The Curse of Einstein's Pencil Read online

  DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  Penguin Young Readers Group

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  Text and illustration copyright © 2017 by Deborah Zemke

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780698159808

  Names: Zemke, Deborah.

  Title: The curse of Einstein’s pencil / Deborah Zemke.

  Description: New York : Dial Books for Young Readers, 2017. | Series: Bea Garcia | Summary: “Bea Garcia wants to impress her brainy new friend by excelling at the geography contest, but her talents lie elsewhere and she learns that the best way to make friends is by being herself.”— Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016038938 | ISBN 9780803741553 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Friendship—Fiction. | Identity—Fiction. |

  Drawing—Fiction. | Hispanic Americans—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.Z423 Cu 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016038938

  Design by Mina Chung

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For John,

  24,901 miles around the world . . .

  —D.Z.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: My Magic Pencil

  Chapter 2: Between a Genius And a Monster

  Chapter 3: Star Mates!

  Chapter 4: Star Mates?

  Chapter 5: Einstein’s Pencil, Part One

  Chapter 6: It’s Not Stealing

  Chapter 7: It Works!

  Chapter 8: It Really Works!

  Chapter 9: It’s Cursed!

  Chapter 10: Kiss This Cursed Pencil Good-Bye!

  Chapter 11: The Worst Tomorrow Ever

  Chapter 12: The Emily Dickinson Top Ten Geography Star Search

  Chapter 13: We Are Stars!

  CHAPTER 1

  MY MAGIC PENCIL

  This is my pencil. It may not look magic, but it is. Mrs. Grogan said so. She told the whole class.

  Mrs. Grogan didn’t mean fairy-tale magic. She didn’t mean that I could wave my pencil in the air like a wand and turn my little brother into a frog.

  She meant drawing magic, that I could turn my brother into a frog in a picture.

  But wouldn’t it be fun if I really could turn him into a frog? He would be good at jump rope and basketball.

  It would be easy for him to get second helpings of dessert. Of course, if my brother was a frog, his favorite dessert would be fly pie. Yuck.

  Anyway, Mrs. Grogan wasn’t talking about pictures of frogs. She was talking about this picture that I drew of Mount Everest, the highest place on Earth.

  Ignore that monster on top. That’s Bert. I wish I’d never drawn him.

  This is me, Bea Garcia.

  Just kidding! I’m not really a movie star.

  But I really am an artist.

  I draw pictures of everything, especially my dog, Sophie. And flowers and stars and kangaroos and birds and EVERYTHING.

  I draw pictures of what really happens. This is when I turned my little brother into a frog by painting him green.

  My brother’s name is Pablo, but I call him the Big Pest because he really is one.

  I draw pictures of what I WISH would happen. This is me flying around the world to visit my first and only best friend, Yvonne, who moved 10,000 miles away to Australia.

  Sometimes I draw pictures of things that could only happen in pictures. Here we are playing with Yvonne’s pet kangaroo. I WISH!

  Here I really am in my backyard, wishing Yvonne had never moved away.

  When I’m drawing, sometimes it seems like the pictures just hop out of my brain and onto the paper.

  It’s almost like the pencil is drawing the picture all by itself! Like real magic. I know it isn’t real, but it feels like it is.

  This is the book that I draw in, the book I take everywhere and draw pictures of everything in.

  I draw when I’m sitting in the crabapple tree in my backyard . . .

  and in bed when I should be sleeping.

  I draw in my book when I’m riding on the bus and . . .

  at recess when everyone else is playing.

  I even draw in class when I’m supposed to be paying attention. Like right now in math.

  Mrs. Grogan doesn’t think my pencil is very magical in math.

  Mrs. Grogan only calls me Beatrice when I’ve done something wrong. Otherwise she calls me Bea like everybody else. Except Einstein. Einstein ALWAYS calls me Beatrice. Not that Einstein.

  This one. Judith Einstein.

  She’s the girl who sits next to me in Mrs. Grogan’s class.

  She’s the girl with her hand up, who answers every question, even in math and science and spelling and Top Ten Geography and reading comprehension skills.

  Einstein answers all the questions in the universe before Mrs. Grogan even asks. I feel smarter just sitting next to her!

  This is Einstein’s pencil. See how the eraser has never been used? That’s because Einstein never makes mistakes.

