“You don’t happen to know my sister, Sophie, do you?” asked Beatrice. “About your age, messy red hair, has a crabby baby doll.”
“Mrs. Cow!” said the girl, with a big smile.
“That’s her! You know her! Would you like to come to her birthday party?”
“Sure!” said the little girl. “I’m Annie.”
“Well, Annie,” said Beatrice, “here’s an invitation! I hope you can make it. There will be tons of guests! It’s going to be a fabulous surprise party!”
But as Beatrice turned away, she worried. Would it be a fabulous party? Would there be tons of guests? Would there be a big, beautiful cake?
Beatrice hoped she had not just lied to several small children.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Decorations
“They’re somewhere in here,” said her father. He was pulling out boxes from their basement storage room. “I bought a ton of decorations when that dollar store was closing out, remember, Bee?”
“The name’s Beatrice, Dad. Not Bee. A bee is an insect with a stinger. Not a successful little girl.”
“Ha ha, right you are, Bee.” Her father’s voice was muffled by the boxes. “I always think Bee suits you. You know. Bee More. It’s like a motto!”
Beatrice wasn’t really listening. She looked around the basement and sighed. It had been so neat and tidy when they moved in just a couple of weeks ago. Now it was a mess. Good thing they were going to have Sophie’s birthday party outside. Their backyard wasn’t as messy as the house.
“Skates, books, tools, toys—wow! My old sports trophies!” Her father knocked over a box as he swung around. He held up a little trophy. “Won this baby when I was probably your age, Bee!”
Beatrice gritted her teeth. She counted to ten. Then she took a deep breath.
“Nice, Dad. Maybe we can look at your very old childhood trophies later. Better find those decorations, right?”
“Gotcha!” her dad said. He dived back into the boxes. “Found it!” he finally called, hauling out a box marked Decorations.
“Excellent, Dad!” Bee said with relief.
Her father opened the box. He pulled out a banner with black, dripping letters that spelled out Have a Howling Halloween!
“Ha ha, well, guess we can’t use that one,” he said.
Beatrice grabbed the box. She dug deeper. There were three packages of paper plates with green shamrocks on them and the words The Luck of the Irish! There were heart-shaped Be My Valentine! balloons. There were reindeer-antler headbands and Santa hats.There were paper Thanksgiving turkeys. There were invitations to wedding showers. There were cards saying Thank You for the Baby Gift!
But there were no birthday decorations.
Beatrice started to panic. She pawed through the box.
“Goblin masks? Seriously, Dad?” Beatrice shrieked, holding up an assortment of Halloween decorations. A fake eyeball fell from her hand, bounced on the floor and rolled into a corner. Edison, who had been snoozing on the couch, perked up his ears and ran after the eyeball like they were playing a fun game of fetch.
Her father was starting to look worried.
“Let me look,” he said. “There’s got to be some birthday things.” He rummaged. “Aha!” He pulled out a crumpled blue plastic tablecloth. “Never been used!”
He also pulled out two bags of orange and black balloons, several packages of napkins with pink fish on them, some candles, purple party hats, paper plates and cups, and a big bag of noisemakers.
“Ta-dah!” he said. “We are ready to party!”
“Dad,” Beatrice said, trying to calm her voice, which seemed to want to scream, “those are Halloween balloons. Those paper plates have farm animals on them. Those cups are decorated with some kind of swamp creature! And those noisemakers say Happy New Year!”
“Well, a birthday is a new year for the person having the birthday, right?” Her father stopped when he saw his daughter’s face. “Look, Bee, Sophie loves animals.”
“But Dad! Swamp creatures?” Beatrice wailed. “That looks like a frog, but what is that? Some kind of swamp dragon?”
“Heh heh. Pretty cool. Sophie won’t care—she’ll love this stuff,” he said. “And it seems silly to spend money on more decorations when we have all we need right here. Wait! Here’s a banner we can use!” He pulled out a long banner with green and red lettering.
