Friedman, Laurie B.

The Wish Pond Road gang heads to Camp Blue Lake, but once they are there, Mallory realizes it is not as much fun as she had hoped, and begins to wonder if she made a big mistake in coming.

When Mallory's mother refuses to buy her a purse, Mallory tries a series of businesses in order to make money and buy it herself.

Wearing his monogrammed school cardigan, young Percy Isaac Gifford explains his rules of success for getting the most out of the school year.

Simon Lester Henry Strauss is not in the least afraid of any haunted house, but there is something else that terrifies him.

Mallory enters fourth grade with high hopes for her best year ever, but instead she starts by breaking the teacher's rules and then feels left out when her best friend likes the same boy she does.

Thirteen-year-old April Sinclair gets her first two kisses--from two different boys--and is not sure how she feels about either one, and cannot wait to be at summer camp with her two best friends and away from her embarrassing family, but her parents cancel her camp plans in lieu of a family RV trip.

Mallory follows the advice of Mary Ann about a boy who likes her that causes her to hurt her friend's feelings.

Mallory is excited about the six-week arts electives program at Fern Falls Elementary--until she gets stuck in her last-choice elective, band. To make matters worse, she is assigned to the tuba, and when she plays, it sounds more like passing gas than music. She dreads the showcase at the end of the program. But with some good guidance from her mom and her band teacher, Mallory learns the meaning of "practice makes perfect," and that, in fact, making music can be lots of fun.

Mallory's journal of her fourth-grade trip to Washington, D.C., reveals how much fun she has, despite a loose tooth, being upset with her best friend, Mary Ann, and getting separated from her class in a museum.

When Mallory is admitted to the hospital during a winter reunion with a neighbor and their summer camp bunkmates, she is sad that her friends seem to be having fun without her.