1 Mr. Willow Bites His Finger

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CHAPTER ONE MR. WILLOW BITES HIS FINGER WE HAD ONLY been in our seats for a couple of minutes on Monday morning when Mr. Willow called from the front of the classroom, "Table 5!" "What did we do?" Simon whispered to Rosie and me. "We just got here." "We didn't do anything," Rosie said quietly back. She giggled a little. "I love how you're already assuming that we're in trouble." Simon shrugged and said, "It's in my nature." Since those two were whispering back and forth, I figured I better answer our teacher. "Yes, Mr. Willow?" I called back. "Molly, will you three come up here?" he said and

opened a manila folder. He took out a stack of papers. "You can help me pass out these math quizzes." While our classmates quietly complained, Rosie, Simon, and I headed toward Mr. Willow. "That's enough moaning and groaning," Mr. Willow said to everyone as he divided the stack of paper into thirds. "You know, when I was your age, I had to take my math quizzes out in the snow in my bare feet." "For real?" Simon asked. "Yes, Simon. For reeeaaal," Mr. Willow said and handed him a short stack of papers. "And we didn't have paper. We had to use tree bark to write on. And we didn't have pens or pencils either."

"What did you do?" asked Simon, taking his share of the quizzes. I wasn't quite sure if Simon believed Mr. Willow or just wanted him to continue with the joke.

"We bit off the tips of our index fingers," Mr. Willow answered, opening his eyes wide and pulling his left index finger close to his mouth. "We'd write the answers with our own blood!" Everybody thought this was funny. Whenever we complained about something, Mr. Willow liked to exaggerate and make stuff up about how tough it was back in the old days. We were used to it. There were nine tables in our class with three kids at each table. Rosie passed out the quizzes to the back row of three tables. I handled the middle row. And Simon took care of the front row closest to Mr. Willow's desk. It only took a minute.

Well, it only took me and Rosie a minute. When we were done, Rosie said, "Molly." I turned my head toward her. She pointed at Simon. And that's when the trouble started.