Free Ellray Jakes Walks the Plank by Sally Warner

VIKING
    Published by Penguin Group
    Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
    Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
    Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
    Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
    Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
    Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
    Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
    Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
    Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
    First published in 2012 by Viking, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group
    1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
    Text copyright © Sally Warner, 2012
    Illustrations copyright © Jamie Harper, 2012
    All rights reserved
    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
    Warner, Sally.
    EllRay Jakes walks the plank / by Sally Warner; illustrated by Jamie Harper.
    p. cm.
    Summary: Third-grader EllRay is becoming famous for messing up when his little sister accidentally kills the classroom goldfish EllRay is taking care of and then he leaves his teacher’s read-aloud book at home.
    ISBN: 978-1-101-56584-1
    [1. Behavior—Fiction. 2. Responsibility—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. African Americans—Fiction.]
    I. Harper, Jamie, ill. II. Title.
    PZ7.W24644Ep 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011016029
    Manufactured in China
    Set in ITC Century
    Book design by Nancy Brennan
    Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

For Lucy and Noah Parsons
—S.W.
    For Alison and Maddie —J.H.

ZIP, NOT SWIMMY
    “Why do you hate Swimmy?” my four-year-old sister Alfie asks me one rainy afternoon in April during spring break.
    “I don’t hate him,” I say, pressing PAUSE on my hand-held video game. And it’s true. I just don’t want to start liking him too much, that’s all. He has to go back to school on Monday.
    Alfie and I are both sitting on my bed, but I am the only one who is supposed to be here. I was alone in my room, leaning against my pillows minding my own business, trying to top my personal best in
Die, Creature, Die
. Mom thinks the game is too violent, but it’s not. It’s just space creatures you are socking with your FIST OF DOOM . But Alfie ruined the whole thing.
    “He’s just a regular goldfish,” I say. “He’s barelyeven two inches long. What is there to hate?”
    “But you don’t
like
him,” Alfie says, not backing down.
    Everyone says how cute my sister is, but they don’t know how stubborn she can be. She is golden-brown like an acorn, and she has big brown eyes. She usually wears her hair in three puffy little braids, one on each side of her head and one sort of in the back. It’s hard to explain girls’ hair right.
    I am
so
glad I do not have to be the one to fix Alfie’s hair each morning, by the way! You should hear the yelling. And Alfie’s braids have to be just perfect. I feel sorry for my mom.

    “That fish is not even ours,