Read the Beginning of Spelling, Spiders and the Secrets of Like

Chapter One: Josh

Josh caught the woolly worm as it crawled up the playground fence. He wasn’t a big-time bug fan. But this prickly creature looked useful, he thought, heading toward a group of girls by the slide.

On his way to wreak havoc, Josh almost stumbled over the new girl, Emily Ash. She was sitting on the grass, studying. He watched her mouth move as she chewed spelling words with pure enjoyment as if they were bubblegum.

Emily had transferred to Hartfield Elementary’s fifth grade in October from a school in the nearby town of Atkinsville. Josh knew she had made it all the way to fourth place in last year’s national competition. He’d heard about the Spelling Bee Queen. She was known for her calm way of spelling words.

Josh glanced at the woolly worm, then back at the girl.

So what. Mom had taught him how to spell the longest word in the dictionary when he was six: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis.

And last year, he’d accidentally won his class bee when Valentina Garcia spelled rhinoceros with a “y” instead of an “i.” That little error had sent Josh on to the school bee where he’d somehow come in second.

Still, Josh didn’t think of himself as a speller. He was an athlete. Competing in spelling bees was boring compared to kicking game-winning goals in the Hartfield Hornets’ all-star soccer matches.

Could Emily do that?

Anyway, if she was such a super speller, why was she studying during recess? Maybe she needed a little inspiration, a reason to get her face away from that word list.

“Hey, Spelling Bee Queen!” Josh shouted.

The girl ignored him. She stared harder at the word list and chewed more spelling words.

Josh leaned closer and yelled in her face. “Spell this!”

Emily looked up just as Josh flipped the worm onto her shoulder.

He waited for her reaction. Nothing. Her green eyes didn’t blink. She didn’t change her expression or make a sound as she peeled the caterpillar off her shirt and peered at its underside.

“A woolly bear,” Emily said in a calm voice.

Josh laughed. “A woolly bear? Looks like a wooly worm to me.”

“Of course it’s a worm. But some people call it a woolly bear,” Emily said, squinting at the creature through the smudged lenses of her pink-framed glasses. “It’s the larval form of the Isabella Tiger Moth.”

“I knew that,” Josh said.

“Look at its thirteen distinct segments of black and reddish-brown.” Emily dangled the woolly in front of Josh’s eyes.

He stared at the worm. It did have a lot of segments. But who was counting?

“Usually, a woolly bear curls into a ball and plays dead whenever a human touches it. But this one is too upset to do that,” Emily said, looking at Josh then back at the worm.

“He’s had a hard day,” Josh said. “He was about to fall off a really tall fence when I rescued him.”

“You mean when you captured him,” Emily said.

“Right. That’s what I meant.” Josh was thinking about grabbing the worm and returning it to the fence. Throwing a worm on a girl he didn’t even know had been a dumb idea. He would never have done that if he hadn’t been so bored after being sidelined from recess sports with an injured hand.

“They say woolly bears can forecast the coming of winter. But that’s just a bunch of folklore hogwash. They can sting if you rub their bristles the wrong way.” Emily placed the woolly on her turquoise sleeve and stroked the caterpillar’s back.

Josh waited for the worm to sting her finger.

It didn’t.

“Thanks for the woolly,” Emily said. “It’ll make a great pet. My dog Spelletti will love Bristles.”

“Bristles? Like a toothbrush?” Josh said, wondering if Spelletti would love the new pet enough to gulp it down for dinner.

“Nope. Like a woolly bear.” Emily glanced at the cast on Josh’s left hand. “You’re the boy in the other fifth grade who got hurt at soccer practice yesterday.”

“How’d you know about that?” Josh felt his skin itch underneath the hot cast.

“All the soccer players in my class were talking about the accident this morning. They said you were the goalie and Kyle Eades did it.”

“Yeah,” Josh said, remembering the dizzy feeling as he lost his balance and crashed to the ground. And the pain when Kyle, who was massive, kept running toward the goal, crushing Josh’s wrist and fingers with his cleats.

“It wasn’t that bad, really. Goalie’s not even my regular position. I’m so good I usually roam all over the field, playing wherever I can do the most damage. They call me Wild Josh ‘cause I’m so dangerous.”

The woolly worm raised its front portion in the air as if to say, “Well, woo-wee, Wild Josh.” Then it dropped onto Emily’s lap.

“Thanks for the warning,” Emily said. “My uncle used to play football at the University of Georgia. It’s a bit like soccer. In most parts of the world, football means soccer. I’m living with Uncle Max while my parents and little brother are in Egypt on a year-long dig.”

“What are they digging?” Josh asked.

“Artifacts. Mom and Dad are archaeologists.”

“You didn’t go with them?”

“Nope.” Emily nudged the worm back onto her sleeve and watched it crawl. “No spelling bees where they are in Egypt.”

“I’d rather dig up mummies than spell in a bee,” Josh said.

Emily stroked the woolly worm’s bristles, making the tiny creature’s body ripple. “I’d rather win spelling bees. How did you know I wanted a woolly bear pet?”

Josh was about to answer that he didn’t know when something crashed into his back.

“Hey, Josh. Can you toss the ball back over here with your good hand?” Darius Henderson yelled across the playground.

