Georgia's Greatness (7 page)

In the seven days that had passed since the last time it was Monday, Georgia had spent many hours practicing her new power. The rains hadn't completely stopped yet, and water did still trickle down from the sky. This meant that when Georgia went down to get the mail each day, invisible, we could see her umbrella bob its way down the hill and bob back up again with a stack of mail floating in the air below it. We all thought this looked very funny, but Annie put a stop to it.

"What if the mailperson sees that mail floating with no body there to carry it?" Annie said. "It could give him a worse fright than the time Rebecca locked Rambunctious in the mailbox in order to see what mailperson and cat would do when mailperson opened box and cat leaped out at mailperson."

She made a good point. Regarding the mailperson and the cat, as Mommy always said, "It's always funny until someone starts to cry."

"You probably don't need me to remind you of this," Annie reminded Georgia before school that Monday, "but you have to be careful about when and where you practice your make-yourself-invisible trick. It wouldn't do to suddenly disappear in front of Mandy's eyes or to suddenly reappear in a spot where you're not supposed to be."

All the way in on the bus, we worried that Annie's warnings were falling on deaf Georgia ears, but when we got to our classroom, the only person who had disappeared that was supposed to be there was the McG.

Our regular teacher was still absent.

But that was okay! Because there was Serena Harkness, floating into our classroom on her usual sea of beauty.

Mandy's hand shot up.

"Yes, Mandy?" Ms. Harkness said.

"Is Mrs. McGillicuddy still sick?" Mandy asked.

"Obviously," Ms. Harkness said. "Why else would I be here?"

"But it's been such a long time," Mandy said. "It's been a whole week!"

"Don't you like me?" Ms. Harkness asked sweetly.

We all looked at Mandy, wondering what she'd say. We knew for a fact that Mandy didn't like Ms. Harkness, that Mandy thought Ms. Harkness was A Bad Person, but Mandy never told lies. So what would she say now?

"That's not the point," Mandy said.

Nice side step!
we thought.

"A week is a long time for a teacher to be absent," Mandy went on.

"But when Principal Freud introduced me, he told you she might be gone that long, even longer," Ms. Harkness countered.

"Yes," Mandy said. "But we all wrote Mrs. McGillicuddy those get-well cards, and you sent them for us. And yet we haven't received any thank-you notes in reply. I think it is all very odd. Cards are very important to Mrs. McGillicuddy—I know this for a fact, and I'm sure she would have replied to ours by now."

"Perhaps," Ms. Harkness said, "she is too sick to write."

Did we just see Ms. Harkness's candy-apple lip curl as she said that last thing to Mandy? Well, we could hardly blame her. Mandy did have that effect on people.

"I'm sure you'll hear from her just as soon as she's feeling well enough," Ms. Harkness added, her usual sweet tone back in place. Then, before Mandy could say any more annoying things, Ms. Harkness clapped her hands together. "Today is March tenth," she said, "yes?"

We all shot our hands up.

"Yes." Ms. Harkness answered her own question without giving us a chance. "And that means that just one week from today, there will be a very important holiday. Can anyone tell me what that holiday is?"

"St. Patrick's Day!" Will shouted without raising his hand.

"Very good, Will," Ms. Harkness said.

"I didn't know St. Patrick's Day was an important holiday," Mandy said. She was puzzled. Then she looked sad. "But I'm sure that if Mrs. McGillicuddy was here, she'd enjoy it."

Ms. Harkness ignored Mandy. We could understand why.

"I'll bet you all like holidays," Ms. Harkness said.

Yes and no,
we thought.

We always used to love holidays. And we had enjoyed Valentine's Day back in February. That's when we realized that Will loved all of us just as much as we loved him, plus it had been nice when Carl the talking refrigerator's romance with robot Betty had begun. But we'd been stranded by a snowstorm last Christmas and then our parents had disappeared—or died—on New Year's Eve, so we knew that a holiday could turn on a person without notice.

