EllRay Jakes Is Not a Chicken by Sally Warner

VIKING
    Published by Penguin Group
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First published in 2011 by Viking, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group

    Text copyright © Sally Warner, 2011
    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Warner, Sally.
    EllRay Jakes is not a chicken / by Sally Warner ; illustrated by Jamie Harper.
p. cm.
    Summary: Eight-year-old EllRay’s father has promised a family trip to Disneyland if EllRay can stay out of trouble for a week, but not defending himself against Jared, the class bully, proves to be a real challenge.
    ISBN : 978-1-101-56458-5
    [1. Behavior—Fiction. 2. Bullies—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Family life—California—Fiction.
    5. California—Fiction.] I. Harper, Jamie, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.W24644Em 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010025106

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For my long-time editor, Tracy Gates,
with affection and gratitude—S.W.

    For Peter and Charles—J.H.

1
    TWO FOR FLINCHING
    â€œTwo for flinching,” Jared Matthews says at lunch one MONDAY in January. BOP! He punches me really hard on my right arm muscle—which is not very big, it’s true.
    It looks like a ping-pong ball, only brown.
    â€œI didn’t flinch,” I argue, rubbing my arm to make the sting go away.
    My name is EllRay Jakes, and I am eight years old. I am the smallest kid in Ms. Sanchez’s third grade class, even counting the girls, and Jared is the biggest.
    It’s like I am made out of sticks, and Jared is made out of logs.
    My dad says I’m going to get bigger someday, but when?
    â€œHere’s one to grow on, EllRay,” Jared’s kiss-up friend Stanley Washington says, his glasses gleaming like mean lizard eyes.
    And— BOP!
    â€œEllRay wishes he would grow,” Jared says—because I’m so short. Great joke, Jared.
    And then Jared laughs like a cartoon donkey: “ HAW, HAW, HAW! ”
    It’s just another relaxing lunch on an ordinary day at Oak Glen Primary School, in Oak Glen, California.

    There is a third grade boys’ war going on at our school, but the three kids in the war—Jared Matthews, Stanley Washington, and me, EllRay Jakes—all act like nothing is wrong.
    Our teacher, Ms. Sanchez, doesn’t have a clue.
    Ms. Sanchez is smart about what goes on inside her classroom, but she doesn’t know what goes on