#3 The Candy Corn Contest by Patricia Reilly Giff, 1984.

As Ms. Rooney’s class prepares for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, she gives them a contest: students can win the jar of candy corn on her desk if they can guess how many pieces of candy corn are in it (or get the closest to the right answer).  Richard “Beast” Best wants to win very badly because he loves candy corn and his mother never lets him eat many sweets at home.

The only problem is that students can only earn the ability to make guesses by reading books.  They get one guess for each page they read.  Richard has always been a slow reader, so he knows that this contest is going to be hard for him.  One day, while studying the jar of candy corn, trying to plan out his guess to make the best use of it he can, Richard gives in to temptation and eats three pieces.  Now, he doesn’t know what to do.  Ms. Rooney knows exactly how many pieces of candy there were in the jar, and if three are missing, she’ll find out.

While Richard is worrying over his mistake, he’s also worrying about the sleep-over party his parents are letting him have over the Thanksgiving break.  At first, he was looking forward to it, but some of the other boys in class can’t come and some of those who said they could are concerned because Matthew is coming.  Matthew and Richard are friends, and people in class generally like Matthew, but everyone knows that Matthew still wets the bed.  Some of the other boys are worried that they’ll have to sleep next to Matthew at the sleep-over.  As much as Richard likes Matthew, it feels like his problem is going to ruin the party, and when Matthew is nice to him, it only makes Richard feel worse.

For awhile, Richard is short-tempered with Matthew and says some things that he later regrets.  His mean comments make Matthew decide not to go to his party, but Richard feels terrible because he realizes what Matthew’s friendship really means to him. Richard’s apologies later help to fix the situation.  It also helps that Richard admits to Matthew that he ate three pieces of the candy corn.  Richard’s confession that he did something wrong (more than one thing, actually) and that he wants to fix it helps Matthew to forgive him.  Matthew helps Richard to decide how to solve his candy corn problem honorably, and Matthew’s mother gives Matthew a suggestion that will help him to avoid problems at the sleep-over.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.