Keeping Secrets (Sleepover Squad Series #4)

Chapter 1 The Spring Spelling BeeJo Sanchez took a deep breath. Her palms felt damp and warm, so she wiped them on her pants. She wondered if the other kids on the stage of the Oak Tree Elementary School auditorium were getting nervous too."Min Choi, you're next," Ms. Paolini, the fifth-grade English teacher, called out.Ms. Paolini was running the Spring Spelling Bee. She was standing at one end of the stage, reading out the words for the students to spell.Jo watched fourth grader Min Choi step to the microphone. Ms. Paolini smiled at Min."Min, your word is 'satellite,'" the teacher said.Min slowly spelled out the word. But Jo didn't pay attention. Instead, she peered down the row of chairs on either side of her. Most of them were empty now, though all of them had been full just a short while ago. She could hardly believe it -- she was the last third grader left on stage! The second-to-last one, Tammy Tandrich, had been knocked out of the spelling bee in the last round. She'd misspelled the word "achieve." Now the only people left were Jo and seven other kids. All of the others were fourth or fifth graders.Next Jo looked out into the audience. It was hard to see anything out there since the spotlights were shining straight at the stage. That left the rest of the auditorium in shadow. But Jo was pretty sure she could see her mother sitting a few rows back. She wished her father could be there too. But he was a doctor, and he couldn't leave his patients in the middle of the day.Min finished spelling her word. "That's correct," Ms. Paolini told her. "Good job. Now it's Jo's turn again. Ms. Sanchez, please step forward."Jo felt a funny, jumpy sensation in her stomach. Her friends were always teasing her because she never looked nervous, not even before a big test. She tried to tell them she still felt nervous sometimes. But she wasn't sure they believed her.She brushed her shoulder-length dark hair out of her face and walked to the microphone. Then, looking over at Ms. Paolini, Jo waited for her next word."Whoooo! Go, Jo-Jo!" someone shouted from the audience.The whole audience started laughing, and Jo smiled. She looked down and spotted her three best friends in the front row. All three of them had been in the spelling bee too. Each time someone got knocked out by spelling a word wrong, he or she went and sat down in the first section of the audience.Taylor Kent was the one who'd yelled out. Taylor was very smart, but she was also very impatient. She'd sped through the spelling of the word "neighbor" without stopping to remember that it was supposed to have the lettergin it.Beside Taylor, Kara Wyatt was laughing and waving to Jo. Kara wasn't a very good speller, so it was no surprise that she'd been knocked out early. She'd barely eventriedto spell the word "geography" before giggling and giving up.Emily McDougal was sitting on Kara's other side. Emily was looking over at Mr. Mackey, the music teacher, who was sitting at the end of their row. Emily hated causing a scene or getting in trouble, so she looked kind of nervous. A lot of things made Emily nervous. For one thing, she always got nervous when she had to stand up and talk in front of other people. Jo was pretty sure that was why Emily had messed up the word "exercise" a couple of rounds earlier. Normally, Emily was one of the best spellers in the third grade.Mr. Mackey was laughing along with everyone else. "That's enough, Miss Kent," he called down the row.Ms. Paolini smiled at Jo. "Now that your cheering section has settled down, let's continue," she said. "Since this is the Spring Spelling Bee, the next round will consist of words that have to do with spring. Your word is 'sprout.'"Jo nodded and thought for a moment. She heard the word "sprout" all the time at Emily's house. Emily's mother ran an organic gardening business. This time of year, aDenton, P. J. is the author of 'Keeping Secrets (Sleepover Squad Series #4)', published 2008 under ISBN 9781416928010 and ISBN 1416928014.