and on again to get our attention Class 4A she said Please settle down You’re not behaving your best for Ainsley We need to make her feel welcome It’s not easy starting a new school so late in the year Then Mrs Ramji said Pearl Pearl sat up straighter and I did too Because maybe she was in trouble But Mrs Ramji told Pearl I would like you to move your desk closer to Eleanor’s please Closer to Eleanor’s Pearl asked
Yes Mrs Ramji said Actually everyone in that row move a little to make space for Ainsley’s desk on the other side of Pearl
Yay Closer to you Pearl whispered to me and we grinned at each other as everyone in our row started making space for Ainsley After we’d finished and I’d sat back down a wadded-up ball of paper flew through the air and landed on my desk I knew exactly what that flying paper was I opened it up and smoothed it out Sure enough Nicholas Rigby had drawn me a picture This one showed me on a roller coaster in Orlando with my arms in the air and my hair blowing in crazy directions I folded the picture neatly and put it on top of the pile
of Nicholas’s pictures that I kept in my desk Because even though that boy’s impossible he’s still a ridiculously good drawer Then I turned and whispered to him Thanks Like I always did And he kicked the back of my chair not too hard like he always did Then Mrs Ramji asked us to take out our Creative Writing notebooks and work on our Brooklyn Bridge poems while she and Pearl helped Ainsley get set up I loved my Brooklyn Bridge poem So I worked on it very hard And realized only later that I should’ve been paying attention to Ainsley instead Because during that time
