Help! Somebody Get Me Out of Fourth Grade (13 page)

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Authors: Henry Winkler

BOOK: Help! Somebody Get Me Out of Fourth Grade
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“Hank,” Dr. Berger said, taking off her glasses. “We believe that for you to be successful in fifth grade, you need to strengthen your basic skills in math and reading comprehension.”
She made some sense, I had to give her that. Math and reading are not exactly my strong points.
“Because of your learning challenges, if you are going to succeed in school, you are going to have to be willing to put in some extra time,” Dr. Berger went on.
“Are you down with that, Hank?” my dad asked.
If it meant I could go on to the fifth grade and be with Frankie and Ashley, I'd be down with anything!
“Sure, Dad! I am so down with that, it's not even funny.”
“The summer-school class is small, so you'll be able to get a lot of extra attention and individual instruction,” Dr. Berger said.
“You mean, all I have to do to go into the fifth grade is go to summer school?” I asked.
Dr. Berger nodded. I felt like jumping up and down and screaming at the top of my lungs.
“Cool,” I said instead. “Where do I sign up?”
Wait a minute. I'm agreeing to go to summer school?
I can't believe I just heard myself say that.
Hank, shut up before you volunteer to write an extra-credit book report on why the Japanese people like blowfish
.
“We want to give you every opportunity to succeed, Hank,” Dr. Berger said.
“I thought you were going to make me repeat fourth grade,” I said.
“I know that both you and your friend Bernice were worried about that,” Dr. Berger said. “But I want you to know that we're on your side. We are here to help you.”
“But what about the brown envelope? The one that said I was going to be held back?”
“You mean this one?” my dad said, taking the brown envelope out from under all my papers he held on his lap. “It was full of samples of your tests and homework from this year.”
That's all? Then I don't hate you anymore, brown envelope!
“Your papers are full of spelling errors, Hank,” my dad said, shaking his head. “Looks like you gave Ms. Adolf's red pencil a real work-out. Perhaps I should give her one of my mechanical ones.”
He reached into the pocket of his leather pants and pulled out a shiny silver mechanical pencil. Then he twisted it so a thin, smooth piece of lead popped up from the point. He handed it to Ms. Adolf.
“You can keep it,” my dad said. “I have a whole collection of them. Would you like it, Ms. Adolf?”
Hold on to your hats for this one. Ms. Adolf actually smiled—and not that little snarky thing she does in class, but a big wide grin.
Then she said, “I'm down with that.”
We all laughed.
I felt like a five-ton sack of smelly socks had been lifted off my back.
“I promise you guys that I'll work hard in summer school,” I said. “I'll do all my math, and I'll read the dictionary, and I'll learn lots of new vocabulary words. In fact, I'd like to start now. How about the word
redo
? I thought that meant ‘do over,' but maybe I was wrong.”
“You were quite right,” Ms Adolf said. “I often use the word
redo
to indicate things that I need to correct. For example, Henry, I sometimes write it in my roll book to indicate a certain report card I need to rewrite because I did a messy job on it.”
“Really?” I asked. “That's why you write redo?”
“Somehow, I feel you may have run across the use of that word recently,” Ms. Adolf said. “Didn't you, Henry?”
“I have to confess,” I said, looking into her gray face. “I did recently run across the word.”
There it was. I knew she knew I looked in her roll book. What was she going to do with that little piece of information?
“That will be another conversation, Henry, that you and I will have in private. Let me just say that it appears that you will have the opportunity to improve your reading comprehension even before summer begins. Perhaps in some after-school sessions with me, shall we say?”
I may not be smart in a lot of things, but one thing I've gotten really good at is the ability to sniff out a punishment. And to me, that sounded like detention. I'll bet you five dollars that I'm going to be getting to do that extra-credit book report on why the Japanese like blowfish way sooner that I had thought.
But, hey, at least I'm going to be in fifth grade next year.
Hank Zipzer, fifth-grader.
That sounds great.
Oh, yeah.
About the Authors
HENRY WINKLER is an actor, producer, and director and he speaks publicly all over the world. Holy mackerel! No wonder he needs a nap. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Stacey. They have three children named Jed, Zoe, and Max and two dogs named Monty and Charlotte. If you gave him one word to describe how he feels about this book, he would say, “Proud.”
If you gave him two words, he would say, “I am so happy that I got a chance to write this book with Lin and I really hope you enjoy it.” That's twenty-two words, but hey, he's got learning challenges.
 
LIN OLIVER is a writer and producer of movies, books and television series for children and families. She has created over one hundred episodes of television, four movies and seven books. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Alan. They have three sons named Theo, Ollie, and Cole, one fluffy dog named Annie, and no iguanas.
If you gave her two words to describe this book, she would say “funny and compassionate.” If you asked her what compassionate meant, she would say “full of kindness.” She would not make you look it up in the dictionary.

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