by Meg Cabot
Sophie screamed politely.
“I was so sure we were going to get caught!” Erica said.
“Girls!” Mrs. Hunter said. “Please keep it down. We don’t want Mrs. Danielson coming in here, now do we?”
“No, ma’am,” Rosemary said. She glared at Erica, Caroline, and Sophie, who were crying, they were laughing so hard. “You guys,” Rosemary said. “Shut up. It isn’t that funny.”
Seriously. It wasn’t that funny. Rosemary and I had no idea who Little Hiawatha was, or why the mention of him — or the boy in yellow swim trunks, or the thing with the doughnuts — should make Erica, Sophie, and Caroline laugh so hard.
To tell the truth, it sort of made me feel left out. This made me worry about other things I was going to feel left out of. Like Missy’s Twirltacular. Were they going to come home from that with all sorts of private jokes, like the Little Hiawatha one, that I wasn’t going to understand?
Maybe I’d made a mistake choosing to go to Brittany’s birthday party instead.
And that was the other thing: I couldn’t make a lovely photo album (because I didn’t even have any photos of myself with her) to give to Brittany Hauser on her birthday. I didn’t even have any private jokes with Brittany Hauser (unless you counted the fact that she’d put her mom’s cat in a suitcase and shook it around and I’d told on her and she’d tortured me about it for weeks afterward by calling me Allie Stinkle).
Because she and I weren’t even that good friends. We were frenemies, really. Which is a mix of friends and enemies. We’d started out friends, then become enemies, then she’d tried to become my friend, then I’d shoved a cupcake in her face.
And now, for some reason, she was still trying to be my friend.
I was sort of starting to regret saying I’d go to Brittany’s party.
Especially when I went home for lunch that day and yelled from the mudroom (which, for once, really was filled with mud, because it was raining so hard, Kevin and I got soaked walking from school), “Mom! What did you get for me to give to Brittany for her birthday? We have to give her something super good. Because Cheyenne O’Malley says you have to get something that costs equal to or more than whatever Brittany’s parents are spending on what I’m going to eat and drink at the party, not to mention the cost of my going to Glitterati and however much it’s going to cost for me to spend the night at the Hilton Hotel…Mom? Mom?”
But there was no response from Mom. Just…nothing.
Which was weird. Because she and Dad weren’t supposed to leave for the airport until later that night.
I followed Kevin into the kitchen, where Mark was already standing. He’d gotten home before us, since he’d ridden his bike…but that meant he was more soaked. He hadn’t even gone upstairs to change out of his sopping wet clothes yet, he was just standing there making a big puddle on the kitchen floor. At first I had no idea why.
Until I saw that he was staring at Mom. Mom, who was on the phone by the kitchen counter, with a very worried expression on her face. She was going, “Uh-huh. Of course. I understand. Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m just so sorry.”
What had happened? Clearly something very, very bad. Mom looked awful. Her face was pale and she was holding the phone so tightly, her knuckles were white.
I knew right away that something had gone wrong.
And I knew what it was, too.
My lie. My lie about how Mom was making me go to Brittany Hauser’s party had been found out.
I didn’t know who had told. Probably no one had done it maliciously (which means on purpose and to be evil). It had probably just slipped out.
And now I was going to get in big trouble. I would probably be grounded and I wouldn’t be able to go to Brittany’s party or to the annual Little Miss Majorette Baton Twirling Twirltacular.
Of course, I had brought it all on myself. But still. It wasn’t fair. I had only been trying to spare my friends’ feelings. It hadn’t been a lie to hurt anyone. I had done it so as not to hurt anyone.
I stood there in the kitchen trying to figure out what to do. Should I go to my room now, before my mom could send me there? Surely she’d let me have lunch first. My parents had never let me starve before. What was going to happen? Who was that on the phone? Mr. Hauser? Was my mom going to get fired? Could you get fired from a job you weren’t paid for? Probably, since my mom had had to audition for it in the first place.
