Read chapter 1 of The Spelling Bee Showdown

The Hilbert twins, Emily and Sam, had always been in the same classroom. That was fine with them because they were best friends as well as brother and sister. But that didn’t mean they were exactly alike. When it came to school, Emily loved reading and science, while Sam preferred spelling and math. Those differences were very clear when Mrs. Gunther, their teacher, made two big announcements one morning.

“We’re going to be starting a literary unit on Aesop’s Fables,” she told the class.

Sam groaned quietly to himself. It sounded like a lot of reading to him. 

Michelle Gabriel’s hand shot up in the front row. Sam looked at his sister, who sat two desks away from him. They both rolled their eyes: they knew exactly what Michelle was going to ask. 

“What’s a fable?” she asked.

“A fable is a special kind of story that teaches a lesson,” Mrs. Gunther answered. “The characters are often animals or plants who talk and act like people. These stories have been passed down from generation to generation over thousands of years. We’ll be studying fables from Aesop, one of the most famous storytellers of all time. Aesop was a man who lived in Greece more than twenty-five-hundred years ago, and his fables were collected into a book called Aesop’s Fables. Now, here’s the fun part—at the end of the unit, we’ll work in pairs to write our own stories. I’ll put all of these into a book called Gunther’s Fables, and you’ll each get a copy.”

A few of the students groaned out loud. Sam was one of them. If there was anything he hated more than reading, it was writing.

Unlike her brother, Emily was super excited. She loved to read and write her own stories. Before Mrs. Gunther had even finished talking about the project, Emily was jotting down ideas for stories.

“And now for my second bit of exciting news,” Mrs. Gunther said. Everyone sat up straight at their desks, curious about what would come next. “We’re going to have an all-school spelling bee.”

Now it was Emily’s turn to groan. Emily was a pretty good speller, but it was still one of her least favorite subjects. Two desks over, Sam was grinning ear to ear. He loved spelling. Sam liked learning new tricks to spell words, like the one his dad had taught him about knowing the difference between “principle” (a belief) and “principal” (the head of the school). He remembered that “the principal is his pal,” so that was the one that ended in -pal.

“Our class competition will be a week from Friday,” continued Mrs. Gunther. “The winner will go on to face the winners from the other classes the following week. There are sample spelling lists on my desk. Please take one home to study.”

Emily trudged up to her teacher’s desk and picked up a thick pile of papers stapled together. She shook her head as she paged through the packet. There were hundreds of words. Maybe even thousands! There was no way she was going to learn how to spell all of these words in the next week.

At lunch, Emily sat with her brother Sam in the cafeteria. Both were quiet. Emily just pushed her food around the tray instead of eating. All she could think about was that endless list of spelling words. Sam was eating—nothing could ever bother him enough to spoil his appetite—but his mind was on the fable he didn’t want to write.

“I can’t believe we have to write some stupid story,” Sam complained while he snatched a couple of carrot sticks from his sister’s tray.

“Yeah? Well, that sure beats having to memorize a bunch of stupid words,” Emily replied. She moved the rest of her carrots to Sam’s tray.

“Spelling is fun. I bet I’ll win our class competition,” Sam bragged.

“I read more than you,” said Emily. 

“So?”

“So that means I probably know a lot more words than you.”

“Maybe, but can you spell them?” Sam teased.

“I could beat you in the spelling bee if I tried,” Emily said.

“Not in a million years,” Sam snorted.

“I bet I could.”

Sam grinned. This competition would sure be interesting. “Okay,” he said, “what do you want to bet?”

Emily thought for a long moment while Sam looked on in anticipation.

“Earth to Emily,” he said, tapping his finger on his wrist. “You going to bet today or what?”

Emily didn’t really want to bet against her brother because she wasn’t sure she could actually beat him. The problem was, she was the one who had suggested the bet. There was no way she could get out of it now. But maybe she could get Sam to back out if she bet something he really didn’t want to lose. Finally, she came up with just the right thing!

Emily smiled sweetly at her brother. “The loser has to write our story for Gunther’s Fables.”

Sam’s face went pale. He hated to write, especially if his story was going to be read by all his classmates.

“Well?” Emily prompted.

“Fine,” Sam snapped. “You’re on.”

Sam extended his hand across the table and Emily shook it, but both of them looked worried. Had they just made a big mistake?