Karen's Puppet Show Read online

  Then I took my puppets off the stage and held up a sign that said, TWO WEEKS LATER. HANNAH’S HOUSE.

  “Guess what. I am not going to arts camp. You have to go without me,” I said in my Hannah voice.

  “I am not going either,” I said in my Francy voice. “You will have to go by yourself, Sharon.”

  “Boo-hoo-hoo,” I cried in my Sharon voice.

  “Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Hannah and Francy meanly.

  Then Hannah and Francy sang the meanie-mo theme song:

  I am Hannah. I am Francy.

  We are plain old meanie-mos.

  Just ask Sharon. Sharon knows!

  Summer camp? Not for Hannah.

  Hannah’s going to Montana.

  Summer camp? Not for Francy.

  Summer camp is much too fancy.

  We are plain old meanie-mos.

  Just ask Sharon. Sharon knows!

  By the time I finished singing, the audience was laughing and clapping along. I peeked out to watch.

  I could not believe my eyes. Hannah and Francy — I mean, Hannie and Nancy — were laughing and clapping too.

  The Three Musketeers

  As soon as the show was over, I ran out to find Hannie and Nancy. But I kept getting stopped by my fans.

  I got big hugs from Mommy and Daddy and the rest of my family.

  “It was a great show!” said Kristy. “Everyone loved it.”

  “You did a super job. And your Sharon puppet looked perfect,” said Elizabeth.

  Everyone kept crowding around to congratulate me. My show was a big hit.

  I finally found my friends waiting for me outside. Even though they were smiling, I was still a little scared to talk to them.

  “Hi. I hope you are not mad at me,” I said.

  “At first I was a little mad,” said Nancy. “But the play was so funny. And those puppets were not really like us.”

  “We know we are not that mean,” said Hannie. “Anyway, I knew the characters were make-believe, because I did not go to Montana.”

  “You made Hannah and Francy so funny,” said Nancy. “But I would have made Sharon a little different. I would have made her a meanie-mo too.”

  Nancy changed to a meanie-mo voice and said, “What do you mean, you are not going to camp? I, Sharon, say you must go to camp! Or else!”

  Nancy started giggling.

  “No, wait! I would have made Sharon a whiny puppet,” said Hannie. She changed to a wimpy, whiny voice and said, “Poor, poor me. You will not go to camp? What will I ever do?”

  My friends were making fun of me the way I had made fun of them. But they sounded funny. Now I knew why they had laughed instead of gotten mad.

  “Who wants to walk around the art show with me?” I said. “I have not seen it yet.”

  Hannie, Nancy, and I walked around the show together. I had not seen all of my campmates’ finished art projects because I had been so busy with my own.

  While we walked around, we found food to eat and friends to talk to.

  “It looks like camp was fun,” said Hannie. “I am happy for you.”

  “I am happy you both had fun too,” I said.

  We told one another a little about our summers. We had a lot of catching up to do. We also had plans to make.

  Summer was ending. Soon we would go back to school. None of us could change our minds about that. The Three Musketeers would go together.

  About the Author

  ANN M. MARTIN is the acclaimed and bestselling author of a number of novels and series, including Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), A Dog’s Life, Here Today, P.S. Longer Letter Later (written with Paula Danziger), the Family Tree series, the Doll People series (written with Laura Godwin), the Main Street series, and the generation-defining series The Baby-sitters Club. She lives in New York.

  Copyright © 1997 by Ann M. Martin

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First edition, 1997

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-06030-0