Just Grace Goes Green (9 page)

LUNCH TIME

Gwen, of course, had lunch with us. Mimi would not tell me what her big secret was, so I knew it had to be about Gwen. Now that she was with us all the time, it was going to be hard to find out what it was. We sat with two of the other Graces while we had lunch.

Gwen said she had met only one other Gwen in her whole life, so she thought it was pretty cool to have so many Graces around every day at school. I'm sure she wouldn't have thought it was cool if she had to be called Just Gwen for the rest of her school life.

MIMI'S SECRET

Gwen was having a good time talking to Grace F., so Mimi was able to get us to go to the bathroom alone. As soon as the bathroom door shut, Mimi said, "Gwen thinks I gave her Willoughby to keep! She is sleeping with him, and last night I even heard her crying on him! What am I going to do?" When someone asks you something that you can't even imagine the answer to, you have to just say something like "Wow," or "Oh, no."

Willoughby is Mimi's favorite stuffed animal ever since she was born. When you love something that much, and have it for that long, you usually want to keep it for the rest of your life.

MIMI AND NORMAL-SIZE WILLOUGHBY

We could not stay in the bathroom forever, so finally we had to leave even though we did not have any brilliant ideas about how to solve Mimi's problem. It was not an easy problem to fix.

ANSWERS WE THOUGHT OF AND WHY THEY WON'T WORK

1
If Mimi just asks for Willoughby back, then Gwen will not have the stuffed animal she already loves, and she will cry even more and be sad that her parents are missing her birthday and she is stuck here with us.

2
If Mimi asks Gwen to pick a different stuffed animal to love, then Gwen will not have the stuffed animal she already loves, and she will cry even more and be sad that her
parents are missing her birthday and she is stuck here with us.

3
If Mimi could find another Willoughby, she could give that one to Gwen and then she could get her own old Willoughby back. This seemed like the best idea, but Mimi has never in her entire life seen another Willoughby anywhere. Willoughbys are not like Graces.

4
Mimi could ask her mom to help, except that her mom already saw Gwen with Willoughby and said to Mimi, "That was very nice of you to let Gwen have Willoughby to help her feel better."

I didn't say anything about it but there was one thing that I was thinking about
stuffed animals that was not going to help Mimi. All stuffed animals are not the same. Some you like, some you don't, and some you love. The weird thing is that you can't make the love thing happen on purpose—some stuffed animals have love magic for you and some just don't.

MY FANCY BOTTLE

I was 100 percent glad that I had decorated my water bottle, because as soon as Mimi saw it she did a lot of forgetting about the whole Willoughby problem. I could just tell. Gwen said it was a fantastic idea and a great way for everyone to keep using bottles over and over again.

She had lots of craft ideas about how to decorate the bottles, and suddenly without
even doing lots of thinking about it, we had our great idea for our passionate plan for saving the earth. If we were real superheroes, we would have been flying around the room in excitement!

This reminded me to tell Gwen that she should draw her costume for the superheroes of conservation project. That way she could be in the model we were going to make about all of us flying to save the poor red panda from extinction.

She said she was going to work on it after lunch when everyone else was studying the times tables for the one hundredth boring
time. She already knew them all by heart. Even the really hard ones like the sevens, the nines, and twelves. She was lucky!

DOUBLE GREEN ME

When someone is jealous or wish they had what someone else already has, you can say they are green with envy. If someone is just happening to be doing a project about saving the earth, then you can say they are being green. And if both these things are going on at the exact same time, then you can say that person is double green.

I was double green about Gwen's super-great awesome superhero of conservation costume. It was fantastic! If we were all real superheroes, she would have for sure been the leader and Mimi and I would be the helpers and not one bit sad about that at all.

Gwen said her most favorite animals in the whole world were owls. This was an excellent pick for a superhero costume because owls can turn their heads all the way around to the back and look behind them. This would be a good extra if you are a superhero.

When Sammy saw Gwen's drawing he said, "I knew it! Your parents are spies! A regular person could never think of all those gadgets and stuff."

Then Robert Walters said, "Really? Cool! I wish my parents were spies. Is there a secret spy room in your house?" Miss Lois had to interrupt the class because suddenly everyone was getting all excited about Gwen being part of a secret spy family.

Miss Lois said, "Now, class, let's settle this right now." Then she asked Gwen the big important question. "Gwen, are your parents spies?"

Gwen smiled a funny smile and said, "No, Miss Lois, my parents are not spies."

"Fine," said Miss Lois. "Now we can finish our lesson."

Miss Lois thought we were all finished with the spy stuff, but she was wrong. She wasn't thinking about how a real spy daughter would never in a million years say that her parents were spies. A real spy daughter would lie about it every time.
I could tell that everyone in the class was thinking about the same thing I was, because even though Miss Lois was telling us all important information about how tomorrow was presentation day for our animal mascots, we were still all sneaking back looks at Gwen.

SAMMY'S NEW BEST FRIEND

Sammy was waiting for Gwen, Mimi, and me when it was time to walk home. Even though we were standing next to Gwen, he kept trying to get closer so he could walk next to her. The sidewalk is only big enough for three people to walk together in a line. If there is a number four person, that person has to walk in front of or behind the other three. By the time we got home I was the one walking behind.

I was surprised about it but Gwen didn't seem to mind Sammy asking her all sorts of questions. It was like she was suddenly famous.

SAMMY'S PROJECT

Sammy told Gwen that he and Max were going to do some kind of special Tae Kwon Do can-chopping for their conservation project. He said they were going to show everybody that recycling cans could be fun
and good for the earth at the same time. "Sounds great," said Gwen. And I couldn't tell if she was making fun of Sammy or if she really thought chopping cans was a cool idea. Suddenly she was seeming more mysterious, even though I didn't believe for a minute that she really was part of a spy family.

WHAT I DID THAT WAS UNUSUAL

Mom let me have dinner over at Mimi's house, and it was a school night. She said it was a special occasion since we were doing our recycling project together. That way we could work on it before and after dinner. Gwen was really helpful about looking up information on the red panda. It hardly took us any time at all to put our presentation together.