Addie Bell's Shortcut to Growing Up

by Jessica Brody

  I bite my lip as the memory from the parking lot of JoJo’s Pizza comes flooding back. “I know,” I admit, fidgeting with the edge of my comforter. “But it’s kind of growing on me.”

  As soon as my mom leaves, I bound off my bed and open my closet door. Everything is here! All my old clothes, which somehow feel new again. After much deliberation, I pick out a red-and-black plaid dress with a black satin ribbon belt.

  I look in the mirror and my mouth falls into a frown.

  Something isn’t right.

  Something is missing.

  My freckles are back. My skin is clear of makeup. My cheeks are slightly fuller. And my hair is…

  My hair!

  I yank on the rubber band and my thick curls tumble around my shoulders. I run my fingers through them a few times to get out all the tangles and then I check my reflection again.

  A smile immediately brightens up my entire face. I don’t know why I never wore my hair down before. It looks pretty good! It’s so fun and bouncy.

  I’m just about to close my closet door when something sparkly catches my eye in the mirror. I spin around and my gaze lands on la Boîte aux Rêves Cachés.

  It’s sitting on my desk, right where I left it after I made the wish to be sixteen. I tiptoe across my bedroom, as though I’m afraid walking too fast or too hard might scare away the magic spirits hidden inside.

  I scoop the jewelry box into my hands and examine it from all sides.

  I still can’t believe that it worked. That Mrs. Toodles is really a descendent of an eighteenth-century witch.

  And if I’m really back, that means Mrs. Toodles is alive!

  Holding my breath, I lift the lid and peer inside.

  I’m not sure what I’m expecting to see in there, but the sight still takes me by surprise.

  The box is empty.

  I already destroyed my wish. I ripped it into tiny pieces. There’s nothing left inside.

  Still, I somehow feel the need to keep the box safe. Keep it hidden. Just like Mrs. Toodles’s long-lost relative did. I carry the box into my closet and store it on a high shelf, concealing it behind a bunch of extra pillows.

  Just as I’m checking it from all angles to make sure it’s invisible, I hear something in the hallway. My gaze whips to the door, fully expecting to see Buttercup come racing into my room, tail wagging and body wiggling.

  Then I remember…

  I don’t have a dog when I’m twelve. Mom and Dad don’t get me one until Rory leaves for college in two years.

  My heart clenches as I think about her soft fur and adorable ears that perk up every time I ask her a question. I’m going to miss her waking me up with slimy kisses and greeting me at the door when I come home from school. But at least this way, I’ll be able to see her as a puppy and watch her grow up. Not just in pictures. But in real life.

  “No, I can’t go,” I hear a voice in the hallway whine. “I have to be here for my little sister’s lame birthday party. My parents are forcing me. Like I want to spend my Saturday with a bunch of twelve-year-olds.”

  I let out a giddy yelp and sprint into the hallway. My sister is standing there with her phone pressed to her ear.

  “Rory!” I dole out another attack hug. She drops her phone in surprise and nearly tumbles over.

  “What the heck?” she says, her arms limp at her sides.

  “I missed you so much!” I say, squeezing her tighter.

  “You missed me?” she asks in a confused voice. “But I just saw you last night.”

  “I know. But I still did. Is that okay?”

  It’s kind of strange, but I can almost feel her body soften a bit. And then, a second later, she actually hugs me back. “Sure. Whatever,” she mutters, but I can hear the smile in her voice. Even if I can’t see it.

  Maybe Rory will go to Rice University. Maybe there’s nothing I can do about that. So I figure I better make the most of her last two years at home.

  A moment later, her body suddenly stiffens again. She pulls back and glares suspiciously at me. “Oh, I know what this is about. You wanna use my makeup, don’t you? Okay, maybe just a lip gloss, but if Mom asks, you didn’t get it from me.”

  I shake my head. “No. I don’t want to use your makeup.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Since when?”

  I shrug. “Since now.”

  “Why are you being weird?”

  “I’m not. I have plenty of time to wear makeup later. For now, I’m not sure I really need it, you know?”

