Rosie Swanson: Fourth-Grade Geek for President by Barbara Park

Author:Barbara Park [Park, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-79709-4
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

The French fries are fine,

The fruit cup is better.

But don’t eat the peas,

Or you’ll ralph on your sweater.”

He looked up from his paper and started clapping for himself. “Alan Allen for better lunches!” he shouted.

I fell off my chair.

6 HARD FEELINGS

I caught myself before I hit the floor.

“Hey! Wait a minute! Hold it! That was my poem! He stole it, Mr. Jolly! He stole my poem!”

I stood up and stamped my foot. Mrs. Munson rushed up to the candidates’ table and ordered me to sit down again. I guess I must have done it, but I really don’t remember much. I was boiling over inside. Madder than I’ve ever been in my whole life, I mean.

The meeting came to a quick close. Mrs. Munson and Mr. Jolly met with Alan and me. Just the four of us.

“Tell us about the poem, Alan,” Mr. Jolly said.

As usual, Alan tried to act real cool and all. But he finally admitted that the poem was mine.

“I didn’t really steal it, though,” he said. “I just borrowed it, sort of. Just to recite at the meeting today.”

“Borrowed it?” I yelled. “You don’t borrow a poem, Alan. I didn’t even give you permission. You stole it!”

“I did not! I didn’t steal anything,” he insisted. “One of your friends spouted it out all over the place. If you don’t believe me, just ask him. It’s that geeky fifth-grader you hang out with. And anyway, my father told me that in political campaigns, people use each other’s ideas all the time. So I thought it would be okay.”

Mr. Jolly rolled his eyes. “Stealing a poem wasn’t what your father meant, Alan. I think you know that. The poem was Rosie’s. You owe her a big apology.”

I stamped my foot again. “No, Mr. Jolly! No! I don’t want an apology. I want Alan to drop out of the race. I worked hard on my campaign about cafeteria food, and now everyone will think that I’m copying him! He shouldn’t be able to run. He just shouldn’t.”

Mr. Jolly stared at Alan some more. Mrs. Munson just sat there tapping her foot. I mean, please! What was there to think about? Why didn’t they just kick him out?

Mr. Jolly ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know, Rosie,” he said. “We all agree that it was wrong that Alan recited your poem. But I’m not sure we should make him quit the race.”

He looked at Mrs. Munson. “I’m not even sure we can forbid him to campaign for better cafeteria food.”

A knot formed in my stomach. “Yes! You can! You’re teachers. You can forbid anything you want to.”

Mrs. Munson sighed. “The thing is, Rosie, Alan’s father may be right about this. This is politics. And in politics, if one candidate comes up with a good idea, you can’t forbid the other candidates from using it, too.”

“You need to understand this, Rosie,” Mr. Jolly said. “Let’s say that two men are running for president of the United States, and one of them decides he’ll lower taxes.

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