Free Be Nice to Mice by Nancy Krulik Page B

garbage sounds like a really boring project,” Suzanne said. “I wish we could do something more interesting.”
    George looked at her. “We could make it more interesting,” he suggested.
    “How?” Suzanne asked him.
    “We could make it a contest,” George told her. “The class that picks up the most trash wins.”
    “Wins what?” Suzanne wondered.
    George looked down at the mess of food on his plate. “The losing class has to buy the winning class pizza for lunch,” George told her.
    “George, that could get expensive,” Emma W. reminded him.
    “Not for us,” George assured her. “Class 4A will win. We win at everything.”
    “You do not,” Jeremy and Suzanne said in unison.
    “Class 4B won last week’s soccer game,” Becky Stern reminded everyone. “Thanks to you, Jeremy,” she added with a smile.
    Jeremy blushed.
    “So is it a bet?” George asked the kids in 4B.
    “You’re on,” Suzanne answered for the class.
    George smiled and shook Suzanne’s hand.
    “Can we stop talking about garbage?” Miriam Chan asked. “It’s bad enough we have to look at bugs all day in class. I’m tired of thinking about gross things.”
    “Just be glad you’re not Selena Sanchez,” Suzanne told her. “She’s using mice in her science project. I’d rather make a bug out of papier-mâché than work with real live mice.”

    “Ooh,” Miriam groaned. “I hate mice. They have creepy eyes and those long, stringy tails.”
    “I saw Selena bringing them into the science room today. She had them in a little wire cage.” Suzanne shuddered. “They were disgusting.”
    Katie gasped. “Selena is using live animals in her project?”
    “I guess so,” Suzanne told her. “Why else would she have brought a cage full of live mice to school? They aren’t exactly fashion accessories.”
    Usually, Katie would have told Suzanne not to be so nasty. But right now she was too upset to worry about anything her best friend did or said. She shot out of her chair and headed toward the other side of the cafeteria.
    “Katie, where are you going?” Miriam called after her.
    Katie pointed to a table in the far corner of the cafeteria, where some older kids were sitting and eating their lunches. “I’m going to talk to Selena,” she explained.
    All of the fourth-graders gasped.
    “But Katie, that’s the sixth-grade table !” Jeremy exclaimed.
    “Sixth-graders never talk to fourth-graders,” Suzanne added. “They’re going to laugh at you if you go over there.”
    Katie knew that was probably true. The sixth-graders were the oldest kids in the school. They had all their classes on the top floor of the school—where there was no one else but sixth-graders. They always sat together in one corner of the cafeteria. Katie had even once heard them say that all the kids in the school except for them were babies.
    But Katie didn’t care if the big kids called her a baby. She was going over to that table, and she was going to talk to Selena, no matter what.
    She had to. The mice needed her!

Chapter 4
    “What do you want?” Mickey, one of the sixth-graders, shouted at Katie as she approached their table.
    Katie gulped. Of course she had seen all the sixth-graders up close in the schoolyard. But it was kind of scary walking up to them all together like this. The sixth-graders were so big. If they got really mad at her, they could squash her like a bug—a fourth-grade bug.
    “Selena,” Katie said finally in a shaky voice. “Are you really using mice for your science fair project?”
    A tall, thin girl with big brown eyes and stick-straight black hair glanced over in Katie’s direction. “You’re Katie, right?” she asked her.
    Katie nodded, surprised. She had no idea that any of the sixth-graders actually knew her name.
    “How did you hear about my science project?” Selena asked her.
    “My friend Suzanne saw you bringing mice to school in a cage,” Katie explained. “We just figured you were using them for