by Mary Amato
“We’re going to be painting posters for the Fall Talent Show today,” Mr. Hopkin said. “Make sure they’re colorful. We’ll hang them all over the school when they’re dry.”
There were cups of paint and big pieces of paper set out on the tables. Mr. Hopkin lets us sit wherever we want as long as we don’t talk loudly.
“This is going to be fun,” Scarlett said to the girls. “Let’s sit together.”
“I don’t think so,” Victoria said, and pulled Mara and Resa over to a table with three empty stools.
Scarlett stood there, shocked.
Mwa-ha-ha! Finally, Scarlett was getting the chance to see how it feels to be left out.
“Scarlett, find a seat!” Mr. Hopkin said.
Scarlett huffed and went over to a different table.
Phillip and I sat at Jeremy Bing’s table.
“Lucy, what’s going on?” Phillip whispered.
“I wrote a mean note to Victoria from Scarlett,” I whispered back. “Now they’re mad at Scarlett.”
Scarlett was pretending not to be upset. She was decorating her poster with pink polka dots.
Victoria was too mad to paint. She grabbed a piece of scrap paper, scribbled something on it, and passed it to Scarlett when Mr. Hopkin wasn’t looking.
It must have been something bad, because Scarlett crumpled it up. A look came over her face. She poured black and red and purple paint into a cup and mixed them together. Then she walked over and dumped the paint on Victoria’s hair!
Victoria screamed.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Scarlett said. “I tripped.”
“You did that on purpose, Scarlett!” Victoria cried. Then she threw her paint on Scarlett’s hair!
It was crazy. Scarlett and Victoria both stood there, dripping with paint. I didn’t think my note would lead to this!
“Girls!” Mr. Hopkin yelled. “What’s going on?”
Scarlett started crying. “It’s about our song for the talent show. Victoria wrote a mean note.” She held up the crumpled paper. “It said that I am too tall. And I can’t be in the front. Ever.”
Victoria started crying. “I wrote that because Scarlett wrote a mean note to me saying her hair is prettier.”
“I did not,” Scarlett said.
Victoria pulled my note out of her back pocket and gave it to her.
Scarlett stopped crying. “I didn’t write this. Somebody copied my handwriting.”
Mr. Hopkin looked at all of us. “Does anyone in this room know anything about this?”
Resa and Phillip looked at me.
Oh no! The right thing to do was to tell the truth, but now I was really scared.
The big black clock on the wall went tick, tick, tick. The paint from Scarlett’s and Victoria’s hair went drip, drip, drip.
Should I confess or shouldn’t I? Should I or shouldn’t I?
Before I could decide, Jeremy Bing raised his hand. “Um…I think I heard Lucy whispering about that.”
Everybody looked at me.
Scarlett’s face burned. “You wrote this note, Lucy McGee!”
At the time, writing a fake note in Scarlett’s handwriting seemed like a perfect way to teach her a lesson. Now it seemed like a perfect way to get in trouble.
Scarlett turned to Victoria and Mara and Resa. “You guys are my best friends,” she said. “I would never write a note like that.”
Victoria looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry I poured paint on you, Scarlett! I was so mad.”
“People who write mean notes shouldn’t be allowed to do extra things at school, like be in the Fall Talent Show,” Mara said, and gave me a mean look.
“But I wrote that note because Scarlett wrote a much meaner note about me and Phillip and gave it to Resa,” I said. Then I gulped. I had promised Resa I wouldn’t tell.
Scarlett gave Resa a mean look.
“Sorry, Resa,” Phillip said. “I know we promised, but this is an emergency!” He pulled Scarlett’s first note out of his pocket. “See, it’s true. I have the proof right here.” He gave it to Mr. Hopkin.
Scarlett said quickly, “It was just a joke. Really. You guys need to learn to take a joke.” Then she turned to Mr. Hopkin and said in her sweetest voice, “I’m sorry about the mess, Mr. Hopkin. Victoria and I will clean up the paint.”
“Scarlett, you and Victoria need to go to the bathroom and wash the paint out of your hair. Lucy, you can clean up the floor in here. Writing notes and throwing paint are not good ways to solve problems,” he said. “Look at this room. The three of you should come back after school and do more cleaning. I’ll e-mail your parents to let them know.”
“But after school today we have a Songwriting Club meeting,” Phillip said.
“Victoria, Scarlett, and Lucy will have to miss it,” Mr. Hopkin said. “Everybody back to work.”
What a nightmare!
After school I had to go to the art room with Scarlett and Victoria.
While we mopped the floor and wiped the tables, the girls whispered to each other. I had a lot of sad and mad feelings inside me that wanted to come out by crying. But if I cried, Scarlett would call me a baby. So I vented all those feelings out by wiping the tables really, really hard. I’m sorry, tables!
On the way out, Scarlett said, “Victoria, Mara, and I are going to sing a song together for the show. It won’t be a Songwriting Club thing. It will just be our thing.”
Victoria nodded. “Just our thing. We don’t want Resa, either, because she gave you Scarlett’s note.”
