The Upside of Ordinary

by Susan Lubner

  “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?” Ro shrieks.

  “The two of you wanted haircuts!” Zelda reminds Ro and Nina. “I tried to do a good job!” Zelda leaves the bathroom in a huff. When she slams the door a tuft of Ro’s beautiful hair blows across my foot. Then Zelda opens the door again. “By the way, Jermaine … don’t forget … for the next two months your allowance is mine …” She slams the door again.

  Ro jumps off the stool. “Look at my hair! Look what Zelda did to my hair! And you let her do it!” she cries.

  “It wasn’t supposed to …be … like … that …” I stumble over my words.

  “Well, you can’t put this in your show,” she says.

  A good friend wouldn’t put this scene in her show. But … a good producer would. “But … it’s reality TV …” I say.

  “Jermaine!” Nina yells.

  “Are you joking?” Ro is furious. I’d be mad, too, if someone chopped my hair off. “All this reality-TV stuff has affected your brain!” she continues. “You don’t care about anything anymore except getting famous!”

  “I do care!” I say. A heavy load of fear creeps around my heart when I wonder if she’s right.

  “No you don’t! I’m the one with ruined hair, not you!”

  I pick up the jagged scissors and cut off a hunk of my own hair. I reach around my head, snipping away. Then I switch to the other side. I manage to do just as bad a job as Zelda.

  “Are you serious?” Melinda asks me.

  Ro and I stand side by side looking into the mirror. It is hard to tell who looks worse.

  “There. Now you’re not the only one with an awful haircut.” I smile at her. I think I see a tiny smile back. Maybe I can be a good friend and a good producer at the same time.

  I help Ro rinse the awful canned color out of her hair. An orange river of Scare-Hair runs along the bottom of the tub. It flows gently toward the rim of the drain until, with a loud sucking noise, the water is pulled into an angry spin. I watch it disappear.

  10

  Are You There, Mr. Carmichael?

  Dear Mr. Carmichael,

  Talk about drama! My sister, Zelda, made a mess of my best friend’s hair with my mom’s zigzag scissors and I got it on film. Have you ever done anything like that for one of your own shows? My plan was to give her a makeover but things got out of hand. My sister turned out to be a lousy hairdresser. I felt so bad for my friend that I cut my hair off, too. The upside of all this is that I did get some really great footage for my show (though my friend doesn’t want it in the show!) What would you do? Even worse than that (besides our awful haircuts) is that when Mom saw what Zelda did to Ro’s hair and what I did to mine, she was really mad. We can’t watch TV or use the computer (except for homework). And my mom took away my camera for a solid week! It’s not that we didn’t deserve to be punished (because we did) but it’s totally unfair that I got three punishments (TV, computer, and camera) and Zelda only got two (TV and computer). Then to top it all off, Ro’s mom wasn’t happy, either. She took Ro to the hairdresser to “fix” the cut Zelda gave her and Zelda and I have to pay for it. Mom’s taking it out of our allowances. That’s a whole other problem for me, but I won’t bother you with details. Filming is on hold for the rest of the week. I’ll keep you posted.

  It sure would be great to hear back from you really soon. Especially now that my show is on hiatus and I have plenty of time to read through my mail… not that I ever get any… hint, hint.

  Your patient fan,

  Jermaine

  PS Did you like my idea about The Country Life? You should come to the Pickle Palooza. It’s in a couple weeks and the whole town will probably be there… including yours truly!

  11

  Good Things

  “I like your new haircut,” I tell Ro when I plop down next to her on the bus. We both had to have our hair cut yesterday by a real hairdresser after the “makeover.” It’s just below her chin. Ro doesn’t say thanks or anything. She gets up out of the seat and squeezes past me.

  “Sit down!” the bus driver calls out when he sees her. I look up to see the driver’s nervous eyeballs in the rear-view mirror. “We’re moving,” he warns.

  I twist around in my seat and try to make eye contact with Ro, but she pretends she doesn’t see me. “RO!” I shout. “I thought you weren’t mad at me?” She sits three rows behind me with a kid she hardly knows.

  “Yup, she’s mad at you. She’s not talking,” Lindsey Steinbrecker, who’s sitting behind me, comments. “What did you do to tick her off?” she asks. I ignore her. “Does it have something to do with your twin haircuts?”

