Books about Absolutely Alfie
BOOK #1
Absolutely Alfie and the Furry Purry Secret
BOOK #2
Absolutely Alfie and the First Week Friends
BOOK #3
Absolutely Alfie and the Worst Best Sleepover
VIKING
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2018
Text copyright © 2018 by Sally Warner
Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Shearry Malone
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE
HC ISBN: 9781101999929
PB ISBN: 9781101999943
EBOOK ISBN: 9781101999936
Version_2
To my youngest new friend, Edie Chambers.
—S.W.
To Lauren—
My favorite bookworm, long time friend and supporter. This one's for you.
—S.M.
Contents
Books about Absolutely Alfie
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
(1) Freeze!
(2) A Secret
(3) Shared Reading
(4) Like a Wasp at a Picnic Table
(5) Pretty Little Princess
(6) Great Advice
(7) Miffed, Hurt, Irked, and Furious
(8) Uh-Oh
(9) “Meet Your Neighbors!”
(10) A Pickle
(11) The Yips
(12) In a State
(13) Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
(14) The Worst Best Sleepover Ever
(15) Ready for a Party
(16) Upside-Down Heads
(17) Even
(18) The Saturday Morning Jammie Breakfast Party!
1 Freeze!
“I finished that worksheet,” seven-year-old Alfie Jakes told her big brother EllRay on Monday morning, after a drippy bite of cereal. “But I think weekend homework is just mean. Mr. Havens is mean.”
She was kidding. Mr. Havens was Alfie’s second grade teacher. His nickname was “Coach,” because he taught basketball during recess and after school. All the kids in Alfie’s class liked him—even if they didn’t like his homework assignments.
Weekend homework least of all.
It was the fourth week of school, just past the middle of September. Alfie and eleven-year-old EllRay were eating as fast as they could. Their mom was packing snacks and lunches for the day at the kitchen island.
“You know he’s not mean,” EllRay said. “And if you think that homework was bad, wait until sixth grade,” he added, making a face.
“I have to wait, don’t I?” Alfie asked. “Because I’m only in second grade now. So duh.”
Alfie and EllRay liked to tease each other, but they knew they were a team—and their gray kitten, Princess, was the mascot.
“Was the worksheet hard?” EllRay asked, looking up from the back of the cereal box he was reading.
“It was no big deal,” Alfie said, shrugging. “It was easy as pie, in fact.”
“Easy as pie?” EllRay asked, grinning. “What kind of pie? Rock pie? Cement pie? Because you were griping about it like crazy last night.”
“Not because it was hard,” Alfie said, scooping up another bite of cereal. “I just don’t know that much about the boys in my class, that’s all. Why should I? Or even some of the new girls?”
Mr. Havens’s weekend worksheet was titled, “You Have a Second Grade Friend Who—”
Each worksheet had nine boxes in it, and every box included a cute drawing. The drawings had been done by “Mrs. Coach,” the girls whispered, Mr. Havens’s probably beautiful wife. Each box had a description written in it, such as:
“Who likes to sing!”
“Who has a dog!”
“Who plays basketball!”
Mr. Havens’s students were told to write down the name of a classmate who matched that description.
They were supposed to know all the kids in class by now, Alfie guessed.
That was probably the whole point of their weekend homework.
“So what did you do?” EllRay asked. “Just make stuff up—as usual?”
“Be quiet. I do not do that,” Alfie said. But she started to giggle.
“Come on,” EllRay teased in a coaxing voice. “You can tell me.”
“Okay. Maybe I made stuff up, and maybe I didn’t,” Alfie joked back, keeping her voice low. “I mean, I already know Arletty likes the color red. I know that new girl Bella Babcock has three dogs. And I know Lulu Marino likes fancy clothes. But how am I supposed to know what Scooter Davis and Bryan Martinez like? Not to mention Alan Lewis, who never even talks. I’m not a mind reader.”
“You could always ask them,” their mother said, hearing all this as she worked at the kitchen island. “But we need to get going, guys. Dishes in the sink, if you please.”
This was telling, not asking.
Mrs. Jakes wrote romantic books for ladies about the olden days. That was how Alfie and EllRay had gotten such weird names. For example, “Alfleta” meant “beautiful elf” in some language from more than a thousand years ago. And “EllRay” was short for “Lancelot Raymond,” or “L. Ray.”
Lancelot was a handsome knight in a famous old story.
Sometimes her mom got carried away, in Alfie’s opinion. Like with baby names.
Because Mrs. Jakes was a writer, she worked at home in Oak Glen, California—unlike her husband, who was a geology professor at a college in San Diego. Dr. Jakes left early for work most weekday mornings.
But even though her mom didn’t have to hurry off to a job, there was always a last-minute rush to school, Alfie knew, carrying her bowl and spoon to the sink. This probably happened even on Mars! Alfie could just picture blobby little Martians leaving behind their field trip permission slips and tiny four-armed sweaters as they rushed out the door of their glowing pod-house each morning.
“No offense, Mom,” Alfie said, dragging her mind back to planet Earth as she sloshed water in her empty cereal bowl. “But I’m not about to ask some strange boy if he’s scared of the dark, or if he loves the color orange. And anyway,” she added, taking
