No Messin' with My Lesson Read Online Free Page B

her eyes. She looked down at her feet. The sensible leather shoes were gone, and there were platform sneakers in their place. Instead of a skirt, Katie was wearing jeans, with laces down the sides. She put her hands to her face. She wasn’t wearing glasses anymore.
    Just then, Katie’s mother came outside. “There you are, Katie,” her mother said. “How was school?”
    Katie smiled brightly. She was back! “School was okay,” she said.
    “Anything exciting happen?”
    Katie knew she couldn’t tell her mother what had happened today. Her mother wouldn’t believe her. Katie wouldn’t have believed it either, if it hadn’t happened to her.
    “Nah,” Katie said finally. “It was just a regular day.”

Chapter 9
    Most of the kids in class 3A were already on the playground by the time Katie arrived at school the next day. But they weren’t playing or running around. They were busy watching as Mr. Kane spoke to Mrs. Derkman. The principal did not look happy.
    “Your class was out of control yesterday,” he told Mrs. Derkman.
    “I know,” Mrs. Derkman admitted sadly. “I’m not sure how that happened.”
    “What do you mean?” Mr. Kane asked.
    “Well, I mean, I know what happened. But it’s almost like that wasn’t me up there in the front of the room.” Mrs. Derkman sounded very confused.

    “It certainly looked like you,” Mr. Kane told her.
    “It was me,” Mrs. Derkman said. “I mean, at least I think it was. But I didn’t feel like me. Oh, I don’t know what to think.”
    Mr. Kane shook his head. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t seem as though you’ll be winning the Teacher of the Year Award this time around.”
    Mrs. Derkman looked like she was about to cry.

    “Boy, Mrs. Jerkman looks unhappy. Mr. Kane must be really mad at her,” George told the other kids.
    “That’s not nice, George,” Katie said.
    “What?” George asked her.
    “Calling her Mrs. Jerkman,” Katie told him.
    “We always call her that,” Kevin said.
    “It’s still not nice.”
    The other kids stared at Katie. Was she really standing up for their teacher?
    “Mrs. Derkman isn’t nice to us, either,” Suzanne reminded Katie. “She’s very strict. And she gets mad a lot.”
    “That’s because we’re not always very good in class,” Katie reminded her. “We pass notes and whisper.”
    “Yeah, well, Mrs. Derkman writes notes, too,” George argued. “She sent one to my mother last week. And it wasn’t a nice note, either!”
    Katie rolled her eyes. “What about yesterday?” she asked the kids. “Everybody was yelling at each other during math. The judge from that contest saw the whole fight.”
    “How do you know what happened?” George asked Katie. “You were in Mr. Kane’s office all day.”
    Of course, Katie had been in the classroom. But she couldn’t tell the other kids that. So, instead, she said, “I heard about it. It sounds like everyone was mad at each other.”
    “But we made up,” Mandy told Katie. “And we wrote nice things about each other. The judge from the contest saw us doing that, too.”
    “Yeah, he seemed happy about that,” Miriam added. “He was really smiling when he left.”
    Katie shrugged. “But he wasn’t happy enough to make Mrs. Derkman the Teacher of the Year. She really wanted that award. We blew it for her.”
    “She blew it for herself,” George said. “She jumped up on a desk and whistled. If I did that, she’d send me to the principal’s office.”
    “Yeah,” Kevin agreed.
    Katie gulped. George was right. Maybe if she hadn’t jumped up on that desk, Mrs. Derkman would have had a chance. Now Katie felt worse than ever. “Mrs. Derkman deserves that award. She works really hard. Her feet hurt at the end of the day,” Katie insisted.
    Jeremy looked at her strangely. “How do you know?” he asked.
    “I . . . er . . . well, she stands up at the board so much, I just figure they would hurt,” Katie said quickly. “Besides, Mrs.