Wacky Wednesday
by Kathy Sattem Rygg
Serafina woke up wondering, what day is today? Then she remembered, it was Wednesday.
“Wednesdays are boring,” she sighed. What could she do to liven it up? “I know! I’ll declare today Wacky Wednesday!” What should she do on Wacky Wednesday? She went into her closet and chose her brightest clothes—a pink and green polka-dot shirt, purple and orange striped pants, and red and blue flowered socks. Then she turned them all inside out and put them on.
“What are you wearing?” her mother exclaimed.
“It’s Wacky Wednesday,” said Serafina. “Which means you have to wear your clothes inside out.”
Her mother rolled her eyes. “What else do you do on Wacky Wednesday?” she asked.
Serafina stuck out her tongue in deep thought. “Well, you eat wacky foods. For breakfast I’d like to have peanut butter covered pickles and fruit punch to drink, please.”
Her mother rolled her eyes but made the wacky breakfast. Serafina skipped backwards into the kitchen. So far, she was really enjoying Wacking Wednesday. She gobbled up her food and got ready to go to school.
“It’s raining. You’ll need an umbrella,” said her mother.
Instead of an umbrella, Serafina grabbed a cooking pot from the cupboard. She placed it over her head.
“What are you doing?” her mother asked.
“I won’t get wet with my wacky umbrella!” Serafina said proudly. Then she galloped backwards all the way to school.
Serafina’s classmates laughed when they saw her. “What’s with the weird getup?” they asked.
“It’s Wacky Wednesday,” she answered with confidence.
“Can we do Wacky Wednesday, too?” her classmates begged. Serafina nodded.
The first wacky thing the students did was move their desks around the room in the shape of the letter W. When their teacher entered the room, she wrinkled her eyebrows.
“What’s the meaning of this?” she asked.
“In honor of Wacky Wednesday, we rearranged our desks into a W!” Serafina said, wiggling in her seat. Her teacher rolled her eyes but let the class stay in a W.
The next wacky thing the students did was try to read their books upside down. It was hard to do, and they giggled whenever someone got a word jumbled up.
Their teacher rolled her eyes but let the class read upside down. “It’s good exercise for your brains,” she said.
At lunch, the class decided to eat their food without using their hands. Serafina laughed as she licked her pudding out of the cup like a playful puppy. Roger nudged his sandwich around the table with his nose and ended up with peanut butter on his cheeks and grape jelly above his eyes. The lunch room lady rolled her eyes but let the kids eat their lunches in wacky ways.
During recess the class played wacky tag. Instead of running, they crab walked, bear crawled, and kangaroo jumped. On the playground, kids climbed up the slide rather than slide down and swung on the monkey bars by their feet. The recess teacher roller his eyes but let the kids play their wacky games.
In art class, Serafina decided they should speak Pig Latin. “It’s Acky-way Ednesday-way,” she explained to her art teacher. The art teacher rolled her eyes but let the kids talk in their wacky language through the rest of class.
After school, Serafina shuffled backwards all the way home. She did her homework on the floor underneath the kitchen table. She ate potato chips dipped in whipped cream for a snack. She went outside and pedaled her bike backwards up and down the sidewalk.
Before dinner, she set the plates on the four corners of the table and put the silverware down the middle. She poured milk into measuring cups and handed her mother mixing bowls when it was time to dish the casserole. Her mother rolled her eyes but didn’t switch the bowls out for plates.
When Serafina’s father sat down to dinner, he frowned. “What’s all this?” he asked.
“It’s Wacky Wednesday, Daddy,” Serafina said in a sweet voice. Her father rolled his eyes but stuck his fork in his mixing bowl full of casserole.
“I’ll do the dishes!” Serafina said after dinner. She took everything up to her bathtub and washed the dishes in bubble bath.
“Whew! Wacky Wednesday is hard work,” Serafina said when she was finished.
“I think tomorrow should just be plain old Thursday,” Serafina’s mother said, tucking her into bed.
“I think you’re right.” Serafina yawned. “But, the day after that is going to be Funky Friday!”
Her mother rolled her eyes but kissed Serafina goodnight. And since it was still Wacky Wednesday, she kissed Serafina right on top of her big toe.
Question Time
1. How did Serafina wear her clothes on Wacky Wednesday?
2. What did she eat for breakfast?
3. What did she and her friends do with their desks at school?
4. Where did she wash the dishes?
5. What did all the grown-ups do when she and her friends did wacky things?