Gilly the Great
Published by Michelle Isenhoff at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Michelle Isenhoff
Cover image by Robert S. Donovan
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Chapter One. The Awful Bus Ride
“Gloria Jean Gatsby!”
Uh-oh! Mom only uses my whole name if she’s mad at me, or when she’s really proud, like when I graduated from kindergarten. When she’s proud her eyes start leaking and she says a bunch of sappy junk like “Just look at my baby” and “I can’t believe my little lamb is getting so grown up.” But I don’t hear any sappy junk now, so this is probably a mad yell. And I bet I know why.
“Gloria Jean, did you spill the breakfast cereal all over the kitchen?”
Yup, I was right.
Dirty Harry was going to eat it!” I yell back.
“Harry is in the back yard chasing a squirrel. Come clean up your mess.”
Stupid dog.
In the kitchen my brother, Melvin, is on his hands and knees scooting through the rip in the screen door. Just two days after we moved in Harry busted it. Mom got mad and started screaming his whole name, but Dad said he won’t fix it until Melvin is big enough to open the screen by himself.
“Guess what, Gilly?” Melvin says.
The one good thing Melvin ever did was to say my name wrong. Now everyone calls me Gilly and I like it better. “What?”
“I showed Mom the cereal,” he says with a smirk that makes me want to slap him.
“You little snitch!” I yell. “I should-”
“You should what?” Mom asks, standing with her arms crossed behind me.
“Um…I should clean this up so I don’t miss the bus.”
“Good idea.” She uncrosses her arms and carts Melvin away. “It’s time to take off your diaper and find you some big boy pants.”
“It’s not a diaper. It’s a Pull-up!” he demands.
Melvin thinks he’s a big kid like me, but he still whizzes the bed at night. Sometimes I have to remind him that he’s only four.
“They’re diapers!” I call down the hall.
Then I start scooping up cereal. Real slow. Because I want to miss the bus. I don’t want to start second grade at Baker Elementary School. I want to go back to my old school. What kind of baloney do they teach at a Baker school anyway? Cooking?
“Aren’t you done yet?” Mom asks. She sucks up a bunch of air and lets it out in a swoosh that tells me I’m not fast enough. Then her face gets gentle. “I know you’re scared, honey, but you’ll make friends. You’re a very special girl. Just be yourself, and others will see what a neat kid you are, too.”
Then she swats me away. “I’ll finish this. You get your backpack on and scoot out to that bus stop, young lady.”
I hate being a young lady. I like rips and holes and broken-in shoes, but mom made me wear a dumb skirt today. And my new shoes hurt. I scrape them in the dirt to get some of the new off.
I scrape too long. The bus beats me to the end of the road and now I have to run. I don’t want to get it for missing the bus. But I hear a rip as I climb the bus stairs and I know I’ll get it anyway.
Kids are noisy and jumping and filling up the whole bus. I don’t have a friend to sit with.
Suddenly there’s a shout. “QUIET!” That’s how come I call her Loud Driver. And everyone listens.
“Sit there, Sugar,” Loud Driver says. She calls everyone Sugar. I think she can’t remember names. I sit.
That’s when I see the rip in my brand new dress. And so does the girl next to me. She laughs and whispers to the girl on her other side.
I feel all hot and sticky and red and I tuck the rip under my leg. The girl is pretty with her hair tied in a pretty ribbon. And her clothes are pretty. She looks like one of those doll people that show off clothes in a store window.
Now I’m glad Mom made me comb my hair. And I wish I left a little new on my shoes.
“You’re a new kid, aren’t you?” she asked.
I feel ugly and stupid next to her. And lonely. “I’m not new,” I tell her. “I’m seven. And I’m getting older every day.” Ha!
“That’s dumb. You are new. Where did you come from, the jungle?” She and the other girl laugh and laugh.
My face scrunches up tight and I can’t help it. I grab the pretty ribbon and some of her pretty hair and I pull. I pull it hard and throw it on the ground and smash it with my new, not-new shoe.
She screams.
“Lisa Stevens, stop that yelling right now.”
Loud Driver can remember one name. I won’t forget it either.
Chapter 2. Mean Gina
The lonely isn’t going away at school. Kids bunch up together and get all smiley. But they don’t bunch up by me. I feel like a stinky fish.
The bell rings and kids start picking seats. Lots of kids try to sit by Lisa. Probably because she looks like a doll person. Maybe if I look like a doll person people will like me too.
