Tales From a Not-So-Fabulous Life

by Rachel Renée Russell

  BTW, the roach’s name is Max (courtesy of Brianna, “because if I had a puppy, I’d name him Max”).

  I was like, OH CRUD! If anyone from my school saw me getting into Dad’s van, my life would be over. I scanned the crowd for middle school kids, and luckily, it was still mostly three-to six-year-olds. “Hi, girls, hop in! Your mom’s still shopping. I just got an emergency call, so you get to ride along to keep me company,” my dad said, winking.

  I was like, “Um…thanks, Dad, but I have an awful lot of homework to do. So could you just drop me home first! PLEASE!” I was trying really hard to remain calm.

  My dad glanced at his watch and frowned. “Sorry, but I don’t have time to swing by the house. This customer is hysterical and has agreed to pay my emergency rates. She’s hosting some kind of big shindig later today and says her house is crawling with bugs inside and out. Hundreds of ’em just showed up out of the blue this morning.”

  “ICK!!” Brianna said, scrunching up her nose.

  “Sounds like a box elder infestation to me.” Dad continued, “Hopefully, she’s not throwing that baby shower your mom is supposed to be attending later today.”

  I grumpily climbed into the front seat of the van and tried to slouch down really low so no one could see me.

  Whenever we stopped at a red light, a bunch of people would point, stare, and laugh. Not at me; at our roach.

  For some reason, Brianna thought all the gawkers were just being friendly. So she started smiling, waving, and throwing kisses out the window like she had just been crowned Miss America or something.

  And Dad was pretty used to all the rude stares. He just ignored them and hummed along to his Saturday Night Fever CD.

  Thank goodness I noticed an empty grocery bag sticking out from under the seat.

  Even though it said WARNING: TO AVOID SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH, PLEASE KEEP PLASTIC AWAY FROM VERY YOUNG CHILDREN! I poked two eye holes in it and pulled it down over my head.

  First of all, I WASN’T a very young child.

  And second of all, I’d rather suffer a slow and painful death by asphyxiation than be spotted riding around in the “roachmobile”!

  I have to admit, we probably looked like a

  FREAK SHOW ON WHEELS.

  It was SO embarrassing!

  I wondered how serious my injuries would be if I jumped from a moving vehicle traveling forty-five miles per hour. Assuming I survived, I could at least walk home and end the humiliating ride in Dad’s van.

  About ten minutes later, we drove up a long driveway that led to a huge house. Wow! Nice house, I thought. Too bad it has bugs!

  Brianna stared at the house in awe. “Daddy, can I go inside with you? Pretty please!”

  “Sorry, pumpkin, but you’ll have to wait out here in the van with your sister and make sure no one steals Max, okay?”

  Like WHO in their right mind would want MAX?!

  Two shiny black bugs about a half inch long landed on the window of our van.

  “Yep! Box elders all right,” Dad said, eyeing them carefully. “Basically just a harmless eyesore. To spray the entire premises will probably take about twenty minutes. But I’ll try to get it done as fast as I can. If you girls need anything, I’ll be right inside.”

  Dad unloaded his equipment and lugged it up the front steps. Before he could ring the doorbell, a frantic-looking middle-aged lady in designer clothing opened the door and ushered him in.

  Brianna started to pout. “I wanna go in there with DAD!”

  “NO! You’re supposed to stay here. And watch Max! Remember?” I said sternly.

  Brianna wrinkled her nose at me.

  “YOU watch Max! I gotta go to the bathroom!”

  “Brianna, Dad will be back real soon. Can’t you just hold it a little longer?”

  “NO! I gotta go NOOOWW!”

  I was like, Just great! All of this drama for a measly $10.

  “Okay, fine,” I said, finally giving in. “When we go inside, don’t touch anything. Just use the bathroom and come right out, got that?”

  “I wanna say hi to Dad too!”

  “No! You’re gonna use the bathroom, and then we’re coming back to the van to wait for…”

  Before I could finish my sentence, Brianna slid open the van door and dashed to the front steps.

  By the time I caught up with her, she was already leaning on the doorbell. “Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!”

  The flustered-looking lady answered the door again and looked surprised to see Brianna and me.

  “Um…I really apologize for disturbing you,” I stammered. “But we were out in the van waiting for our dad and—”

  “Hey, lady! I gotta go PEEEEEEE!” Brianna interrupted.

  Then she started squirming and making ugly faces for maximum dramatic effect.

  The lady looked at Brianna, then at me, and then back at Brianna. She stretched her thin red lips into a strained smile.

  “Oh! So your dad is our…exterminator. Sure, honey, the bathroom is right this way. Follow me.”

  The inside of the house looked like something out of one of my mom’s fancy home and garden magazines. We were headed down a hallway off the foyer when the lady stopped in her tracks.

  “Oh, wait! There’s bug spray in all the bathrooms on the main floor. You’re going to have to use one upstairs. All of the bedrooms have an attached bathroom. I’d escort you myself, but my caterer is supposed to call me any minute now for a final head count.”

  The telephone rang, and the lady gasped and rushed off, leaving us standing there. Brianna smiled and darted up the huge staircase ahead of me.

