Words from "Miss Alaineus, A Vocabulary Disaster" by Debra Frasier

Sage has misheard an misunderstood one of Mrs. Page's weekly vocabulary words. Her error leads to a humbling catastrophe: a momentous tragedy.

Can Sage turn her vocabulary disaster: an event bringing great misfortune, into a triumph: a true success?

Can Sage turn her vocabulary disaster: an event bringing great misfortune, into a triumph: a true success?

None of this would have happened if it wasn't for Forest. Forest is not a thicket of trees. Forest is a boy.

I thought I was pretty good at definitions until this week. My mom says, "Pride goeth before a fall." Pride: an unduly high opinion of oneself.

When I was little I figured out that [Miss Alaineus] had something to do with the kitchen, because the Miss Alaineus drawer held the spoons too big to fit anywhere else, the sharp corn holders shaped like tiny cobs, and the spaghetti spork, that weird cross between a spoon and a fork that perfectly lifts slippery spaghetti out of the bowl. I thought maybe she was an ancestor: an ancient relative long dead.

[During the Vocabulary Bee] Starr was the first with museum. "M-U-S-E-U-M: a building for exhibiting objects about art or history or science."

[During the Vocabulary Bee] Cliff, not a high, steep face of rock, but one very tall boy, answered to the word dinosaur: "D-I-N-O-S-A-U-R: a prehistoric, extinct reptile, often huge," and he went to the back of the line.

[During the Vocabulary Bee] Cliff, not a high, steep face of rock, but one very tall boy, answered to the word dinosaur: "D-I-N-O-S-A-U-R: a prehistoric, extinct reptile, often huge," and he went to the back of the line.

I was Sage: one who shows wisdom, experience, judgment. Why were they laughing?

Humbled: aware of one’s shortcomings, modest, meek, I dragged back to my seat and wrote miscellaneous five times and defined it once.

That's when I remembered I had even drawn a picture of the spaghetti box for extra credit. I was devastated: wasted, ravaged. Ruined: destroyed. Finished: brought to an end.

That's when I remembered I had even drawn a picture of the spaghetti box for extra credit. I was devastated: wasted, ravaged. Ruined: destroyed. Finished: brought to an end.

That's when I remembered I had even drawn a picture of the spaghetti box for extra credit. I was devastated: wasted, ravaged. Ruined: destroyed. Finished: brought to an end.

"You know what I always say...There's gold in every mistake."

"Impossible," I told her...I couldn't believe I ever had to go back to school.

To my astonishment: great shock and amazement, I won a gold trophy for The Most Original Use of a Word in the Tenth Annual Vocabulary Parade.

And next year I think I'm going to be...Miss Sterious, Investigator of All Things Mysterious." [on costume: "Mysterious. Full of mystery, hard to explain or understand.]

It took the most courage I've ever had to walk out on that stage as Miss Alaineus, Queen of All Miscellaneous Things.

I didn't feel much better on Wednesday, so my mom called Mrs. Page, who is not a a single side of a printed sheet of paper usually found bound in a book. She's my teacher, and actually Mrs. Page is a good name for her because she reads to us every day.

[Mrs. Page] grinned. Not smiled--grinned: to draw back the lips and bare the teeth, as in a very wide smile--and the entire class burst into one huge giggling, laughing, falling-down mass of kids.

When Mr. Bell read my word and definition, everyone applauded and laughed wildly: in a manner lacking all restraint, and I grinned at my mom across the auditorium.