Bookworm Buddies Read online

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  YEARLING BOOKS are designed especially to entertain and enlighten young people. Patricia Reilly Giff, consultant to this series, received her bachelor’s degree from Marymount College and a master’s degree in history from St. John’s University. She holds a Professional Diploma in Reading and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University. She was a teacher and reading consultant for many years, and is the author of numerous books for young readers.

  For a complete listing of all Yearling titles, write to

  Dell Readers Service

  P.O. Box 1045

  South Holland, IL 60473

  Published by

  Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers

  a division of

  Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

  1540 Broadway

  New York, New York 10036

  Text copyright © 1996 by Judy Delton

  Illustrations copyright © 1996 by Alan Tiegreen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

  The trademarks Yearling® and Dell® are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-83293-1

  v3.1

  For Roza and Allen Rosenberg:

  Roses are red, but Roza’s not blue

  Cuz we three are pals, and our love’s

  tried and true.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Yearling Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1 Allergic … to Roger!

  2 The Boring Badge

  3 No Books in the Bathtub

  4 Baby Books and Dirty Looks

  5 Billions of Books

  6 Jailbirds

  7 The Hole in the Bag

  8 Dog Day Afternoon

  9 Time Is Running Out

  10 The Bad Apple

  Pee Wee Scout Song

  Pee Wee Scout Pledge

  CHAPTER 1

  Allergic …

  to Roger!

  “KerCHOO!” sneezed Tracy Barnes. “Kerchoo, kerchoo, kerchoo!”

  “Bless you,” said Mrs. Peters, handing her a tissue. “Are you getting a cold, Tracy?”

  Tracy shook her head. Her eyes were red, and her nose was running. “It’s my allergies,” she said. “In autumn there’s all this pollen and stuff in the air.”

  The Pee Wees were at the park, raking leaves. Raking leaves was a good deed. They raked them for neighbors who could not do yard work themselves, and they raked the park because it was part of their community. Mrs. Peters was the leader of the Pee Wees, and she believed in helping others.

  Tracy leaned on her rake.

  “Maybe Tracy should go sit in the bandstand,” said Jody George. Jody was tieing leaf bags from his wheelchair. “There’s mold in these damp leaves, and that may bother her.”

  “Tracy’s just saying she’s allergic because she doesn’t want to rake,” said Roger White.

  “Yeah, she’s allergic to working,” said Sonny Stone. His mother was the assistant leader.

  Rachel Myers glared at the boys. “Anyone can see that Tracy has real allergies,” she said. “You can’t sneeze on purpose.”

  “I can,” said Roger. “Kerchoo, kerchoo, kerchoo!”

  Sonny began to sneeze too, and soon all the Pee Wees were sneezing.

  “That’s fake,” said Rachel. “Make them stop, Mrs. Peters.”

  “Hey!” yelled Roger. “I’m allergic to rakes!”

  “I’m allergic to parks!” shouted Sonny.

  “I’m allergic to Rachel,” said Roger. “And to you!” he said, pointing to Sonny.

  “Tracy has real allergies. There’s no doubt about that,” said Mrs. Peters.

  “They say allergies are all in your head,” said Ashley Baker. Ashley was a temporary Pee Wee. She lived in California most of the time. She belonged to the Saddle Scouts there. But now she was visiting her cousins, Patty and Kenny Baker.

  “They are in my head,” sniffed Tracy. “In my nose and my eyes.”

  “She’s had allergies since we were in kindergarten,” said Mary Beth Kelly to her best friend, Molly Duff.

  Molly held a big plastic trash bag open while Mary Beth raked a pile of leaves into it. “I feel sorry for Tracy,” Mary Beth said. “She can’t go to the fair or have any pets or pick flowers. Even if she gets out of raking, allergies are no fun.”

  Mrs. Peters clapped her hands and said, “I think we’re through for today. We can all be proud of the good job we did. It was a lot of hard work.”

  As they put their rakes into the van, Mrs. Peters began to count noses. She had to be sure all the Pee Wees were there. She counted them twice. Finally she said, “I only count twelve.” She frowned. “Who is missing?”

  “I hope it’s Roger,” said Tracy with a sniff.

  “So do I,” said Rachel. “And I hope he stays lost.”

  Just as Mrs. Peters was going to organize a search party of Pee Wees, Roger popped out of a leaf bag.

  “Ha!” he said. “I fooled you all!”

  “Darn,” said Rachel. “He almost got bagged up with the leaves.”

  “Roger would make good compost,” joked Mary Beth.

  “Well, don’t play in plastic bags,” said Mrs. Peters to Roger. “That’s very dangerous.”

  “Mrs. Peters, we have thirteen Pee Wees, and thirteen is an unlucky number,” said Patty Baker.

  “I think we should get rid of Roger,” agreed Rachel. “He’ll bring us bad luck.”

  “We could add a new member, instead of getting rid of one,” said Molly. She didn’t like Roger very much. He was mean and tricky. But she hated to hurt his feelings.

