I made a run for it while the two of them started bickering. The night was dark and clear, the moon was just a small slice of silver, and Orion and Big D were watching me as I made my way up the street. “I’m going to earn my charm,” I whispered to them.
I only lived a few streets away from Dandelion Square, so pretty soon I was crouching down behind the slide in the village green’s playground. Nearly all of the stores in Dandelion Square were closed. Many of the shops’ owners—like Ms. Zubov—lived in apartments above their stores, and most of the second-story windows glowed with buttery yellow light. While I waited for Violet, I pulled out my bag of star stickers. They were glowing in the dark, and they turned my hands a spooky shade of green.
The playground was at the edge of the village green, near a row of street parking, and I drew back farther behind the slide when I heard voices and the clicking of high heels.
“Then you need to try harder.” It was Mayor Franklin, Stella the Terrible’s mother.
“I am,” Stella protested. “That was the best I could do.”
“Clearly it’s not. A B-minus is completely unacceptable.” A nearby white SUV made a loud beep, beep sound, and Mayor Franklin strode up and pulled open the driver’s door. “I won’t tolerate it, Stella. Do you understand me? . . . Stella? . . . Are you listening? What are you looking at?”
“Nothing,” Stella said.
Both car doors shut, and soon the SUV was pulling away. I couldn’t believe Mayor Franklin was so upset over a B-minus. If I got a B-minus, Mom would probably die of shock.
Wondering what was taking Violet so long, I put my stickers away and pulled out my walkie-talkie. “Stargazer to Wordnerd,” I whispered. “Do you copy?”
“I’m right behind you,” Violet said, and dropped down next to me.
“Where have you been?”
“Casing the joint. The Kaleidoscope is closed, and I think Ms. Zubov is watching TV upstairs.” She pointed at the window above the café, which flickered with blue light. “The area is pretty much deserted. I think we could go around the side of the café to the back without a problem.” She stood up. “Ready?”
“Ready,” I said, also standing. I imagined how pleased Ms. Zubov would be when she came out to her garden tomorrow and saw all the work we’d done.
“Good. Operation Earn Your Charm is a go.”
When we reached the backyard, it looked like Violet was right, and Ms. Zubov was having a hard time keeping up with her garden. Weeds wound themselves around the squash plants, and the tomato vines were limp and brown and needed to be ripped out completely. She also had a patch bursting with pumpkins that needed harvesting.
“This is one huge garden,” Violet said.
“Yeah, I guess we’d better get to it.” I yanked on a large weed and felt a satisfying whoosh as the root unearthed. The plants were slightly spiky and scratched at my hands. I unzipped my backpack and put on Mom’s gardening gloves.
Violet and I worked silently by the glow of our flashlights. I wanted to slide back into friendship with her the way you can always slide back into your favorite pair of jeans. Except I forgot that sometimes when you finally get around to washing those jeans they shift and shrink and don’t fit quite as well anymore. That’s how it felt with me and Violet: stiff and a little uncomfortable.
The wind picked up, and the back of my neck began to prickle. I turned around to look at the café.
Someone was standing on the back porch, watching us.
I swallowed a scream—then stopped short when I realized there wasn’t anyone there. Not a real, live person, anyway. It was a large cutout of my mother, emblazoned with the slogan JANINE MALONE, JUST WHAT DANDELION HOLLOW NEEDS! at the bottom. I had forgotten all about the campaign materials being dropped off at the café.
I wandered over to the porch and shined my flashlight on the cutout. It was supposed to be life-size, but while Mom was only five one, the cutout was a good six feet tall. Next to it was a large cardboard box. I figured it was the new campaign mailers with our family photo.
All week I had been dreading seeing the dorky photo of my family. I figured as soon as all the kids at school saw, it would give them one more reason to tease me.
I opened the box. Mom and Dad and Carolyn grinned at the camera. Carolyn was in the middle, holding her guitar. A not-so-subtle reminder, I was sure, that their daughter was Carolyn the Great, Dandelion Hollow’s only bona fide prodigy.
It looked great. Except it was one daughter short.
