Karen's Candy Read online

  In honor of the birth of

  Rebecca Mary Bowen Goodman

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 Autumn

  2 Karen and Andrew

  3 The Candy Contest

  4 Polly’s Fine Candy

  5 Karen’s Bet

  6 Leah

  7 The Milky Ways

  8 The Little Engine That Could

  9 Karen’s Promise

  10 Too Late

  11 The Wild Thing

  12 The Fight

  13 The Boys Tattle

  14 The Principal’s Office

  15 Karen and Leah

  16 The Sneaky Plan

  17 Halloween

  18 The Parade

  19 Trick-or-treat!

  20 Three Thousand Dollars

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Autumn

  “Karen,” said Nancy Dawes, “you know what you should be for Halloween this year? A turtle. Maybe Yertle the Turtle.”

  “A turtle? Why?” I asked.

  Nancy shrugged.

  “No, she should be Goldilocks, since she has blonde hair,” said Hannie Papadakis.

  Nancy and Hannie are my two best friends. I am Karen Brewer. I do have blonde hair (also blue eyes and some freckles), but I did not want to be Goldilocks for Halloween. Still, I was glad my friends wanted to help me think of a Halloween costume. That is what good friends do. They help each other. Nancy and Hannie and I are such good friends that we call ourselves the Three Musketeers. We are seven years old, and we are all in Ms. Colman’s second-grade class at Stoneybrook Academy here in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. We play together, we have sleepovers together, and we like each other and help each other.

  On that autumn day we were sitting in Nancy’s front yard. The leaves were falling around us, and I was feeling happy. To me, autumn means Halloween, and Halloween means other holidays are just around the corner. I love holidays.

  Hannie held up a bright yellow leaf. “Let’s make a leaf collection,” she said. She reached for a red leaf and then an orange one.

  I giggled. “The last time Seth said ‘Let’s make a leaf collection,’ you know what he meant? He meant he wanted us to rake the yard.”

  Hannie and Nancy laughed, too. And Nancy said, “That’s sneaky.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Seth can be sneaky, but he is funny, too.”

  Seth is my stepfather. He is married to Mommy, and he and Mommy live next door to Nancy. Daddy and my stepmother live in another neighborhood. They live across the street from Hannie. That means that my little brother Andrew and I have two homes. We live at both of them. We go back and forth, a month here, a month there. October was a month at Mommy’s and Seth’s house. I am glad my two houses are both in Stoneybrook, so the Three Musketeers can spend lots of time together.

  “Nancy, maybe you could be Yertle the Turtle this year,” I said.

  “Maybe,” replied Nancy. “I have to think about it.”

  “I want to be a Popsicle,” spoke up Hannie.

  “You do? Brrr,” I said. I paused. Then I added, “Hey, I really am cold. It’s getting chilly. Let’s go inside.”

  “Okay, but not inside my house,” said Nancy. “Danny is sleeping.” (Danny is Nancy’s baby brother. Nancy got to name him herself.)

  “Let’s go to my house then,” I said.

  So we did. And since we were cold, Mommy fixed hot chocolate for us.

  She fixed some for Andrew, too. She said we had to let him eat with us. That was okay, until Andrew started to cry. I did not want crying interrupting my friends and me and our hot chocolate.

  “Andrew? What is the matter?” asked Mommy.

  “I left my blue sneakers at Daddy’s, and I need them!” he wailed.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because all the boys in my class decided we would wear blue sneakers tomorrow, but I forgot mine are at Daddy’s.” (Andrew goes to preschool. His teacher’s name is Miss Jewel. Isn’t that wonderful?)

  Mommy sighed. Then she said, “All right. I suppose we can pick them up this afternoon. Hannie, why don’t I drive you home today? That way your mother will not have to come over here, and Andrew can run across the street and get his shoes.”

  Mommy thought that was a good answer to the problem, but all I could think was, “Darn it. Boo and bullfrogs.”

  Karen and Andrew

  Why was I mad? I was mad because suddenly our afternoon was over. We had to drive Hannie home, and all because Andrew is a two-two. I guess that does not make much sense to you. To understand about two-twos you have to understand about my two families. I better begin at the beginning.