  “Thirteen is not an unlucky number,” said Mrs. Peters. “That’s an old saying, and it isn’t true. Thirteen is no different from any other number.”

  “Then why don’t they have a thirteenth floor in some buildings?” asked Kevin Moe.

  Mrs. Peters couldn’t answer that. Teachers could answer any question, thought Molly. She wondered if Pee Wee leaders were not as smart as teachers.

  “Let’s load these bags in the van and get back to our meeting,” said Mrs. Peters. “I can’t wait to tell you all about the badge we’re going to earn next!”

  CHAPTER 2

  The Boring Badge

  The Pee Wees loved getting badges. All the way back to Mrs. Peters’s house they talked about the new one coming up.

  “I hope it isn’t a raking badge,” said Sonny. “My arms are tired.”

  “Maybe it’s an allergy badge,” said Lisa Ronning. “Then Tracy would get hers first.”

  “There’s no such thing as an allergy badge, is there, Mrs. Peters?” asked Ashley. “Otherwise none of us could get it. We don’t have allergies.”

  “It is not an allergy badge,” said
Mrs. Peters, laughing. “Just wait and see. You’ll know soon enough what it is.”

  At Mrs. Peters’s house the Pee Wees piled out of the van. They still had leaves sticking to their sweaters and shoes and even their hair. Mrs. Peters used a broom to brush them all off. Then they washed their hands in Mrs. Peters’s bathroom and raced down the basement stairs to their meeting place.

  “Tell us, tell us, tell us!” shouted Roger, banging on the table. Soon some other Pee Wees joined in his chant. They sang and pounded too.

  “He has such bad manners,” said Rachel. “I told Mrs. Peters we need to get a manners badge. I’d get mine in a minute, but Roger would have a lot of work to do.”

  Molly could not picture Roger, or even Sonny, with good manners. Both boys interrupted others and talked with their mouths full of food and never said thank you or pardon me.

  Mrs. Peters stood at the head of the table and waited. The Pee Wees knew what she was waiting for: quiet. She would not tell them a word about the new badge until they were quiet.

  The drumming stopped. The chants got weaker. Finally it was quiet.

  Mrs. Peters had a pile of books on the table in front of her. Molly tried to see what books they were, but the titles were upside down and she couldn’t read them. Maybe they were books about getting their new badge!

  “We all know that it’s fall,” said Mrs. Peters. “And the biggest thing that happens in fall, is what?”

  All the Pee Wees shouted at once.

  “Leaves fall!” shouted Tim Noon.

  “Halloween!” shouted Kenny.

  “We can’t swim anymore,” said Lisa.

  “We could swim in fall if we were in California,” said Ashley. “It’s still warm there, and we can swim in our pool all the time.”

  “Cannot,” said Tim.

  “Can too!” said Ashley, getting cross.

  Mrs. Peters frowned. She looked unhappy that the Pee Wees were straying from the subject.

  “None of those suggestions is the biggest thing that happens in fall,” she said firmly. “The biggest thing is—”

  “Snow,” said Patty Baker.

  “Wiener roasts,” said Sonny.

  “School starts,” said Jody. Jody was the smartest Pee Wee of all. Molly loved both Jody and Kevin, and planned on marrying one of them when she grew up. She had not decided which one yet.

  “Exactly!” said Mrs. Peters eagerly. “Jody is right! School starts!”

  The Pee Wees all frowned. Even though some of them liked school, they did not think it was the most important thing about fall.

  “What does school have to do with a new badge?” Tracy asked Molly. “I hope it’s not a school thing we have to do.”

  The Pee Wees all liked to keep school and scouts separate. They did not want their Pee Wee meetings to turn into lessons. They always watched to see that this did not happen. Not long ago they had had to write to pen pals, and at first that had felt too schoolish. But in the end it had turned out to be fun.

  “School starts again in the fall,” said Mrs. Peters. “And of course in school, the most important thing we do, is—”

  “Have recess!” shouted Roger.

  “Eat lunch!” said Sonny.

  “Take tests,” said Lisa.

  “Go on field trips,” said Kevin.

  “No!” said their leader. She looked as if she was tired of this wordplay. “The important thing we do in school is read!”

  A hush came over the Pee Wees. They could already read. Why did they need a badge in reading?

  “It’s library cards!” said Mrs. Peters triumphantly. “All the Pee Wees are going to get library cards in order to earn this badge! We’ll all be bookworm buddies!”

  Molly thought their leader sounded as if she was trying a little too hard to be excited. No one seemed to care about library cards. And bookworms sounded disgusting.

  “Won’t that be fun?” said Mrs. Peters. “All grown-ups have library cards! And it will help you in school, and introduce you to a whole new world of information.”

  Finally Ashley said, “I already have a library card, Mrs. Peters.”

  “My mom says we have a whole new world of information on our computer,” said Tracy.

  All the Pee Wees nodded.

  “We have a whole encyclopedia on ours,” said Kevin. “There’s nothing in the whole world that isn’t on CD-ROM.”

