Clementine Read online

  Text copyright © 2006 by Sara Pennypacker

  Illustrations copyright © 2006 by Marla Frazee

  Many thanks to Kate Herrill for her drawings in chapters 1, 3, 8, and 9.

  All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion Paperbacks for Children, an imprint of Disney Book Group.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion Books for Children, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  ISBN: 978-1-4231-9859-8

  Visit www.hyperionbooksforchildren.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  More Honors and Praise for Clementine

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Sneak Peek of The Talented Clementine

  For Bill, Clementine’s father in every way

  —S.P.

  To my big brother, Mark Frazee, who thinks I’m an idiot

  —M.F.

  I have had not so good of a week.

  Well, Monday was a pretty good day, if you don’t count Hamburger Surprise at lunch and Margaret’s mother coming to get her. Or the stuff that happened in the principal’s office when I got sent there to explain that Margaret’s hair was not my fault and besides she looks okay without it, but I couldn’t because Principal Rice was gone, trying to calm down Margaret’s mother.

  Someone should tell you not to answer the phone in the principal’s office, if that’s a rule.

  Okay, fine, Monday was not so good of a day.

  Which was a surprise, because it started off with two lucky signs, which fooled me. First, there were exactly enough banana slices in my cereal: one for every spoonful. Then, as soon as I got to school, my teacher said, “The following students are excused from journal writing so they can go to the art room to work on their ‘Welcome to the Future’ projects.” And I was one of the following students!

  So instead of having to think up things to write in my journal, which I hate, I got to glue and paint stuff, which I love.

  Margaret was in the art room, too. When I sat down next to her, she threw herself across the Princess-from-the-Future mask she was gluing sparkles onto. “Remember the rules,” she warned.

  Margaret is in fourth grade and I am in third. She thinks that that makes her the boss of me. I hate Margaret’s rules.

  “You can’t touch my stuff,” she said. Which she always says.

  “Why?” I said. Which I always say.

  “Because it’s the rule,” Margaret said. Which she always says.

  “Why?” I said.

  “Because you can’t touch my stuff,” she said.

  And then I pointed out the window. Which wasn’t exactly lying, because I didn’t say there was something out there.

  While Margaret was looking out the window, I accidentally touched her mask.

  Twice. Okay, fine.

  Then I got busy working on my project so I wouldn’t have to hear any “Clementine-pay-attention!”s.

  Except I did anyway. Which was unfair because each time, I was the only person in the whole art room who was paying attention. Which is why I could tell everyone right in the middle of the Pledge of Allegiance that the lunchroom lady was sitting in the janitor’s car and they were kissing. Again. No one else saw this disgusting scene, because no one else was paying attention out the window!

  And after that, when it was my turn to pass around the stapler, I could tell everyone that the art teacher’s scarf had an egg stain on it that looked—if you squinted—exactly like a pelican, which nobody else had noticed.

  “Clementine, you need to pay attention!” the art teacher said one more time. And just like the other times, I was paying attention.

  I was paying attention to Margaret’s empty seat.

  Margaret had been excused to go to the girls’ room, and when she left she had scrunched-up don’t-cry eyes and a pressed-down don’t-cry mouth. And she had been gone a really long time, even for Margaret, who washes her hands one finger at a time.

  “I need to go to the girls’ room,” I told my teacher.

  And that’s where Margaret was, all right: curled up under the sink with her head on her knees.

  “Margaret!” I gasped. “You’re sitting on the floor!”

  Margaret hitched herself over to the side a little so I could see: she’d placed a germ-protective layer of paper towels under her.

  “Still,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

  Margaret pressed her head down harder into her knees, which were all shiny with tears. She pointed up. Lying on the sink, next to a pair of Do-Not-Remove-from-the-Art-Room scissors, was a chunk of straight brown hair.

  Uh-oh.

  “Come out, Margaret,” I said. “Let me see.”

  Margaret shook her head. “I’m not coming out until it’s grown back.”

  “Well, I think I see a germ crawling up your dress.”

  Margaret jumped out from under the sink.

  She looked at herself in the mirror and began to cry again. “I got glue in my hair,” she sobbed. “I was just trying to cut it out.…”

  Margaret’s hair was halfway-down-her-back long. It was hard not to notice that the whole part over her left ear was missing.

  “Maybe if we evened up a chunk over your right ear…” I suggested.

  Margaret wiped her eyes dry and nodded. She handed me the scissors.

  I cut. We looked back in the mirror.

  “It’s like bangs.” I tried to cheer her up. “Sort of.”

  “Except bangs are in your front hair, not the sides,” Margaret reminded me. Then she took a deep sigh, picked up the scissors, and cut off all the hair over her forehead.

  Now the front half of her hair was all chopped off and the back half was long and straight and shiny.

  “Not so good,” Margaret said, looking in the mirror.

  “Not so good,” I agreed.