  She gives me a blank look as I do a little skip and prance to the stairs.

  “Addie,” she says, leaning over the railing.

  I stop at the first landing and peer up at her. “Yeah?”

  She twists her mouth to the side, like she wants to say something really big and important. But in the end, she just says, “Your hair looks supercute, by the way.”

  I beam. “Thanks!” And I continue down the stairs, taking the long way, through the dining room, to the kitchen.

  When I get there, Mom is decorating cupcakes and Dad is eating sour-cream-and-onion potato chips out of the bag. I run and give him a hug.

  “Happy birthday, the sequel!” he says, kissing the top of my head.

  “Thanks!” I nudge my chin toward the bag in his hand. “Go easy on those chips,” I tell him. “I hear onion can stay in your system and affect your breath for days.”

  Dad gives me a strange look, then glances down at the potato chips. He cups his hand over his mouth and blows, smelling his own breath. Then he crumples the top of the bag closed and returns it to the pantry.

  “Did you cut through the living room with your shoes on?” Mom asks, peering at my feet.

  “Nope!” I say, sticking my finger in the frosting bowl and licking off the yummy buttercream chocolate. Mom tries to slap my hand but I duck away just in time.

  I check the clock on the microwave. The guests aren’t scheduled to arrive for a few hours, but I still have one more thing to do before then.

  Checking to make sure Mom and Dad are occupied in the kitchen, I sneak out the front door. I practically skip all the way down the block to the small cottage-style house at the end of the street. I bound up the front steps and ring the doorbell. Mrs. Toodles answers about two minutes later, looking exactly as I remember her. Jewelry covering her arms, neck, and fingers to the point that you can barely see her skin, and her long, silvery white hair tucked under one of her signature tiny hats. This one has a bluebird perched on the side. I don’t tackle hug her like I did to Mom, Dad, and Rory, for fear that I might break all her bones, but I’m so happy to see her again. And I have so much to tell her!

  “Hi, Mrs. Toodles!” I sing, flashing her the biggest smile I can muster.

  It takes a moment for her to figure out what’s going on, and then she says in her usual rattling voice, “Adeline?”

  “Yes! It’s me!”

  “Oh my! How good it is to see you! Would you like to come in?”

  I shake my head. “I can’t. My birthday party starts soon and I have to get back to my house, but I wanted to stop by to tell you that it worked! It really worked!”

  She tilts her head. “What worked, dear?”

  “The jewelry box. I made a wish to be sixteen and I woke up to find that four years had passed! Just like that! Rory was at college and Mom was working and I was in high school and you…”

  I trail off. My voice tightens at the memory of my mother breaking the news that Mrs. Toodles had died. But I can’t tell her that.

  “You were off on another one of your adventures!” I finish, feeling confident it was the right thing to say. “And it was crazy. Because I lost the key and I couldn’t open the box to get my wish out. But then I finally found the key. I had hidden it in the safest place I could think of, just like you said. So I unlocked the wish and now I’m back and it’s like I never left. Except I did. Because everything has changed!”

  I stop and think about what I just said. Has everythi
ng changed?

  As far as I can tell, nothing’s actually different. Rory is still talking on her phone nonstop. Mom is still obsessed with the living-room carpet. And I still live in a pink princess bedroom with a closet full of clothes purchased from the kids’ department.

  “I mean,” I say, amending my last sentence, “I guess everything just seems different because I’ve changed.”

  Mrs. Toodles is silent for a long time and I wonder if she’s fallen asleep with her eyes open.

  “Mrs. Toodles?” I ask.

  She startles. “Yes, dear?”

  “I was just telling you about la Boîte aux Rêves Cachés,” I tell her.

  She makes a tsk, tsk sound with her teeth. “Speak English, dear. You know I can’t understand French.”

  Can’t understand French?

  But she’s the one who told me that’s what the jewelry box was called.

  “The Box of Hidden Dreams,” I repeat in English.

  There’s another long silence and I worry she’s fallen into a trance. Then she says, “The what, dear?”

