When we reached the intersection, I looked across the street. There was the red hat, sitting on top of a newspaper stand.
“He found it!” I let Baxter pull me across the street.
He rose up on his hind feet and thwumped his front paws down on the newspaper stand, one paw on each side of the hat. His tail wagged a million times a minute.
Professor Reese puffed up to join us. “I thought we’d find it closer to Nineteenth.”
TJ shrugged. “Maybe the wind blew it.”
But there wasn’t a breath of wind. Every leaf was still.
Professor Reese turned to Baxter and said, “How on earth did you do that?”
7Study Butt-ies
As we walked back to Professor Reese’s house, I asked, “Have there been any calls from the flyers we put up about Baxter?”
“Nothing yet, dear,” Professor Reese answered.
I thought, Yay! And I kept thinking it, the whole way home.
When we got there, Mom was just getting out of the car. It was a great opportunity to show her how dependable I was being.
“We just did Baxter’s walk, right on schedule,” I said.
“Great!” Mom smiled.
“Jordie and TJ were very helpful,” Professor Reese said. Then she turned to me. “Can you walk Baxter again tomorrow?”
I looked at Mom and TJ, and they both nodded—Mom’s nod meaning, Yes, and TJ’s meaning, Ha-ha, you have to do my chores again.
“I can walk Baxter every day for the rest of my life!” I said.
The next morning, I ran to school to tell Megan all about dog walking Baxter. “Can you come over today to meet him?”
“No. My mom said she has to look at my schedule.” Then she frowned. “She and Dad are mad at each other because the piano recital is on one of his weekends.”
“Doesn’t he want to come?” I asked as we walked toward the classroom.
“He does. But my grandma and grandpa just called last night and said they want to come, too. They’re flying in just for the recital. And since they are my mom’s parents, they always stay at Mom’s, not Dad’s.” She sighed. “So now Dad is mad because Mom wants me to stay home and spend time with them and not go to Dad’s at all that weekend.”
“Can’t they switch weekends?”
She shrugged. “Probably. If they change all the other stuff they already have planned. It’s just always so complicated.”
I gave her a quick hug. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” She smiled.
But even if Megan couldn’t come over right away, she’d be able to come over sometime. So all during math I tried to figure out—with Mrs. A. interrupting a million times—the fun things that me and Megan could do with Baxter that would cheer her up for sure. I couldn’t wait until recess to tell her!
But right as Mrs. A. was dismissing everyone, she said, “Jordie and Tyler, could you come here for a minute?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Tyler protested, which is what he always says right after he does something.
“You’re not in trouble,” Mrs. A. said. “You’ve been chosen for a special honor.”
So me and Tyler went up to her desk to find out what it was.
“This week we’re starting our Second-Grade Study Buddy program,” Mrs. A. said. For the next two weeks, instead of morning recess, two fifth-grade Buddies would go help in a second-grade classroom. “I’d like you to be our class’s first Buddies.”
“Do I have to?” Tyler whined.
But I thought, She chose me first!
I knew exactly why I’d been chosen: my excellent people skills. She must have chosen me to balance out Tyler because he did not have excellent people skills, unless by “people skills” you mean making farting noises with your armpit or sticking girls’ pencils up your nose (the eraser end, not the pointy end)—in which case, he was ready for the Nobel People Prize.
He complained up one hallway and down the other to the second-grade classrooms, but I couldn’t wait to get to Room Six. When we came in, the little kids were all smiley. The bulletin board said Welcome, Study Buddies with Jordie and Tyler beneath. There was even juice and cheese and crackers for a Welcome Study Buddies Party.
My group was two girls: Maya, who peeked out at me from under her bangs, and Katie, who’d already finished her snack except for some crumbs stuck to her hands and chin, from where it looked like her juice box leaked.
They were so cute—they loved me right away.
My group was so excited to have a Study Buddy! Tyler’s group was excited, too, because the first assignment was to measure things with centimeter rulers, and his two kids—a boy named Logan and a girl named Chloe—were already having a sword fight.
“Settle down,” Mrs. Wilson said, but then she went back to teaching the rest of the class. Soon Tyler was sword fighting, too.
My group measured the length of a stapler (12 cm), the height of a book (31 cm), and the width of the computer monitor (41 cm). We even measured the diameter of my crackers (4.25 cm) before I ate them, which wasn’t part of the assignment. But Dad always says a little extra credit never hurt anyone, and I figured the decimal would look good in there.
I was having so much fun with Katie and Maya that I decided me and Megan’s full-service salon should be a vet/beauty parlor/day care: when I gave the dogs a bath, the kids of the women getting their hair done could help scrub. It would be perfect because then their hands would be clean for lunch.
Tyler’s group was having fun, too, but no one was measuring anything because they were so busy whapping one another’s arms with the rulers. And right about the time I heard him say, “I didn’t do anything!” I had a feeling that Tyler wasn’t going to be a very good Study Buddy.
By the next morning, Tyler had
