Alexis's Half-Baked Idea

by Coco Simon

  I ran back down as they brought the bench in, and once they’d set it down, I lifted its lid to reveal all the old practice books my granny used to use to teach me to play.

  Recognizing the one on top, I selected it and sat down on the bench to flip through it. As I flicked past the names of pieces, I was flooded with nostalgia, remembering the times my granny and I would sit together on this bench and play. First, with her playing and my hands on top of hers—almost like how my dad taught me to dance by standing on his feet—then, as I got the hang of it, she “took off the training wheels,” and I played alone. She taught me how to read music, and I enjoyed it so much, I occasionally practiced reading it at home.

  The piano lessons had been our special cozy time together, and I had loved it. I also always had loved listening to my granny play. She had played in concerts when she was younger and had given piano lessons for years. She had a quiet and peaceful style of playing that I admired. She’d close her eyes and sway a little when she played, and I always thought she looked like the music was taking her away to a magical place.

  I settled the book open on a piece called “Arabesque” by a composer named Friedrich Burgmüller. My granny had written in pencil in the margin “Lively, Alexis!” with a little smiley face.

  I grinned, placed my hands on the keys, and began puzzling it out.

  It was amazing how quickly the tune came back to me—like it had been sitting just inside my fingers for years, waiting to be called out, front and center. My hands had a little trouble finding the proper keys, but I was able to figure it out by ear, and the piece began to sound a little like how it was meant to. I had forgotten how much fun it was to puzzle out notes and count beats in my head. It was a lot like math, which I love.

  Nearly an hour passed, but it felt like only five minutes as I sifted through the old books in the piano bench and selected favorite old songs to try. My mom came in toward the end and stood leaning in the doorway, her arms folded, a smile on her face. When I finished the piece, she clapped.

  “When your granny asked if they could give you the piano, I hesitated at first. I said you were so busy with all your activities and friends, and I wasn’t sure I wanted a big, hulking piano in my living room. But Granny was confident that you’d go back to it once you had it, and it meant so much to her to hand it down to you.”

  I folded my hands in my lap and beamed. “It’s the best present ever!”

  “Should we give her a call to say thanks?” suggested my mom with a big smile.

  I nodded.

  My mom pulled out her cell phone and dialed Granny. When she picked up, I instantly said, “Thank you, you’re the best granny ever! It’s Alexis, if you don’t know! I love the piano so much!”

  I could hear her laughing and telling my grandfather who it was.

  “Alexis, sweetheart, I am so happy to hear that! I knew it had to go to just the right person, and that was you. “

  “Well, I always had so much fun playing it with you, and it’s so beautiful. Plus, I’ve been looking for something . . .” I glanced at my mom, and she smiled and nodded. “Something more to do. Like a new hobby, and this is just the thing.”

  “Wonderful, darling. You are a born musician. You have the discipline to practice, and you have an organized mind with incredible rhythm and an appreciation for beauty. I know it will give you hours and hours of joy, as it did for me.”

  “Thank you, Granny! I love you! Have a fun trip!”

  “I love you, too, darling. Enjoy!”

  After I hung up I spotted a fresh box of our family stationery on my mom’s desk. It says “Becker” across the top of the creamy notecards, in blocky navy-blue print.

  “Mom! I forgot. I need to write thank-you notes for my presents from my party. Can I use some of the stationery?”

  “Of course. That’s what it’s there for.”

  I selected a chunk of cards and envelopes and jogged back up to my desk, where I easily wrote thank-yous to Emma, Mia, and Katie for their gifts. It was when I got to Matt that I was stumped. I wrote:

  Dear Matt,

  Thank you so much for the pen.

  And then I got stuck. It’s the best pen ever? It writes so well? I love the feel of it? It all sounded boring or weird.

  You broke my heart by giving me a boring gift, reflecting that I am a boring person who does not inspire feelings of romance in you?

  No. I’d better not write that.

