Being Teddy Roosevelt by Claudia Mills

Author:Claudia Mills [Mills, Claudia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-374-30657-1
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: 2007-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

“Sure.” Riley collected his cards, stuffed them in his envelope, and followed Grant out the door. “What’s Gandhi up to these days?”

“Well, it’s actually pretty amazing,” Grant said slowly. “The guy was, like, really brave. He would never use violence against anybody, no matter how much violence they used against him. There was this unfair British law against collecting salt.”

“Salt?”

“I know, it sounds dumb, but that’s what it was. Gandhi and his followers marched all the way to the sea, hundreds of miles, to collect salt, and the British kept attacking them, but they didn’t fight back, they just kept on going.”

“Wow,” Riley said. They had reached the bus stop. “What about the underwear? Why did he dress like that?”

“He wanted to be poor and simple. And not wear any clothes made by the British.”

“So what are you going to wear to the biography tea?”

Grant stared at him. “What do you think? If I’m going to do this thing, I’m going to do it right. But I’ll wear my swimsuit underneath.”

On the bus ride home, the bus driver had a perfect Teddy Roosevelt mustache. Riley and Grant sat in the back of the bus again and talked more about loincloths.

“You’d have to wear a lot of sunblock all the time in the summer,” Riley said.

“Yeah, and in the winter you’d need a coat or something. A swimsuit underneath and a coat on top.”

This time Grant pulled the cord for their stop.

The instant Riley got off the bus, he had a terrible feeling. “My note cards! I left them on the bus!” He watched in disbelief as the bus rumbled away.

“The envelope’s not in your pockets?”

Just to be sure, Riley patted his pockets, but he knew his cards were on the bus.

Thirty note cards. A whole week of work. Everything he needed for his five-page paper. Gone. Forever.

No. Not gone forever. If Teddy Roosevelt lost his index cards for a book report, he’d get them back. This was just another obstacle to climb over.

Riley tried to stay calm. There was no way that he could catch up with the bus, however fast he ran after it.

“If we wait for the next bus,” Riley said, thinking out loud, “maybe that driver can call this driver and tell him I left my cards. And then he can stop on the way back and give them to me.”

“What if someone stole them?” Grant asked.

“Who’s going to steal index cards for a report on Teddy Roosevelt?”

“Someone else writing a report on Teddy Roosevelt?”

Riley punched him in the shoulder.

“Okay,” Grant said. “I’ll wait with you.”

As they waited, the wind came up. A few drops of rain fell. Riley and Grant huddled under a tree. It seemed a lot longer than ten minutes, but finally the bus appeared. As soon as the door wheezed open, Riley blurted out his problem.

The driver sighed. “I can’t be bothering another driver about some kid’s note cards.”

“Please?” Riley begged. “Thirty note cards? For a five-page paper? On Teddy Roosevelt?”

The driver sighed again.

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