Just Grace and the Super Sleepover

by Charise Mericle Harper

  If I had mind-reading skills, Mr. Scruffers’s brain would be one of the first brains I’d want to read.

  After I finished playing with Mr. Scruffers I went inside, and right away I saw a letter for me, waiting on the kitchen table.

  THE LETTER

  Before I even opened it, I knew exactly who it was from and what it was for. It was an invitation to Grace F.’s birthday sleepover. Grace F. is not very good at surprises. She’s not like Miss Lois. As soon as her mom said she could have a birthday sleepover, she told everyone who was going to be invited all about it. I opened the envelope, pulled out the card, and then suddenly I was the one who was surprised.

  Some people like to sleep outside and do camping things, but I am not one of those people. In my whole life, I have never slept outside before—and suddenly just thinking about it was making me nervous.

  THINGS THAT ARE DIFFERENT

  BETWEEN SLEEPING INSIDE AND

  SLEEPING OUTSIDE

  When you are nervous and uncomfortable, sometimes a mom can help. I looked around the house until I found Mom. I had lots of questions.

  Is it legal to sleep in a backyard?

  Do bears live around here?

  What kind of bugs come out at night?

  If you are going to be attacked by a wolf, does it howl first to warn you?

  Is Grace F.’s house near a graveyard?

  Mom said she was pretty sure I didn’t have to worry about creatures or ghosts. I nodded, but still I would have been happier if the invitation was for more than just me. A dog is a good thing to have with you if you are worried about sleeping outside.

  WHAT I DIDN’T GET TO SAY TO MR. SCRUFFERS

  I felt a little better when Mom said she’d call Grace F.’s mom to ask about the party.

  THE PARTY FACTS MOM FOUND OUT

  We are all going to sleep in one big tent.

  Grace F.’s big sister Stephanie is going to sleep outside with us.

  We are going to have a campfire and make s’mores, but Grace F.’s dad is going to be there, so Mom said she wasn’t worried about the fire.

  I didn’t say anything, but Mom’s facts didn’t make me feel any better. Instead of them being gone, my worries were even bigger, and suddenly I had a new question.

  Is Grace F.’s big sister nice?

  THE SURPRISE AT THE DOOR

  Mimi knocking on my door is never a surprise. We are best friends, and she is always coming over, but today there was a surprise part, and it had to do with the sleepover. Mimi wasn’t like me, because as soon as I opened the door, she waved her party invitation in the air and said, “This is going to be the best party ever! Aren’t you super excited?” Mimi’s little brother, Robert, was standing next to her, and I let them both in. I smiled and nodded to answer her question. The time didn’t seem exactly right to tell her the truth about how I was feeling. Robert walked in ahead of Mimi. He looked grumpy. “I want to sleep outside,” he said. Mimi shook her head. “Ignore him,” she said. “He’s jealous.”

  Robert nodded. Now he looked even sadder, but then he tugged at my sleeve and looked up at me. “Beetles come out at night. Will you catch some for me?” he asked. Instantly Mimi was scowling. She put her hands on her hips and glared down at him. “Robert, I already told you, we’re not going bug hunting. It’s a party, and Grace is like me—she won’t have time to look for beetles.” Robert ignored her. He poked me to make sure I was paying attention to him and then spread his hands apart. “The titan beetle can grow this big,” he said. I scrunched up my face and looked at Mimi. She nodded. “It’s true,” she said. “It can be seven inches long, but don’t worry, it doesn’t live here.” “It’s a rainforest bug,” complained Robert. “All the good stuff lives in the rainforest.” I didn’t say anything, but I was glad about that, and doubly glad that the rainforest was far away from my house.

  Talking about bugs was not a good idea. It was not helping me be excited about the sleepover—in fact, it was doing the exact opposite. I had to get rid of Robert so we could change the subject. I pointed to the back door. “Robert, why don’t you go outside and play with Mr. Scruffers.” Robert smiled and ran to the door, but before he went outside, he turned around and gave me one more beetle fact. “Did you know there are thousands of different kinds of beetles that live right here where we do?” It was exactly the kind of fact I didn’t want to know about.

  MIMI

  Usually when Mimi comes over we talk about a million different things, but today all she wanted to talk about was the sleepover. I tried to change the subject, but every time I did, she just changed it back again. And then after a while of agreeing with her about how exciting it was, it was too late to tell her the truth.

  Mimi knew a lot more about the party than I did, so at least that was interesting. Five girls were invited: me, Mimi, Grace L., Marta, and a girl we didn’t know named Lisa. Mimi said Lisa was a girl in Grace F.’s Wednesday afterschool art class. I was wondering how come Mimi knew so much about the party, but before I could ask her, she gave me the answer. She said she’d opened her invitation the minute she got home from school and then called Grace F. right away to tell her she was coming. Having Mom call had been a huge mistake—she didn’t get any of the good or important details.

