Norma Jean Jumping Bean Read online

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  For Dan—L.M.

  Norma Jean liked to jump.

  In the morning

  she jumped out of bed.

  She jumped

  into her clothes.

  She jumped

  down the stairs.

  Norma Jean jumped

  all the way to school.

  She jumped past

  Amy, Sam,

  Nell, and Ted.

  “Wow!” said Ted.

  “Look at her go!

  That Norma Jean

  never stops jumping!”

  “Hello hello hello!”

  she called to her friends.

  That morning

  Miss Jones read a book

  to the class.

  It was a very good book.

  But Norma Jean did not

  sit still long enough

  to hear the story.

  At playtime

  Norma Jean and Nell

  built a tower of blocks.

  Norma Jean was so excited.

  She jumped up and down.

  Oh, no!

  No more tower.

  At lunch

  Sam gave Norma Jean

  a cupcake.

  Norma Jean was so happy.

  She jumped up and down.

  Oh, no!

  Her milk spilled

  all over Sam.

  “Norma Jean,

  please sit still,”

  said Miss Jones.

  “This is not the time

  or place for jumping.”

  After school

  Norma Jean went

  to visit Ted.

  “Hello hello hello!”

  she shouted to Ted.

  “Will you play with me?”

  “Okay,” said Ted.

  “Let’s get on my seesaw.”

  But Norma Jean bounced too hard.

  Ted almost flew off the seesaw.

  “I don’t want to play anymore,”

  Ted said.

  “I wonder why Ted

  is mad at me,”

  said Norma Jean.

  Then she jumped over to Amy’s house.

  Amy was playing in her pool.

  “Hello hello hello!”

  said Norma Jean.

  “May I play too?”

  Amy said, “Sure.

  Jump in!”

  That was the wrong thing

  to say to Norma Jean!

  SPLASH!

  Amy got out of the pool.

  “Why did you get out?”

  asked Norma Jean.

  “We are having so much fun!”

  Amy said,

  “You are having fun.

  I am going inside.

  It is no fun playing

  with a jumping bean!”

  Now Norma Jean knew why

  her friends were mad at her.

  The next day

  Norma Jean walked

  to school very slowly.

  There was a big puddle.

  All the other kids

  jumped over it.

  But Norma Jean did not jump.

  Norma Jean said,

  “I don’t want to be a jumping bean.

  No more jumping for Norma Jean.”

  So she walked

  through the puddle

  and got her feet all wet.

  In the school yard kids

  were running around and

  playing catch

  and jumping rope.

  “There’s Norma Jean,”

  said Amy.

  “Come jump with us.”

  But Norma Jean

  said no.

  Norma Jean said,

  “I don’t want to be a jumping bean.

  No more jumping for Norma Jean.”

  And she just stood there

  and watched the other kids jump rope.

  At the end of the day

  Miss Jones told the class

  that Field Day was coming soon.

  There were going to be

  lots of races.

  Ted wanted to be

  in the egg-and-spoon race.

  Amy and Sam

  said they would be

  in the wheelbarrow race.

  Nell asked if she could be

  in the rope-climbing contest.

  “Now, who will be in

  the jumping contests?”

  asked Miss Jones.

  Everybody shouted,

  “Norma Jean! Norma Jean!

  She is the best jumper in school!”

  But Norma Jean said,

  “I don’t want to be a jumping bean.

  No more jumping for Norma Jean.”

  Ted said,

  “I miss the old Norma Jean.

  She was fun,

  even if she did jump a lot.”

  On Field Day,

  Ted won

  the egg-and-spoon race.

  Norma Jean was very happy.

  She yelled,

  “Hooray! Hooray!”

  Amy and Sam

  came in first

  in the wheelbarrow race.

  Norma Jean yelled,

  “Hooray hooray hooray!

  “And she jumped up and down

  just a little bit.

  Nell won

  the rope-climbing contest.

  Norma Jean was so excited,

  she jumped out

  on the field.

  Norma Jean was

  just in time for

  the hurdles,

  the high jump,

  and the potato-sack race.

  She won them all.

  “Hooray hooray hooray!”

  shouted the kids in Miss Jones’s class.

  Norma Jean was very happy.

  But she did not jump up and down.

  She stood very still.

  Miss Jones pinned

  a blue ribbon

  on Norma Jean.

  It said,

  “Norma Jean, Champion Jumping Bean.”

  What did Norma Jean do then?

  Norma Jean jumped for joy.

  She jumped

  and she jumped

  and she jumped

  all the way home.

  After all,

  there is a time

  and a place

  for jumping.

  Text copyright © 1987 by Joanna Cole.

  Illustrations copyright © 1987 by Lynn Munsinger.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cole, Joanna.

  Norma Jean, jumping bean / by Joanna Cole; illustrated by Lynn Munsinger.

  p. cm. — (Step into reading. A step 3 book)

  SUMMARY: Norma Jean, whose love of jumping might be a bit excessive, stops her favorite activity after her friends complain, but participation in the school Olympics proves there is a time and place for jumping.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-55866-4

  [1. Jumping—Fiction. 2. Kangaroos—Fiction. 3. Animals—Fiction.]

  I. Munsinger, Lynn, ill. II. Title. III. Series: Step into reading. Step 3 book.

  PZ7.C67346 No 2003 [E]— dc21 2002013657

 
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  v3.0

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  First Page

  Last Page

  Copyright

 

 

  Joanna Cole, Norma Jean, Jumping Bean

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