No Way Out by Fern Michaels (best books to read for students txt) 📕

dunno, Mom. She was really nice yesterday.”

Colleen looked at him curiously. “You spoke to her?”

“Through the box.” Jackson was pulling on his backpack. “I showed her my arrowhead.”

“How did you do that?”

“What?”

“Show her your arrowhead?” Colleen’s curiosity was peaked.

“I held it up in the air.” Jackson thought nothing of it.

“OK. So you didn’t go in the house?”

“No, Mom.”

“And she didn’t come outside?”

“Nope.” Jackson checked his shoelaces. Tied. Double knots.

“What else did she say?”

“She said she was getting worried ’cause I was late. That’s when I showed her my good-luck charm.”

“Oh. OK.” Colleen realized that nothing Jackson had said differed from every other experience, even though she was secretly hoping for some kind of breakthrough.

“But she was cooking some kind of fried chicken when I was leaving. I told her it smelled real good.”

“So she was in the kitchen when you were there?”

“Yup.”

“And you could see her?”

“Yup,” Jackson repeated. “But I didn’t get a real good look.”

“Well, all righty! Let’s get moving. You remember that Frank is going to walk you home today, and he’ll sit with you while you do your homework. Then you can go play with Buddy.”

“Yippee!” Jackson put on his baseball cap and stomped out the door.

As the two of them headed toward school, Colleen noticed again that Mitchel’s car was not lurking on the side of the road. On the one hand, that made her feel better, but on the other, she wondered if Mitchel had some nefarious plan up his sleeve. She shrugged off her concern. For the moment.

* * *

At the end of the school day, Frank greeted Jackson outside the front entrance to the school. “Hey, Mr. Chadwick!” Jackson waved to his friends. “See ya tomorrow!”

“Hey, Jackson!” Frank put his hand on Jackson’s shoulder. “How was school today?”

“Oh, pretty much the same as yesterday, except Kevin brought a frog into class and it got out of its box. It was hopping all over the place. Some of the girls were screaming.” Jackson was laughing as he described the scene.

“Did someone finally catch it?”

“Yeah. Kevin put the box over him, but then he couldn’t figure out how to turn the box over without the frog getting out.”

“So then what happened?”

“Mrs. Massa called the custodian. He came with a net and threw it over the box. It was hard to see because he was bent over. But when he stood up, the frog was back in the box, and the lid was on it.”

“Well, that sounds like a bit of excitement, right?” Frank was amused.

“Then Mrs. Massa made Kevin put tape on the box so the frog wouldn’t get out again.”

“I assume there were holes in the box so the frog could breathe?”

“Oh, sure. He even had some grass stuff, but that got all over the floor. I guess the frog is gonna have to wait ’til it gets home before he can have a snack.”

Frank smiled. The wonder of childhood.

The walk home took less than ten minutes. Once they got inside, Jackson took off his backpack and pulled out his homework assignment.

“What are you working on today?” Frank asked.

“We’re studying the solar system.”

“Wow. That’s impressive.”

“I guess. We have to draw a map.”

“Do you get to look at your book while you’re doing it?”

“Yeah. Mrs. Massa said we should try to draw the planets first, then close the book and try to remember the names.”

“But you could peek if you wanted to?” Frank wanted to learn how Jackson would react to being honorable.

“I guess. But I won’t. That wouldn’t be fair.” Jackson said this as if it were obvious. “Besides, we’re going to get a quiz on it Friday. So if anybody cheats on their homework, they might not pass the test.”

“Jackson, you are very astute.”

“What is a stute?”

Frank chuckled. “The word is ‘astute.’ It means smart.”

“Uh. OK. I guess we’ll find out when I take the test on Friday!”

“Well, get busy then. I’ll check your work after you’re done.”

“Okeydokey.” Jackson sat at the kitchen table, took a blank sheet of paper, opened his science book to the map of the solar system, and began to make circles. He stopped once he got to Mars and realized he was not going to have room on his paper for the rest of the planets. He scrapped the first attempt and started again.

Frank leaned over and turned the paper sideways. “That oughta give you more room for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto.”

Jackson looked up at Frank and nodded.

“Here’s a way to remember the names. M.V.E.M.J.S.U.N. M stands for Most. V stands for Valuable. E stands for Earth. M stands for My Name. J stands for Jackson. And the rest is easy. S.U.N.”

“Wow! How did you do that?” Jackson’s knee was bobbing.

“It’s called a mnemonic.”

“A what?”

Frank replied phonetically. “A neh monic.”

“Do I have to remember that, too?” Jackson made a face.

Frank chuckled. “No. But give it a try.”

Jackson looked down at the letters. “But what if I forget the letters?”

“You know all the names, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

“OK. First thing you do is write down all the names. They don’t have to be in order. Then you take the first letter of each name and underline it,” Frank instructed. “Go ahead. Give it a try.”

Jackson got very serious and spoke as he wrote: “Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Earth, Venus, Neptune, Mercury, Uranus.” He looked up at Frank. “What about Pluto?”

“Is it still a planet?” Frank asked.

“They call it a dwarf planet.” Jackson was proud that he knew that tidbit.

“Well, then, it should be easy to remember him last. Like a period at the end of a sentence,” Frank said.

“What if I get Mars and Mercury mixed up?”

Frank hadn’t thought about that. “How about this. Earth is spelled ‘e, a, r, t, h.” What comes after the E in Earth?

“A.”

“Mercury starts with m, e. Mars starts with m, a. What comes after the E in earth?”

“An A.”

“Correct. So the planet that comes after earth, has an a.”

Jackson thought about all of this.

“Are you confused yet?” Frank half-teased him.

“Kinda.”

“Give it a try.”

Jackson thought