  A long time ago, when I was just a little kid, Andrew and I had one family: Mommy, Daddy, Andrew, me. We lived together in a big house. (It was the house Daddy had grown up in.) I thought we were happy, but I found out that Mommy and Daddy were not. They began to fight. Not a little, a lot. Finally they said they did not want to live together anymore. They loved Andrew and me very much, but they did not love each other.

  So they got a divorce. Mommy moved into a little house next door to Nancy, and Daddy stayed in the big house across from Hannie. After awhile, Mommy and Daddy decided to get married again, but not to each other. Mommy married Seth. That is how he became my stepfather. And Daddy married Elizabeth, my stepmother. And now Andrew and I have two families.

  In my little-house family are Mommy, Seth, Andrew, me, Rocky, Midgie, Emily Junior, and Bob. Rocky and Midgie are Seth’s cat and dog. Emily Junior is my pet rat. And Bob is Andrew’s hermit crab.

  In my big-house family are Daddy, Elizabeth, Andrew, me, Kristy, Sam, Charlie, David Michael, Emily Michelle, Nannie, Shannon, Boo-Boo, Crystal Light the Second, Goldfishie, Emily Junior, and Bob. (Emily Junior and Bob go back and forth with Andrew and me.) Isn’t that a big family? A big family for a big house.

  Kristy, Sam, Charlie, and David Michael are Elizabeth’s kids. (She was married once before she married Daddy.) So they are my stepsister and stepbrothers. Kristy is thirteen and a very good baby-sitter. I love her. (I always wanted a big sister.) Sam and Charlie are even older. They go to high school. David Michael is seven like me, but he does not go to Stoneybrook Academy. Emily Michelle is my little sister. She is two and a half. Daddy and Elizabeth adopted her from the faraway country of Vietnam. (I named my special rat after her.) Nannie is Elizabeth’s mother. That makes her my stepgrandmother. She helps out with the house and all the kids. Shannon is David Michael’s big floppy puppy. Boo-Boo is Daddy’s fat old cat. And Crystal Light and Goldfishie are both (what else?) goldfish.

  Okay. Now I will tell you why Andrew is a two-two. And why I am a two-two, too. It is because we have two of so many things. Andrew and I have two houses and two families, two mommies and two daddies, two cats and two dogs. We have clothes and books and toys at the big house. And other clothes and books and toys at the little house. I have two bicycles, one at each house. And Andrew has two trikes, I have two stuffed kitty-cats that look just the same. Moosie stays at the big house, Goosie stays at the little house. Of course, I have my two best friends, Hannie and Nancy. I even have two pairs of glasses. The blue pair is for reading. The pink pair is for the rest of the time. So I am Karen Two-Two and my brother is Andrew Two-Two. (I thought up our names after Ms. Colman read a book to my class. It was called Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.)

  You would think that, as two-twos, Andrew and I would have everything we need, no matter which house we are staying at. But that is not always true. Every now and then we leave something behind. Such as Andrew’s blue sneakers. And then we have a little problem. I will tell you a secret, though. Most of the time, I feel extra, extra special — because I
have two families to love, and two families who love me back. I guess I am glad to be Karen Two-Two.

  The Candy Contest

  “Hootie! Come here, Hootie,” I called.

  I bent over and peered into Hootie’s cage. Hootie is our class guinea pig.

  “Karen, what are you doing?” asked Hannie, as she ran into our room.

  “I brought a carrot for Hootie,” I replied.

  It was a Monday morning. My classmates were starting to arrive at school. We gathered in Ms. Colman’s room. Hannie and Nancy and I sat on some desks in the back. We tried to hold a private conversation, but we could not. Pamela Harding kept bothering us. Pamela is my best enemy, and Jannie and Leslie, her friends, are my enemies, too.

  I jumped to the floor. “Pamela Harding,” I yelled, “you —”

  “Indoor voice, Karen,” said Ms. Colman. Our teacher was hurrying into the room. She looked very busy. My classmates and I ran to our desks.

  “ ’Bye!” I called to Hannie and Nancy.

