The Secret Cookie Club Read Online Free PDF Page A

must not judge the ideas of other families. We don’t know everything.”
    â€œDon’t we?” my mom asked, and I thought maybe she was serious, but then she winked at my dad, and they laughed . . . and so did I.

CHAPTER 8

    Grace
    Friday counted as an okay day at school. We were supposed to meet for the first time in our Walden pairs, but—luckily—art cleanup went too long and then the school day was over. I had time before chess club and could have asked Mrs. Keeran to change out Shoshi for Kelly then, but I lost my nerve. I promised myself I would do it on Monday.
    It was the next morning, Saturday, that I sat downat my desk to write to Lucy and felt bad that I didn’t have fragrant purple stationery or stickers or a pink pen or anything fun the way she did. All I had was regular lined notebook paper and a blue Bic pen. I hoped Lucy wouldn’t mind.
    Saturday, October 17
    Dear Lucy,
    Thank you very much for your nice letter. Please forgive me for not replying sooner. You are right that I am busy. But what I am busy with is more boring than babysitting for Arlo, Mia, and Levi. (Please give them my regards.)
    You said you think I must have lots of friends here, but I do not. What I do have is one enemy. Her name is Shoshi Rubinstein, and she is in my class at school, and she hates me. I did not do anything to make her hate me, except she also takes ballet with me,and Mademoiselle G, our teacher, told me I have nice posture on the same day she told Shoshi to stop slouching.
    Shoshi is unusually tall. I cannot help that. Can I?
    So now Shoshi and her tall, slouchy friends giggle and whisper when I walk by, and I think they have a bad nickname for me, too, but I don’t know what it is. I think Shoshi is a mean girl (we learned about them in our anti-bullying unit), and I have noticed that mean girls always have lots of friends. Have you noticed this too? They clump together like lint.
    Change of topic. :^)
    I think I would like to have a job and to be in charge of something like you are in charge of Arlo, Mia, and Levi. Do you supervise their games? Do you speak to them in a foreign language, and if so, which one? Do you encourage them to exercise so theywill have strong muscles and healthy hearts?
    Here are the answers to your questions.
    Yes, we are still friends. In fact, you are one of my only friends and you are 2,983 miles away. (I looked it up.)
    Now that you have reminded me, I miss my bunkmates at camp and Hannah, too.
    Thank you for remembering the Secret Cookie Club. But if you are too busy, you do not have to make me any cookies. I do not want to put you to any trouble. It is enough that you thought of me and wrote a nice letter.
    Sincerely, Your Friend Grace Xi
    P.S. If you are making Hannah’s grandpa’s chocolate chip cookies, I would like pecans in them.
    P.P.S. What Vivek gave me was not serious.
    When I read my letter over, I thought of crossing out the part about lint because it was definitely Snot-Nosed Grace talking, and would Lucy realize when she read it that I am not really the nice person she thinks I am? It was too bad we couldn’t talk the way we used to after lights-out, but Lucy hadn’t even given me a phone number, and when I checked the camp directory that Moonlight Ranch gave to our family at the end of the summer, there wasn’t a phone number there either—only an address. How strange.
    In fact, Lucy seemed so far away (well, she was) and her life so different from mine that I couldn’t imagine it. She might as well live in a grass shack on a street made of sand in a village surrounded by palm trees.

CHAPTER 9

    Grace
    After the flag salute Monday morning, Mrs. Keeran announced we would absolutely be meeting in our Walden pairs that afternoon. So, when the bell rang for lunch, I went up to her desk.
    â€œYes, Grace? What can I do for you?” Mrs. Keeran is the only African-American teacher at my school. She almost