  “Computers are fine,” said Mrs. Peters in a voice that sounded as if she didn’t think they were fine at all. “But with books you can curl up in bed and read. Books stretch your imagination, and they don’t need batteries.”

  The Pee Wees did not look convinced.

  “I can take my laptop computer to bed,” said Kenny.

  Mrs. Peters acted as if she didn’t hear him.

  “After we all get our very own library cards, we are going to have a reading contest,” Mrs. Peters said. “There will be a wonderful prize for the one of you who reads the most books and reports on them!”

  There was a low murmur among the Pee Wees. Molly could not believe her ears. Mrs. Peters was sweetening the pot with a prize! To get the Pee Wees excited about her badge project, she had to offer a reward. They had to be paid to read!

  “We write book reports in school,” grumbled Lisa.

  “What’s the prize?” asked Patty suspiciously.

  “It will be a surprise,” said their leader. “At our next meeting we’re going to talk about library rules and the responsibility of taking care of the books we check out.”

  The Pee Wees groaned. Rules and responsibility were not fun Pee Wee words. They were boring school words.

  Mrs. Peters tapped her pencil on her pile of books. Then she held them up and said what fun everyone would have checking out books just like this on their very own card.

  The books she held up were books Molly had already read. One of them Molly wanted to read again. It was about how to camp in the woods.

  As Mrs. Peters talked about books, the Pee Wees were restless. When Mrs. Stone came down the steps with a plate of chocolate cupcakes, they cheered and forgot about library cards altogether.

  By the time the meeting was over and the Pee Wee song had been sung and the Pee Wee pledge recited, the only one who looked happy about the new badge was Mrs. Peters.

  CHAPTER 3

  No Books in

  the Bathtub

  “It might be fun,” said Lisa on the way home. “Once I read a book about how to make jewelry boxes out of egg cartons. I gave my mom one for her birthday.”

  “Winning a prize might be okay,” said Tim.

  “I don’t need a prize to get me to read,” said Jody. “I like to read.”

  “Well, so do I,” said Rachel. “But I already have a library card. And I know the rules.”

  Molly loved to read. And she loved to write about the books she read. Or even talk about them. Jody was right. It was fun to read. But if she wanted that prize she’d have to begin reading right away. She knew Jody and Rachel would read lots and lots of books.

  “I wonder if we can count books we’ve already read,” said Mary Beth. “I mean, then I’d have a million!”

  “So would I!” said Kenny. “I’d have trillions!”

  “I’d have zillions!” said Roger, reaching up high to show the imaginary stack of books he had read.

  “You would not,” said Sonny. “You didn’t read a zillion books!”

  The boys scuffled in the leaves. The others walked around them and left them tumbling on the ground, kicking and shouting.

  The next Tuesday at their meeting, Mary Beth asked Mrs. Peters if they could count books they had read earlier.

  Mrs. Peters frowned. “Well, I suppose they would count if you wrote a report on them. But I think the fun will be to read new books, and not just write about old ones.”

  Then Mrs. Peters talked about what the reports should include.

  “You write your name at the top,” she said, holding up a piece of paper and pointing
. “Then you write the name of the book, and the author, and then tell us what the book was about, who the main characters were, and what you liked best in the book. Keep it all on one page. One piece of paper.”

  Hands waved.

  “Mrs. Peters, I can’t get everything on one page,” said Ashley. “I need a lot more room to tell about the plot and stuff.”

  “One page, Ashley. You have to learn to summarize the book in just a few sentences,” said their leader.

  “Ashley is getting more like Rachel all the time,” whispered Mary Beth to Molly.

  Ashley sighed and shook her head, as if she might not be able to do that.

  “Write small,” whispered Tracy. “That’s what I do. Then you can get more on a page.”

  “Mrs. Peters, I can’t fill a whole page,” said Tim. “I can’t write very good.”

  “Very well, Tim,” said Mrs. Peters. “You can’t write very well.”

  “I know it,” said Tim. “That’s why I can’t fill a whole page.”

  “Just write big,” whispered Molly to Tim. “That takes more room.”

  “Mrs. Peters,” said Lisa. “The book I just read didn’t have main characters.”

  “All stories have characters,” said Mrs. Peters.

  Lisa shook her head. “Mine didn’t,” she said. “It was about outer space. All the planets and stars and stuff.”

  “Oh well, that is nonfiction,” said Mrs. Peters. She explained that fiction books told a made-up story and that nonfiction books told about real things.

  The Pee Wees groaned. This was sounding more and more like a lot of work. It was one thing to read a book for fun, like a scary mystery, but it was another thing to write about it and to know if it was fiction or nonfiction.

  While Mrs. Stone passed library books around, Mrs. Peters talked about how to find books in the library. She told them the books were arranged on the shelves alphabetically by the author’s last name.

  “What if we don’t know the author’s name?” asked Tim.

  “Then you look on the library computer, or ask someone who works in the library to help you.”