  “See you later,” they replied.

  Hannie and Nancy get to sit in the back row of our room. I have to sit in the front row. That is because I wear glasses. The other glasses-wearers in my class are Ms. Colman, Natalie Springer, and Ricky Torres. I sit between Natalie and Ricky. Guess what. Ricky is my pretend husband. We got married on the playground one day.

  “Okay, girls and boys,” said Ms. Colman. “I would like to make two announcements. Settle down, please.”

  Oh, goody. Ms. Colman was going to make two of her Surprising Announcements.

  “Class,” began our teacher, “as you know, Halloween is just a few weeks away. That means our school Halloween parade is just a few weeks away, too. And soon our class will begin a special parade project. During October, each of you will work with a kindergartener in Mr. Posner’s room. You will help him or her make a costume to wear in the parade.”

  Well, that sounded like fun. I wondered who my kindergartener would be. Then I thought about our school parade. It is fun, too. On Halloween, all the students at Stoneybrook Academy bring their costumes to school. In the afternoon, we wear them to the auditorium. Then each class parades before the other classes. And three kids in each class win prizes for their costumes.

  “… so get ready to work with your kindergarten friends,” Ms. Colman was saying. She paused. Then she went on. “I want to mention another Halloween project to you. Some of you may remember that last summer a library in Stamford burned down. Now people are raising money to build a new library and to buy books for it. If you like, you could help raise some money for the library, too. Polly’s Fine Candy has started a candy-selling project. If you go to Polly’s, you can find out how to sell bags of little candy bars door-to-door. The candy bars are perfect for trick-or-treaters, so lots of people will want to buy them. The money you collect will be given to the library. If you are interested in selling candy, talk to your parents and ask them to take you to Polly’s Fine Candy.”

  I turned around and looked at Nancy and Hannie in the back of the room. We grinned at each other.

  “Oh,” said Ms. Colman, “I almost forgot. The person who sells the most bags of candy will win a gift certificate at Polly’s.”

  Cool. Free candy from the best candy store in town!

  At recess, Nancy and Hannie and I met by the swings for a private talk.

  “Do you guys want to sell candy?” I asked them.

  They nodded. We all wanted to help the library. We decided that if one of us won the gift certificate, she would share it with the others.

  Polly’s Fine Candy

  After school that day, Hannie rode home on the bus with Nancy and me. When we reached my house, we were excited. We were jumping around.

  “Mommy, can we sell candy to help the library?” I asked her.

  “Could you take us to Polly’s Fine Candy?” asked Nancy.

  It took a little while, but finally I explained to Mommy about the candy-selling project. Then Mommy talked to Mrs. Papadakis and Mrs. Dawes. Soon we were downtown, and Mommy was looking for a parking space near Polly’s. When she found one, my friends and I rushed out of the car. Andrew followed us.

  “Look! Look!” I cried. In the window of Polly’s Fine Candy was a haunted house. It was made from hundreds and hundreds of candy corns.

  “There is a candy witch!” exclaimed Andrew.

  “And a candy jack-o’-lantern,” said Nancy.

  “And a candy monster,” said Hannie.

  See why we like Polly’s Fine Candy so much?

  Mommy led us inside the store. We stood for a moment and looked at the rows and rows of candy jars.

  “May I help you?” asked a woman behind the counter.

  “We are here because we want to sell candy to help the library,” I told her importantly. “My friends and I. Our teacher told us about it today.”

  “Oh,” said the woman. “Good for you.” She smiled at us. “Come over here and I will show you what to do.”

  The woman took us to a table covered with forms and order pads. “Selling the candy is easy,” she began. “For one thing, you do not have to lug around a big box of candy. Just take this sample bag with you. Then ask people how many bags they’d like to buy, and write down the order. Write it down here, on this form. After that, collect the money for the candy and put it in this envelope. The candy will be delivered the week before Halloween. Isn’t that easy?”

  It sounded very easy. So Hannie and Nancy and I each took an envelope, a pad of forms, and a bag of candy. We were ready to become door-to-door sales-people.

