Ellray Jakes Walks the Plank by Sally Warner

VIKING
    Published by Penguin Group
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    Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
    First published in 2012 by Viking, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group
    1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
    Text copyright © Sally Warner, 2012
    Illustrations copyright © Jamie Harper, 2012
    All rights reserved
    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
    Warner, Sally.
    EllRay Jakes walks the plank / by Sally Warner; illustrated by Jamie Harper.
    p. cm.
    Summary: Third-grader EllRay is becoming famous for messing up when his little sister accidentally kills the classroom goldfish EllRay is taking care of and then he leaves his teacher’s read-aloud book at home.
    ISBN: 978-1-101-56584-1
    [1. Behavior—Fiction. 2. Responsibility—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. African Americans—Fiction.]
    I. Harper, Jamie, ill. II. Title.
    PZ7.W24644Ep 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011016029
    Manufactured in China
    Set in ITC Century
    Book design by Nancy Brennan
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For Lucy and Noah Parsons
—S.W.
    For Alison and Maddie —J.H.

ZIP, NOT SWIMMY
    “Why do you hate Swimmy?” my four-year-old sister Alfie asks me one rainy afternoon in April during spring break.
    “I don’t hate him,” I say, pressing PAUSE on my hand-held video game. And it’s true. I just don’t want to start liking him too much, that’s all. He has to go back to school on Monday.
    Alfie and I are both sitting on my bed, but I am the only one who is supposed to be here. I was alone in my room, leaning against my pillows minding my own business, trying to top my personal best in
Die, Creature, Die
. Mom thinks the game is too violent, but it’s not. It’s just space creatures you are socking with your FIST OF DOOM . But Alfie ruined the whole thing.
    “He’s just a regular goldfish,” I say. “He’s barelyeven two inches long. What is there to hate?”
    “But you don’t
like
him,” Alfie says, not backing down.
    Everyone says how cute my sister is, but they don’t know how stubborn she can be. She is golden-brown like an acorn, and she has big brown eyes. She usually wears her hair in three puffy little braids, one on each side of her head and one sort of in the back. It’s hard to explain girls’ hair right.
    I am
so
glad I do not have to be the one to fix Alfie’s hair each morning, by the way! You should hear the yelling. And Alfie’s braids have to be just perfect. I feel sorry for my mom.

    “That fish is not even ours,