Face the Music

by Brian Weisfeld

  “We’d have to do it soon,” mused Amelia thoughtfully. “The Battle of the Bands is at the end of the month. There’s not much time.”

  “Oh, there’s plenty of time!” Harriet was rolling up her other pigtail in the curling iron. “I work fast. And I know people—” Her dark eyes widened. “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

  “Did you burn yourself?” Didi asked with concern.

  “Huh? No, it’s just I know the perfect place to get T-shirts made!” Harriet replied. “It’s this little gift shop that just opened a few blocks down on Walnut Street. It’s a terrible location—no foot traffic over there at all.”

  Harriet hadn’t known foot traffic from foot fungus until a few weeks ago, when the four of them launched their lemonade stand. But Harriet was a fast learner and never forgot a face … or a name … or a charming expression like foot traffic.

  “The owner is this super-sweet old lady named Lucy,” Harriet continued, “and she has the cutest tabby cat she brings to the store—Rambo. He’s orange with—oooh!”

  “You burned yourself!” Didi winced.

  “No, no, I’m just thinking—I should go ask her right now!” Harriet jumped to her feet, forgetting that the curling iron was still wrapped around her pigtail. Its cord was yanked out of the wall.

  Didi covered her eyeglasses with her hands. “I can’t look.”

  Harriet erupted into a fit of laughter. “Okay, that time I did burn myself a little. But it’s okay! Ears recover fast!”

  She uncoiled her hair, unleashing a tightly curled ringlet, and tossed the curling iron onto the crowded kitchen table. Then she rushed into the hallway and started rifling through a heap of shoes. “How many T-shirts will we need?”

  “But we don’t even have a design yet,” Amelia called. “Maybe you should slow down there, sister.”

  Harriet shoved her left foot into a red rain boot, even though it wasn’t remotely cloudy outside.

  “I live life in the fast lane,” she replied. “There’s no slowing me down.”

  High heels, hiking boots, and stinky men’s sneakers all flew through the air as Harriet searched for the rain boot’s match.

  “I can design the logo,” offered Didi. “I mean, if you all want.”

  “Aha!” Harriet bellowed, finding the other boot and jamming her foot into it. She slid on a denim jacket and skipped back into the kitchen.

  She grabbed Didi by the shoulders. “Of course you should design the shirt, you artistic genius, you!” Then she spun to face Amelia. “We can figure out all the details later!”

  Before any of the girls could reply, she did a little jazz spin, announced, “Harriet, out!” and bounded through the front door.

  “Feel free to use the curling iron!” she shouted over her shoulder as the door closed behind her.

  There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Amelia picked up the curling iron, turned to Resa and Didi, and asked, “Anyone know how to use this thing?”

  3

  The next morning, Harriet was running late for homeroom, as usual. It was one of life’s great mysteries how, even though she left herself a whole hour to get ready for school, it never ended up being enough time.

  Every day, she’d be 99 percent ready and just about to walk out the door when some problem would come up. Usually, the problem was of the I-can’t-find-something-I-desperately-need variety. It might be the hairbrush she was looking for, or her math notebook, or the dark green socks, which were the only socks in the universe she could possibly wear with her argyle sweater. Before she knew it, she’d be super late and would have to run to school at breakneck speed to get there before first period started.

  Today, the indispensable item Harriet was missing was the business card Lucy had given her the day before, with all the pricing information for the T-shirts.

  Harriet had planned to stay at Lucy’s shop for just a few minutes and then run back to update the girls. But Rambo had been in such a playful mood, Harriet lost track of time.

  When she’d gotten home, it was almost dinnertime and the other girls were long gone. So she hadn’t had a chance to update them on what Lucy said, and she really wanted to do that at homeroom—which started in exactly eleven minutes. She tore through the upstairs in search of the business card.

  “Mom, did you see a blue business card anywhere?” she yelled to her mother, who was washing dishes downstairs.

  “Did you ever hear the expression ‘needle in a haystack’?” came her mom’s reply.

  “Not helpful, Mom!”

  Her mom was right. Finding a small piece of paper in her bedroom was nearly impossible. She was, as her brothers liked to remind her, the luckiest kid in the family since she was the only one with her own room. She didn’t have the problem her brothers always complained about: other people always moving their stuff around. But even though she could always count on her belongings being where she left them, she still couldn’t find anything in the disaster area that was her bedroom.

