by Mary Amato
I looked up, and Scarlett bumped into my arm. The papers went flying.
“Sorry, Lucy,” Scarlett said. “I didn’t mean to bump into you.” But she wasn’t sorry. She raced to get the piece of paper that was closest to her. I picked up another. Phillip and Resa ran up and dove for the other pieces.
“What is going on?” Mrs. Brock asked.
I opened my paper. In Scarlett’s handwriting was the name Victoria.
Phillip opened up the two he had in his hand, and Resa opened up the one in her hand. They read the names on the papers at the same time: “Victoria.”
There were four Victorias!
“Show us yours, Scarlett,” Phillip said.
Scarlett put her paper in her pocket. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I bet it says Victoria,” I said.
Phillip nodded. “You made sure there was a five in five chance of Victoria being chosen.”
“I thought we were friends,” Mara said sadly.
“Class,” Mrs. Brock said, “what is going on?”
“A major crime has been committed,” Phillip said.
Scarlett rolled her eyes. “I didn’t commit a crime, Mrs. Brock. I just wrote Victoria’s name five times by accident.”
“Accident?” Resa laughed.
“Well, I suggest you work all that out after school,” Mrs. Brock said. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of The Morning Mix.”
It was over.
As we walked back to our seats, Phillip whispered, “My dream has been crumpled.”
Resa nodded. “My dream has been crumpled and thrown into the trash.”
I plopped into my seat. My dream? Crumpled and thrown into a trash can full of bird ploop.
Chapter Fourteen
UPS AND DOWNS ALL AROUND
The day crawled by, and then after lunch something unexpected happened—all because Phillip had to go to the bathroom during science!
We had science the last period of the day, and when Phillip came back from the bathroom, I knew right away that something had happened.
His eyes were huge, but we were supposed to be working quietly on our projects. So he wrote a note. Resa was closest to him, so he passed it to her first. It had to be something good, because as she read it, she started smiling. Then she passed it to me.
I ran into Ms. Adamson as she was walking out the door. She said Ben & Bree just tweeted a special giveaway. Four last-minute tickets to Ben & Bree! To enter the giveaway, you post a video of yourself singing “Get Up” with a special hashtag. The deadline is tomorrow at midnight. They’ll pick one video at random and give whoever made it four tickets to Saturday’s show. Ms. Adamson asked me to tell everybody in the Songwriting Club because everybody is going to want to enter. I’m so excited!
I looked at Phillip and Resa. Their eyeballs were popping out. Mine probably were too, but I couldn’t see them. We know all the Ben & Bree songs by heart. We could make a video. We could win. I wanted to get up and start dancing around the room, but I had to pretend like nothing was going on.
Just then Scarlett walked by my desk and snatched the note out of my hands. Before I could stop her, Scarlett took it to her desk and read it. Then she sent a note back to me.
This is so fun! I’m entering. My video is going to be excellent because my mom has a real video camera, not just a cell phone. I am going to tell Victoria, but that’s it. Don’t tell anybody else in the club or anybody period. The more people who enter, the harder it will be to win. If I win, I’ll have four extra free tickets and I’ll give them to whoever in the whole school is nicest to me—including you and Phillip and Resa. So, you sort of have two chances. You should be happy about that. —Scarlett
I shared the note with Phillip and Resa, and then as soon as school got out, the three of us had a meeting.
“Scarlett makes me mad,” I said. “She’s going to win the tickets. I just know it.”
“And then we’ll have to polish her shoes and do her chores, and she’ll still probably give the tickets to somebody else,” Resa said.
“We should give up,” I said.
“Guys!” Phillip said. “We can’t give up. It’s going to be a random pick. It doesn’t matter if she has a fancy camera.”
“But what if it isn’t random?” I asked.
Resa jumped in. “I think if the video Ben & Bree picked at random was bad, they’d keep picking until they got a good one. If we’re going to do this, we should make a really good one.”
“Okay, then, let’s make a great one,” Phillip said. “Come on. We can do this. Go home and get permission to stay after school tomorrow. Practice as much as you can tonight! Tomorrow we’ll bring our ukes, and we’ll bring our best, most positive attitudes, and we’ll make the most fantastic video ever!”
When Phillip gives a pep talk, he really gets into it.
“One for all, all for one!” Resa said, and put her fist in the middle for us to bump. We did a triple bump, and then we all turned to go.
I was so happy, but then I stopped.
“Wait,” I said. “What about Scarlett’s idea?”
I didn’t even have to say what I meant. Were we going to do the right thing and tell everybody else in the club about the giveaway so they could enter, too, or were we going to take Scarlett’s suggestion and keep it a secret?
We got quiet.
“If we don’t tell them, and they find out, they’ll hate us,” Resa said. “I’d hate us.”
Phillip chewed on his thumbnail. “This is what I call a conundrum. I want to keep it a secret, but I don’t want to be selfish.”
“Maybe we should just tell them,” I said. “We’ll feel better.”
Phillip nodded. “I can get my mom to call everybody as soon as I get home,” Phillip said. “She has a list of all the phone numbers of parents in school.”
