Karen's Chain Letter Read online

  I picked up the bag of postcards and stuffed it into my backpack. I was glad it was almost the weekend. I did not seem to be having very good luck at school. I thought that the chain letter Maxie had sent me was supposed to bring good luck. But so far, a lot of things were happening that were not one bit good at all.

  More Mail

  That afternoon, Daddy was waiting for me when I came home from school. His arms were crossed across his chest. I could tell he was angry.

  “Karen,” he said, “I hear that postcards are being delivered to you at school.”

  “Yes.” I thought Daddy knew that already. I thought that was the plan.

  “And Ms. Colman seems to think that I told you to have them sent there.”

  “Maybe you did not understand about the school rule,” I replied.

  “Oh, no,” said Daddy. “I understand perfectly well about the rule. And I never told you to use the school address. When you showed me the chain letter, I told you that you were not allowed to send it out at all.”

  Hmm. I tried to think back. That is not the way I remembered it. “I thought you said I could answer the chain letter if it was part of a school project,” I said.

  “That is a far cry from telling you to use the school address without my permission,” said Daddy.

  Uh-oh. This was a misunderstanding. A big misunderstanding. I know about misunderstandings. Daddy and I have had them a few times before. I do not like them. They are not any fun at all.

  “And now Ms. Colman is upset,” Daddy continued. “And I cannot blame her. I would be upset too.” Daddy was angry now. He was angry at me.

  “I guess I heard wrong,” I said. And then I added quickly, “I am sorry, Daddy.”

  “You must learn to listen more carefully,” said Daddy. “All right, Karen. There will be no TV this weekend. Maybe that will help you remember to listen next time.”

  No TV? That did not seem fair to me. Why should I be punished for a little misunderstanding?

  “How about if I tape the shows I want to see and watch them when my punishment is over?” I asked.

  “Absolutely not,” said Daddy.

  Boo and bullfrogs. Daddy was being awfully strict. Oh, well. I guessed I did not really need to watch TV that weekend anyway. I could use the time to fix up my stamp album. I could make new pages. I would need more room for all the new stamps I would have now that my postcards had started to arrive. I wondered how many more would be at school on Monday. Maybe another bagful. Maybe even more.

  * * *

  On Monday, lots more postcards were waiting for me. Ms. Agna brought them to our class. I smiled and waved at her, but she did not smile back. Ms. Colman did not look happy either. They glanced at me and whispered in the doorway. Oh, dear. This time, Ms. Colman did not let me read any of the cards out loud. She put the bag away and did not say a word about it. When it was time for recess, she forgot to give it to me, so I had to remind her. Ms. Colman sighed.

  “All right,” she said. “But you need to put them in your cubby as soon as you come back inside. I do not want these postcards to disrupt our class.”

  Boo. Everybody certainly was touchy lately. I took the bag and followed my friends to the cafeteria. Later, on the playground, Pamela ran to me. When I opened the bag to look at the stamps, she tried to peer in. This time I was not going to let her.

  “Hey,” I said, “these are my cards.”

  “I do not know about that,” Pamela said. “They were delivered to school. That means you have to share them. Including the stamps.”

  What? That was the craziest idea I had ever heard. I held a card up to her face.

  “Look,” I said. “The postcards have my name on them. That means they are mine.”

  Pamela grabbed the card out of my hand.

  “Hey!” she said. “A waterfall stamp! Do you have two? If you do, you should give this one to me.”

  Boy oh boy, was I ever sorry I had shared any of my stamp with Pamela in the first place. If I gave her one of each double stamp that came, her collection would be better than mine in no time.

  I grabbed the card.

  “Find your own stamps,” I said. “Stamp hog!”

  Pamela ran off to complain to Ms. Colman, but I did not pay any attention. Sometimes Pamela can be the meanest of the meanie-mos. And I was sure Ms. Colman would take my side.