  She’s the smartest girl in Emily Dickinson School. She’s the smartest girl in the universe.

  And my almost-friend. Almost.

  CHAPTER 2

  BETWEEN A GENIUS AND A MONSTER

  Here we are, sitting together on the bus going to school. Einstein and me and my little brother. The Big Pest is pretending that he’s a monster, but you can’t be a monster if you’re a scaredy-cat. Which he definitely is.

  Luckily, Einstein doesn’t care about him. She’s too busy reading. Einstein is always reading. She doesn’t talk much outside of class, and I don’t always understand what she does say. Here’s the first thing she ever said to me.

  She said that after Mrs. Grogan told the whole class that my pencil was magic, so I’m pretty sure it meant that Einstein liked my pictures.

  I asked my dad what the word inaccurate meant and he told me:

  Then he helped me to look up inaccurate, and I saw that he was right—it meant wrong.

  It didn’t mean that I’d done something wrong. It meant NOT CORRECT. So I’m still not 100 percent sure what Einstein meant, but now I know how to spell inaccurate if it ever comes up in a Top Ten Spelling Bee.

  I WISH!!

  I’m not really a Spelling Bee Superstar. Maybe I would be better at spelling if you could draw pictures of words like this:

  I’d be better at everything if I could draw all my answers. Here’s the first president of the United States!

  Anyway, I know exactly what the second thing that Einstein ever said to me meant.

  Here’s how I felt when she said that.

  Shining high, like a star. Just Einstein and me soaring across the universe. Star Mat
es!

  I WISH!

  Ignore that monster on the bus reaching for my book. That’s Bert. Yes, the Bert I drew on top of Mount Everest.

  He sits behind me in Mrs. Grogan’s class. Even worse, he lives next door in the house where Yvonne lived before she moved to Australia.

  Is Bert really a monster? You tell me. He looks like one.

  He sounds like one.

  He acts like one.

  He terrifies the Big Pest and Sophie.

  He calls me stupid names.

  My mom told me to ignore him, so I am. I’m not going to draw any more pictures of Bert. I’ve already drawn too many.

  I drew that one of him on top of the world, and now the whole class thinks he’s some kind of hero. Do you think that made Bert any nicer?

  No, it made things worse, because now he wants me to draw pictures of him all the time. I’m turning into a monster myself just thinking about him.

  My dad said if you can’t ignore him, make him laugh. Are you laughing, Bert? This is a picture of you falling in a black hole while Einstein and I soar across the universe.

  I WISH!

  CHAPTER 3

  STAR MATES!

  This is not an I WISH picture! It’s an artist’s conception!

  Einstein told me that since no one can really see a black hole, artists make up what it looks like, just like I did!

  Well, almost like I did.

  Here’s my new artist’s conception. See? No holes, and no Bert, just a squished star.

  I LOVE being the almost-friend of the smartest girl in the Universe. Especially today!

  It’s my chance to shine! Because guess who asked me to be on her team for the Top Ten Geography Star Search contest?

  Yes! Judith Einstein and me, Star Mates! Just like my picture! We are sure to win!

  Here we are, flying 24,901 miles around the world!

  Here we are landing in

  Dancing with penguins would be fun if it wasn’t freezing! Brrrr! Why do they call it Antarctica if it’s too cold for ants?

  Here’s Einstein smiling at me because I answered correctly!

  Well, almost correctly.

  Here’s Bert, trying to ruin everything. You can’t see him because I’m not going to draw him, but you can hear him.

  No way, Bert. I’m not drawing you, especially not in Australia.

  I’m only drawing Einstein and Yvonne and me and Yvonne’s pet kangaroo and . . .

  And a crocodile?

  Are there crocodiles in Australia? Crocodiles who look like Bert! No! I’m not going to draw Bert!

  Here I am, trying to erase my picture of Bert the crocodile.

  CHAPTER 4

  STAR MATES?

  Here I am on the playground with my book and pencil hidden under my shirt. I’m looking for Einstein, my Star Mate!

  Keisha and Lauren and Megan and Tristan are playing foursquare. Tommy and Trevon and Maria and Grace are playing basketball.

  Ben, Jacob, Fatima, Adelaide, and Lucy are playing monster tag with Bert who is IT, of course. He’s growling at the edge of the picture.

