Alex the Great

Chapter 1—Call Me Alex, Or Else!

Alex Penfold had been in mourning for a whole week and even wore all black today to prove it. Summer vacation was over, and today was the very first day of fifth grade at Avalon Middle School.

Her teacher’s name was Mrs. Puckett.

“Mrs. Puckett the spit bucket,” Alex muttered as she sat in her desk waiting for the tardy bell to ring. She had gotten to school a whole three minutes early. Avalon Middle School wasn’t as close to her house as Highland Park Elementary had been.

Mrs. Puckett stood at the front of the room sporting a huge beginning-of-the-year smile. She had poufy brown hair and wore one of those teachers’ sweaters embroidered with ABCs, 123s, and pictures of apples.

Alex could already tell it was going to be a horrible school year.

The bell rang, and the torture began.

“Welcome to fifth grade,” Mrs. Puckett said with her big smile. “I know you all couldn’t wait to get back from summer vacation.” Her arms shook like jelly as she waved them around while talking.

“I could,” Alex muttered.

Mrs. Puckett frowned. “Is someone talking?” Her eyes scanned the room. “Remember, class: rule number one is that we don’t talk without raising our hands, right?”

Up in the front row, Sylvia Carruth nodded in agreement and shot a look at Alex.

Alex ignored her. Once upon a time, they had been friends, but things had changed.

Mrs. Puckett continued. “Now I’m going to seat you in alphabetical order. Everyone, come stand at the front of the room.”

The whole class groaned and shuffled to the board.

“Andrea Abner,” Mrs. Puckett said, pointing to the first desk.

Andrea had been best friends with Alex in third grade but had decided she was too old to play make-believe anymore once they had finished fourth grade.

Mrs. Puckett pointed to the second desk. “Seth Armand.”

Seth loved football. Alex loved football too, but she wouldn’t dare hang around with him because he was a boy.

“Sylvia Carruth.”

Alex shuddered. Sylvia was Alex’s number one enemy. At the end of fourth grade, the two had gotten into a big fight, and now all the girls were on Sylvia’s side. All she cared about was makeup, clothes, hair, and boys. Alex cared about anything but makeup, clothes, hair, and boys.

“Tommy Conner.”

Tommy knew some funny songs with gross lyrics, but he was still a boy.

Alex shook her head—another boy.

“Amber Ewett. Shawn Ewett.” Mrs. Puckett stopped. “Amber and Shawn, are you two related?”

“Yes,” Amber mumbled. Every year it was the same. The teacher always thought having twins in the classroom was fantastic.

Alex sighed. This year was going to be just as rotten as last year. She watched her fellow classmates take their seats and waited for Mrs. Puckett to get to the letter P: Jeffrey Flagg, Allison Hoover, Peter Orman. They were all too grown up to be caught playing with Alex.

“Alexandra Penfold.”

Alex froze. Mrs. Puckett had just called her Alexandra.

By now, everyone but Alex, Josh Pruitt, and Ben Yarby were sitting in assigned seats. Ben stood there with his arms folded, and Josh looked over at Alex with wide eyes.

“Alexandra Penfold?” Mrs. Puckett said again, staring at Alex.

There it was again! That horrible “Alexandra” was out in the open.

Sylvia Carruth raised her hand. “Mrs. Puckett? That’s Alexandra.” She pointed straight to Alex with a smirk. In addition to being Alex’s number one enemy, Sylvia also held the record for becoming the teacher’s pet in fewer than three days.

Alex waved a fist at her. “Call me Alex, or I’ll—”

“Alex, sit down!” Mrs. Puckett snapped.

Alex stomped toward her seat, and the whole class erupted in laughter.

“She’s already in trouble on the first day of school,” Alex heard someone whisper.

“Class, class! Settle down!” Mrs. Puckett barked. She turned to Alex. “One more rude response from you, young lady, and you’ll march straight to Mr. Pendleton’s office!”

Mr. Pendleton was the principal at Avalon Middle School. The rumors said he had an electric paddle as big as a small first grader.

Alex didn’t really want to pay Mr. Pendleton a visit on the first day, so she kept her mouth shut. Besides, she knew she’d probably see him plenty before the end of the year. Instead, she took out a piece of paper and began to draw while Mrs. Puckett passed out copies of Climb the Hills, the fifth-grade reading book.

She drew what turned out to be a perfectly splendid picture of Mrs. Puckett trapped in a rocket ship headed for Pluto. Alex drew lots of cracks in her glasses and made her hair puff out like a porcupine. MRS. PUCKETT THE SPIT BUCKET she wrote in large letters and then signed her name at the bottom right-hand corner, just like her older brother, Jeremy, would have done. Alex knew he would have been proud of it, and one corner of her mouth turned up. As soon as she got home, she would thumbtack the picture to her wall.

Just then, Mrs. Puckett dropped a copy of Climb the Hills on her desk, and Alex stuffed the picture in one of her notebooks before she got into trouble.

The rest of the morning was boring. Mrs. Puckett went through the usual list of supplies and passed out a stack of textbooks. Alex was the first one out the door when Mrs. Puckett said it was time for recess. She headed straight for the playground and got on the nearest swing. Twenty years ago, Avalon Middle School had been the elementary school. When the city finally built a new elementary school, they had moved fourth grade and under to the new building. Grades five through eight now had Avalon Middle School to themselves. Alex was just glad they hadn’t moved the playground too.

“Alex, don’t you think you’re a little too old to be playing on the playground?” Sylvia’s voice came from behind Alex.

Alex looked over her shoulder to see Sylvia and the rest of the girls from her class standing over to the side. At the end of fourth grade, they had decided that “playing” was childish, or rather, Sylvia had convinced them of it. The boys were engrossed in football next to the playground—well, all but Josh Pruitt. It looked like he was keeping one eye on the football game and one eye on the playground.

I’ll bet he’d rather be playing over here too, she thought. After fourth grade, all the boys had decided that it wasn’t cool to play on the playground and had started playing football instead.

Alex ignored Sylvia and the rest of the girls and pumped her swing up as high as it would go. Once she was even with the top of the swing set, she made up a story in her head about a swing-powered spaceship flying through the atmosphere of Saturn. Just as she was trying to imagine what life would be like on Saturn, she heard Mrs. Puckett yelling that recess was over.