But we couldn't tell Ms. Harkness all of that, so for once, we kept silent.

"What do you normally do here at the Whistle Stop to celebrate St. Patrick's Day?" Ms. Harkness asked.

"Do?" Mandy was puzzled again. "If it falls during the week, we come to school. I mean, it's not like it's Christmas or Thanksgiving or anything."

Ms. Harkness looked shocked. "You mean you've never had a St. Patrick's Day parade in school before?" she asked.

"No," Zinnia said, her eyes going round as saucers. "But we would like one. A parade is almost as good as getting presents."

"I'm glad you feel that way," Ms. Harkness said. "Because this year, the Whistle Stop
is
going to have a parade! And guess what else."

We all leaned forward.

"The third grade is going to lead the parade," Ms. Harkness said.

This truly was amazing news! The Whistle Stop ran from kindergarten through twelfth grade, and yet we would be marching ahead of the whole school!

"Will this all be in the Tuesday folders?" Mandy asked without raising her hand. "You never sent Tuesday folders home last week. Tuesday folders are red and contain Important Papers. Will you be sending Tuesday folders home this week?"

"No," Ms. Harkness said. "Why would I do that when I can just tell you and then you can tell your parents?"

Mandy's jaw dropped. This, to Mandy, was chaos.

"Now, do you know what else?" Ms. Harkness asked.

We couldn't imagine, but we were very eager to learn.

"Georgia," Ms. Harkness announced, "is going to be Grand Marshal!"

"Congratulations!" we all cried, and we gathered around Georgia to give her high-fives.

Georgia looked very proud, as well she might. Then:

"But what does the Grand Marshal do?" Georgia asked.

"Why, she walks ahead of everyone else," Ms. Harkness said, "and she carries the biggest flag of all."

We thought Georgia might faint dead away from the sheer thrill of it all.

Ms. Harkness clapped her pretty hands once more.

"Now, everyone get your raincoats on and we can head over to the gymnasium. You can practice your marching and flag-carrying, so you'll all be ready for next Monday's parade."

"But surely Mrs. McGillicuddy will be back by next Monday," Mandy objected.

"She might be," Ms. Harkness said. "But then again, she might not."

"But what if it's still raining next Monday?"

Mandy could be such a pest.

"Oh, I'm sure the rain will stop for that one day," Ms. Harkness said.

And somehow, we were all convinced that even the weather couldn't say no to Serena Harkness.

***

In the gymnasium, we were all very excited to get our flags and our marching assignments. Georgia's flag really was the biggest, and she put the
grand
in Grand Marshal, marching up ahead of us.

Almost a minute into the marching, Georgia stopped and turned around.

"Do you think Ms. Harkness made me Grand Marshal," she said, whispering so our substitute teacher couldn't hear her, "because she thinks I'm special or impressive, like Zinnia said?" She looked worried. "Or is it because of what Rebecca said, that she thinks I'm trouble and if I'm at the head of the line it's easier to keep an eye on me?"

"Who cares why?" Annie whispered back before Rebecca could whisper anything nasty; Rebecca's mouth had opened. "I think you should just enjoy your moment in the sun."

So that's what Georgia did. We all did.

We marched up and down the length of the gym, with Ms. Harkness watching from the sidelines.

About five minutes into our marching, Ms. Harkness pulled out a cell phone and started talking on it.

"That's odd," Mandy muttered. "Mrs. McGillicuddy never talks on her phone when she's supposed to be watching us."

"Well," Rebecca pointed out with a sneer, "it's not as though we can hurt ourselves just marching with flags."

"I need to go to the bathroom," Georgia suddenly announced. "Here, Zinnia, take this big flag for me. You lead for a bit."

Before any of us could object, Georgia walked off toward the door that led to the girls' locker room.

Zinnia was the smallest of us, a full seven inches shorter than Annie. The huge flag nearly toppled her, but she did seem very proud, marching ahead of us.

We marched on.

