Ronnie Right really liked his last name.

“With a name like Right, how could I go wrong?” Ronnie always said.

One morning Ronnie decided to do an experiment. All that day, each time someone asked him a question, he would answer, “Right!” just to see what would happen.

Ronnie saw nothing wrong with his idea. In fact, he was sure everything would work out just right.

As Ronnie stepped onto the school bus, his neighbor Max said, “Which side do you want to sit on?”

“Right,” Ronnie answered.

Later, in class, Miss Derecha asked if anyone knew who invented the first airplane. “Ronnie, do you know?”

Ronnie could not remember. But he stuck to his experiment and gave his reply: “Right.”

“That's correct,” Miss Derecha said. “The Wright brothers invented the airplane.”

Ronnie beamed. So far, so good, he thought.

Later that morning, Miss Derecha asked a harder question. “Does anyone know what famous thing Frank Baum did?”

Silence. No one raised a hand. Miss Derecha looked at Ronnie. “Do you have a guess about what Frank Baum did?”

Ronnie cleared his throat. He had no idea. But for today Ronnie had only one answer, so he answered, “Right.”

“Excellent!” Miss Derecha exclaimed. “He did write. Frank Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz.”

Ronnie breathed a sigh of relief. His “right” answer had saved him again.

After awhile, Miss Derecha announced that the class would be starting something new. “Let's move on to our Spanish lesson.”

Ronnie gulped. He knew that right was not a Spanish word. What could he say?

“In fact,” Miss Derecha continued, “my last name means something in Spanish. Who wants to guess what it is?”

Ronnie sank low in his seat. Please don't call on me, he thought.

But Ronnie could not hide. He sat on the right side of the room, and his seat was right down in front.

“How about you, Ronnie? Can you guess what derecha means?”

Ronnie squirmed. He did not want to sound foolish. But he stuck to his experiment and said, “Right.”

Miss Derecha's eyebrows shot up in surprise. “My goodness. Ronnie, you are correct again. My last name does mean right in Spanish. Are you some sort of genius?”

Ronnie swallowed and said, “Right.”

Miss Derecha was quite impressed.

But the other kids in class frowned. Ronnie was making them look silly by being right all the time.

By lunchtime Ronnie was happy about his experiment. However, even though class had gone well all morning, things started to take a turn for the worse.

Ronnie picked up a tray and stood in line for his food.

“You have a choice,” the lunch lady said. “You can have pizza or creamed spinach. Do you want to try the spinach?”

Ronnie's eyes grew wide with horror, but his mouth squeaked out the word. “Right.”

Plop! A glob of steaming green stuff that was supposed to be lunch landed on his tray.

The next lady looked at Ronnie and asked, “What would you like to drink?”

There was no getting around it. She had asked him a question.

“Right,” Ronnie answered.

She handed him a drink from the right-hand side of the counter. It was tomato juice.

Oh, no! Ronnie thought. Creamed spinach and tomato juice for lunch?

The other kids at Ronnie's table were shocked when they saw his tray.

“Ronnie, are you crazy?” Max blurted.

Ronnie sighed. “Right.” Even he began to wonder if maybe he was a little crazy. After all, he wasn't feeling quite right anymore.

After recess Ronnie's day grew worse. When his “right” answers started sounding silly, Miss Derecha thought he was joking around.

“Ronnie, do you want to march down to the principal's office?”

Ronnie thought, Uh-oh. But Ronnie said, “Right.”

So to the principal's office Ronnie went.

“Young man,” Principal Parker said, “are you some kind of troublemaker?”

Ronnie gulped. “Right.”

This was not what Principal Parker wanted to hear, and Ronnie spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in a corner thinking about his answer.

When Ronnie arrived home from school that day, he did not look like his normal, cheerful self.

“Ronnie,” his mother said, “you look pale. Do you want to go to bed?”

“Right,” he mumbled one last time.

So he did. It seemed like the only right way to end a very wrong day.

On the way to his bedroom Ronnie decided never to repeat his “right” experiment. He realized that sounding right was not as important as being right.

“From now on,” he promised himself, “the only right answer will be the honest answer.”