Mom’s new campaign mailer, the one advertising her perfect family, the one that was going out to every house in town, didn’t have me in it.
It felt like a herd of angry elephants was stampeding across my heart. I knew I didn’t have Carolyn’s talent, or her mild manners. I knew whatever hopes Mom had for me—if she had any at all—didn’t include a scholarship to a fancy school or a lifetime full of amazing achievements. And most days, I was okay with that. I loved Carolyn too, and I wanted her to go out and conquer the world, one song at a time.
But looking at that photograph, it felt like I’d been erased from my own family.
“Izzy, can you help me?” Violet called. “Ms. Zubov has some baskets by her toolshed. I’m going to fill them with pumpkins.”
“Be there in a second,” I said.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the photo. I knew Mom didn’t understand me. Truthfully, I didn’t understand her either. But was I really so much of an embarrassment that she thought it was better not to include me at all?
The breeze picked up; Ms. Zubov’s wind chimes started clanging, and a few of the mailers blew straight out of the box and into the garden. I should have closed the box right then, but I didn’t. I kept staring at the cutout, at Mom’s smiling face, and my hands, which often don’t listen to my brain, started taking orders from my heart.
I pushed the cutout. Not too hard, but hard enough that the wind took over. The cutout toppled over the porch and landed in a mud puddle with a loud thud.
“What are you doing?” Violet asked.
I couldn’t answer her. I just stared at the muddy cutout, while the wind carried away more mailers in a snowstorm of paper.
The porch lights clicked on and the back door cracked open an inch. “Who’s there?” Ms. Zubov yelled. “You should know I’ve got a Taser and I’m not afraid to use it!”
“It’s just us—” Violet began, but her voice was drowned out by the wind chimes and Ms. Zubov hollering, “I mean it! If I have to come back there I will fry you like an egg!” There was a pop, a hiss, and the metallic smell of an electrical current.
Panic filled Violet’s eyes, and she took off running. I hesitated for a second, then grabbed my backpack and started after her. We ran all the way back to our neighborhood, autumn leaves blowing away as our feet pounded the pavement. We stopped under a lamppost and tried to catch our breath.
“She would’ve done it,” Violet gasped. “She would’ve tased us.”
“Yep,” I said, panting, “our brains would be as good as scrambled—maybe she’d even add them to tomorrow’s menu.”
We looked at each other, and then suddenly, we were laughing. Real, honest-to-goodness, tears-down-your-cheeks, can’t-catch-your-breath laughter. It felt good. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed like that.
“It looks like you earned your charm,” Violet said, straightening up.
“I guess I did.” I took my bracelet and the charm out of my pocket. Carefully, I hooked the tiny treasure box onto the gold chain, then slipped the bracelet over my wrist. Just then, the lamplight flickered. The treasure box sparkled in the light, and the bracelet seemed to glow. It didn’t make me feel completely better about Mom’s mailer. But it helped a little.
“It really is pretty,” Violet said, staring at my bracelet. She frowned. “When you write to Mrs. Whippie, tell her she should send me a bracelet and a charm, too. I’m pretty sure I earned it tonight.”
11
&n
bsp; SORE THUMBS AND PRETTY PINKIES
Dear Mrs. Whippie,
I did your anonymous act of kindness, like you asked. I hope you don’t mind, but a girl named Violet and I turned it into a secret mission. I had a lot of fun, for the first time in a long while. Well, up until I found out that my mom thinks I’m an embarrassment to the family. But I guess that’s why she signed me up for your school in the first place.
My mom and I got into a fight today. Truthfully, we get into fights most days, possibly because I haven’t learned what my sister, Carolyn, calls the Subtle Art of Shutting Up.
Carolyn is a musical genius, and sometimes that’s kind of hard for me. It wouldn’t be so bad if she were a horrible person and a mean sister, but she’s actually a very lovely person and a pretty spectacular sister. And to make things even worse, she gets good grades. I’m pretty sure my mom wishes I was more like her.
