Wayside School Is Falling Down (Wayside School 2)

Rondi made a face. “All my pencils are new,” she said. “How do I know you won’t eat it?”

“I won’t,” said Jason. “I promise.”

“You better not,” said Rondi. She gave him one of her pencils.

It was new and freshly sharpened. Jason liked the way it smelled.

“The first word is ‘orchestra,’” said Mrs. Jewls.

Jason tried to remember how to spell orchestra. He stuck the back of the pencil in his mouth.

“Second word, ‘garbanzo.’”

Jason chewed on the eraser.

When the spelling test was over, Rondi’s pencil was worse than Allison’s.

Jason looked at it in horror. He didn’t even remember chewing it. Oh, no! he thought. What am I going to do? He stuck it inside his desk.

“Jason, may I have my pencil back, please?” asked Rondi.

“What pencil?” asked Jason.

“The one I lent you,” said Rondi.

Jason opened his desk and pretended to look for it. “I don’t know where it is,” he said.

“Mrs. Jewls, Jason stole my pencil!” called Rondi.

“Jason, give Rondi back her pencil,” said Mrs. Jewls.

He gave it to her.

“You chewed on it!” exclaimed Rondi.

Everyone laughed.

“No I didn’t,” said Jason. “Those are your teeth marks.”

“How can they be my teeth marks?” asked Rondi. She smiled. She was missing her two front teeth.

“So?” said Jason. “You don’t chew pencils with your front teeth. You chew them with your back teeth.”

“How do you know?” asked Rondi.

“Um, um, uh,” said Jason.

Mrs. Jewls made Jason write his name on the board under the word DISCIPLINE because he chewed Rondi’s pencil, then lied about it. “And try not to eat the chalk,” she said.

Everyone laughed.

Rondi threw the chewed-up pencil out the window.

It hit Louis on the head.

Mrs. Jewls gave Dameon a stack of work sheets and asked him to pass them out. They contained arithmetic problems.

Jason had to borrow another pencil.