A Case of the Meanies Read online

  Stella Batts

  A Case of the Meanies

  Courtney Sheinmel

  Illustrated by Jennifer A. Bell

  For Avery Elana and Chase Benjamin

  Happy 6th birthday

  —Courtney

  For Elaina

  —Jennifer

  Text Copyright © 2012 Courtney Sheinmel

  Illustrations Copyright © 2012 Jennifer A. Bell

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express

  written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles.

  All inquiries should be addressed to:

  Sleeping Bear PressTM

  315 East Eisenhower Parkway, Suite 200 •Ann Arbor, MI 48108 • www.sleepingbearpress.com

  © Sleeping Bear Press

  Hot Tamales® is a trademark of Just Born, Inc., Bethlehem, PA, USA. Pop Rocks® is a registered trademark of Zeta Espacial S.A. Tootsie Roll® is a registered trademarks of Tootsie Roll Industries, LLC.

  Printed and bound in the United States.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data • Sheinmel, Courtney • Stella Batts : a case of the meanies / Courtney Sheinmel. • p. cm. • Summary: “Everyone is invited to a birthday party at her parent’s candy store, except Stella Batts. She needs to figure out to be a pleasant hostess when she’s not on the guest list” • ISBN 978-1-58536-199-1 (pbk.) • ISBN 978-1-58536-198-4 (hard cover) • [1. Interpersonal relations–Fiction. 2. Parties–Fiction. 3. Family life–California–Fiction. 4. California–Fiction.] • I. Title. II. Title: Case of the meanies. • PZ7.S54124Ssm 2012 • [Fic]–dc23 • 2012022775

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Story Ingredients

  After School

  Stella Superhero

  The Idea

  What Happens When You Try to Kill ’Em with Kindness

  Stamp of Approval

  Don’t Scratch Your Nose

  All My Fault

  Stella Superhero (Again)

  Chocolate Twenty-Dollar Bills

  Bonus

  Prologue

  (Another Word

  for Introduction)

  Hey, it’s me, Stella Batts! I’m back again!

  In case you haven’t read my other books or you just don’t remember them so well, I’ll tell you a few things about me:

  I live in Somers, California, with my parents and my sister, Penny.

  Soon I’ll live with my brother Jack, too. But not yet, because Mom’s still pregnant with him.

  We own a candy store called Batts Confections.

  Okay, so I guess my parents are the owners, not Penny and me. But there are things named for us in the store—like Stella’s Fudge, and the Penny Candy Wall.

  When the baby gets born, something will be named for him too, but not until then because Mom says that’s bad luck.

  Also she and Dad keep changing their minds about his name, though Mom says Jack is the absolute final choice. Anyway, that’s not really about me, and this is my list.

  I’m eight years old, which means I’m in third grade.

  Writing is one of my favorite things to do. Obviously.

  CHAPTER 1

  Story Ingredients

  This morning our teacher, Mrs. Finkel, told us that part of our homework will be to write a story. Some kids groaned because they didn’t want to do it, but I was super excited.

  (But just so you know, what you’re reading right now is NOT my homework, because this is going to be longer than a story—this is going to be a full book. My FOURTH book, as a matter of fact.)

  Mrs. Finkel said we should work on our stories every night this week: tonight, which is Monday, and also Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. But not Friday, because that’s when we’re supposed to hand them in to her. Anyway, she’s not allowed to give us homework on Friday nights. I bet Mrs. Finkel wishes she could. She’s really strict. But the rule in our school is you don’t get weekend homework until fifth grade—that’s two more years away.

  “What should our stories be about?” Clark asked.

  “Anything you want,” Mrs. Finkel said. “Now pull out a piece of paper. I want you all to write down your characters, your setting, and your plot—those are the three ingredients to every story. Characters are who the story is about, the setting is where it takes place, and the plot is what happens.”

  I already knew all of that, because I’ve written three books, and books are just really long stories.

