Fourth-Grade Disasters Read Online Free

not barking during concerts. The gamelan players wore silk costumes. One lady sang. It was sad that in a world where so many peoplewanted to sing, somebody who didn’t want to should have to do it, anyway.
    That evening, Mason was afraid his mother would want to have another conversation about the Platters, but instead she just read to him and Dog without saying any more about it. Even though Mason was obviously able to read perfectly well to himself, she liked to read him books that she had loved when she was a girl. Although Mason wouldn’t have admitted it out loud, he liked it, too.
    Right now they were partway through a book called
Ballet Shoes
, about three English girls named Pauline, Petrova, and Posy Fossil who attended a dancing school in London long ago. Pauline loved to act and Posy loved to dance, but Petrova hated all of it. But so far Petrova was doing it anyway, because she needed to be trained for the stage to earn money for her guardian, whom the girls nicknamed Garnie.
    Mason supposed he should be glad that he didn’t have to prepare for a career as a professional Plainfield Platter. His parents earned their money in other ways: his mother with editing her online knitting newsletter, and his father with hisjob working downtown for the city—something to do with roads.
    He was that much better off, at least, than Petrova Fossil.
    On Sunday afternoon, Mason and Dog were over at Brody’s. Dog couldn’t come inside the house because of Brody’s father’s allergies, so they were playing together in the dead garden at the edge of Brody’s yard, digging a long channel and filling it with water from the hose. It was Brody’s idea. This week Brody wanted to be a bridge builder when he grew up, and he needed a river so he could practice building bridges over it. Dog seemed entirely thrilled with the project, rolling in the fresh dirt, dashing in and out of the water from the hose.
    Brody sang as he worked. Loudly.
    “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart!” Brody sang. Then he shouted out the question: “Where?” And sang the reply: “Down in my heart!”
    “No singing,” Mason told him.
    “Where?” Apparently Brody couldn’t stop himself. “Down in my heart!”
    “Brody!”
    The singing ceased, but Mason knew that Brody was still humming the song silently in his head. Unfortunately, now the song was stuck inside Mason’s head as well.
    “We
need
to sing,” Brody said. “The first Platters practice is Tuesday, remember?”
    As if Mason could forget.
    “We’ll have Plainfield Platters T-shirts!” Brody shoveled harder in his enthusiasm.
    Where? Down in my heart!
    “And stand on risers!”
    Where? Down in my heart!
    “And sing!”
    “I’m not going to be in the Platters,” Mason said.
    Brody stopped shoveling. “Of course you are. Everyone is in the Platters. It’s the best thing about being in fourth grade.”
    “For you, maybe.”
    “For everybody.”
    “Not for me.”
    Now Brody looked worried. “How will we walk to school together on Tuesdays and Fridays if you’re not in the Platters?” Then Brody’s frown lifted, as if the solution to the problem had become clear. “Your mother will make you be in it.”

    “No,” Mason said. “I already told her, and she said she understood completely and respected my decision.”
    Brody looked even more worried. Then he burst out laughing. “Liar!”
    Mason tried digging deeper with his shovel, but it struck a rock. He and Brody had been digging for half an hour, and so far all they had was a stupid, muddy hole.
    “Down in my heart to stay!” Brody sang.
    After another half hour, even Brody was tired of digging, though he kept saying that their pathetic, totally lame river was “awesome” and “totally cool.” Dog had given up, too, and lay panting in the shade.
    They went back over to Mason’s house to make themselves root-beer floats, but before Brody could finish his, Brody’s mother called on the telephone