  She waded through the sea of discarded clothing, which covered her floor. Harriet’s outfit-selection process was time-consuming and high-impact. She couldn’t tell what she wanted to wear just by looking at the clothes; she needed to try them on. Usually, she had to try on at least five or six items before she found something that worked, and then there was no time to put the clothes back before school.

  Today she’d settled on magenta jeans with a black-and-white striped shirt that looked as if it’d come straight off a Venetian gondolier. She’d folded a flowy white scarf to use as a headband, tied it around the back of her neck, and let the ends flow behind her.

  She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and smiled. It was a really good outfit. All that was missing was a jacket. The denim one with the cool buttons on the front would look super cute. She grabbed it from the corner where she’d thrown it last night, and as she did, a blue piece of card stock fluttered from its pocket.

  “Bingo!” she yelled triumphantly. Card in hand, she raced down the stairs, nearly colliding with her brother.

  “Larry!” she yelled as she hurried over to the shoe pile to grab her sneakers. “You’re not even dressed. You’re going to be really late!”

  “Calculus problem set.” He rubbed the top of his buzzed hair sleepily. “Took me ’til one A.M. to finish.”

  “Why didn’t you just ask what’s-her-face?” Harriet asked. “The girl in your class who always helps you?”

  “I don’t want to, like, bother Eleanor all the time,” Larry said.

  Larry was a big softie. At sixteen, he was the middle of Harriet’s three brothers and the one she was closest to. Sam, the oldest, and Joe, the youngest, both treated her like a kid, but Larry listened to her and respected her opinions. It’s why she felt especially bad that she’d broken his guitar.

  “Well, I’m off to see some girls about getting a new guitar for you!” Harriet grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. “So you guys better start rehearsing again. I want you ready for the Battle of the Bands this month.”

  “Oh, wow. Thanks. Yeah, that’s—that’s totally awesome,” said Larry. “Just … don’t—”

  She spun around in the doorway to face him.

  “I know, I know!” she said. “I’m not going to get carried away!”

  With that, she leaped down the three short steps and raced to school, forgetting to close the door behind her.

  * * *

  Harriet made it to school in six and a half minutes, and knocked down only one person in the process. She was breathing hard when she hurried into Ms. Davis’s room, with four whole minutes left of homeroom.

  “Hey!” she panted, beelining over to the table where Amelia, Didi, and Resa sat.

  “Harriet,” came Ms. Davis’s stern voice from the front of the room. “How many times have I told you to slow down?”

  Harriet turned to look at Ms. Davis. “What can I say? I live life in the fast lane.”

  “Not in here you don’t,” Ms. Davis shot b
ack. “In my classroom, you stay below the speed limit.”

  Harriet flashed Ms. Davis a 100-watt smile. “Sorry! I’ll take it down a notch.”

  “Let’s make it three notches,” said Ms. Davis, peering at Harriet over the top of her eyeglasses. Harriet had learned from experience that arguing with stubborn Ms. Davis was pointless. Ms. Davis really cared about having the last word, so Harriet let her have it, even when she didn’t fully agree.

  Harriet walked briskly to the girls, pulling Lucy’s business card out of her pocket and slamming it down on the table.

  “Voilà!” she announced.

  Amelia scrunched her nose up in confusion. “One pack of sardines and a chicken liver?”

  Harriet giggled. “Oops, wrong side.” She flipped the business card over. “That was a recipe for Rambo’s favorite cat treats. Here’s the important stuff.”

  “Fifteen dollars each … if under one hundred fifty … Is this from Lucy?” Didi asked.

  Harriet slid into the seat next to Didi. “It’s all figured out!” she announced with pride. “Lucy was super into it!”

  “How long will it take to make the shirts?” Resa asked.

  “About two to three weeks,” Harriet said.

  Resa’s shoulders slumped. “But that won’t work. The Battle of the Bands is in three weeks! We need to have the fund-raising show soon.”

  “I know,” said Harriet with a satisfied smile. “That’s why I asked her to rush the order.”

  “She can do that?” asked Resa skeptically.

