The Talented Clementine Read online

  Text copyright © 2007 by Sara Pennypacker

  Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Marla Frazee

  Many thanks to James Bradley for his drawing in chapter 2.

  All rights reserved. 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 978-1-4231-9864-2

  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 Clementine's Letter

  For Steven Malk and Donna Bray—my talented agent and editor—who knew before I did

  —S. P.

  To my big brother, Mark Frazee, who probably thinks this dedication stuff is stupid

  —M. F.

  I have noticed that teachers get exciting confused with boring a lot. But when my teacher said, “Class, we have an exciting project to talk about,” I listened anyway.

  “Our school is going to raise money for the big spring trip,” he said. “The first and second grades are going to hold a bake sale. The fifth and sixth grades are going to have a car wash. And the third and fourth grades are going to…put on a talent show!”

  All the kids in the room made sounds as if they thought a talent show was exciting news. Except me, because it was N-O-T, not.

  But okay, fine, it wasn’t boring, either.

  Just then, Margaret’s teacher came to the door to talk to my teacher, which was good because it gave me an extra minute to think.

  “Old people love to pat my little brother’s head,” I said when my teacher walked back into the room. “How about we set up a booth and charge them a quarter to do it, instead of having a talent show?”

  But he ignored me, which is called Getting on with the Day when a teacher does it, and Being Inconsiderate when a kid does it.

  “Class,” he said, “one of the fourth graders has come up with a name for our show! Talent-Palooza, Night of the Stars!”

  It had to be that Margaret.

  “First, we’ll need a cooperative group to make some posters….” my teacher said.

  And that’s when the worried feeling—as if somebody were scribbling with a big black crayon—started up in my brains.

  My teacher kept on going with the cooperative group list. The scribbling got harder and faster and spread down into my stomach. I knew what this meant.

  I raised my hand.

  “Yes, Clementine? Would you like to be in the cooperative group for refreshments?”

  “No, thank you,” I said, extra politely. “What I’d like is to go to Mrs. Rice’s office.”

  “Clementine, you don’t need to go see the principal,” my teacher said. “You’re not in any trouble.”

  “Well, it’s just a matter of time,” I told him.

  My teacher looked at me as if he suddenly had no idea how I’d gotten into his classroom. But then he gave a big sigh and said, “All right,” so I got up.

  As I left, the O’Malley twins gave me the thumbs-up sign, which made me feel like I wasn’t alone. But they were wearing their “Thank goodness it’s not me” faces, which made me know that I was.

  I walked down the hall on worried legs and knocked on the door with worried knuckles.

  “Come in,” Principal Rice said. When she saw it was me, she held out her hand for the note from my teacher that would tell her what kind of a little chat we should have. We have done this a lot.

  But today I just sat on the chair and started right in. “Which are smarter? Chimpanzees or orangutans?”

  “That’s an interesting question, Clementine,” Mrs. Rice said. “Maybe you could ask the science teacher after you’ve told me what you’re doing here.”

  “Also, I’ve been wondering what the difference is between smashed and crashed.”

  Mrs. Rice handed me her dictionary.

  And then suddenly I didn’t want to know anymore! That is the miracle about dictionaries!

  “Well, how about you put it on the floor so you can rest your feet on it instead of kicking my desk?” Principal Rice suggested. “You seem to have very busy feet today.”

  So I did, and it felt good. “Thank you,” I said. “I don’t have any talents.”

  “Excuse me?” said Principal Rice.

  “I don’t have any talents,” I said again.

  Mrs. Rice looked at me for a long time and then she said, “Oh.”

  Then I told her I was all done being there and I left.

  When I got off the bus, Margaret’s brother, Mitchell, was sitting on the front steps of our apartment building.

  “What’s the matter, Clementine?” he asked me right away—I guess my worried face was still on.

  I handed him the stupid flyer my teacher had sent home with us.

  “‘Talent-Palooza, Night of the Stars! Share your talents Saturday night!’” he read. Then he handed the stupid flyer back to me. “So, what’s the problem?”

  I leaned over—but not too close in case he thought I was trying to be his girlfriend, which I am not—and whispered the problem to him.

  “I can’t hear you,” he said.

  So I whispered it again.

  “I still can’t hear you,” he said.

  So I yelled it.

  “That’s impossible,” he said. “Everybody has a talent.”

  “Not me.”

  “No singing?”

  “No singing.”

  “No dancing?”

  “No dancing.”

  “No musical instruments?”

  “No musical instruments.”

  Mitchell was quiet for a minute.

  “How about hopping?” he asked finally.

  “No hopping,” I answered.

  “Everyone can hop,” Mitchell said.

  “Not me.” Then I proved it to him.

  “Wow,” said Mitchell. Twice.

  I sat down on the step beside him. Except I fell off, because my body was a little confused from trying to hop. “See?” I said. “I can’t even do sitting. It’s hopeless.”

