Cleo was filled with dread. Was Fortune about to announce that she’d put a baby up for adoption and the grown-up girl had found her? Was she about to introduce the daughter that Cleo had always dreamed would be her?
Fortune went on. “I’m so glad they didn’t give up, because they gave me the chance to deliver a destiny by helping them track down Breanna’s biological family.”
Cleo held her breath.
“Today, I am so pleased to be able to introduce Breanna, with her new kidney!” People clapped and cheered. Fortune raised her voice to be heard: “Joining Breanna is her mom, Mrs. Beth Anderson, and her birth mother, Ms. Shari Jenkins, who gave up a kidney and gained a family. Please help me in welcoming them!” Everyone clapped as the three women walked onto the set.
Cleo locked her arms around her bent knees and pulled them into her chest.
“Wow! Isn’t this an amazing story?” Caylee was riveted to the screen.
Cleo just nodded. She felt like clicking off the TV and running outside.
A huge racket erupted in the kitchen. Josh and Julian were at it again. Mom yelled at them. She appeared in the doorway, her hands covered in canine cookie goop. “Cleo, I know you’re watching your show, but please do me a huge favor and take your brothers outside. I’m about to lose it with them.” She rushed back out, saying, “You can record it!”
Cleo jumped up and turned off the TV. “Come on, Caylee.”
Caylee glanced toward the dark screen, looking disappointed. “They were right in the middle of that great interview.”
Cleo shrugged. “The work of a big sister is never done.” She smiled, feeling the falseness of her attempt to sound normal.
They went to the kitchen, where Josh and Jay rolled around on top of each other like something you’d see in a cartoon.
“Are you recording it?” Mom asked over the crying and screaming.
Cleo shook her head. “Nah, that’s okay.”
Fortunately, Mom was too busy pulling the boys apart to question why Cleo wasn’t recording her absolute-favorite show.
As soon as Cleo mentioned baseball, her brothers were racing to the front door. The whole time they played, Cleo tried not to think about the mothers and daughter she’d seen on Fortune, but the story had unzipped her insides. She grasped the edges of her feelings and held on tightly, trying to keep everything from falling out.
Saturday morning, Mom was on her again about keeping her room neat. Only a couple of days had passed since Caylee had helped her completely clean it, but a lot could happen in two days. Heck, Cleo’s room could be turned upside down in a matter of minutes!
She picked up the piles that had multiplied faster than the fruit flies hovering around her trash can, and shoved them into desk drawers and the closet. Suddenly, she was thinking about her birth mom again. What did her bedroom look like, Cleo wondered. Was it something out of Better Homes and Gardens (a magazine full of rich people’s houses Mom sometimes bought at the store) or was it more like the hazard zone around Cleo’s feet? Was being neat and tidy something you got from your genes?
She pushed a pile of homework papers under the bed, ignoring Fortune staring at her from the poster on the wall.
She knew she wasn’t abiding by Fortune Principle Number Eight for How to Build Your Business and Live the Life You Want: Shortcuts sell you and your customers short. But she had to go fast. She and Caylee had a ton of barrettes to make!
She checked on her new pets. The grapes had dried up overnight, but fortunately the worms hadn’t. She couldn’t tell if the grapes had been eaten or if they were just smaller from shriveling. She scribbled a note on the food log Mr. Boring had suggested they make: Grapes—eaten or shrivelled?
Did shrivelled have one l or two? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. Much more crucial was how to tell the bugs apart when they looked exactly the same.
She opened the desk drawer where she’d just dumped her fingernail polishes.
Five colors. Five bugs.
Perfect.
She opened a bottle of polish and put a dot of color—Candied Apple Red—on the first worm’s behind (she made sure it was the behind—she didn’t want to blind them). She made a small mark with the polish in the journal where she was recording her observations. After the red color she wrote, = Zoë Nylon. Ms. Nylon ran a fashion empire.
