by Ellen Potter
“I’m Leo.” Leo held out his hand. Camilla’s mom smiled and shook it.
“Pleased to meet you, Leo,” she said. “I’m Mrs. Mackie.”
Leo reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and held it up. “This is my wife, Michelle,” Leo said.
“Nice to meet you, Michelle,” Mrs. Mackie said to the paper. She didn’t even give him the old hairy eyeball or anything. “And what’s this here?” She pointed to a drawing of a dolphin on the corner of the paper.
Leo made a grimace. “Michelle got a tattoo the other day.” He leaned close to Mrs. Mackie and said quietly, “I’m not happy about it, but what are you going to do?”
“And this”—Mom gave me a little nudge forward—“is Piper. I believe she and Camilla had a little misunderstanding at school today. Piper wants to apologize to her.” Mom glared at me. “Profusely.”
“Yes, we heard about what happened,” said Mrs. Mackie. I waited for Mrs. Mackie to ask me to tell it in My Own Words. Instead, she said, “Camilla is playing down on the beach, Piper. Why don’t you go join her?”
“O-kaaay,” I said nervously. I didn’t think Camilla was going to be too happy to see me.
I walked down the steep, scratchy path that led to the beach. Camilla was squatting by a tide pool, poking at seaweed with a stick.
“Hi, Camilla,” I said.
She didn’t say anything, which was definitely strange for a chatterbox like her.
“I just want to say that I am extremely sorry for telling you that Ms. Arabella is a wicked witch,” I told her. “I am sorry with all my heart.”
Camilla nodded.
“She’s not really a wicked witch, you know,” I said.
“I know,” Camilla replied.
I squatted down next to her.
“I only told you that because I wanted Nacho to come back. He’s our class rabbit, but we had to give him away because you’re allergic. That’s why I tried to scare you—so you wouldn’t want to come to our school.”
My Own Words sounded pretty mean actually.
“I didn’t know about Nacho,” Camilla said. Then she sighed. “I wish I wasn’t allergic to rabbits, because I love them. I’m also allergic to cats, horses, and hamsters. Plus guinea pigs and mice and goats. Also flowers and dust. If I’m even around that stuff, I start sneezing like crazy.”
“Wow. That stinks,” I said.
“I know it,” Camilla agreed.
“Hey!” I said suddenly. “Are you allergic to periwinkles? Because there’s one right next to you.”
“Oh!” Camilla jumped to her feet and looked at the ground. “Isn’t a periwinkle a flower?”
“This is a different kind of periwinkle.” I picked the tiny little snail off of a rock and I held it out for her to see.
“Awww, what a cute little guy,” she said. “I don’t think I’m allergic to periwinkles.”
“Hey, I have an idea!” I said. “Let’s look for other things you’re not allergic to.”
We found some blue mussels that she wasn’t allergic to. We found an eensy-beensy tortoiseshell limpet that was sliding along a smooth stone. Camilla wasn’t allergic to that either.
I picked up a rock and a little crab was underneath it. We didn’t pick up that guy because crabs are so pinchy. But I found some nice, long pieces of seaweed. Camilla wasn’t allergic to those either. I showed her how to be a mermaid by wrapping seaweed around your head. We looked very lovely. My mermaid name was Bibi Longtail and Camilla’s mermaid name was Lala Sparkles. We were each standing on a rock, posing our beautiful selves, when all of a sudden I heard clicking in my ear.
Click, clackety-click!
Camilla gasped. She was staring at me with a funny look on her face.
Click, clackety-click!
“Oh my goodness, Piper, don’t move a muscle!” Camilla cried.
“What? WHAT? WHAT????” I said.
“Shhh!” Camilla pointed to my shoulder.
I kept my head very, very still, but out of the corner of my eyeballs, I could see something green and yellow sitting on my shoulder.
“It’s a parakeet,” Camilla whispered, “and it’s pecking at your earring.”
GOOD LUCK
Very slowly and carefully, I walked back up to Camilla’s house. The whole time that bird just sat on my shoulder and kept pecking away at my earring.
Click, clackety-click, click-click!
The earring swung back and forth. The sea glass tickled my neck, but I didn’t laugh or anything. I just walked stiff, like a robot, so the parakeet wouldn’t get scared.
When we got to Camilla’s house, everyone was sitting on moving boxes in the living room and eating blueberry-molasses cake off of paper towels.
“No sudden moves, okay, guys?” Camilla said to them. “But look what’s on Piper’s shoulder.”
Everyone looked.
“Oh my gosh!” cried Mrs. Mackie.
“Is that a parakeet?” my dad said.
They all walked up to me very quietly. Suddenly the parakeet stopped pecking. I worried that he might fly away. But I guess he just loved that earring too much, because after a few seconds, he started pecking again.