  “Stop it,” I tell her. Ro doesn’t understand what it takes to be a famous person. It’s hard work. It involves sacrifice. I rub my thumb over the lucky skull ring. I hope she doesn’t ask for it back.

  Ro ignores me all day even though I’ve said I’m sorry like a hundred times. Melinda and Nina can’t convince her to forgive me. She won’t come to the phone when I call her after school, either.

  “I’m sorry, honey, she’s still upset about the whole hair thing,” her mother says. Gosh, even her mom isn’t angry anymore. She called me honey. “I’ll try to talk to her,” her mom tells me before I hang up.

  My Magic 8 Ball doesn’t give me a straight answer when I ask if Ro and I will ever be friends again. “Ask again later” and “Can’t tell you now” keep bobbing in the window.

  Ro stays mad at me for most of the week. By Thursday, she still isn’t speaking to me. And then after school, something really unsettling happens. Nina, her mom, and I visit Granny Viola at the Bluebird Nest & Rest Senior Home and Granny V keeps forgetting who I am.

  “Look who’s here,” Pat tells Granny V She puts her arm around Granny Viola’s tiny, round shoulders. “You’ve got some company.” Granny Viola sits at a table with a blanket over her lap. She cuts coupons from a stack of newspapers.

  “Hi, Mrs. Church.” I hand her a small loaf of banana bread Mom and I baked the night before.

  “Who are you?” she says in a whispery voice. “Who’s that?” she asks Nina’s mother, pointing at me with a knobby finger.

  “You know Jermaine, Mother, she’s been here many times,” Nina’s mom reminds her.

  “Yes, that’s right.” Granny squints at me. “I forget sometimes,” she says in her quiet voice. And she isn’t kidding. Ten minutes later she asks again who I am! Not a good sign for someone whose main goal in life is to become famous.

  My luck changes on Friday. The skull ring finally kicks into gear. Besides it being the last day before February vacation (yay!), I convince Mom to let me have my camera back. All week I have been extremely persistent. One thing I’ve learned since becoming a reality-show producer is that persistence does pay off. Ask any famous person, and they’ll tell you the same thing. I’ve heard them say so in interviews on TV.

  “The scales of justice are not balanced,” I kept telling Mom, referring to the fact that my punishment was harsher than Zelda’s. I got that line from one of those courtroom reality shows. At the beginning of the show, a serious voice announces, “In Judge Wanda’s courtroom, the scales of justice are BALANCED!” And then some aggressive music plays, with lots of violins and cymbals crashing, and Judge Wanda enters the courtroom in her long black robe holding her little wooden hammer. After hearing me quote that “scales of justice are not balanced” line about twenty times, Mom finally broke down and said, “Oh for Pete’s sake, use your flippin’ camera already!”

  Then at school another good thing happens. Ro forgives me! First, I catch her staring at me a few times. Then in art, I pick up her pastel when it falls to the floor, and she thanks me! By lunchtime, she’s back at our regular table. Ro bites her sandwich and hands me an Oreo—a peace offering.

  “I’m not mad anymore,” she says.

  “Good,” I say. “And I really do like your new haircut.” Ro starts to giggle. “What?” I ask. Melinda and Nina look at Ro, too. “What’s so funny?” I ask aga
in. I scrape the white cream inside the cookie with my top teeth.

  “The whole makeover thing, if you think about it,” she says. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to trust Zelda to cut my hair!”

  “I’m glad I didn’t let her touch my hair,” Nina says.

  “Yes, especially after she butchered Ro!” Melinda interrupts. Melinda, Nina, and I crack up.

  “It’s not that funny,” Ro says seriously.

  “No it’s not,” I say quickly. We quit laughing.

  “Thanks for cutting your hair off, Jermaine,” Ro tells me.

  “I like having matching cuts!” I smile, though my hair is so frizzy it looks more like an Afro compared to Ro’s silky bob. “Thanks for letting Zelda cut your hair,” I say.

  “I’m glad you’re not using that makeover disaster in your show,” she says. “I’d be so embarrassed. My nose was running, too.”

