The Secret at the Polk Street School (4 page)

Dawn pulled out another box.

She put her hand in.

Then she sat back. “Look at this,” she told Jason.

Jason reached into the box. “I don’t believe it.”

Dawn nodded. “It’s true,” she said.

“P
EGGY,” SAID
D
AWN.

“Peggy?” Linda Lorca asked.

“Peggy?” said Richard.

“My own sister,” said Jason. “The wolf.”

Ms. Rooney’s class was standing behind the curtain.

Outside, the whole school was waiting.

“Hurry,” said Emily Arrow. “Tell us!”

Jason was wearing Peggy’s wolf suit.

He held out his arms.

“We found it in the basement,” said Dawn. “Peggy had put it back.”

“I don’t get it,” said Linda.

“I didn’t either,” Dawn said. “Until the bake sale.”

She picked up the can of soup.

She put the bread under her arm.

“Peggy called me Red Riding Hood,” she said.

“So?” asked Linda.

“The play was a surprise,” said Dawn. “How did she know I was Red Riding Hood?”

“That’s right,” said Emily. “How
did
she know?”

“I asked her last night,” Jason said. “She was up on the stage. She had to get something for Mrs. Smith.”

“She saw the wolf suit?” Richard said. “She put it on?”

Jason nodded. He knelt down on the stage. “Yip, yip,” he growled. “She was mad. She didn’t know I took it.”

“You should have asked,” said Linda.

“Then she saw my Red Riding cape,” said Dawn. “It was on a seat. She put the wolf note in it.”

“A scary one,” said Jason.

“She made teeth marks in the bread,” said Emily.

“With a peanut butter knife,” Jason said.

“Peggy wanted to scare us.” Dawn put on her Red Riding Hood cape. “She didn’t want us to win the banner.”

“We’ll win,” said Jason. “Just watch.”

“Is everybody ready?” Ms. Rooney called.

Dawn reached into her cape.

There was a paper in the pocket.

She pulled it out.

“Sorry,” it said. “Good luck.”

It was signed, “Peggy the Wolf.”

Linda sat down at the piano. “I hope I can do this,” she said.

The curtain opened.

“I’m going to see my grandmother.” Dawn said it in a nice loud voice.

At the same time Linda started to play.

“Oops!” Dawn said. She ran behind the curtain.

Linda made only eight mistakes.

Then Dawn came out again.

The rest of the play was good, Dawn thought.

Everyone clapped.

Even Ms. Rooney.

Mr. Mancina came up on the stage.

“Wonderful,” he said.

“Who gets the banner?” Richard asked.

“Well,” said Mr. Mancina. “This is hard.”

“It wouldn’t be hard for me,” whispered Jason.

“Me, neither,” said Dawn.

“Sh,” said Ms. Rooney.

“Well,” said Mr. Mancina again.

Everybody looked at him.

“Mrs. Smith’s class gets the banner,” said Mr. Mancina.

Dawn looked at Jason.

Jason looked at Dawn. “Peggy’s class?”

Everybody clapped.

Mr. Mancina put up his hand. “There’s another prize, too.”

Dawn held her breath.

“Stand up, Drake,” said Mr. Mancina. “Stand up, Louie.

“Your class gets the banner next week.”

Drake and Louie began to jump up and down.

“These boys planted seeds,” said Mr. Mancina. “Near the picnic table. We’ll have marigolds this year.”

“Wow!” said Dawn. “I never guessed.”

Mr. Mancina turned around. “And,” he said, “Ms. Rooney’s class gets the banner for the third week.”

Dawn and Jason began to hop up and down, too.

“Good work,” said Mr. Mancina.

Ms. Rooney’s class marched off the stage.

Dawn took a deep breath.

She looked around.

She hoped she’d find another mystery soon.

Patricia Reilly Giff came from a family of storytellers. She learned to read when she was four and never stopped, delighted with that widening world of story. She read through her classes in her elementary school, St. Pascal Baylon, and through her years at her high school, the Mary Louis Academy. Perhaps that’s why math and science are still so mysterious to her.

She majored in history and education at Marymount College and then went on to St. John’s University for a master’s degree in history, delighted that she could read her way through the lives of kings and queens, through plagues and wars.

In 1959, she married James Giff, a New York City detective, who had stories of his own. It was a perfect match because he thought it was fine that she spent hours reading instead of attending to the pots on the stove or the potatoes growing in the closet.

She spent the next twenty years raising their three children—James, William, and Alice—teaching, first in New York City and then Elmont, Long Island, and attending Hofstra University for a professional diploma in reading.

But always she wanted to write stories of her own, so her husband built her a small office out of two closets in the kitchen.

That was the beginning. She wrote about her childhood and her children, she wrote about the children she taught, and now she writes about her grandchildren and what interests them. She visits school and libraries and loves to talk with people who enjoy reading.

She received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Hofstra University and from Sacred Heart University. Several of her books were chosen as ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Books and ALA-YALSA Best Books for Young Adults. They include
The Gift of the Pirate Queen; All the Way Home; Nory Ryan’s Song
, a Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Honor Book for Fiction; and Newbery Honor books
Lily’s Crossing
and
Pictures of Hollis Woods
.
Lily’s Crossing
was also chosen as a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book. She’s also won the Christopher Award.

In between, she cares for an indoor garden of almost two hundred plants—and reads, of course.

Patricia Reilly Giff on a September day in 1937 in St. Albans, New York. The future
Polk Street Mysteries
author is two years old.

Patricia Reilly Giff (age four) with her sister, Annie (age two). The picture was taken at Christmastime circa 1939.

Patricia Reilly Giff on May 1, 1955 (age twenty) with her little poodle, Nikki, who was just eleven weeks old at the time.

Patricia Reilly Giff fishing on the Delaware River near her vacation home in East Branch, New York, circa 1976.  In the background is her dog, Heidi.

Patricia Reilly Giff with her two sons, Jimmy (left) and Bill (right) circa 1991. Missing from the picture is her daughter, Alice.

Patricia Reilly Giff with her husband, Jim, visiting an elementary school classroom to talk about her popular
Polk Street
series.  Giff speaks at schools, libraries, bookstores, and conferences across the country, where she shares stories of how she became a writer.