  “Maybe not. Cheer up. Maybe you have a really great talent you just haven’t figured out yet.”

  I gave Mitchell a “See? I’m cheered up already!” smile. But it was just my mouth pretending.

  The next morning, Margaret sat next to me on the bus as usual. I had never noticed it before, but she was very talented at sitting down: her dress stayed in place as if it were painted on, and not a single paper spilled out of her backpack.

  Which reminded me to crawl under the seat to get all mine before we got to the school. This is called Being Organized.

  The O’Malley twins got on at the next stop and sat in front of us. They are named Willy and Lilly. When I first heard about this idea, I tried to get my parents to change my brother’s name so it would rhyme with mine. “How about Blementine?” I asked them. “How about Frementine, or Shlementine?”

  But they weren’t interested, so I just keep calling him vegetable names, which are the only ones worse than a fruit name, like I got stuck with.

  Lilly turned around. “What are you going to do at the talent show, Margar
et?” she asked.

  “I have too many talents!” Margaret groaned. She flapped her hands around her head as if her talents were flies she had to shoo away. “Hundreds of them! I can’t decide!”

  This was true. Margaret was always taking lessons: clarinet, baton twirling, ballet, swim- ming…you name it, she took lessons for it.

  “Why don’t you do them all at once?” I sug-gested. Which was supposed to be a joke. And okay, fine, not the nice kind.

  But Margaret was not very talented at knowing when I was joking.

  “That’s a wonderful idea, Clementine! Thank you!”

  Then the O’Malley twins and I had to listen for a hundred hours to Margaret figuring out which talents would be good together. Ice skating and accordion-playing probably wouldn’t work. But tap dancing and singing would be easy, and she could Hula-Hoop at the same time. Plus, she could play a drum if she hung it around her neck. And maybe throw in a couple of cartwheels.

  “And hey!” she cried, slapping her forehead at the great idea that had just popped in. “What if I rode a horse onstage?!”

  “Well, I’ve only got one talent,” Willy said. “But it’s a great one!” He lifted his lunch box. “My whole lunch. In my mouth. At once.”

  “You do that every day,” I reminded him.

  “Not onstage,” Willy answered.

  Then he asked me what I was going to do.

  “It’s a surprise,” my mouth said without me even telling it to. Which was not a lie, because if I did anything at all up on that stage next weekend, it would be a pretty big surprise, all right.

  And then I pressed my mouth into a ruler line for the rest of the bus ride so it couldn’t say any more surprises.

  In school, my teacher started in with the “Talent-Palooza” business so fast I thought it was the new last part of the Pledge of Allegiance.

  “With liberty and justice for all and I know we’re all very excited to get to our big project,” he said. So it was too late for my secret plan of hypnotizing him into forgetting.

  Luckily, I thought up another really good plan right away. I raised my hand.

  “Yes, Clementine? Do you want to volunteer for a cooperative group?”

  “I would like to tell something to you,” I answered. I made a capital P with my fingers which means “in private.”

  My teacher nodded, so I went up to his desk. I made quick secret-eyes all around behind there to look for the pizza and doughnuts everyone knows teachers eat when kids aren’t looking, but I didn’t find any. Then I told him what I was thinking up.

  “What if there’s a kid who doesn’t have any talent? Not me, because I have L-O-T-S, lots. Of course. I have so many. But what if some other kid doesn’t?”

  “Everyone has a talent, Clementine,” my teacher answered. “Everyone has something they’re especially good at.”

  “But what if one kid got left out? What if whoever’s in charge forgot to give one kid a talent? Wouldn’t that person who is not me be embarrassed at a talent show?”

  “Why, that’s very thoughtful of you,” my teacher said. “But…”

  “Yep,” I said, “I am very thoughtful. So I guess we should just forget about that whole Talent-Palooza idea.”

  “Oh, I really don’t think so. But just to be sure, I’ll talk to the class.” Then he stood and said, “Class, let’s have a show of hands. How many of you have an act to perform at the talent show?”

  Everyone’s hand shot up in the air.

  “Well, I guess that settles that,” my teacher said. “But thank you anyway, Clementine.”

  Okay, fine, it wasn’t such a good idea.

  But just then, an even better one popped into my head. I’m lucky that way: astoundishing ideas are always popping into my head, and I don’t even have to use my brains to get them there.

  At journal writing I did my idea. When I was done writing, I curled my hand over my sentence, as if it were too private to share. Which is how you get a teacher to come and look at it.

  Sure enough, my teacher came over and took a look. He frowned and bent closer to read it again.

  “You have to move this week?”

  I quick squeezed the word might in between I and have to move this week. Might is a helpful word when you are not exactly telling the truth.

  “You might have to move?”

  I nodded. Nodding is not exactly telling a lie.

  “Where might you have to move to?”

  I had forgotten to think about this part.