Finally I’m the only one left standing at the side of the room. Lisa looks at me with a smile that makes me want to tear another ribbon out of her hair, but I just stand there hiding the rip behind my leg.
Then I stomp my foot. I don’t want to be a doll person! I want to just be Gilly Gatsby with a ripped skirt and not-so-new shoes. But I will be the best at everything else. I’ll be Gilly the Great! Then lots of smiley kids will bunch up around me and Lisa can be the stinky fish.
There is one empty spot. “I’m going to sit here,” I tell the girl in the next seat. She looks up, but looks away fast. She stares at her shoes. They seem nice and broken. But she won’t look at me. Or talk to me. She must be mean.
It will be easy to be Gilly the Great sitting by a mean girl who stares at her shoes.
Teacher comes in. “Good morning class! My name is Mrs. MacInroe.”
I can’t say that. I’ll just call her Mrs. Mac.
Then she says a bunch of baloney about how happy she is that we are all in her class. And how much fun we’ll have together. Junk like that. I stop listening.
Then I hear my name. “Gloria Jean Gatsby.”
“What, Mrs. Mac?” I ask.
The kids all laugh. Oops! What was her real name?
“That’s okay,” she says. “Lots of students call me Mrs. Mac. I like it.”
The kids stop laughing. Ha!
“Gloria-” she begins.
“It’s Gilly,” I say. “Gilly the Great.”
The kids all laugh again. Why did I say that?
Mrs. Mac smiles. “Okay, Gilly. This is your first day at Baker. How do you like it so far?”
“I don’t.”
“Why not?” Mrs. Mac asks.
“I don’t want to learn to cook.”
“Gilly, what on earth do you mean?”
“Well, what else do you do at a Baker school?”
Everyone laughs again. Even Mrs. Mac’s mouth gets all wobbly. I wish they would all just stop doing that.
“Gilly, Baker Elementary is simply what the school is called. It was named for Mr. Edward J. Baker, who was a very important man many years ago. I assure you, we will be learning the same kind of things you studied at your last school.”
All the kids are looking at me with stupid grins on their faces. Grins that make me want to sit under my desk.
Mrs. Mac went on. “Gina Harris?”
It’s the girl next to me. Even she does a little smile at me before she looks back down at her shoes.
Mean old Gina.
Chapter 3. Dirky on the Playground
Finally it’s recess and the kids get all bunched up and smiley again. Except for Gina. She goes by herself. Probably no one likes her because she’s so mean.
There’s this kid coming up to me by the slide. “Hi! I’m Dirk. But everyone calls me Dirky.”
“I’m Gilly.”
“I know. Gilly the Great. You must be really brave to call the teacher Mrs. Mac like that.”
“I am,” I say. Already my plan to make kids admire me is working.
“What are you great at?” Dirky asks.
“Everything.”
“But like what? I’m only great at breaking pencils with one hand, but the teachers get mad at me so I don’t do it very much.”
“I’m just great, that’s all,” I answer. Sheesh! What does he want me to say?
“Are you a fast runner?”
“The fastest one at my old school.”
“Do you read good?”
“Really good.”
“Can you count to one thousand?”
I stand up real straight. “I can count to a bagillion.”
“Wow!” Dirky says and his eyes puff open real far. “You’re funny, too.”
“I am? I mean, I know I am,” I say.
“Sure. All that stuff about cooking. That cracked me up,” he says with a remembering laugh.
That makes my eyes scrunch up real mean and tight. “How was I supposed to know this place was named after some dead guy?”
I cross my arms and stomp away from Dirky.
Then I see Lisa coming.
“Hey, Gilly the Great!” she says in an up-and-down voice. The girls with her start to giggle. They all look like doll people. I don’t stop.
Lisa gets right in front of me. “That is your name, isn’t it?”
“Leave me alone.”
“I wonder why. You don’t look so great to me.”
I scrunch my fingers up in a tight ball that really wants to hit her nose. It almost does, but Dirky steps between us just in time. “Stop it, Lisa,” he says.
Lisa makes her doll face ugly at Dirky. “You should choose better friends, Dirky. She’s nothing but a great loser.”
“You’re wrong. She is great. You’ll see. Come on, Gilly.”
I let my new friend pull me toward the swings.