Resa shrugged. “Too bad they don’t give free tickets to people for deciding to do the right thing. We’d have a better chance at winning those.”
We did a triple fist bump again.
Now I was all the way happy.
Chapter Fifteen
BUSH BABIES IN THE DEEP BLUE SEA
I couldn’t wait to get home. I was going to tell my dad all about the exciting new contest, and then I was going to practice singing and playing so I’d be ready for tomorrow. Then I remembered the horrible truth—I didn’t have a uke, and I hadn’t told my parents it was lost! They were going to be so mad.
When I got home, my dad’s famous tofu taco pie was baking, and he was playing on the kitchen floor with some bush babies. Not real bush babies. Just Lily and Leo. They were playing Bush Babies in a Boat. That’s a game where you sit in a laundry basket in the middle of the floor and let your dad push you around, and you pretend you’re a bush baby sailing in the deep blue sea. I loved it when I was little. Leo hopped out, but instead of running over and begging me to play, he gave me a funny look and ran out of the room.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” my dad said. “He was having fun sailing through a storm in the boat. Right, Lily?”
“Bo!” Lily said. “Bo!”
“What’s wrong with you, Lucy?” my dad asked. “You’re wearing your worried face.”
Saying the truth out loud is really hard when the truth makes you look bad. So I didn’t say anything.
“Bo!” Lily said. She tumbled out of the laundry basket and pushed it to me. “Lulu go bo!”
“She wants to give you a boat ride,” my dad said.
Lily looked up at me and smiled with her big brown eyes.
“No thanks,” I said.
She hugged me around the knees and tried to lift me up as if she could actually put me in! My dad laughed.
“Okay, bush baby,�
�� I said and climbed in. Even though I was squashed, I gave Lily a smile and said, “Wow. Nice boat!”
She was so happy. She danced around the boat like a baby dolphin, and then she stopped, put her face right up to mine, and blew out a big breath.
My dad laughed again. “Aye, captain,” he said to me. “Looks like a balmy breeze is fillin’ yer sails!”
“She must have gotten to taste your taco sauce before you put the pie in the oven because I can smell it on her breath,” I said.
Lily grinned.
My dad started pushing me around the kitchen floor, and Lily kept dancing around me and blowing on my face.
“Shiver me timbers!” he said. “This vessel weighs a ton! Ye can’t be a bush baby! Ye must be an elephant!”
Lily laughed. As my dad turned me around, I got a glimpse of Leo peeking in at us through the doorway. He saw me and then ran upstairs.
“What ho! A storm is brewin’!” my dad said.
This used to be my favorite part. Lily knew what to do. She grabbed a wooden spoon and started banging on a pot.
“Thunder and lightning!” my dad said as he started rocking the laundry basket back and forth. “The waves are a-comin’!”
I laughed and held on to the sides of the basket as my dad tried to tip me over, and Lily did her lightning bolt dance. And then my dad gave a final roar and tumbled me out on the floor. “Elephant overboard!”
Lily jumped on me to save me, and my dad started tickling us both.
I was laughing and then something funny happened, and I sort of started to cry.
My dad dropped the pirate voice. “What’s wrong, Lucy?”
Lily could tell it was serious. She crawled into my dad’s lap and got quiet.
All the worries inside me wanted to tumble out. “I lost my uke, and I’ve looked everywhere. And—”
“You lost your uke? When?”
“Monday. I’ve been worried about it all week.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” he asked.
“I knew you and Mom would be mad at me for losing it,” I said. “There’d be yelling and stomping and some kind of really big punishment because I was so bad. And now I want to enter a video contest to get tickets to the Ben & Bree show, but you probably won’t let me.”
My dad sighed. “Lucy. If you had told us right away, we’d have tried to help you find it,” he said. “Could you have left it at school?”
“No,” I said.
“Okay, before we jump to conclusions, let’s get Leo and do a family search. Top to bottom,” he said. “Come on! Let’s go upstairs and try to find Lucy’s ukulele!”
You know how a lighthouse is supposed to shine a little light from the shore so a boat can see where to go in a storm? Sometimes, my dad is a lighthouse for me.
Maybe an elephant, two bush babies, and a lighthouse could find that ukulele after all!
Chapter Sixteen
WHERE, OH WHERE? IS MY UKE THERE?
“Leo!” my dad called out as we walked up the stairs. “Calling all bush babies! Emergency search party!”
No answer. His bed was suspiciously lumpy. Even Lily could tell he was hiding. She ran right over, climbed up on his bed and started pounding on the lumps.
“Ouch!” Leo said, and threw off his blanket.
“Lucy lost her uke and we’re going to help her find it,” my dad said.
Leo got a guilty look on his face.
“Leo?” my dad asked. “Do you know where Lucy’s uke is?”
He crawled back under his blanket.
“Leo!” I said and pulled it away again. “If you took my uke, you have to say so right now!”
He flipped over and pulled his pillow over his head.
“Tutta!” Lily said.
“This is not time to be a turtle, Leo,” my dad said.
While my dad tried to get Leo out of his shell, I searched through his room. I looked in his closet and in his toy chest. Nothing.