I don’t know if you know this, but the streets in Dandelion Hollow are named after wildflowers. Sometimes I feel like a wildflower. Not particularly refined, and always popping up where I’m not supposed to. Except wildflowers are beautiful, and most of the time I feel like a sore thumb in a room full of pretty pinkies.
Anyways, I like my bracelet, but I think it will look even prettier when there are more charms on it. Which reminds me, do you think you could send me a bracelet and a treasure box charm for Violet? I think she wants to join your school too.
Your Friend,
Izzy Malone
12
A TRAIL OF STARS
The next morning, after I placed Mrs. Whippie’s letter in the mailbox, I headed for the kitchen. Breakfast is a big deal in my house. Mom usually handles dinner, but Aunt Mildred and Grandma Bertie are in charge of breakfast, and they take it pretty seriously. No one is ever allowed out of the house without a full plate of eggs, sausage, and whatever else the two of them decide to cook up.
Mom was staring glumly out the window when I sat down at the table. Grandma Bertie and Aunt Mildred were fussing over her: refilling her coffee, grating Parmesan cheese onto her avocado omelet, and buttering her toast on both sides, just the way she likes it.
“You need to eat something,” Grandma Bertie said, squeezing Mom’s shoulder.
“Not hungry,” Mom answered.
I wondered if maybe she was coming down with a cold, and I started to ask if she was okay, but then I remembered the mailers from last night.
Carolyn came stumbling into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and pale, her hair sticking up every which way. “Morning.” After she sat down, she rested her head on the table. She looked so different from the glowing picture on Mom’s mailer—the one I apparently wasn’t allowed to be in.
“Wow,” I said. “You look really terrible.”
“Thanks a lot—I had a ton of homework last night after we got home. I wish practice hadn’t run so late.”
“I think your face wishes the same thing.”
Carolyn looked up. “What is your problem?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It just must be real exhausting, being such an in-demand star.”
“Izzy, dear, your mouth is acting up again.” Grandma Bertie slid hot mugs topped with whipped cream in front of me and Carolyn.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Cinnamon hot chocolate. Guaranteed to cure tiredness—and bad attitudes.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. Most of the time, I remembered it wasn’t Carolyn’s fault Mom was the way she was, but some days were harder than others, and today was definitely one of them.
“No problem at all.” Carolyn sipped her mug and smiled back at me with a whipped cream mustache. “Dork.”
“Loser.” I stuck out my tongue.
“Girls!” Aunt Mildred snapped as she passed around more plates of omelets. “Let’s try acting our age this morning.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said. “What’s your age, Aunt Mildred?”
Carolyn snickered as she poked reluctantly at her omelet. “Most of my friends just eat donuts for breakfast,” she said.
“And you wonder why all you young people are so tired all the time,” Aunt Mildred said. “All that sugar. It’s a disgrace. It’s—”
“It’s nearly six thirty, that’s what it is,” Dad said, striding into the kitchen, dressed in his uniform. “I need to get to the station early.”
“Not before you’ve eaten, you don’t.” Grandma Bertie handed him a cup of coffee.
Dad grimaced and sat down. It was pretty hard to say no to the combined forces of Grandma Bertie and Aunt Mildred, especially when they were getting along and armed with steaming mugs of early morning sustenance.
Dad chugged his coffee and forked a big bite of omelet into his mouth. “Got to get moving,” he mumbled. “Got a new case to work on.”
“In Dandelion Hollow?” Carolyn asked skeptically. “What’s happened?”
Dad shot Mom a strange look; Mom ignored it, and concentrated on her coffee while Grandma Bertie gave her shoulder another squeeze.
“Last night we got a call from Ms. Zubov,” Dad said. “Apparently, she heard vandals poking around her backyard last night.”
Vandals? I felt like the eggs I’d just swallowed were about to come back up. No, it couldn’t be, I thought.
But it was.
“It was the strangest thing, though,” Dad continued. “It looks like the vandals actually cleaned up her garden.”
“That doesn’t sound like vandalism to me,” Carolyn said.
“It is if they damage someone else’s property.” Dad paused, and glanced over at Mom, who avoided his gaze. “Your mother had her new campaign materials delivered to Ms. Zubov’s to keep for the time being. The vandals destroyed it all last night.”
