The Candy Smash by Jacqueline Davies

7/30/2019 The Candy Smash by Jacqueline Davies

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The Lemonade War Series

Ja

cque l ineD a vi e sJa cque

line

D a vi e s


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Th eCa n d yS m a s h

b y

J a cque l ineDa vi e s

Houghton Mi in Books or ChildrenHoughton Mi in Harcourt

Boston New York 2013


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Copyright 2013 by Jacqueline DaviesIllustrations by Cara Llewellyn

All rights reserved. For in ormation about permission to reproduce selections rom thisbook, write to Permissions, Houghton Mi in Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park

Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

Houghton Mi in Books or Children is an imprint o Houghton Mi inHarcourt Publishing Company.

Mushrooms rom THE COLOSSUS AND OTHER POEMS by Sylvia Plath, copyright 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 by Sylvia Plath. Used by permission o Al red A.

Knop , a division o Random House, Inc. Any third party use o this material,

outside o this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties mustapply directly to Random House, Inc. or permission.

Additional credits appear on page 232.

www.hmhbooks.com

The text o this book is set in Guardi and Childs Play.The illustrations are pen and ink.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication DataDavies, Jacqueline, 1962Candy smash / by Jacqueline Davies.

pages cm (The lemonade war series ; book 4)Summary: Explores the distinctive power o poetry and love

ourth grade style Provided by publisher.ISBN 978-0-544-02208-9

[1. PoetryFiction. 2. LoveFiction. 3. SchoolsFiction. 4.Brothers and sistersFiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.D29392Can 2013

[Fic]dc232012033305

Manu actured in the United States o AmericaDOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

4500390887


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Con t e n t sChapter 1 Z Zing! 1

Chapter 2 Z Smash 15Chapter 3 Z Mushrooms Take Over the World 23

Chapter 4 Z Primary Source 39

Chapter 5 Z Love Stu 51

Chapter 6 Z Exclusive 57

Chapter 7 Z Proud Words 61

Chapter 8 Z Survey 71

Chapter 9 Z Love Comes in All Shapes and Sizes 89

Chapter 10 Z Snooping 99

Chapter 11 Z The Silence Was a Bulldozer 111

Chapter 12 Z Breaking News 123

Chapter 13 Z As Heavy as a Wet Blanket 135

Chapter 14 Z Tip 143

Chapter 15 Z Valentines Night 149

Chapter 16 Z Front- Page Layout 159

Chapter 17 Z Despair Deeper Than the Ocean 171

Chapter 18 Z Kill 177Chapter 19 Z Megan Moriarty 183

Chapter 20 Z Copyright 187

Chapter 21 Z Jerks and Poets 195

Chapter 22 Z All the News Thats Fit to Print 201

The 4-O Forum 210Poetry Terms and Poems 219

Acknowledgments 231


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Chapter 1

Z i ng

!onomatopoeia (n) when a word sounds likethe object it names or the sound that objectmakes; for example: sizzle, hiccup, gurgle

I Evan had known what would be hidden in hisshoebox later that day, he might not have mindeddecorating it so much.

But or now, he stared at the box in disgust.He hated projects like this. Cutting projects, glu-

ing projects. Projects with scissors and paper andmarkers and tape. Why did he have to decorate theshoebox anyway?

Can I have that? asked Jessie on her way back to her desk group. She pointed at the ruler on Evansdesk. In her hand, she held her box. All our sides


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and the top o the box were covered in red con-struction paper, and the slot on top was outlined

with a per ectly measured crinkle- cut rectangle o white paper.

Why? Arent you done? asked Evan.No! said Jessie. I made spirals or the sides

and owers and hearts or the top. Evan looked

over at her desk, which was in the group next to his.Lined up in neat rows were our per ect paper spi-rals, our curly paper rosettes, and twenty identicalpaper hearts. Jessies decorations were so precise,they looked like they came rom a actory.

It was at times like this that Evan wished his littlesister wasnt in the same ourth-grade class with him.

Jessie was good at math and writing and science and


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just about everything that counted in school. She hadeven skipped the third grade. Why did she have to be

so smart?Evan slumped a little in his seat. Go ahead, take it.

Jessie reached or the ruler, then said, Thatssloppy. You should cut the paper so its even. You

want me to do it?

