Eyes on the Prize

by Nicole C. Kear

  “Oh, I’ve got loads of ’em,” said Dad. I gave Matt my best Told you so! look.

  Just then we heard a loud jingly sound coming from the bathroom.

  Jude, Dad, and I looked at one another.

  “Oh no!” we all moaned at the same exact time.

  Monster Potty played:

  When you really have to go,

  Here’s what you need to know—

  “Have mercy, Father!” I wailed. I always call my dad Dad, but when I’m trying to be dramatic, I call him Father.

  “The potty of doom must go!” declared Jude.

  So don’t forget to wipe

  When you don’t wear a diape-

  Rrrrrrrrrr!

  “Awwww,” said Cora. “I think the song’s kind of cute.”

  “Just you wait,” I told her. “The potty song strikes in your brain when you least expect it.”

  “Yeah, tonight you’ll be lying peacefully in bed, counting sheep,” said Jude, “when suddenly these words will ring in your ears—”

  “It’s potty time! It’s potty time! It’s potty time! It’s potty time!” We both sang along with the potty, at the top of our lungs.

  Chapter 11

  A few minutes later, the doorbell rang, so I ran downstairs to answer it.

  I absolutely love answering the door. It could be anyone! It could be a record producer who heard me singing out my window and wants to make me a star! It could be a stray Great Dane who needs a home and just happened to press my doorbell with his nose.

  Nana is always telling me, “Be-a care-a-ful! Neva open da door-a to-a stranger-a!” Which is why I always look through the glass window in the door to see who it is before I open it.

  The person I saw through the glass was not a record producer or a Great Dane.

  It was a girl I’d never met before. Here’s what she looked like:

  1. Straight black hair pulled back into a neat ponytail.

  2. Tortoiseshell eyeglasses, just like Jude’s.

  3. An enormous backpack on her back. The backpack was so big, she was hunched over. She looked like a turtle with a huge shell on her back.

  4. The biggest book ever in her arms.

  “Who are you?” I asked. I had to talk kind of loud so she could hear through the glass.

  “I’m Chloe,” she said. “Matt’s sister. I came to pick him up.”

  I was dumbstruck. No, that does not mean I was turned into a dumbbell, which is what I used to think. It means I turned speechless.

  “Matthew Sawyer has a sister?” I asked.

  “Yep,” she said. “And she is me. I mean, I’m her.”

  “But you don’t even look like him!” I said.

  She smiled. “That’s because we’re stepsiblings. His mom and my dad got married a few years ago.”

  I shouted up to Matt: “DO YOU HAVE A SISTER NAMED CHLOE WHO WEARS AN ENORMOUS BACKPACK WHO IS PICKING YOU UP TODAY?”

  Like my grandma says, “You-a neva can-a be too-a careful!”

  “YES!” he shouted back.

  So I let her in.

  I was full of questions. I asked Chloe how old she was (thirteen) and did she live with Matt (half of the week) and what the heck was that gigantic book she was holding.

  “Oh, it’s the dictionary,” she said. “I’m trying to read the whole thing.”

  She sat down at the kitchen table as I made her a Bop Shoo Bop.

  Jude came into the kitchen to get a glass of water. When he saw Chloe and her dictionary, he got excited.

  “Oh, cool! I’ve always wanted to read the dictionary!” he exclaimed. “What letter are you up to?”

  “I’m only up to c.” She sighed. “There are so many c words!”

  “There are so many c words!” Jude agreed. He nodded so hard, his glasses slid down his nose and he had to push them back up. “Even just the words that start with con!”

  “Contain, contend, conversation,” Chloe said.

  “Control, conference, concentrate,” Jude added.

  “Our last name!” I burst out. “Conti!”

  Jude said, “Don’t you have to help Matt finish his lists?”

  Then he turned back to Chloe. “Connive.”

  “Contract!” she laughed.

  “Congress!” he laughed.

  I had never heard Jude have so much fun with anyone besides Ezra. It was like they were two people sharing one big brain.

