Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great by Judy Blume Page B

them, smiling at Mouse and Russ.
     
        That night I made up my mind that the next time I think up such a great project I will be the boss and my committee of workers will do everything else!
     
     
     
Chapter Ten
     
     
        IT turned out that Allen and Paul, the boys who won my contest, liked being in charge of the camp newspaper. They formed all kinds of committees and hardly missed any of their regular activities. Mrs. Bindel volunteered to do all their typing. Some people really take the easy way out! They even changed the name of my paper from NEWSDATE BY SHEILA THE GREAT , to Allen and Paul . . . Tell All.
     
        Mouse is one of the camp reporters. She acts like that's a big deal.
     
        "You must really not like newspaper work if you gave up after just one week," Mouse said.
     
        "It's not that I don't like it," I told her. "It's just that the challenge was gone."
     
        "Well," Mouse said, "I think it's a challenge every week and I've decided that I'm going to be a real reporter some day. And I'm going to have a byline too! So when you see 'By Mouse Ellis' in your paper you can tell your friends you knew me when I was starting out."
     
        "Swell," I said. "You do that. I will probably be something more exciting myself."
     
        "Like what?" Mouse asked.
     
        "Oh. . . something!"
     
        "You can't tell me because you don't know. Right?"
     
        "I'm still deciding," I said. "I might be a weather forecaster."
     
        "A weather forecaster?"
     
        "Yes. I think it would be pretty exciting to always know the weather in advance."
     
        "Hey," Mouse said. "I just got a swell idea. Maybe I can be a reporter on TV and you can be the weather forecaster and we'll call our show Ellis and Tubman Report ."
     
        "I like Tubman and Ellis Report better," I said.
     
        "Maybe it should be Mouse and Sheila Report ."
     
        "Or Sheila and Mouse Report ," I said.
     
        "Well, we don't have to decide about that now."
     
        "Right. It's the show that's the good idea," I said. "What we call it isn't that important."
     
        "But we'll definitely be a team," Mouse said.
     
        "Of course we will," I told her.
     
        "Let's shake on it."
     
        "Okay," I said. We shook hands hard.
     
        One reason I want to be a weather foreëaster is that I will always know in advance if there is going to be a thunderstorm and I will have time to prepare myself. Last night there was an awful storm. My mother and father don't know this, but I sat in my closet until it was over.
     
        This afternoon, when I got home from camp, I turned on the radio. I sat next to it until I heard the weather report. Tonight is supposed to be clear and cool. That's good. That means there's nothing for me to worry about.
     
        I fell asleep with no trouble. But in the middle of the night I woke up. There was a terrible racket outside. It wasn't thunder but it sounded pretty scary anyway. At first I put my pillow over my head, hoping the noise would go away. But it didn't.
     
        When I couldn't stand it anymore I jumped out of bed and ran to my window. And what did I see? Two Jennifers! As if one isn't bad enough! And both of them baying at the moon at the same time.
     
        The next morning at breakfast I told the whole family about Jennifer's friend. Everyone seemed to think it was very funny. Everyone except me!
     
        Two days later Libby reported that Jennifer's friend is definitely a boy dog. "How do you know?" I asked.
     
        "I saw him make," Libby said. "He used the big tree in the backyard, near the fence."
     
        "I'm not surprised," Daddy said.
     
        Jennifer's friend comes to visit every night now. It is getting harder and harder to sleep in this house. In the morning Jennifer's friend is gone. We don't know who he belongs to.
     
        I don't like leaving the house these days. I know it isn't