  I didn’t even have to think that hard. Here’s what I wrote:

  Stella’s Story

  1. Characters—me and the people I know

  2. Setting—Somers, CA, because that’s where we live

  3. Plot—some things that happen to us, but you’ll just have to read to the end of the book to find out all of that

  There. All done.

  I looked down the row. Next to me, Spencer was chewing on the end of his pencil. He does that when he’s thinking.

  Lucy raised her hand. I watched her rest her elbow on her desk, and then switch arms when the first one got tired. “Excuse me, Mrs. Finkel?” she said finally.

  “Yes, Lucy?” Mrs. Finkel said.

  “Our characters don’t have to be people, do they?”

  “Duh, of course they do,” Joshua piped up from the back row.

  “No calling out, Joshua,” Mrs. Finkel said. “You know that’s Disruptive Behavior.”

  “But Lucy called out,” he said.

  “Lucy was trying to get my attention, and she did so very politely. ‘Duh’ is not a polite word to use with your classmates.”

  I don’t think Joshua cares about being polite. He uses the word “duh” a lot. I mean A LOT.

  “To answer your question, Lucy,” Mrs. Finkel continued, “no they don’t have to be people. Your character can be a polar bear, or a flamingo. Or a fictional person—that means made up.” I already knew that word. “Or your character doesn’t have to be alive. It can be a statue, or a piggy bank or a potted plant.”

  “Potted plants are alive,” Joshua piped up without raising his hand and waiting to be called on. Mrs. Finkel turned to glare at him. He clapped his hand over his mouth so no more words would come out.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Finkel said. You could tell she didn’t really like being corrected—especially by Joshua. “Plants are technically alive, but I meant your characters can be anything you want.”

  “Cool, thanks,” Lucy said.

  Around the room there were sounds of people erasing things, blowing on the little bits of eraser to get them off the page, and then scribbling more stuff down. I folded my hands on my desk. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re done with your work.

  “Oooh, oooh, oooh!!” someone called out. I didn’t even have to turn around to know it was Joshua. That’s the sound he makes when he wants Mrs. Finkel to call on him, even though you’re just supposed to raise your hand quietly. Also he waves his arm around in the air, like he’s signaling an airplane.

  “Joshua, you’re disrupting the other students,” Mrs. Finkel said.

  “But I have to tell you something.”

  “Then you can raise your hand quietly.”

  “You were looking down at your desk,” Joshua said. “If I raised my hand quietly, you wouldn’t have seen me. That’s why you let Lucy call out before, remember?”

  “I’m looking at you now,” Mrs. Finkel said. “Let’s try this again.”

  Joshua raised his hand quietly.

  “Yes, Joshua?”

  “I wanted my character to be a dragon, but I just saw that Asher wrote dragon on
his paper.”

  “Your eyes shouldn’t be on anyone’s paper but your own,” Mrs. Finkel said. “Asher can write about whatever he wants to write about, and you can write about whatever you want to write about.”

  Joshua slammed his hand down on his desk. “But then there will be TWO stories about dragons, and I wanted mine to be the only one!”

  “I think you need to take a trip to Mr. O’Neil’s office to calm down,” Mrs. Finkel told Joshua. Mr. O’Neil is our principal.

  “You can’t send me to Mr. O’Neil! It’s my birthday!”

  “Today is your birthday?” Mrs. Finkel asked.

  “On Friday it will be,” Joshua said.

  That means this is just his birth WEEK. You can totally get punished on your birth week.

  “Well, disruptive behavior is not allowed, no matter what day it is,” Mrs. Finkel told him. She wrote a note for Joshua to take to Mr. O’Neil and Joshua stomped out of the room. That counted as even more disruptive behavior.

  After that, Mrs. Finkel said we should be done and she asked for a volunteer to collect the papers. A bunch of kids raised their hands. Nobody said “Oooh, oooh, oooh,” because they didn’t want to get into trouble.