  I went back upstairs, where Ezra was printing out the lists for Matt.

  “Matt,” I said. “Your sister is really smart.”

  “Yeah, so I heard,” he replied. “She can be a total show-off.”

  “I know how you feel,” I said.

  Pearl ran in then, holding Ricardo. She scrambled up onto Matt’s lap and asked him to tell her a story about the bad gerbils.

  And he did. He made up a story about a gerbil named Jerry who started the bubonic plague and a good little rat named Reginald who was framed for the whole thing.

  “Reginald died many, many years ago,” he said, “but his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson is still alive. And do you know what his name is?”

  She shook her head. She was so mesmerized by Matt’s story that her mouth was hanging open.

  “Ricardo!” he said.

  She made a yelp of surprise. Then, to my amazement, she threw her arms around Matt and said, “My best fwiend!”

  And to my even greater amazement, he hugged her back.

  My sister was best friends with Matthew Sawyer.

  My brother was best friends with Matthew Sawyer’s sister.

  Life is full of surprises.

  Chapter 12

  The checklist worked! At least, I think it did, because Matt remembered to bring in the petition the next morning. It also could have been the fact that I called him five times before school.

  The first time I said, “Rise and shine! Remember to bring the petition!”

  The second time, I said, “Did you put it in your backpack?”

  The third time: “Are you sure?”

  The fourth: “Super, super sure?”

  And then: “You didn’t take it out again, did you? Can I talk to Chloe just to make sure?”

  When we showed Miss Mabel the petition, she was so impressed and so flattered.

  “You guys are the best,” she said. “I’m really proud of you.”

  When Miss Mabel is proud of you, it feels spectacular. It feels like drinking an ice-cold lemonade on a hot day, with a bulldog puppy licking your face and your favorite song playing on the radio.

  Since we were done with the petition, we could move on to the last step of our project—decorating our poster.

  That day during math, we drew a big number 100 in the middle of the poster, and Minnie decorated the space around it with one hundred musical notes. Then, after school, the whole group came over to my house to finish the poster. Even Minnie came, because she finally had a little break from piano lessons.

  “So how’d the recital go?” I asked. “Were you allegro when you played allegro?”

  “Yep!” she said. “And afterward, I got a trophy!”

  “It’s raining trophies all around me!” I moaned. “But I’m stuck under an umbrella!”

  As soon as we had gotten home, our group started working on the poster in the living room.

  “Sequins time!” Cora yelled.

  She took out a bag filled with about five billion red sequins. They were left over from the Queen of Hearts costume she’d made for our school play.

  “You sure you won’t go overboard?” Minnie asked with her eyebrows raised.

  Cora nodded.

  “You should take an oath,” I said, raising my right hand in the air. “Repeat after me: I, Cora Klein, do solemnly swear…”

  Cora repeated my words.

  “… to control myself when gluing sequins on things.”

  Minnie piped up. “I shall never glue sequins on a musical instrument or on huma
n hair.”

  Cora repeated everything.

  “Now say, ‘Cross my heart and hope to cry and never eat a whoopie pie,’” I said.

  She did promise. So I handed over the glue.

  “We’ll get snacks,” I told Cora. “Remember your oath.”

  Minnie and I went into the kitchen. We found Matt and Pearl in there, eating ants on a log. It’s Matt’s favorite snack. Of course.

  Matt was saying to Pearl, “So when a water bug crosses your path, what do you do?”

  “Weave it awone!” she replied.

  “That’s right!” he said, patting her head. “Want a raisin?”

  Pearl popped some raisins in her mouth. Then she ran out to find Ricardo so he could have a taste.

  Minnie, Matt, and I made nachos. There weren’t any of my favorite nacho toppings in the fridge, so we had to improvise. We melted mozzarella on top and dripped tomato sauce over that.

  “Pizza nachos!” I exclaimed.

  “Hmmmn,” said Minnie, taking a little taste. “They’re kind of gross but also kind of delicious.”

