Marshmallow Masquerade

by Cynthia Blair

  “Really? Is that what you think?”

  “Well, sure.”

  “Let me ask you something, Scott. What do you think—I mean, what do you really think—of my cousin Chris?”

  “Chris Pratt?” Scott thought for a minute. “I’d say she’s okay. She’s pretty, she’s popular, she’s really involved with clubs and school sports. Oh, she’s a cheerleader, too; that’s a big plus. Yeah, I guess Chris is the kind of girl I might like to go out with sometime.”

  “Well, then, what would you think if I told you that Chris would never go out with you in a million years? And that as a matter of fact, she’s dying to go out with Peter Blake?”

  Chris didn’t wait for an answer. She stomped off, knowing that she had made her point but suspecting that someone like Scott was simply too dense to get it, anyway.

  She was surprised to discover that she didn’t care. Anything that Scott Stevens may have thought, said, or done had ceased to be of the slightest interest or importance to her.

  What really surprised her, however, was the fact that she had meant what she had said. She really was dying to go out with Peter Blake.

  Once she was alone, inside the boys’ room, Chris started to giggle uncontrollably.

  Well, Scott, perhaps I owe you a thank-you after all, she thought. If it hadn’t been for you, I might never have realized that a boy like Peter Blake is worth a dozen of you!

  * * * *

  For the rest of the day, Chris was in such a good mood that it was all she could do to keep from singing. She had finally sorted out her true feelings about Scott and about Peter ... something she might never have been able to do without the help of Charlie Pratt.

  But she still had one more important mission to carry out.

  Right after school, she headed for the Andersons’ house. Sure enough, just as she’d hoped, Mike Anderson was home. He was in the garage, covered with grease, repairing a bicycle.

  “Hiya, Mike!” Chris-as-Charlie called.

  Mike looked up from the tire he was intently fitting into the bicycle frame. “Hey, Charlie! Good to see you! I’m glad you dropped by!”

  “Yeah, well, I’m afraid I can’t stay too long.” Chris shuffled her feet nervously as she noticed the basketball hoop hung on the front of the garage, right over her head.

  “Does that mean you won’t have time to shoot some baskets after all?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “How about looking at that basketball scrapbook I told you about?”

  “Not this time,” said Chris.

  “Gee, that’s too bad.”

  Mike sounded genuinely disappointed. For a moment, Chris found herself wondering what on earth her twin saw in this boy. But then she remembered that Susan and Mike—if they ever did actually get together—probably wouldn’t spend too much time talking about basketball. As with everyone else, the way Mike Anderson treated the boys he knew was very different from the way he treated the girls he knew.

  “I just wanted to talk to you for a minute,” Chris-as-Charlie went on. “You know, man to man.”

  “Sure, Charlie. What’s on your mind?” Satisfied that the bike wheel was now firmly in place, Mike turned to face Charlie.

  Chris realized then that while she had dropped in at the Andersons’ solely for the purpose of getting Mike to ask Susan to the dance, she hadn’t actually given much thought to how she would do it. From this moment on, she would simply have to play it by ear. Her mind was spinning with different tacks she could take.

  And then, in a flash, she had an idea. She decided to rely on the buddy-buddy approach.

  “Well, uh, I was wondering if you’d do me a favor, Mike.”

  “Sure, Charlie.” Mike shrugged. “Anything. Just name it.”

  “This is kind of a lot to ask, but ... my cousin Susan doesn’t have a date for the Homecoming Dance this Saturday night. And I thought maybe you could ... you know, invite her.”

  Mike looked surprised. “Gee, I’d be glad to help you out, pal. But do you think she’d really want to go with me?”

  There it was again: that same insecurity about girls. Yet boys were always expected to be the ones to make the telephone calls, to set up the dates ... to take all the risks by acting first. As in the case of so many things that Chris had thought about for the very first time throughout the week, it just didn’t make any sense at all.

  “Mike, let’s just say I’ve got some inside information. I know for a fact that my cousin Sooz—I mean, Susan—would really like to go out with you.”

