“Wow, whatcha got there, Bee?” Sophie was standing there, holding Mrs. Cow by one foot.
Beatrice froze. She stalled. “What do I have where?” she said.
“There. The huge purple thing. Behind you, silly.”
“Oh, this,” said Beatrice. “This, Sophie…is a…it’s a…”
“Is it a fort? No! It’s a mountain!” Sophie’s jaw dropped open. “A purple mountain! Just like the purple mountain in my picture! Did you make it because of my picture?”
“Yes,” Beatrice said in relief. “I looked at your picture and—you guessed it—decided that I wanted my very own purple mountain. Right here in the center of my room.” Beatrice patted the purple mound nervously. She noticed a chewed hoof sticking out and nudged it back under the blanket with her foot.
“Here.” She grabbed another purple blanket from her bed. “Let’s go to your room and make a purple mountain for you.”
Sophie shrieked with delight and bundled up the blanket.
“C’mon, Bee! I gots to have one! My own purple mountain! Mrs. Cow! We gonna have our own mountain…” Sophie ran across the hall to her room.
That was a close one, Beatrice thought.
She followed Sophie, shutting her door very, very carefully.
CHAPTER TEN
The Big Day
It was Saturday, the day of the party.
“Dad,” hissed Beatrice. “It’s already noon! You have to get Sophie out of here so Mom and I can make the cake and decorate for the party!”
“Gotcha, Bee.” Her father winked. He pulled on his baseball cap. “Hey, Sophie,” he called into the kitchen. “Time to go to the library. Remember?”
“Nah,” said Sophie, who was coloring at the kitchen table.
“But you love the library, Sophie,” Bee said in a fake-cheerful voice.
“I do love the liberarry. But I’m busy.” Sophie was scribbling with black marker. Beatrice winced as it marked the table.
“Well, you can take all your stuff with you and finish your picture at the library,” said Beatrice, dumping the markers into Sophie’s backpack. She shoved Mrs. Cow on top. “There! All set! Off you go! Have fun!”
“But—” said Sophie.
“Dad will buy you ice cream,” said Beatrice quickly.
“Ice cream!”
“Yes, and he’ll give you a piggyback ride the whole way there!”
“Yay!”
“Hey, that’s hard on the old back,” said her dad. But Beatrice was already lifting Sophie up onto his back.
Sophie giggled. “See ya, Bee! Giddyup, horsie!”
Beatrice waved. Then she slammed and locked the door.
“Mom!” Beatrice called. “Time to bake Sophie’s cake!”
Her mother carried a big cookbook out of the kitchen.
“Got the recipe right here,” she said. “Doesn’t this look great?” She pointed to a picture. It showed a perfect, beautiful double-layer cake with blue icing.
“Wow, it sure does.” Beatrice nodded. She felt guilty for wondering just how different her mother’s cake would look.
“Now I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed, Bee,” said her mother, tossing a few cups of flour into a mixing bowl, “but sometimes I bake things just a teensy bit too long. But not this cake.”
“Great, Mom.” Beatrice felt relieved. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a disaster after all. She watched her mother spill some sugar onto the floor. She watched her spoon eggshells out of the batter. “Uh, need some help?” Beatrice asked.
“Nope!” her mother said cheerfully. “I got this.” As she mixed the batter around and around, bits of it flew everywhere. Edison ran around licking them up. “Why don’t you decorate the backyard?”
“Good idea.” Beatrice ran and got the box of decorations. On the way to the backyard, she tidied the living room. She cleaned the front closet. She organized the back entrance. Finally she brought the box of decorations out to the backyard.
Dad had forgotten to mow the grass, she noticed. And Edison had dug several new holes.
“Rrrrrr,” said Beatrice.
She put the blue plastic tablecloth on the picnic table, taping it in place so it didn’t blow off. She blew up all the balloons.
“Black and orange,” she muttered. “Happy Halloween.”
