Which was unfair because each time, I was the only person in the whole art room who was paying attention.

Then I got busy working on my project so I wouldn’t have to hear any “Clementine-pay-attention!”s.Įxcept I did anyway. While Margaret was looking out the window, I accidentally touched her mask. Which wasn’t exactly lying, because I didn’t say there was something out there. “Because you can’t touch my stuff,” she said.Īnd then I pointed out the window. She thinks that that makes her the boss of me. Margaret is in fourth grade and I am in third. When I sat down next to her, she threw herself across the Princess-from-the-Future mask she was gluing sparkles onto. 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. 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! First, there were exactly enough banana slices in my cereal: one for every spoonful. Which was a surprise, because it started off with two lucky signs, which fooled me. Okay, fine, Monday was not so good of a day. Someone should tell you not to answer the phone in the principal’s office, if that’s a rule. 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. Well, Monday was a pretty good day, if you don’t count Hamburger Surprise at lunch and Margaret’s mother coming to get her. To my big brother, Mark Frazee, who thinks I’m an idiot For information address Hyperion Books for Children, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.įor Bill, Clementine’s father in every way 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. Published by Hyperion Paperbacks for Children, an imprint of Disney Book Group. Many thanks to Kate Herrill for her drawings in chapters 1, 3, 8, and 9.Īll rights reserved. Illustrations copyright © 2006 by Marla Frazee

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker