Petal's Problems

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  "I've got an idea," Jackie said, excited. "We're your sisters, Petal. What could be less scary than reading our minds? So why don't you come out from under the bed, just for a few minutes, and try your new power on all of us. Maybe that'll make it all less frightening for you."

  We all thought that was a good idea, even Rebecca. Even Petal did, shockingly enough, because she slowly slid backward out from under the bed and got up, Precious slithering backward and out beside her.

  We looked at Petal standing there, hair tousled. It was nice not to be talking to her feet anymore.

  "Why don't you start with me," Jackie said gently.

  Petal tilted her head to one side and stared at Jackie's forehead.

  We waited to see what would happen, and a moment later we were startled to see a smile break across Petal's face.

  "What am I thinking?" Jackie asked.

  "You're thinking, 'I love Petal and only want to help her.'" Petal smiled some more. "Gee, that's not too bad."

  "Do Zinnia next," Jackie suggested.

  Petal tilted her head to the side again and this time stared at Zinnia's forehead.

  "Zinnia's thinking," Petal said, "'Even though I never wanted one before and don't know what I'd do with one now, I wish I could keep the Deluxe Perfect-Every-Time Hamburger Maker/Manicure-Pedicure Machine we bought as a wedding present for Aunt Martha and Uncle George.'" Petal laughed. "That's kind of funny."

  "And Durinda," Jackie said.

  "Durinda's thinking, 'I'll bet dinner tonight won't be nearly as good as I could make it.'"

  Durinda looked ashamed at having her immodest thought exposed.

  "And Annie," Jackie said.

  "Annie's thinking, 'Why am I letting Jackie run the show right now? I always run the show!'" Petal laughed again. "That's really funny. I was just wondering also why Annie was letting Jackie take over."

  "And Marcia," Annie said, seizing control once more.

  "Marcia's thinking, 'That drawer that had the pencil and paper in it—I wonder if there are any math workbooks in there. I could really use some math right around now.' Why, this isn't bad at all!" Petal said. "It seems most people just think nice, ordinary things. Maybe you're all correct. Maybe it won't be so bad having my power."

  "And Georgia," Annie said.

  "Georgia's thinking ... oh." Petal's face fell. "Georgia's still thinking, 'Petal's a little idiot.'"

  "Don't mind Georgia," Jackie said.

  "Yeah," Georgia said, "don't mind me. You know how I am. I get something in my head and it just sticks there for a long time, like it's attached to my brain by a piece of gum."

  "And Rebecca," Annie said.

  Petal tilted her head to the side one last time and stared at Rebecca's forehead.

  Then she shrieked and dived back under the bed.

  Precious, who'd been keeping pace with Petal, did the same thing with Rambunctious: tilted, stared, meowed loudly, dived.

  "What did you read in Rebecca's mind?" six of us who weren't under the bed asked. The seventh didn't ask because they were her thoughts; she already knew them.

  "It was so dark in there," Petal said, her voice trembling. "I could see almost nothing, no real words, just this vast darkness ... and cobwebs ... and a few spiders..."

  Most people would be embarrassed to have the contents of their minds exposed in the way that Rebecca's had just been, and yet Rebecca looked rather proud of herself.

  Poor Petal, though. Most of us were beginning to see why this power would be terrifying for her.

  "And that's it?" Jackie said gently. "Nothing else but the darkness and the other nasty things you described?"

  "Well," Petal admitted, "right in the center of it all, there was a giant can of pink frosting."

  At least that was something.

  ***

  It took all the powers of persuasion we had to get Petal to come out from under the bed that night so we could all make an appearance at the first party for Aunt Martha and Uncle George.

  When we did finally get downstairs, we were greeted by a large roomful of people, none of whom we recognized, save for Aunt Martha and Uncle George and the Petes.

  Then we saw someone who looked vaguely familiar from behind, something about her hair, which was long, the color of chestnuts.

  She was standing in front of the unlit fireplace, and when she turned we could see that she had eyes the color of chocolate and was tall, like Mommy, and beautiful, like Mommy, and about ten years younger than Mommy.

