Some months past and it was now Spring. Saralee's remarks died off already. I think that they're no longer doing it because Saralee is totally ignoring them. If someone said it now, she'll just tell him/her that it is retarded. Meanwhile, Karen is acting more and more grouchy. She's not even listening to us anymore. I've noticed that she's starting to daydream a lot. I wish she could just read the book I gave her and just stop being so depressed. I on the other hand, want to help Mr. Dallete. I think I'm going to have a little chat with him. I'm used to getting detentions from him, so I'm not too scared. Many people will benefit from that. Hey, it doesn't hurt to try! The next day, I did exactly that. I was going to go the science lab during Free Choice. I was feeling a bit nervous but proud of myself. Last night, I wished upon a star to make this go successfully.
At 2:35pm, I fixed my hair (so I looked more like Mr.Dallet's wife). I walked down the hall and then, there I was, right in front of room 232-science lab. I was lucky to see that no one else was there. Mr. Dallete was marking somebody paper. Mr. Dallete looked up and said," why are you here Miss Taylor?"
"I came here to talk with you." I answered." Well, then just go on. I don't think it will concern me very much" he said.
I was filled with anger now "The next words coming out of my mouth will be about you, you and your lousy attitude" suddenly I felt really brave. I started talking and talking. I lost track of time. When I finished what I had to say, Mr. Dallete's face turned from bright red to white and then to pink. Then a wide smile drew across his face. We both burst out laughing. It turned out better than I expected.
I told everyone all about what happened. They were all very glad that I did that. Karen seemed to pay more attention. Grabbed me into a corner and told me that Karen read my book. Saralee said that it helped Karen a lot. For the rest of the year, Mr. Dallete acted extremely nice. Guess what? He is the only science teacher that lasted more than a year!
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