THE TALENT SHOW

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Contents

Chapter 1 The Kids.............................................1Chapter 2 Reading and Writing..................................9Chapter 3 The Announcement.....................................13Chapter 4 Decisions, Decisions.................................19Chapter 5 Things Are Harder Than They Seem.....................29Chapter 6 Rachel's Story.......................................37Chapter 7 Things Get Easier....................................43Chapter 8 Nancy and Rachel's Mom...............................53Chapter 9 Back To School.......................................61Chapter 10 The Big Day.........................................69Chapter 11 Rachel On Stage.....................................81Chapter 12 Losing And Winning..................................93

Chapter One

It was a cold, winter morning and Rachel Ahrens got dressed in a hurry to get ready for school. She still needed to put some things in her back pack and her mother was busy filling her lunch box. The school bus was due in ten minutes and Rachel hadn't even combed her long blonde hair yet. She did not like being late because if she missed the bus, she would have to be driven to school and that was not the best way to put her mother in a good mood.

Rachel ran back upstairs to take one last look in the mirror that was attached to the back of her bedroom door.

"That'll do" she thought. She was wearing blue jeans and her favorite long-sleeved blue T shirt that said "AWESOME" in great big red letters. She raced down the stairs, two at a time, put on her jacket and scarf, grabbed her back pack and lunch, and started out the door.

"Bye mom, see you later."

"Bye Rache," her mother called back. There was no time for kisses this morning.

Rachel was lucky the school bus stopped in front of her house. If it didn't, she would surely have missed it today. As she opened the door, with her jacket not yet zippered, she saw the bus coming.

"Wow, that was close," she thought. Carmen Aguirre, Kim Polanis, Andrea Molinsky and Nancy Hansen were already waiting to cross the street.

Rachel waved to her friends as she left the house. Well, almost all her friends. She really couldn't count Nancy as one of her friends. Thank goodness Nancy was in one of the other fourth grade classes.

Last year Nancy was in the same third grade class as Rachel and she annoyed Rachel for the entire school year. Rachel thought Nancy was the meanest and rudest girl in the fourth grade. She was also very snooty. When it was freezing outside and all the kids were wearing jeans and sweaters to school, Nancy always wore a skirt with either socks or tights. It was as if she always wanted to look better than everyone else, even if her legs froze.

Although Rachel did not like to talk about people behind their backs, sometimes she just couldn't help whispering things into her friend Carmen's ear about how Nancy had always teased the younger kids and how she was so conceited. She also was rude and gossiped about everyone. In fact, just yesterday, Nancy started to spread untrue rumors about other people in the fourth grade.

Two weeks ago Rachel slept over at Carmen's house. It was a school night and usually her mother did not like her sleeping at the house of a friend when she had to go to school the next day. However, Carmen just lived across the street and both mothers knew each other so well that Rachel's mother said it would be okay. Rachel packed up all of her school things she would need the next day. She remembered to bring her pajamas and a change of underwear, but she forgot to pack clothes to wear to school. Clothes were never that important to Rachel.

"Well," she said to Carmen the next morning, "I guess I will just have to rough it and wear the same clothes today that I wore yesterday."

When they got off the bus and were walking through the schoolyard to go into the building, Nancy came up to Rachel and said "It must be very hard when you are so poor that you have to wear the same outfit two days in a row." Then Nancy turned and walked away laughing with her friends. Rachel was so angry. She wished she could have thought of a good answer for Nancy's teasing, but she just stood there both surprised and sad. Rachel found it difficult to imagine that someone could be so mean.

Nancy was so good at doing these things, too. She did them when the teacher was not around or could not hear her, so she never got caught. She just made people miserable.

"We should buy Mrs. Glover a pair of huge glasses," Rachel whispered to Carmen as they rode on the bus together. "Maybe then she will be able to see what Nancy does!"

Mrs. Glover was Rachel's fourth grade teacher. Rachel and Carmen tried to imagine Mrs. Glover in huge glasses and thought this was so funny that they giggled the rest of the way to school. However, they usually talked about new clothes and boyfriends and who was in love with Matthew or Michael, the two cutest boys in their class. That was much more fun. Rachel and Carmen nicknamed them "M and M" so that they could talk about them and nobody who overheard their conversation would know who they were talking about.

Rachel had just turned ten. She had met Carmen at the bus stop two years ago, right after Carmen's family bought the house across the street. Carmen had the most beautiful brown eyes and the shiniest, long brown hair. They quickly became best friends. They sat next to each other on the school bus and in class as well, but had to be careful not to talk to each other during a lesson. They did not want Mrs. Glover to call them "chatterboxes" and change their seats. That would be much too embarrassing.

It was nice having a best friend. You always had someone to talk to and with whom you could share secrets. You could always trust your best friend to keep your secrets, too. You got together on weekends and if you were upset, you could tell your friend and she would listen. And if something terrific happened, like if your parents decided to take you to a fair, your friend would be excited for you. Carmen was the best "best friend" Rachel ever had.

Angelina was Nancy's best friend last year and was just as mean as Nancy. They made a good team. Once when Angelina really liked Douglas, the boy who sat directly in front of her in school, Nancy tried to pass a note to Douglas to tell him that Angelina was madly in love with him. Their teacher saw Nancy passing the note and took it away before it reached Douglas and then the most awful thing you can imagine happened. The teacher opened the note and read it out loud in front of the whole class! Douglas was very embarrassed, Nancy was scolded for passing the note and Angelina never spoke to Nancy again.

Rachel knew that she and Carmen would never do anything like that to each other and wondered if anybody else had such a good best friend.

Chapter Two

Yesterday was Sunday and Carmen invited Rachel to her house. However, Rachel had taken a book out of the school library that she started reading. Everyone in the class was required to read at least twenty minutes each day from a library book. This particular book was so exciting that Rachel did not want to go over to Carmen's house. She wanted to stay home and finish the book and that is exactly what she did. She stayed in her room all afternoon, sat in her cozy...