  “Ummmm…” While I was umming I looked around the room in case there was a good answer lying around. And there was! I pointed to the social studies bulletin board we had made last week.

  “You’re moving to Egypt?” my teacher asked.

  I nodded again. You never know.

  “Why?” my teacher asked. “Is one of your parents being transferred?”

  I was glad he had thought of this good reason. “My dad,” I said. “He might be getting a new job.”

  My dad is a building manager. He makes sure everything runs okay in our building, which has lots of apartments. Last year our building went condo. This means that now the apartments are called condominiums and the people own them instead of renting them. My dad says sometimes they get a little confused and think it means they own him. He’s not so crazy about buildings going condo.

  “He might have to take care of a pyramid!” I said.

  I pointed to the cardboard pyramid Willy O’Malley had made. If I had made it, it would have had the right number of sides. But I was stuck drawing the Sphinx because whenever anyone else tried it looked like a grasshopper.

  When I draw things, everyone knows what they are. Even grown-ups. This is because I am practically a famous artist. If they had a game show for drawing I would probably win every prize. And I would not pick the dumb ones like dining-room sets or a year’s supply of car wax, either.

  “Don’t you think it’s unfair that game shows don’t have good prizes, like gorillas or submarines?” I asked my teacher.

  But he wasn’t paying attention. “Your father is being transferred to a pyramid? Is he an archaeologist, Clementine?”

  “He’s a building manager. He says everything’s going condo these days. He says nothing’s safe. The Great Pyramid is four hundred eighty-onefeet tall. That’s as tall as a fifty-story building. That could be a lot of condominiums.”

  “And your father’s going to go over there and manage them?”

  “Might,” I reminded him. “It’s a big job. He’d have to do things like hire the doormen, and make sure the elevators run right. So I guess I won’t be here for the…”

  “Elevators? In the Great Pyramid?”

  “Yep. And tell people, ‘No grills on the roof!’ That’s another part of his job. Anyway, it’s too bad that I can’t be in the Talent-Pa—”

  “No grills on the roof of the Great Pyramid?”

  “Right. And, ‘Please leave your trash outside on Thursdays!’ So I’m really sad that…”

  But my teacher just patted my head. “You are one in a million, Clementine, one in a million.” Then he was all done being at my desk and he walked away, laughing.

  There should be a rule about that. No laughing for teachers.

  When I got off the bus, I saw my dad outside, trimming the ivy that grows between our building and the sidewalk.

  He pointed to an extra pair of clippers beside him. “You’re eight now, Sport. I think you’re old enough to handle these.”

  So I picked up the clippers, even though I am not so fond of pointy things, and started trimming the ivy with him.

  After a couple of minutes, he said, “You were kind of quiet at dinner last night. Is anything wrong?”

  I wanted to tell him about having no talents for the talent show. But just then the junior high bus pulled up and Mitchell got off. He came over and asked what we were doing.

  “Got to keep after this ivy,” my dad told him. “It grows so fast it could cove
r the windows and be all over the sidewalk if I don’t keep cutting it back.”

  Mitchell dropped his backpack. “Whoa,” he said. “Do you mean that if one of the Red Sox was walking by, and the ivy was shooting out onto the sidewalk, it could trip him? And then he’d be out for the rest of the season? And then we might not be in the play-offs, or the World Series?”

  “Well, that’s not exactly the reason the condo association gave,” my dad said. “But I like your reason better: we’re playing an important role in the outcome of baseball history this year.” He held his clippers out. “Want to help?”

  “Whoa,” Mitchell said again. “Dude.” He high-fived my dad, then took the clippers. “Thanks!”

  Mitchell began trimming the ivy, and my dad sat down on the brick wall to rest. They started talking about baseball.

  We live in Boston, and Mitchell is obsessed with the Red Sox. He’s going to be one when he’s older. If I ever get married, which I will not, I would like to marry a Red Sox player, but not Mitchell, because he’s not my boyfriend. Then you could get all those hot dogs for free in the ball park.

  “Did you ever see a strike-out perfect game?” my dad was asking Mitchell. “I did once, in the minor leagues. It’s a thing of beauty.”

  “What’s a strike-out perfect game?” I asked.

  “It’s when a pitcher throws only strikes for a whole game,” Mitchell told me.

  “Wow,” I said. “So, eighty-one strikes in a row!”

  Mitchell stared at me, and you could tell he was trying to multiply strikes and outs and innings in his head.

  “Don’t bother,” my dad told him. “She’s a genius at math.”

  “Whoa,” Mitchell said for the third time. “Awesome.” Then he walked off, shaking his head, probably to try it on a calculator.

  Dad picked up the clippers and got back to work. “So,” he asked again. “Is everything all right, Sport?”

  “Well, I was wondering if we might be moving.”

  “Moving?” he repeated.

  “Right,” I said. “I was just wondering if you might be getting a new job. In Egypt.”