Middle grade book from maybe the early 90s about a neat/organized girl

[lauren_g]

Book is about a little girl who is overly organized and neat. She is a teacher’s pet that is not well-liked by the other students, I think she’s in third grade. She has to sit next to or work on a project with the messy, wild girl in her class. At first they don’t get along but of course they end up becoming friends and helping each other and the neat girl learns to loosen up a bit and gets more friends in the process I think. I think she evens tries being messy herself at some point.

Images/things I remember:
-Book cover shows the neat girl with short hair and an upturned nose sort of look and the messy girl has curled red hair in a ponytail and is holding a binder and giving a crooked little smile.
-Neat girl is meticulous with organizing her binder and school supplies on her desk. When it rains, she is prepared and on top of her stuff. She has a thermos cup. Her bedroom is in the attic and she likes to pretend she is a princess in there.
-Messy girl is late to class and makes a mess from the rain on the neat girl. She brings a newt at some point.

I remembered as a kid the inner neat freak in me loved to read the descriptions of what the neat girl did so I could pretend to be as orderly as her and feel like I had my life together. Haha such a weird memory. I was reading an old, used book recently and the smell of the pages brought me back to this particular book for some reason!

Thanks for the help!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

That’s not it but I came across it in my search and I vaguely remembered reading that one too...Thanks for your help though!