  I tapped my pen on my chin and reached to open the desk drawer where I’d stowed Matt’s pen. I clicked open the lid of its case and looked at it: a wooden pen, lying in blue velvet. The velvet and case seemed like overkill for a silly old pen. I sighed and snapped the lid shut, then I set aside the note for Matt. I needed more inspiration. I’d work on it later.

  I had to be at the movie theater by three o’clock, so I was ready by two thirty, of course. My mom was going to drive me on her way to the grocery store. I made a little effort to look nice—I brushed my hair and put on some earrings—because you never know who will be at the mall or the movies, but I still had some time to kill.

  I clicked open my e-mail on my computer and saw that the talent show manager had responded to my proposal! He wrote:

  Dear Alexis and the Cupcake Club,

  Thank you so much for your proposal. It is so well-organized and thought-out. I am very impressed by you young ladies. The school would love to have your cupcake sale at the talent show on Saturday night. We will provide a folding table and two chairs at the theater entrance starting at 6:00 p.m., if you can handle the rest (and I think you can!). I am sorry we can’t be of help in staffing the table, but we don’t have the extra hands on weekend nights.

  If the sale goes well, I would like to speak to the Cupcake Club about working at ten more evening events we have during the school year, including Parents’ Night, music recitals, class plays, and PTA meetings.

  Please remember no peanuts or tree nuts in the baked goods!

  All the best,

  Mr. Imbelli

  Wow, wow, wow!

  We just booked ten other jobs at school, assuming everything goes well the night of the talent show! Ten! I couldn’t wait to tell my friends!

  As my mom was dropping me off in front of the mall, I spied the Taylors’ silver minivan pulling up behind us. I ran back to meet Emma and tell her the news. As I reached the van, I spotted Matt and Mr. Taylor in the front, with Matt’s window rolled down. Yikes. I hadn’t seen Matt since my birthday party and the awkward pen-giving. Worse yet, I knew he must have heard about the cheer tryouts and my mortifying fail.

  I immediately turned bright red and waved awkwardly at them as Emma opened the sliding side door to exit.

  “Hi, Alexis!” called Mr. Taylor.

  Matt waved slightly, lifting his hand with a shy smile. I couldn’t stop smiling back, even as butterflies almost flew away with my stomach.

  “Hi, Mr. Taylor; hi, Matt,” I said quietly, my voice shaking a little with both love and embarrassment.

  “Have fun at the movies!” Mr. Taylor called as Emma pushed the button for the door to slide closed.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and certainly nothing to say to Matt. Think, Becker, think! But no easy words came to mind as Matt continued to look at me.

  “Bye,” I said as they pulled away.

  Emma stood on the curb and looked at me quizzically. “Is something bad going on with you and Matt?”

  I turned to look at her. “What do you mean?”

  She knit her eyebrows together. “Are you mad at him or something?”

  My jaw dropped. “Me? Mad at Matt? No way! Are you kidding? I just . . .” I couldn’t think of how to explain about my weird feelings about his unromantic gift, so I went for the tryouts explanation. “I’m just so mortified that his friend Greg saw my epic fail at the cheerleading tryouts the other day.”

  Emma looked confused “He did? Well, Matt hasn’t mentioned it or anything. What was Greg doing
while you were trying out? Was he laughing or something?”

  “No, he just looked a little surprised and confused. But I’m sure he told Matt I was awful!”

  “Oh, Lex, I’m sure he thought you were good. And I’m sure you were good. Or at the very least, you weren’t as bad as you think you were! Greg probably didn’t even mention it to Matt, because he thought you were just fine. You’re too hard on yourself. You’re always way better at things than you think.”

  “Speaking of which, guess who wrote me back?”

  I filled Emma in on the Mr. Imbelli e-mail as we rode the escalators up to find Mia and Katie at the theater. When we found them, I told them about the ten potential events at school, and we all squealed and jumped up and down. Then I handed each of them the thank-you notes I’d written, and they loved them and hugged me.

  After Emma and I picked up our tickets, the four of us got in line for snacks, and as we stood waiting, Mia cried, “Look! There’s Dylan!”

