EllRay Jakes Rocks the Holidays! by Sally Warner Page B

voice.
    Fiona, who is already handing the lyrics to Kry Rodriguez, stops.
    She just
stops
.

    And then she backs up a few steps, as if she has thrown herself into reverse. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
    “
What
did you just say to me?” she asks. It’s like my words just gave her an electric shock.
    Well, she’s not the only one. I can’t even feel my face.
    “I said, ‘Thanks, Fiona,’” I tell her, studying the words to the song.
Supposedly.
    “I mean after that,” Fiona says.
    “After that, what?” I ask, looking up at her and blinking, to show how innocent I am.
    Hey. I said it once. No one said anything about saying it
twice
.
    “What did you say after that?” she asks.
    “I said, ‘Have a nice day,’” I tell Fiona.
    She narrows her eyes. “You’d better not be making fun of me, EllRay Jakes, or you’re gonna get it,” she whispers.
    Right. What’s she going to do? Crayon all over me with feathery strokes until I apologize?
    But I have to admit, she looks like she’s on the edge of hurt feelings. “I’m not making fun,” I tell her quietly.
    And that’s the solid truth. I’m not.
    I’m just trying to complete this challenge.
    “Fiona! Finish up,
if you please
, so we can all start singing,” Ms. Sanchez calls out. And Fiona shoots me one last look.
    I sneak a glance at Kevin, who is shaking with silent laughter. He gives me a thumbs-up, though.
    He would be high-fiving Jared and Stanley, if he could.
    But who cares? I completed the second—
third!
—challenge.

14
PAYING CLOSE ATTENTION
    “EllRay,” Ms. Sanchez says at two-thirty, just after recess. “Can you stay after school for just a bit?”
    It is an hour before class lets out for the day, and we are each working on a Personal Timeline, even though tomorrow is the last day of school before Christmas vacation. I mean before Winter Wonderland vacation. But I guess Ms. Sanchez is determined to get some schoolwork done today.
    A timeline is a graph that uses a line to show the passage of time. We get to make any kind of timeline we want, which is pretty cool. I am making a timeline of the third grade so far, from September to now. Emma McGraw wants to be a nature scientist someday, so she is making a timeline showing the life of a typical mouse. Spoiler alert: it does not have a happy ending.
    Corey Robinson—the champion swimmer—is making a timeline that will start when he first learned to dog-paddle. It will probably end in the future, at the Olympics. And Cynthia Harbison is doing a timeline she is calling “Cynthia Harbison’s History of the Universe,” only I don’t think she’ll finish in time to hand it in.
    “I thought you and I might run through what you’re going to say at the assembly tomorrow morning,” Ms. Sanchez says.
    “Sure. But can you call my mom and ask her to pick me up late?” I ask.
    See, Mom’s driving me home today because of the rain. But I know she won’t mind picking me up later than usual, She and Alfie will probably go out for hot chocolate at Grounds for Fun, Mom’s favorite place to hang with other writers. “Can you please tell her that I want hot chocolate, if she gets any? With whipped cream on top?” I ask.
    “Will do,” Ms. Sanchez says, making an invisible check mark in the air. “And I’ll give her my order as well,” she adds, joking.
    “Mom would get something for you,” I tell her. “Really. She’d be happy to.”
    “I know she would, sweetie,” Ms. Sanchez says,laughing. “She’s a peach. I guess it runs in the family.”
    “Huh,” I say, trying to figure out whether or not that is a compliment.
    But I decide to decide that it is.
    I think that’s the best way to handle comments like that, when you’re not sure.

    “Okay,” Ms. Sanchez says after the last kid has shuffled out the door. “Only one more day to go, Mr. Jakes, and then we’re
off
. For seventeen whole days!”
    “Huh,” I say again, even though Dad doesn’t like me to say “huh” at home. I’m