Georgia was gone at least ten minutes. By the time she returned, Ms. Harkness had ended her phone call, told us all that we had earned a break from marching, and announced recess. When Georgia strolled up to us, we were all hanging upside down on the gymnastic equipment.

"Don't you have to go to the bathroom too?" Georgia said to Mandy.

"No," Mandy said. "I went before I came to school."

"That's funny," Georgia said. "Just looking at you, I was very sure that you must have to go."

A look of horror came over Mandy's face.

"Oh, no!" she cried. "Suddenly I do!"

And she ran off toward the girls' locker room.

"Gather round," Georgia whispered in an urgent voice once Mandy was gone.

"No," Rebecca said. "It's too much fun hanging upside down."

"All the blood is rushing to our heads," Marcia observed.

"And it feels really good," Durinda said. "It beats cooking meals for eight."

We knew that despite the praise it earned her, Durinda sometimes resented being our cook.

"Fine," Georgia said, "then I'll just have to talk to you like that. There's not much time."

"What are you talking about?" Annie said.

"I think Mandy is right," Georgia said darkly.

"I don't think anyone has said 'Mandy is right' in the history of the world," Annie said. "And right about what?"

"Do you think my brains will pour out of my ears if I keep hanging upside down like this?" Petal asked.

Petal's face was getting very red.

"When I went to the bathroom," Georgia said, "I didn't really go to the bathroom."

"Then why did you go there?" Jackie asked.

"I mean," Georgia went on, "I did go into the bathroom, but once inside, I made myself invisible. Then I came back out again, still invisible, and tiptoed over to Ms. Harkness."

"But why did you do that?" Zinnia asked.

"I don't know." Georgia shrugged, as though she hadn't had a good reason. "Because I could."

"Wow," Marcia said. "Like climbing Mount Everest."

"And what did you learn?" Annie asked. "What did you learn that made you say Mandy is right'?"

"I didn't say 'Mandy is right,'" Georgia corrected. "I said 'I
think
Mandy is right.'"

"Hairsplitting." Rebecca yawned. "I knew you hadn't really discovered anything."

We all knew that Rebecca was jealous that she didn't have any special power yet. Or gift.

Georgia ignored Rebecca.

"I heard Ms. Harkness whispering into her phone," Georgia said. "I heard her saying to the person at the other end, 'I don't think they're as smart as you warned me they were. In fact, they don't seem very bright at all, F—'"

"So what does that mean?" Rebecca demanded. "And what is
F—?
"

"I'm not completely sure," Georgia admitted. "I got spooked that she might somehow hear me breathing, so I ran off. But something about the way she said it, I had this awful feeling that she was talking about us."

We all laughed at her, even Will, who never laughed at anybody.

"Never mind 'I think Mandy is right.'" Now even Annie was scoffing. "I'm beginning to think you should be saying 'I think that I, Georgia, am turning into Mandy'!"

"Why don't you hang upside down for a while," Rebecca suggested. "Maybe that will help you get your head back on straight."

Georgia opened her mouth to object, but then Mandy returned and all talk of whether Mandy was right or not ceased.

***

So that's how we passed the week: practicing our marching in the gym. This was our second full week without any homework. You would think we would be happy about this fact, but...

"I don't like it," Annie said, "never having any homework anymore. I mean, our parents are paying a lot of money for our education. Shouldn't we be getting one?"

CHAPTER SEVEN

Parade day!

It was Monday, March 17, and we were all so excited, we woke up a full hour early.

The Whistle Stop had never had a St. Patrick's Day parade before, but we were going to have one now.

We brushed our teeth and hair, rushed into our school clothes, and zipped downstairs for breakfast without Annie having to urge us to "Hurry it along!" even once.

But then, while we ate our pancakes, a sadness fell over the room.

"What's wrong with all of you?" Annie asked. "You should be so happy today."

"I know," Petal said, "but we've heard the other kids at school talking. Everyone else will have at least one parent there to watch the parade today."