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For Valentina, queen of my heart
With special thanks to consultant Susan Barton, founder of Bright Solutions for Dyslexia www.BrightSolutions.us
Chapter 1
I’m Veronica Conti and I’m seven.
Seven and a half, actually.
I think I may even be seven and three-quarters, but my know-it-all brother, Jude, says I’m not.
He is nine years old, which is only two years older than me, but he is always correcting me and bossing me around and trying to help me when I don’t even need help!
When I tell people I’m seven and three-quarters, Jude says, “You won’t be seven and three-quarters until December. That’s just simple fractions, which you don’t know how to do yet.”
“I may not know fractions, but I know percents!” I reply. “I know that you are one hundred percent annoying.”
He shrugs. “Just trying to help.”
My best friend, Cora, already knows how to do fractions even though she is in second grade, just like me. She’s a whiz at math … and spelling … and pretty much everything in school, except for gym and music. She finishes her homework with lightning speed and never needs any help.
It takes me forever to do the same homework. I don’t mind my reading, because I get to choose any book I want. I love books about animals. Especially talking animals! Especially talking animals with superpowers!
But the rest of my homework is so boring that I have to take a little break after every question to sing or doodle or do a handstand. Some of the questions don’t make any sense, and it feels like a Martian made them up. I just skip those.
Then, after a million minutes, Jude walks by and says, “Are you still doing your homework? I finished mine ages ago!” It drives me bonkers.
Then my mom or dad or grandma or grandpa walks by and says, “Need some help?” But I shake my head because if Jude can do it by himself, then so can I.
I tap my fingers on my desk really fast, which is what I do when I’m thinking hard, and finally I finish my homework sheet. I jump for joy. Then my mom or dad or grandma or grandpa checks it and says, “Why’d you leave all these questions blank? And didn’t you see the back of the sheet?” I get so frustrated that I feel like snapping my pencil in half.
In fact, I did that once. You know, pencils are not that hard to break. In fact, they’re pretty flimsy.
After I broke the pencil, I told my mom, “I’m so bad at homework! Jude finished his hours ago, all by himself.”
My mom is really good at knowing just what to say when I’m upset. That’s because she’s a therapist and part of her job is to help people with their feelings.
“What’s wrong with needing a little help?” she asked. “After all, you help people all the time.”
That’s true. I am the president of the Fix-It Friends. The group has four members—me, Cora, Jude, and his best friend, Ezra—and the whole point of our group is to help kids with their problems.
“But that’s real-life problems,” I said. “Like worry and teasing and stuff. Not subtraction problems and what’s-the-capital-of-Kentucky problems.”
“It’s the same thing,” Mom said.
I sighed.
“What you have to remember,” said Mom, “is that homework may be easier for Jude, but there are plenty of things that are hard for him that are easy for you.”
“That’s for sure! Have you ever heard Jude sing? He sounds like a dying hyena. And he can’t do anything on the monkey bars. If he tries to hang by his knees, his legs get all tangled and Ezra has to rescue him.”
“And all those things are easy for you,” Mom pointed out.
“Oh yeah,” I agreed. “I could do that stuff in my sleep!”
Sometimes I actually do that stuff in my sleep. Then Jude, who sleeps in the top bunk, says very angrily, “You’re singing in your sleep again! SNAP OUT OF IT!”
What a grump.
“It’s that way with everyone, you know,” Mom said. “We all have stuff we struggle with.”
I nodded, but the truth was, I didn’t really believe her, because some people just seem perfect, with absolutely no problems at all.
Like Liv.
Chapter 2
I met Liv at Drama Club. Glorious, marvelous Drama Club!
Here’s how I heard about Drama Club:
It was right after Thanksgiving break, at the end of the school day. My wonderful teacher, Miss Mabel, was handing out forms and flyers for us to take home.
One of the flyers caught my eye because it was printed on bright red paper. This is what it said:
CALLING ALL DRAMA QUEENS AND KINGS!!
Do you love soaking up the spotlight? Join the second-grade Drama Club!
Who: You! And me, Ginger Frost, your director.
What: We’ll be performing (drumroll, please) … Alice in Wonderland!
Where: The auditorium
When: November 26–December 19 Mondays and Wednesdays 3–4:30 p.m.
Why: Because it’s LOADS OF FUN!
Auditions will be held at our first meeting. Everyone who wants to participate will get a part. Remember, there are no small parts, only small actors!
We need students of all ages to help with lights, sets, and costumes. See Miss Tibbs for details.
After I read that flyer, I squealed with delight and showed it to Cora, who sits at my table.
She was so excited that she spun around in a circle, and her twirly skirt flew up in the air. So did her red curls, which looked exactly like a bunch of red Slinkys attached to her head.
I knew Cora would be excited about making costumes. She’s always giving makeovers to everyone—especially her twin sister, Camille, who likes to wear sweatpants and basketball jerseys and hates combing her hair worse than I hate homework.