No, I dont want your help, Miss Per ect. Jessie shrugged. Suit yoursel . Then she went

back to her seat.What are you going to put on your box? asked

Megan, who was returning to her desk on the other

side o the room a ter showing her box to theirteacher, Mrs. Overton. Her long ponytail swung

rom side to side as she walked up to his desk.Evan elt his ace go hot. It was bad enough that

his shoebox looked like nothing now Megan Mori-

arty had to go and notice it.I dont know, he said. I dont like owers andhearts and things.

Me neither, said Megan. I put pictures o catsall over mine. See? This one looks like Langston!


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Megan pointed to a picture on her box that lookedalmost exactly like Mrs. Overtons cat. Langston

was a twenty- one- year-old gray Persian who was se-riously overweight. There were laminated pictures o him posted all over the classroom, with speech bub-bles coming out o his mouth saying cool catsread ; numerator on top , denominator on bot -

tom ; and a simple machine is a mechanical devicethat applies a force , such as a plane , a wedge , or

a lever . In every picture, Langston looked like hed just coughed up a hairball. Evans avorite was theone posted right above the daily homework assign-

ment. In giant black letters it said bleh !There are some sports magazines in the Re-use

It bin, said Megan. You want to see i there are any pictures o basketball players?

No. Well. I guess, said Evan, embarrassed that

he was tongue- tied. When Megan and Evan werein the same desk group, neither one o them couldget any work done. Mrs. Overton had called it a lovely problem, and Evan was both disappointed and re-lieved when shed changed the seating arrangements.

Whenever he talked to Megan, he got a strange


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spinning eeling in his stomach, and it was getting worse every day. It was just like the time two winters

ago when he and his mother hit a patch o black icein their old Subaru. The car spun around threehundred sixty degrees be ore smashing into a guard-rail. No one was hurt, and even the car was okay once it had been repaired, but Evan would never

orget that eeling o spinning and spinning com-pletely out o control, waiting or the smash. Beingaround Megan elt like that.

Evan walked over to the Re-use It bin. It turnedout that there were tons o photos o basketball play-

ers, including one o Evans avorite, Rajon Rondo, who was amous or having played the ourth quartero a playo gameone-handed a ter he dislocated hiselbow in the third. Evan quickly cut out fve photosand stuck them on the our sides and top o his box.

Done, he said, putting the cap back on his gluestick and shoving his markers into his desk.Mrs. Overton, whod been working at her desk,

glanced up at the clock on the wall. Hey, look atthe time. She picked up the shekere that sat on theedge o her desk and shook it a ew times, making


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the gentle sh- sh- sh sound that meant it was time totransition to a di erent activity. Were running late.

Leave your boxes on your desks and come to therug. Its time or the Poem o the Day.

Evan smiled. He would never admit it, but thishad become his second avorite part o the daya ter recess. Ever since coming back rom winter

break, Mrs. Overton had taken the time each day toread a poem just one poem. A serious poem. Notlike the silly poems his third grade teacher had readto them last year. Evan liked those, too they madehim laugh but these poems that Mrs. Overton

read were di erent. They were like music, and they made something deep inside o him go zing.

Jessie raised her hand. Mrs. Overton, can I skipthe Poem o the Day so I can work on my newspa-per? Jessie had started her own classroom news-

paper called The 4-O Forum.Shed already publishedtwo issues, and now she was working on the third.She planned to hand out the next edition on Mon-day, exactly one week rom today, which happenedto be Valentines Day. It was a tight deadline, andEvan could tell she was eeling the pressure.


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No, Jess. Ill give you some time during morn-ing recess. For now, come and join the class. When

everyone had gathered on the rug sitting cross-legged, Mrs. Overton said, Today Im going to reada poem by E. E. Cummings. At the top o a blank page on the classroom easel, she wrote: E. E.Cummings.

Is he dead? asked David Kirkorian. This hadbecome the frst question the kids in 4- O asked

whenever Mrs. Overton introduced a new poet.Some poets were still alive like the one who wrotethe poem about the tree rog whose throat was swol-

len with spring love or that other one who wroteabout playing basketball with his riend Spankybut a lot o them were dead. Some o them had beendead or centuries.

He died about f ty years ago, said Mrs. Over-

ton. A ew kids nodded. A long- time dead. The really amous poets like William Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson were all dead.

