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How does Nick begin to put his plan into action in Andrew Clements' Frindle?

In Andrew Clements' Frindle, as soon as Nick decides to take the meanings of words into his own hands by inventing his own word for the word pen, Nick knows his next step is to get other people to use it. Just as Mrs. Granger states, a word doesn't have a meaning unless society agrees about the word's meaning; therefore, Nick knows that he must get other people to agree that a pen is a frindle, not a pen.

The first step to his plan is to go into the Penny Pantry store and ask to purchase a frindle. It takes the woman behind the counter a while to catch on to what he is asking for, but she soon does; he then walks off after having paid 49 cents for a frindle. Next, he recruits his friends to also ask to purchase frindles. On five consecutive days, five of Nick's friends walk into Penny Pantry and ask to purchase frindles: John, Pete, Chris, Dave, and Janet. By the time Janet asks to buy a frindle, the woman behind the counter had become so used to the question that she instantly "reached right for the pens and said, 'Blue or black?'" (p. 35), showing Nick, who was observing from an aisle, that he had already made someone treat the word frindle as a real word. He also asks all five of his friends to take an oath promising to "never use the word PEN again" but to, instead, always "use the word FRINDLE" (p. 35).

The third part of Nick's plan is to use the word in class to get his other classmates to start using it too. He does so by raising his hand and telling Mrs. Granger that he "forgot [his] frindle" (p. 36). Nick's friend John then makes a big show of searching for an extra frindle in his backpack. A fourth part of his plan is to have all of the fifth graders, during their class photo, to say the word frindle, while holding out frindles, instead of the word cheese.

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