  We knew that woman.

  Crazy Serena.

  NINE

  "What's she doing here?" seven Eights hissed.

  To which Petal added, "I feel faint!"

  "Read her mind, Petal," Annie directed. "Tell us what she's thinking so we know what she's up to."

  But Petal didn't tilt her head to one side as we'd seen her do when reading our minds. Rather, she squinched her eyes shut and began mumbling nonsense words, stringing them all together so it came out sounding something like sgfeuogfgevcsgel. Nonstop.

  She didn't tell us what she was doing—she couldn't, because she was too busy babbling nonsense—but we guessed she was doing it to drown out all sounds from other people's minds so that she couldn't hear whatever dark and terrifying thoughts lurked in Crazy Serena's.

  In a way, we could understand her fear—who, except for maybe Rebecca, would want to travel into the heart of darkness?—but it was so not helpful.

  So while Petal continued babbling with her eyes squinched shut, we dragged her over to where Aunt Martha and Uncle George stood talking to some guests.

  "What's she doing here?" we asked Aunt Martha, not hissing the words this time and keeping our voices as calm as we could as we pointed to Crazy Serena.

  But it wasn't Aunt Martha who answered. It was Uncle George.

  "You mean my sister?" he said, looking surprised. "Also your mother's sister?"

  Oh no. This was a terrible moment in our lives. Ever since we'd learned that Serena's real last name was Smith, just like Mommy's before she got married, and ever since we'd seen that picture on Mommy's computer of Mommy with Crazy Serena and a woman who looked almost exactly like Mommy, we'd kind of known that Crazy Serena was some sort of relative. If we'd thought about it more carefully, we would have realized sooner that Crazy Serena was Mommy's younger sister. But that's the thing: we hadn't wanted to look at it more carefully, because then we'd have had to admit to ourselves that Crazy Serena was a much closer relative than we were comfortable with her being.

  But now we had to admit it. We had no choice.

  Crazy Serena was our aunt.

  Did that mean we had to start calling her Aunt Crazy Serena?

  We shuddered at the thought.

  "Oh, that's right," Uncle George said, his puzzled expression clearing. "You've never met her because she and your mother haven't exactly been close the last several years."

  Not close? That was rich. Aunt Crazy Serena had tried to Eightnap her own sister's children. Mommy may not have known about this, wherever she was, but we knew that if she had known, she would not have been pleased.

  "Would you like me to introduce you?" Uncle George offered kindly.

  "To whom?" Annie asked, only half listening.

  We couldn't blame her for that half-listening thing. We were distracted too. How could we not be when we'd just bumped into one of our greatest enemies in France and then immediately learned she was closely related?

  "Why, to your Aunt Serena, of course," Uncle George said.

  "I'd rather eat nails," Georgia blurted out.

  "Pardon?" Uncle George blinked.

  "What she meant to say," Annie said, "was, 'Do you have any snails?' We've heard they eat them in France."

  "Oh yes. Yes, of course," Aunt Martha said. "Let me show you."

  We found the food table and did not eat the snails. Instead, we grabbed a few of whatever nonsnail items we could find and then circulated through the room, which is what you do at par
ties.

  The only problem was, all the other guests were adults, so as we circulated we felt like we were snaking around trees in a redwood forest. This was particularly awkward for Petal. We tried to remember to lead her through neatly, but with her eyes squinched shut so, whenever we forgot to lead her she'd crash into people.

  That was bad enough, but what was worse was that Petal was drawing even more attention to us with her incessant babbling. People were looking at us as though we had a crazy person in the family. Of course, we did have a crazy person in the family, several of them, but Petal was far from the worst of our crazies.

  We looked at the worst of our crazies, Mommy's sister, long and hard. And then we looked around the room and saw Pete staring at her too. The last time he'd seen her, he'd kicked her out of our town. We could imagine what a satisfying moment that must have been for him, but he seemed troubled now. We could understand that. He no doubt wanted to know what was going on in Crazy Serena's mind, as did we all.

  Of course Petal could have helped us out with that, but it had become increasingly obvious that wasn't going to happen.

