“All helper bees are the best, Piper,” Miss Cindy said, but she smiled and took the cookies, putting them on her desk.

  Mr. Steadman was busy, so Miss Cindy told me to go to class until recess. During class I sat at my desk and didn’t make a peep. When it was time to line up for recess, I got in my place and didn’t beg to be first. I was on my very best behavior.

  That would make me the principal’s favorite. Even though Miss Cindy thought principals didn’t have favorites, I knew they did.

  During recess I went back to the office. I hadn’t heard anything about the new project Mom told me about, but maybe that would happen after school. I’ll bet helper bees did lots of stuff after school, since there was not much time in the morning.

  Lily was already sitting in a chair near the door. I gave her a wave, but she just kept looking at the floor. It was okay—I was too excited about my first job as a helper bee to be mad at Lily. I wore a big smile as I went up to Miss Cindy’s desk.

  But my smile went poof when I saw that her desk was missing something.

  Nanna’s tub of cookies was gone! “Miss Cindy!” I called out. “Have you seen my tub of cookies that I had this morning?”

  Miss Cindy frowned. “I haven’t seen them since you were here earlier, Piper,” she said. “I thought I put them on my desk. I’ll ask Mr. Steadman if he’s seen them.”

  She went over to Mr. Steadman’s office, but I had a strange feeling Lily had something to do with the missing cookies. After all, she’d gotten to the office ahead of me and was sitting in the trouble chair, quiet as a mouse, not saying a word.

  “Okay, everyone, let’s see what’s going on,” Mr. Steadman said as he came out of his office. “They have to be here somewhere. Did you look in the mail slots?”

  “Mail slots?” I asked. “They were in a big plastic tub.”

  It was pretty and light pink and had a cover. Nanna wouldn’t be happy when I told her that her bowl was gone too. It was her favorite.

  “Maybe someone took them out,” Miss Cindy said.

  “Or maybe someone ate them,” I said.

  I looked right at Lily then. I did it so that both Mr. Steadman and Miss Cindy could see. Mom says you should never, ever point, so I pointed with my eyes. Just like that.

  They both looked at her. I think they got my super-secret message.

  “Lily,” Mr. Steadman said. “Can you come over here for a second?”

  Lily hopped up all of a sudden and walked to the copy machine. She acted like she couldn’t hear us, but I knew she could. She wasn’t fooling me at all.

  “I’m busy,” Lily said. She pushed a button and the copier went whoosh.

  “Now!” Mr. Steadman said in an I mean business, young lady kind of voice.

  Lily walked over to us, her hands behind her back. She swayed when she walked. I think she was doing that on purpose.

  “Let me see your hands,” her dad said.

  Lily put her hands in front of her and behind her back again. And that was when I knew she was G-U-I-L-T-Y with a capital G. She didn’t have a cookie in her hands, but what was she hiding back there?

  “Lily?” Mr. Steadman asked.

  I thought of something then. What if your dad was a principal? I don’t know if I would like that. Principals were scary, even if they were smiley principals like Mr. Steadman.

  “Hands,” Mr. Steadman ordered.

  Looking down at the ground, Lily put her hands in front of her again. Her dad leaned over and looked at them, but I was down that low already. I saw what Mr. Steadman was seeing before he saw it.

  There was chocolate on her hands.

  I knew it! Lily had eaten Nanna’s cookies!

  Class Fact #5

  There are some easy ways to tell if someone is lying. Want to know what they are?

  #1 She won’t make eye contact. Even when you tell her to, she looks like she can’t wait to look away.

  #2 She fidgets.

  #3 She doesn’t move at all. She just stands really, really still. Like if she moves, you’ll hear the lies swishing around in her brain.

  #4 Her voice gets really high pitched. Or low pitched.

  #5 She has evidence on her hands.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Lily was in T-R-O-U-B-L-E. And because the principal was also her dad, that meant she was in trouble times two.

  It also meant I was the principal’s favorite helper bee. For now, anyway.