The designer Trudy Ferretti got a pink behind. Tiara Humbird, CEO of Happy Gorilla, Inc., a worldwide toy and gaming conglomerate, got purple. Restaurateur Ronald Vanderpump’s rump was gold. And Steve Jobs got green. She had no idea which ones were actually girls and which were boys. They didn’t seem to have any of the parts that let you know which was which.
“Now I can keep track of you! So, what do you feel like eating today?” She had another flash of inspiration. “Wait here! I’ll be right back. You’re not going to believe how tasty this next treat is!”
She rushed downstairs to the kitchen. Mom wasn’t there. She could just sneak what she wanted. But Mom would notice, eventually. And then she’d have to listen again to the lecture about taking things without asking, and probably lose out on something she wanted, like going to Caylee’s. She poked her head into the living room. “Mom, can I get a Kit Kat from the cupboard? For the worms, I mean. Although they’re not actually worms. They’re larvae.”
Mom grimaced. “Kit Kat? I don’t think worms or larvae are going to eat a Kit Kat.”
Dad looked up from the table where he and the boys were building LEGO sets. “I know who would.” He winked at Cleo. Rats. He’d seen through her plan, but that wouldn’t stop Miss Itsy-Bitsy!
“We don’t have Kit Kats, anyway,” Mom said.
“Yes, we do.” Cleo went to the kitchen, dragged the footstool, and opened the cabinet over the stove. She reached behind the jars and bottles of cooking oils and plucked out the six-pack of Kit Kats she’d recently discovered. One had been eaten already, but not by her. She’d been waiting for the right time to reveal she knew they were there. And this was it.
When she reappeared, Mom turned pink. “Oh … I forgot about those.”
Jay stopped building as soon as he saw the candy. “Can I have one?”
“Me too!” Josh said.
“Don’t forget about me and Steve Jobs.” Cleo held the Kit Kats above her brothers’ grabbing hands.
“Steve Jobs?” Dad asked.
“I named my mealworms after inspirational entrepreneurs. Except Fortune, of course. I could never give that fantabulous name to a worm.”
“Funny thing,” Dad said. “I just read something about how insects, like your little larvae, could be the solution to world hunger. Lots of people already eat them as a regular part of their diet, including mealworms.”
“People eat bugs?” Josh said, wrinkling his nose. “On purpose? Gross!”
Cleo agreed. The thought of a mealworm wriggling around in her mouth or biting down on its squishy body made her gag. And not metaphorically.
“Did you know there are forty tons of bugs for each person on the planet?“ Dad said.
“Forty tons?” Mom sounded disbelieving.
“Yep. That’s a lot of food we’re missing out on, huh? Great source of protein … and I’ve heard they taste sort of nutty.”
Cleo thought her dad was nutty. “I’d rather have a Kit Kat,” she said.
“Me too!” Jay shouted.
Cleo locked eyes with her mom.
“Oh, all right. That’s what I get for trying to hide them. I’ll be happy to see them gone. Lord knows I don’t need the temptation.”
“Why did you buy them if you didn’t want to eat them?” Cleo handed her the package.
“Good question, Cleo,” Dad said, smiling at Mom as she ripped the candy wrapper open, broke it up, and handed the kids each a bar, keeping the last one for herself.
“We all do things that aren’t good for us,” she muttered, and took a bite.
Cleo shoved the whole b
ar into her mouth at once. “How about one for the larva entrepreneurs?”
“You were supposed to share that one!” Mom said. “They don’t need a whole bar.”
“Maybe they don’t. But I do!” Cleo grinned, still chewing.
“What if the chocolate makes them sick—or kills them?”
“I guess I’ll discover they shouldn’t eat candy.”
Mom sighed. “They and me both.” She opened another bar.
Yes! Cleo had persisted and prevailed. “Thanks, Mom! Remember, you’re advancing science!”
Mom swatted at her with the package of remaining Kit Kats, but Cleo moved too quickly for her. Candy in hand, she ran upstairs to try food experiment number two. She chomped down on the bar and enjoyed her half (or maybe three-fourths) while she crumbled the rest into the container. “Here you go, little buggies. I’ll be back later this afternoon to see what you thought of it.”
