Frindle: Chapters 6–10

She bent down and picked up a gold ballpoint pen, the fancy kind.

They got back on the curb, and Nick followed Janet, putting one foot carefully in front of the other on the narrow concrete curb.

When he was about two years old, his mom had bought him one of those unbreakable cassette players and a bunch of sing-along tapes.

They were at the corner of their own street, and Nick had bumped into her, completely absorbed in his thoughts.

Janet stumbled off the curb, and the gold pen in her hand clattered onto the street.

Nick stooped over and picked up the pen and held it out to her.

Nick walked into the Penny Pantry store and asked the lady behind the counter for a frindle.

Six days later Janet stood at the counter of the Penny Pantry. Same store, same lady.

They held up their right hands and read the oath Nick had written out:
From this day on and forever, I will never use the word PEN again. Instead, I will use the word FRINDLE, and I will do everything possible so others will, too.

Sitting three rows away, John blurted out, “I have an extra one you can borrow, Nick.”

As everyone was leaving after class, Mrs. Granger said, “Nicholas? I’d like to have...a word with you,” and she emphasized the word word.

“You know what I mean, Nicholas. I am talking about the performance that you and John gave at the start of class. I am talking about—this,” and she held up her pen, an old maroon fountain pen with a blue cap.

Six of the fifth-grade teachers were not pleased. And Mrs. Granger was furious.

One day near the end of seventh period, Mrs. Granger asked Nick to come talk to her after school. “This is not detention, Nicholas. I just want to talk.”

When he was settled she looked at him and said, “Don’t you think this ‘frindle’ business has gone far enough? It’s just a disruption to the school, don’t you think?”

The word pen has a long, rich history. It comes from the Latin word for feather, pinna. It started to become our word pen because quills made from feathers were some of the first writing tools ever made.

Then Mrs. Granger stood up abruptly and said, “Then that is all for today, Nicholas. And may the best word win.”

The school bus drivers threatened to go on strike.

And then the school board and the superintendent got involved.

She was a large person, as tall as Nick’s dad, with wide shoulders. Nick guessed she would play linebacker on a football team, because that’s what his dad had played in college.

Then while Nick’s parents listened, Mrs. Chatham laid out the story as she saw it—Nick encouraging the other kids to use his new word, Mrs. Granger forbidding it, the ruined fifth-grade class picture, hundreds of kids staying after school, and a general feeling that there was a rebellion at school, with no one respecting the rules anymore.

He looked embarrassed about the trouble.

“But doesn’t all this seem like a lot of fuss about something pretty silly?”

But Mrs. Granger thinks that it’s rather like keeping children from saying ‘ain’t’—there have to be standards.

It’s the lack of respect for authority.

That stumped them all. He had just launched a first-class thought-grenade.

“Well, yes...but...well, as I said, the word ain’t and even the word frindle—these are not the real issue here,” said Mrs. Chatham.

I mean, it’s not like vandalism or stealing or something like that.

There was the occasional burglary, the teenagers got rowdy once in a while, and there was some shouting at the town council or the planning board now and then.

There was the occasional burglary, the teenagers got rowdy once in a while, and there was some shouting at the town council or the planning board now and then.

But mostly, things were calm and orderly in Westfield, and every Thursday The Westfield Gazette proved it.

Judy could see past her and saw that every kid in the room was straining to listen.

Judy noticed Mrs. Granger’s eyes right away—gray maybe flecked with a little gold, and very sharp, but not hard or mean.

I am merely helping my students to see that this foolishness should stop.

The reporter looked closely and saw that each kid was holding up a pen, and each little mouth was puckered in the same way.