Rachel Takes the Lead

by Marilyn Kaye

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Copyright © 2021 by Marilyn Kaye

  Jacket art © by Tracy Subisak

  All Rights Reserved

  HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  Printed and bound in March 2021 at Maple Press, York, PA, USA.

  www.holidayhouse.com

  First Edition

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Kaye, Marilyn, author.

  Title: Rachel takes the lead / by Marilyn Kaye.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Holiday House, [2021] | Series:

  The spyglass sisterhood ; #2 | Audience: Ages 8–12. | Audience: Grades

  4–6. | Summary: Twelve-year-old Rachel, who is very shy, gets help from

  friends Ellie, Alyssa, and Kiara to run for seventh-grade class

  representative and to seek the owner of a dog she found.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020051040 (print) | LCCN 2020051041 (ebook)

  ISBN 9780823446100 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780823448999 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Bashfulness—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction.

  Elections—Fiction. | Middle schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction.

  Lesbian mothers—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Telescopes—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.K2127 Rac 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.K2127 (ebook)

  DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020051040

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020051041

  ISBN: 978-0-8234-4610-0 (hardcover)

  For Rose Loiseau, with love from her godmother

  HELLO. MY NAME IS RACHEL LEVIN-LOPEZ, AND I have to tell you right off that I really don’t want to be doing this. I’m supposed to introduce myself to you, but the thing is, I’m shy. Very shy. I don’t like talking about myself, and I don’t think writing about myself is going to be any easier for me. But since I’m the one telling this story, you readers deserve to know who I am. So I’ll try.

  I’ll start with the easy stuff. I’m twelve years old, and I’m in the seventh grade at East Lakeside Middle School. I’m short, and I have long, curly blond hair that can get very frizzy, depending on the weather. I’m pale, and I blush a lot, which turns me pink. Sometimes even red. I live in a small, pretty house with my parents: Jane Levin-Lopez, who I call Mom, and Cecilia Levin-Lopez, otherwise known to me as Mami. Mami was born in Mexico and that’s how you say Mom in Spanish. Mami teaches Spanish at Lakeside High School, and Mom is a graphic designer who works mostly at home. I love them both and they love me. Maybe a little too much.

  Now I’ll get to the not-so-easy stuff. My parents are what you might call overprotective. They don’t want me to be out alone—they want to go with me everywhere I go, or at least get me there and pick me up. Mom even walks me to and from school, as if I was a little kid. It’s kind of embarrassing, at my age, but I guess I can understand why they do this.

  You see, before I was born, they had another child. Her name was Leah, and when she was ten years old, she was hit by a car while walking home from school by herself. And she died. Mom and Mami don’t talk about this much, but there’s a framed photograph of Leah on the mantel over the fireplace. Every now and then, when one of them looks at it, I can see the sadness in her face. And because of this tragedy, one or the other or both of them want to be by my side, watching over me, protecting me from any possible dangers. All the time.

  So I’m an only child. Growing up, I wasn’t ever really sad about that. I’ve always been good at keeping myself busy. I read a lot, and I like to write down ideas for stories and poems. I haven’t actually written any stories or poems, but I think someday I will. And I keep a diary, which I don’t show to anyone. But I have to admit that sometimes I’ve been lonely. When you’re as shy as I am, it’s not easy making friends.

  Then, almost two months ago, in January, all that changed.

  It began when Ellie Marks arrived in Lakeside. Her family moved into an old Victorian house, complete with a turret on top, and it was up there that Ellie discovered an old telescope bolted to the floor. She soon realized that this was no ordinary telescope. Looking through it for the first time, she saw our entire town, including a community center with a swimming pool. Which seemed normal, except later that day, she learned that the community center didn’t exist. The citizens of Lakeside wanted a community center, but it hadn’t been built yet. Pretty weird, right?

  At first, Ellie thought the telescope could show her the future. Which would be cool enough—but it turned out there were more surprises to come.

  Those surprises began when she peered through the telescope again and saw our classmate, Alyssa Parker, sitting on a broomstick, flying over Lakeside. Of course, that wasn’t something that could ever happen—not then, and not in the future. But Ellie was curious about what the vision might mean, so she got to know Alyssa and found out that she sometimes daydreamed of being a witch. Mainly so she could put curses on people she didn’t like. Of course, when Ellie told Alyssa what she’d seen, Alyssa was curious, so Alyssa and Ellie started looking through the telescope together.

  Next, Alyssa and Ellie saw me, walking with Mom—only in this telescope vision, I looked like I was about five years old. When they cornered me in the school cafeteria to ask me about what they’d seen, I confessed that five years old was exactly how I felt sometimes because of the way my parents treat me. After that, I was invited to look through the telescope with them.

  It wasn’t long before Ellie, Alyssa, and I saw another classmate through the lens: Kiara Douglas, running around in the playground with oversized cartoon animals. Eventually, we learned that Kiara was hooked on playing this online game where all the characters are animals. It turned out that her fellow players were her only friends. She didn’t even know who they really were, since they used avatars with made-up names. Since Kiara wasn’t exactly an outgoing person, it took some effort to connect with her, but she eventually decided to join us too.