  Thinking about what to do with that scene makes me lose my appetite. I push my sandwich aside. What would Rufus Carmichael do? If Ro was his best friend he would probably take it out. But he already has so many successful shows! I don’t have any!

  “I still want to be in your show, though,” Ro continues. “Maybe when I get back from Florida you can film me when I’m tan, okay?” She smiles at me and tries to flip her hair, but it’s too short.

  “Sure.” I tell her. “Don’t worry. You’ll all be in it … even if it’s just a cameo …”

  “What does that mean?” Nina asks. But I don’t answer because I’m distracted by what I just said! Even if it’s just a cameo … it’s like Hollywood jargon. I feel a twinge of famous-ness wash over me, which makes me feel a whole lot better.

  After lunch, yet another good thing happens. Let me remind you that without TV and computer all week, and without my camera until this morning, I have had a lot of time to think about what to do next with my reality show. All this talk about hair has given me a great idea.

  Last month over the Martin Luther King holiday, the roof leaked and our class pet Sugarplum, a really friendly guinea pig, got drenched, and cold, and died. Besides being tragic and sad, the room stank really badly when we got back from the long weekend. We had to keep the windows open, even though it was like eighteen degrees outside. (This is obviously not the good thing I was referring to.) So, I suggest to Mrs. Finn that it would be wise to have someone bring our new class pet home over the February vacation week.

  “What if the roof leaks again?” I ask her. “Or there’s some other disaster?”

  “That’s a great idea, Jermaine,” Mrs. Finn agrees. “Let’s draw numbers to see who gets to take Harry home for the week.”

  “Draw numbers?” I ask. “But it’s my idea,” I remind Mrs. Finn.

  “Yes, it’s a very prudent idea,” she tells me. “Who knows what I mean by prudent?” she asks the rest of the class. Lindsey volunteers to look it up, of course, even though most everyone figures it out by context.

  “Smart,” someone says.

  “Good,” someone else suggests. While everyone tries one-upping each other’s definitions, I’m thinking that the idea I have for getting some amazing footage for my reality show cannot happen without the class pet.

  “Mrs. Finn,” I say to my teacher, “I really need to take Harry home for the week.”

  “I want to take Harry home! Let me take Harry.” Tyler Gibbs sticks his head in front of Mrs. Finn’s face, blocking me from her view.

  “Excuse me. I was talking to Mrs. Finn.” I step around Tyler so Mrs. Finn sees me.

  “Please, please, I’ll take good care of him,” he pleads.

  “But it was my idea,” I remind Mrs. Finn again. “I’ll do a really good job.” Mrs. Finn pushes at her bottom lip with a boney finger. Persistence, persistence, persistence, I chant inside my head. “Please,” I say again.

  “Somebody’s pushy,” Tyler says to me.

  “Enough!” Mrs. Finn tells us. (Here comes the good part …) “Hmmmm …” she says. “You really want the job as pet-sitter, don’t you?” she asks me.

  “So do I,” Tyler pleads.

  “Jermaine did ask first. It was her idea. Yes, I do think that’s fair,” she tells me, nodding. She turns to Tyler. “You can take Harry home over spring break,” she says to him.

  “YES!” I shout. “Thanks, Mrs. Finn!” Tyler slumps his shoulders in defeat.

  “Hey,” I say, “you can come and visit him if you want to.”

  “Thanks. But it’s not the same.”

  “Ewwwww! Why in the world would you want to take that creepy thing home? I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing he could escape,” Ro shivers.

  “Harry is not creepy,” I say. “He’s cute.” So cute, as a matter of fact, he’ll be guest starring in my reality show, wink, wink.

  12

  Ping

  Since Mom is petrified of spiders, I figure it would be to everyone’s advantage (especially mine) if I didn’t go into too much detail about our new class pet. Standing in the doorway of the pickle barn, I hold the cage behind my left leg. Mom barely looks up from her pot of brine when I tell her I’ll be taking care of Harry for the week.

  “Just keep him in the basement with the rest of the rodents,” she says.

  The next morning when I come down for breakfast, Mom is spooning something red and relish-y into a tiny paper cup.

