6 Fourth Grade Is Scary

6 Fourth Grade Is Scary "Okay, everybody," said Mr. Cooper, "take out a pencil." Ugh. That meant it was time for writing. I hate writing.* "I'm passing out..." said Mr. Cooper. "He's passing out!" I shouted. "Call an ambulance!" "...pieces of paper. So each of you

can write an essay." Ugh! Writing essays is mega-boring. Mr. Cooper told us to write about what we were planning to do over summer vacation. "I'm going to sleepaway camp!" Andrea said excitedly. "Me too!" said Emily, who does everything Andrea does. Ryan said his family would be going to the beach. Michael said his cousins were coming to visit. Alexia said she would be going to Puerto Rico. Everybody started writing. I didn't know what to write. How should I know what I'm going to do over summer vacation? It wasn't even summer yet. I sat there for a million hundred minutes trying to think of something to write. "Five more minutes," said Mr. Cooper. Those five minutes felt like an hour. Andrea filled two sheets of paper, of

course. Finally, Mr. Cooper picked up our papers. "What's wrong, A.J.?" he asked as he looked at mine. "There's nothing on your paper." "That's because I'm planning to do nothing over the summer," I told him. "So that's what I wrote. Nothing." Everybody laughed even though I didn't say anything funny. That's when an announcement came over the loudspeaker. "Mr. Cooper, please call the front office."

Mr. Cooper picked up the phone. While he was on his call, the rest of us whispered to each other. "I hear we're going to get lockers in fourth grade," whispered Alexia. "So we'll have to memorize our locker combination." "I hear," whispered Neil, "that if you forget your locker combination the teacher locks you up in your locker all night."

"Stop trying to scare Emily," whispered Andrea. "I'm scared," whispered Emily. "I hear," whispered Ryan, "that in fourth grade we're going to get five hours of homework each night." "I hear," whispered Michael, "they make fourth graders do math with letters instead of numbers." "What?" I whispered. "That's crazy. You can't add up letters." "It's called algebra," whispered Andrea. "I'm taking an algebra class after school." Andrea takes classes in everything after school. If they gave classes in how to tie your shoes, Andrea would take that class so she could get better at it. "I hear," whispered Neil, "in fourth grade we have to bring toothpaste to school with us." "I hear," whispered Alexia, "the fifth graders are going to shoot spitballs at us." "I hear," I whispered, "that they're

going to shoot bowling balls at us. With catapults." Actually, I've never heard that fifth graders shoot bowling balls at fourth graders with catapults. I just made that up to scare Emily. "I'm scared," whispered Emily. Mr. Cooper hung up the phone. "I have an announcement to make," he said. "The front office just told me the name of the third-grade valedictorian." Valedic... WHAT? "What's that?" I asked. "It sounds like some disease." "The valedictorian," said Mr. Cooper,