2 Contents 1. Punishment 2. The Cop and Dr. Smiley 3. Me and My Big Fat Mouth 4. Dumb Ollie 5. Shining 6. Tingling 7. Jobs and Jobs 8. Gus Vallony 3 4 1 /Punishment My name is Junie B. Jones. The B stands for Beatrice. Except I don’t like Beatrice. I just like B and that’s all. I go to kindergarten. My room is named Room Nine. There are lots of rules in that place. Like no shouting. And no running in the hall. And no butting the other children in the stomach with your head. My teacher’s name is Mrs. She has another name, too. But I just like Mrs. and that’s all. Last week Mrs. clapped her loud hands together. Then she made a ’nouncement to us. A ’nouncement is the school word for telling us something very important. “Boys and girls. May I have your attention, please?” she said. “Today is going to be a special day in Room Nine. We’re going to be talking about different careers you can have when you grow up.” “Yeah, only guess what?” I said. “I never even heard of that dumb word careers before. And so I won’t know what the heck we’re talking about.” Mrs. made squinty eyes at me. “A career is a job, Junie B.,” she said. “And please raise your hand before you speak.” Then Mrs. talked some more about careers. And she said Monday was going to be called Job Day. And everybody in Room Nine would come to school dressed up like what kind of job they wanted to be. After that, Room Nine was very excited. Except for not me. ’Cause I had a big problem, that’s why. “Yeah, only guess what?” I said. “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. And so that means I can’t come to school on Monday. And now I’ll probably flunk kindergarten.” “Hurray!” shouted a mean boy named Jim. I made a fist at him. “How’d you like a knuckle sandwich, you big fat Jim?” I shouted right back. Mrs. came over to my table. She bended down next to me. “Please, Junie B. You simply must try to control yourself better in class. We’ve talked about this before, remember?” 5 “Yes,” I said nicely. “Only