“Fine,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to sing with you if you gave me a million dollars.”
“Fine,” Scarlett said. “We’re not asking you.”
“Fine,” I said. “But you can’t sing ‘The Together Song’ because I wrote the words.”
“Fine,” she said. “But you can’t sing it, either, because I wrote the tune.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll write a new one.”
It wasn’t fine, though. I really liked that song!
They walked off.
By the time I got to the fence, Phillip was there with his ukulele.
“How was cleaning?” he asked.
“Terrible,” I said. “How was Songwriting Club?”
“Sad,” he said. “It isn’t the same without you. Ms. Adamson thinks we should all skip the talent show since it’s causing so many problems.”
“Scarlett is going to do a song with just Victoria and Mara,” I said.
He made a face. “Maybe we should do one with just you and me and Resa,” he said.
“Resa won’t want to sing with us. We broke our promise.”
“Well, we could do it with just you and me,” he said.
“We’d have to write another song,” I said sadly. “I don’t know if I have it in me.”
“Come on, Lucy,” Phillip said. “We can’t let Scarlett win.”
He made a fist and held it up in the air like the hero in a movie. “We can do this!” he said. “We can do this!”
Phillip’s good energy spilled into me.
“You’re right, Phillip!” I said. “Let’s rock that show!”
On the way home, my good energy faded away. I thought about how sad it was not to be singing “The Together Song” with everybody. I thought about how mad Resa must be at me and Phillip. That made me sad. I liked Resa. I also thought about how Scarlett and her group were going to look amazing in their store-bought costumes. And I thought about how Phillip and I wouldn’t seem good compared to them.
But my brain didn’t stop there. I also thought about how my hair would look. I always thought I had good hair. But maybe Scarlett was right. Maybe it was too flat. Maybe it needed to be…more puffy. I thought about things that are puffy. Cupcakes. Donuts. Pillows. I thought about things that
are flat. Bad cupcakes. Bad donuts. Bad pillows. Oh no! I had bad hair. If I was going to sing in the talent show, I needed better hair.
But my brain kept going down, down, down. I also thought about how my dad was going to act when I got home. Mr. Hopkin must have e-mailed him about the fake note I wrote and how it led to a paint fight. I hoped my dad was having a fun day, because then he wouldn’t be as mad.
I walked in the door. Lily was sitting on the kitchen floor crying. My dad was sweeping with a broom. Our big plant in the blue pot was tipped over. The pot was broken and there was dirt all over the floor.
Lily looked at me and cried harder. “Me boke it.”
Then the sound of howling came from upstairs. Possibly in the direction of my closet. Leo was howling.
My dad gave me a look. It was not the look of a dad having a fun day.
Even though I was very upset about my own problems, an idea popped into my head. If you make a mistake, say you’re sorry and do a good deed as soon as you can. If it was a big mistake, do a whole bunch of good deeds. When your parents look at you, they’ll just remember your good deeds because they’re old, and they can’t remember a whole lot, which is why they’re always forgetting where they put the car keys.
“I know Mr. Hopkin e-mailed about the mean note I wrote. I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I was going to go up to my closet and have a howl, but I can hear that Leo is doing that. So I’ll take Lily up there and give you a little peace and quiet, Dad. That’s a good deed because you can have a nap. You look like you need one.”
He gave me a surprised look.
I did another good deed by picking up Lily, which made her stop crying. But snot was coming out of her nose, which was gross, so I set her down.
“I don’t exactly have time for a nap, but thank you, Lucy,” my dad said. “I would appreciate some peace and quiet while I clean up. We’ll talk about what happened today when Mom comes home. This talent show seems to be causing a lot of problems.”
“Since I said sorry and since I got Lily to stop crying and since I’m going to get Leo to stop howling, that will be three good deeds I’m doing,” I said.
“Yes, it will,” he said.
I grabbed a tissue and wiped Lily’s gross nose. “I’m doing another good deed! Four new good deeds is way better than one bad deed. That should make you happy, right?”
My dad smiled a tiny bit. But then he said, “We’ll talk about it later, Lucy.”
Lily held my hand, and we walked upstairs to my room. We both looked at the closet door. And then Lily crawled onto my bed and sat there, sucking her thumb.
“Aawooo.” Leo’s little voice sounded sadder than ever.
“Leo, stop howling,” I said.
“Aawooo,” Leo howled again.
“Leo, tell me what’s wrong,” I said. “Maybe I can fix it.”
I heard a rustling sound, and then the door opened a little. “I had to sit in the time-out chair at school,” he said.
Leo is in kindergarten. I tried to remember what kind of trouble you can get into when you’re in kindergarten.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Leo.” I opened the door some more. “Why did you have to sit in time-out?”
He had his hands over his hair. “Because I wouldn’t take my wolf-puppy hat off,” he sniffled. “My teacher told me it was getting in the way of learning. She took it.”
“Leo, you have to be a kid during school,” I said.
“A wolf puppy is better,” he said.
