Daisy's Defining Day by Sandra V. Feder, Susan Mitchell Page B

she said.

    Mrs. Bookman thought, too.
    â€œAnd mighty memorable!” she responded.
    Daisy gave Mrs. Bookman a high five and then explained the exercise Miss Goldner had done with them. Mrs. Bookman listened carefully, offering Daisy some grapefruit soda to wash down her edamame. Then Daisy shared her list of
Perfectly Paired Words
.
    â€œLovely list!” Mrs. Bookman exclaimed.
    Daisy headed home with her mind full of wonderful word combinations and her tummy full of super snacks. She was in such a good mood that she didn’t even mind when her mother asked her to finish her homework before dinner. After dinner, it took three long games of dominoes with her father before she finally won. To celebrate her victory, she did a happy dance.
    But later that night, after she was in bed, her mind drifted back to Grant. She hoped he wouldn’t remember Lazy Daisy the next day. She distracted herself by thinking about chewy chunky chocolate chip cookies until she fell asleep. But in her dream that night, her chocolate chip cookie crumbs attracted ants, and she couldn’t figure out how to get rid of them.

Chapter Four

    When Daisy woke up, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling she had from her dream.
    â€œThat’s silly,” she told herself. “It was just a dream.” But as she stepped onto the playground at school, Grant called out, “Hi, Lazy Daisy.” Then he did it again twice during recess. By the time school ended, Daisy needed a break.
    â€œYou go ahead without me,” she told her friends. “I want to help Miss Goldner.”
    â€œI’ll help, too,” Emma said. Daisy smiled. Emma always seemed to know when Daisy needed her. Daisy and Emma stapled handouts for the next day.
    â€œI’ll be sad when Miss Goldner gets married and moves away,” Daisy said.
    â€œMe, too,” answered Emma. “But at least we have her until the end of the school year.”
    Daisy nodded.
    The girls said good-bye to Miss Goldner and headed home.
    â€œBye, Daisy,” Emma said — without any
lazy
, of course — as Daisy turned to go up her driveway.
    ***
    Daisy plopped down on the stool at the kitchen counter and told her mom all about her day. As excited as Daisy was about the new animal sentences she had added to her notebook that day, she couldn’t help hearing Grant’s chant of “Lazy Daisy.” She even remembered how a few of his friends had kept it up on the playground at lunchtime.
    â€œI wish I had a name that would stick better than Lazy Daisy,” she said.
    â€œWell, I still like to call you Daisy Bug,” her mom said.
    â€œThanks, but that’s not quite what I was looking for,” Daisy said. “I need a name that’s so great it will make everyone forget Lazy Daisy.”
    â€œEveryone’s so busy all the time,” her mother said. “I think being lazy is nice once in a while.”
    Despite her mother’s words, Daisy didn’t see how being called lazy could be anything but awful. A spectacular new name was definitely what she needed. Daisy thought about rhymes. Maybe she could come up with one that would make everyone forget
lazy
. But Crazy Daisy was even worse than Lazy Daisy, and Hazy Daisy wasn’t any better. She went into the backyard and tried to skip rope 50 times in a row. She got to 37 before her foot caught and she barely stopped herself from falling.
    Daisy lay down in the hammock to read over some of her favorite word lists from her notebook. She had recently made a new one called
Cloud Words
. She had
cotton candy, white, gray
and
floating
. Today, Daisy looked up and added the word
wispy
. She had just learned that
wispy
meant fine or feathery and thought it perfectly described the clouds above her.
    Because she was still restless, even after some quiet cloud watching, Daisy decided to go inside to talk to Bubbles, her pet fish, who came when she called his name. Talking to