  Matt shoved a whole nacho into his mouth and said with his mouth full, “Ahhh, my favorite—grossalicious!”

  Suddenly, we heard Pearl shouting from the living room. We ran in to investigate.

  “WICAWDO!” she hollered. “He’s WUINED!”

  I looked on the table, next to our 100 Days poster. There was Ricardo, only he looked different. Lots of little red sequins glittered all over his dirty black fur. He looked like he had a fancy case of the chicken pox.

  “Cora!” I scolded. “You promised!”

  Cora’s face was as red as the sequins.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I guess I do get carried away.”

  I looked at Ricardo, with his too-big bunny panties and his tail duct-taped on and now the sequins all over his body. I shook my head.

  “Ricardo had no dignity left,” I said sadly. “And now he has less than none.”

  Pearl made her most furious face at Cora.

  “You bad—wike the gewbiws,” she said, wagging her finger.

  Then she grabbed Ricardo and stormed out.

  I zipped the bag of sequins closed.

  “I still love you, and you’re still my best friend forever and ever and ever,” I told her. “But I am taking these away! For your own good.”

  “At least the poster looks good,” Cora said.

  It did look good.

  It looked good, but not great. It needed a finishing touch.

  Minnie munched on a pizza nacho. “It needs a border.”

  “What about silver gum wrappers?” Matt said. “I have a hundred of them from the 100 Days project I did last year.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right,” I said. “Didn’t your group bring in a humongous gum wad, made from chewing one hundred pieces of gum?”

  “Yeah, and I still don’t see why we didn’t win,” he grumbled.

  The silver wrappers did seem like they’d be the perfect finishing touch. So when Matt went home, I handed him our poster with the petition attached.

  Chapter 13

  After everyone left, we had minestrone for dinner. That’s just Italian for vegetable soup.

  I am not a big fan of most vegetables, but I am a big fan of vegetable soup. It is one of the great mysteries of the world. Of course, to make the minestrone good, you have to put a big pile of Parmesan on it. That’s the secret ingredient.

  I had just had my first spoonful of minestrone when the phone rang. Even though Mom and Dad don’t like it when we answer the phone during dinner, I could not resist. A ringing phone makes me so curious.

  Jude always says, “Curiosity killed the cat!”

  And I say, “Well, cats have nine lives.”

  And Jude says, “Well, it probably killed him all nine times.”

  And Mom always says, “Are you really arguing about this? Really?”

  I love answering the phone because absolutely anyone could be on the other end. Once, I answered the phone and a voice said, “Congratulations! You have won forty thousand dollars!” I almost fainted with excitement. But when I gave Mom the phone, she said it was a scam.

  When I answered the phone that night, it wasn’t a person telling me I’d won a sweepstakes or anything fun like that. It was Matthew Sawyer.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked right away.

  “Why do you think something’s wrong?” he asked. “Maybe I’m just calling you to tell you everything is perfect and we are all ready for tomorrow.”

  “Are you calling me to tell me that everything is perfect and we are all ready for tomorrow?”

  “No,” he said. “Something’s wrong.”

  “MATTHEW SAWYER!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “WHAT HAPPENED?”

  “Do you want the good news or bad news first?”

  “Good news,” I said right away. I always want the good news first.

  “The good news is that there were plenty of gum wrappers, and the other good news is that I glued every single one on, and the best news is that it looked really, really, really great.”

  “So what’s the bad news?”

  “After I did all that, I lost the project.”

  I was so furious, I stomped my foot down. I stomped it so hard, I thought my foot might go right through the floor.

  “This is SERIOUS!” I told Matt. “We need that project first thing tomorrow morning or we’re toast! And not the good kind of toast, with heaps of butter and strawberry jam on it. We’re burned toast. Capisce?”

  “I know,” said Matt softly. “I can’t believe I lost it. I bet you think I’m the worst.”

  I had sort of been thinking that, but as soon as I heard his voice get so sad, I stopped being furious at him.