She looked up at Fortune again. The mom on yesterday’s show had persisted until she got what she wanted too. Fortune had found the girl’s birth mom and saved her life.
Cleo suddenly knew what she had to do. She had to get Fortune’s attention, by whatever means possible. She had told Caylee she wanted to be on Fortune’s show one day. Why not now? Getting herself, or even just her product, on Fortune’s show would be the hugest break ever.
She would persist until she prevailed!
Only two houses separated Cleo’s house from her best friend’s glorious pink villa with the Spanish-style, red-tiled roof. Cleo ran past Miss Jean’s and the Williamses’. She didn’t have time to get caught up in conversation with the neighbors. Fortunately, no one was outside.
She ran up Caylee’s painted front steps, smooth and emerald green, and grabbed the lion’s head doorknocker. Knock-knock-knock. Standing in front of their giant wooden door, she felt like Dorothy seeking entrance to the Land of Oz. No one ever opened the little window behind the knocker, although she had tried it once, just to see what it felt like to be inside such an opulent house looking out. She’d had to stand on a chair, of course.
Caylee opened the door. “Hi, Peanut Butter.”
“Didn’t your mom teach you to ask who it is?”
“No one else uses the knocker. Why don’t you use the doorbell, Ding Dong?”
“I like the knocker. It can’t be ignored.” She stepped inside and slipped off her shoes. “And if I’m a Ding Dong, then you’re a Twinkie.”
“Okay, Ding Dong.” Caylee smiled and then yawned.
Cleo suppressed the urge to yawn in return. This was no time to be tired! They needed to be productive!
They headed down the hall. Cleo noticed spaces on the walls where framed photos of Caylee’s family used to hang. Those pictures probably weren’t coming back, now that her dad was getting remarried. Thinking about Caylee’s dad just up and leaving his family made Cleo’s stomach feel quivery. It was the same feeling she got during earthquake aftershocks—those little reminders that the place where they lived had some big cracks in it.
Caylee yawned again as they climbed the stairs.
“Didn’t you get enough sleep?” Cleo asked.
“It’s Tye-Dye … he woke me up super early, running in his wheel thingy.”
“I finally get to meet your hamster!” Mrs. Ortega had gotten the pet at the recommendation of the counselor who was helping Caylee cope with the changes in her family. “So how is he? Other than a morning person—I mean, hamster.”
“Technically, he’s crepuscular.”
“Huh?”
“Most active at dawn and dusk. Although I think he might be nocturnal too, because he makes a lot of noise in the middle of the night. But he’s good. Still getting used to me, I think.” She yawned yet again as she opened her bedroom door.
Caylee’s room was completely ordered, organized, and color-coordinated—mostly in shades of blue and aqua. Not a crumb-covered plate or food wrapper in sight. Nothing on the floor except a plastic tablecloth covering the circular floor rug, and towers of plastic drawers full of crafting stuff. Organized crafting stuff.
Cleo zoomed to the large plastic bin on the other side of the room. She sat on the floor and looked inside the wire-mesh window. Shredded paper covered the floor of the bin. There was a plastic, aqua-colored exercise wheel; a plastic, blue-and-aqua mini-playground with tunnels and a tower; and, in one corner, a small, furry mass of brown, tan, and white splotches curled up in a nest of toilet paper.
“What a cutesy-wutesy! Can I hold him?”
Caylee peered through the mesh rectangle in the lid of the bin. “You don’t want to. He’s cranky when he wakes up.”
Cleo smirked. “Sounds like Josh.”
“You have to give them at least a half hour to eat, drink, and potty before trying to interact.”
“Yep. Never talk to Josh in the morning, especially when he’s on the toilet.”
“And you can’t hold them too much or they get stressed out. Like a couple of times a day for ten minutes.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, but they like to play. Check this out!” Caylee held up a see-through plastic ball, the size of a large cantaloupe. “You put them inside this and they run around your house.”
“Ooo! I want one!”
“A hamster?”
“No. The ball. People-sized!”
Caylee laughed. “The woman at the pet store said I should try to think of a bunch of different activities for him so he doesn’t get bored.”
