how a superhero machine changed my life

名称：how a superhero machine changed my life
内容简介：
Dear Arizona,
　 I was looking forward to starting school this year, but now it turns out my desk is right next to the meanest kid in class. What should I do?
　 — Stuck in South Carolina

Dear Stuck,
　 When I was in a similar situation, I turned into a superhero.

Let me explain. We had to work with a partner to come up with an invention. And just my luck—I was paired with my least favorite person, a boy named Sam.

To give you a little background, Sam was the one who threw a worm at me in first grade. Sam was the one who hit me with a basketball at recess in second grade. And Sam is the one who still calls me the annoying name of Arizoni Macaroni!

“Our invention should be a machine that wakes you up in the morning,” said Sam when we got together to talk about our project.

“No,” I said. “Our invention should be a machine that brushes your teeth!” “But brushing your teeth isn’t that hard,” said Sam.

“How about a gadget that makes breakfast for you?”

“How will we invent something that cooks eggs?” I asked.

“I didn’t say eggs. I don’t even like eggs,” said Sam.

“This is pointless,” I grumbled. “We’re the worst possible partners in the world. There’s no way we’ll ever agree!”

“Unless . . . our invention gives us superhero powers that help us to get along,” said Sam.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t mind having the power to block out those mean looks you always give me.”

“Well,” I replied, “I wouldn’t mind having the power to make you stop throwing worms in my face.”

“I haven’t done that since first grade!” said Sam. “And I did that only because you called me Samster the Hamster!”

“I did not!” I said.

“Yes, you did,” said Sam. “Right after you told me I couldn’t swing on the swings with you and your friends.”

“I would never have been that unfriendly!” I said.

Sam nodded. “You were the meanest girl in first grade.”

“I really think you’re imagining that stuff,” I said. “But you know, the more I think about it, the more I’m warming up to your superheromachine idea. Personally, I think it would be amazing to have the power to fly. You could go to France and Zimbabwe and China and never have to buy an airplane ticket.”

“And then when you got tired of Earth,” Sam said, “you could fly to Mars and play soccer with some Martian dudes.”

Sam and I got so into talking about superhero powers that we forgot we were enemies. And I wouldn’t have believed it in a million years, but by the end of the week, we were actually friends! That was the good news.

The bad news was that we were completely on the wrong track.

“With this switch, you can stretch your arm a mile away,” Sam told Isabel during lunch on Friday.

“In case you need to reach really far,” I added. “And if you pull this lever, you can withstand enormous heat.”

“Up to 90 billion degrees,” said Sam.

Isabel shook her head. “Um, it’s a really cool idea, but aren’t our machines supposed to work?”

I was sort of disappointed that Isabel had rained on our parade, but I had to admit she was right. As far as inventing a machine that actually did anything . . . we weren’t anywhere close.

Luckily, Sam and I still had some time. After more thought, we switched our idea from a superhero machine to an invisibleink- maker-and-decoder machine. We worked on it for a bunch of hours over the weekend and managed to finish in time.

“You put half a lemon in this part of the machine like this,” Sam explained to our class. “And when you pull this lever down, the juice gets squeezed out.”

“Next, you dip a toothpick into the lemon juice, like this,” I said. “And you write a secret message on plain white paper.”

“And when you want to read a secret invisible message,” said Sam, “you push the hair-dryer button on this part of the machine, and . . .”

“The message magically appears!” I announced.

So, dear Stuck, I know that situations like this don’t always end up so happily. I also want to say that if the kid at the next desk acts mean toward you, you should definitely tell your teacher. But try to keep an open mind, because you could be pleasantly surprised. I mean, if those first-grade enemies named Samster the Hamster and Arizoni Macaroni could end up becoming friends . . . anything is possible!

Ciao for now,

Arizona