  “I don’t think you’re the worst,” I said. “And anyway, you’re in luck. I just so happen to be the president of a world-famous group of problem solvers. I can fix this in a jiff. Be right over!”

  Then I hung up the phone and raced into the living room shouting, “Code red! Code red! Code red!”

  “It’s happened,” Jude said. “She’s lost her last marble.”

  Pearl stood up in her high chair, waving her arms and shouting, “CODE WED! CODE WED!” Which would have made me laugh if I wasn’t totally freaking out.

  Mom said she’d take me to Matt’s house as soon as we finished dinner, so I sloshed big spoonfuls of soup into my mouth as fast as I could.

  Jude insisted on coming, too. I knew it was just because he wanted to talk to Chloe, but I didn’t care. We needed all the help we could get.

  Chapter 14

  Dr. Sawyer answered the door. She has the same hazel eyes as Matt and the same brown hair, only hers is long and shiny. She must have just come home from working at the hospital because she was still in her blue doctor uniform that looks just like pajamas. That’s one reason I’d love to be a doctor. You get to wear pajamas to work.

  There was a smudge of red on her top. When I saw it, I gulped hard.

  “Um, Dr. Sawyer?” I said. “You have a little blood on your shirt.”

  She looked down, stuck her finger in the smudge, and popped her finger in her mouth. Then she laughed.

  “It’s ketchup,” she said. “I was just eating a burger and fries.”

  Then Dr. Sawyer invited Mom into the kitchen for a cup of tea, and she told Jude and me that we could go upstairs.

  We got to the top of the stairs and saw a beautiful blue bedroom with clouds painted on the wall near the ceiling. There was a tidy bed, piled high with fluffy pillows. In the corner, there was a desk full of books, and sitting at the desk was Chloe, hunched over her dictionary.

  “Hi there,” she said.

  “What letter are you up to now?” asked Jude.

  “I,” she said. “And if you think there are a lot of con words, just wait until you get to the in words!”

  “Inform, inquire, intelligence,” Jude rattled off.

  “Involve, insist,
interfere,” Chloe added.

  “In need of help!” I cried. “Which is what we are! Because of your brother! Where is his room, anyway?”

  “The next door over,” said Chloe. “Enter at your own risk.”

  I walked down the hall, but Jude stayed behind with Chloe, thinking up more in words. I was wondering what Chloe had meant by “enter at your own risk.” Then I got to Matt’s doorway, and I knew.

  Matthew Sawyer’s room was an enormous, gigantic, ginormous mess.

  On every single inch of the room were heaps of books and Lego pieces and candy wrappers and empty cups and shoes and trading cards and comics and soccer balls and lots and lots of striped shirts. You couldn’t even see the floor or the furniture. His bed and desk and dresser just looked like big mountains of stuff.

  It took me a minute to even find Matt in the middle of it all. But finally, I spotted him, lying on his stomach on the floor, reading a book about spiders.

  “Matthew Sawyer!” I cried.

  “Oh, hey, what’s up?” he asked oh-so-casually. He said it like there was nothing at all the matter. “Did Pearl come with you? I read an article about the plague I wanted to tell her about.”

  I was speechless. Truly speechless! I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

  I just started pacing back and forth. Or, at least, I tried to pace. His floor was so messy, I couldn’t even walk! I just kept tripping!

  “Matthew Sawyer!” I exclaimed. “Your room—it’s—it’s—”

  My mom always says that if I don’t have anything nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all. So I was trying to think of a nice way to say “disaster.”

  But he finished my sentence: “It’s cool, I know. Did you see my mealworm? It’s in the larvae stage.”

  “Your room is a hideous nightmare!” I screeched. “No wonder you can’t find our project! You probably can’t even find your bed!”

  “Sure I can.” He walked over to a big lump and said, “Here it is!”

  But then he patted it a bit and said, “Strike that. This is my desk. But don’t worry. I know my bed is in here somewhere. And so is our project.”