Fourth-Grade Disasters by Claudia Mills Page A

blah—Dunk copied.”
    “Are you going to tell Coach Joe?” Mason asked.
    “He’s going to know, anyway. I mean, it’s pretty obvious.”
    Obvious to Nora.
    Just the way that Puff’s calamity had been obvious to Nora.
    The calamity that would all too soon be obvious to the entire heartbroken school.
    “I think I might tell Dunk,” Nora said. “That I know.”
    Mason wasn’t sure whether he wanted her to alert Dunk or not. It would be satisfying to see Dunk get in trouble. At art camp last summer, Dunk had ruined practically every single artwork of Brody’s, and yet he had never gotten in trouble. When Dunk’s big bad dog, Wolf, had attacked Dog, Dunk hadn’t gotten in trouble.
    Dunk
had
said he was sorry that time. Mason hadto admit that Dunk had looked extremely sorry, too. But Dunk had deserved to be sorry.
    And if Dunk had copied his story, he deserved to get in trouble and be sorry about that, too.
    Now there was a yellow dot on Brody’s chin, and one on his left cheek. Brody was turning into his own pointillist painting of a very happy boy.
    Mason looked across the room at Dunk, who was busy flicking drops of paint onto the arm of poor Sheng, who was stuck sitting next to him and was obviously too afraid of Dunk to say anything about it.
    Yes, it would be very satisfying if, for once, Dunk got into trouble. Big trouble.

12
    “So, Mom,” Mason said as he sat down at the kitchen table after school with his three Fig Newtons and a glass of milk. “Mrs. Morengo asked me about the real Puff. She said he needs to be at school tomorrow, because a mom is drawing his picture for the concert program. And the Platters have never performed without Puff to cheer them on. What are we going to do?”
    Dog lay at Mason’s feet, contentedly chewing a rawhide bone. Mason’s mom had called the vet after the Puff disaster for advice on what to do about Dog’s chewing. The vet said to give Dog lots of extra chewing opportunities so he could channel his chewing energies more appropriately. Mason’s dad had been right all along.
    Mason’s mother gave him another mysterious smile. Mason had learned once in art class that a smile like that was called a Mona Lisa smile, after the expression on a famous portrait painted by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. But Mason wasn’t in the mood for a Mona Lisa smile right now.
    “Tell me!” he pleaded.
    “I will in a minute. But first tell me: was Brody thrilled with his solo?”
    Mason stared at her. “How did you know she was going to give the solo to Brody?”
    “Mrs. Morengo told me yesterday, when we were talking on the phone. And who else could be Puff, if not Brody? He’s such a cute size, with that great big personality—”
    Mason’s face must have given him away.
    “Mason, you didn’t think—”
    Was she also going to accuse him of having wanted to be Puff? She couldn’t, not his own mother. It was bad enough coming from his best friend, but at least Brody’s excuse was that he honestly couldn’t imagine that anybody in the universe might not want to be Puff.
    She reached over and smoothed his hair, not thatit needed smoothing. “Oh, honey, I should have told you, so you wouldn’t worry. I just thought it would be such a great surprise.”
    Apparently she had forgotten that Mason hated surprises. At least she had remembered that Mason hated singing.
    “But, honey, Mrs. Morengo did say that you’re doing so well in the Platters! And, can you believe it, she even said that we should consider getting you voice lessons!”
    The doorbell rang. Dog abandoned his bone and jumped up to go help answer it.
    “Speaking of surprises …,” his mother said as she exited the kitchen behind Dog.
    She returned carrying an enormous cardboard carton, practically as big as Brody.
    “Dog, sit!” Mason’s mom commanded. Dog sat.
    “Dog, bone!” she commanded. Dog resumed his contented chewing.
    Using a kitchen knife, Mason’s mom slit open the tape sealing the