I really don’t like it when Cora gives me a makeover, because she always stuffs me into a tight, poofy dress that chokes and itches me and makes me feel like a doll that has come to life, like in some horror movie.
I figured it would be good for her to do makeovers on someone else for a change, and that’s why I showed her the Drama Club flyer.
“Costumes!” she chirped, in her squeaky parakeet voice.
“Acting!” I exclaimed.
“Perfect!” we both said together. Then we did our secret handshake. Well, I call it a handshake, but really it uses a lot more than just hands. Of course I can’t possibly say another word about it, because then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it?
* * *
On the first day of Drama Club, I wore my most dramatic outfit to school: black leggings with a black turtleneck. My grandmother who lives upstairs, Nana, even let me tie her silky black scarf over my hair like an old-fashioned movie star.
Jude glanced
up at me from the kitchen table, where he was reading a book, like he does every morning. This one was called The Maniacal Mutants of Mars.
He tipped his chin down and looked at me over the tops of his tortoiseshell eyeglasses.
“Why are you dressed like a ninja?” he asked.
I glared at him.
“I know! I know!” said Dad, raising his hand up high and pretending to be a little kid answering a question at school. Dad is so funny. He’s the family clown. Well, him and my little sister, Pearl.
“Yes, Dad?” I pretended to be the teacher calling on him.
“You’re dressed like a serious actor because today is the first day of Drama Club!”
Mom walked in then, sipping coffee and brushing her hair. It is blond like mine and Jude’s and Pearl’s, but hers is dyed. I remember the first time I found out her hair was dyed. I burst into tears.
“No, Mommy!” Mini-Me had wailed. “I don’t want your hair to die!”
What can I say? I was in preschool then, and I had a lot of strange ideas about things.
Mom brushed her dyed-but-still-alive hair and gulped coffee.
“Ooooh, first day of Drama Club,” she said. “Very exciting.”
Jude stopped eating his breakfast. He doesn’t eat cereal, like a normal person. He eats yogurt. The plain kind. With dried cranberries in it. Bleeyygch.
“Oh yeah, I heard about Drama Club. Ezra’s helping with the lights,” he said. “Miss Tibbs asked me to help with the sets.”
Miss Tibbs is a super-strict recess and lunch teacher who also may possibly be a witch. Here’s why I think so:
1. She always wears black, from her eyeglasses all the way down to her shoes. And she is not an actor.
2. She knows absolutely everything about all the kids in the school. Even their deepest secrets. She even knows Jude’s middle name. No one knows that!
3. She always has an angry expression on her face, like she just ate something really, really sour.
All the kids skitter away when Miss Tibbs walks down the hall. If you go near her, you’ll get in big trouble—even if you aren’t doing anything wrong! The only kids who don’t skitter away are Jude and Cora. That’s because they are Mr. and Miss Perfect and Miss Tibbs adores them. So I wasn’t surprised that she had asked Jude to help with the sets.
“I heard that Ms. Frost is the real deal,” Jude said, taking a bite of his yogurt. “A professional actor.”
“I wonder if Ginger Frost is her real name,” I said. “It sounds too beautiful to be real.”
Jude shrugged. “All I know is that Miss Tibbs says she’s really talented. She saw Ms. Frost perform in Macbeth last year.”
My mom absolutely loves Shakespeare and has told us all about his plays. Macbeth is her favorite. It sounds cool because it has witches and ghosts and tons and tons of blood in it. I love the character of Lady Macbeth because she is evil and bloodthirsty. I’m a sucker for villains. There is one part Mom told me about where she goes totally bonkers and thinks she has blood all over her hands, even though she doesn’t. She keeps washing her hands and shouting, “Out, darn blood spot! Out, I say! GET OFF OF ME!”
Mom interrupted my thoughts: “Have you decided which part you want to be in Alice in Wonderland?”
I put my hands on my hips, scrunched up my eyebrows, and shouted, “Off with her head!”
“Of course you want to be the Queen of Hearts,” muttered Jude. “All she does is yell and boss people around.”
I wanted to dunk his face in his bowl so it would be covered with yogurt, like a clown who got a pie thrown in his face, only a lot less tasty.
Instead I asked Mom and Dad, “Did you like the way I said that line? Because I could do it differently.”
I tried out a whole bunch of choices.
I said it with an Italian accent, like Nana: “Off-a with-a her head-a!”
I said it like a teenager, pretending to chew gum and twirl my hair: “Like, off with her head?”
I said it scared, with my eyes wide, in a whisper: “Off with her h-h-head?”
Just then I heard a tiny voice say, “Off wiffer ’ED!” A moment later, a tiny face peeked out around the corner.
“Pearly Pie!” I exclaimed.
Pearl ran into the kitchen, with her wispy blond hair sticking straight up. She held her stuffed rat, Ricardo, in her arms and her paci in her hand. She was wearing one-piece pj’s that were covered with cute little owls—or, as Pearl calls them, “ow-wows.”