  “Sure,” said Harriet. “I told you, we’re pals.”

  “And it won’t cost extra?” asked Didi.

  “Well, yeah, a little extra, but just…” Harriet glanced down at the business card. “Just five dollars more a shirt.”

  “So it’s really twenty dollars each shirt.”

  “Less, if we order more than one hundred and fifty,” said Harriet.

  “We’re not going to sell more than one hundred and fifty T-shirts,” said Resa. “Not even to Skinks fanatics.”

  “Still, it’s a good price,” Harriet said. “I’d pay twenty dollars for a T-shirt if I loved the band.”

  “If we buy them for twenty dollars, we can’t sell them for twenty dollars,” said Amelia. “Or we won’t make any money.”

  “Oh right,” said Harriet.

  “We’d need to mark up the price by a few bucks.” Amelia scribbled numbers in her notebook. “Do you think we can sell twenty-five shirts?”

  There were murmurs of agreement.

  “So, if we sell twenty-five T-shirts and charge twenty-three dollars each, we’d make seventy-five dollars.” Amelia looked up at them. “It’s probably better to charge twenty-five dollars—that’ll give us a profit of one hundred and twenty-five dollars, enough for a new guitar.” She twiddled her pencil rapidly between her fingers. “Is twenty-five dollars too much for a T-shirt?”

  “Yes!” said Resa at the exact same time Harriet said, “No!”

  “Didi?” asked Amelia. “Want to be the tiebreaker?”

  Didi did not want to be the tiebreaker. She hated getting in the middle of arguments and taking sides. She gnawed on her thumbnail as she considered a reply that wouldn’t get her in trouble with either girl. “It’s not a ridiculous price,” she said. “But it is a little high. Could we maybe—I mean, have we looked for a better deal online?”

  “But it’s already set up!” Harriet protested.

  “I did poke around a bit last night,” said Amelia, “and the trouble with online shops is a lot of them have high minimum orders. Over one hundred T-shirts at least.”

  “See? Lucy’s deal is better. We can order just twenty-five T-shirts, and if each costs twenty dollars, then all we need is…”

  Harriet squinted one eye closed and then the other. She stuck her tongue out to the side. She made faint buzzing sounds.

  “What’s she doing?” whispered Didi to Amelia.

  “Math, I think?” Amelia whispered back.

  “Five hundred dollars!” announced Harriet. “We need only five hundred dollars to place the order.”

  “Waaaaaaaait a second,” said Resa, holding her hand up. “She needs the money up front?”

  “People usually do,” said Amelia.

  “We don’t have five hundred dollars!” Resa exclaimed. The whole thing was becoming a lot more complicated than she’d imagined.

  “I have a little money saved,” Didi offered. “I’ve been saving for this acrylic paint set. There’s four shades of blue—indigo, azure, turquoise, and cerulean. I have about thirty-one dollars.”

  Resa put her hand on Didi’s arm. “For the love of Pete, you can keep your cerulean, you big color nerd. You don’t have nearly enough anyway.”

  “Why don’t we just do preorders?” asked Amelia. “Make people pay for the T-shirts beforehand, and use that money to place the order?”

  “Your backhand is awful,” said Resa. “But your ideas aren’t half-bad.”

  “How did I not see this headache coming when I signed up for tennis with you?” Amelia muttered to herself. “How?”

  The bell rang, signaling the end of homeroom. Harriet jumped out of her seat, with Amelia right behind her. The two of them had Mrs. Ross for science first period, and she made Ms. Davis look like a cuddly teddy bear. If you were even a minute late, you had to recite the entire periodic table.

  “Meet at my house after school?” asked Harriet over her shoulder.

  “Tennis,” Amelia and Resa said in unison.

  “And trust me,” added Resa, “she can’t afford to miss a lesson.”

  “Come after tennis, then! For dinner!” Harriet said. “I’m cooking!”

  Before any of the girls could reply, she yanked on Amelia’s hand and pulled her into the sea of middle schoolers on their way to first period.

  4

  When Amelia and Resa arrived at Harriet’s house, still sweaty from tennis, they found the front door ajar. The unmistakable sound of a drum solo emanated from the second floor. Someone was whaling on their drums, culminating in a cataclysm of cymbals.