  We looked at her not-so-good hair in the mirror for a really, really long time without saying anything, which is very hard for me. Then Margaret’s bottom lip began to shiver and her eyes filled up with tear-balls again. She handed the scissors back to me, and then she closed her eyes and turned around.

  “All of it?” I asked.

  “All of it.”

  So I did. Which is not exactly easy with those plastic art scissors, let me tell you. And just as I was finishing, the art teacher came in looking for us.

  “Clementine!” she shouted. “What are you doing?”

  And then Margaret went all historical, and the art teacher went all historical, and nobody could think of anything to do except the regular thing, which is: send me to the principal’s office.

  While I was waiting there, I drew a picture of Margaret with her chopped-off hair. I made her look beautiful, like a dandelion. Here is a picture of that:

  If they had a special class for gifted kids in art, I would definitely be in it. But they don’t, which is also unfair—only for math and English. I am not so good at English, okay, fine. But this year I am in the gifted class for math. And here is the bad surprise—so far, no gifts.

  I told Principal Rice about that problem when she got back from calming down Margaret’s mother.

  “So far, no gifts,” I told her, extremely politely.

  Principal Rice rolled her eyes to th
e ceiling then, like she was looking for something up there. Ceiling snakes maybe, just waiting to drip on you. That’s what I used to be afraid of when I was little, anyway. Now I am not afraid of anything.

  Okay, fine, I am afraid of pointy things. But that is all. And boomerangs.

  “Clementine, you need to pay attention,” said Principal Rice. “We need to discuss Margaret’s hair. What are you doing on the floor?”

  “Helping you look for ceiling snakes,” I reminded her.

  “Ceiling snakes? What ceiling snakes?” she asked.

  See what I mean? Me—paying attention; everybody else—not. I am amazed they let someone with this problem be the boss of a school.

  “All right, now, Clementine,” Principal Rice said in her I’m-trying-to-be-patient-but-it’s-getting-harder voice. “Why did you cut off Margaret’s hair?”

  “I was helping,” I said.

  And then I told Principal Rice about how I’d helped her, too. “I answered the phone while you were gone. I ordered some new school pets, and I told the gym teacher we are never going to play dodgeball again, and I made two appointments for you. The phone kept going dead, so I guess it’s busted. But at least I helped you a little.”

  That’s what I thought.

  There is a look they teach a person to make in principal school that is not very nice.

  Margaret was waiting for me in the lobby of our apartment building when I got off the bus after school. I showed her my picture.

  “AAAUUUUGGGGHHH!!” she screamed. “I look like a dandelion!”

  That’s how good of an artist I am: everybody always knows what it is.

  “Dandelions are beautiful.” I pulled her into the elevator, which has mirrors on all sides, so she could see.

  Margaret shook her head. “For flowers, maybe. Not for people’s heads. Besides, dandelions are yellow, not brown. I look like a dead dandelion.” Then she brightened up a little. “Maybe that would help. If my hair were yellow.” Then she took a long I-wish look at my hair in the mirror. “Or red.”

  And for the first time that day, I saw Margaret smile!

  “I could do that for you, Margaret!” I told her. “Oh, sure! I could make your hair red, just like mine.”

  “How?” Margaret asked.

  I’d been so happy to see Margaret smile that I’d forgotten to figure out that part. But then a great idea popped into my head. I am lucky that way: great ideas are always popping into my head without me having to think them up. “My mother has some special markers for her work. They color over anything, and they stay there. Spinach got hold of one and drew all over the walls and my parents couldn’t get it off. They had to paint the room over. That’s how permanent those markers are.”

  Okay, fine, my brother’s name is not really Spinach. But I got stuck with a name that is also a fruit, and it’s not fair that he didn’t. The only thing worse than a fruit name is a vegetable name, so that’s what I think he should have. I have collected a lot of names for him.

  “Spinach did that?” Margaret said. “The easy one?”

  I squint-eyed her. “The easy one?”

  “That’s what my mother calls him. She says it’s a good thing your parents got an easy one after you. Same thing in my family, but I’m the easy one. She says when there are two kids in a family, there’s always an easy one and a hard one. I guess it’s a rule.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I knew that.”

  But I didn’t.

  “So how about those markers?” Margaret reminded me.

  “Okay,” I said. If the easy one could use them, I guessed the hard one could, too. “Let’s go.” And then we pressed B for basement and we rode down to my apartment.

  I ran into the kitchen and climbed up onto the counter and grabbed the box of markers from where my mom had hidden them and jumped down. Before I left, I yelled to my mother in the living room, “Hi, Mom, everything went great at school, I was really paying attention, and now I’m going to play with Margaret because everything’s fine with Margaret, no problems, ’bye.” Just so she wouldn’t worry.

  And then I ran back out to Margaret in the elevator. She looked through the box and pulled out a marker named Flaming Sunset. Then she took off the cap and held the marker up against my hair. “Perfect,” she said. “Let’s go up to my apartment.”

