07 Antarctica

Antarctica Judy predicted it would be hard to sit still until Mr. Todd passed back the spelling tests. She predicted right. She felt antsy as an anthill. Jumpy as a jumping bean. At last, the time came. "Good work. Keep it up," Mr. Todd was saying as he walked around the room, passing back tests and handing out cookies. Heart-shaped cookies. With sprinkles! And he was humming. Mr. Todd never hummed! And he never brought heart-shaped cookies with sprinkles. Not even on Valentine's Day, which it wasn't. It had to be a sign. A sign that she, the Sleeping Speller, had done superduper

stupendous on her spelling test. That would definitely put Mr. Todd in a good mood. In less than one minute, Class 3T would see that she, Madame M, had ESP. Extra-special Spelling Powers. Just like Jeane Dixon, Famous American Fortuneteller. And Sleeping Speller Man. In less than one minute, Judy had her test back. And the only cookie left was a broken heart. Dear Mr. President! Something was not right! Her paper did not have a Thomas Jefferson sticker. It did not even have a president. Or a sticker. It had a feather. A musty, dusty-looking, old-timey rubber-stamp feather. A quill pen. A quill pen meant Keep Trying. A quill pen meant You Have More Work to Do. A quill pen was as

preposterous as a hippopotamus. At the bottom of her test was a note from Mr. Todd. It said, "Tortilla has two l's. Zigzag is one word." Judy didn't see why tor-tee-yah had any l's at all. And zig and zag sure seemed like two words to her. Who wrote the dictionary anyway? Mrs. Merriam and Mr. Webster were going to hear from her. All eyes were on Judy. She turned fire-engine red. Hide-your-face-in-your-hands red. Big-fatdictionary red. The Sleeping Speller was a flop. The Sleeping Speller was a flubber-upper. The Sleeping Speller was a big fat phoney-baloney. Maybe Jessica (Flunk) Finch got a musty, dusty quill pen, too! Judy knew it was a bad

mood thought. Judy knew she was supposed to keep her eyes on her own paper. But she couldn't help herself. She turned around. Jessica Finch beamed. Jessica Finch gleamed. Like the day she was crowned Queen Bee and got her picture in the paper. Jessica Finch sat up straight and proud as a president. She held up her paper for Judy to see. "I knew it!" Jessica said. "I got a Thomas

Jefferson tricorn hat!" A tricorn hat did not mean flubber-upper. A tricorn hat did not mean Better luck next time. Keep trying. You need more practice! A tricorn hat meant Hats off to you! "How did you know?" Judy asked. Judy was supposed to be the one predicting the future, not Jessica Finch. "I used my brain," said Jessica. "Some people studied." Judy was green with Jealous, Envy. And she did not need her mood ring to prove it. The class buzzed. They turned on Judy like a pack of stinging bees. "Hey, what happened to the Sleeping Speller?" "The Sleeping Speller fell asleep!"

Judy Moody gave them all a Virginia creeper stare. "Hold on, everybody," said Mr. Todd-the- Hummer. "You know that in this class we keep our eyes on our own papers." "But Mr. Todd, Judy Moody said. She told us. She predicted she would get a 110% perfect paper. She predicted WRONG!" "Nobody can really predict the future!" said Rocky. "Right, Mr. Todd?" "Well, we all play a part in creating our own futures," said Mr. Todd. "So, in the future, I hope you'll concern yourselves with your own work, not the work of the person next to you." That got everybody quiet. "Now. Let's move on to . . . science. Take out your Weather Notebooks."