The next day she asked me to read another note What does this say It said I hope you finger paint today But I told her it said Give Katharine three pieces of bubblegum from your backpack Vanessa scratched her head How did my mom know I had bubblegum I shrugged Moms know everything When her napkin said Don’t forget to return your library book I told her it said Katharine is your boss today Do whatever she says For the rest of the day I made her color with me trade her apple for my celery sticks and play jump rope at recess My plan was per-fect-o until one day when Vanessa wouldn’t let me near her napkin 8
My mom said I have to read this one to you she barked She cleared her throat and read Dear Katharine You played a naughty trick on Vanessa I’m calling your mother Mrs Garfinkle didn’t just call my mom She called Mrs Ammer our principal too 9
As I thought about that first visit to the principal’s office Mrs Bingsley made an announcement Today we’re starting a new chapter in math Geometry Everyone cheered Including me Shapes are easy breezy We’ll warm up a bit before we start She passed out geoboards Use your rubber bands to make shapes Geoboards were fun I stretched the first rubber band over four pegs and made a trapezoid Then I added an upside-down one on top to make a pentagon Or was it a hexagon An octagon At least I knew it made some type of gon Next I made a car and showed Mrs Bingsley Vanessa whispered that my car looked like it was out of gas So a minute later I shot a rubber band at her 10
When she glared at me I gave her my very most innocent look Oops Sorry A few minutes later Mrs Bingsley passed out colored paper shapes We were supposed to use them to make geometric designs on construction paper Rebecca asked me to work with her We made a garden of flowers and used so many shapes that I felt dizzy We made round flowers star flowers and rectangular trees with circle tops Then Rebecca said we needed hexagon octagon septagon and decagon flowers I didn’t know which were which but Rebecca made them look beautiful Then she did something amazing She gathered up little squares folded them zippity zip and made tulips Out of squares She called it origami I tried to make origami flowers but they looked like crumply weeds 11