  We left Polly’s. Andrew was whining. “But I want candy corn,” he wailed.

  “Not now,” said Mommy firmly. “And please stop whining.”

  Andrew did not stop whining until I cried, “Oh, look! Happy Halloween!”

  Happy Halloween is a store in Stoneybrook that opens every year just for the month of October. It sells masks and costumes and fake noses and rubber hands and plastic spiderwebs and all sorts of cool things.

  “Please could we go inside?” I asked. “Puh-lease? Maybe we will get some ideas for our costumes.”

  Nancy and Hannie and Andrew and I planned to make our costumes. We hardly ever buy them. So we did not want to get anything at Happy Halloween. We just wanted to look around.

  Mommy said we could run inside.

  “Hey!” said Hannie. “Here is a puppy costume!”

  “Here is a monster’s eyeball,” said Nancy.

  “Here is fake blood,” said Andrew.

  “Look at this costume. It is … it is a telephone!” I exclaimed.

  Andrew and my friends and I looked and looked. We saw lots of cool costumes. But when we left the store, we still did not know what we wanted to be for Halloween.

  Karen’s Bet

  Hannie and Nancy and I decided that if we were going to be salespeople, we should look professional. Each of us put our envelopes and our forms and our sample candy into a bag with a handle. We wrote CANDY FOR SALE on the bags. And we decided that when we were out selling our candy we should stick pencils over our ears, and wear school clothes. School clothes would look more grown-up than blue jeans and play clothes.

  “We can sell our candy in lots of places,” said Nancy.

  “Yup. The little-house neighborhood and the big-house neighborhood,” I added. “We know so many people.”

  It was the next morning. My friends and I were in our classroom again, waiting for school to begin. We were talking about how and where we could sell the bags of candy.

  “Mommy and Daddy said we can only go to houses if we know the people who live in them. We cannot go to strangers’ houses,” said Nancy.

  “My mommy and daddy said the same thing,” agreed Hannie.

  “Mine, too.” I nodded. “But that is okay. And you know what else? If Kristy or a grown-up comes with us, maybe we could sell candy downtown — to the people who work in stores.”

  “Hey! Or at our parents’ offices
!” exclaimed Hannie.

  My friends and I had lots of good ideas. We were so busy talking that we did not notice Pamela and Jannie and Leslie for a long time. When I did glance up, I whispered loudly, “Oh, no! Look!”

  Nancy and Hannie looked where I was pointing. There were our enemies. They were crowded around Pamela’s desk. And they were looking at forms and envelopes. The forms and envelopes were from Polly’s Fine Candy.

  “They are going to sell candy, too!” cried Nancy.

  “Shhh!” I hissed. But I was too late. Pamela had heard her. She looked back at us.

  “Are you selling candy?” she asked.

  “Yes. Are you?” (Pamela nodded.) “Where?” I asked.

  “Why do you care?” replied Pamela.

  I thought for a moment. “I guess I do not care — since we are going to sell more candy than you are.”

  “Who says?”

  “I say.”

  “Oh, yeah? You are not going to sell more. We are,” said Pamela. “In fact, Jannie and Leslie and I are going to win that gift certificate.”

  “Oh, no you are not. We are going to win it.”

  “No way.”

  “Want to bet?” I asked.

  “Sure,” said Pamela. “What do you want to bet?”

  “Nothing. Gentleman’s bet. Just for fun.”

  “Ha! That means you are afraid you will lose.”

  “It does not!” I cried.

  “Does too. But so what? I do not care, as long as we win.”

  “The Three Musketeers are going to beat you!” exclaimed Hannie suddenly.

  Pamela shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Come on, you guys,” I said to my friends. I pulled them into a corner of the room. “We can beat them. I know it.”

  “Right,” agreed Nancy. “We just have to do all the things we were talking about. We will sell to everybody. To people in stores. To everybody.”

  “One for all and all for one?” I said.

  Hannie and Nancy and I clasped hands.

  The bet was on.

  Leah

  “Okay, people. Line up at the door, please,” said Ms. Colman that afternoon. “It is time to go to Mr. Posner’s room and meet the kindergarteners.”