11 Heading to School

CHAPTER ELEVEN HEADING TO SCHOOL ten degressFahrenheit ON MONDAY MORNING we got to Simon's garage fifteen minutes early. Rosie and I ran almost the whole way. It was super cold and we couldn't wait to test the wagon. The thermometer read ten degrees. Simon was waiting for us in the garage. "Check this out," Simon said and pointed to the side of the wagon. You could tell he was proud of something. Along the side of the wagon, Simon had painted the name of the invention. "Awesome, right?" Simon yelled. Rosie and I laughed. I'm not sure Rosie wanted to

brag and have her name on the side, but I also think she felt proud of her invention. So I think it was okay. We put our backpacks in the wagon through the flap at the back. Simon's was already inside. Then Rosie and I climbed in and Simon tied all the shoelaces except for the top one. Then he ran back to his house to get the hair dryer. "How many tickets did you make?" Rosie asked me.

"About twenty," I said and patted my backpack. "Me too." "He's going to be surprised," I said and shivered. "I hope he hurries." "Do you want to start with the rubbing?" Rosie suggested. "That will warm us up some." It totally did. We put on the gardening gloves, picked up the sandpaper, and started to rub it against the metal poles. We rubbed faster and faster. We moved that sandpaper up and down for almost a full minute.

Then we stopped to rest and took the gloves off to test the temperature of the metal. It was really warm. I could feel the heat a few inches away from the metal. It was like holding my hands up to a fireplace. Rosie smiled. For a minute, I thought that she smiled because the whole rubbing-the-metal-pole-heat-generating friction thing had worked to perfection. But that wasn't what she was smiling at.

Simon had come back into the garage. She pointed at him—and laughed. I turned to see. It took me a few seconds to figure out what I was looking at. We could see through the burlap, but it was kind of blurry. Simon was wearing his muscleman costume from Halloween. The only difference was that he wore his winter coat and hat too. And he was carrying the hair dryer. He waddled up to us. "What are you doing?!" Rosie yelled and laughed at the same time.

"I told you I got really warm in this thing on Halloween," Simon yelled back as he plugged the hair dryer into the extension cord. They didn't really need to yell, but it helped since we were separated by the burlap. "Plus, I look totally cool, right? I mean, I look like this super strong guy pulling you two in Rosie's