  Mimi’s favorite thing about the party was the number one thing I didn’t like. It was weird to have us feeling so different about it. I wanted to make myself be like her, and be excited, but I couldn’t. Just thinking about being in the dark, with creatures all around, made my ears hot and my hands sweaty. Plus now I was worried about beetles, too!

  I was a good actress though, because Mimi didn’t even notice. I think that can happen when you are really excited about something—your paying-attention skills don’t work as well. Mimi had all sorts of ideas about the party. Suddenly she looked at me and said, “Let’s get up in the middle of the night and go outside and look up at the stars. Wouldn’t that be amazing?” I nodded, but my insides were not agreeing with my outsides. My insides were thinking all sorts of things that I was not saying out loud.

  WHAT IS A LIE

  Even though school is for learning, it doesn’t teach you everything. Right now I could name the earth’s seven continents, but that wasn’t one bit helpful when I was trying to figure out if nodding my head counts as a lie or not. And if it does count, is it as bad as a speaking lie? And if you only say a one-word lie, is that as bad as a whole-sentence lie?

  WHAT WAS NOT NORMAL

  Usually when Mimi comes over I am sad to see her leave, but today was different. Today I couldn’t wait for her mom to call and tell her she had to come home for dinner. My head was spinning, and I wanted to stop talking about, and even thinking about, the sleepover. I was 100 percent wishing that Grace F. had picked something different for her birthday, something regular and normal, like skating or bowling.

  NIGHTTIME

  Mimi’s bedroom window is right across from mine, so at night before we go to bed we flash our lights at each other. Usually we do it three times, and as I flash the light on and off, I always say the same three words, “See you tomorrow.” But tonight I said something different: I said words I had never said before.

  WHAT IS HARD TO DO

  Go to sleep when all you can think about is giant beetles. It helped that Mr. Scruffers was sleeping next to me, but still, it took a lot longer to fall asleep than normal. Finally, since I couldn’t stop thinking about them, I had to imagine that the giant beetles were wearing tutus and doing a dance routine. It definitely made them less scary. Too bad that kind of thing couldn’t happen in real life.

  WALKING TO SCHOOL

  Mimi and I always walk to school together. Even before she came over, I knew what she would want to be talking about—the sleepover. She was excited about it, and when you are excited about something, you can’t help but talk about it. I was not like her. When you are not excited about something, all you want to do is ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist. This was not go
ing to be an easy walk.

  I was waiting and ready to go when Mimi knocked on my door. I yelled goodbye to Mom and followed Mimi outside. When we got to the sidewalk, she turned around and held out her hand. “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said. “This is for you.” I stepped closer to see what she was holding, and then screamed and ran back to the house. It was a giant bug. Mimi laughed and held it up by its leg. “It’s not real, see? It’s plastic. Robert wanted you to have it so you’d remember to get beetles.”

  She walked over to where I was standing and held her hand out so I could see it closer. I shook my head and took a step back. I didn’t want to touch it. Mimi put it in her backpack and then gave me a strange look. “When did you get scared of bugs?” she asked. I shrugged and sighed. “It’s a new thing,” I said. It was true—being scared of bugs had just started, and it was all because of camping.

  I was right about Mimi wanting to talk about the sleepover, but instead of talking about the tent, she wanted to tell me about the craft project we were going to do. Mimi loves crafts, so she was super excited that we were going to be making our own stuffed characters. At first I was worried that it was going to be all about sewing, but Mimi said it was more about gluing, so that was good. Of course Mimi would sew hers, even if she didn’t have to—her hands loved sewing. My hands were happier about the glue.

  OUR MORNING AT SCHOOL

  Miss Lois was still filled with joy about the earth, and even though I was nervous about the sleepover and thinking my own thoughts, her joy snuck into me and made me feel better. We practiced the continents song a few more times, and then we learned where everything fit on the map. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be, and I even got the oceans right.

  When Miss Lois thought that everyone understood where everything went, she gave us our new earth notebooks. The first thing we did was glue in a map of the earth and then color and label all the continents and oceans. She said we could be creative, so I used fancy letters to write out the ocean names.

  Of course Miss Lois was wrong about everyone knowing where everything went. Peter Marchelli sits in the desk across from me, and when I looked over at his map, I could tell that it was wrong. He put the Arctic Ocean under North America, and I don’t think he was the only one, because after walking around the class to check our work, Miss Lois made us all stand up and put our arms out so we could learn about north, south, east, and west. The north and south part is easy to remember, but the east and the west parts were confusing. Miss Lois said that sometimes it’s easier to remember something if you can think of a memory trick to go with it.

  Some of the kids got confused about that, but I knew exactly what she meant, and I came up with some good ones to help me remember.

  SUNNI'S LUNCH

  Today Sunni ate a flower and a bee. Some of the boys were disappointed that it wasn’t something more crazy and weird, but still it was amazing. And even though we were all wishing we could have a lunch like Sunni’s, it didn’t feel like a bad jealousy.

