Team Meena

Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Acknowledgments About the Author and Illustrator Copyright Guide Cover Start of Content Title Page Dedication Acknowledgments About the Author and Illustrator Copyright III 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 
 
 Karla Manternach
 Team Meena
 
 
 
 
 
 Also by Karla Manternach
 Meena Meets Her Match
 Never Fear, Meena’s Here!
 Meena Lost and Found
 
 
 In loving memory of Eleanor and Leroy
 
 
 
 SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
 An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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 www.SimonandSchuster.com
 This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
 Text © 2023 by Karla Manternach
 Illustration © 2023 by Mina Price
 Jacket design by Tom Daly © 2023 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
 All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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 Interior design by Tom Daly
 The illustrations for this book were rendered digitally.
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Manternach, Karla, author.
 Title: Team Meena / Karla Manternach.
 Description: First edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, [2023] | Series: Meena Zee vol. 4 | Audience: Ages 8–12. | Audience: Grades 4–6. | Summary: Meena learns that it is possible to have a long-distance friendship with Sofía while still making new friends.
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022008169 (print) | LCCN 2022008170 (ebook) | ISBN 9781665903929 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781665903943 (ebook)
 Subjects: CYAC: Friendship—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | LCGFT: Novels.
 Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M368 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.M368 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022008169
 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022008170
 
 
 1
 The brush makes a scratchy sound as I paint the brown paper bag on my desk.
 Next to me, my cousin Eli is drawing a rabbit on his bag. On my other side, Pedro is covering his with clippings from sports magazines.
 I set down the brush and use my fingers to blend the rainbow stripes. The bag looks like my tie-dyed hoodie now—the one I gave Sofía right before she moved away. A lot of things make me think of her, like her cleaned-out cubby or the empty seat next to mine at lunch. It’s like there’s a hole everywhere I look, the exact size and shape of Sofía.
 I glance at her empty spot across our pod of desks. I wonder what she’d be making if she were here. I bet she’d paint a portrait of her cat. Or maybe she’d draw a picture of the two of us, smiling together under a rainbow, the words Best Friends Forever printed underneath. That makes me smile. It makes my chest ache, too. I feel happy-sad—a mix of both, like yellow and blue turning green.
 Then Lin plops down in Sofía’s place.
 “Can I use those?” she asks, pointing at Pedro’s magazines. “Mine just have pictures of golf.” She grabs one without waiting for an answer and starts flipping through it.
 I sit up straighter. “That’s Sofía’s desk.”
 She looks up. “So?”
 “So you can’t sit there. It still has her name tag on it.”
 Lin frowns. Then she rips the tag off Sofía’s desk and tosses it onto mine. “Not anymore.”
 I suck in a breath and wave my hand in the air. “Mrs. D! Lin is trying to take Sofía’s place!”
 
 Our teacher stops shuffling papers in the corner. “It’s okay, Meena. I don’t think Sofía would mind.”
 When Mrs. D turns away, Lin sticks out her tongue at me.
 I grit my teeth and go back to blending, but the paint doesn’t seem as bright and cheery as before. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lin tear a page out of the magazine, paste it onto her bag, and push it away.
 “That’s all you’re doing?” I ask.
 She shrugs. “It’s not graded.”
 I scowl at the sloppy bag. She might be at Sofía’s desk, but Lin is nothing like her.