Chapter 1: Volume Probation
Maya Okafor took the last block to Fiddler Marsh Elementary at full speed, which was the only speed her skateboard had.
She popped the board over the slab the magnolia root had shoved up like a ramp. Her backpack thumped her spine. The nose, scuffed white from a thousand curb kisses, clacked back down, and the blue crab sticker on the deck flashed between her sneakers.
"NO FAIR," Junie yelled behind her. "YOU HAVE WHEELS."
Junie had frog rain boots, green, with bulgy eyes on the toes. She wore them every day of the year, and today the sky was so clean and blue it looked freshly washed. Clomp, clomp, clomp. Junie said rain boots were for being ready.
Behind Junie came Dad, reading glasses parked on his head, and behind Dad came Biscuit at the end of its red leash. Biscuit was an old beagle with a gray muzzle. It walked like a mayor inspecting a parade, slowly, with opinions about every mailbox.
Then an ambulance came screaming up Coleman Boulevard.
Biscuit stopped. Biscuit planted all four feet. Biscuit threw back its head and let go.
"Ah-ROOOOOOOO."
It was long and mournful and completely sincere, as if the ambulance had hurt its feelings on purpose.
"Ah-ah! Biscuit, it is not calling you," Dad said.
"BISCUIT, CODE RED," Junie announced, and howled too, to keep it company.
Maya didn't howl. Maya was busy noticing, which happened to her the way hiccups happened to other people. Her brain had already filed:
One: a brand-new pothole by the crosswalk, shaped exactly like Ohio.
Two: Mr. Ashby, the crossing guard, had a new whistle. It was orange and the size of a pickle, which was the last thing on earth Mr. Ashby needed.
Three: his name badge still said C. ASHBY. She had read that badge about four hundred times.
"HOLD IT!" Mr. Ashby bellowed, flinging up his stop sign at a minivan, a kid on a scooter, and a squirrel, in that order. The squirrel held it.
Maya kicked her board into her hand and walked Junie across. Four through seven: a first-grade stampede, a kid crying about a water bottle, a gull with a stolen french fry, a minivan with a dent like a thumbprint.
The lobby smelled like floor wax and sunscreen and, right at the door, bananas.