WHAT HAPPENED AFTER SCHOOL
Sammy wanted to walk home with Mimi and me so he could get his stone. It was nice to have Mimi being normal again and being friendly to Sammy. As soon as we got to my front yard Lily came running over. "Hi, Grace." She grabbed my hand like we were best friends. She said hi to Mimi too, but she did not say her name. I was sorry about that. Mom says you should use a person's name when you meet them, because it makes them feel more special. She is right about that, because it really does.
HERE IS AN EXAMPLE:
I introduced Lily to Sammy, but she said she'd already met him when he'd gotten his jar of rocks. They kind of just smiled at each other and didn't say anything.
Today Lily was wearing a yellow tutu. I was suddenly getting the feeling that she probably had a big collection of tutus in all sorts of colors.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
Lily's mom, Yvonne, came over to drag Lily back to their house. This was a big relief, because I had a lot to do for the show, plus I had all my regular homework too. I did not have any extra time left over to be playing with Lily. Everyone else went home too except for Sammy. He waited on the front steps while I ran in to get his rock.
WHAT I WOULD NEVER SAY
"Wow! This is a great rock—thank you." But coming out of Sammy's mouth it sounded perfectly normal, and it made me happy.
WHAT I SAW THAT WAS UNUSUAL
After Sammy left, I saw Mimi standing in Mrs. Luther's driveway. She was talking to Yvonne and Lily. Normally I would have run over there to see what was going on, but instead I made myself sneak over to Mimi's house to talk to her mom about part two.
WHAT FEELS GOOD
Mimi's mom is so nice. Now that I did my talking to her, it's hard to even remember why I was thinking I was going to be nervous about it. She said yes to part two of the plan. And the best part of all was that Mimi didn't even see me asking her. The show was still going to be a surprise, and I was happy about that! It made it even more exciting.
I was back in my yard when Mimi walked back from Mrs. Luther's. "I was giving Yvonne my old hula hoops for Lily," said Mimi. "Good idea," I said.
Mimi couldn't talk anymore because her mom called her in for dinner. As I was waving goodbye it looked like her mom winked at me, or maybe a bug flew in her eye. It was hard to tell 100 percent, but I was pretty sure it was a wink.
PART FOUR OF THE PLAN
Part four of the plan is the making part of the plan, and it was probably going to take a long time to finish it. The bad thing about a big plan is that when you are doing the thinking part of the plan, everything is very exciting and the plan seems like it will be fast and easy to finish. But when you really start working on it, that's when you suddenly know that you were wrong and that the doing part isn't going to be so fast and easy after all.
HOW TO MAKE A SHADOW PUPPET
A. DRAW PICTURE
It's best to draw on black paper with
a white crayon. That way you can see
your line better.
B. CUT OUT PICTURE
You can use scissors.
PART FIVE OF THE PLAN
Ask Mom to help.
Mom is going to do all the cutting parts and I am going to do the drawing part. Now, with her helping, it is not going to take so long. Mom said she was happy to be helping. She was especially happy after I told her that I really got the idea from something she did for me.
WHAT MOM DID TO HELP ME AT MY FIRST SLEEPOVER AT MIMI'S HOUSE
Even though Mimi lives just next door, when I was little I was scared to sleep in a bed that was not in my room. I really wanted to sleep over at Mimi's, but I did not want to miss Mom saying good night to me. Mom told me she had a surprise for me, and that when it was bedtime at Mimi's house she wanted me to look out Mimi's window and watch my bedroom window.
This is the show she made me. It started with window one and ended with window three.
Mom always used to call me her little star, so this was a perfect little show for me to see.
THIS IS HOW MOM DID IT
WHAT LILY WAS WEARING ON THURSDAY
Lily was wearing a green tutu. She didn't see me watching her from the front yard, so I shouted her name and waved. This was new for me. NO hiding.
Mimi came out a few minutes later and we had a nice walk to school—just the two of us.
THE BIG THING THAT HAPPENED AT SCHOOL
The only interesting thing that happened at school today was that Miss Lois gave Owen 1 a gold star on his folder for going the whole entire day without playing with the Velcro on his shoes. This probably made it a big special day for him, but for the rest of us it was just like any other day except without the ripping noise.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER SCHOOL
I told Mimi I wanted to get home to do my homework, but really I needed to get working on the show. Mimi said she was going to do some more sister-room designing. I could tell that she was still really nervous about making the right choices, because now she was thinking about having the room be totally decorated with teddy bears. Yesterday she said it was going to be bunnies, or ducks, or balloons. She was having a hard time deciding on anything. I was having the feeling that the sister-room project was not turning out to be as much fun as she thought it would be.
Mimi is filled with worry.
WHAT HAPPENED WHILE MOM AND I WERE WORKING
Augustine Dupre came upstairs to tell me that everything was set for Friday night. She said Yvonne was going to bring Lily over at seven-thirty. I could tell that she would have liked to watch the show too, but it was a special performance for Mimi and Lily only.
WHAT IS NICE
It's nice to go to sleep thinking that you are ready for something you have been working on. I knew that Mom and I were going to finish on time, and in my head everything was going to work out perfectly. It had to.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ARE SUPER EXCITED
You get dressed, eat your breakfast, and are completely ready for school by 7:14 a.m.
