Dear Ruthann,

 I used to think that the hardest part about moving from California to New

York was going to be that I would miss my friends back home. I was only partly

right. I've been here a week now and I do miss my old friends but the hardest part is

that I haven't been able to make any new friends yet. New York feels very weird to

me. The school is weird, the teachers are weird, the food is weird, and some of the

kids here are the weirdest of all!

 In fact, our sixth grade is probably the weirdest class in this whole school!

Something strange is always happening here. Mr. Cherry is our teacher and he says

it is because we are all children of the Twilight Zone whatever that means!

Sometimes I think that Mr. Cherry is stranger than any of the kids. All except for a

boy here named Jason. Nobody is stranger than Jason!

 Today is Friday and on Fridays we get to do a science experiment right after

lunch. The day had been kinda quiet up till then except for when Jason got sent to

the principals office by a cafeteria monitor. Jason brings his lunch from home and

his mom is always putting something strange in his lunchbox that he never eats

anyway. I heard that once it was some cooked snails which he called "his cargo."

He lined them up and flicked them across the table at the other kids. Mostly girls!

Well this time it was some sliced cows tongue! Big long strips of cows tongue!

He had a long piece of it hanging from his mouth and down across his chin.

He was shaking his head and making it jiggle while he made these weird noises and

faces. It really was funny and the whole table was laughing and making so much

noise that the monitor came over to see what was going on. She came up behind

Jason  just as he was dealing out slices of tongue, like cards, to the other boys. He

never saw her coming. She sent him to the principals office with three slices of

cows tongue in his hand. He was grinning at her and she was yelling at him,

"Explain that to the principal if you can!"

 After that, things pretty much settled down. Until science that is. Jason was

back from the office and Mr. Cherry never said a word about him being sent there. I

don't think he even knew about it yet. Mr. Cherry doesn't like to eat with us kids if

he can help it. He says we're scary. Anyway, we were working in teams. Four kids

to a team. We make teams by using cards. We draw cards and all the twos work

together, all the threes and like that. I got a six and then I found two of the other

sixes. One was Beth and I was glad. She's in my math group and I like her a lot.

The other kid was a new boy named Kevin who just moved here two weeks ago and

nobody knows very much about yet. We were looking around for the last number

six when I spied Jason across the room standing on a reading table. He was

grinning and holding the six of clubs in the air for everyone to see. Oh boy! My

team! Just great! Why me???
 

 I thought of trying to trade my six for another number, any other number!

But by now nearly everybody had noticed Jason and his six of clubs and nobody

would have traded with me. Jason is a real pain! Major league! And everybody

knows it. Besides, I didn't want to hurt Beth's feelings. Or Kevins's either.

 So we got Jason and the four of us found a table to work on. Mr. Cherry

had given us one of those round coffee filters and showed us how to fold and cut

them to make snowflakes to decorate the room with. While we were folding and

cutting the snowflakes, Mr. Cherry went around to each team and gave out packs of

Kool-Aid powder in different colors. He told us the plastic cups by the sink were to

mix the Kool-Aid powder with a little water to make colored water for dipping the

snowflakes. Wow! Cool! Colored snowflakes!

  While we got our cups of water and were beginning to open the Kool-Aid

packs, Mr Cherry was in front of the room talking about stuff like 'cemetary',

'chroma-something' and other things nobody cared about. I don't know who he was

talking to because nobody was listening anyway. We were getting ready to mix the

Kool-Aid and dip the snowflakes. Our team had strawberry for red and Great

Bluedini which is blueberry and comes out blue. I had the strawberry open and

Beth was working on the Great Bluedini when the smell hit us. If you've ever

torn open a pack of Kool-Aid, you know what I mean. The sweet smell that comes

out of the packs is really nice. I held the strawberry pack near my nose and took a

good whiff. Nice. Jason wanted to smell it too and I had to let him. Meanwhile

Beth was still working on the packet of blueberry. We were wondering which

would smell better, the red or the blue. By the time she got it open Jason had

been telling Kevin about one of the kids in his fifth grade class last year. The kid

was trying to back out of an escape window during an emergency bus drill when his

baggy jeans started to slide. He was the last one out and the further out the window

the kid got, the more his jeans, inched down. By the time he was all the way out, he

had mooned everybody in the class, teacher too!

 Jason said that by the time the boy was on the ground, the whole class was

clapping and cheering for him. Jason had started the cheering himself. Kevin and I

were both starting to laugh at the thought of it. Anyway, Jason got to the funniest

part just as Beth was putting the packet of blue Kool-Aid powder to her nose to get

the first smell. Suddenly there was this loud snort and a cloud of blue powder sort

of exploded around Beth's head! Everything got kind of confusing after that. I

remember Beth just standing there, looking surprised. Her face and blonde hair

covered with blue Kool-Aid dust. The lenses of her glasses covered with blue so

that you couldn't see her eyes. Coughing...sneezing...Jason laughing...Kevin just

standing there, his mouth open staring at her. Beth's eyes and nose started to water

which caused blue streaks to run down her face from behind her glasses. This made

us (me too by now) laugh even harder and that made Beth feel even worse. Real

tears and a runny nose started then.

 Mr. Cherry got to our table just in time to see Beth blow two small blue

bubbles from her nose, one on each side. Jason and I were hysterical by now. He

was laughing so hard he had to run out to the boys room so he wouldn't wet his

pants. He didn't even stop to get the pass! Mr Cherry just stood there, with the rest

of the class behind him, looking at us. He was slowly shaking his head back and

forth as if he had just discovered some new and strange bug or something.

 Anyway, we got the mess cleaned up. Kevin got away clean. Jason and I lost

recess, which for Jason was no big deal, but for me it was because I wanted to tell

Beth I was sorry for laughing at her. I never got the chance. Every time I have tried

to talk to her about it, the sight of those blue bubbles comes back to me and I start

to laugh all over again and she gets mad. She probably hates me now. I not only lost

recess that day, I lost a chance to have a new best friend. And it's all because of  Jason

and his dumb stories.

 Boy! I miss California! Write back ... I need cheering up.

Your Friend,
 
 

Heather