The Best School Year Ever: Chapters 4–7

Alice reported this to her mother, and Mrs. Wendleken was so disgusted about the whole thing that she resigned from the PTA, which my father said was good news for the PTA.

Last year they were all absent on October 4 and we had Arbor Day because for the last three years the Herdmans stole the tree, and the principal said at least this year we’d finally get it planted, even if it died over the winter.

“It’s obvious that Gladys Herdman got that poor little boy to knock himself silly and cause a big commotion, and then she went to the cafeteria and walked off with every last cookie!”

You couldn’t feel very sorry for him because he was a big celebrity with his name in the newspaper

“UNUSUAL PERFORMANCE BY PLUCKY EUGENE PRESTON EARNS STANDING OVATION AT WOODROW WILSON TALENT SHOW”

I figured Imogene was making this up as she went along, so you had to be impressed with her imagination.

Then two teachers and a district supervisor and Mrs. Wendleken all got locked in the teachers’ room by accident. They were in there for an hour and a half...
They were all pretty mad, especially the district supervisor...

"...I let Kenneth out.”
“My mother was in there,” Alice said, “and she didn’t see Kenneth.”
“Did you ask her?”
“No, because I know Kenneth Weaver is in Toledo.”
“He is now,” Imogene said.
This was typical Herdman—too shifty to figure out, and Alice didn’t even try.

Once a year we had to take an IQ test and a psychology test and an aptitude test, which showed what you might grow up to be if the Herdmans let you get out of the Woodrow Wilson School alive. But the only test the Herdmans ever bothered to take was the eye test.

Boomer Malone’s little sister Gwenda said the suspense was awful—waiting for the bus to blow up or turn over—and between that and having to milk a cow, the whole third grade was wiped out for the rest of the day.

“I’ve got the big bugs on me!” he yelled, and right away all the other kids began to yell and scream and jump up and down and thrash around so Mrs. Yeagle had to stop the bus and get everybody settled down.

Miss Kemp spent ten minutes talking about manners and hospitality, but I guess she figured Howard might be a pain in the neck, too, because she didn’t make Louella untie him.

The next day the art teacher, Miss Harrison, stopped Louella in the hall and gave her a bunch of stubby crayons for Howard.

“I just heard about your little brother’s blanket,” she said. “Louella, you aren’t going to find it because I threw it away. The last time we had art I used it to wipe the pastels off the chalkboard and then I just threw it away. I’m really sorry, but I didn’t know it was Howard’s blanket. It looked like my car-washing rag.”

“They aren’t really initials,” Louella said. “I think they’re just what’s left of the bunny pattern.”
I guess Louella believed this, but I knew better. They were Imogene’s initials, all right, and this was Imogene’s blanket. Maybe somebody took it away from her when she was a baby, and maybe she yelled and held her breath and turned purple, so she would know exactly how Howard felt. She would be sympathetic.