  Lily and Mr. Steadman were in his office for a long, long time. That made me the only helper bee.

  I knew this was my big chance. I had to show Mr. Steadman I was the best helper bee ever so that I could be a part of the team of “bees” for good. So when Miss Cindy told me to run a note to Miss Carver’s class, that’s exactly what I did. I ran.

  “No running in the hall!” one of the teachers yelled as I sped past her classroom.

  I probably should have stopped then. But that teacher didn’t know how important this was. I had to do it the fastest ever so that I could prove I was the best. I was the best message-to-Miss-Carver’s-class runner ever. I was there in not too many seconds.

  Miss Carver’s door was open so I just ran right in. I stopped my feet from running just inside the door, but my shoes were slippery, so I slid even after I’d stopped. Miss Carver held out her hands to stop me from sliding right into her.

  “Well!” Miss Carver said. “That’s what I’d call a delivery!”

  See? Best office worker ever.

  Now that I was finished, I had to go to class. Mr. Steadman said so. But I made sure Mr. Steadman would know.

  “Tell Miss Cindy I’m the best helper bee ever?” I asked Miss Carver.

  Her eyes were wide, but she nodded. She’d tell her. I knew she would.

  Miss Nutter didn’t think I was fast. She thought I was late. I explained to her that I had a very special delivery for Miss Carver’s class on my way here, but she said next time I should get a late pass. “Ha!” Lily said as I sat down next to her. She actually said that. Out loud. I looked up to see if Miss Nutter had heard, but Miss Nutter was busy writing on the whiteboard.

  “Give me back my bowl!” I whispered. A whisper didn’t make it sound scary, though.

  I knew Lily had eaten Nanna’s cookies. She got in trouble for that. But she kept saying she had eaten only one and the rest had just disappeared, bowl and all. Cookies and bowls don’t just disappear.

  “I don’t have it!” Lily snapped back. Only she didn’t whisper. And Miss Nutter heard.

  “Ahem,” she said from the front of the class. She’d stopped writing and now was staring at us. This was when she’d write our names on the whiteboard for not being good.

  “Sorry, Miss Nutter,” Lily said. She smiled big too, showing lots of teeth.

  Miss Nutter nodded and turned back to writing on the board.

  I looked from Miss Nutter to Lily, all shocked. Lily just got away with talking in class. Nobody got away with talking in class. It must be because the principal is her dad.

  Oh no. That meant that Lily could do whatever she wanted. Even hiding Nanna’s bowl and not telling me where it was. I couldn’t do anything about it.

  Except tell the principal. The principal would see what happened and make Lily give the bowl back. I’d just have to talk to him.

  Class Fact #6

  Before whiteboards and fancy SMART Boards, there were these things called chalkboards. They were black and sometimes green, and you wrote on them with white chalk. They were used for hundreds of years.

  You don’t see chalkboards much anymore, but you can sometimes find them in toy stores. You can even buy different colors of chalk and draw pretty pictures.

  CHAPTER

  7

  Mom was in the office after school. That was good. I liked being with my mom. But what was bad was that I couldn’t find Miss Cindy anywhere.

  She wasn’t at the copier.

  She wasn’t in Mr. Steadman’s office.

  She wasn’t even hiding under the big table where she sorted mail and stuff. I checked.

  I needed to talk to someone about Nanna’s bowl. Only I couldn’t talk to Mom, because she’d say I shouldn’t have lost Nanna’s bowl and it’s the most important bowl ever and didn’t she tell me that Nanna’s had that bowl since lots and lots of years ago?

  “What’s wrong, Piper?” Mom asked when she saw me.

  I guess I was frowning. I turned my frown upside down and said, “Nothing,” with the biggest smile ever. The kind of smile that Lily had given Miss Nutter. It had gotten Lily out of trouble, so it should keep me out of trouble too, right?