Chapter 4. Mom’s Warning
“How was your first day of school, Gilly?” Mom asks just as I take a big bite of graham crackers and peanut butter.
“Not so good,” I say, spraying crumbs all over the counter. I quickly brush them onto the floor before she sees. “I sit next to Mean Gina, and there’s a whole pack of nasty doll people. But at least I don’t have to cook because it’s just a dead person school.”
“I see,” Mom says, but her eyebrows stretch way up her face.
“Gotta go,” I say hopping down. “Homework,” and I shove the rest of the cracker in my mouth.
“On the first day?”
I nod. I probably look like a chipmunk.
The homework I need to do isn’t boring junk Mrs. Mac assigned. If it was, I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get it done. It’s stuff to prove I’m Gilly the Great. I don’t need to convince Dirky. He already knows. But the rest of the smiley, bunchy kids don’t. So we came up with a plan at recess.
I get out a piece of notebook paper and smooth it flat. Then I start listing all the ways I’m the greatest:
Loudest singer.
Highest tree climber.
Best tap dancer.
I stop. Maybe I shouldn’t write that. I’ve never tap danced before. But I’m pretty sure I’d be good at it, so I decide to keep it.
Best drawer.
Farthest bike rider.
Smartest dog owner. (Except when he’s supposed to eat up my messes.)
Just then my door opens. “Whatcha doing, Gilly?” Melvin asks, dragging his blanket into my room.
“Nothing. Scram.”
“But I want to play with you.”
“Okay, let’s play hide-and-seek,” I say.
His face lights up.
“I’ll be it,” I tell him. “Go hide.”
I start counting really loud. He rushes out the door. I stop counting and chuckle. Like I’m really going to go look for him. I add one more thing to the list:
Dumbest brother.
Then I scratch that one off because it doesn’t really make me the greatest.
Far away in the kitchen I hear the phone ring and soon Mom brings it to me. “Anyone here called Gilly the Great?” she asks. This time only one eyebrow is stretchy. And her smile isn’t.
Uh-oh. I should have told Dirky not to call me that on the phone.
“That’s me.” I take it. “Hello.”
“Hi Gilly. It’s me, Dirky.”
“I know,” I say. “So what do you want?”
“I was just wondering if you made your list yet.”
“I’m working on it,” I say, not wanting to talk about it in front of my mother. “But there’s so much to put on it that it’s going to take a lot longer. I’ll show it to you tomorrow.”
“Okay. See you then.”
“Bye.” I click the phone off.
Mom sits down and picks up my list. “Is this your homework?”
I gulp. “Yup. It’s a recess assignment.”
“A recess assignment?”
“Uh-huh. It’s a Baker thing.”
“I see.” Mom puts my list down and crosses her arms. “Care to tell me why you are known as Gilly the Great?”
I swoosh out my breath. “I want to make the kids like me. Besides, Dirky really thinks I am great.”
“I think he’d like the real you better. If you act too self-important, you just might be setting yourself up for problems.”
“Oh, mom,” I say. “You just don’t understand about doll people and smiley bunches and Mean Gina who only looks at her shoes.”
“Maybe Gina’s shy.”
I just shrug.
Mom stands up and kisses me on the forehead. “I, for one, think you are great just how you are.”
Chapter 5. School Contest
“This is a great list,” Dirky tells me before the bell rings the next morning. “Are you really the best marshmallow eater ever?”
“Of course. Once when my mom wasn’t home I ate a whole bag.” I don’t say how sick I felt afterwards.
“Golly, I have to try that sometime.”
“Better not,” I tell him. “You could end up in the hospital.”
He looks at me with wonder.
“Hi, Gilly the Great.”
Oh, no. It’s Lisa.
“Hi, Wormface,” I say.
Dirky snickers.
“That’s so childish,” Lisa says, flipping her pretty hair. “I just thought I’d tell you, some of us voted and it turns out you are the greatest. The greatest showoff in the whole second grade!”
My fists ball up real tight again as Lisa flounces away, but Dirky says, “I don’t think you’re a showoff. You can’t help it that you’re good at everything.”
Just then the bell rings.
“Good morning, class,” Mrs. Mac says. “Today we are going to start with an easy assignment. A contest really. Next week we are having a school open house. To get ready, each student will draw a poster showing what they like most about Baker Elementary. The best poster from each class will decorate the bulletin board by the front door. All the others will decorate the classrooms.”
