The Cloudy with a Chance of Boys

by Megan McDonald

  Scott: I wish. Nope. It’s not the sword fighting. That I have down.

  Me: What, then? If you tell me, maybe I can help.

  Scott: Um, no, you’re, like, the last person who can help.

  Me: (Frustrated.) Fine.

  Scott: Hey, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just . . . well . . . Jayden.

  Me: Oh, no. What about Jayden?

  Scott: (Shakes head.) This is so embarrassing!

  Me: What?

  Scott: I have to kiss her!

  Me: (Pauses, takes deep breath.) So? You guys have practiced this, right?

  Scott: No! That’s just it! Every time we rehearsed the scene, something happened, you know, to interrupt us. Like, she got fogged! And Mr. Cannon never got back to it.

  Me: But tonight’s the real thing. You have to go through the whole play just like it’ll be on opening night.

  Scott: So, I was wondering . . . do you think you could maybe, like, be standing by with the fog machine again?

  Me: Um, I think once was enough on the fogging thing.

  Scott: Too bad. I gotta think of something!

  Me: Scott. You’re an actor. You’re Romeo. Romeo has to kiss Juliet. Or there wouldn’t be a play. The show must go on, and all that junk. (Wait! What am I saying?)

  Scott: Do you think Romeo could kiss her on the hand?

  Me: Sorry. No. C’mon, she’s not that bad.

  Scott: Oh, yeah? If you don’t mind swapping spit with a Flutternutter.

  Me: Fluffernutter. Marshmallow stuff? Like you put on a sandwich when you’re a kid? Never mind. (Holds out pretend sword.) En garde!

  Scott: (Laughs.) C’mon, be serious? You gotta help me.

  Me: How?

  Scott: Like, give me some stage directions or some ideas on how to get through this.

  Me: I’m not going to help you kiss Jayden Pffeffer!

  Scott: You mean Juliet.

  Me: Fine.

  Scott: Okay, so what should I do? If I want it to look real and everything, I mean.

  Me: Okay, first, don’t think about Jayden. (Think about me!)

  Scott: Done.

  Me: Just think about Juliet, and how Romeo would feel, and try to be in the moment, ya know?

  Scott: Okay . . .

  Me: Then, um, well, let’s see. If it was me, and I was hoping for the perfect kiss, you know? I’d say, pretend kind of like you’re slow dancing . . .

  Scott: Okay, you lost me there. You know I don’t dance.

  Me: Yes, you do. I’ve seen you. (Takes left arm and lifts it.) Just put your left hand on her shoulder, like this, and then, maybe touch the back of her hair with your other hand. (Puts hand to back of head.) Then pull her close to you . . .

  Scott: Like this? (Pulls me close, closes eyes, and . . . we kiss!)

  Me: (Whispers.) Perfect. (Takes in breath. Opens eyes.) Minus the mustache, of course. (Straightens mustache.)

  Scott: (Cracks up laughing.)

  Me: Was it . . . awful? The mustache, I mean.

  Scott: Kind of like kissing Santa Claus.

  Me: (Playfully punches him in the arm.) Thanks a lot, mister! Some Romeo. Sure, kiss me now, but kill me later.

  Scott: No, seriously, thanks. It’s good practice. (Lowers voice.) In case I’m ever in a play where I have to give mouth-to-mouth to a yeti.

  Me: (Cracks up.) Thanks a lot. Now, go out there and knock ’em dead. But first, one more little piece of advice.

  Scott: Yeah, great. What is it?

  Me: Whatever you do, when you’re about to kiss Jayden . . .

  Scott: Yeah?

  Me: Just picture a yeti!

  Scott: (Cracks up.) A green-eyed yeti, you mean.

  Me: Now go. Good luck! I mean, break a leg. (Pushes Romeo through curtain onto stage. House lights dim.)

  Me: (Steps into the wings backstage. Hands go to my lips — not to straighten my mustache this time. Sound disappears. Thinks. Remembers. To self: For just a moment, one perfect moment, I got to be Juliet.)

  Upstairs in my room, I glued the final cloud pictures on my poster board, a series of almost-purple clouds from tonight’s sunset. I was mopping up extra glue when Alex and Joey came back from the Raven. Alex, still half-dressed as Tybalt in boots, tights, and a long, puffy-sleeved shirt, floated across the room. She leaned against the bookcase as if she needed it to help hold her up.

  “How was dress rehearsal?” I asked.

  Joey circled around the rug, waving her arms. “You should have seen it, Stevie. Romeo climbed up Dad’s ladder without falling for once, but his arm got caught on Jayden’s belt, and the whole thing broke. Hundreds of pearls went flying and Jayden was, like, ‘Whoa,’ and she slipped and fell right as Romeo was about to kiss Juliet.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Alex said with a glint in her eye.

  “It was so funny, I died laughing. Except Mr. Cannon didn’t think so. Dad asked me if I did it on purpose but I didn’t. Cross my heart!”

  “Joey, you couldn’t have done better if you’d planned it,” Alex said.

  “Oh, man, I can’t believe I missed it. Sorry about all your pearls, though, Duck. It took you, like, forever to string them.”