  Mike brightened. “Hey, great! I mean, uh, I’m glad I can help you out.” He wiped his greasy hands on a rag. “Tell you what: I’ll go give her a call right now.” Before rushing into the house, however, he turned back for a moment. “Listen, Charlie, let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you, okay?”

  Chris was amused as she went on her way, whistling a light-hearted tune. There, that had been easy enough! As Chris, she never would have been able to approach Mike, almost a total stranger, and suggest that he ask a particular girl out. But as a fellow boy, there was no problem at all! In fact, Mike didn’t even have to admit that he had been interested in Susan all along, as she now suspected was the case, given his eagerness to “do Charlie a favor.”

  Now, thought Chris, if I could only think of someone to match up Beth Thompson with.

  As she walked home, Chris’s mind was racing as she tried to fit together all the pieces of all the things she had learned so far that week as Charlie Pratt. Why, she had had no idea that being a boy was so different from being a girl ... and yet, at the same time, so alike in ways that never would have occurred to her before. She had seen sides of both Peter and Scott that she never would have seen as a girl. And she had managed to pull off a bit of matchmaking that Christine Pratt would have had quite a difficult time accomplishing!

  Looking back on the week so far, Chris experienced a real sense of satisfaction. The Marshmallow Masquerade was a success, not only because of the ease with which it had been carried off but also because of all she had been forced to think about, most of it for the very first time.

  ““Yes, Charlie Pratt,” she said aloud, aware that she was talking to herself but certain that in this case it was completely justified, “no matter how the rest of the week turns out, one thing’s for certain. You’re the best friend any girl ever had!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Chris opened her eyes to bright sunlight streaming through her bedroom windows, the smell of breakfast wafting up the stairs ... and a dull ache in the pit of her stomach. For a few seconds she lay in bed, puzzling over the way she felt.

  Then she remembered. It was Friday.

  Today was the last day of the Marshmallow Masquerade—and the day of Charlie Pratt’s fight with Eddie McKay.

  Chris wasn’t the only one thinking about the day ahead. Even before she’d climbed out of bed, her twin poked her head in the doorway.

  “Are you asleep?” Susan asked in a soft voice. She was still wearing her blue flannel nightgown.

  Chris groaned loudly. “I wish I were. Then maybe all this would just be a bad dream.”

  “Oh, no. You’re not still thinking about fighting with Eddie after school today, are you?”

  “Sooz, I have to. We’ve come this far with the Marshmallow Masquerade, and we can’t give up now.”

  “But Chris—”

  “We’ve already talked about this, and there’s nothing left to discuss.”

  As if to demonstrate that she had no more to say about the matter, Chris bounded out of bed and began putting on her clothes. Her Charlie clothes.

  While the rest of her family downed a hearty breakfast, Chris sat in front of an empty plate. She was having trouble swallowing even a glass of orange juice. The butterflies in her stomach simply refused to go away.

  “Eat something, Chris,” Susan pleaded. “At least have a piece of toast. After all, you need to keep your strength up.”

  Mr.
Pratt perked up immediately. “Oh, really? What’s up? Have you got something exciting planned for day five of this Marshmallow Masquerade of yours?”

  “Oh, no,” Chris assured him quickly. “Nothing out of the ordinary Just the same old thing.”

  Susan cast her a wary glance.

  “It’s just that today’s the last day. First thing tomorrow morning, Charlie Pratt goes back to Chicago, never to be seen or heard from again.”

  “That is, if he makes it to tomorrow morning,” Susan muttered.

  Underneath the table, Chris gave her a light kick.

  “Well, I’m going to miss old Charlie,” Mr. Pratt said cheerfully.

  “Not me,” said Susan a bit woefully. “Frankly, I’m looking forward to getting Chris back. She was always so ... so level-headed. So realistic. So smart.”

  Chris just made a face.

  All that day, however, she could think of little besides her inevitable confrontation with Eddie McKay. Especially after what happened in homeroom.