WHAT IS NOT SO GOOD
Being ready for school over an hour early and having nothing else to do but wait, because school doesn't start until 8:45. Mom made me wait until it was 8:00 before she let me go over to Mimi's house to give her the invitation. Once I got there I had to wait some more, because Mimi was still upstairs getting dressed.
WHAT MIMI SAID WHEN SHE SAW THE INVITATION
"OH MY GOSH, GRACE! WHAT IS THIS? IT'S FOR ME? I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. TELL ME!!!! TELL ME!!" And then she started to do little bounces up and down like she always does when she gets super excited. If you spent four days making your best friend a special show, this is the exact kind of perfect way you would want her to act when she found out about it.
WHAT I TOLD MIMI ABOUT THE SHOW
Nothing. I said, "Mimi, I can't tell you anything. It's a surprise."
WHAT WAS LONG
When you are waiting for something that is going to happen at the end of a day, the whole part of the day that is in front of the end part can seem like it is taking forever. School felt like it was never going to end. Even though some good things happened, it still seemed to go by super slow.
THE GOOD THINGS THAT HAPPENED
We watched a video of an elephant that could write the words love and hope in cursive. Miss Lois told us it was a boy elephant, and if a boy elephant could write in cursive, then a boy human should be able to do it too. Everyone thought this was pretty funny, even the boys.
Grace F.'s birthday's on Saturday, so we all got to have blueberry muffins at snack-time. Cupcakes would have been better, but Mr. Harris is trying to get all the kids not to eat so many sweets, so Grace F. 's mom had to make muffins instead.
Because the muffins took so long to eat, Miss Lois canceled our spelling test for today and said we would have it on Monday instead.
Brian Aber's dad came to the class to show us his banjo. He played two songs and was really good. He said he did not know how to the play the guitar, which was a surpr
ise because they both kind of look the same. I was wishing he would stay longer so we wouldn't have to do math, but Miss Lois wouldn't let him play any more songs or answer any more questions, so he had to leave. She really is the boss of the classroom, even when there is a dad there.
FINALLY
When the bell rang Mimi and I walked straight home. She was going to clean up her room and I was going to finish up the show with Mom.
WHAT MOM SAID
Right before Lily came over Mom told me that no matter what happened she was very proud of me. This was a nice thing to hear, and I was hoping she was going to remember this happiness the next time she was thinking about getting mad at me for some reason.
Before, when I was still getting stuff ready I was not one bit worried about anything, but now the waiting-for-it-to-start part was making me nervous. It was taking forever for Augustine Dupre to bring Lily over. Suddenly my brain was thinking of all the things that could go wrong, and it was not easy to get it to stop.
It was a huge relief when Lily said, "Grace! Grace! I'm here. You can stop waiting."
THE START
Lily gave me a big hug and for once I was happy about that. Like always, she was wearing a tutu. This time it was a purple one. "It's the best twirler of all my tutus," said Lily, and then she did a twirl to show me. "You're right," I said. "It is a good one." And then after about five more twirls we started our walk over to Mimi's.
It was just starting to get dark, which is the perfect kind of light for a shadow show.
Mimi was excited too, and I knew that, because instead of waiting for us inside, she met us in her front yard. It was not easy to try to pretend like I was not nervous. All three of us walked up to Mimi's room.
Right when we got to Mimi's room I said, "Remember that cool clapping song game we used to do at school?" It was one of those games where you say a rhyme and clap your hands together at the same time. Mimi and I used to do it all the time last year, and I was hoping like crazy that she was going to remember it. "The one with the made-up words?" asked Mimi. Yay! She remembered. "Yes, that's it," I said. "When you see the hands, teach it to Lily." Of course Mimi didn't know what I was talking about, but I was hoping she would understand when she saw the show.
I was glad to see that her room was super cleaned up and organized. Mimi had two little chairs sitting in front of the bedroom window. I looked across at my window and suddenly my ears started to get hot. This only happens to me when I get nervous or when I am embarrassed. It is not a good feeling.
I couldn't wait around. I had to leave. "Mimi, don't open these until you see the signs in the window." I handed her four brown bags with big numbers on them, and then ran down the stairs. "Be careful," shouted Mimi's mom, but I was too filled with nervousness to slow down.
THE UNFORTUNATE PART OF THE PLAN
The only bad thing about my plan was that there was no way for me to know what was going on in Mimi's room. I wouldn't be able to tell if Mimi and Lily were having a fun time or a terrible time. Once I started the show I would just have to keep going until the end, hoping everything would work out.
THE SHOW
This is what Mimi and Lily saw looking out Mimi's window over to my window.
It was fun to do the dolphin swimming up and down. Dolphins are one of my favorite animals, so I worked extra hard to make it look good.
When Mimi opened this bag there was a note inside that said, "Tell Lily about how your dad pretends to be a dolphin and how it feels to ride on his back, because Lily likes mermaids and a dolphin swimming probably feels just like a mermaid swimming."
