Free A Week in the Woods by Andrew Clements

teacher’s desk and got his book back.
    Social studies began with a class discussion about the Civil War. Mark hadn’t done the reading, but the questions Mrs. Farr asked weren’t very hard.
    When she asked, “Where did the first battle of the Civil War take place?” a lot of kids raised their hands, and so did Mark. Seeing his hand up surprised Mrs. Farr, so she said, “Mark? Where was it?”
    And he said, “Manassas, Virginia.”
    Mrs. Farr frowned. “No, it was somewhere else.”
    And right away Mark said, “Well, if you mean Fort Sumter, my history teacher said most of the books are wrong. Because Fort Sumter was where the war started, but it wasn’t where the first battle happened. That’s because Fort Sumter wasn’t really a battle. It was mostly a bombardment of a fort out in the harbor. The first real battle was at Bull Run. Near Manassas.”
    Mrs. Farr looked uncomfortable. “Well . . . then I guess I should have asked, ‘Where did the Civil War begin?’ Because I want you all to remember that it happened at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. You’ll need to know that for the social studies part of our statewide test.”
    Mrs. Farr continued to lead the discussion. Mark had his hand up for almost every question, but she didn’t call on him again. After fifteen minutes or so, he stopped raising his hand.
    English and math weren’t much better. Mark really tried to be part of the class and pay attention. But on Friday night in the barn when he’d decided to work harder, he had forgotten that almost every class was pretty boring. He couldn’t seem to help that. At his old school in Scarsdale the classes had been much smaller, so the pace had been faster. And what Mr. Maxwell had guessed was true: Mark probably should have been put into the gifted program when he moved to Hardy Elementary School.
    When he got to science class, Mark made one more attempt. He sat up and paid attention. He raised his hand when he knew an answer. Mr. Maxwell seemed to look right past him, and sometimes, right through him. The class was plowing through a review of the scientific method, scientific measurements, and how to make field observations. For Mark it was pretty basic material. There just wasn’t much he could get excited about. So after about twenty minutes he stopped trying to participate, stopped paying attention.
    When the class ended, Mark waited until the room cleared out a little and then headed up to the front. He had something for Mr. Maxwell, and he was hoping it would put a smile on the man’s face.
    Mr. Maxwell was putting a scientific scale into the storage cabinet, and when he turned around and saw Mark, he said, “Yes?”
    Mark held out an envelope. “Mr. Maxwell, I have the permission sheets.”
    Mr. Maxwell looked at him coldly and raised one eyebrow. “The permission sheets?”
    Mark said, “For A Week in the Woods. They’re all signed and everything.”
    Mr. Maxwell took the envelope and dropped it onto his desk. He paused a moment and then said, “So you’re going? I thought you didn’t want to.” And he looked hard into Mark’s eyes.
    Mark shook his head. “No . . . I mean, yes, I do want to.”
    Mr. Maxwell didn’t smile. “Fine,” he said. “Glad to hear it.” But that’s not what his eyes said.
    Mark said, “So . . . I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    Mr. Maxwell said, “Yup.” Then he picked up a rack of scale weights and turned to put them away.
    When Mark had left the room, Mr. Maxwell sat down at his desk and picked up the envelope Mark had brought. He turned it over in his hands. It was a beautiful envelope with an embossed return address. The paper was thick and creamy, like a starched cotton shirt. Mr. Maxwell thought, Good grief! Even their envelopes look rich!