She stacked thirty plates, thirty party hats and thirty napkins. She set out the Toss the Beanbag into the Swamp Creature’s Mouth game she had made. She taped a plastic donkey on the fence for Pin the Tail on the Donkey. She used chalk to carefully mark the start and finish lines for the sack race. She filled up a big bucket with water for a fishing game. She taped a large copy of her party schedule to the fence.
Finally she pasted up the banner. She had covered up the Ho, Ho, Ho! by gluing on big, fun purple letters that said Welcome to Sophie’s Awesome Animal Party! It was the only theme she could think of that included swamp creatures, farm animals, fish and ponies.
When Beatrice was done, she looked around the yard. It was ready for a party. A weird and mismatched party, but still—a party.
Time check, she thought. She went into the house. The clock in the hall said it was 1:30 PM.
Half an hour until everybody gets here, she thought, feeling a little nervous.
She ran into the kitchen.
“The two parts of the cake are cooling, Bee,” said her mother. She was mixing a big bowl of icing. “I didn’t burn them! I took them out ten minutes early, just to be sure.”
Ten minutes early? Beatrice would rather her mom had followed the recipe exactly. Cookbooks were written by highly professional cake-making people.
“Almost ready to stack them and cover them with icing!” her mother said. “How do they feel? Cool?”
Beatrice looked at the two round cakes. They were not burned. They were the opposite of burned. They were so not-burned that each cake had sunk right down in the middle into a mushy, sunken mess.
“Hmmm,” said Beatrice, trying not to panic. “Yes, I believe they are cool.”
“Well, let’s slap some of this icing—” Her mother turned and stared at the sunken cakes. “Oh no! What happened to them? They were fine when I took them out of the oven!”
Beatrice looked at the clock. They had only fifteen minutes before the guests would be arriving. There was no time to make another cake.
She felt her left eye start to twitch.
She felt frustration bubble up.
This party is going to be a total disaster, she thought.
“I’m sorry, Bee,” her mother said. Her shoulders slumped, and she looked near tears. “You wanted everything to be just perfect.”
“It’s okay, Mom.” Beatrice patted her mother’s shoulder. Her mother had tried her best. She tried to think of what she could say to make her feel better.
Beatrice had an idea. Her eye stopped twitching.
“Mom,” she said urgently, “you made blue icing, right?”
“Right.” Her mother held out the bowl. “Tons of it.”
“Do you have any red food coloring?”
Her mother rummaged in the cupboard. She held out a small container.
“I don’t know how this is going to fix this mess of a cake,” she said.
“It’s not going to be a cake, Mom! It’s going to be a mountain! A purple mountain! There’s no time to explain, but Sophie will absolutely love it!”
Her mother laughed and hugged Beatrice. “Then let’s make a mountain!”
Beatrice added drops of red food coloring to the blue icing. As she stirred, the icing turned purple.
“Perfect!” she said. They turned to the collapsed cakes. The cakes fell apart as they took them out of the pans.
“Doesn’t matter,” muttered Beatrice. “The icing will hold it all together.”
They piled pieces of cake into the shape of a mountain. Then both of them took butter knives and slathered the mountain with purple icing, up and down and around and around.
“Well, this
is a lovely purple mountain,” said her mother, standing back to admire it.
Beatrice put five candles in a circle right at the top.
“It’s great, Mom!” said Beatrice. “Just like Sophie’s picture!”
They high-fived as the doorbell rang.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Party
The first birthday guest was Annie, the little girl with the messy hair.
“Hi, Annie! Thanks for coming.” Beatrice smiled at her. She looked past Annie and her mother to see if any other children were coming up the walk. There was nobody else in sight.
Annie’s mother came in and talked to Beatrice’s mother. Beatrice explained to Annie that when the other kids arrived, they were all going to hide and, when Sophie got home, jump out and yell, “Surprise!”
But where were all the other kids? Beatrice was worried.
She checked the door several times.
She looked up and down the street.
The seconds ticked into minutes, and by 2:11 Beatrice’s heart was pounding.
“Mom, this is horrible!” she whispered. “Who ever heard of a birthday party with one guest?”
