Chapter 20

Chapter 20 Copyright copyright (n) the exclusive legal right of the author of a work to publish the work or allow someone else to publish it Jessie took off after Evan. He was a much faster runner than she was, and he'd gotten a head start, so when she rounded the back of the school, he was out of sight. Jessie kept running until she came to the kindergarten playground, which was all the way on the other side of the school. The big kids weren't allowed on the kindergarten playground, but Jessie spotted Evan tucked into a corner of a wall, protected from the wind and out of sight of anyone in the school. He was reading one of her newspapers, with the grocery bag full of papers at his feet.

Jessie marched up to him and said, "Give me back my newspapers!" "You're not handing these out," he said. "Yes, I am!" "No. You're. Not." "You're not the boss of me, Evan Treski!" Jessie reached for the bag, but Evan grabbed it and pivoted, just like he did on the basketball court, and avoided her attack. "Yeah, but I'm bigger and taller and OLDER. So too bad for you." Jessie lunged at her brother. "They're mine, and I want them back!" Evan stiff-armed her and held the bag and the paper higher so that she couldn't get it. "Quit it!" he said. "Let me read!" Suddenly Jessie realized that Evan was her first reader. She stopped grabbing for the papers and instead watched him. This is what she had wanted all along: to write something that people couldn't put down.

Evan placed the bag of papers on the ground between his feet. He was a slow reader, and it took him a long time to get all the way to the end of the frontpage article. Jessie watched as he flipped the paper over to the back page and read the answer to the mystery of the candy hearts. Then he looked at her, and the look on his face was one she knew well. He was about to explain something to her. "Look, Jess," he said. "I should be really mad at you, and I am, but I know you just don't... get this. Here's the thing: You can't hand this paper out." He shuffled his feet together so that the grocery bag of newspapers was more safely wedged between his legs. "Why?" she asked. She had the sinking feeling that she had done something that wasn't right. Something that other kids would have understood, but somehow she didn't. "Isn't it good?" "Well, yeah, it's good," said Evan. "You did a

great job writing up the mystery with all the clues." Evan nodded his head. "It's really good." "So why can't I hand it out? I bet the other kids will want to read it, too." "But you're going to embarrass Megan and probably get her in a lot of trouble. I mean, you tell everyone that she wrote on the bathroom door and that she handed out candy in school. She'll get sent to the principal for sure and maybe even suspended." "Well, she should have thought about that before she did those things!" said Jessie. Jessie believed in following rules. Then again, here she was on the kindergarten playground. And she'd been planning to hand out her newspapers before Mrs. Overton had a chance to look at them. Which was not breaking a rule, really, but she knew she wasn't supposed to do it. Jessie looked around quickly to see whether anyone had noticed that she was on the playground. Or whether Mrs. Overton was

hunting for her. "But do you really want to be the one who gets Megan in trouble? I mean, come on. It's Megan. She's the nicest person in the whole fourth grade." It was true. Megan was always doing nice things for other people. She never excluded anyone or teased. She was the best friend Jessie had ever had besides Evan. "And, Jess, in the survey results, you list names. You write in all the names of the kids that other kids have crushes on." "But I don't tell who has a crush on who! I don't even know. The surveys were all anonymous." "Yeah, but think how a kid might feel whose name isn't listed even once. Pretty lousy." "Why?" asked Jessie. She really didn't get it. Why would anyone care if someone had a crush on them? It didn't make any sense to her. Then she thought about the missing survey and the

name listed at the bottom of it: hers. She didn't know how she felt about that, but it was definitely a strange feeling. "And, Jess!" Now Evan's voice did get angry— the same tone as when she'd gone into his room without his permission. "What about my poem? Huh? Where did you even get that?" Jessie's voice came out very small. "From the trash." "You took something out of my trash can?" Jessie could hear the heat in Evan's voice. She didn't want him to be angry. She had wanted to make him happy and proud. "It looked like a turtle," she said. "And then I opened it up." She shook her head in confusion. "I thought you'd be happy to have your poem published. You should be proud that you write such good poetry. Mom said the poem you wrote for Grandma is one of the best poems she's ever read." "But it's private, Jess," said Evan. "Don't you