“When teachers look out, they want to see twenty kids. They don’t want to see nineteen kids and one wolf puppy,” I said. “It throws them off.”
He leaned his head back and howled.
An idea popped into my brain. I ran into the bathroom and got my mom’s styling gel.
“Leo, cool dudes wear styling gel,” I said, and held up the tube. “I’m going to make you look like the coolest dude ever.”
“Me coo, too!” Lily cried.
“Okay, I’ll do you too, Lily.” I patted the bed. “Hop up, Leo. Welcome to my hair salon!”
Leo stopped being sad and climbed up next to Lily.
Every great business has a great jingle, so I sang.
Is your hair a nightmare?
I care about hair! I repair hair! Oooh!
I dare to take the scare
right out of your hair! Oooh!
I’ll turn it into hair with flair!
With your brand-new hair, I declare,
you’ll feel like a millionaire!
They both clapped.
More rhymes from me, Lucy McGee. I’m good with rhymes. What can I say?
I gooped up one clump of Leo’s hair and made a little spike. Not bad! I gooped all his hair and made little spikes all over his head. “I’m calling this hairstyle the Prickly Porcupine,” I said. “It’s very cool.”
Lily clapped. “Me too! Me too!”
I gooped up Lily’s hair. I made one braid that stuck out on the left side and another braid that stuck out on the right side. Finally, I made a pigtail on the very top and spiked all the ends. “I call this hairstyle the Piggy Longstocking,” I said.
They looked in the mirror and both started dancing around.
“Hey, this gives me an idea,” I said. “I’m going to do myself. With a new hairstyle, my hair won’t look so flat.”
Sploosh went the goop. With the bottom half of my hair, I made ten little braids. With the top half, I made three stegosaurus spikes and two baby pigtails that stuck out like bug antennae. Once I got started, it was hard to stop.
We heard the door downstairs open, and my mom called up, “I’m home!”
Leo’s smile dropped. “Mom won’t like me for sitting in time-out.”
I looked at Leo. “Even when they’re mad, Mom and Dad love you. I got in trouble today, too. They’re going to want to talk to both of us. When you’re in trouble, parents want to talk and talk and talk. It’s what they do. Just listen and nod.”
He nodded.
“And then offer to do a good deed,” I said. “That helps. A lot.”
My mom and dad came up, and they almost screamed when they saw us. They were so surprised about our hair.
“Wow,” my mom said. “You’ve been busy.”
“We’re both really sorry about today,” I said. “If you want, I can do your hair for free. Both of you! I can do all kinds of hairstyles, as you can see.”
Leo and Lily smiled.
“That’s okay,” Mom said.
“If I don’t make it as a famous songwriter,” I said, “I can open Lucy’s Hair Salon. It’s fun to style hair.”
“That is quite a backup plan,” my dad said. “But no thank you on the hairstyle for me, either. I think it’s time to clean up and have dinner.”
“You guys should have had more kids,” I said.
My dad groaned. “Why?”
“I want to do more hairstyling!” I said.
My hair and I went to school in a good mood. My tooth was still in my head, too. It was going to be a great day.
Phillip was waiting for me by the fence. He looked sick. He had one hand on his stomach. His other hand was holding a big carton of milk.
“Your hair exploded,” he said.
“It’s my new style,” I said. “It’s not flat anymore.”
“Did you do that because of what Scarlett wrote?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Are you sick? Why are you holding your stomach?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m just really, really, really full.” He took another sip of milk.
“If you’re so full, why are you drinking more?” I asked.
“No reason,” he said, which made me think there was a reason.
&
nbsp; As we walked to the school doors, he drank even more.
“Let’s ask Resa if she wants to sing with us,” I said. “Maybe if she says yes, then Saki and Natalie and Pablo will all say yes.”
Scarlett, Victoria, and Mara were standing by the doors.
Scarlett saw me and started laughing. And then Victoria and Mara did, too. They were laughing at my hair.
The sound of laughter is a happy thing, my dad says. Well, it’s not a happy sound when mean girls are laughing at your hair.
I did the only thing I could think of doing. I turned around and started to walk home.
The bell rang.
Phillip chased after me. “Lucy, what are you doing?”
“I’m feeling sick,” I said. “I’m going home.”
“I’m feeling sick, too,” Phillip said. “I think I’ll go home.”
He took another sip.
“Phillip, why are you drinking when you feel sick?”
He got a funny look on his face. “I’m trying to grow faster.”
What Scarlett had said about being short had gotten to him! Poor Phillip. I knew how he felt.
We made it to where the sidewalk started when Mr. Hopkin saw us. He had morning bus duty.
“Wrong direction,” he said.
“I need to go home,” Phillip said. “I have a problem with my stomach.”
“I need to go home, too,” I said. “I have a problem with my head.”
He turned us both around and pointed us toward the school doors. “Get to class. No dawdling. No stopping. You’re already late.”
What would Mr. Hopkin know about bad hair? He doesn’t even have any!
As we walked back into the building, Phillip started burping. Quickly, I pulled the hair bands off and undid all the braids. It felt different.
