The Secret School Read Online Free

credit for your whole fourth grade."
    "Yeah," Herbert said, "then you'd grow up to be a dumb old maid like Ida!"
    Ida gave him a dirty look.
    Charley said, "Then what are you fixing to do about it?"
    Ida felt her heart beat faster. "Tom," she said, "had a notion."
    Everyone looked at Tom.
    "Who's the smartest of everybody here?" he asked.
    For a moment no one said anything. Then Natasha said, "I'm the best speller. And you're best at math. But all in all, for high marks, I guess it's Ida."
    "So I say," Tom said, "Ida should become our teacher."
    "My own sister, the teacher?" Felix cried with such dismay everyone burst out laughing.
    "I'm serious," Tom went on. "We have to have a teacher, right? Except Mr. Jordan said the school board won't get one till next year. But if we got one now and did our own schooling, everyone could move on to the next grade, and Ida and I could take our exams. She knows what to do. Let her be teacher."
    "How you going to make sure we behave?" Herbert said with a grin. "Get out the switch?"
    "Switch whipping is mean," Mary Kohl said.
    "And I don't believe in it," Ida said.
    "Then how?" Herbert challenged her.
    Ida shrugged. "Find some way."
    "Hey," Herbert said, "it'll be worth coming to school just to see you try."
    Everyone laughed again.
    "But," Natasha said earnestly, "what about the school board? Think they'd let you? You know, pay and everything?"
    "Wouldn't ask for pay," Ida said. "Do it for nothing."
    "Mr. Skin-a-flint Jordan would love that," Herbert said.
    "But the main thing is," Tom said, "because I bet the school board wouldn't let us do it, we won't ask. We'll just do it on our own."
    "A
secret
teacher?" Felix asked.
    "A
secret
school?" asked Mary.
    "But," Natasha said with dismay, "I already told my parents school was going to close."
    The other children nodded. They had, too.
    Tom said, "Well, just tell them things got changed a little, that school
is
going on. Which it would be ... mostly. No fibbing there."
    "But what if they ask who's teaching?" Natasha asked.
    "Say you don't know yet."
    "People are going to find out at Last Day Exercises," Charley pointed out.
    "Be too late by then," Tom said.
    "Well, I do love secrets," Herbert said.
    "All in favor, raise your hands," Tom said after a moment.
    All eight hands shot up.
    "Then I guess," Ida said, "I'm your teacher."
    The decision made, the children sat there, waiting for Ida to say something.
    "Just remember," she said softly, "this really does need to be a secret. Now go play."
    When the other children ran off, Ida and Tom stayed behind.
    Ida sighed. "I can't believe we're doing this."
    "You nervous?"
    "I think so."
    "Know what my uncle once told me?"
    Ida shook her head.
    "Said, 'If you want to try something new, and you're not scared, means you're not really trying something new.'"
    "Maybe I'm too scared," Ida said with a wan smile.
    "Which scares you the most," Tom pressed, "teaching, or not going to high school?"
    "I think I'd hate myself if I didn't try everything to get there," Ida said after a moment.
    "Well," said Tom, "if I had to pick between hating myself and scaring myself, guess I know what I'd do."
    "What?"
    "Oh no!" Tom said, getting up. "Last time I suggested what you could do, you got mad at me. You're gonna have to decide for yourself." He grew thoughtful. "But if you do it, we still going to be friends?"
    Ida blushed. "Tom Kohl!"
    Tom grinned. "Just asking." He walked away, untied Ruckus, and led him to a shady spot to graze.
    Ida watched Tom go and then strolled down to the little pond back behind the schoolhouse. On hands and knees, she studied her reflection in the still water. She was sure she didn't look like a schoolteacher.
    After making sure no one was watching, Ida undid her braids, then pulled back her hair and looked at herself again. The Ida who gazed back at her now appeared a little older—a little more like a teacher.
    The bell rang. Quickly, Ida rebraided her hair and ran back to