Free The Girls Take Over by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Page B

“Your word is precocious. ”
    Wally closed his eyes. He knew it. Of courseCaroline would get a word like that. Of course she would get it right. Miss Applebaum might as well have asked her to spell her own name. He opened his eyes.
    Caroline was so confident that she did not ask to have the word repeated. She did not ask to have it used in a sentence. She smiled again at the teacher. Smiled at the class. Then she opened her mouth and said, “P-r-e-c-o-s-i-o-u-s.”
    Wally snapped to attention. It was wrong! She had spelled it wrong! Caroline Malloy's first word in the spelling contest, and she'd blown it!
    And just as suddenly, Caroline, too, realized that she had it wrong.
    “C,” she cried. “I meant p-r-e-c-o-c-i-o-u-s !”
    Miss Applebaum looked at her sadly.
    “Miss Applebaum, I knew that word! I knew it all along!” Caroline gasped. “I was just so excited that I got a word I knew that I spelled it too fast. It's p-r-e —”
    “I'm sorry, Caroline, but the rule is that you have to spell it right the first time.”
    Caroline stared at the teacher without moving. Then she faced the class. “But I knew it!” she wailed. “I knew it, I knew it!”
    “Sit down,” somebody said.
    “But I knew it!” Caroline kept repeating, tears forming in her eyes.
    “Take your seat, Caroline,” Miss Applebaum said.
    The next girl correctly spelled sergeant, accompanied by soft wails from Caroline in the second row.
    Wally stuck it out to the end. He correctly spelled abruptly and beneficial, and then he was the last one left.
    “Class, let's have a big round of applause for our fourth-grade winner,” said Miss Applebaum. “Wally Hatford will go to the county spelling contest for our grade.”
    Everyone clapped. All but Caroline. She had her face buried in her arms, and every now and then her shoulders gave a little shudder.
    Wally raised his hand. “May I go to the rest room?” he asked.
    “Of course,” said the teacher.
    Wally walked stiffly from the room, feeling really sick. He went down the hall to the boys' rest room and shut himself in a stall. Then he scratched and he scratched and he scratched.

Fifteen

Clean and Beautiful
    “W hen the going gets tough, the tough get going.
    That was what Coach Malloy would tell his football team when they were behind in a game. It hung on a plaque in the Malloys' kitchen, and now, the day after the school spelling contest, Caroline was looking up at it on the wall.
    Maybe that was meant for her. The going had certainly been tough for her lately. It wasn't enough that she had fallen in the river and almost been swept away. Not enough that everyone was mad at her because of the note she had put in her bottle. Now she had blown the spelling bee as well, and it was Wally Hatford, not she, who would represent their fourth grade in the county contest. What a lousy April!
    What she felt worst about, however, was that Beth and Eddie were hardly talking to her. Caroline couldn't bear being ignored. The next day after school, whenthe Hatford boys had gone on home, leaving the Malloy girls to walk alone, Caroline trailed woefully behind her sisters, who acted as though she weren't there.
    Finally she said in a small sad voice, “So what am I? Just another leg, trailing along behind you?”
    And when neither of them answered, she said, “Maybe I'm not even a leg. Maybe I'm just a foot. A tired old foot that just clumps along at the end of a leg behind her sisters.”
    Even though her sisters were ahead of her, Caroline could tell from the way their cheeks puffed out at the sides that they were smiling.
    “A shoe !” Caroline cried pitifully. “A dirty old shoe with a floppy sole that—”
    “Okay, okay,” Eddie said, turning around and laughing. “Come on up and walk with us, but can you possibly stay out of trouble for once?”
    “I never tried to get us in trouble,” Caroline said. “I never meant for us to have to do work at the police station.”
    “That doesn't