The table went quiet, but my heart thundered in my ears. This could not be happening.
“They destroyed it?” Carolyn repeated, looking shocked. She turned to Mom. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay,” Mom said in a monotone, still concentrating on her coffee. “Someone hates me enough to try and sabotage my campaign. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“Sabotage?” Grandma Bertie’s hand fluttered to her mouth. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. Can you imagine? Campaign sabotage in Dandelion Hollow? Wait till the Knatterers hear about this.”
Grandma Bertie was part of a knitting circle that was known just as much for their gossiping as they were for their stitching. Everyone in town called them the Knattering Knitters.
“That is just plain speculation, Bertha,” Aunt Mildred said. “You don’t know that for sure, so don’t go running that mouth of yours all over town.”
“It’s my mouth, Mildred, and I’ll run it as much as I like. And speaking of big mouths—”
“What if it was an accident?” I asked. “What if they didn’t mean to damage Mom’s stuff?”
“That’s unlikely,” Dad answered in between bites of his omelet. “He ruined a cutout of your mother and tossed her new mailers all over the back of Ms. Zubov’s garden. Although why he bothered to clean up the garden in the first place, I don’t know.”
“He?” Carolyn said. “Do you have any suspects?”
Dad shook his head. “Not really. But Ms. Zubov said there were some ornery high school boys in the café yesterday.”
I looked down at my omelet and pushed my plate away before I puked. I’d been so upset about the photo last night, I hadn’t thought how Ms. Zubov’s backyard would look to other people. I hadn’t closed the box of mailers, and with the wind, I’m sure the rest of them blew straight into her yard after Violet and I ran away.
“But we do have one lead,” Dad said. “A trail of star stickers littered Ms. Zubov’s garden, from the porch all the way back to Thistle Road. I stopped by last night after she called the station, and it made a neon trail—it was like the vandals wanted us to know they’d been there.”
My hand flew down to my backpack, where my packet of star stickers was still stashed. Violet and I had started running so
fast—had the stickers spilled out then? I leaned down to check and, sure enough, the pack was now only a quarter full. But there were still enough left that the inside of my backpack held a soft glow. Great job, Izzy, leaving evidence at the scene of the crime.
Except I hadn’t committed a crime. Not intentionally, anyway. I’d been trying to help Ms. Zubov, not hurt Mom.
“Izzy, what are you doing?” Aunt Mildred asked.
Hastily, I zipped up my backpack. “I was just checking on a homework assignment.”
Was it my imagination, or did Aunt Mildred stare at me just a little too long while she sipped her coffee?
“Ms. Zubov said you and Violet Barnaby were in the café yesterday,” Dad said. “Did you see anything unusual?”
“I saw . . .” For a moment, I was tempted to tell him everything. But then I thought of all the trouble I’d been getting in, and the way Mom looked at me sometimes. Would they really believe it was an accident, or would they think I was truly turning into a juvenile delinquent?
“What did you see, Izzy?” Grandma Bertie was leaning so far over the table her sleeves dipped into her omelet.
“I saw . . . I saw Scooter McGee,” I finished.
“Scooter McGee.” Grandma Bertie batted her eyes at Aunt Mildred. “However is he?”
“He seemed good. He asked about you, Aunt Mildred.”
Grandma Bertie pounded her fist on the table. “I told you he was still sweet on you, Milly! I see a whirlwind romance in your future.”
“And I see a black eye in yours, Bertha, if you don’t shut it.”
As Grandma Bertie and Aunt Mildred began to argue, I excused myself from the table, saying I needed to finish getting ready for the day. A little while later, I still felt bad for Mom, so I decided to give her the pot full of sunflowers I’d picked a week ago. The door to her bedroom was slightly ajar, and I saw Mom standing in front of her dresser. She was having a conversation with her mirror: “You are powerful, Janine. You are strong, and people want to be your friend.” She paused, then started up again. “You are powerful, Janine . . .”
The Charming Life of Izzy Malone Page 5