I couldn’t believe how much trouble I was in. My mom really liked that job. And Harmony, Uncle Jay’s girlfriend, really liked my mom’s job, too. She was trying to get a summer internship with Lynn Martinez, the news anchor at the station that showed Good News! Now, because of me, that wouldn’t happen, either.
I had ruined everything.
I couldn’t lie about it, either. The one thing my parents hate more than anything in the world is lying. You can pretty much do whatever you want in my house, and you’ll get in trouble for it, sure.
But in my house, nothing will get you in bigger trouble than lying. That’s a rule. My parents can’t stand lying.
So though it might have seemed like a good idea to make up some big excuse about why I’d lied to Erica and Caroline and Sophie about my mom’s job being on the line if I didn’t go to Brittany’s party, I didn’t, because she already looked like she was in a bad mood…a bad enough mood that if I didn’t just confess, she might kill me on the spot.
“Mom,” I said, as soon as she hung up. “Listen. I can explain — ”
Mom reached up and pushed some of her hair from her face.
“Not now, Allie. That,” Mom said, “was your great-aunt Joyce. She threw out her back giving her cat, Mr. Tinkles, a bath. So now she won’t be coming to stay while your dad and I are at my cousin Freddie’s wedding…”
I closed my mouth. So, that hadn’t been Lynn Martinez or Mr. Hauser on the phone with my mom? No one had found out about my big lie? I was actually…safe?
There was a beat while we all held our breath.…Did this mean Mom and Dad wouldn’t be going to Cousin Freddie’s wedding? Or…
“I guess your uncle Jay will be staying with you instead,” Mom finished.
Mark, Kevin, and I all looked at one another. It was really hard, but we restrained an urge to high-five one another. Even though we were all sorry for Great-Aunt Joyce and the pain she was going through, hearing this was like hearing that Christmas and our birthdays had all come at once. Uncle Jay was staying with us for a whole weekend, instead of Great-Aunt Joyce? It was truly a miracle. Whatever had happened to make Great-Aunt Joyce throw out her back while giving Mr. Tinkles a bath (and who gave cats baths? I could understand it if the cat was an outdoor cat who got into a fight with a skunk or something. But Mr. Tinkles is an indoor cat…and not a show cat like Lady Serena Archibald), it could not have happened to someone who deserved it more. I mean, why make someone eat tomatoes when they make her feel like she is choking? That is nothing but mean.
“It’s not funny,” Mom said, seeing our smiles. “Great-Aunt Joyce is a very kind person.”
Um…not really, Mom.
But you can’t always change moms’ minds about things.
“And don’t think it’s going to be like last time Uncle Jay stayed over,” Mom went on. “There will be no hide-and-seek in the dark with bicycle lights on your heads. There will be no Hot Pockets morning, noon, and night. I am going to have someone look in on you to make sure you kids are being fed properly.”
This made us curious. Because I am the oldest, and naturally it is my job to do these things, I asked, “Who?”
Mom was already flipping through her address book.
“Harmony, of course,” she said.
RULE #5
Liars Don’t Get Any of Harmony’s Home-baked Cookies. Unless They Cry Hard Enough
Having a bachelor uncle take care of you for a weekend — even with his super pretty, highly responsible girlfriend looking in on you from time to time — is practically like being an orphan. Everyone knows
this. When I got back to school and told people about it, word got around fast.
“But what are you going to eat?” Elizabeth Pukowski wanted to know.
“Oh, probably pizza,” I told her. “Uncle Jay is a pizza delivery person for Pizza Express. He gets all the pizza he wants for free. So that’s what we’ll probably eat.”
“You can’t have pizza for breakfast,” Elizabeth said. It was still raining, so we were inside for recess again. Mrs. Hunter was back at her desk, not looking too happy about the situation. I didn’t blame her. Rosemary had had to drag Patrick Day down from his desk three times already.
“Duh,” Dominique said. “They can have cereal for breakfast.”
“How come my little sister, Daniella,” Marianne, who had been quiet for a surprisingly long time, suddenly piped up to ask, “who’s in kindergarten with your little brother Kevin, says that that whole thing about your mom making you go to that girl Brittany’s party isn’t even true, Allie?”