  So the telescope wasn’t just showing the future. It was showing us feelings—what people wanted, their fantasies, and maybe their fears too. This realization was pretty exciting. But what was even more exciting, for me, was that this telescope brought us together. We started calling it a spyglass, which sounded more magical to us, and we decided to call ourselves the Spyglass Sisterhood. We vowed not to tell anyone else about what the spyglass could do, not even our families, for two reasons. First of all, no one would believe us. And second, because even if they did believe us, they’d all want to look in the spyglass and it would become famous and someone would take it away from us.

  Having friends is a big change for me. One thing I learned really fast is that being friends doesn’t mean we’re alike. The word sisterhood might make you think we have a lot in common, but that’s not true at all. In our looks, our home lives, our personalities, in just about every possible way, we’re very different.

  Alyssa is tall and thin. She has long, straight black hair and a golden-tan complexion. She’s into the goth look and wears black makeup and clothes all the time. And she’s dark in other ways too. She doesn’t smile a lot, she’s sarcastic, and she acts unfriendly to most people. I think she doe
s this mainly to annoy her family. But with us, the sisterhood, she’s cool.

  She lives in a big, modern house that was designed by her stepfather, who’s an architect. Her mother is a very important surgeon. Alyssa calls her “Dr. Gina Khatri, cardiac catheter wizard to the stars.” Alyssa has a nine-year-old brother who’s already a talented actor. She has an older stepbrother who’s a big deal at Lakeside High—an athlete, president of the student body, and smart too. And an older stepsister, a figure skater who’s training for the Olympics. Personally, I think Alyssa’s style and attitude are her way of standing out in this family of big shots.

  Kiara is tiny, as short as I am, but much thinner. She’s Black, and she wears her hair in an elaborate cornrow design that looks like she’s wearing a beautiful tiara when she pins it up. Her mother died when she was a baby, and she’s an only child like me. She lives in a fancy apartment with her father, who’s a professor of history at Bascomb College here in Lakeside.

  I guess you could say Kiara has kind of a quirky personality. At first, we thought she was snobbish, because she resisted our attempts to bring her into the sisterhood. But friendship’s not something you can push. Especially with someone like Kiara, who’s just not a very sociable person by nature. With us, she says exactly what she thinks, and sometimes that hurts, but unlike Alyssa, she isn’t rude on purpose. It’s just the way she is. She’s totally honest and very intelligent. She has an amazing vocabulary and she’s a science and math whiz. As far as style goes, she’s not particularly interested in fashion. She’s always neatly dressed, but that’s about it. She probably wouldn’t even have her cool hairstyle if her aunt wasn’t a hairdresser.

  I suppose Ellie could be called the leader of our group. She brought us all together, she has the spyglass, and we hang out at her house. She definitely likes to take charge. And even though I don’t want to say anything negative about my friends, Ellie can be a little bossy sometimes.

  She has an older sister who’s away at college, so we haven’t met her yet. Her mother’s a newspaper reporter, and her father’s a lawyer. He works from an office in their house, which makes my parents happy since they know there’s always an adult around. What’s really nice about Ellie’s parents is that they don’t mind that we’re over there all the time. And even though they’re both busy people, they still manage to keep the kitchen stocked with snacks for us.

  Ellie’s neither short nor tall, fat nor thin. She has brown hair, a medium complexion, and a few freckles. She calls herself ordinary, but I think that’s only because she used to be. Before she moved to Lakeside, back at her old school, she was part of the popular crowd. She says she was a follower, she just blended in and did what everyone else did, until the day her parents got involved in a campaign to build a homeless shelter in their town. A lot of people were against the idea, and they turned their kids against Ellie. So when she came to Lakeside, Ellie was determined to have nothing to do with popular kids. Which is funny in a way, because she’s actually friends with a popular kid here, Mike Twersky. She claims he’s not her boyfriend, but I’m not sure I believe her.

  Ellie’s definitely not a follower anymore, but she still looks like she could be in the popular crowd, with her nice haircut and lip gloss. Her jeans are like theirs too—classic straight-leg ones, which she tops with cool sweaters in bright colors. I don’t wear jeans or leggings—I prefer sweatpants and hoodies in the winter, little dresses in the spring and summer. At least my parents don’t bug me about how I dress, the way Alyssa’s mother does.

  Thinking about the sisterhood now, maybe we do have something in common. We’re all pretty smart. Like I already said, Kiara is particularly good in science and math. I do very well in English. Ellie is above average in just about all subjects. Alyssa doesn’t make perfect grades, but not because she isn’t smart. She just doesn’t try all that hard at school. I think maybe it’s just another way for her to upset her outstanding family.

  There’s something else too. We’re all loners. We don’t fit into any of the cliques at school, and we don’t try to. But we have different reasons for that. Ellie, because of her bad experience in her hometown. Me, because I’m shy. Kiara, because she prefers doing stuff on her own. Alyssa, because she says she’s just not interested in most people. But we’ve got each other now, so I guess we’re not really loners anymore.