“There’s also us,” said her mother, smiling. “And Annie’s mother. That’s five.”
The doorbell rang, and Beatrice sprinted over and flung it open. Her friends Jill and Sue stood there.
“Hiya, Bee,” said Sue. “Those little stinkers Kayley and Kyle couldn’t come to the party, so we thought we’d come instead.”
“Yeah, Sophie’s our friend too,” said Jill. “We brought gifts!”
“We brought Jimbo too,” said Sue, dragging Jill’s twin brother up the stairs. James had glasses and very neat hair.
“James. The name is James, Sue. Hello, Beatrice,” he said. “My gift for Sophie is a brush. To help with her hair.”
“That is a very thoughtful gift, James,” Beatrice said.
James was Beatrice’s main competition to be the smartest, most successful kid in third grade. But Beatrice didn’t have time to worry that this party would look totally unprofessional to James.
She turned to Jill and Sue. “Thank you so much for coming!”
“Bee,” her mother called from across the room. She pointed urgently at the clock.
“Quick, quick!” said Beatrice. She shooed Sue, Jill and James into the kitchen. “Sophie will be here in a minute! Grab a noisemaker! We have to hide!”
“What is that purple hill thing?” asked James, pointing at Sophie’s birthday cake.
“It’s not a hill—it’s a mountain. Obviously,” said Beatrice. “Go hide.”
Everyone scattered into the living room and hid.
They waited.
The clock ticked.
Any second now, thought Beatrice, ready to spring up and shout, “Surprise!” But where was Dad? Where was Sophie?
Somebody slipped behind the sofa with her.
“This is fun!” Sophie whispered in Beatrice’s ear. “Why are we hiding, Bee?”
“Sophie!” Beatrice jumped. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here, Silly-Billy!” Sophie laughed delightedly.
“No, I mean, how did you get in here?”
“Oh, Dad was talking and talking with Mr. Tan next door, an’ so I just comed home. Did you know there’s balloons in the backyard, Bee?”
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” said Beatrice, getting to her feet. “Everybody, Sophie’s right here.” Heads popped up from behind furniture.
“Surprise!” everyone yelled at different times.
“Phhhwwwt.” Sue blew a lonely blast on her noisemaker, then waved.
“Surprise!” Sophie yelled too, clapping her hands.
The front door flew open.
“Surprise!” shouted Beatrice’s dad. “Looks like you got to your party right on time, Sophie!” He looked nervously at Beatrice.
“My party?” said Sophie, sounding amazed.
Annie ran up to Sophie. “Happy birthday, Sophie!”
“It’s my birthday!” Sophie said, hugging her. “I forgot what day it was!”
Everyone went out tow the backyard and put on party hats. Beatrice’s father put on Sophie’s favorite music.
“Animal plates! And swamp guys!” Sophie said, admiring the decorations on the cups. “And fishy napkins! I gots to keep one to show our fish, Super-Pig. He’ll be very interested.”
Beatrice lugged Patty the Party Pony down from her room. We’re not keeping to the party schedule at all, she thought worriedly.
“Light the candles, Mom, and bring out the cake!”
Her mother lit the candles and carefully carried the cake out into the backyard.
“And Sophie, here’s a special purple-mountain cake, which Beatrice says you’ll love, for some reason,” said her mother.
“A purply mountain!” shrieked Sophie, her eyes wide. “That’s the best cake I ever seen! It’s ezzactly like my picture!” Sophie happily swiped a finger down the side of the mountain and licked purple icing.
“And here’s a rainbow horse to go with it!” called Beatrice. Her face was red as she dragged the pony outside and plunked it down in front of Sophie. The longish grass hid the horse’s chewed-up hooves.
Sophie’s mouth fell open.
“I can actually ride on that sucker?” she whispered, pointing to the saddle.
“Absolutely,” said Beatrice. “And Mrs. Cow can too!”
Sophie stroked the rainbow horse, smearing purple icing on its head.
“I hope you like it, Sophie. I wanted you to have a fun party. A perfect party,” said Beatrice.