  I raised my hand too, but Mrs. Finkel called on Evie. I think it’s because Evie just moved here from England, so she’s still Mrs. Finkel’s favorite.

  Evie came by my desk and I handed my list to her. She passed the pile to Mrs. Finkel. “I’ll get these back to you by the end of the day,” Mrs. Finkel said.

  Joshua shoved open the door to the classroom just as we were about to start our math lesson. “Smella!” he yelled, which is his nickname for me, ever since I fell down on our class nature walk and landed right smack in the middle of something so disgusting I don’t even want to write about it. Besides, I already said what it was in my first book.

  Whenever he calls me that, I know all the kids are remembering what happened. I hate that. Mom says Joshua will forget about calling me Smella eventually. So far he hasn’t. Maybe he has such a good memory that he’ll remember to call me Smella for the rest of his life.

  A few kids snickered this time. I felt my cheeks get super hot—the way they get whenever I eat Hot Tamales candies at Batts Confections. I bet my cheeks were turning just as red as Hot Tamales, too.

  “Joshua!” Mrs. Finkel said in her sternest voice. I wondered if he would be sent back to Mr. O’Neil’s office for being disruptive AGAIN. No one in our class has ever been sent to the principal twice in one day.

  “Sorry,” Joshua said. “I meant Stella. I have something to tell her.”

  “I’m sure it can wait until after school,” Mrs. Finkel told him. “Take your seat.”

  She went on to teach us our math lesson. Afterward we had to do two pages in our math notebooks. That’s when Mrs. Finkel started looking over everyone’s story notes. I could tell that’s what she was doing because I’m in the front row. When I looked up, I saw her flipping through them.

  She caught me looking at her and I looked down quickly, blushing again—though I could tell it wasn’t as bad as the last time. My cheeks felt a little warmer than usual, so maybe they were just pink, like a stick of bubblegum.

  “Stella, can you come here a minute?” Mrs. Finkel asked.

  I went up to her desk. This girl Maddie’s story was at the top of the pile of story lists. Mrs. Finkel had written on the top. Checks are what we get on most of our assignments. It means, “This is good work.”

  Mrs. Finkel thumbed through the pile and pulled out my paper. She tapped it with her pencil. It didn’t have a check mark on it.

  “Are you sure you understood the assignment?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It’s all right if you didn’t,” Mrs. Finkel said. “I know this is third grade and you’re just learning about how to write a story.”

  “Actually I’ve written lots of books,” I told her. Okay, only three. But that’s a lot for an eight-year-old!

  “You didn’t give much of a plot description.”

  “That’s because you don’t get to know the end of a story until you read it.” Duh, I wanted to tell her, like Joshua would. But I’d never say that to a teacher. I’d never say that to anyone.

  Okay, maybe I’d say it to Penny. But she’s my little sister, and things you say to your little sister are different than things you’d say to anyone else.

  “That’s part of story writing,” Mrs. Finkel said. “The author gets to know what happens at the end before the readers do. It’s okay to put those details here, though.”

  “But not everything has happened yet.”

  “I see,” Mrs. Finkel said. I see is another way grownups say I understand. But the way Mrs. Finkel was looking at me, kind of frowning so she got a little wrinkle between her eyes, I could tell she didn’t really understand at all.

  She picked up the whole pile of kids’ papers and shuffled them together so the edges matched up. “Why don’t you do the honor of handing these back to your classmates?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Okay,” I said.

  “Think about the plot a bit at home tonight. Maybe you’ll be inspired. Do you know what that word means?”

  Of course I did! It’s when something gives you the feeling to want to do something. Things inspire me to write my books all the time. “Yes, I know,” I told Mrs. Finkel.

  “We can discuss it again tomorrow, if you want,” she said.

  I knew I would NOT want to do that. Mrs. Finkel handed me the pile and I went around the room, giving each paper back to the right person. Every single kid had a check mark on top of his or her page. Some kids even had a check plus, which is what Mrs. Finkel writes when she thinks our work is better than good.