  We edged closer to Crazy Serena, where she now stood talking to Aunt Martha and Uncle George.

  "It's such a shame Queen and her family couldn't be here," Crazy Serena was saying. "She always did love a good party so. And to miss your wedding?"

  "What's she talking about?" Annie muttered low enough so as not to be heard by the adults but nowhere near loud enough to drown out Petal's babbling, which now drew Crazy Serena's stare.

  "She really must be loony," Durinda said.

  "She thinks she knows the queen," Georgia said.

  "I hate to say it," Jackie said, "but only really crazy people think things like that."

  "Maybe she does know the queen," Marcia observed. "I mean, why would she say it if she doesn't?"

  "I don't think she knows the queen at all," Zinnia said. "If she did, she'd have mentioned it around us sooner. It's the sort of thing people boast about. I know I would."

  "Tguewigfauifvuiawg," said Petal.

  Curiously enough, Rebecca said nothing. For once, she was simply observing.

  We began to worry that now that Crazy Serena was revealed to be a relative for sure, Rebecca would adopt her as a role model.

  Crazy Serena tore her stare away from Petal and turned her attention back to Aunt Martha and Uncle George.

  "Yes, it is such a shame Queen and her brood couldn't be here," she said, adding, "but then Lucy's not here either, is she?"

  She was referring to our mother. We resented that.

  We also couldn't understand what Mommy had to do with the queen.

  "Yes," Uncle George said sadly, "it is all such a shame. And so odd, Queen calling at the last minute to say she wasn't going to be able to make it. I wonder what she had to do that was so important?"

  He seemed to get over his sadness very quickly, though, because his eyes lit up as he saw someone across the room.

  "Oh, look!" he said to Aunt Martha. "There's my second cousin Mitch Smith—let's go say hello."

  He took Aunt Martha's elbow and led her away.

  We all looked at one another. What kind of name was Mitch Smith? It didn't exactly roll off the tongue, did it?

  Crazy Serena glared over at us.

  Seven pairs of eyes plus one squinched pair glared right back.

  "Oh, this is rrrrridiculous," Rebecca announced, going all Spanish on us again. "I'll just go over there and talk to the woman, find out what she's up to this time. I

  mean, yes, she was obviously invited here, but she must be up to something else."

  We should have stopped her, we realized that later, but it was such a shock seeing Rebecca take positive action about anything that we were dumbstruck.

  We watched as Rebecca grabbed Crazy Serena's elbow, far less gently than Uncle George had taken Aunt Martha's.

  Crazy Serena looked surprised by the frontal attack.

  "Who are you?" Rebecca demanded. "I mean, we know who you are. Now. But what have you done with Mommy?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about, you silly child." Crazy Serena yanked her arm away. "I only wish I knew where your mother was hiding herself these days."

  "I'll bet," Rebecca said. "Now answer my questions. On Mommy's computer we saw—"

  But we never got to hear her finish asking her first question, because Crazy Serena began backing away from Rebecca, slowly at first and then snaking more quickly through the crowd, with Rebecca hurrying after her, so all we could hear were little snippets from Rebecca: "Frank Freud ... the Wicket..." While from Crazy Serena all we could hear was the same thing over and over: "Get away from me, you wretched child."

  Other guests just chose to ignore them, but it certainly caught Pete's attention. We didn't need to hear everything Rebecca and Crazy Serena said, however, because we could guess: Rebecca wanted Crazy Serena to explain what Crazy Serena's picture was doing in a file on Mommy's computer that also contained pictures of Frank Freud and the Wicket, two of our other enemies, while Crazy Serena kept accusing Rebecca of being a wretched child.

  We didn't need to be mind readers to figure that out.

  But we would have had to be mind readers to guess what Aunt Martha had on her mind when she interrupted our observation of Rebecca and Crazy Serena's bizarre little dance through the crowd.

  "Excuse me, Petal?" Aunt Martha asked. "Can I speak to you about that special surprise now?"

  "Dreaoiiwjfeah," said Petal.