Sophie ran and launched herself into Beatrice’s arms in one of her flying monster hugs.
“It’s great! All my best friends! And a purply mountain cake! And a rainbow horse! My favorite color!”
“Seven colors, remember?” said Beatrice. “Red, orange…oh, whatever. Her name is Patty the Party Pony. Isn’t that pretty? It says so right here on the tag!”
“But that’s not his real name,” said Sophie, laughing. “That’s just a store name. I’n gonna call him…” She tilted her bushy red head and tapped a finger on her chin, thinking. “Stompin’ Jones!”
Stompin’ Jones? Beatrice shrugged. Sophie was happy. It was her birthday. It was her horse. She could name it something weird and unprofessional if she wanted to.
Beatrice smiled as she watched Sophie and Mrs. Cow scramble up into the horse’s saddle. And even though the party was nothing like the perfect party she had planned, she couldn’t stop smiling.
She smiled as she watched Sue passing out balloons and Jill putting a party hat on Edison.
She smiled at James, whose hair got messed up as he lifted Annie up onto the horse, behind Sophie.
She smiled at her tired-looking mother, who was sprawled in a lawn chair, laughing with Annie’s mother, who sat beside her. She smiled at her father, who was cutting the purple mountain with his purple party hat sitting crooked on his head.
She smiled at Sophie, who was riding her horse and shrieking with laughter. Sophie waved at Beatrice with a hand stained with purple icing.
“Hey, Bee!” screamed Sophie. “This party is absolutely purvect!”
ALISON HUGHES writes for children of all ages. Her books have been nominated for many awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award. She shares her love of writing by giving lively presentations and workshops at schools and young-author conferences. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta, with her family, where her three snoring dogs provide the soundtrack for her writing. For more information, visit alisonhughesbooks.com.
Chapter One
It wasn’t that Beatrice More didn’t like boxes. She did.
She especially liked boxes that were perfect squares. They stacked easily. They held things that would otherwise mess up the house. They were neat and tidy.
But today Beatrice was sick of boxes. Very, very sick of boxes. Looking around her new house, all she could see were stacks of them. O
n the floor. On the kitchen counters. On the furniture.
Boxes everywhere.
Beatrice had tried to tell the movers where to put the boxes. But they just carried them in and dumped them anywhere.
She tried to scrub off the smudgy, sticky handprints the movers left on the walls. But they kept making them faster than she could scrub them off.
She said, “Somebody’s walking through the house with their shoes on!” very loudly several times before her mother finally shushed her.
The moving guys were horrible listeners. They just smiled, carried in more boxes with their sticky hands and kept making a bigger and bigger mess.
But the movers were gone now. The big, noisy moving truck was just pulling away from the driveway.
“It’s about time,” grumbled Beatrice. She stood in the living room with her hands on her hips. As she looked around, her eyes narrowed.
“What a dump,” she said to herself, shaking her head slowly.
Her mother came into the room. She looked around happily.
“Well, this is exciting!” she said. “A new house, a new neighborhood, a new city! Are you excited, Bee?”
“Beatrice.” How many times had she told her family not to call her Bee? Nine thousand? Nineteen thousand? Ninety thousand? Bee was not a name at all. It was a letter. Or worse, an insect. An insect that buzzed annoyingly. An insect people ran away from, screaming.
Bee certainly wasn’t the name of a future Olympic gymnastics gold-medal winner. Or a future prize-winning scientist. Or a famous artist or writer. And those were all on Beatrice’s list of Very Successful Careers to Consider.
“Have you looked at this place, Mom?” Beatrice said. “It’s a mess! There are way, way too many boxes!”
“Well, Bee,” said her mother, pushing her frizzy hair out of her eyes, “we only moved in this morning! We’re just getting started.”
Beatrice crossed her arms.
“I’ve already unpacked my room. Perfectly.”
It was the first room she had all to herself. The first room she didn’t have to share with her messy little sister, Sophie. Beatrice loved her new room. It was perfect.
Beatrice More and the Perfect Party Page 3