Whats the poem called? asked Salley.It doesnt have a title.What do you mean? asked Jessie. Evan could


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see a rown creeping across her ace. Jessie did notlike poetry, even though shed won a poetry- writing

contest in frst grade. It was the only subject inschool that Evan had ever heard her say she hated.

Some poems dont have titles, and E. E. Cum-mings didnt title most o his poems.

A poem is no good without a title, said Jessie.

She stuck her oot out and retied her sneaker withseveral sharp, jerky movements. And what kind o a name is E.E.?

Its initials, right? said Jack. Like J. K. Rowling.It stands or something.

Easter Eggs! said Megan.Eleven Elephants! said Ben.Extra Elbows! said Ryan. He was sitting next

to Evan, and he poked his elbow into Evans chest, which got everyone in the class laughing.

Mrs. Overton admitted that she had no idea what E.E. stood or, but she would fnd out andreport back later. In the meantime, lets take a look at the poem.

She turned the page on the easel to show thepoem that she had copied out earlier.


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because its

Spring

thingS

dare to do people

(& notthe other way

round)because it

s A pril

Lives lead their own

persons(instead

o everybodyelses)but

whats wholly marvellous my

Darling

is that you &i are more than you

& i(be

caus

e Its we)


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Evan stared at the poem. He hardly breathed. Hehad never seen anything like it. It was kooky! The

way the words ell down the page like rocks tum-bling over the edge o a cli . He liked that Springalmost rhymed with thingS and the crazy way thetall, proud capital Ss stood like towers on eitherside o those words. And why was the word be-

cause broken up into our pieces? It made himeel as i words werent so strict and stern and un-

changeable as they had always seemed. You couldmix them up. You could rearrange them any way

you liked. You could play with themlike Legos!

You could make them do whatever you wanted.Evan looked at that poem and elt something insideo him go zing.

Jessie pointed at the easel. That is the worstpoem I have ever seen in my whole li e! she shouted.

That poem is all wrong.Wow, said Mrs. Overton. It sounds like yourehaving a strong response to this poem, Jessie. Tellus what you think.

Its ull o mistakes, said Jessie, standing up andmarching over to the easel. That S is not supposed


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to be capitalized. You never capitalize just the lastletter o a word. And theres a space missing a terthe parenthesis. And the words its and April arebroken up with no hyphens. And theres no such

word as everybodyelse. He just made that up! Jessies hands were ying all over the easel, point-ing, accusing the poem. She stabbed her fnger right

into the heart o the poem. And the word I is always capitalized. Always.

Evan nodded his head. That was the rule.So why do you think he did it? asked Mrs.

Overton.

Because hes dumb, said Jessie, returning toher spot on the rug and plopping down in disgust.

Well, said Mrs. Overton, Mr. Cummings grad-uated rom Harvard and wrote his frst book whenhe was twenty- eight. So I dont think he was dumb.

Maybe he had a reason or writing his poems in this way. What do you think?The kids in 4- O stared at the poem. Some o

them moved their mouths silently as they read it tothemselves.

Maybe he was telling a joke, said Tessa.


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Or maybe he was trying to make it look like akid wrote it! said Adam. Maybe he was using a

strong voice,like you told us about when we wroteour memory stories.

I bet he just scribbled it out ast like that, andthen he didnt bother to check it over, said Paul.Evan knew that Paul hated to copy his frst dra ts.

These are all good ideas, said Mrs. Overton.Anybody else have an idea?

Evan looked at the poem and thought about the joy he elt when he read it, the looseness and ree-dom o those crazy mixed- up words, the tumbling

recklessness o the way the poem spilled downthe page.

Maybe, said Evan, hes sort o . . . telling usthat there arent any rules or . . . you know, youdont have to do things a certain way, just because

thats how everyone else does them? You know?Mrs. Overton nodded her head. I think thatsexactly what Mr. Cummings is challenging us tothink about. Rules and conventions. Because whatis this poem really about?


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The whole class stared at the poem. The room was silent, except or the gentle scrabbling sound o

the gerbils in their cage as they chewed on their toi-let paper tubes. Slowly, Megan raised her hand, andMrs. Overton nodded at her.

Its about love, said Megan.Thats right, said Mrs. Overton. She turned

the heavy paper o the easel so that a resh, blank page was showing, and then in all capital letters,she wrote,

Documents

The Candy Smash by Jacqueline Davies