Josh scooped the miniature football from the grass by Emily’s pink flip-flops with his good hand and lobbed a high, spiraling pass at Darius.

“Great throw,” Emily said. She stuffed the word list into her denim backpack and got up, being careful not to jostle her new pet.

“Thanks,” Josh said. Most of the fifth-grade girls were as tall as the boys or taller. But not Emily. The tip of her head was even with his nose.

He sniffed. Her sandy blonde hair smelled sweet, like the green apple shampoo Mom used. Wait a minute. Why am I smelling a girl’s hair and talking to her? Broken bones or not, I should be out there playing football, he thought, rubbing his nose with his good hand.

“This woolly has such an intelligent expression,” Emily said, shoving the worm into Josh’s face again.

“Yeah, it reminds me of my teacher around the eyes. All twelve of them,” Josh said.

Emily grinned. “You have a weird sense of humor. I like that. I like the woolly, too. Can’t wait to show it to everyone in my class. I’ll be sure to give you full credit for the gift.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Josh said, feeling his face go crimson as he watched Emily stroll toward the school building, cupping the caterpillar in her hands.

“No problem,” Emily called over her shoulder.

“You were supposed to be scared by the woolly -- not make it a pet,” Josh shouted, watching her pull open the heavy door.

He wasn’t sure, but Josh thought he heard Emily giggle disappeared inside the building.

Chapter Two: Emily

The woolly bear’s bristles tickled inside Emily’s hand as she hurried down the hall, weaving her way through a slow-moving maze of noisy kids. She hadn’t meant to giggle just now, but she couldn’t help herself. Did Josh really expect Emily Ash to be scared of a worm?

Inside room 13, Emily’s classmates ignored her as she headed toward her desk, first one on the center row. She was almost there when Mrs. Oliver looked up from her laptop and said, “What are you hiding, Emily?”

Emily stopped and opened her palm to reveal the worm.

“Nice specimen. They say woollies can predict the coming of winter.” Mrs. Oliver scratched at something in her dark brown hair.

“Not this one,” Emily said. “You have a jar I can borrow?”

“In the green storage cabinet. Help yourself. I’ll give you a couple of minutes to share after you get the woolly settled,” Mrs. Oliver said.

Emily found an empty mayonnaise jar on a shelf, wedged between a broken stapler and a stack of old paperback textbooks with tattered covers. She forced open the lid and tried to drop the worm inside. It clung to her hand like Velcro.

“You’ll get used to your new home, Bristles. Maybe,” Emily whispered, nudging the woolly off her finger and into the jar.

Emily slid into her desk seat and placed the Bristles jar front and center on the desktop. All around her, she heard snickers and burps and little snatches of conversation.

The teacher closed her laptop. “Quiet in the classroom, please. Before we get back to work, Emily has something to show us.”

Emily stood and faced the class. She held the jar up so everyone could see the beautiful woolly. Michael Mimsey made a goofy face as he stared at Bristles with his pale blue bug eyes.

“Tell us where you found the worm,” Mrs. Oliver said.

“Okay. It’s like this. I didn’t find it. The woolly was a gift . . . from someone special,” Emily said.

“Who?” A chorus of classmates’ voices echoed in her ears.

Emily inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly, hearing a little sound in her nostrils that she hoped no one else noticed. “Josh gave me the woolly. You know, Josh Meyers from the other fifth grade?”

Laughter erupted across the classroom.

“Wild Josh gave you a worm? Why would he give you a weird gift like that?” Logan asked.

“Josh likes Emily!” Michael shouted.

As Emily listened to her classmates’ teasing words, she knew she’d started something. And this something would reverberate all over Hartfield Elementary School by the end of the day.

A tiny giggle, like a baby hiccup, chirped up her throat. She quickly choked it back.

“Thanks for sharing, Emily,” Mrs. Oliver said. “Now class, get out your Chromebooks, go to the language arts section and read pages 49 to 58 silently while I finish grading yesterday’s homework.”

Emily pulled her computer out of her backpack and began reading. As she read the words on the screen, she felt the familiar expression settle over her face. Perfect, she thought, after speed-reading her way through the assignment. Now all the kids would tease Josh about his new girlfriend.

Josh deserved this attention. Was it her fault he’d tossed a worm on her shoulder during recess today? She’d tried not to look at the tall boy in the Georgia Bulldogs t-shirt when he walked up.

But he kept standing there, kicking at the ground with his mud-stained running shoe. His right shoelace was untied. Emily wondered how he would tie it back with only one working hand. She wanted to say something about that, but she had spelling words to study. So she kept her eyes on the page of words, trying to ignore him while she spelled chimichanga three times.

Emily was tasting chimichangas in her imagination when Josh tossed the worm on her shoulder. Looking up, she realized something. The boy picking on her would be her main competitor in the school bee. Valentina Garcia had told her all about Josh coming in second last year and how the boy who won had moved to Iowa.

All the kids at Hartfield Elementary assumed Josh Meyers would win the bee this year. They were so wrong. By school bee time, Josh wouldn’t even remember how to spell the word dog.

This children's middle-grade novel will be available in the fall of 2024. To reserve your copy, contact the author, Donny Bailey Seagraves.