“I can definitely help you with that.” Cleo grinned. “They don’t call me Cleo-I’ve-Got-an-Idea-Oliver for nothing! What do you feed him?”
“Just some stuff we bought at the store.” She held up a bag with the words Hamster Hash written across the front. “The pet store lady said he’ll probably need some extra protein, like egg, cheese, and you’ll never guess what else.”
“What?”
“Mealworms!”
“You could tell Mr. Boring, ‘My hamster ate my homework!’ ” They laughed. “My dad told me this morning that some people eat mealworms. Like, as actual food.”
Caylee cringed. “Ew.”
“I know. Not to mention, I’m getting kind of attached to my little larvae. I could never eat Zoë or Tiara.”
“You named your mealworms?”
Cleo opened her eyes wide. “You named your glue gun!”
Caylee picked up her glue gun from its spot on her crafting table and hugged it to her chest. “My Gloopy,” she said in a dreamy voice.
“You’re such a dork!”
Caylee batted her eyelashes. “The dork you love the most.”
“It’s true. Hey, can I see your iPad?” Cleo asked. The tablet, in its leopard-spotted cover, sat on Caylee’s desk.
“Sure. I don’t care about that nearly as much as I care about Gloopy.”
Cleo tapped the screen until she found what she was looking for: The New York Stock Exchange. She entered Fortune Enterprises, Inc.’s three-letter symbol: FEI. Share values were up by two percent. Not too shabby.
“Do you understand all that?” Caylee pointed to a line graph that looked like a craggy mountain range with all of its ups and downs.
“I understand that it ends on a peak, and that’s what matters,” Cleo replied.
“Ooo! Let me show you something cool I did last night!” Caylee reached for the tablet.
Cleo returned to the home screen and handed it over.
Caylee tapped on an icon and a list appeared. “I created an inventory of all my craft supplies.”
Cleo looked over her shoulder. “You’ve got forty-two ink pads? And twenty-seven jars of glitter?”
“You can never have too much glitter.”
“What’s a die cutter? It sounds kind of violent.”
“They’re for paper cutting. Like a hole punch, but different shapes. Not violent at all.”
“Unless you’re a piece of paper,” Cleo
said. “You have thirty-seven of them?”
“Yeah. Flowers, footprints, hearts, all kinds of animals. My favorite is my iguana.”
“Is that how you made me that ‘Iguana be a long two weeks without you’ card?” Caylee had given the card to Cleo before leaving for her dad’s new house in Palm Springs, the last two weeks of summer. Caylee nodded.
“That was your best one yet.”
“Thanks. I liked it too.”
“What other lists do you have on there?”
“Let’s see … books I’ve read, books I want to read, foods I can make, foods I want to learn how to make, places I want to visit, favorite songs, colleges I want to apply to —”
“Colleges? Isn’t that kind of a ways off?”
“You can’t start thinking about college too early. You’ve got to plan ahead these days. It’s expensive.”
Not that Caylee had to worry about that.
“Plus, you have to build up your résumé—activities, community service, achievements. It’s gotten really competitive. Your dad should know—he teaches high school.”
“I don’t even know if I’ll go to college.”
“What? You have to go to college, PB!”
“Why? Lots of successful entrepreneurs never finish college, and they make millions.”
“It’s still important to get a degree—for job security.”
“I’ll make my own job security—by running my own companies!” They would have to agree to disagree about this, because Cleo wasn’t changing her mind. She looked at the names of Caylee’s other lists. “What’s ‘Kids’ Names’ for?”
“Possible names for my future children, of course.”
“Your children?”
“Uh-huh. My top names are Athena for a girl and Asher for a boy.”
Cleo smacked her forehead with her palm. “Cay-Cay!” Cleo liked to dream about the future too, but all her dreaming had to do with how she was going to make her first million—nothing about kids, unless she was thinking about how to sell stuff to them. Speaking of which, they really should be getting busy making clips. “What’s that one?” she asked, pointing to a list titled “Relatives.”
Cleo Edison Oliver in Persuasion Power Page 4