  Since Rebecca was too occupied elsewhere to provide the desperate measures that were called for in these desperate times, Annie did the job all by herself.

  She used one hand to force open one of Petal's eyes so she could see Aunt Martha, even if it was in monovision, while she used the other hand to clamp Petal's mouth shut so that there'd be no more babbling.

  "Go ahead." Annie nodded at Aunt Martha. "But make it quick. I'm not sure how long I can hold her like this."

  "Petal?" Aunt Martha said. "I'm sure all the girls would like to have the honor, because it's the sort of thing all little girls dream of doing, but I singled you out because you have the perfect name for the job. It's as though you were born for it." Aunt Martha paused. "Would you be my flower girl?"

  Aunt Martha was right about one thing, proving she was that rare family member who might just have a head on her shoulders. Yes, being asked to be a flower girl was what most little girls dreamed of doing.

  There was just one problem. Petal Huit had never been a member of "most little girls." Come to think of it, none of us had.

  So Petal did the Petal Huit thing to do, given the situation.

  She shrieked, "No!" in horror.

  Then she fainted.

  Then when she woke from fainting, she raced upstairs and dived under the bed.

  TEN

  Once again we were all crouched around the bottom of a bed trying to talk some sense into Petal, only this time Aunt Martha was there with us. Turned out we were the kind of kids who could drag another relative down with them like nobody's business.

  "It's so difficult to have a conversation with you like this," Annie said.

  "Talk to the feet" came the muffled voice.

  "But I don't understand, dear." Aunt Martha was clearly puzzled. "What sort of girl doesn't want to be a flower girl?"

  "Me" came the muffled answer.

  "But I still don't understand," Aunt Martha said.

  "Because it scares me," Petal said. "And anyway, why can't Zinnia do it? She loves doing that sort of thing. And she's got the perfect name for it too, since obviously you're just looking for a girl whose name has something to do with a flower."

  For once in her life, Petal had a point there; two, actually. Zinnia did love that sort of thing, and she did have the name of a flower.

  "But don't you see?" Aunt Martha said, preparing to shoot down Petal's points. "Your name is even more perfect. Petal. Ever since I heard you were coming to the wedding aft
er all, I thought how cute it would be, someone whose name was actually Petal strewing rose petals from a basket all down the aisle."

  Aunt Martha was determined. We were fast learning there was little point in trying to get between a bride and what she wants.

  But then, Aunt Martha had never come up against Petal, or at least she hadn't seen Petal in a very long while.

  "But that's the whole terrifying part," Petal said. "Me? Petal? Strewing petals down an aisle for other people to walk on? It would be like ripping off little pieces of myself and throwing them away. Surely, even if you are the bride, you can't expect me to do that."

  And another point for Petal, because when she put it like that...

  "I guess I hadn't thought—" Aunt Martha started to say, but Petal cut her off.

  "No, clearly you hadn't. But that's the thing: people hardly ever think when it comes to me. I'm sorry to spoil your plans for your big day, but nope, sorry, can't help you out here, try someone else, please call again when it's all over with."

  "Well, seeing as you feel so strongly about it..." Aunt Martha rose to her feet. "Zinnia, can you help me out? I do still need a flower girl."

  "Gladly." Zinnia's smile was as wide as a river. "I don't even care if you want me to carry zinnias and rip them to shreds."

  We knew Zinnia would react that way to such an offer.

  "Well, I don't think we need to go that far," Aunt Martha said, "but thank you."

  Then she was gone.

  And so ended Monday, our first day in France.

  ***

  We spent the remainder of the week leading up to the wedding sightseeing in the daytime and going to parties in the chateau at night.

  On Tuesday we saw the Right Bank and the Left Bank.

  On Wednesday we saw something called the Tuileries gardens. They were pretty enough, if you like that sort of thing.

  On Thursday we went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa. We'd never been big on art before, but we did find the woman in the painting's smile interesting, although Rebecca did get a funny look from the museum guard when she wondered aloud what the woman would look like with a dark mustache inked under her nose. It probably didn't help when Rebecca started asking if anyone had a pen.