Dexter the Tough Read Online Free PDF

“Remember, we’re acting like professional writers, and professional writers do lots and lots and lots of drafts. And you know what? You should save every draft, so you can see the progress you’re making.” She pointed at the X Dexter had drawn through his original story. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of old drafts, just because they’re not perfect. Writing is a process.”
    She studied Dexter’s words again.
    â€œWhat do you think of this version of your story?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” Dexter said. “It’s okay, I guess.”
    â€œLet’s pretend you weren’t the one who wrote it,” Ms. Abbott said. “Pretend you just found this story somewhere and you read it. What would you think the writer thought was the most important part of the whole story?”
    Dexter shrugged. He looked longingly athis own desk, where he’d been working on a punctuation work sheet before Ms. Abbott called him up to talk about his story. He wasn’t a big fan of punctuation work sheets, but they were much, much better than this.
    â€œWhat does the writer of this story spend the most time describing?” Ms. Abbott asked, still acting like Dexter wasn’t the writer.
    Dexter frowned down at his story. He wished it did belong to someone else.
    â€œThe bathroom?” he asked.
    â€œBingo!” Ms. Abbott said. “Good job! You win the prize! Now for the really hard question, I need Dexter the author back. Dexter, for the all-expense-paid trip to Hawaii and the side-by-side washer-dryer, tell me the most important thing about this fight. Was it the fact that it took place in the bathroom?”
    â€œNo,” Dexter muttered.
    Dexter hoped that Ms. Abbott would get even sillier, pretending to be a game-showhost awarding the grand prize. He hoped that she would forget that they were talking about his story. But she just nodded and said, “Then what was it?”
    Dexter looked down at his lap. He had his hands clenched together—his left hand was holding down the hand that had hit Robin.
    â€œDexter?” Ms. Abbott said softly. “This is a question only you know the answer to. I can only guess about why this fight was important. Does it have something to do with the reason you were mad? Was it what Robin said or did before you beat him up? Was it how you felt after you hit him? I think that’s the question you need to think about for your next revision. It’s a big question, so I’ll only give you one.”
    She wrote one sentence in her perfect cursive at the bottom of the page. Then she handed the paper back to Dexter.
    â€œAnd if I forget, will you remind me that we need to talk about sentence fragments asa whole class?” she said, smiling again.
    Dexter went back to his desk. He looked at his story again. He knew what sentence fragments were. He’d learned about them at his old school. They were little parts of a sentence that got cut off from the rest of the sentence, that weren’t supposed to stand alone. They were things like, “In the bathroom.” And “The one between the office and your classroom.” Practically his whole story was sentence fragments, all those little phrases that couldn’t survive on their own.
    Dexter’s eyes blurred. There was something really, really wrong with him. Now he was feeling sorry for sentence fragments.

Chapter 8
    D exter hid out around the corner of the school during recess. There, he could kick pebbles without the playground monitor watching him. But he peeked out a couple times, just to make sure no one was coming for him.
    It was a good thing he did that. The third or fourth time he looked out, he saw Ms. Abbott walk out of the school building and make a beeline for the playground monitor. They talked together for a few minutes, then the playground monitor pointed far, far past the tetherball courts and the kick-ball field, almost to