Ah-ha! This is my chance to show Lisa that I really am the best. I’ll win that contest and be the best artist in the class. Dirky shoots me a smile and I give him a confident look. He already knows I’ll win.
I work slowly and carefully, filling up all the white space on my paper. It’s a beautiful picture of the playground. Everyone likes recess. I’m going to win for sure!
“All right class, time’s up. Please put your name on the back of your poster and hand it in to me. I will hang them up during gym class and then we will vote. You may not vote for your own. The poster that receives the most votes will be delivered to the office. When I have your paper, you may line up for gym.”
For the first time ever, I can’t wait for gym to get done. We’re riding those little square scooters and I crash mine into Lisa on purpose. “You just watch, Wormface. I’m going to win that contest!”
“Gloria Jean!” the gym teacher calls, and I have to sit out. But it was worth it.
Finally it’s over and we’re walking back to class. The posters are lined up all around the room like a parade. They look really great. The kids exclaim over them, but I know mine’s the best. It has a twelve next to it.
“Take a seat, children,” Mrs. Mac says. “As you can see I’ve labeled each poster with a number. I will pass out a slip of paper to each of you. On it, write the number of the poster you think is the best. Remember, you cannot vote for your own.”
I study the pictures carefully. Some of them are pretty good. I pick a really bad one so my vote doesn’t go for any of my competition.
We hand in our votes and Mrs. Mac starts tallying them on the board. “One for number 19. One for number 8. One for number 12. Another for number 19.”
I wonder who drew number 19? It’s getting too many votes.
“A vote for number 3. One for 12. Another for 19.”
I frown. The race is too close. I should have more votes. Clearly, it’s the best picture hanging in the room. It deserves a place of honor at the school’s front door. Who drew 19 anyway?
“And now the final three votes,” Mrs. Mac says. “One for number 5. Another for 12. Wow!” she exclaims. “We have a tie going. Numbers12 and 19 each have six votes. And our last ballot was cast for…number 19!”
That can’t be right! Mine is way better than number 19! What’s that a picture of anyway? Is it supposed to be Mrs. Mac? It looks more like a cross between George Washington and the guy who tells the weather on the news each night.
Mrs. Mac takes down my poster and number 19. “Let’s see who our winners are,” Mrs. Mac says. “Number 12 belongs to Gilly Gatsby!” She says it like second place is something great, and everyone claps politely. I can see Lisa laughing. “Gilly, your poster may have the place of honor beside our classroom door where it can be seen by parents passing in the hallway.”
She turns over number 19. “Our first place winner is Gina Harris!”
What!? Mean Gina? I can’t believe it!
Everyone claps but me. Gina looks at her shoes with a little smile.
That makes me angry. She’s laughing at me, too. Well, I’ll show her!
“Girls, you may come get your posters and hang them in their places.”
I jump into the isle before Gina and arrive at the front first. But just as I reach for my poster, I pretend to trip and crash right into poster number 19. I hear a lovely ripping sound.
“Are you all right, Gilly?” Mrs. Mac asks, grabbing my arm to steady me.
I grin. “I’m fine,” I say.
“Oh, dear,” she says, holding up the tattered poster. “I’m afraid Gina’s poster isn’t.”
I see Gina’s face. It’s sad. Almost leaking-tears sad.
My grin grows bigger.
Mrs. Mac says, “I’m sorry Gina. Maybe we can tape it. I hope you’re not too upset.”
“It’s okay,” Gina says very quietly. “It was an accident.”
My smile gets all wobbly and falls down. I know it wasn’t an accident, and I think Gina does too. And she’s nice! She isn’t supposed to be nice! She’s supposed to be Mean Gina, someone who makes me look like Gilly the Great. But now I just look like Gilly the Dork. And I my chest feels all tight and wrong about ripping her poster.
Chapter 6. Dirky’s Disapproval
Recess isn’t fun at all. Lisa and her doll friends all come over to laugh at me.
“So, Gilly, too bad you’re not a great artist after all. But you’d win a medal for Greatest Klutz.”
They laugh and skip away. I kick the wall with my not-so-new shoe.
Dirky comes over to me. He isn’t smiling. His face looks as sad as Gina’s.
“Just go away,” I tell him.
He stands and looks at me. “That was a really mean thing you did to Gina,” he says.
I know it too. So what does he want me to do about it?