  Rotten Luck

  By this time my luck was pretty bad. I did not think it could get much worse. But the next day, when Ms. Agna came to our class with another bag of postcards, my luck went from bad to rotten.

  I had already decided I did not want to take the postcards to recess with me. I would wait until the end of the day to ask Ms. Colman for them. Then I would tuck them in my backpack and leave them there until I got home. That way there would be no problems. That seemed like a very good plan.

  But as soon as Ms. Agna left the room, Pamela started waving her hand.

  “Yes, Pamela?” said Ms. Colman.

  “I have a complaint to make,” Pamela announced. “I do not think it is fair for Karen to get mail at school. Not unless she shares it. I think we should divide up the postcards and give some to everyone in the class.”

  Well, for heaven’s sake! I waved my hand so Ms. Colman would call on me.

  “The postcards are mine,” I said. “I am sorry I ever had them delivered to school. But it would not be fair for anybody else to have them. The kids who wrote the cards wrote to me.”

  “You are the one who is hogging all the stamps!” Pamela shouted.

  “Just a moment. Just a moment,” said Ms. Colman. “These postcards have become a real problem. Let me think about this for a minute. There must be a solution.”

  Everyone in the class sat quietly, watching, waiting, as Ms. Colman thought. I sat the most quietly of all.

  “I have an idea,” she said after a minute. “I agree that the postcards themselves belong to Karen. But the stamps on the cards are a different matter. We can distribute them to anyone who is interested. Each day, when the postcards arrive, we will have a grab bag. Everyone may have a chance to reach into the bag and pull out one card. Then we will cut off the stamps and give the cards back to Karen.”

  I could not believe my ears. Usually, Ms. Colman is a very fair teacher. But this was not fair at all. I raised my hand to protest, but Ms. Colman did not call on me. Instead, she held the bag out in front of her.

  “Karen,” she said, “you may be the first to choose a stamp.”

  Ms. Colman looked as if she had made up her mind. I guessed I did not have much choice. I walked to Ms. Colman’s desk and reached into the bag. I certainly did not want to take the first card I touched. It might be one of those cards you can buy at the post office, the kind that have the stamps already printed on them. I felt around for a real postcard with a real stamp. I wanted a big stamp. That would mean it would be one with a good picture, not a regular old flag stamp or a postcard stamp. When I felt a big stamp I pulled out the card. Boo and bullfrogs. It was a horse stamp, the kind I had given Pamela and Nancy last week on the playground.

  Next, Ms. Colman told Pamela she could choose a card from the bag. Pamela smiled a meanie-mo smile as she walked past me. She reached into the bag and pulled out a card. Oh no! It had a really cool stamp with a picture of a famous movie star on it. I had been hoping for one of those.

  “Thank you, Ms. Colman,” Pamela said sweetly.

  But that was not the only bad thing to happen that day. Later, when we went to the playground, Pamela followed Hannie and Nancy and me as if she had something more to say. I spun around and snapped at her.

  “Listen, I do not have any more stamps. You already took the best one. So there is no reason for you to follow me around today, is there?”

  “I just wanted to thank you,” said Pamela. “And I wanted to let you know that if I get any doubles of the movie star stamp, maybe I will give one to you. I will probably get lots of doubles when my postcards start coming in.”


  “What do you mean, ‘your postcards’?” I asked.

  “From my chain letter. Nancy sent a copy to Addie, and Addie sent one to me.”

  I looked at Nancy. She shrugged. I knew Nancy had not thought that Addie would send one of her letters to Pamela.

  “So I should be receiving my postcards any day now,” said Pamela. “Only my cards will be sent to my house. So I will not have to share them.”

  This was something I had not thought of. Other kids in the class had gotten the chain letter. If their parents had given them permission to send it out, then they would be getting their own postcards. With their own stamps. And all of theirs would be delivered straight to their houses.

  “Thanks again,” chirped Pamela. She ran off to join her friends.

  Nancy reached into her pocket.

  “Want to see my new stamps?” she asked.