  “The jewelry box,” I tell her indignantly, getting frustrated. “The one that grants wishes.”

  “Oh, Abigail, that sounds like a lovely story.”

  “No, Mrs. Toodles. It’s me. Adeline.”

  “Of course it is!” she trills after a pause.

  Now I’m confused. What just happened?

  “Maybe you can tell it to me sometime,” she says gently.

  “But you told me the story,” I remind her. “About the Starlit Lady, who was the personal mystic to Marie Antoinette.”

  I’m hoping that if I just give her enough of the details, it’ll jog her memory.

  “Oh! That reminds me of a story I wanted to tell you,” she says, completely ignoring my attempts. “Have you heard the one about the frog, the dog, and the fish?”

  I can’t believe it. She forgot. The dementia stole the story from her mind. Will it ever come back? Or is it gone forever? How exactly does dementia work?

  Maybe it’ll never come back. Maybe it really is gone.

  But not forever.

  Because now I know the story. And I guess it’s my job to make sure it stays remembered.

  “Mrs. Toodles,” I interrupt her while she’s in the middle of prattling on about three animals fighting over the rights to swim in a magic pond.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “I want to come visit you more often. Would that be okay?”

  “Of course!” she says. “I love visitors. But you must beware of my neighbors. They’re running a money laundering scheme from their kitchen.”

  I sigh. I highly doubt that, but I don’t argue with her. “Well, I’ll make sure to avoid them. But really, I just want to see you. And I want to write down all of your stories.”

  “How nice!” she says. “What for?”

  I swallow. “So no one ever forgets them.”

  By one o’clock, the party is in full swing. Everyone is having a great time. Summer Crush plays on the speakers, the backyard is covered in streamers, and my mom’s cupcakes are a huge hit.

  But I’m starting to worry because Grace isn’t here yet. It’s not like her to be late. In fact, she’s never late. Every time the doorbell rings, I run to answer it, only to find it isn’t her.

  What if she doesn’t even come?

  What if she’s still so mad about our fight in the Hideaway last night that she decides to skip my party altogether?

  But then I remind myself that she has to come. Jacob Tucker told me that we had a huge fight at my twelfth birthday party. She’ll be here.

  I try to busy myself by eating some of the snacks my mom put out and joining in on a game of Egg and Spoon, during which you have to carry an egg balanced on a spoon across the lawn to your partner and then they have to carry it back. All without dropping the egg.

  But I completely forfeit the game halfway through my turn when I hear the doorbell ring. I jump, causing my egg to roll off my spoon and splatter in the grass. “Sorry!” I call to my partner and run into the house, just beating my mom to the door.

  “I’ll get it,” I tell her.

  She laughs and walks back into the kitchen.

  I swing the door open wide, ready with my smile and my apology. But my face drops when I find not Grace standing on the front porch, but a twelve-year-old Jacob Tucker. All the extra baby fat is back in his cheeks, his dark hair is messy and falling into his eyes, and he’s only a few inches taller than me.

  “Jacob!” I say, forcing myself to smile again. “Hi! Welcome!”

  He stands there awkwardly, holding a six-pack of grape soda, which he thrusts at me. “I brought these for you,” he mumbles, staring at his shoes. “Sorry about the exploding one yesterday.”

  “Thank you!” I beam back at him, even though he’s still not looking at me.

  Gosh, I forgot how awkward and shy he is!

  “Grape soda is my favorite,” I tell him.

  “I know,” he mumbles.

  “It tastes especially good when it shoots up your nose.”

  He braves a glance away from the floor and looks up at me, probably to check that I’m joking. I smile to let him know that I am. “I mean,” I go on, “you wouldn’t think it would taste good, mixing with your boogers and all, but yesterday when that can exploded in my face, I was like, ‘Mmm! Grape soda snot! Delish!’ ”

  He chuckles. “I’ll have to try that sometime.”

  “You really should.”

  He bites his lip and stares down at the ground again. “Happy birthday, Addie.”

