Otis Spofford by Beverly Cleary

noticed that all the others were bent over their readers. Then he saw Mrs. Gitler and Mr. Howe in the doorway. As he felt Mrs. Gitler’s angry glance take in everything, his lip uncurled and Ellen’s hair fell to the floor. Otis shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Why didn’t Ellen burst into tears and tell Mrs. Gitler all about it and get it over?
    Instead, Ellen turned on him so fiercely that he stepped back. “Otis Spofford!” she shouted, in front of Mr. Howe and everyone. “You’re going to be sorry for what you’ve done!” Then she flung herself angrily into her seat and bent over her reader.
    Otis had never known Ellen to behave this way. He looked at the two red spots that flamed in her cheeks and at the hair that fell against one side of her face and stuck out rough and jagged on the other. If only there were some way he could stick her hair back on!
    Mr. Howe spoke quietly. “Otis, you may come with me to the office.”
    Trying to walk with just enough swagger to make the class think he wasn’t worried, Otis started toward the door, where the teacher and the principal were standing.
    Mrs. Gitler no longer looked angry. “Well, Otis,” she said, as he followed Mr. Howe into the hall, “I have a feeling that this time you’re going to find out what comeuppance means.”
    And as Otis glanced back at Ellen’s jagged hair and flaming cheeks, he had a feeling Mrs. Gitler was right.

6
Otis and Ellen
    O tis Spofford could not think of a time when he had been as uncomfortable as he was this Saturday morning. He was shivering in his undershirt, waiting for his mother to iron him a shirt so he could go skating at the lake. Mrs. Spofford always put off ironing shirts until the last minute. This time Otis couldn’t wear a T-shirt, because she had painted the kitchen cupboards yellow, and somehow both his T-shirts had been used for paint rags.
    Worse than being cold, however, was the thought of yesterday—how he cut Ellen’s hair, and the lecture the principal gave him, and how he squirmed on his chair while he had to listen to Mr. Howe telephone Mrs. Tebbits and tell her what had happened to Ellen’s hair.
    Otis listened to his mother’s wet finger sizzle against the iron and watched her pull a shirt out of the clothesbasket and unfurl it over the ironing board. “Gee, Mom, can’t you hurry?” he begged. “I want to get to the lake before the crowd.” Otis did not say he was especially anxious to get to the lake because this was his only chance to skate. The principal had told him he would have to stay after school every day for the next week.
    Mrs. Spofford pushed the iron rapidly back and forth while Otis rubbed his arms to keep warm.
    “Otis,” she said, “I want to have a talk with you.”
    Otis was not surprised. Grown-ups were always wanting to have talks with him. This time he knew what it was about. Mrs. Tebbits had phoned his mother at the dancing school about Ellen’s hair. Now he was going to catch it all over again.
    “It’s about Ellen,” said his mother.
    “Yeah, I know,” answered Otis.
    Mrs. Spofford continued. “When Mrs. Tebbits came to the studio to pay for Ellen’s dancing lessons last week, she said Ellen is upset because you chase her. I don’t think that is a very nice thing to do, do you?”
    “But she runs,” said Otis, kicking at a fluff of dust on the floor to hide his surprise. Something was wrong. Maybe his mother hadn’t heard about Ellen’s hair. “If she didn’t run, I couldn’t chase her, could I?”
    “Just the same, Mother would rather you didn’t. If you upset Ellen, she might stop taking dancing lessons and we can’t afford that. We need all the pupils we can get.”
    “Aw, she won’t stop taking lessons. She’s always talking about being a famous ballerina when she grows up. Anyway, I stopped chasing her.” Otis did not bother to tell his mother why he had stopped. He wished Mrs. Tebbits had phoned about the hair. He wanted to