  I did not. “Who cares about stamps?” I said.

  I stomped off to play by myself. Soon, my stamp collection would be the worst in the class by far.

  Stamp Champ

  The next day for show-and-share Nancy brought in her stamps. Her collection had grown big, much bigger than mine. She also brought in a magazine about stamp collecting. It was written especially for kids.

  “On this page,” she said, holding the magazine high, “it shows the correct way to take stamps off envelopes.”

  Hannie glanced at me. I knew what she was thinking. If Nancy’s way was the correct way, then the way I had shown must be wrong.

  Nancy set a bowl of warm water on Ms. Colman’s desk to demonstrate. She cut a stamp off of an envelope, then dropped it into the water to soak. As we watched, the stamp came loose from the paper it was stuck on. Nancy fished the stamp out of the water with a special pair of tongs.

  “This way,” she said, “the stamp does not get damaged.” She held up the dripping stamp. “When it is dry, you stick it in your album with one of these special mounts.” She passed around a little gummed sticker for everyone to see. It had a special plastic window to protect the stamp. “You lick the back of it and stick it on the page,” she said. “So it does not ruin the stamp, the way glue does.”

  After that, Ms. Colman called on Addie. Addie had brought in stamps too. She had organized hers in an album she had bought at the store. Personally, I liked my album much better. I think it takes much more creativity to make something beautiful yourself.

  Hank Reubens was next. And what do you think he brought to show? Stamps. Well, for goodness sake. I did not know that Hank was interested in stamps too. It looked as if everyone in the class had started a collection now. Hank did not keep his stamps in an album, though. He had mounted his on trading cards.

  “You can buy the cards at the post office,” he said. “They are specially made for stamps. And by the way, I am interested in trading cards with anyone else. I am especially interested in basketball stamps. I would gladly trade my Joe Hunter for a Moose Mueller.”

  “Thank you, Hank,” said Ms. Colman. “But I would rather that you save any trading for after school.”

  When show-and-share was finally over, Nancy ran to Hannie and me. She was so excited that she was practically bubbling over.

  “Do you think everybody liked my demonstration?” she asked. “I thought it up last night while I was lying in bed. I knew it would be cool.”

  “It was all right,” I said.

  Nancy turned to Hannie. “Have you started a stamp collection yet?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Hannie said glumly, “but it is not going very well. I am not getting many postcards from my chain letter. And nobody sends my family any interesting stamps.”

  “How is your collection?” Nancy asked me.

  “It is coming along very nicely, thank you,” I said. I did not want to talk about stamps with Nancy, though she did not seem to notice. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it excitedly.

  “Thanks, Karen,” she said. “The chain letter really did bring me good luck. I think my collection might be the best in the class now. You guys can call me the Stamp Champ!”

  Oh, brother.

  That afternoon on the school bus, Hannie and I tried to figure out what went wrong.

  “We knew that you would probably have bad luck,” I said to Hannie. “After all, you missed the deadline. But why am I having bad luck?”

  “Did you mail all the letters on time?” asked Hannie.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Wait a minute,” said Hannie. “You may have given them out on time, but you did not mail all of them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember? You handed Nancy and me our letters. Maybe they were supposed to go through the mail.”

  I tried to think back to the chain letter. I could not remember if it had said anything specific about how the letters were supposed to be sent.

  “Do you think that is the problem?” I asked.

  “There must be an explanation,” said Hannie. “What else could it be?”

  I was not sure Hannie was right, but one thing was certain. My luck was now worse than rotten. It was lousy. I thought back to the day I had mailed the letters. If only we had had more stamps. Two measly more stamps would have cost less than a dollar. And now I was paying a big, big price.

  Stamp Stampede

  The next day’s show-and-share was more of the same. Every single person except for Hannie and me brought in their stamps to show. And everyone tried to talk at once.

  “Whoa!” cried Ms. Colman. “This feels like a stamp stampede!”

