Ann Martin: Mallory Pike, No.1 Fan

Mallory Pike, No1 Fan

Ann M. Martin

Chapter 1.

I love English class. I really do. And today I was loving it more than ever. My teacher, Mr. Williams, was giving us this really interesting assignment. "I want you to think about a career you might be interested in pursuing someday," he told the class. "Then express something about that career in written form. It can be a series of poems, a report, a play, a short story. Be creative. I don't want a report on your prospective career. I want to know why it interests you. How does the career fit into your view of what matters in life? What is it about you that feels drawn to this career choice?" My best friend, Jessi Ramsey, raised her hand. "You mean, we can do anything we want?" she asked when Mr. Williams called on her.

"Well, yes and no," replied Mr. Williams. "I'm giving you a lot of leeway, but I want to know what you're doing. By the end of next week each of you must submit a one-page written proposal telling me what you plan to do. After I've read your proposal I'll have a short conference with you. I'll either give you the go-ahead, or we'll discuss ways to shape the project further." That sounded fair enough to me. One thing I love about Mr. Wffliams is that he treats us like adults. Not many teachers would give a sixth-grade class this much freedom.

Picking a career would be easy for me. I've always known what I want to be - an author of books for children.

I've loved reading and writing forever. When I was ten, I met one of my favorite authors, Amelia Moody, at a book signing in the Washington Mall. The meeting was sort of a disaster. (I got so nervous I burst into tears. Not too embarrassing!) But meeting her and seeing how much her work affected so many kids made me absolutely certain that I wanted to be an author, too.

The day I see the name Mallory Pike (that's me) on the cover of a book will be the greatest day of my life. I can easily imagine it. That may be because I spend a lot of time imagining it.

One thing I don't like to imagine, though, is my picture on the jacket flap. That's because I can't stand the way I look. I don't have a monster face or anything, but I do have frecIdes, glasses, and a terrible nose. (I'm told I inherited my nose from my grandfather, who died before I was born. I wish I'd inherited a horse farm or a million dollars instead.) I also have curly reddish brown hair which does whatever it wants. Plus, I have braces. At least they're the clear kind, so no one calls me metal mouth or anything like that. Jessi always tells me I'm better looking than I think I am, but I think she's just being a pal. Maybe I'll forget the author picture and let kids imagine what I look like. Why spoil a good book for them?

"Your grade for this assignment will make up eighty percent of your grade this marking period, and you'll have the remainder of the marking period to complete the assignment," Mr. Williams continued. "So, give it some hard thought and come up with something that will really hold your interest." I glanced at Jessi. Her chin was propped on her hands and her delicate, dark brows were knit into a thoughtful frown. She'd obviously started the hard thinking part already. Of course, I knew what her career choice would be. Jessi is a super-talented ballerina. She studies twice a week at a ballet school inStamford , the city closest toStoneybrook,Connecticut , where we live. Jessi has even danced in some professional productions. So, like me, Jessi knew exactly what she wanted to do her project on. The tricky part would be working ballet into a written project. But knowing Jessi, she'd come up with something clever.

Meanwhile, I had absolutely no idea how I wanted to do my project. Writing something about being a writer seemed to offer endless possibilities. I would have to think hard. I could have a great time with this assignment if I came up with something good.

The bell rang for the end of second period. I gathered my books and joined Jessi. "What are you going to do for your project?" I asked her.

"Well, I was thinking that I could interview Madame Noelle about her life as a dancer." (Madame Noelle is Jessi's dance teacher.) "Good idea. That would be like reporting on the history of ballet for the last hundred years," I teased. I've seen Mme. Noelle, and she's old.

Jessi smiled. "She's not that old. What are you going to do?" We stepped out into the hallway and entered the flow of students changing class. "I have no idea. None," I admitted.

"You could write about winning that award for your short story," Jessi suggested. I'd won Best Overall Fiction in the Sixth Grade for my story, "Caught in the Middle," on Young Author's Day.

"What would I say about it?" I asked.

Jessi shrugged. "I don't know - how hard it was to write, and how you felt when you won?" "No, I don't think that would be enough. I'll think of something, though." Which was exactly what I did for the rest of the day -think.

I was still thinking about the assignment when I walked through the front door of my house that afternoon. As usual, things were a little wild.

The triplets, who are ten, were each wrapped in one of my father's white dress shirts, and each one had a tie knotted around his head. They were pretending to be ninjas, slicing the air and jumping off the living room sofa yelling "Ha! Ya!" like a bunch of maniacs. Adam, Byron, and Jordan are identical, a!though I have no problem telling them apart. I knew which ninja was which.

My sister Vanessa paid no attention to the ninja triplets. She was busy trying to master one of those Skip-It rings. You know, those giant ankle rings, with a rope attached. You put one foot through the ring, and use that foot to swing the rope around, then you jump over the rope with the other foot. She wasn't having much luck. Like me, Vanessa is a dud at most sports. (She's a good writer, though. For a nine-year-old, she writes some pretty amazing poems.) Nicky, who is eight, was driving our bassett hound Pow insane with his new Squiggle Ball. The ball has a battery inside and never quits moving. Even if it shoots under a dresser it will roll its way out. Pow was trying to catch it, but the ball never stopped, so he couldn't.

Margo (she's seven) was trying to get Claire (she's four) to play Skatch. Even with the Velcro mitt, which the Velcro ball sticks to, Claire couldn't catch it (another female Pike athletic superstar in the making).

Sometimes the craziness of my house bugs me. But today I was too deep in thought. I dodged three flying ninjas, stepped over a Squiggle Ball and a bassett hound, ducked a runaway flash of wild pink Velcro, and hopped over a Skip-It rope, barely noticing any of it as I made my way across the living room. I just had to come up with a good project.

I was halfway up the stairs when I heard the phone ring. "Vanessa," Mom called my sister from the kitchen. "Phone. It's Haley." Haley Braddock is Vanessa's best friend. Hearing Haley's name gave me a thought. Haley is a member of a club in theStoneybrookElementary School called the Kids-Can-Do-Anything Club. Jessi's younger sister, Becca, belongs to it, too. The members of the KCDAC, or Kids Club (as most members call it), do a lot of community service work, such as organize food drives and recycling projects. I wondered if I could find a way to include the club members in my English project. After all, my future career would involve writing for kids, so shouldn't kids be a part of the project? It seemed like a natural connection.

But how could I include them?

By the time I reached the room I share with Vanessa, I had that limp, brain-drain feeling you get from thinking about one thing for too long. I decided to put the project aside for awhile. Instead, I took a novel called Alice Anderson from my backpack. I'd checked it out from theStoneybrookMiddle School library. (SMS is my school.) Alice Anderson, the main character, is a seventeen-year-old girl who lives in a small farming town. She is the only girl in a family of four brothers.Alice dreams of going toHollywood and becoming a movie star but she has no idea how she'll make it out of her small town, because her family is poor.