MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING
 
 
A Contemporary Middle-Grade Novel
 
 
 
 
 
 
32,000 Words
 

---

Chapter 1

 
I swung my backpack onto a hook in the crowded fourth-grade hallway.

“Flaco!” called Chuy.

He hunched over and rubbed the back of his buzzed head as a decoy for any teachers who might be near.
Then he let out a scratchy bird call, one of his best talents.

And, whoa, he morphed the bird call into a screech, and an ambulance siren, and finished with the sound of a firecracker whistling into the air like on the Fourth of July before exploding into a thousand sparkling lights.

Then Chuy straightened up and stared off into space, looking surprised, like, “Who made that noise?”

“Good one,” said my brother Gordo, giving him a fake punch on the shoulder.

Me and Gordo, we’re twins, even though he has a whole different birthday because of us being born on either side of midnight on the last day of July. Mom gave Gordo the real name Julio. But I got stuck with Agosto. Luckily, we go by our nicknames.

And yeah, we’re identical, except for our size. I’m smaller—the runt, Gordo said when he learned that word. But we have the same brown eyes. Same dimples and hair in a little fringe across our foreheads. We even wear the same cool, matching clothes!

“Bet you can’t beat that, Flaco!” Chuy said in his froggy voice, as he cracked his knuckles in my direction.
Chuy was almost as big as Gordo, but squishier.

“Hah, just wait!” I ran over to the drinking fountain.

I glanced up and down the hall. Not many kids now. And no teachers.

I pressed my thumb over the hole and turned it on, just as the second bell rang.

Water sprayed across the hall!

A few drops even landed on the safety poster!

“Ta-da!” I cried.

A new record!

But—what? No laughs?

Where did everybody go?

Uh-oh!

Electric prickles shot through my body.

I spun around.

Mrs. Maynard, the principal, was right behind me! Where had she come from?
Her dark hair was flying out from the crazy knot she had pinned with sticks on top of her head. Her arms were folded across the front of her lumpy, brown dress. Her face said she meant business.

“Well,” she said. “Mr. Romero.”

Her eyes drilled into me.

“It looks as though you might be needing this.” She handed me a rag.

Mrs. Maynard had the drinking fountain staked out, all right.
“I didn’t mean to make a mess,” I said. “Really, only a few splatters got out. It was—a science experiment! More force, less water?”

I gave her my best smile.

She looked at the wall. She looked at the floor. She raised her eyebrows.

“Maybe more water got out than I thought?”

“Puddles can cause accidents,” she said.

Mrs. Maynard started talking about disaster-making, like wet floors. And uglification, like splotches on posters. But I could only think of one thing.

“Will I get a conduct report?”

She frowned.

“My mom will flip! I might have to wash dishes for a whole month!”

“You should have thought about that beforehand,” she said.

But I did! I thought it was safe and I’d never get caught! I couldn’t say that to Mrs. Maynard, though.
This would make nineteen conduct reports for the year! I’d caught up with Gordo!
But if we hit twenty, we could get kicked out of school!

“Better get started,” Mrs. Maynard said, nodding at the floor.

I got down on my hands and knees and swished the rag around. The water mixed with dirt on the tiles and turned muddy, but I tried to wipe everything up.

Mrs. Maynard’s clunky black shoes and thick ankles stayed next to me the whole time.

By the end, the rag looked like it had been soaked in chocolate milk. I squeezed the main drips into the drinking fountain and handed it to Mrs. Maynard. The rag was cold and wet, but she wadded it up and held onto it.

Mrs. Maynard nodded at the drinking fountain to let me know that there was more to do. I washed the last bits of sand and mud down the drain.

“Now, what have you learned about your behavior?”

“People could slip? Uh, someone has to clean it up?”

“In addition, you’re missing valuable class time. And you distracted your friends, causing them to be late.”

I bowed my head and stared at the floor.

Mrs. Maynard studied me. “I’m interested in your science experiment, more force, less water. Would you write me a short explanation for tomorrow? It will be a little extra homework assignment.”

I nodded, wrinkling my forehead, trying to look smart.

“Okay,” I said. “Yes, ma’am.”

A teeny bit of niceness sneaked onto Mrs. Maynard’s face.

Then I reached in my pocket and pulled out my lucky rock.

“You can have this,” I said, handing her my little black rock with silver dots.

“Oh,” she said, “do you have a collection?”

“No, I don’t have a place to keep stuff like that. Only my pockets. Usually put my rocks back into the wild
after a day or two.”

She smiled. “It’s a beautiful specimen, so sparkly and full of mica.”

“That’s how I knew it was a lucky one. I named him Sparky.”

All of a sudden, my heart felt a little stab to see the rock that Papi gave me in Mrs. Maynard’s hand.

“I’ll put Sparky on my desk,” she said. “You can come and visit him whenever you like.”

But hey, maybe my lucky rock would keep Mrs. Maynard from calling Mom.

Maybe I wouldn’t even get a conduct report!

“You can keep Sparky as long as you want,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said, “I’ll take good care of him.” She cleared her throat. “Now, come along with me to the office.”

What?

Oh no!

How was I going to get out of this alive?