Hallie’s Horrible Handwriting

A Pupa Project

Except for the handwriting, Hallie loves her school more every single day. Except for her horrible name card, she loves everything in the classroom. She loves everything about her school, except those things, just like she loves wearing a pair of dress-up butterfly wings and sitting in the bathtub reading.

One morning, Miss Sparks says they’re going to begin a pupa project. Hallie smiles, and says a pupa turns into a butterfly. Miss Sparks nods her head, and says that everybody will be given a pupa to take care of. But, caring for pupas is a big job. They’ll each have to write in their journal about the pupa.

Hallie’s heart sinks. More writing. Hallie lifts her journal to copy Miss Spark’s words from the chalkboard: “pupa” and “butterfly.” But oh, no! Her letters are all wrong. Some too tall, and some too short. Some too fat, and some too skinny. Miss Sparks is always nice about her horrible handwriting, but Hallie hates it. She never wants to practice.

Each day Miss Sparks writes words on the board for the students to copy, and every day, Hallie’s journal is a mess, and she’s constantly having to erase parts and rewrite, meaning she’s always in a rush.

One day, Miss Sparks writes a whole sentence on the board. Hallie’s trying to copy it, but she ends up having to erase it, and she rubs the pages so hard they tear. Suddenly, something inside Hallie tears, too! She slams her pencil down onto her desk and rips the page out of her journal. She wads it up into a ball and throws it as hard as she can. Hallie jumps to her feet and screams “I hate handwriting! It’s too hard! I can’t do it!” Then Hallie bursts into tears.

All the other students feel terrible to see her upset, and the other students begin to cry, too. Miss Sparks comes over to comfort Hallie. She says everything will be all right. But Hallie doesn’t believe her; things will NOT be all right ever again, and all because of her horrible handwriting!