He keeps talking. “I voted for your poster. I thought it was the best one. I thought you were Gilly the Great. But I don’t know anymore.”
He kicks at a pebble in the dirt. “Now I think maybe you’re like Lisa, and I’m not sure I really want to be your friend.”
He starts to leave.
Angry, I yell at him, “Why does everyone like her, anyway?”
He turns around real slow. “I don’t think they do. Most people want to be friends with her only so she doesn’t bully them, not because they like her.”
Then Dirky walks away, and I feel more lonely than I have since school started.
That night my stomach hurts so much I can’t even eat my supper.
“Are you feeling okay?” Mom asks.
I shrug. “Not so good,” I admit.
Melvin sneaks Dirty Hairy a piece of hamburger.
Dad says, “Don’t feed that dog at the table.”
Melvin wipes his slobbery hand on his pants then asks me, “Wanna play hide and seek after dinner?”
“Melvin,” Mom says. “Gilly doesn’t want to play if she’s sick.”
“But I have a great hiding spot, Mom. She never finds me,” he grins.
I should have kept “dumbest brother” on my list.
Mom sends me to bed early. I don’t even protest. I just lie under my blankets and think about how my great plan to make everyone like me didn’t work at all. In fact, it made people not like me.
Mom comes in and puts a hand on my forehead. “You don’t have a fever,” she says. “Want to tell me what hurts?”
“Nothing hurts.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
I swoosh out my breath. “Mean Gina isn’t mean. She’s nice!”
“And that’s a problem?” Mom asks with her confused look.
“Yes! Don’t you see? Now I have to be nice to her.”
“I hope you are anyway, Gloria Jean.”
Uh-oh. Mom said my whole name. I change the subject. “Being Gilly the Great isn’t working out so well,” I say.
“I imagine it isn’t. Nobody likes a person who acts like they are better than everyone else.”
Like Lisa Stevens, I think.
“I guess I messed up,” I admit. “Dirky doesn’t like me anymore. And I don’t think Gina does either.”
“It sounds like they don’t like Gilly the Great. But tomorrow, they just might like Gilly Gatsby.”
She tucks the covers in all around me. Then she turns off the light and pretends not to see when Dirty Hairy jumps on my bed.
Hairy stands over me and licks my cheek. He grins at me, panting his stinky breath in my face, and seems to say, “I like you, Gilly.”
I scratch his ears and he lays down all scrunched up next to me. I really wish I could stay here forever and didn’t have to go back to Baker Elementary in the morning.
Chapter 7. Starting Over
“Gloria Jean,” my mother calls, “that bus is going to be here any minute.”
I throw my backpack over my shoulder and walk slowly down the road. My shoes are feeling much more comfortable now. If only I felt the same.
I arrive at the bus stop at the same time as the bus.
“Good morning, Sugar,” Loud Driver says when the door opens.
I climb up and walk right past Lisa and her doll face friend. The kids on the bus are laughing and bouncing, but I sit by myself. I wonder if I will sit alone forever.
At school I walk in the front doors and see Gina’s taped-up poster stapled to the bulletin board. It really is a nice picture. It doesn’t look too much like George Washington.
In my classroom, most of the kids are all smiley and bunching up in groups. I hang up my coat and backpack and see Dirky looking at me. I try a smile and he turns away. I’m a stinky fish again.
I sit in my desk. Gina is next to me looking at her shoes. I look at them too for a long time. The bell is going to ring any minute.
Then I say, “I like your picture, Gina. It looks nice by the office.”
She peeks up at me and looks down again real quick. “Thanks.”
I keep going. “I’m sorry I ripped it. I shouldn’t have.”
This time she looks up and keeps looking at me.
I wiggle. This is hard, but I keep talking. “It did it on purpose because I though I should have won. But I was wrong and I’m sorry.”
Then you know what Gina does? She smiles at me. I look down at my shoes.
“Let’s start over, okay?” I ask, peeking up again. She nods.
I stand up and take a deep breath. “Hi,” I say. “I’m Gilly Gatsby. I’m new and I don’t have any friends yet. Can I sit here?”
Gina grins and nods her head. “I’m Gina Harris,” she says very softly. “And I voted for your picture.”
I look up at her in surprise. She looks pretty when she smiles. Behind her I can see Dirky watching us. He’s smiling too.
I can hardly wait for recess. I think I finally get to join my first smiley bunch.
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