She chanted, “Off wiffer ’ed, off wiffer ’ed, off wiffer ’ed!”
Mom and Dad and Jude and I all laughed.
“Good thing Pearl’s not in the second grade,” said Dad. “Or you’d have some stiff competition.”
Chapter 3
That afternoon, at three o’clock exactly, I darted out of my classroom like an arrow and flew to the auditorium. I thought for sure I’d be the first person there.
But when I threw open the big brown door, I saw there was someone already there. She was standing in the middle of the stage, and this is what she looked like:
1. Lots of thick black hair, cut short with bangs.
2. Enormous blue eyes with enormous lashes.
3. Little silver hoop earrings in her ears.
The black-haired, blue-eyed, hoop-earringed girl was standing still in the middle of the stage, with her head tilted like she was thinking very hard. Then, suddenly, she clutched her chest with her hand and made a hideous howl.
I ran over to the stage and asked, “Are you okay?”
She flashed me a big, beaming smile and nodded. Then she went back to clutching her chest and howling and staggering around the stage. She walked one way, then changed directions, and the whole time she was on her tiptoes.
Ohhhhh, I thought. She’s just acting! It’s a death scene!
I sat down in the front row to watch.
The girl fell forward onto one knee. Then she fell backward onto her back very gracefully, with both legs straight up in the air. Then she put her legs down and got really still.
I thought the scene was over, so I clapped loudly, but suddenly, she stuck her legs back up in the air and gave a bunch of fast kicks. Then she turned her face right to me, said, “So long!” and shut her eyes.
I clapped again, and the girl popped up onto her feet. She raised her arms over her head and did three ballet spins in a row without stopping. Then she took a deep bow.
“That was wonderful!” I gushed.
“Thanks,” she said. “I practice all the time—when I’m not practicing ballet. This morning, I did five different death scenes before breakfast.”
The girl hopped down the steps of the stage in little pretty ballet jumps, and then she walked over to where I was sitting.
“But there are no death scenes in Alice in Wonderland, are there?” I asked.
“Nah. But it’s very handy to have a death scene ready to show off how dramatic you can be. That was my Shot-by-an-Arrow scene. I can also do a Hit-by-a-Bowling-Ball one and a Getting-Bit-by-a-Vampire and lots of others, too.”
Then the girl did something amazing; she stuck her foot up on the stage and leaned to stretch sideways over it. She was as bendy as a piece of taffy!
“What’s your name, and what part do you want to be in the play?” she asked.
The girl put her stretched-out leg on the floor and stuck the other foot up on the stage.
“I’m Veronica,” I said, “and I want to be the Queen of Hearts.”
“Oooooh, that will be so fun,” the girl said. “I want to be Alice. My name’s Olivia Oikonomopoulous.”
“What’s your name?”
“Olivia Oikonomopoulous.”
“Can you say it one more time?”
“Olivia Oikonomopoulous. But everyone calls me Liv.”
“That’s a lot easier to remember,” I said, breathing out a sigh of relief. “You have a really long name.”
“Tell me about it. The whole thing all together is twenty-o
ne letters. So I never, ever write my whole name out on homework and notebooks and stuff!”
I giggled.
“But I do like my name,” said Liv. “I’m named after my great-grandmother. My mom says the name Olivia is from Shakespeare.”
“I love Shakespeare!” I squealed. “Even though I’ve never actually read any of it.”
Liv smiled. “My last name comes from my dad. I have no idea what it means because it’s Greek and I don’t really speak Greek. I just know how to say yes and no and thanks and opa!”
“Opa?” I repeated. “What does that mean?”
“It sort of means ‘hooray’ or ‘yay,’ but you mostly use it when someone is dancing or when someone makes a mistake, like if they break a glass by accident. It kind of means ‘It’s okay! You made a mistake, but so what? Yippee!’”
“That’s a good word for me to learn because I’m always breaking stuff and making mistakes,” I told her. “My brother says I’m a magnet for trouble, but I always tell him it’s a good thing because we have a problem-solving club. If I didn’t get into trouble, we might run out of work to do!”
Liv laughed. Then, all of a sudden, she did a perfect split! She just slid right down to the floor with one leg in front and one in back, like it was the easiest thing in the world!
I have been trying to do a split in gymnastics for a whole year. I keep getting a little lower to the ground, but it is still not a full split. I couldn’t believe Liv could do it so easily!
I already thought Liv was amazing, but after her perfect split, I thought she could do absolutely anything. If she had told me she could fly, or walk through walls, or turn broccoli into whipped cream with a wave of her hand, I would have believed her.
So I was really surprised by what happened next.
Chapter 4
The auditorium filled up with second graders, including a lot of my friends.
My friend Minnie walked in, holding sheets of music. I have been friends with Minnie since we were toddlers. She sits at my table in class, and she also plays tag with me pretty much every day at recess. Minnie is almost as tall as Jude, and she always wears her hair in two braids, which she chews on when she gets nervous.
The Fix-It Friends--The Show Must Go On Page 1