With her fingertips, Camilla reached out and stroked his feathers very gently.
“Well, he was obviously someone’s pet, since he’s so tame,” said Mr. Mackie.
Dad frowned. “I can’t think of anyone on Peek-a-Boo who owns a parakeet. Can you?” he asked Mom.
“Nope. I don’t think this little fellow is from around here,” Mom answered. “He might have come from a long way off. I’ve heard of parakeets escaping from their cages and flying hundreds of miles away from home. I’ll call around, though, to make sure no one’s missing him on the island.”
“It’s funny that he landed right on Piper,” Mrs. Mackie said.
“Maybe Piper reminds him of his old owner,” Leo said.
Click, clackety-click, click-click!
“Actually, I think it’s the earring that attracted the bird,” Mr. Mackie said. “It looks like those toys they hang in bird cages, doesn’t it?”
“It does!” Mom said. “It’s lucky you happened to be wearing that earring, Piper. If you hadn’t, that bird might never have been found.”
It was lucky! I thought.
Which meant that maybe I had finally gotten rid of my “too much good luck” bad luck.
PARAKEET GREEN
When we got back home, Mom made a bunch of calls to see if anyone had lost a parakeet. No one had. But Mrs. Spratt, who owns the island grocery store, had an old birdcage in her attic, and Mr. Aronson had some birdseed in his cupboard. Pretty soon, we had that bird all settled in a cage. We even stuck in some branches for him to perch on.
We put him in my bedroom, on top of my dresser. Mom and I sat on my bed and watched as he ate his seeds and drank some water. He fluffed up his feathers and let them settle back down. After that, he nuzzled his beak into his wing in a very cozy way.
“He must be exhausted, poor little thing,” Mom said.
I squinted at him. Then I opened my eyes wide. Then I squinted again.
“You know what’s funny?” I said.
“What?”
“He blends right in with the walls,” I said.
Mom looked at him. “Oh my gosh, you’re right, Piper. His body is the exact same color. Lime green. In fact, they shouldn’t even call that color lime green. They should call it parakeet green.”
I loved that idea! Because a parakeet-green room wasn’t at all scary.
Just then, I thought of something.
“You know what? Camilla didn’t sneeze even once tonight,” I said.
“No, I don’t think she did,” Mom said as she put a towel over the parakeet’s cage. I snuggled with Glunkey and Jibs. Then I asked Mom to pull the cover over us, just like she covered the parakeet cage. She did, but she left a little blowhole for us so we wouldn’t suffocate.
Sud
denly I had a brainchild. And this time it was an excellent one. Right after I thought of it, I fell asleep. And guess what? When I woke up in the morning, there was ka-ching under my pillow!
The next day in school, Ms. Arabella said she was going to change my seat. It was just in time, too, because Garth has been trying to burp the entire “Jingle Bells” song.
Ms. Arabella put Camilla and me together at the desk next to where Nacho used to be. Only now there was a birdcage in its place, and inside that birdcage was a parakeet-green parakeet. The parakeet was happily pecking at a dangly earring that was clipped to a loop on the top of the cage.
“Since Piper and Camilla are the ones who gave us our wonderful new class pet,” said Ms. Arabella, “they should be the ones who sit next to him. We’ll all take turns feeding him and giving him water and cleaning his cage. But first…we have to name him.”
She told everyone in the class to write a name they liked on a piece of paper. Then we had to fold up the paper and put it in her giant tote bag.
I wrote down the name Chippy. Camilla wrote down Mr. McFeathers.
After Ms. Arabella collected all our names in her tote bag, she jiggled the bag around so that the names would get all mixed up. Then she brought the bag to Camilla.
“Would you like to pick one of the names from my bag?” she asked.
Camilla looked at that tote bag kind of nervously, like she was afraid that she might pull out wart juice or something. But she was brave. She stuck her hand in the bag and pulled out one of the folded pieces of paper.
“Go on,” said Ms. Arabella. “Open it up and let’s see what we are going to name our new class pet.”
Camilla unfolded the paper. She looked at what was written. Then she made a face.
“Yikes,” she said.
“It’s okay. Just read the name out loud, Camilla,” Ms. Arabella told her.
“I just did. The name is Yikes.”
So that’s what we had to call him.
It’s kind of a crummy name for a parakeet, but maybe I’ll get used to it.
The first thing I did after school that day was visit the Fairy Tree. I snuggled in close to the tree trunk.
“Hey in there,” I said quietly. “Thanks for the earring. I know I wasn’t too crazy about it at first, but it turned out to be a good treasure. It really did come in handy. I guess you guys know what you’re doing after all.”
I gave the tree a “good job” pat.
Then I added, “Just so you know, though, an electric scooter would come in handy too.”
