4. Every Good Burger Deserves Fries

4 Every Good Burger Deserves Fries We only meet with Mrs. Bacon once a week. The next Thursday, before going into school, I went out to the playground to see if the geese were still there. Not only were they still there, but now there were four of them. They were squawking and honking at each other. I

guess this is their mating season. The bell rang, and I made it to Mr. Cooper's class just in time to pledge the allegiance. "Turn to page twenty-three in your math books," said Mr. Cooper. "Sorry," I told him. "We have to go to room 303." We all got up and went to room 303. "We get our instruments today!" Neil said when we got there. "I can't wait to get my drum." "I'm so excited!" Andrea said. "Me too!" said Emily, who's always excited when Andrea is excited. Mrs. Bacon was waiting for us at the door.* "Oh, you're not ready to play instruments yet," she told us. "Today, we're going to learn how to read

music." What?! I hate reading. Reading is boring. I don't even know why you're reading this book. "I already know how to read music," said Andrea, who loves letting everybody know that she knows stuff nobody else knows. "I've been playing violin for three years." "Don't you get tired?" I asked. Mrs. Bacon went to the board and drew five lines and a funny-looking squiggle. "Each line represents a different musical note," she told us. "E, G, B, D, and F. They're easy to remember. Just think of Every Good Burger Deserves Fries. Or Elvis's Guitar Broke Down Friday. Or Empty Garbage Before Dad Flips. Or..."

She went on like that for a while. "Each space represents a different note too," continued Mrs. Bacon. "F, A, C, and E. Just think of the word 'face.'" I didn't get it. One of the lines was the note F and one of the spaces was also the note F. How can there be two Fs? This was starting to get confusing.

Then Mrs. Bacon drew five more lines below the first five lines, and another funny-looking squiggle. "Let's move down to the bass clef," she said. "The lines here are G, B, D, F, and A. You can remember that by saying Good Burritos Don't Fall Apart, or Great Big Dogs Fight Animals. The spaces here are A, C, E, and G. You can remember that by saying All Cows Eat Grass." Huh? What's a clef? Playing video games is a lot easier than learning how to read music. "This is called a rest," Mrs. Bacon said, drawing a squiggly thing on the board. "It means you take a little rest between notes." "I'm not tired," I said. "What if I don't want to take a rest?"

Andrea rolled her eyes. "Let's talk about notes," said Mrs. Bacon, drawing on the board. "This is a half note. There are whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, and blah blah blah blah..." By this time, I was totally confused. I started pretending my pencil was a rocket ship flying across my desk. Any time you're bored at school, just pretend your pencil is a rocket ship. That's the first rule of being a kid. "I don't get it," I said. "Why would I want to play half a note? I say if you're going to play a note, you should play the whole note. My parents always tell me if you're going to do something, you should do it right." "This is going to be harder than I thought," mumbled Mrs. Bacon.