  “Mr. Steadman told me what happened this morning,” Mom said. She set down the stack of stuff she was holding and turned to face me. “Do you think Lily ate your cookies?”

  “Yes,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask about the bowl.

  Mom was quiet.

  “She took my bowl, too,” I added.

  Wait, where had that come from? I wasn’t going to say that. Now I’d blown it.

  I heard the door open behind me right as Mom said, “You’re saying you lost Nanna’s favorite bowl? The one she said she didn’t want to let you borrow because it was really important?”

  “Lily stole it,” I said.

  “Did not!”

  That was Lily, who must have been the one who had opened the office door behind me while we were talking. She was standing behind me, hands on her hips. And she was M-A-D.

  “Did too!” I yelled back.

  “Did not!” she yelled louder.

  “Piper!” Mom said, even though Lily was yelling too. “Lily, why don’t you tell me what happened.”

  “She left the cookies there,” Lily said. “Miss Cindy said I couldn’t have one because they were for my dad. I took one.”

  “One?” Mom asked.

  “No!” I said.

  “Piper.” Mom gave me one of her I mean business looks before turning back to Lily. “How many cookies did you eat?”

  “One,” Lily said. “And a bite of another one, but it wasn’t a whole one.”

  “And then what happened?” Mom asked.

  “I—I—”

  Mom crossed her arms over her chest. That was the pose she used when she said things like, I’m waiting. That look always made me tell the truth.

  “Lily?” Mom said, when Lily still didn’t speak up.

  Lily’s bottom lip started to quiver. This was when she was going to tell the truth, I knew it. This was when she’d admit she took the cookies and everyone would get mad at her and she’d be punished, for sure.

  This was when a tear rolled down Lily’s cheek. Uh-oh.

  “It was such a good idea,” Lily said quietly. “And it wasn’t fair because everyone was going to think Piper was the best helper bee, but I’ve been here longer. I want to be the best helper bee.”

  “Where did you put the cookies, Lily?” Mom asked gently.

  “I didn’t steal them,” Lily said. “I hid them in one of the classrooms.”

  “It sounds like you two have a problem to solve,” Mom said. “It’s a shame, too, because Mr. Steadman has a fun new project for you. But until you get Nanna’s bowl, you can’t do it.”

  I gave Lily a mean look. Great. Now we had to get the bowl before we could actually start the project!

  “Why don’t you two go get Nanna’s cookie bowl?” Mom asked. “If you work together without fighting, I’ll talk to Mr. Steadman about letting you still be helper bees. But you have to work together.”

  I wanted to help Mr. Steadman. I wanted everyone to see that I could do big-girl projects without messing them up. I wanted Mr. Steadman to see I was the best helper bee ever.

  Maybe I still could. I just had to play nice with Lily first.

  Class Fact #7

  People think of the principal as the person who punishes you when you’re in trouble. But the principal is super important.

  Did you know that the principal is the boss of all the teachers?

  Did you know that the principal can make rules that everyone has to follow?

  Did you know that if you have something you need to talk about, you can go to the principal’s office and he or she will help you?

  That makes the principal pretty great.

  CHAPTER

  8

  “I don’t remember!”

  I sighed. Once we’d left the office, Lily started playing a new game. It was called, “I don’t remember where I put the bowl.”

  Only, I knew she had to remember. It had been only a few hours since she had put it in the mystery classroom. It was silly to look for the bowl when Lily knew where it was.

  We looked in Miss Nutter’s classroom.

  We looked in Miss Carver’s classroom.

  We looked in all the other classrooms too.

  We were trying to get into the library (it was locked) when Mr. Steadman found us. “We can’t get in,” Lily told him.

  “You don’t need to get in,” he said. He just stood there, smiling at us.

  “We have to get in,” Lily told him. “We have to find the bowl. It’s our project.”

  “Lily stole the bowl,” I told him, in case he didn’t know. “And now she won’t tell me where it is.”

  “I don’t remember!” Lily said for the bazillionth time.