  Joshua’s list was the last in the pile. Even he had a check mark. I handed it over to him.

  “I saw Penny in the principal’s office,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

  CHAPTER 2

  After School

  As soon as the bell rang at the end of the day, I ran outside to find Penny. The kindergarteners get out of school five minutes before everyone else, so I knew she’d be waiting for me. I always meet Penny, her friend Zoey, and whoever is picking us up that day right by the flagpole next to the parking lot.

  Evie raced to catch up with me—she’s part of our carpool too, but she couldn’t run as fast because she was in silver sparkly shoes instead of sneakers. For clothes she had on a pink plaid skirt and a white blouse. It wasn’t school picture day or anything. That’s how Evie always dresses. I don’t think she even owns any clothes that aren’t fancy.

  When we got to the usual meeting spot, Penny wasn’t there.

  “Penny’s in trouble!” Zoey called out.

  Then she filled Evie and me in on what happened.

  There’s a new boy in Penny’s kindergarten class. At lunchtime, he asked Penny to trade her candy for his celery. She didn’t want to. Obviously. Who would want celery instead of candy? Not me! But the new boy got mad and called Penny a baby. That’s when Penny stomped on his foot. REALLY hard. Then Miss Griffin sent Penny to Mr. O’Neil’s office.

  Miss Griffin is Penny’s kindergarten teacher. I had her too, but she never sent me to the principal’s office. In fact, NO ONE has ever sent me to the principal. I don’t even know what his office looks like!

  “Where is Penny now?” I asked Zoey. “Still with Mr. O’Neil?”

  “No. But he called her parents.”

  “They’re also my parents,” I reminded her.

  “Right. And her dad—”

  “He’s also my dad.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. He came to pick her up as soon as school was over. He said she couldn’t come over because she’s not allowed to have a play date after she stomps on someone’s foot. Penny said it wasn’t fair.”

  That’s exactly what Penny would say about something like that. It’s not fair is the sentence she says the most out of all the sentences in t
he world.

  “Really it’s not fair to me,” Zoey continued. “Because I didn’t stomp on anyone’s foot and now I don’t get a play date. It’s all Bruce’s fault!”

  “Now, now, Zoey,” Mrs. Benson said. Mrs. Benson is Zoey’s mom, and also the Monday carpool driver. My best friend Willa’s dad used to drive carpool on Mondays. But Willa’s family moved to Pennsylvania and the whole schedule got switched around.

  “But it’s true!” Zoey insisted. “It’s not fair!”

  We pulled up outside Evie’s house a few minutes later.

  Actually, Evie doesn’t live in a house. She lives in an apartment. Except she doesn’t say apartment. She says flat. Here are some more things she says:

  Chips instead of French fries

  Lift instead of elevator

  Loo instead of bathroom

  It’s because she’s from England. She has a really cool accent, too. But get this—she thinks I’m the one with an accent! An American accent!

  Anyway, back to the story.

  Evie’s dad was waiting for us on the sidewalk. He works at home instead of in an office. He’s an artist. Sometimes he paints things and sometimes he draws things on the computer that go up on websites.

  “Hi Dad,” Evie said.

  “Hi girls,” Mr. King said. “How’s your mom feeling?” he asked me. People always ask how she’s feeling since she’s been pregnant.

  “She’s fine,” I said.

  “Where’s Bella?” Evie asked. Bella is her puppy. She’s a Maltese, which is a kind of dog that looks like a ball of marshmallow fluff.

  “She’s taking a little nap back at the apartment. I think I tired her out during our walk.”

  “I can’t wait to show you Bella’s new trick,” Evie told me. “I taught her to sit—in English and French. I want her to be bilingual, like I am.”

  Evie is the only third grader in our school taking French. She started it at her old school. Now she gets private lessons with Mrs. Blank in the learning lab. The rest of us will start language classes in fourth grade, but Evie’s been teaching me some words so I’ll be ahead like she is.