What was worse, P. Martin wondered as he watched Kestrel poke James Vireo in the back: his mother packing calamine lotion in his lunch box, or having a white cardboard box swiveling around his head. Calamine lotion. . . . or, now, that marsh grass!
Last week, while he was in his bedroom studying about Brazil, his mother was in the kitchen slicing one long strip of cardboard into the shape of a willowy blade of grass.
"You've got to be kidding," he'd said, when he walked into the kitchen, after finishing his homework. (Reading about Brazil had filled him with a craving for nuts.)
"Oh, you'll have the most original costume that school has ever seen!" his mother had said. "Just wait until I paint it green!" Her smile was as long as the blade of grass.
P. Martin had lost his appetite and returned to his bedroom. He could hear Kestrel's crackling sneer. Maybe, just maybe, P. Martin thought, I could pour calamine lotion all over Kestrel.
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