  “Hey, Charlie Pratt,” Eddie said with a sneer as soon as he saw Chris-as-Charlie slink into the classroom. “You know that expression ‘Thank God It’s Friday’? Well, after today, it’ll have new meaning for you!”

  Predictably, Frank and Jimmy laughed loudly. Chris just glared at the three of them, then sat down and buried her face in one of her notebooks.

  But the truth of the matter was, she was scared.

  While she had lifted weights and done push-ups all week, she was no more confident about her ability to take on Eddie McKay in a fist fight than she had been on Monday. All morning she had trouble listening in class. She was too busy trying to remember the moves she had seen in every fight she’d ever seen, in movies and on television.

  And then, as the last period of the day rolled around and her fight with Eddie was less than an hour away, she realized a very fundamental fact.

  She had been concentrating on using her muscles when she should have been concentrating on using her brain.

  When the final bell of the day rang and the halls of Whittington High filled up with students hurrying to get to their lockers and dash out of the school building so that their weekend could begin, Chris still had butterflies in her stomach. And she was still scared. But for the first time all week, she was convinced that she—or, rather, Charlie Pratt—could deal with Eddie McKay.

  She waited for him in the schoolyard. Sure enough, within ten minutes of the last bell, he came sashaying out of the school building, with Jimmy and Frank a few feet behind. She was surprised to see that other students—mostly boys, many of them Eddie’s friends—were heading over in the same direction, as well. Apparently word about the fight between the school bully and the new boy had spread, and a crowd of spectators was about to gather.

  “So, Pratt,” said Charlie in his usual menacing tone as he swaggered toward her, “I hope you’re ready to settle this once and for all. I hope you’re ready to fight!”

  At least two dozen students had formed a loose circle around Eddie and Charlie, who were standing face to face. Eddie was hunched over, his eyes narrowed, his hands clenched into fists. There was silence all around, and so much tension in the air that it was almost like a fog.

  But Charlie Pratt was relaxed. He stood very still, with his hands stuck deep inside his jacket pockets. There was a funny half-smile on his face.

  “Eddie,” he finally said, “I have no intention of fighting with you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” the school bully countered. “What are you, scared?”

  “That’s not really the point.”

  “Hah, you’re scared! You’re a coward, Charlie Pratt! Coward! Coward!”

  Charlie looked Eddie in the eye and shrugged. “If that’s what you call somebody who walks away from a fight, if a ‘coward’ is your name for someone who’d rather not get a black eye or a bloody nose, given the choice, then, yes, I’m a coward.”

  Eddie snorted. But it was obvious that this unexpected turn of events had him bewildered. “Don’t you care that everybody around school—everybody in the whole town, in fact—is going to be saying you’re chicken?”

  “Eddie,” Charlie said calmly, “for the rest of my life, whatever I do, there are always going to be people who don’t like it. People who call me silly names or make fun of me or just think I’m making mistakes. But do you want to know something, Eddie? I don’t care. I don’t care because I’ve got to live my life the way I decide to live it. It’s not important for me to try to please anybody but myself.”

  “You’re ... you’re just saying all this because ... because you’re scared to fight,” Eddie stuttered. He was trying to sound gruff, but instead, he just sounded baffled.

  Charlie laughed. “Eddie, I’d like to meet the person who’s not afraid to fight! Let’s just say I’ve decided not to, because I don’t think there’s anything important enough to fight over. Or anything that can really be accomplished by fighting. So let’s leave it at that, okay?”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, what would you do if I came over and punched you in the stomach right now?”

  “I’d probably fall down. And it would probably hurt a lot. But to tell you the truth, I don’t think you’d do that.”

  “Yeah? How come?”

  “Because you’re basically an intelligent, reasonable guy, that’s why.” Chris-as-Charlie extended her hand. Her chin was held high, and her brown eyes were locked steadily in Eddie’s. “So how about if you and I try being friends, instead?”