  I lean forward and give him a kiss on the cheek. He nearly jumps backward in surprise, his face turning a bright crimson color. Then, after a short pause, he pulls his face into a grimace and whines, “Ewww! Gross! Why did you do that?”

  I shrug. “Just ’cause.”

  He groans and wipes at his cheek. “Well, don’t. Ick.”

  But as he pushes past me into the house, I swear I see him crack the tiniest of smiles.

  It doesn’t really count as a first kiss. Not yet, anyway.

  With the six-pack of soda balanced in one hand, I reach out to close the door, but it doesn’t shut all the way. It bounces off something and comes swinging back at me, nearly ramming me in the nose.

  I look up to see what the door bounced off and come face to face with Grace. Exactly as I remember her. Her dark blond hair is woven into the most elaborate braid I’ve seen yet, and she’s wearing an adorable navy wrap dress that ties at the waist.

  “Wow!” she says, looking me up and down. “You look great! I love your hair!”

  “Thanks!” I say, touching my curls. “I love yours, too!”

  Then we stand there for a moment, staring at each other. Even though so much has happened for me, I have to remind myself that for Grace, our big fight was just last night.

  “Look—” I start to say, just as Grace blurts out, “Sorry I was late!”

  We both chuckle nervously and Grace holds out a small wrapped box. “I was wrapping this and I couldn’t get it right. I wanted it to be perfect.”

  I feel my heart swell as I set the soda on the floor and take the gift from her.

  “Thank you. Should I open it now?”

  She shrugs. “If you want.”

  “I do,” I tell her emphatically. “I really, really do.”

  I can’t take the suspense any longer. This is the gift that launched the end of our friendship. I have to know what’s inside. And I have to set it right.

  But as I hold the small box in my hand, I also know that no matter what it is, I will love it. This is one of those things in life that I can be 100 percent certain of.

  I rip off the wrapping paper to find a silver cardboard box. I lift the lid and gasp. Inside, lying on a bed of white foam, is the most gorgeous bracelet I’ve ever seen. It’s gold with a little heart-shaped charm hanging off of it.

  “It’s a best-friend charm bracelet,” Grace tells me. “I
had it engraved with the word Graddie.” She holds up her arm to reveal the exact same one dangling from her own wrist.

  I’m speechless as I remove the bracelet from the box and examine the small charm. “I love it,” I’m finally able to say. “I love it so much.”

  And I do.

  I can’t for the life of me figure out why I would have said anything else. Why I wouldn’t have loved this.

  That is, until Rory walks by and leans over my shoulder to look at the gift. “Aww,” she coos. “How cute. Best-friend bracelets. I think I had one of those when I was like seven.”

  I know she doesn’t intend for it to be mean, but I feel myself bristle at the comment. The thought that Rory finds the gift immature definitely stirs something. An old frustration that’s buried deep inside me. The burning desire to be older and cooler in the eyes of my big sister.

  Is this what happened? Is this how it all started? Did Rory make that same comment to me, causing me to lash out, blame Grace, and then go running to Clementine?

  I stand up straighter.

  Well, it’s not going to happen this time.

  I’m not ditching Grace on our English project. I’m not going to become BFFs with Clementine. In fact, I doubt I’ll even say two words to her at school on Monday. Which, honestly, won’t be much of a change.

  “I think it’s amazing,” I tell Rory defensively as I clasp the bracelet around my wrist and hold it up next to Grace’s. Grace beams at me while Rory just shrugs and starts tapping something into her phone.

  “Whatever,” she mumbles, walking away.

  “You really love it?” Grace asks after my sister is gone.

  I close the front door behind her and pick up the six-pack of soda again. “I really love it. And I’m sorry I was such a bad friend last night.”

  Grace tugs at her earlobe, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “That’s okay. I’m sorry I overreacted.”

  And then the most amazing idea in the history of amazing ideas hits me. “How about a do-over?” I ask.

  Grace furrows her brow at me. “What do you mean?”

  “Another slumber party. Tonight. In the Hideaway. We can have a sleeping bag obstacle course, and work on our routine, or our English project, and maybe even have a tea party!”