  “Should we go in?” asked Resa warily.

  “I’d knock first,” said Amelia, “but somehow I don’t think anyone would hear it.”

  “Fair enough,” replied Resa. “So go ahead.”

  “You first.”

  “Why me?”

  “This whole thing was your idea,” Amelia pointed out. “Plus, I beat you at sprints in warm-ups.”

  “Only because you got a head start!” Resa protested.

  But Amelia was already pushing her inside.

  “Harriet?” Resa called, and then more loudly, “Haaaaarriet?”

  “In here!” came Harriet’s voice from the kitchen.

  Amelia and Resa walked carefully down the narrow hallway, paying special attention to where they placed their feet. They’d learned from experience that skinks could be anywhere in the Nguyen household.

  Didi was standing at the kitchen sink, holding a green colander and looking nervous. She wore a knit winter hat pulled low over her forehead. Not one tendril of hair escaped from the hat.

  “Nice skink armor,” Resa said, nodding at the hat.

  “Fool me once…” replied Didi.

  Harriet stood at the stove top, grunting as she stirred a steaming pot, which was almost half her size. She’d moved the white see-through scarf onto her ponytail and rolled up the sleeves of her gondolier shirt.

  Amelia and Resa laid their backpacks and racket bags down and walked over to investigate. Huge plumes of steam billowed over Harriet’s face as she stirred. She inhaled deeply. “Great for the complexion!” she said. “Want to try?”

  “I’m good,” said Amelia.

  “Got enough pasta in there?” asked Resa.

  Harriet bit her lip, looking concerned. “I think so. I mean, I used four boxes.”

  Resa laughed. “I was kidding, Harriet. That’s the biggest pot I’ve ever seen—and my mom is
a professional baker. How many people are you feeding?”

  Harriet wiped sweat from her upper lip with the back of her hand. “My mom’s with a client downstairs, but she might eat some later. Dad’s working on a sculpture. For now, it’s just you all and my brothers. But you’ve never seen my brothers eat—especially my famous mac ’n’ mystery cheese.”

  Harriet pulled the wooden spoon out of the pot and handed it to Amelia. “Can you take over for a minute?”

  Amelia obliged, and Harriet headed to the fridge, where she rifled through the crowded shelves.

  “Who taught you to cook?” asked Resa.

  “Oh, I’m self-taught,” said Harriet over her shoulder. “My mom usually works nights at the salon, and my brothers are hopeless. They’ll crack open a super-size bag of potato chips and call it dinner. My dad can cook, but if he’s working on a painting or a sculpture, all hope is lost. He’ll completely forget to eat.”

  Harriet found what she was looking for in the fridge—an orange hunk of cheddar and a Ziploc bag containing some kind of crumbled white cheese. “Heads up, Didi!” she announced as she chucked the cheeses at her.

  Didi caught them both in the colander. “Hey, we just invented cheeseball!” She giggled as she looked at the food she’d caught. “This is cheddar, but … what’s this one?”

  “I think that’s the mystery cheese,” Amelia chimed in.

  It took the girls a while to figure out how to drain the super-size pasta pot, and there was a minidisaster when Zappa ambled in and Didi panicked and dropped a gallon of milk. But eventually, Zappa was apprehended, the milk was cleaned up, and dinner was served.

  “Joe! Sam! Laaaaaaaaaaarry!” Harriet bellowed, trying to be heard over the sound of drums. “Food!” She stood at the kitchen table, spooning mystery macaroni into mismatched bowls.

  The sound of drums was replaced by thunderous pounding on the stairs. A few seconds later, the Nguyen brothers rushed into the room.

  Joe was the shortest of the bunch, but his hair was the longest by far. It hung down to his shoulders, covering one side of his face. When he sang, it gave him a brooding, mysterious look that his fans loved. Sam, the oldest, had a neat, classic haircut, with plenty of hair gel to keep it slicked into place. This, paired with his black rectangular glasses, made him look like a young businessman, though his T-shirt—bloodred with the words PANIC AT THE JUNKYARD on it—made it clear he was a rock and roller. Larry loomed over his brothers, so tall and thin that Harriet sometimes teasingly called him Larry the Scary-crow.