Seventh Grade in the Life of Me, Penelope by Alison Pollet

Author:Alison Pollet [Pollet, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-545-37692-1
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2004-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

The next morning, a note was delivered to Penelope. It said:

Meet me on the bench outside the side

entrance of the Guggenheim today at 2.

Your mom and Fred are going to a lecture.

If you want to seek the truth, you’ll show up.

If not, oh well.

Sincerely,

Cass

P.S. Thanks for the purple cow.

Penelope had planned on studying for the Algebra test all day. She really had. She hadn’t even considered meeting Cass. But at noon, when she heard the sounds of her mother preparing to go out — the shower, a blow-dryer, then humming (was her mother really humming?) — curiosity started to get the better of her.

She tried to resist it. She had work to do! If she didn’t study, she was going to fail the Algebra test! She tried to do a word problem about a guy named Mario jogging along a trout stream. But every time Mario started his jog along the stream, she forgot about how many miles he went, and who was faster, him or the trout, and all she could think was, Who’s this stupid guy Mario? Who cares about trout? And why is my mother humming?

She called Stacy. Whether she actually wanted to talk to her or if her fingers longed to perform their familiar dance on the number pad, Penelope wasn’t sure. But she knew that if she heard Stacy’s voice, she could get rid of the curiosity.

After three rings, Shirley Commack answered.

“Oh, hi, Pen — crunch! — how are you? — crunch! — good? — sorry, I’m eating potato chips.” There was a rumpling of the bag. “I guess I don’t have to tell you that. You know what I’m like on deadline. Anyway, Stacy’s not here. Hasn’t been all weekend. Somehow, don’t ask me how, she resisted a fun weekend at home and opted for a glamorous sleepover at Vicki’s house. You can call her there. She’s probably salivating over their precious Park Avenue pad as we speak. Crunch!”

Shirley Commack hung up before Penelope could ask for Vicki’s number. She’d have to get it off the class list. But where was that? She was searching her room when she heard the noises: the clipping of high heels, the jangle of her mother’s keys, doors closing — first the coat closet door, then the front door. Penelope abandoned her search for the seventh-grade class list and Vicki’s number. Instead, she threw a sweatshirt over her head, pulled on her Levi’s, and shoved her feet into her Tretorns without lacing them up. She’d get them in the elevator. She grabbed her coat. It was 1:35, and if she ran to the bus, she might still make it.

“What mischief are you up to today, Miss Penelope?” asked Carlos as she tore across the lobby. Penelope knew he was joking — she’d be the last person to do anything Carlos considered remotely bad — but as he waggled his finger at her as if to say “I’m onto you,” she felt a surge of energy go through her and she ran to the crosstown bus in record time, not even stopping to search for Moes.

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