  There was total silence in the schoolyard for almost half a minute. Both Eddie’s friends and Charlie Pratt’s newfound allies were standing perfectly still, holding their breath, waiting to see what was going to happen.

  And then, all of a sudden, Eddie turned around and started walking out of the schoolyard.

  “Friends, hah!” he called over his shoulder. “Eddie McKay doesn’t have cowards as friends!”

  As she watched him strut away, with Frank and Jimmy scampering after him, Chris suddenly felt weak in the knees. And she realized for the first time that she was shaking. But before she had a chance to think about what could have happened, she felt a friendly hand on her shoulder.

  “Not bad, Charlie! Not bad at all!”

  Chris turned and found herself face to face with Scott Stevens.

  “Hey, you look pretty shaken up. You’re all red.” Scott sounded concerned.

  “Well, confronting the school bully isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world!”

  Scott chuckled. “You deserve congratulations—and a big thank-you from everybody at Whittington High. Eddie McKay has been making trouble around here for as long as I can remember. He needed somebody to stand up to him once and for all. I guess it took an outsider to do it.”

  Chris was suddenly modest, “Aw, it was nothing, really.”

  Especially considering that I had nothing to lose! she thought ruefully.

  But Scott wasn’t about to take Charlie Pratt’s triumph lightly. “Are you kidding? You proved you were a man today! Even more than if you’d fought with Eddie! Boy, you’ve really got a lot of guts!”

  Chris opened her mouth to say something about Scott’s definition of “manhood” when she noticed her twin sister running toward her across the schoolyard.

  “Excuse me a minute, Scott,” said Chris. “Here comes Susan, my, uh, cousin. I’d like to talk to her alone for a minute.”

  “Oh, sure.” Instead of going on his way, however, Scott just moved away a few feet, as if he were waiting for Charlie.

  “Are you all right?” Susan demanded once she reached her twin. “You look okay....”

  “I’m fine,” Chris reassured her. “I didn’t fight.”

  “Oh, Chris! I’m so glad you changed your mind! I was so scared ... I couldn’t even bring myself to watch. I figured if I waited a few minutes, I’d be able to help you get home without having had to watch you and Eddie punch it out.

  “But fortunately, you decided not to let things go t
hat way. What happened?”

  “Well, Sooz, you know that I was determined to do this thing right. That I wanted to do everything that I would do if I really were a boy, in order to make the Marshmallow Masquerade real, instead of just some game.”

  “I’ll say. Even though I thought you were taking things just a bit too far. . . .”

  “But I realized today that even if I were really a boy, I wouldn’t have fought with Eddie. It’s wrong, and that’s all there is to it. Sure, boys are expected to fight. But people don’t always have to do what’s expected of them, do they? Especially if it’s just because they happen to be a boy ... or a girl. And doubly especially if it goes against what they believe is right.”

  Chris shrugged, then continued. “Somewhere along the line, all of us—boys and girls—have to decide what we want to do, what’s important to us, what we feel is right. And we have to stick to it, no matter what anybody else says. No matter what all the other boys, or all the other girls, are doing. No matter what people are always saying that boys or girls are ‘supposed’ to do. There are no real rules about what it means to be a boy or to be a girl; only myths and fairy tales that people have made up over the years. We’re all different, and we’re all individuals. And we’ve all got to start living that way!”

  All of a sudden, Sooz leaned over and gave her sister a big hug.

  “What’s that for?” Chris asked, surprised.

  “I’m so proud of you, Chris,” her twin whispered. “And I’m so pleased that we’ve both learned so much from the Marshmallow Masquerade—and from Charlie Pratt!”

  Chris grinned. “Unfortunately, I don’t think Eddie McKay has learned a thing from Charlie!”

  “Hey, Charlie,” Scott called impatiently, “how about going over to Fozzy’s for some ice cream? You, too, Susan. I’ll even treat, just to show you what a nice guy I am.”

  Susan looked at her twin with merriment in her eyes. Chris knew what she was thinking, that the idea of going to Fozzy’s with Scott Stevens was undoubtedly the ultimate for Chris.