  I could tell that Ms. Colman was a little tired of stamps. After five people had shared their collections, she made a suggestion. “I wonder if anyone has anything else to talk about? Does anyone have anything to share that is not about stamps?”

  For a moment, no one spoke. Then Ricky Torres raised his hand.

  “I have something to say,” he began. “It is not exactly about stamps, but it is about a postcard I received because of the chain letter. Is that okay?”

  “That sounds interesting,” said Ms. Colman. “Go ahead.”

  Ricky held up his postcard. On the front was a picture of a baseball stadium. Ricky read the card. Hi, it said. Here is a picture of Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Sometimes I get to sit in the dugout. That is because my dad plays on the team. Please write back. Your friend, Armando Rivera.

  Ricky looked at us. “Armando Rivera,” he said. “Get it?”

  We all just stared at him. I could not imagine what Ricky wanted us to get.

  “His last name is Rivera,” said Ricky. “It says his father plays on the team. That must mean his father is José Rivera. He plays for the Cincinnati Reds.”

  Wow! If Ricky was right, that was pretty cool.

  “Good detective work, Ricky,” said Ms. Colman. “And your postcard gives me an idea. I wonder if anyone else has an interesting card they want to read to the class.”

  At first no one said a word. The truth was, not many of us had bothered to read our postcards. We had been too busy thinking about the stamps. But some kids had a few cards in their desks. The room was quite while they took out their cards and read them. Then Tammy Barkan raised her hand.

  “This one is kind of interesting,” she said. “It is from a girl who is training to be a figure skater. She lives in Minnesota. Look. She included her address too. She wants me to write back.”

  Then Natalie Springer showed us one of her postcards. It was homemade. The picture on the front was a photo that had been glued onto a piece of cardboard. The photo showed a girl riding a horse. I like to ride horses, the girl had written on the back. I am learning how to jump. This girl had included her address too.

  Ms. Colman smiled. “Did you realize that so many of the kids who wrote you wanted you to respond?” she asked.

  And then she told us her idea. “I think this might make an excellent writing project for us. Would you like to write back to the kids who put their return addresses on their postcard
s?”

  “Like pen pals!” I shouted out.

  “Exactly, Karen,” she said. “Though please try to remember to raise your hand.”

  I was not the only one who thought Ms. Colman’s idea was great. Bobby asked Ricky if he could write to the boy whose father was a baseball player. And Jannie Gilbert wanted to write to the girl who was learning to ride horses.

  “I want everyone to bring in the postcards with return addresses,” Ms. Colman told us. “You will also need to bring in permission notes from your parents saying that you may write to your pen pals and letting me know whether you may include your name and address. We will put all the postcards together in a big basket. Then, when we have had a chance to read through them, we will have Postcard Day. On that day, we will write letters to as many of our new friends as we can.”

  I raised my hand. “One question,” I said. “When is Postcard Day?”

  “How about Tuesday?” Ms. Colman replied.

  “Hurrah!” I shouted. Oops. I was just so excited. Postcard Day was going to be great!

  Cards in a Basket

  The days leading up to Postcard Day were lots of fun. Ms. Colman brought in a big red basket. When we put our postcards in it, it was filled to the brim. I found lots of cards from kids I wanted to write back to. I even started composing a letter in my head. My name is Karen Brewer, it would begin. And you might be interested to know that I was the very first kid in our class to receive the chain letter in the mail. I sent it to my friends, and they sent it to you.

  Wow! That made me realize something. Our project had started because of me.

  That is what I told Daddy when I asked him to write my permission note.

  “No,” he joked. “It was not because of you. It was me. Remember? I was the one who suggested that the chain letter be a class project. Or so I heard. From a certain daughter of mine with a very active imagination.”

  “Oh, Daddy,” I said. I poked him in the arm. Sometimes my daddy can be just plain silly.

  On Monday, Ms. Colman posted a big map, and we spent the morning looking at the postcards to find out where they were from. We discovered that we had postcards from thirty-four of the fifty states.