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“I won’t let him His words are bad”

Astrid looked over at hiht smile on Little Pete’s face

“And he’s hungry,” Little Pete said, whispering now “Hungry in the dark”

“Because Sam said so, that’s why,” Edilio said for maybe the millionth tiet very, very hungry, that’s why”

“Can I do it another time?” the kid asked

“Little dude, that’s when everyone wants to do it: soet on the bus Bring a hat, if you have one Let’s go”

Edilio stood holding the front door of the house, waiting for the kid to find his Fairly OddParents cap Hiswore on He had twenty-eight kids on the bus, all cory or thirsty, squabbling, whining, crying

It was alot the for lunch He was determined to tell theht there in front of you Yes, I mean melons I don’t care if you don’t like melons, that’s your lunch

Thirty kids, counting himself If they worked hard for four hours they could harvest hty melons each Which sounded like a lot until you divided it by three hundred-plus hungry mouths and you started to realize that it took a whole lot of cantaloupe before you felt full

What worried Edilio was the way soin the field The way the birds were getting at theh ahead to wonder what they should be planting for the next season

Food rotting No planting No irrigating

Even if they harvested the available crops, it was just a ood luck keeping it all together

It turned out he’d been optimistic It was almost one in the afternoon before they made it to the field after a hellishly unpleasant bus trip during which a full-on fistfight broke out between two sixth graders

Sure enough, the first words out of the kids’ ry”

“Well, there’s your lunch,” Edilio said, sweeping his hand toward the field and feeling great personal satisfaction at being able to rub their noses in it