  As she entered the first bedroom on the right, she squealed with glee, “Ooh! Pretty!”

  It was decorated in shades of pink and had plush carpeting soft enough to sleep on. The laptop and big-screen TV were to die for. My entire bedroom could fit into the walk-in closet. But, personally, it was a little too sugar-n-spice for my taste. Not that I was jealous or anything. Like how juvenile would THAT be?!

  “Hey! Can I jump up and down on this princessy bed?!” Brianna asked.

  ME AND BRIANNA IN TOTAL AWE OF THE FABULOUS BEDROOM!! (WHICH, BTW, TOOK ME LIKE FOREVER TO DRAW!!)

  “NO!” I snapped. “Get down!”

  It took all my willpower not to snoop. I wondered what school the girl attended and if we could ever be friends. I bet she had a perfect life. Unlike me.

  Brianna skipped into the adjoining bathroom and locked the door behind her. “Wow, I’m gonna get a bathroom like this for my birthday!”

  Soon, I heard the toilet flush. But after three minutes, she still had not come out.

  “Brianna, hurry up!!” I shouted through the door.

  “Wait, I’m still washing my hands really good with this strawberry soap, and then I’m going to put on some yummy-smelling cupcake body spray.”

  “Come on. We have to go back to the van now.”

  “Wait!! I’m almost done!”

  Suddenly I heard a sickeningly familiar voice.

  “But, Mommm! I CAN’T have my party with these horrible BUGS crawling all over! We should have had it at the country club like I wanted. This is totally YOUR fault!”

  I almost wet my pants! It was MACKENZIE !

  I was like, OMG! OMG! OMG! Today was the party I had not been invited to.

  It was like a demented nightmare. I was trapped in MacKenzie’s bedroom, my sister was locked in MacKenzie’s bathroom, and my dad was exterminating MacKenzie’s house. And if all that wasn’t awful enough, our van, with a humongous roach on top of it, was parked in MacKenzie’s driveway with MY last name plastered across the side of it (the van, not the roach).

  I wanted to dig a deep hole in the lush pink carpet, crawl into it, and DIE! I pounded on the door.

  ME (HAVING A MELTDOWN!)

  “BRIANNA! COME ON! OPEN UP!”

  “I’m busy. Go away!”

  “You’ve been in there long enough. Now open the door!”

  �
�Say ‘pretty please.’”

  “Pretty please.”

  “Now say ‘pretty please with sugar on top.’”

  “Okay. Open the door, pretty please with sugar on top…”

  “NO!! I’m NOT done yet!”

  “Mommm! This party is going to be a DISASTER! My reputation will be ruined! We have to cancel it.”

  I could hear MacKenzie’s shrieks getting louder. She was coming up the stairs!

  “Brianna. Open the door quick! PLEASE! It’s an emergency!” I hissed through the door.

  “Wait! I’m putting on the yummy-smelling cupcake body spray now. Um…what’s the emergency?”

  Now MacKenzie was in the hallway.

  “Mom, I’m calling Jessica. She’ll never believe this is happening to me…”

  I had exactly three seconds to convince Brianna to open the bathroom door.

  “Brianna! It’s the TOOTH FAIRY! She’s coming, and we have to get out of here!! NOW!!”

  The lock on the door clicked, and Brianna whipped open the door.

  She looked even more afraid than she had been at the Princess Sugar Plum movie.

  “D-did you say T-T-TOOTH FAIRY?!”

  “Yes! Come on, let’s HIDE! Quick!”

  Brianna was panicking and starting to whine.

  “Where is she? I’m scared! I want Daaaaaddy!”

  “Let’s hide behind the shower curtain. If we’re really quiet, she’ll never find us.”

  Brianna shut up instantly, but her eyes were as big as saucers.

  I actually felt a little sorry for her.

  We dove into the bathtub and huddled behind the shower curtain.

  I could hear MacKenzie stomping around her bedroom and screaming into her cell phone.

  “Jess, there’s no way I can have this party now! Our house is crawling with bugs! What?…How am I supposed to know what they are? They’re these big black, er…roaches or something. Some guy is here spraying, but now the house stinks! It STINKS, Jess! How can I have a party with the house STINKING!”

  “Nikki, I’m a-scared. I want my daaaddy! NOW!”

  “I BEGGED Mom to let me have my party at the country club! Lyndsey’s mom let her have her party at the country club. But NOOO! Getting my mom to do anything these days is like pulling TEETH!.”

  WHY did MacKenzie have to say the T word?!

  Brianna totally lost it and started climbing out of the tub.

  “OH NO! Did you hear that! She’s says she’s going to pull out my TEETH! I wanna go hooome!”

  “Brianna!! Wait…!” I tackled her and held her in a headlock. Finally, she stopped squirming and went limp.

  Then the little brat BIT me!! HARD! I let go of her and yelped in pain like a wounded animal. “YEEOOOOW!” But I did it inside my head, so no one else heard it but me.

  Brianna scrambled out of the tub, opened the bathroom door, and disappeared into MacKenzie’s bedroom!