A little wind blew up from out of nowhere and a leaf flitter-fluttered by my face. It tickled my ear and made me laugh. And then guess what? The weirdest thing happened. I heard someone laughing right along with me. It was the tiniest little pip-squeak of a laugh. You had to listen extra hard to even hear it. And a second later, it was gone with the breeze.
THE END
NECK CANDY
The first thing I did that Saturday was stare at my fingernails.
“You look very splendid,” I said to them. “You especially,” I told my left thumb.
Each fingernail had a tiny purple snail with a white swirl on it. My aunt Terry painted them when she visited yesterday.
I hopped out of bed, pulled on some clothes, and ran down the hall to Erik’s room. He’s my older brother. During the week, Erik lives on the mainland and sleeps in his school dorm. That’s because there is no high school on Peek-a-Boo Island or any other islands close by. He comes home almost every weekend, though. This weekend, Mom was working at the health clinic, Dad was fishing on his lobster boat, and Leo was at his friend’s house. That meant I had Erik all to myself.
Erik was snoring, with his head under the blanket.
I sat on the edge of his bed.
“Erik?” I whispered.
“Unnngha?” he muttered.
“Look at my nails, Erik.” I stuck my hands under the blanket. “Aren’t they gorgeous?” I wiggled my fingers. “Hey, I just thought of something! They’re not fingernails. They’re finger SNAILS!”
“Hnnn.”
“Okay, soldier”—I patted what I thought was his head—“get ready for action! First we are going to make tin-can stilts and stomp all over the house. Then we can go to the mudflats and find some clams—”
Erik threw the blanket off his head.
“Not today, Piper. I feel lousy. I think I have the flu or something.”
I looked hard at his face.
“What?” he asked.
I pointed at a pimple on his chin. “That’s a fresh one.”
He groaned.
“I know what will make you feel better really quick,” I told him. “Cinnamon snakes. Whenever I’m sick, Mom makes them for me and I always get better the next day. Since tomorrow is Sunday, we’ll still have time to do all our fun stuff.”
Cinnamon snakes are not real snakes, by the way. They are just cinnamon, sugar, and butter on bread, which Mom cuts into squiggles.
Erik closed his eyes. “Sure. That sounds good.”
I ran out to the kitchen, but two minutes later, I was back in Erik’s room.
“There’s only one problem,” I told him. “We’re out of cinnamon.”
“Okay.” He put the blanket over his head.
“Don’t worry, though. I’m going to go to the Little Store and buy some,” I told him.
He didn’t say anything.
I took the blanket off his head.
“So can I have some money?” I asked.
He looked at me with his aggravated face. He pointed to his jeans on the floor. I took out three dollars from his pocket.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” I told him, and I put the blanket over his head again.
Before I went to the store, though, I made a quick stop at the Fairy Tree. The Fairy Tree is a fat red maple tree at the end of our yard. First I made sure that none of its branches were broken after last night’s storm. They all looked A-okay. After that, I scrambled up the tree and sat down in the nice, cozy crook next to the hole in the trunk. That’s where the fairies leave treasures for me. Except first I have to leave one for them, which I did yesterday.
“I hope you liked my purple nail polish,” I said.
I thought for a minute.
“I also hope fairies have fingernails.”
Before I reached into the hole, I took a deep breath. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about fairies, it’s that you never know what the heck they will put in the Fairy Tree. One time, they left me two kittens, which I named Glunkey and Jibs. Another time, they left me just one earring. My neighbor Mrs. Pennypocket says that the fairies don’t always leave things that you want. Instead, they leave things that you need…even if you don’t know that you need them.
I reached into the hole and felt around in there. My fingers touched something cold and smooth. I scooped it up, took it out, and looked at it.
It was a necklace! At the end of a chain was a long, thin pendant made of slippery-smooth gold!
“Ooooh!” I cried out. “Neck candy!”
That’s what Aunt Terry calls a necklace.
I’d never had a fancy necklace before. The only necklace I owned was made out of folded-up potato chip bags. My best friend, Ruby, made it for me.
I put the necklace around my neck. The chain was so long that it reached my belly button. I held up the backs of my hands so that my finger snails could see it.
“Nice, huh?” I said to them. “Plus, it doesn’t even smell like barbecue flavor.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Although she doesn’t ride a lobster boat to work, Ellen Potter can look out her window and see islands, just like the one Piper lives on. Ellen is the author of ten books for children, including the award-winning Olivia Kidney series. She lives in Maine with her family and an assortment of badly behaved creatures. Learn more about Ellen at ellenpotter.com.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Qin Leng was born in Shangh
ai and lived in France and Montreal, where she studied at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. She has received many awards for her animated short films and artwork, and has published numerous picture books. Qin currently lives and works as a designer and illustrator in Toronto.