“If you’re too scared to talk, Leo, you must have done something really bad!” I said. “This is why you’ve been weird all week!”
Leo started to cry.
I dove under the bed and…
“My ukulele!” I yelled, and pulled it out. And then I saw…one of the strings was hanging loose.
“I broke it!” Leo sobbed. “I wanted to play it. And you said no. So I took it. And I turned those things at the top, and I broke it.”
“It was bad enough that you broke it,” I yelled, “but not telling about it was even worse!”
“Lucy,” my dad said, “let me see the uke and let me talk to Leo.”
“You better punish him!” I said. “Because that was the baddest ever!”
Leo howled as I marched out.
I stomped down the stairs and stomped around the kitchen. All those days I was worrying! All because of Leo! I went to the backyard and stomped around more. Then my feet hurt, so I sat in the tree swing.
After a while my dad came out with my ukulele in one hand and Lily on his hip.
“I looked online,” he said. “A loose string is pretty easy to fix. See what you think.” He handed it to me, and I strummed it.
“Sounds good,” he said. “Right?”
It did. I was relieved but my heart still felt tight. “Leo made three huge mistakes. He took my uke. He turned the pegs at the top. And then he hid it.”
“Yep,” my dad said. “He knows he made a mistake and wants to apologize. He thinks you hate him. I bet you can cheer him up.”
“Cheer him up?” I asked. “Why should I do that? He should be cheering me up.”
He gave me a look. “Lucy, you were so happy that I didn’t stomp and yell when you told me you couldn’t find your uke. But what did you do when Leo finally confessed his mistake?”
My face got hot. It was confusing. My dad always tells me it’s good to let my feelings out.
“I was so mad, I couldn’t control myself,” I said.
“Are you mad now?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sort of.”
A second passed.
“Are you mad now?” he asked.
“Dad!”
“What about now?” He smiled. “You have a choice, Lucy. You can stay mad. Or you can have a big heart and come in and accept Leo’s apology.”
I took a breath and hopped off the swing. “Leo is lucky. I have a big heart.”
My brother was sitting on the kitchen floor when we walked in. He looked like a mess. His eyes and cheeks were wet, and his nose was running. As soon as he saw me, he burst into tears again. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I promise to never steal your uke again.”
That’s when the rest of my mad melted away. I set my uke down on the kitchen table, and then I pulled the laundry basket over to where he was sitting. “Thanks, Leo,” I said. “I’m sorry I yelled. Now, hop in!”
My dad set Lily on the floor, and she squealed and ran over.
Oh, a storm was a-coming, but now we’ve got a breeze
To sail our little ship across the deep blue sea.
Just a dad, two bush babies, a uke, and me,
Your famous singing captain, Lucy McGee.
Chapter Seventeen
QUIET ON THE SET
“You found your uke!” Phillip exclaimed when I showed up the next day.
“My brother kidnapped it,” I said, “but I got it back.”
“Saki, Natalie, Pablo, and Riley are making a video together after school,” Resa said. “And Mara said she’s making one with her cousin.”
“Let’s just make ours good,” Phillip said. “And let the best video win.”
We pulled out our ukes and started practicing. Just then Scarlett and Victoria showed up with matching outfits. “We’re going to make our video at my house after school,”
Scarlett said. “Isn’t this fun?”
“Ignore her,” Phillip whispered.
We wanted to practice more, but the whistle blew for us to go in.
“Good morning,” Mrs. Brock said when we all walked in the classroom. “Step out of the way, please, so Mr. Tapper can get by. He had to put in a new lightbulb.”
Mr. Tapper, the custodian, was climbing down from a ladder with an old lightbulb in his hand.
“It’s not exactly a good morning, Mrs. Brock,” Phillip said. “It’s more like a thumbnail-chewing morning.”
“A lot of us are entering a giveaway contest,” I explained. “And we’re going to make our videos after school. And then we won’t find out until tomorrow who won.”
“The Ben & Bree giveaway?” Mr. Tapper asked. “I just heard about that. I think I’m going to enter, too.”
Our mouths dropped open.
He laughed and started singing “Get Up.”
“Oh no,” Resa said. “More competition for us.”
Phillip nodded. “Yeah, but that’s kind of cool, Mr. Tapper.” He and Mr. Tapper fist-bumped.
“Victoria and I are going to enter, too, Mrs. Brock,” Scarlett said.
“I’m entering, too,” Mara said.
“Great!” Mrs. Brock rolled her eyes. “I bet we’ll have problems focusing today.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t have a hard time focusing,” Scarlett said. “I don’t care if I win or lose. It’ll just be fun to enter.”
Easy for her to say. She already had tickets!
At recess, we split into our groups and practiced. Scarlett and Victoria practiced on the blacktop. Saki, Natalie, Pablo, and Riley practiced by the fence. Phillip, Resa, and I practiced by the playground. Mara’s cousin doesn’t go to our school, so Mara didn’t practice. She joined a four-square team. It was kind of strange for us to be doing different things, but it also made sense for us to be entering in groups. Whoever won would only get four tickets.