  I froze and held my breath. I could not believe this was happening to me.

  Then I thought, maybe this is just a nightmare. Like those scary-weird dreams I was having earlier in the week about Chloe and Zoey. If I could just wake up, this would ALL go away.

  So I closed my eyes, pinched myself really hard, and tried to wake up.

  But when I opened my eyes, I was still standing in MacKenzie’s bathtub, with Brianna’s (now black-and-blue) teeth marks on my arm, next to a throbbing red pinch mark.

  I SO wished I was DEAD!

  Suddenly, another idea popped into my head. If I turned on MacKenzie’s shower and stood under freezing cold water for an hour, I might die of pneumonia. But even that could take a few days, and I needed to be DEAD, RIGHT NOW!

  “OMG! Jess, there’s a little KID in my room!…How would I know? She appeared out of nowhere. I’ve told Amanda a million times my room is off-limits to her and her pesky little friends. Hold on…”

  “MOM…!! Amanda and her friends are playing in my room again! Would you please do something…?!”

  “Okay, Jess, I’m back. If they so much as touch my makeup again, I swear, I’m going to strangle…”

  “Don’t you dare touch me you, you…WICKED tooth fairy!” Brianna screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Suddenly I felt really light-headed. I was sure I was about to faint.

  “Hold on a minute, Jess…”

  “WHO told you I was the tooth fairy? WHAT are you doing in my bedroom? And WHERE is Amanda?!!”

  “You can’t have my tooths! NEVER!” Brianna shouted bravely.

  “MOM!! AMANDA!! Hold on, Jess. I have to get rid of this little kid. Then I’m going to KILL Amanda! Okay. Outta my room, right this—”

  “STOP! Let go of me! I LOVE my tooths!”

  There was a loud thump, and MacKenzie shrieked.

  “MOM! I’ve just been attacked by a demonic munchkin! OMG! I think I’m bruised! I can’t wear my new

  OOOW! YOU LITTLE…! BRIANNA BATTLING THE WICKED TOOTH FAIRY!

  Jimmy Choo flip-flops with a big bruise on my leg!”

  “Are you still there, Jess? I can’t have my party like this. I’ve got a bruise the size of a pancake. NO!…I didn’t get bruised by a pancake! I said…Hold on…!”

  I could hear MacKenzie hobbling down the stairs like a one-legged pirate. Click-klunk, click-klunk, click-klunk.

  “MOM! Last week Amanda and her friends put gum in my hair and colored with my lipsticks! Now one of them just…”

  When it sounded like MacKenzie’s screeches were coming from a safe distance away, I jumped out of the bathtub, grabbed Brianna, and tossed her over my shoulder like a sack of rotten potatoes.

  Without stopping even once, I hauled her down the stairs, through the hall, to the foyer, and out the front door.

  I deposited her butt in the backseat of the van and slammed the door.

  My dad was in the back, loading up his equipment.

  “Oh, there you girls are! Perfect timing. I’m all done.”

  As Dad started the van and drove off, I stared at the house, half expecting MacKenzie to come limping out the front door ranting that Brianna be arrested for creating a bruise that prevented her from wearing her new Jimmy Choos at her birthday party. Amazingly, Brianna sat calmly in the backseat and seemed quite pleased with herself.

  “Daddy, guess what? I went to use the bathroom, and after I washed my hands with strawberry soap and put on cupcake body spray, I saw the tooth fairy with rollers in her hair talking on a fairy phone, and she said she was going to strangle me and pull out all of my teeth to make dentures for old people. So when she grabbed me, I kicked her and she let go and started screaming for her mommy. Then she flew back to fairyland to go to a party for Jimmy Shoe. She’s not so nice, that’s for sure! I like Santa and the Easter Bunny much better.”

  Lucky for us, Dad was only half listening to Brianna’s rambling. “Really, pumpkin? So is that what your Princess Sugar Plum movie was about?”

  At the next stoplight, I noticed a carload of teen boys pointing and laughing. I put my plastic bag back over my head and slouched down in the seat.

  I was so mad I could SPIT!

  All of this drama for a measly ten bucks!!

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29

  I’m starting to get really excited because the avant-garde art competition is only eight days away! I decided to enter my watercolor painting that took me two whole summers at art camp to complete. I spent more than 130 hours on it.

  The only complication is that I gave it to my mom and dad last spring for their sixteenth wedding anniversary. So it’s technically not mine anymore. It was either my painting or spending my entire life savings of $109.21 to buy them dinner at a fancy restaurant.

  But I knew the dinner was going to be a total ripoff, because I watch the Food Network. All of those five-star restaurants serve really gross stuff like frog legs and snails, and then give you a tiny portion on a really big plate with chocolate syrup drizzled over it and a garnish. And “garnish” is just a fancy n
ame for a plain old piece of parsley.

  So, to save money, Brianna and I decided to cook a romantic candlelit dinner for Mom and Dad as an anniversary surprise. We took a big bucket and a net to the pond at the park and hunted down some fresh frog legs and snails.

  It was MY brilliant idea to make it an all-you-caneat buffet, since we were basically getting the food for FREE.