Mary Maroney, a spirited girl with a love of snakes and a problem with stuttering, enters her new class, where, in spite of some initial teasing, she earns the respect of her classmates. Reprint.

A second grader is so embarrassed about her stuttering that she almost misses a chance to have lunch with her favorite author who has come to speak at school.

After noticing a hole in the sheet on her bed, Mary Marony comes up with an ingenious plan to create the perfect Halloween costume to scare her mean, teasing classmate, Marvin, but now she has to explain to her parents why she has torn up her sheet into strips.

It's a great day at school when Mary Marony's teacher brings in chocolate bars for the whole class. Mrs. Bird has hidden golden tickets inside the wrappers of five bars. Whoever picks the chocolate surprises will get to have lunch with Mrs. Bird. Mary hopes mean Marvin Higgins doesn't win—he wins everything. Mary wants to have lunch with her favorite teacher. If only she could find a way to get a golden ticket....