  Here’s Einstein by herself, reading.

  Einstein looked at me like I didn’t know anything.

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Einstein was smarter than everybody. She was certain to win. And that meant I was going to win, too!

  Einstein didn’t answer that question.

  Why would Einstein need my help? She knew thousands of answers.

  What did I know?

  Einstein smiled at my picture. Then she frowned. She didn’t look at me.

  She looked at Yvonne.

  There, I said it. Best friends, almost. Einstein and me. But Einstein just said:

  Then she grabbed my book, crossed out 10,000, and wrote 9,903. In MY book.

  I didn’t know what to think. I liked my book the way it was.

  But I wanted to be Einstein’s teammate.

  Can I do it? That’s what I was wondering when the bell rang.

  I looked at #1 on Einstein’s list. What is the longest river in the world?

  I can do it! I already know two answers! The Nile River and Australia! Now I just have to study! I have to study every minute between now and tomorrow and learn 255 more answers. I can stay up all night studying. I HAVE to do it! I have to do it or else.

  Or else here I am, falling into an artist’s conception of a squished star.

  CHAPTER 5

  EINSTEIN’S PENCIL, PART ONE

  I can do it! Here I am after recess. I put my book away in my desk. I have my pencil out. I’m ready to write correct answers!

  I can do it! I’m writing the correct answer to Question #1. I can do it. Right?

  Wrong. Yes, it’s me growling, not Bert. I’m growling because the answer that I just wrote is wrong. Here I am erasing my wrong answer and writing the right answer. No, wait.

  Here I am erasing my wrong answer and writing the right answer again. And again. And again.

  My pencil may have been sharp enough, but my eraser was rubbed out because I’d already erased three wrong answers.

  I peeked over at Einstein. All of the correct answers just flowed like a river out of her brain, through her pencil, and onto the paper.

  See how her pencil is sharp and the eraser is brand new?

  Not like mine.

  Her pencil writes correct answers.

  My pencil writes wrong answers.

  If only I had Einstein’s pencil, maybe answers would flow like a river out of my brain, too. I WISH!

  Wouldn’t that be fun? Complete, correct answers from me, Bea Garcia! I would be the second smartest girl in the universe!

  I would write all the correct answers to the ten-minute Quick Quiz just like my Star Mate, Judith Einstein!

  Instead, I’m drawing funny pictures like this one. Here we are, sailing Einstein’s pencil on the Nile, the longest river in the world.

  That’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks. I did know the correct answer to Question #1. I had just drawn a picture of it.

  If only Mrs. Grogan thinks my pencil is still magic. If funny pictures count, then at least I would get one correct answer.

  If only I had Einstein’s pencil, I would get them all.

  CHAPTER 6

  IT’S NOT STEALING

  It’s not stealing. It’s not stealing, if I found Einstein’s pencil on the floor after it rolled off her desk.

  It’s not stealing even if I helped it an eensy-teensy bit by bumping her desk.

  It’s not stealing because Einstein already has all the answers in her brain. She doesn’t need this pencil like I do. She probably has a million more just like it, filled with a gazillion answers.

  It’s not stealing, it’s borrowing. I just need it to study tonight and then I’ll give it back right after we win. Nobody saw me pick it up, did they?

  It’s not stealing. It’s trading. See? I gave my old pencil to Einstein. She said she wanted to learn how to draw like me.

  CHAPTER 7

  IT WORKS!

  I really truly CAN do it. Here we are on the bus going home. Einstein is quizzing me, and I know the correct answer! Because I have Einstein’s pencil in my hand!

  No funny pictures, just correct answers!

  Just Einstein and me, smiling like new best friends!

  Just Einstein and me and the Big Pest.

  Just Einstein and me and the Big Pest and Bert.

  Bert ruins EVERYTHING! Did he see me take Einstein’s pencil?

  It doesn’t matter. I’m never, never, NEVER going to draw Bert again. No matter what.

  I’m just going to close my eyes and ignore Bert until he gets sucked up into the biggest black hole in the universe and nobody ever sees him again.


  That was the question Einstein didn’t answer before.

  I never imagined Einstein with anything like a sister. Or a mother or father. I just imagined her as a human encyclopedia.