  “What?” My heart sank. “What’s she doing here? Probably spying on me so she can tell my mom about all the junk food I ate today.” I scoffed.

  Dylan was kind of decked out—she’d done her hair and makeup, and she had on a pretty top I’d never seen before. She wasn’t overdressed, but she looked good, very put-together in a way I will never, ever be able to pull off. I was proud of her suddenly, seeing her like that out in public. That’s my big sis, I thought, before I remembered I currently was mad at her.

  “Dylan!” called Katie, but Dylan didn’t hear. She was heading over to meet a group of girls standing by the arcade machines. Unlike me, Dylan doesn’t have a tight core of three best friends. She has millions of kids she hangs out with, and tons more friends on social media and around town than I do. I know I should try harder to build up my other friendships so I can be more popular, like Dylan, but I don’t know how.

  “Oh, she’s going to meet those girls from the high school, and they’re seeing what we’re seeing. I was behind them in line,” said Katie. “We’ll meet up with her inside.” Katie turned back to Mia and Emma as they continued their discussion of how a kid got in trouble in science for dropping the pet snake.

  I continued to watch with pride as Dylan approached her group with a smile and then . . . something bad happened. The girls all looked at her and turned their backs on her. Dylan stopped midwalk.

  Wait, what?

  Then the girls started to laugh, and they scurried away into the ladies’ room, and Dylan was left standing there, all alone.

  My jaw dropped in shock, and I looked quickly at my friends to see if they were interpreting the scene the same way I was. Had Dylan just been ditched?

  She stood there, paralyzed, rooted to the spot. I knew how that felt.

  “Be right back,” I said to my friends. They nodded, still engrossed in their snake conversation. I bolted across the theater to Dylan’s side.

  “Dilly?” I said. “Hi.”

  She looked at me as if waking from a dream, a bad one. There were tears in her eyes, but they hadn’t fallen and ruined her eye makeup (eye makeup that she had certainly not put on at home, or my mom never would have let her leave the house).

  And then, without saying anything, Dylan turned and ran out of the theater.

  I chased after her and grabbed her arm just down the hall from the theater. She spun around, crying hard now, her mascara running, and she said, “Leave me alone, Alexis! Just let me be. This is none of your business!” And she ran off again.

  I stood there in shock and then slowly, sadly, wandered back to my friends.

  CHAPTER 8

  Quack

  I did not enjoy the movie.

  In fact, I have no idea what the movie was even about. I burned with shame and anger at what had happened to Dylan. When I saw those awful girls from her school file into the theater, I wanted to rip their hair out. How dare they make my sister cry? She was the most fun friend anyone could ask for! I conveniently forgot how annoying and mean Dylan had been last night and how much my parents and friends complimenting her had been bugging me. All I could think of was that she was my sister, and she was in pain, so I was in pain too.

  When the movie was over, the only thing I wanted to do was go home.

  “Alexis? Did you not like the movie?” asked Mia. She read my face and looked worried.

  “What? No. I mean, it was fine. I’m just . . . I’m really tired. I just want to go home.”

  My friends exchanged glances.

  “Are you okay?” asked Katie, her voice filled with concern.

  I took a deep breath. “Yup.” I didn’t want to add to Dylan’s humiliation by explaining what I’d seen.

  “But you were so psyched before the show, with the piano news and the cupcake jobs,” said Emma, looking at me carefully.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I’m still happy about all that, but I just want to get home. It’s been a long day.”

  “Okay. Want to come sit with us at Jamba Juice until your mom gets here?” asked Mia.

  “No, thanks, I’ll wait outside,” I said.

  “Want us to wait with you?” offered Emma.

  “Nah, I’m fine. Thanks. I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow.”

  Katie gave me a hug, and I wandered downstairs to wait for my mom, who I’d already texted.

  As soon as she pulled up, I hopped in and pulled my seat belt across me, blurting, “What’s going on with Dylan?”

  My mom took her eyes off the road for a second and looked at me. “Why?” she asked.