  “Try some of this,” she says to me, smiling into the camera. Her hair is still tucked into a net that she must have forgotten to take off when she came in from the barn. “I need a new product for the Pickle Palooza. This is pickled red pepper relish,” she tells me. I zoom in on the open jar and get a close-up of a chopped onion.

  “Is it spicy?” I ask. I pick up one of the tiny white spoons, the same kind the ice-cream scooper-person uses when you want to try a flavor you’re unsure of.

  “No, the peppers are sweet,” she explains, “but the pickles make it tangy.” I put the relish in my mouth and let it sit on my tongue for a second before I swallow.

  “It’s really good,” I tell her.

  “You like it?” She smiles. “Do you think the judges will give it first prize?”

  “Definitely!” I tell her. The Palooza is the most important event of the year for a small pickle business like Mom’s. Winning the Best New Pickle Product prize would be really special—especially since the Palooza is being held in Bangor this year.

  Dad comes into the kitchen and kisses the top of my head. He kisses Mom right on the lips.

  “Hellllllooooo …” I say. “This is a family show!” I press the pause button. Mom and Dad laugh.

  “It’s just a good-morning kiss, don’t be so silly,” she tells me. “Try this.” She hands Dad a bit of the relish. “This is a winner, I know it,” she says excitedly.

  “Mmmmm … a winner …” Dad nods his head.

  “I’ve still got lots of work,” Mom chatters. “I want to make sure I’ve got extra jars of everything … enough to sell, and for sampling of course”—Mom turns the lid back onto the jar of relish—“and I want to take Edie out today … help take her mind off … things.” I turn the camera back on.

  “When is Uncle Larry coming back?” I ask.

  “Not sure,” Mom says quietly. Then she exhales loudly, shaking her head.

  “He will come back, right?” Mom and Dad look at each other and then at me.

  Dad puts his hand on my shoulder. “I know, honey, it’s a difficult situation, isn’t it?” he says.

  “And it’s … weird …” I say. “When are you coming back from lunch?” I ask my mother.

  “I’m not sure exactly,” she says.

  I can tell by the look Mom gives Dad that she thinks I’m worried that she won’t come back, like Uncle Larry. But I’m not worried about that. I know my mom would never take off. She would never do that to us. I miss my uncle but I am angry at him, too. How could he do this to Aunt Edie and Melinda? What was he thinking, running away from his family? And he sure isn’t making my
life any easier, keeping my reality-show audience dangling.

  Mom slides her hand down the side of my cheek and under my chin. “I’ll be home by four o’clock, okay?” I nod.

  While Mom is with Aunt Edie, Melinda spends the day with us. Here’s what I get on film: Melinda and I run errands with Dad at Walmart. While Dad looks for drawer organizers for the messy drawers he’s always complaining about, Melinda and I make our way over to the small-animal-supply aisle. I film Melinda sliding seven honey sticks off the steel pole and tossing them into the red shopping basket. Melinda is in love with the idea of being on TV.

  “Stop smiling into the camera,” I direct her. “Act natural.”

  “Oh, sorry, like this?” She turns away from me and pretends I’m not there.

  “That’s better. Turn sideways now so I can get your face. Grab some bedding for the hamsters,” I tell her. Melinda takes a big block of bedding off the shelf. It doesn’t fit in the little basket so she grasps it by the plastic handle that’s attached to the packaging. She holds it up for the camera and turns her mouth up in a ridiculously fake smile.

  “This isn’t a commercial. Just pretend the camera’s not here,” I instruct. Then we meet Dad at the checkout counter as planned, and he buys us a roll of Life Savers Gummies on the way out, nothing too exciting.

  We stop at the dry cleaners. Through the back window of the car, I film Dad when he slams the trunk on the long plastic sheets protecting the clothes. He opens the trunk back up and tucks the plastic inside. We pull up to the drive-thru window at the bank, and the teller waves into the camera. I film Dad pumping gas. Then I zoom in on him squeegeeing the windshield clean. Dad takes us to China Sail for lunch and we eat kung pao chicken. Melinda tries to use chopsticks but makes a mess and drops a peanut in her lap. We bring the leftovers home in a little white box for Zelda and her friend Katrina. It’s all so utterly ordinary. When I am famous, I will hire someone to do all my boring errands, and a personal chef to make kung pao chicken every night of the week, if I feel like it.