“What?” I stared at Marianne in horror. It didn’t seem like she could possibly have said what I thought she’d just said. Could she have?
Everyone else, I noticed — well, of the girls in Room 209, anyway — was staring at her, too.
“That’s what your brother Kevin told my sister,” Marianne said. “He told my sister that you made up the thing about Mr. Hauser pulling all his advertising from Good News! if you don’t go to his daughter’s birthday party. You’re going to the party just because you want to ride in a limo and go to Glitterati and spend the night in a fancy hotel. That’s what my sister says your brother says, anyway.”
Oh, no. I wanted to curl up into a ball and die.
“That’s not true,” Erica said, in a defensive voice. “Allie wants to go to my sister’s baton-twirling competition.”
“Well,” Marianne said. “That’s not what Daniella says. She says she made up that whole lie about her mom just so you guys wouldn’t be mad at her.”
Erica, Caroline, and Sophie looked at me with surprise. Even Rosemary seemed kind of shocked.
“Allie,” Rosemary said. “That’s not right, is it? You wouldn’t lie about going with a bunch of prissy girls you don’t even like to that stupid Glitterati store, would you?”
If there was going to be a time to confess that I’d been lying — lying to my best friends, lying to my mom, lying to everyone, basically — about going to that party, this would have been a good time to do it. Maybe I could have said something like, “Well, you see, you guys, the truth is, I didn’t want to hurt your feelings about wanting to go to Glitterati in a limo. So I made up the thing about my mom.”
But I didn’t. Instead, I used some of my acting skills.
The thing is, I want to be an actress when I grow up. Well, an actress slash veterinarian.
I have been told by a number of people that I am a very good actress. I don’t mean to be a braggart, but when I starred in our school play, I was one of the best ones, practically.
So I was pretty confident that acting could help me get out of this situation.
“No,” I said, opening my eyes as wide as they would go. “I told you guys. I don’t know why Kevin would say that. Except…well, Mom didn’t tell him the truth about her job thing, of course, because he’s too young to know about it, and she doesn’t want him to worry. And he’s really jealous of me getting to go tomorrow, because he wants to go to Glitterati more than anything in the world. You know how much he loves pirates.”
Erica, Sophie, and Caroline exchanged glances. At first, I thought they weren’t going to believe me.
But then I saw that they were all nodding, like, Oh, of course! They completely believed me.
My acting had totally convinced them.
It convinced Marianne, too. And Rosemary. Everyone in my whole class was like, “Uh-huh,” and “That makes sense.”
I am seriously the best actress in the fourth grade. Possibly the world.
When I got home from school that afternoon, Mom and Dad were gone, and Uncle Jay and his girlfriend, Harmony, were on the couch in the family room, watching the music video channel we aren’t allowed to watch and eating microwave popcorn.
“Hey, kid,” Uncle Jay said when he saw me. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Where’s Kevin?”
“Hi, Allie,” Harmony said. She looked all pretty with her straight shiny black hair. “How was school?”
“Fine,” I said. “Where’s Kevin?”
“I think he’s in his room,” Uncle Jay said. “Why?”
“No reason,” I said. I put down my stuff in a big pile on the kitchen counter, even though when Mom’s home we have to put everything away neatly in the cubby marked with our name in the mudroom, or hang it on the peg under our name.
But Mom wasn’t home.
“Would you like some popcorn?” Harmony got up from the couch to ask. “Or homemade chocolate chip cookies? I spent all afternoon baking them. Well, they aren’t homemade, exactly. They’re the kind you buy frozen and then drop on a sheet — ”
“I ate most of the dough,” Uncle Jay called from the TV room. “It’s wrong what they say about eating raw eggs mixed in dough. I must have had about twenty and I feel fine.”
Normally, I would never give up home-baked chocolate chip cookies.
But normally, I didn’t have something this important to do.
“No, thanks,” I said.
I went up the stairs and saw that Kevin’s door was closed. He was listening to the soundtrack to the musical Annie and practicing his vocals for when Annie comes to town and one of the girls playing an orphan gets sick and they need someone to take her place and for some reason there is no girl available to take her part (such as me), and so Kevin has to step in (he told me all about this, even though I said, “Kevin, this is never going to happen”).