  GOOD JEALOUSY

  After we were done eating, Grace F., Grace L., Marta, and me and Mimi all got together to talk about the birthday sleepover. Grace F. said we had to remember to bring sleeping bags and pillows, and then she told us all about the giant tent we were going to sleep in. She said the only bad part was that her sister Stephanie had to sleep in there with us too. “She snores,” said Grace F., and then she did an impression of her sister snoring that made us all laugh. Grace L. didn’t laugh very hard, but I couldn’t tell what she was thinking about. And then right when the bell rang to go back inside, Grace L. said, “I’m not going to stay for the sleepover part. I don’t like tents.” For a second no one said anything, but then Grace F. asked, “Can you stay for everything else?” Grace L. nodded, and that was it. No one said one more word about it—they just went back to talking about the sleepover. I couldn’t believe that no one was asking her tons of questions about what she had said, or trying to get her to change her mind. It was like the second she finished talking, everyone had forgotten what she said. I wasn’t like them. I was still thinking about it.

  WHAT WAS GREAT ABOUT THE AFTERNOON

  It went by super fast. That was good, because it’s always nice to go home, but it was bad, too, because the faster the week went by, the sooner it would be Saturday—the day of the sleepover party.

  Time really only goes by at one speed, but not everyone is always happy about that. Right now, sitting in this classroom, there was one person who wanted it to go super slow, and four people who wanted it to go fast.

  The last thing that happened in the afternoon was that we all got earth project partners. When Miss Lois said, “It’s time to pick partners,” everyone groaned. The groaning was for one reason only—Miss Lois never lets us pick our own partners. But this time Miss Lois surprised us and said, “You can pick your own partners.” Instantly the room was filled with everyone being excited, and talking and moving around. Of course my partner was going to be Mimi. She can move fast when she wants to. She was at my desk before I could even stand up.

  WHAT WE GET TO DO WITH OUR PARTNERS THIS WEEK

  Find out three facts about the continent or ocean we are assigned.

  Use a compass to find a treasure.

  As soon as Miss Lois said “treasure,” everyone got excited.

  But that didn’t last very long, because Miss Lois’s treasure was not a real treasure. It wasn’t gold, or jewels, or money, or even anything a little bit good. It was only the word treasure written on a piece of paper. It was hard to stay excited about that.

  WHAT MIMI’S BRAIN WAS THINKING ABOUT WHEN WE WERE WALKING HOME

  As soon as Mimi told me her idea, I put my hand up and high-fived her. It was a great idea, and for sure it was going to make Grace F. feel special and happy, which was good, because having your birthday on a school day is not very exciting. On school birthdays only two fun things ever happen.

  You get to bring in a special treat for the class to eat at snack time.

  You get wished a happy birthday over the loudspeaker during the morning announcements.

  Other than that, it’s pretty much a regular, not very exciting school day.

  WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I GOT HOME

  I played with Mr. Scruffers. That’s the good thing about having a dog: even if your brain is busy thinking of other things, you can still make your dog happy.

  When dinner was over, I told Mom about the tent, and how I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. It was too hard to keep it a secret anymore. I could tell that she was surprised, but what I was hoping for didn’t come true—she didn’t have any ideas to help me. Mom is not a camper type person. She said she’d only ever slept in a tent once, when she was five years old. I shook my head. Mom being five years old was a long time ago, and when something’s that far back, it’s almost like it doesn’t count.

  That night Dad came to talk to me at bedtime. He’s not a big camper either, but he was not like Mom—he had an idea.

  DAD’S IDEA

  Borrow a tent from a friend.

  Sleep in the tent in the backyard on Friday night so I can get used to camping before the party happens.

  The second after Dad told me his idea, I jumped up and gave him a huge hug. It was the kind of plan that was going to work, I could tell—plus how could I be scared about being outside when both Dad and Mr. Scruffers were going to be right there next to me? Dad’s idea reminded me of something Augustine Dupre always says: Practice makes perfect. Suddenly I was feeling a whole lot better about things.

  Before I went to bed I made two lists, one of all the things Dad and I could do, and one of all the things I didn’t want to do. It was strange, but suddenly I was more excited about Friday than I was about Saturday.

  That night at bedtime, when I flashed my lights at Mimi, I was back to using the normal words like I usually did. Of course Mimi couldn’t tell the difference, because all she saw was three flashes, but to me the difference was h
uge.

  WHAT WAS A SURPRISE IN THE MORNING

  This morning I was just opening the door to walk outside when Mimi knocked. The first thing she asked me was, “Did you make your card for Grace F.?” The answer was no, I had totally forgotten about it, but that’s not what I said. The word that came out of my mouth was a surprise. Without even thinking about it, my mouth said, “Yes.” And once the yes was out, I couldn’t take it back. I put my head down so Mimi couldn’t see my face. She didn’t notice. Instead she just talked about how surprised Grace F. was going to be with all her cards. I was thinking about surprises too, only mine were not good.