  I’d forgotten about that part, too. “Is your mother still mad?” I asked.

  “Yep. But she took three aspirin and went back to work. Only my brother is home.”

  So I said okay and we rode the elevator up to Margaret’s apartment, even though I don’t like Margaret’s room.

  One reason I don’t like to go there is Mascara. Mascara always hides under Margaret’s bed and hisses because he hates everyone except Margaret, but sometimes I can see his tail or one paw, and then I feel too sad because it reminds me of my old cat Polka Dottie who died.

  Last year Polka had three kittens in my bureau drawer, which luckily I always leave open. My parents let me name them. Since I have discovered that the most exquisite words in the world are on labels you will find in a bathroom, I carried the kittens into the bathroom and looked around until I found them beautiful names. Fluoride and Laxative went to live with people who answered the Free Kittens, Hurry! ad my dad put in the paper, which was unfair to Polka because they were strangers. Then Margaret’s mother said, “All right, Margaret, you can have a kitten as long as you take care of it yourself.” And that was good, because at least Mascara would be living with someone Polka knew.

  Except then Polka Dottie died. So now Margaret has a cat that’s just fine and I don’t.

  But the main reason I don’t like to go to Margaret’s room is that it makes me feel itchy.

  I feel itchy in Margaret’s room because it looks like a magazine picture. Everything matches and everything is always exactly where it’s supposed to be, in straight lines. Plus, nothing in her room is broken. And it’s all clean—not a speck of dirt is allowed into her room. Actually, Margaret looks like a magazine picture, too. Her hair is always combed—well, it used to be—and her clothes always match and I think she probably sleeps in her bathtub, because I have never seen a single smudge of dirt on her.

  I like her anyway, but it’s not always easy.

  “Remember the rules,” Margaret said at her bedroom door.

  While Margaret was looking under the bed for Mascara, I accidentally touched her lamp, which is a china poodle with an umbrella that Margaret calls a parasol because she is a show-off. Margaret turned around fast, but my hands jumped into my pockets even faster.

  “All right,” I said, “let’s get going with the coloring.” This is called Changing the Subject.

  It is very hard to color hair with a marker, let me tell you. But I did it. I colored all of Margaret’s hair chunks Flaming Sunset, and then another really great idea popped into my head and I drew Flaming Sunset curls all over her forehead and the back of her neck so her hair would look more like mine. It looked beautiful, like a giant tattoo of tangled-up worms. When I am a grown-up, I will have hundreds of tattoos.

  Margaret looked in the mirror, then she looked at my hair, then she looked in the mirror again and she said, “Okay, good.”

  And then she told me she was getting bracelets put on her teeth.

  “You mean braces,” I told her.

  “No,” she said. “Bracelets. They’re a special kind of braces. They’re jewelry.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I knew that.”

  But I didn’t. Okay, fine.

  Later that night, when I was just at the hard part of falling asleep, which is lying in the dark trying not to think about pointy things, I heard the phone ring.

  My dad said, “Hi, Susan,” which is Margaret’s mother’s name, and then he didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he said, “Now, Susan, let’s just look at this calmly,” and then he didn’t say anything for another long time. And then he said “I’m sorry” seven times, which is two more times than he said
it after he told my mother he thought her overalls were getting a little snug.

  Next I heard him go into my brother’s room, where my mom was putting Broccoli to bed, to say good night to him. Then I heard my parents whispering together as they walked down the hall to my room.

  And I thought this would be an ideal time to practice pretending to be asleep.

  I could feel them standing in my doorway, probably thinking, This hard one is a lot more trouble than the easy one. Then my dad said, “I really think Clementine was just trying to help her. Margaret wanted hair like Clementine’s. You know she’s always been a little jealous.”

  That was the craziest thing I’d ever heard, because Margaret is perfect. But I couldn’t tell them this, because an important part of pretending to be asleep is not talking.

  I don’t even want to think about the school part of Tuesday because it makes me too mad. “Margaret’s mother sent a note to her teacher today that said ‘watch out my daughter isn’t left alone with Clementine’!” I told my mom as soon as I got home.

  “Margaret’s mother is upset right now,” my mom said. “I guess I would be, too.” Then she let me stir grape jelly into my milk to make me feel better.

  I must have still been wearing a mad face when my dad walked in, because he just took one look at me and then handed me the key to the service elevator. My dad is the manager of our whole apartment building. He says that means all the people who live in the building, and even the pigeons, are the boss of him. But he has the keys to everything so I think that makes him the boss. And he understands that riding the service elevator calms me down when I’m mad.

  Dad said, “Four times, Sport, that’s all. And they’re painting up on seven. If the painters need the elevator, you have to get right off.”

  So I rode up to seven to see if the painters needed any help. You never know.

  And guess what I saw: three men painting the ceiling…on stilts! I am not even making this up!

  “Need any help?” I asked. “Want me to put on some stilts?”