I threw open his door without knocking (we aren’t allowed to have locks on our doors, for reasons of safety).
Kevin was on his bed. When he saw me, he rolled into a ball and screamed, “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!”
This was how I knew he had, indeed, done it.
“You did, too!” I yelled, and jumped onto his bed. “And after I promised to give you all my dessert! You’re going to die now. I’m going to kill you!”
I proceeded to sit on Kevin. I didn’t care that he was so much smaller than I was. Kevin deserved to die.
“Help!” Kevin screamed. “Help! Help! Uncle Jay! She’s killing me!”
About five seconds later, Mark came into the room. He stood there going, “Allie’s killing Kevin! Allie’s killing Kevin! Uncle Jay, come quick! Allie’s killing Kevin!”
Of course, I wasn’t really killing Kevin. I was only sitting on him, and even then not very hard.
But this was only because Kevin kept getting away. It is really hard to sit on a kindergartner because they’re so squirmy and difficult to get a grip on. Kevin wouldn’t keep still long enough for me to properly sit on him. I actually don’t know how Missy does it when she sits on one of us and manages to pin us down. She must have very superior sitting skills. I would barely get on top of Kevin before he’d slither away. He kept rolling out from under me. It was like he was a circus performer or something.
I think it was all those dance and gymnastic classes Kevin kept insisting Mom and Dad enroll him in at the Y.
“Allie!” Uncle Jay finally showed up in the doorway. He grabbed me under the armpits and pulled me off Kevin. Kevin wiggled up onto his feet and stood there by his bed laughing because I hadn’t been able to really get all my weight on top of him, let alone pin his arms down and spit in his face.
Then, when he saw how scared Uncle Jay looked, he started fake crying.
“Ow,” Kevin cried. “Allie sat on me! She weighs a lot!”
“I did not,” I yelled, darting forward. “I never got a chance because you kept moving! But I will now, you little tattletale — ”
Uncle Jay grabbed my a
rm and pulled me back.
“Hey, now,” he said. “Calm down, calm down. What’s this all about?”
“Kevin told a secret he promised not to tell,” I said. “And now the whole school knows. Including all my friends!”
“It’s not my fault,” Kevin said. “I’m just a little kid. How was I supposed to know better than to tell?”
“I promised to give you my dessert for a week in exchange for not telling!” I yelled. “You knew well enough to ask for that, you should have known well enough to keep your mouth shut!”
“It’s not my fault,” Kevin shouted again as I broke free from Uncle Jay’s grasp and started after him again. “I only told Daniella. How was I supposed to know she’d blab it to the whole world?”
“She didn’t blab it to the whole world,” I yelled. “Just her sister, who’s in my class, and now everyone in my class knows. You’re lucky all my friends don’t hate me!”
“They didn’t look like they hated you,” Mark said from where he was leaning in the doorway enjoying the whole fight, since he wasn’t in it, “when I passed all of you on my bike while you were walking home from school together just now.”
“I said he’s lucky they all don’t hate me now,” I said. “It was only because of my superior acting skills that I was able to get them to believe me and not Kevin.”
“Why?” Harmony wanted to know. She had come up the stairs, too, and was standing there staring at us with a puzzled look on her face, holding a plate of slightly burned chocolate chip cookies. “What are you talking about?”
I put my hands down. It was pointless trying to kill Kevin now that he’d hidden behind Uncle Jay. I would never be able to get at Kevin now. It was three against one, with Uncle Jay and Harmony defending him.
“Nothing,” I said. I knew if I told Harmony about my big lie — the one about how Mom was making me go to Brittany Hauser’s birthday party tomorrow instead of Erica’s sister’s baton-twirling competition, or Mr. Hauser would pull all the advertising from Good News! — she would never understand. Even though it was a lie for a good cause — to keep Erica’s feelings from being hurt — it was just too big a lie for most adults to forgive. They would look right past the part about not wanting to hurt Erica’s feelings, and right at the part where I’d told a big fat lie.