  You might be thinking I’ve told you more about my friends than I’ve told you about myself, and I guess you’d be right. It’s funny, in a way… I think I probably know them better than they know me. And sometimes I wish I could be more like them. For example, I’d love to be as sure of myself as Alyssa (though not in the same way, since I don’t want to wear skull earrings). Or maybe I could be more forward, the way Ellie is (though not as bossy). And I admire the way Kiara doesn’t care what people think about her, and I wish I could be like that. And all three of them seem to have so much more confidence than I have.

  Maybe that’s why I don’t open up very much to them. Maybe because I never think I have anything interesting to say, and I always wait for them to start conversations. This is something I should probably work on.

  Or maybe they don’t know me very well because I don’t really know myself. Does that make any sense?

  Maybe if I knew myself better, they’d know me better. I think I need to work on that too.

  ON WEEKENDS, MAMI MAKES FABULOUS breakfasts. Everything from omelets to huevos rancheros to French toast covered in maple syrup—Mami can do it all. Visions of those meals danced in my head as I slowly woke up. For a brief moment, I thought I could even smell them.

  But then I remembered that this was a Monday. And on Mondays, Mami always wants to be at the high school before seven o’clock, so there’s no time for her to make a serious breakfast. And Mom, who has lots of other wonderful qualities, isn’t much of a cook. She wants our food to be healthy and nutritious, but to be honest, she doesn’t much care how it tastes.

  So as I pulled on my robe and left my bedroom, no delicious aromas greeted me. In the kitchen, Mami was already dressed and finishing her coffee.

  “Buenos días, mi hija,” she sang out.

  “Buenos días, Mami.” I rubbed my eyes. “Mami, why do you always leave so early on Mondays?”

  “Because, my darling daughter, as I’ve told you before, I do not like to work on weekends when I can spend time with my family. So I must get to school early to prepare my classes.” She bent, kissed my forehead, and took one of her usual granola bars to eat on the way to work.

  I grabbed a box of cereal. Mom, looking much less alert, came into the kitchen just as Mami was opening the back door.

  “¡Adios!” Mami called, and blew us a kiss before she walked out.

  Mom isn’t a morning person. She mumbled a greeting, I greeted her back, and she began to rummage around in a cabinet for a mug. Back at the dining room table, she drank her coffee and I ate my cereal, and we sat in comfortable silence together.

  By the time we left the house for the walk to my school, Mom could actually begin to talk like a human being.

  “Anything special going on at school today?” she asked.

  “Just the usual,” I replied.

  “No book reports to give?”

  As much as I love to read, and to write about the books I read, I hate getting up in front of the class to present them. And this year, my English teacher has us doing a lot of presentations. Mom understands, and she’s always prepared to give me a little pep talk when she knows I have to do it.

  “Not today,” I told her. “Oh, I’m going to Ellie’s after school.”

  “And someone will give you a ride home? Or walk with you?”

  She always asks that, and I sighed. “Mom.” It’s about a fifteen-minute walk from Ellie’s house to mine, through a perfectly nice and safe neighborhood. And it was March, almost spring, so the sun wasn’t going down as early as it was in January, when I first started going to Ellie’s. I didn’t bother pointing any of this
out to Mom, though. Just like I didn’t bother to respond to her question. She knew I would obey her wishes.

  As usual, when we neared the school, I ducked my head so I wouldn’t make eye contact with any classmates. Not that they’d notice me anyway. I’m always so quiet that nobody pays attention to me. But I still feel embarrassed about being walked to school.

  I raised my eyes as we approached the entrance and was happy to see Alyssa and Kiara standing outside. I didn’t have to be embarrassed in front of them.

  “Hi, Ms. Levin-Lopez,” they chorused politely, and Mom greeted them. She knew better than to kiss me publicly, so she just gave me a little squeeze on the shoulder and said, “Have a nice day, girls,” before leaving.

  “Hi,” I said. “Where’s Ellie?”

  Alyssa looked to the right and then to the left. “Not here.”

  Kiara frowned. “I think that’s obvious.”

  I grinned. This was so typical—Alyssa being a smart aleck and Kiara not recognizing her sarcasm.

  “Okay,” I said. “Why isn’t she here?”

  Neither of them knew, and then the warning bell rang. Everyone hanging out in front of the school started hurrying toward the building, and we did too. Since we all have different homerooms, we had to separate once we got inside.

  There are about thirty kids in my homeroom, and as they entered, most of them stopped by friends’ desks to talk before we all had to sit down. I didn’t greet anyone, and no one greeted me. This was typical, and it didn’t bother me at all. I slipped silently into my chair.

  After a few minutes, people began going to their assigned seats, except for Paige Nakamura and her little clique. Paige is practically famous in the seventh grade. To be perfectly honest, I’ve never really understood why kids look up to her, why they think she’s so special. True, she’s very pretty, she wears very nice clothes, and she carries handbags with the name of a designer on them. And she always wears a hairband that matches whatever else she’s wearing. Lately, I’ve noticed that all her friends are wearing hairbands too. Paige is what you might call an influencer.