  “I saw a group of girls be really mean to her at the movies. Like they laughed at her and ditched her. And then she ran away and cried, and I tried to chase her, but she wouldn’t let me follow her. I don’t know where she went.” I thought I might cry myself now.

  My mom put her blinker on and carefully pulled to the side of the road and double-parked, her hazard lights clicking out a slow beat. Then she turned to me in her seat and sighed.

  “Dad came and got her. Remember how I said that you can never really know what’s going on in someone’s life? And also how Dad and I had been trying to build Dylan up?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, she’s having a tough time at her school right now. There are some new girls who came in this year who are . . . not very nice girls. They were all friends from Madison”—that’s the high school in the rich town next to us—“and they’ve all come in and completely upended the social structure in Dylan’s class.”

  “Which she was at the top of,” I said.

  My mom nodded. “And now she seems to be at the bottom.” She sighed. “And it’s all tied up with cheerleading, because the coach added one of the girls, Jenna somebody, to be Dylan’s cocaptain, without telling Dylan. Then Dylan invited the other two to your party, and the Jenna one was upset. . . .”

  “Wait, my party? Why would anyone care about my party?”

  My mom smiled. “It was a great party. I guess the other girl’s feelings were hurt, even though it wasn’t really Dylan’s party. It doesn’t even make sense when I say it out loud. I just know that Dylan is hurting right now, and feeling very unsure of herself. That’s all. She needs our love and support.”

  “Wow,” I said, shaking my head slowly in wonder. “I just can’t believe that about Dylan. She always seems so perfect. Everything always seems to be going so well for her.”

  My mom laughed gently. “She says the same about you!”

  “What? No way!”

  That was shocking, shocking news, and duh! Totally not based in reality. I mean, seriously.

  “Well, look at what Dylan sees. You get wonderful grades; you have three best friends who would walk over hot coals for you; you have a thriving business, doing something you love; you have an adorable crush who seems to like you back; you’re a member of a business club that enriches your life; you’re a beautiful dancer. . . .”

  “Okay, wait, wait, wait. Yes. That is mostly true, but I’m also boring! I’m not popular, or pep
py, or an amazing dresser, or cheer captain, or any of the things Dylan is!”

  My mom smiled. “You and Dylan are two very different people, and you’re both wonderful just the way you are.”

  “Hmm. I guess,” I said. This was certainly food for thought.

  “Okay?” asked my mom.

  I nodded, and she slowly pulled back out into the traffic.

  “Is Dylan home?” I asked.

  “Dad was going to take her to get a bite to eat, but she should be back by now.”

  “Okay.” I knew what I wanted to do.

  As soon as I got home, I grabbed an extra note card from the family stationery stash and went up to my desk. I picked up a pen and wrote,

  Dear Dylan,

  You are the best big sister in the world, and the coolest person I know. You are so much fun and so pretty and generous. You are an incredible cheerleader, and you have great fashion sense and throw amazing parties. All my friends worship you.

  Thank you so much for my birthday party. It was the best one I ever had, all thanks to you.

  Love, Alexis

  I slid the card into its envelope, sealed it, and wrote “Dylan” on the outside in my best script. Then I went and slid it under her door.

  My mom and I had dinner (since my dad and Dylan had gone out to eat), and then my parents and I watched Stranger Things. Somewhere around episode two, Dylan joined us in the family room. My dad scooted over on the sofa to make room for her, and she slid in. No one said anything about mean girls or movie theaters or tears. We just watched the episodes until we were tired and went to bed.

  The next morning I awoke to a text from Emma.

  Call me.

  It was from late the night before. Was she worried about me? Had something happened at the mall after I left? I looked at the time: nine thirty. She was probably up.

  I pressed her number and listened to the rings. As I was about to hang up on ring ten, Emma breathlessly answered the phone.

  “Hi!”

  “Hey! What’s up? How was the rest of last night?” I asked.

  “Oh, kind of lame. We wandered around the food court, then we ran into Matt with Joe Proctor and George Martinez and had ice cream with them.”