“That says Ho, Ho, Ho!, Dad.”
“Perfect! Sophie loves to laugh!”
Beatrice’s shoulders sagged. She stuffed the odd assortment of decorations into a bag.
“I’ll try to figure out some way to tie all these decorations together with a theme,” she said bravely. What she didn’t say was so that this party doesn’t look like the least professional birthday party EVER. But that’s how she felt.
“Thanks, Dad.” Beatrice began to climb the stairs.
“No problem, Bee. I knew that stuff would come in handy.” Her father smiled and waved at her.
His other hand was wrestling the Halloween eyeball out of Edison’s drooly mouth.
CHAPTER SIX
The Idea
Sophie was coloring in the living room. Beatrice tiptoed past her with the bag of decorations and headed for the stairs.
“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, MISSY!” yelled Sophie, pointing a purple crayon.
Beatrice froze. She turned slowly.
“There’s nothing in this bag, Sophie,” Beatrice said quickly. “Just a bunch of junk from the basement.”
“What?” said Sophie, looking puzzled. “Oh, you thought I meant you, Bee?!” Sophie laughed. “I was talking to Missy!” She pointed her crayon at a tiny, ratty stuffed horse. I’n telling Missy there to stay purvectly still. I’n drawing her picture!”
“Ah,” said Beatrice, relieved. Sophie held up the picture. It showed a horselike animal standing on top of a huge purple mountain.
“That’s a nice picture, Sophie. Hey, you’re drawing a purple mountain.”
“Yeah, it’s purply. Missy says she likes purple grass. It’s yummy to eat.”
Beatrice wondered whether Sophie had any normal toys. They all seemed to have weird names or do weird things.
“Do you like purple too, Sophie?”
“I love purple, silly. This picture’s for you, Bee. You love purple. I love you, so I must love purple!”
“I love you too, Sophie,” Beatrice said, giving Sophie a hug.
She didn’t even try to smooth Sophie’s tangled mess of hair.
She didn’t even care that Sophie got a smear of purple crayon on her white shirt.
Sophie struggled out of the hug. “I gotta finish this. Missy won’t stand still forever, you know!”
Beatrice grabbed the bag of decorations and ran up to her room.
After seeing the kind of decorations she had for the party, Beatrice was so depressed that she made up her mind to cross Perfect Party Planner off her list of Very Professional Jobs to Consider. But talking with Sophie had made her feel a bit better.
Maybe sometimes to be a very professional party planner, you have to work with what you have to make a perfect party, she thought.
And Sophie had given her an idea.
Beatrice dumped out the bag of decorations.
She got out her box of craft supplies.
And she got to work.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Gift
Beatrice and her mother wandered through the giant toy store.
“This is our third toy store,” said her mother with a sigh. “The last one in town.”
“Those other toy stores were lame,” Beatrice said. “They just had ordinary toys. Average toys. No toy that is absolutely perfect.” She scanned the shelves anxiously.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be aiming for perfect,” said her mother. “How about we shoot for fun or really good?”
Beatrice wasn’t listening. They were in the last aisle of the toy store, and nothing seemed special enough. She started to panic.
“It’s cute, but it’s not super special.”
“Okay, how about this?” Her mother held up an art set. “Sophie’s always drawing and coloring!”
“Sophie already has a million crayons and markers. I’m always cleaning them up.”
Her mother shoved the craft set back on the shelf.
“Oh, I know! A doll! Sophie likes dolls. This doll is way less crabby-looking than Mrs. Cow!” Her mother held out a doll hopefully.
“Yes, but Sophie loves Mrs. Cow, Mom. We can’t just buy her another doll and say ‘Here’s a prettier, better dressed, way less crabby-looking doll, Sophie. Love this!’”
“Ooookay,” said her mother. She slumped down on a little-kids’ bench and eased off her shoes. “I’m just going to look for toys from here.”
Beatrice was trotting down the aisle, looking left and right. Nothing.
