I can’t remember whether the stories are related or unrelated. A girl named Erika/Erica presents something to her class (I think it was a poem or short writing), but her name is not revealed until the end of the story/chapter, when the teacher calls her up to the front to present. Another character figures out how to hypnotize people to bawk like chickens or do other things. The book is relatively short (probably around 100 pages) and I read it around 5 years ago. The stories were quite unusual, and I first found and read it in an elementary school classroom.