Being Teddy Roosevelt Read Online Free PDF

about the obstacles in Teddy Roosevelt’s life. He grinned. Buthis report, all five pages of it, was almost ready for him to hand in on Wednesday.
    Riley had spent every single afternoon during the week organizing his note cards, making his outline, and writing his rough draft. Then he had thought of a few things he wanted to change, and he had written the whole thing over again. All he had left to do was copy it once more in his best cursive—and prepare to face the biography tea on Friday.
    Sophie’s brother bought five games. He was their best customer.
    When the sale was over, Grant and Riley counted the money together: thirty-six dollars.
    “So …” Riley did the math in his head. “Eighteen dollars each!”
    It wasn’t enough for Sophie’s brother’s saxophone, but it was eighteen dollars more than Riley had had three hours ago.
    “You can have the whole thing,” Grant said. He shoved the pile of crumpled dollar bills, quarters, dimes, and nickels toward Riley.
    “But—” Riley protested. It was too much.
    “Go ahead, take it.” Grant smiled. “Look, I’m poor and simple, right? I don’t even have a pocket in my loincloth to put the money in.”
    Riley swallowed a lump in his throat. He was lucky to be friends with Mahatma Gandhi.
    “Thanks,” he said.

8
    On the day of the biography tea, Riley studied himself in the mirror.
    Bandanna around neck. Check.
    Eyeglasses. His mother had found an old pair and taken the glass out of the frames. Check.
    Broad-brimmed hat. Grant had one that Riley had borrowed. Check.
    No leather jacket. That had been impossible to find. But Riley looked suitably rugged in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. Check.
    Carefully, Riley peeled off the tape from the sticky back of his mustache and pressed the mustache between his nose and his upper lip.
    Check.
    “Bully!” Riley pronounced. It was cool to lookin the mirror and see Teddy Roosevelt looking back at him.
    “Are you ready to head off to school, Teddy?” his mother asked, giving him a hug.
    Riley grinned. “Charge!” He felt ready to head off to the White House.
    On the playground, Riley saw some other kids already in costume. Napoleon swaggered around in a navy-blue military uniform. Pocahontas was wearing a brown fringed tunic with matching leggings; her hair hung in two long dark braids.
    Helen Keller had on an old-fashioned dress, but she wasn’t blind or deaf yet. Riley wondered if Sophie would use a blindfold and earplugs all afternoon long, or just pretend. Either way, it would be interesting to see.
    Queen Elizabeth was in her usual jeans and T-shirt, but she carried a large shopping bag, stuffed with something made of bright purple velvet.
    Grant, too, showed up in regular clothes, with a much smaller shopping bag in hand.
    “Is it in there?” Riley asked.
    “One super-duper, deluxe, premium-grade loincloth. I’m not going to put it on until after lunch. My mom thought it would be too distracting.”
    Riley thought Grant’s mom was probably right. You could forget you were wearing a mustache if you didn’t happen to catch a glimpse of your reflection somewhere. But there was no way that you could forget you were wearing a loincloth. Or that anyone would let you forget.
    The morning dragged. Teddy Roosevelt would have done long division with gusto—he did everything with gusto—but it was hard when the answer to the problem on the board was 324, with a remainder of 7, and Riley came up with 410, with a remainder of 8. He’d have to work harder on his math homework if he was going to get to buy Sophie’s brother’s saxophone. With the yard sale profits, he had $40.21 now. He was almost halfway there.
    Finally, after lunch, Mrs. Harrow sent the kids who weren’t in costume to the restrooms to change. The others sat at their desks and waited.
    When Queen Elizabeth appeared, a ripple of astonishment ran through the classroom. There she stood, in an extremely fancy, long, purple-velvet, olden-days