There has to be a really, really special gift that will make up for the weird party decorations and the probably burned birthday cake, Beatrice thought frantically.
She came to the end of the aisle, ran around the corner and collided with someone.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. But the someone turned out to be a something—a toy, not a person. Beatrice looked closer. The big furry thing was a horse. A sturdy horse that a child could ride on. It was striped with all the colors of the rainbow. It had a fun little saddle and some reins to hold. It had happy brown eyes and a stuffed carrot stitched to its big, smiling teeth. It had shiny black hooves. Beatrice looked at the horse’s name tag. It said Patty, the Party Pony.
Beatrice remembered Sophie crashing around in her room, trying to ride her “slippery little sucker” frog because she had no horse! She remembered Missy, Sophie’s tiny, shabby horse, being drawn on the purple mountain in her picture. She remembered all the horse pictures Sophie had drawn. And she remembered how Sophie said that she loved all the colors of the rainbow.
This was it! This horse, Patty the Party Pony, was Sophie’s perfect present!
“Mom! Mom! Momomomomom!” Beatrice yelled, grabbing the horse by the neck and dragging it around the corner.
Her mother struggled to her feet.
“What? What is it, Bee? What’s that???”
“I found it! Sophie’s perfect present! Ta-daaaah!” Beatrice shoved the horse toward her mother. Beatrice was out of breath. “Her name is Patty, and she’s a pony for parties! And Sophie loves horses! And she can stop riding a frog! Which is weird. And rainbow is her favorite color! Even though it’s really seven colors.”
“Sophie will absolutely love it,” her mother agreed. She grabbed the horse and lugged it over to the checkout before Beatrice could change her mind. “Oof, this thing is huge!”
“Huge and perfect!” Beatrice skipped beside her mother, picking up the reins that were dragging on the floor.
“And we can go home now!” her mother said, sounding very glad.
Beatrice grabbed her mother and the horse in a tight hug.
Finally something about this party was absolutely perfect!
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Hiding Spot
The pony didn’t fit in the car trunk, no matter how much Beatrice and her mother turned it and twisted it. So they drove home with it squashed beside Beatrice in the back seat. Its head and neck stuck out the window like a huge rainbow-colored dog’s. The carrot in its mouth bounced in the breeze.
“Where should we hide Patty, Mom?” Beatrice was worried. “She has to be a surprise.”
“Hmmm, I don’t think that sucker will fit in any of the closets. How about behind some boxes in the basement?”
“Sophie is always making forts down there, and making a huge mess,” said Beatrice, shaking her head. “No, it has to be a more private place. Hey! There is one private place! We can put it in my room.”
“Good idea,” said her mother. “Everybody stays out of your room. Probably because you have a sign on the door that says Everybody Stay Out!”
“You let one person in, and the mess comes with them,” said Beatrice, shrugging.
But what if she let one pony in? She swallowed nervously, trying to think where she could keep it without it crumpling her rug or blocking her closet or rumpling her bedspread.
They pulled into the driveway, and her mother ran to the door to see if Sophie and Dad were still at the park. She waved from the door.
“The coast is clear!” she called. “Need some help, Bee?”
“Mom,” Beatrice said, “I’m eight years old. I think I can manage a little pony.”
She wrestled the pony out of the car and up the two stairs to the front door. But the pony got stuck in the doorway. Beatrice used all her strength to push the horse.
“This…horse…has…very…strong… legs,” Beatrice said between gritted teeth.
She and the horse finally popped through the door, landing in a plushy heap.
“Okay, we’re in,” Beatrice sighed. She looked at the horse. It was still smiling, the carrot dangling from its mouth. “You’re cute, Patty, but annoying,” said Beatrice.
Bump, bump, bump. She dragged the horse stair by stair up to the second floor, where the bedrooms were. All the bumping woke Edison, who stretched and wandered over for a look at the huge, interesting creature Beatrice was playing with.