Now it was time for Lily's favorite thing to do: twirling.
This one was really easy to do because I just had to spin the princess puppet around and it was going to look super good.
Of course Lily couldn't read this, but I was pretty sure that as soon as Mimi told her what it said Lily would twirl. Lily was an expert twirler and it was one of her favorite things to do.
Then I put up the Mimi twirl sign, and in my imagination I could just see them both twirling around Mimi's room like crazy. Even though I couldn't see them, just thinking about it made me smile and feel happy.
This is the one I had to ask Mimi's mom about, because in bag number two were some jelly doughnuts and lemonade juice boxes. Lily was for sure going to make a mess with the doughnuts, so it was nice that Mimi's mom was ready for that and was not going to be getting mad about a food mess in Mimi's room.
I had to wait for a while now and do nothing. This was the hard part, trying to imagine how long it would take them to finish the doughnuts and lemonade. When enough time had passed I started with the show again.
I was sure hoping that Mimi was going to remember what we had talked about in her bedroom.
I said the clapping poem in my head as I moved the shadow hands back and forth.
Now it was time for bag number three. This was one of my favorites.
Inside bag three were two dishtowels, two clothes pegs, and some yellow tape that Mom said I could have. The note inside said for Mimi to make two capes, one for her and one for Lily, and then wind up her favorite music box and jump on the bed until the music stopped. I didn't ask Mimi's mom about this one, which was probably good because I was pretty sure she would have said no. Mimi's mom is not a you-can-jump-on-the-bed kind of mom. I put these drawings inside the bag so Mimi could better understand what she was supposed to do.
Mimi is excellent at making stuff and super good at sewing, so I bet she didn't have any trouble at all. I really wish I could have been seeing this part. I made a little superhero guy to fly around in the window. Mostly so I would have something to do while they were bouncing up and down.
Bag four was filled with light sticks, the kind you crack and then they glow in the dark. I didn't need to put in any instructions because everyone knows what to do with those. As soon as I saw Mimi and Lily waving them around I put up my end of show sign.
WHAT I DID WHEN I SAW THE LIGHT STICKS
I smiled super big, jumped up and down, and then fell on my back onto my bed with my arms out like a starfish.
I was filled with relief. Mom kept peeking around the corner at me, so I finally got up. I think she was probably dying to know how it had worked out. I was dying to know too.
WHAT HAPPENED AT MIMI'S HOUSE
As soon as I got to the door of Mimi's house, Mimi's mom put her fingers up to her lips and made the shush sound. This was a good thing to do because if she hadn't I would have for sure shouted Mimi's name. If you are excited, being loud is easier than being quiet. I crept upstairs quietly and went into Mimi's room.
WHAT I SAW
Lily sleeping on Mimi's bed.
WHAT I FELT
Mimi's arms around me giving me the biggest hug ever.
WHAT MIMI SAID
Mimi said the show was amazing, awes ome, wonderful, and fantastic, but the number one best thing she said was "I think Lily likes me now."
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
Lily's mom came to get her, but since Lily was asleep Mimi asked if she could leave her sleeping. I said I would stay over too, and then we both did our big puppy dog eyes so she would have to say yes. At first it looked like she might say no, but then she changed her mind. I thought Mimi would scream with joy, but she did a good job of holding in her excitement and happiness quietly. She didn't want to wake up Lily and have her go home.
I ran back home to ask Mom and get my sleep over stuff and then Mimi and I put out our sleeping bags next to each other on the floor. We both really wanted to talk about the night. "Tell me everything," I said. I was listening, and even though I was super interested, I couldn't help it—I fell asleep almost as soon as Mimi started talking.
THE ONE TIME WHEN HAVING TO GET UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT WAS A GOOD THING
In the middle of the night I had to get up to go to the bathroom, and just by accident looked out Mimi's window. This is what I saw on my window.
It was
just like the MOM-WOW but for me.
I have the best mom in the world! And for sure I was going to try to remember this for the next time I was not feeling happy with her.
WHAT HAPPENED THE NEXT DAY
The first thing that happened that surprised me and Mimi both was that Lily woke up at six-thirty. This is extra early for a Saturday. At first she was pretty surprised that she was still in Mimi's room, but then she got super excited because she had done her first sleepover like a big girl.
I thought Mimi's mom might be mad because we were up so early, and Lily was making a lot of noise bouncing on the bed. But she wasn't grumpy at all. She said it was good practice for when they got their own little girl. As soon as she said that Lily said, "You're getting a little girl? Is she going to sleep in Mimi's bed too?" Mimi's mom covered her mouth, but it was too late. She had told the secret.
WHAT WE ALL KNEW
Lily was not going to be a very good secret keeper.
HOW LILY HELPED MIMI
Lily was super excited that Mimi was going to get a new sister. She was full of questions. Mostly she wanted to know where the new sister was going to sleep. Mimi took her to the new-sister room. It was not looking very fabulous because nothing was decorated yet. "What color are you going to make it?" asked Lily. "One quarter pink," said Mimi. Lily looked around and said, "Are the nickels and the pennies going to be all the other colors?"
Just Grace and the Terrible Tutu Page 5