  But I didn’t care. All that mattered was that now Mr. Steadman would see that I was the best helper bee. He would keep us here and we could stay with Nanna forever and ever.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” Mr. Steadman asked. “I found it in one of your classrooms, where Lily said she put it.” He held out the bowl, and I took it, eagerly opening it up.

  “The cookies are still there!” I exclaimed.

  “Except the one, and a bite that I ate,” Lily said. Now she had a big, big smile too.

  “We’re going to have to have a long talk tonight, Lily,” Mr. Steadman said. “You should tell Piper you’re sorry.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking down at the ground.

  “Now say it like you mean it,” Mr. Steadman told her.

  She looked at me. I thought of something then. I wanted to beat Lily as best helper bee so that we could stay here instead of moving to the next job. But what if Lily wanted to be the best helper bee? What if she wanted to make her dad proud?

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. As Lily looked at me with soft eyes, I knew she was nice. She had been mean to me for the same reasons I’d been mean to her. But winning wasn’t everything.

  Sometimes being a good person was more important.

  I remembered the day when I first saw her in the office and told her I got in trouble sometimes too. I’d thought we could be friends for that minute. Then the helper bee stuff had happened and she’d become the one I had to beat to be best.

  “Great,” Mr. Steadman said. “Now, let’s go to the office and I’ll show you your assignment.”

  Lily bounced on her heels a little and started running to the office. I frowned as I followed her. Lily didn’t want to be my friend. Lily just wanted to beat me.

  Later that day, after we’d gone home, I told Mom and Nanna what happened.

  “And then she said she was sorry. And that’s that.”

  I ended my story with a big bite of peas. Because nannas like it when you eat peas.

  “Well!” Nanna said. “That was quite a story, wasn’t it?”

  She looked at Mom when she asked that question.

  “Yes, quite a story,” Mom said. She picked up the bowl and dropped a whole new spoonful of peas on my plate.

  The joke was on her, though. Because I’d started liking peas without her knowing it.

  “So I got a call from the recruiter,” Mom said. “There’s a new job. And it’s in Florida.”

  “Ooh, Florida,” Nanna said. “That sounds . . . sunny.”

  “Yes. It’s a fun job too,” Mom said.

  They were saying all this like I wasn’t sitting right there. I didn’t want Mom to take another job. I wanted Mom to work here forever. I wanted to stay here with Nanna and her great dog, Oreo, forever. I even didn’t mind Lily so much.

  “I want to stay here,” I announced.

  That made Mom stop smiling. Nanna didn’t stop, though. I saw her look over at Mom and make herself frown.

  Nanna wanted us to stay! I thought about that for a second and decided I should keep that a secret. Maybe we could talk Mom into it together.

  “I wasn’t finished,” Mom said. “I didn’t take the assignment. I can stay here until Mr. Steadman doesn’t need me anymore.”

  “We can stay here?” I asked.

  “For now, yes,” Mom said. “But only if you start behaving and being nice. Even to Lily.”

  I heard Mom’s words, but I was too busy jumping up and down. And it turns out, when you jump up and down, Oreo starts jumping around too. Which is cool because it’s like you’re dancing with a puppy. And who doesn’t love dancing with a puppy?

  Class Fact #8

  How to say you’re sorry (and really mean it):

  #1 Look at the person. (this is important!)

  #2 Say the words “I’m sorry.”

  #3 Say what you’re sorry for doing. Example: “I’m sorry I stepped on your foot.” (Or “ate all your pie” or “said I didn’t like your new dress.”)

  #4 Do something nice for the person. (Like make a pie or give her one of your dresses.)

  #5 Say you’ll never, ever do that mean thing again. And don’t.

  CHAPTER

  9

  Something felt weird when I walked into school the next morning. By lunchtime I knew what had happened.

  Lily had taken all my friends.

  Before now, she always sat at the end of the lunch table with her one friend. Now she had people all around her. And I sat down with my lunch among a bunch of empty chairs.

 

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