Otis Spofford

Otis Spofford
Cover of Otis Spofford
Author(s)	Beverly Cleary
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Children's novel
Publication date	1953
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	191
ISBN	NA

Otis Spofford is a 1953 children's novel by Beverly Cleary.

The story revolves around the antics of the titular character, a precocious fourth-grader with a knack for getting into trouble. Otis lives with his mother, who is often absent from the household due to teaching classes at her dance school, and therefore Otis is required to entertain himself, by "stirring up a little excitement". His trademarks are his glow-in-the-dark shoelaces (one pink, one green), the rabbit's foot he keeps attached to his jacket zipper, and his particular fondness for irritating his classmate Ellen Tebbits although he never understands the reason for it.

Plot summary

Each chapter revolves around a prank of Otis's, which often backfires. In one, he sabotages the class science project, which consists of feeding cafeteria food to one rat and bread and soda to another, and monitoring their growth. Otis feeds the underfed rat himself, hoping that it will get soda pop served in the cafeteria; however, his teacher, Mrs. Gitler, is wise to this and tries to get the culprit to confess. Otis opens his mouth and is stunned when Ellen steps forward; she was secretly feeding the rat as well. Subsequently, it is Ellen who is allowed to take the rat home at experiment's end, much to Otis's displeasure (although she gives it to him when her mother will not allow her to keep it).

While Otis's pranks are typically innocuous, near the end of the book he finally "gets his comeuppance", as Mrs. Gitler has long predicted when he goes too far in teasing Ellen: on a dare, he cuts off a chunk of Ellen's hair, which she had been painstakingly trying to grow "long enough for pigtails". This act turns nearly the entire class against him, and for the first time Otis does not relish the attention he receives from his actions.

Ellen and her best friend Austine manage an act of retribution by stealing Otis's shoes while he is skating at the pond, forcing him to walk home in his ice skates. The two girls later accost a dejected Otis on the steps of his apartment and offer him his shoes in exchange for an apology to Ellen, and a promise that he will stop pestering her. Otis concedes, but only after the girls are leaving reveals he had two fingers crossed behind his back the entire time; clearly, he means to pester Ellen for a long time to come.