“Whew,” Beatrice said when they reached the landing. She wiped her sweaty forehead. “Party planning is hard work. Okay, you just stay here, Patty”—she shoved the horse against the wall—“and I’ll find a spot for you in my room.”
She went into her room and looked around. It was perfectly neat and organized. Where could she put this thing? Not on the bed. She couldn’t mess up all her carefully organized stuffies. They were lined up alphabetically by name. Over by the bookshelf? No. That was where she put her lists before filing them in boxes and then stacking the boxes neatly in her closet. The closet? No. There was no room, and it was all perfectly organized according to color anyway.
It would have to be in the middle of the room, in the middle of the purple rug. Beatrice took a deep breath. It wouldn’t mess up her room for long. The party was in a couple of days. It would be in Sophie’s messy room by Saturday.
She ran out to get the horse.
She stopped.
“Aaaaaahhhhhh!” Beatrice shrieked.
Edison had knocked over the rainbow pony. He was happily chewing on one of its shiny hooves. Another hoof was chewed up as well. He looked at Beatrice and thumped his tail. A piece of shiny black hoof dropped from his mouth.
Beatrice grabbed the pony and pulled it away from Edison.
“Oh, Edison! Bad dog! Shoo!”
Edison slunk downstairs.
“What’s the matter, Bee?” her mother called from the bottom of the stairs.
“Edison has ruined Sophie’s perfect gift!” Beatrice was nearly in tears. “It is no longer a perfect rainbow pony. It is a chewed and drooly rainbow mess!”
“Oh dear,” said her mother. “Maybe we can—”
But Beatrice wasn’t listening. She was wrestling the pony into her room.
She dragged it right into the middle of her carpet.
She threw a big purple blanket over it. It didn’t quite cover the chewed-up hooves.
Beatrice went over to her box of lists. She flipped to her list of What To Do When I Feel Like Screaming. She went down the list, past numbers one through seven (including such things as take deep breaths, listen to soothing music and run frantically on the spot), to number eight: cover my head with my pillow and actually scream into my bed.
That one seemed very appealing at the moment.
Beatrice reached for her pillow.
CHAPTER NINE
The Schedule
Beatrice sat at her desk.
Organization, she said to herself. That’s what this party n
eeds. I can’t do much about the decorations or the cake. She swallowed nervously, thinking about the cake her mother was going to bake the next morning. But I can make sure the party goes according to plan.
She picked up a pencil and a ruler and made two columns on a sheet of paper. Above the first column she wrote Time, and over the second, Activity.
She wrote:
Beatrice hesitated. She had told her dad that on Saturday, his job was to take Sophie to the library and bring her back at 2:15 exactly. But she wondered if he had really been listening. He had been watching baseball two of the three times she told him.
She ran downstairs to find him and tell him one more time.
“What party?” her father said. “This Saturday? Oh shoot, I’m busy.” He saw Beatrice’s face. “Joke. I was joking.”
This family is really quite frustrating, she thought as she ran upstairs. But she didn’t have time to add to her list of Things That Are Frustrating. It was one of her longest lists—seventeen pages at last count.
When she got upstairs, the door to her room was open.
What is going on? Everyone knows to stay out of my room!
Beatrice went in and saw something moving under the purple blanket she had thrown over Patty the Party Pony. She saw a brown, shaggy tail thumping in excitement.
“Edison!” she yelled.
The moving thing under the blanket stopped. The tail stopped too.
“Edison, come! Out! I can see your tail. I know you’re there.”
Beatrice sighed. She walked Edison two times every day. She fed him very healthy food. She worked on training him each day. But Edison didn’t really listen. He only moved for treats.
“Want a treat, Edison?” She grabbed one from a jar on her desk and tossed it into the hallway.
Edison scrambled to his feet and tore after the treat, dragging the purple blanket off the pony.
Beatrice threw the blanket back over the pony just as she heard a small voice from the door.
Beatrice More and the Perfect Party Page 2
