I’d feel before the day was over after sitting in class It was good that school was ending for the summer because no one could pay attention to a teacher in that kind of heat All the kids kept raising their hands to get a drink of water at the fountain down the hall The water was only lukewarm and not at all satisfying It was a good temperature for a shampoo Yet only ten minutes after a drink you wanted to try again Maybe this time the water would be cold It never was I was glad that vacation time had come around at last and at the same time I wasn’t All my friends actually I have only two really good ones were going to be away all summer and I was staying home My friend Julie was going off to summer camp for the whole vacation She went to camp last year too and so she already knew what to expect She’d a whole group of 6
camp friends and even a whole vocabulary of camp terms For the past month all she had spoken about were sleep-outs cookouts cookouts bunks etc My other friend was Esther and until the day before I’d thought that the two of us were going to have a lot of fun this summer We had planned all sorts of things and I was really looking for ward to vacation But the night before she had texted me She was all excited Her par ents had suddenly rented a cottage at the beach and now she was going to be away for the entire summer She was so thrilled that she forgot to be angry that she would be sharing a room with her little sister and she forgot all about the picnics in the park and the other things that we had planned to do together Maybe you can come for a weekend she texted That really didn’t console me at all 7
There are a lot of signs up in the buses and subways about New York’s being a Summer Summer Festival My father once explained how the slogan is a clever advertising campaign to make people want to come to New York City in the summer even though it is so hot then If they stay in air-conditioned hotels and go to air-conditioned movies and air conditioned theaters maybe it’s OK But if you are on your own without a friend in sight the summer is a long hot time in the city and I wasn’t happy about it at all So there it was the best of times and the worst of times If you were Julie or Esther it was the best of times and if you were me Margot Green it was the worst The absolute worst When I got to my fifth-grade room everyone everyone was sitting around and talking to each other I discovered that they were discussing 8
the notice written on the chalkboard Summer Homework No one quite knew what to make of it It was written in the very neat cursive that our teacher Mrs Eldridge uses when she writes on the board When she writes a note to another teacher her handwriting is easily the worst in the class It must be a joke I thought No teacher in the history of school ever gave homework over the summer Mrs Eldridge came into the room She had been down the hall speaking with another teacher Everyone began shouting You can’t give us homework Mrs Eldridge gave a big laugh not a mean one just a real hearty one that showed that she had some joke on us And then she explained I’m going to be your teacher again in the fall We all cheered at that No matter how angry you got at teachers during the year 9
