Twister on Tuesday

street.
    â€œLife here is pretty easy compared to pioneer life,” said Jack.
    â€œWe’re lucky,” said Annie.
    Jack reached into his bag and pulled out the small slate.
    â€œOur third writing,” he said. He added the poem to the list from the Civil War and the letter from the Revolutionary War.
    â€œYou did just what that poem says you should do,” said Annie.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Jack asked.
    â€œIf at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,”
Annie said. “You kept trying to make friends with Jeb. In the end, you did.”
    â€œI guess you’re right,” said Jack.
    â€œWe have to get only one more special writing for Morgan’s library,” said Annie.
    â€œI wonder how that will help save Camelot?” said Jack.
    Annie shrugged.
    â€œIt’s a mystery,” she said.
    She and Jack looked around the tree house.
    â€œLook—” Annie picked up a piece of paper lying in the corner. She read aloud:

    Come back early Wednesday morning.
    â€œWednesday? Man, that’s
tomorrow
!” said Jack.
    â€œSo?” said Annie. She started down the rope ladder.
    â€œNot much time to recover,” said Jack, pulling on his backpack.
    â€œRecover from what?” Annie said.
    â€œThe twister,” said Jack.
    â€œOh yeah, I’d almost forgotten about that,” said Annie.
    Jack smiled.
    Actually, the nightmare of the twister was fading from his memory, too.
    We must try to hold on to the good memories,
Miss Neely had said,
and let go of the bad ones.
    The kindness of Will and Kate, making friends with Jeb, the courage of Miss Neely—
these
memories, Jack thought, he would never forget.

MORE FACTS ABOUT TWISTERS
    â€¢ Twisters, or tornados, are the fastest winds on earth.
    â€¢ Twisters can travel at speeds up to 200 miles per hour.
    â€¢ The spinning winds act like a giant vacuum cleaner as they move across the earth.
    â€¢ Almost 1,000 tornados hit the United States each year.

MORE FACTS ABOUT
PIONEER LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE
    From the mid-1800s through the 1880s, thousands of pioneers traveled by wagon across America. Most were headed for the territories of Oregon and California. But a number stopped and settled on the Kansas frontier. They made dugouts and broke up the hard ground to plant crops. These pioneers faced windstorms and dust storms, a shortage of water, and grasshopper plagues. In spite of the hardships, they set up small schools so their children could learn the three R’s: “reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic.” Children of varied ages often learned together. It was not unusual for teachers to be as young as 15 or 16 years old.

MORE FACTS ABOUT
PIONEER SCHOOLBOOKS
    The most popular American schoolbooks of the 1880s were called McGuffey Readers. They were put together by a schoolteacher from Ohio named William Holmes McGuffey. Poems such as “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and “If at First You Don’t Succeed” became part of American life because they were in the McGuffey Readers.
    Webster’s Spelling Book was another sig-nificant reference in early American schools. It taught people who’d come here from all over the world how to spell words in the English language.

Here’s a special preview of
Magic Tree House #24
Earthquake in Early Morning

    Available now!
    Excerpt copyright © 2001 by Mary Pope Osborne
Published by Random House Children's Books,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Jack sat up in bed. He stared out his window.
    The sky was dark gray. The sun would be rising soon.
    â€œIt’s almost time,” he whispered to himself.
    The day before, in the magic tree house, Morgan’s note had said, “Come back tomorrow, in the early morning.”
    Jack jumped out of bed. He put on his jeans and T-shirt. Then he grabbed his backpack and crept out into the hall.
    Jack peeked into Annie’s room. She wasn’t there. He slipped downstairs and out the front door.
    Annie was sitting on the porch steps. Jack sat down beside her.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” he asked.
    â€œI was waiting for the birds to start singing,” said Annie. “Then I was going to wake you up.”
    Jack and Annie watched the sky go from dark gray to light gray. Then the birds began their song.
    â€œTweet-tweet,” said Annie.
    Without another word, Jack and Annie left their porch.