  “So? It was fun. Then Mercutio dropped his sword two times when he was sword-fighting Alex, and one time, his tights fell down!”

  “Did the trap door work?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Joey said. “Dad was super psyched.”

  “I wish I could have come over. But I had to finish this cloud poster or it would ruin my whole weekend. I’ll come to opening night, Alex, I promise.”

  “Alex made a super good Tybalt,” said Joey. “Even though I still think she’d be the best Juliet.”

  “Alex? Earth to Alex,” I said.

  “Who, me? Oh, the play. I lived. I died. All in one night. It was . . . perfect.”

  I raised an eyebrow at Joey. Alex sure was in one of her good moods.

  “Um, I have to go get out of this stage makeup,” said Alex. “But . . . let’s all get into our pj’s and meet back here in five for a Sisters Club meeting.”

  Joey squealed. “Pajama jam!” I grabbed my pj’s from under my pillow.

  When Alex came back, all three of us sat cross-legged on the thick daisy-shaped rug, leaning against the beds. “Wait,” I said dramatically, closing my eyes and holding my fingers to my temples. “Something is different here tonight. I think I’m getting a vibe.” I held out one hand, pretending to touch the air around Joey’s head. “Joey got rich tonight!”

  “Wow! She’s right!” said Joey. “Dad gave me twenty-five whole dollars for helping out so much making props and working on the sets.” She glanced over at Alex. “How’d you do that, Stevie?” she said in a fake voice.

  “And . . .” This time I patted the air around Alex. “Hold on, hold on. I’m getting something. Alex. It’s your aura. It’s different.”

  “Is not.”

  “Is too!”

  “Stevie, my aura is just fine, thank you very much.”

  “Go ahead, make fun, but thou dost protest too much.” I felt the top of her head, picked up her hand and held it. “I’m seeing . . . a dark place. Behind a door. No, a curtain. I see . . . two boys. No, wait. One is a girl dressed as a boy. She has a mustache.”

  Alex pulled her hand away. Instinctively, she fingered her upper lip.

  “And . . . here comes the good part . . . they kiss!”

  “Uh! Stevie! How did you know that?” She grabbed one of Joey’s stuffed animals and started clobbering me with it.

  “Scott Towel really kissed you? Stevie must have ESP.”

  “Yeah. Extra spying powers,” said Alex, looking around. “Where is it?”

  “Where’s what?”

  “Okay, okay. I give.” I grinned, holding up the baby monitor.

  “You sneak!” said Alex. “I forgot all about that thing.”

  “I wanted to finish my cloud project, so I asked Joey to turn it on for me.”

  “You knew?” Al
ex said to Joey. “You little spy.” She turned on Joey and launched a major tickle attack.

  “So, Alex. Tell us about the Big Kiss. The amazing Scott Towel Smoocheroo.”

  “My lips are sealed.” Alex mimed zipping her lips.

  “Sealed with a kiss!” said Joey, and we all burst into fits of hysterics. “Just think, Alex,” said Joey, “someday you could be Mrs. Paper Towel.”

  “Jo-ey!” Alex clobbered her this time.

  “Wherefore art thou, Mr. Towel. Parting is such sweet sorrow,” I teased.

  “Fine. Go ahead. Make fun all you want, but at least I finally got my first kiss. It’s so humiliating that my little sister beat me to it by two whole weeks.”

  “You know, if you think about it, that wasn’t really Stevie’s first kiss anyway,” Joey pointed out.

  “What do you mean it wasn’t my first kiss?” I asked.

  “You already had your first kiss. By Scott Towel. That time, in the play, when you filled in for Alex in Beauty and the Beast.”

  “Way to make me feel better, Joey,” said Alex.

  “I got my first kiss, too,” said Joey.

  “Huh? What?” Alex and I said at the same time, gaping at Joey.

  “You? You’re only eight!” said Alex.

  “Nine.”

  “Who kissed you?” I asked.

  “Scott Towel. On the ear. Remember that time he came for dinner and I knocked his fork into the fondue pot and he tried to hide under the table?”

  “I forgot about that!” I said. “You called him Frog Lips. And you tried to wipe off the boy cooties for, like, a week.”

  “Perfect. So everyone on the planet got kissed by Frog Lips before I did.”

  Alex leaned her head back against the bed, clutching the drama-masks necklace she always wore. I wondered if she was still thinking about the kiss. “I guess we’ll just have to change the Sisters Club to the Kissers Club now.”

  I expected Joey to yell “Gross” and go on about boy cooties and ask us why couldn’t it just stay the way it was. But she didn’t.

  Instead, she laughed and said, “But you know, we can still have ‘Sisters, Blisters, and Tongue Twisters’ for our motto, because Alex said a tongue twister is another name for a kiss.”

  “Speaking of Sisters Club,” I said, “I have an idea. For what we can do for our meeting. Starting right now.”

  “Do we have to burn stuff again?” Joey asked.

  “No. Listen. Hear me out. I say we play Truth or Dare and Alex has to go first because she always picks truth.”

  “I pick dare sometimes,” Alex argued.

  “When?” Joey and I said at the same time.

  “Okay, but you guys both have to play too.”

  “No way,” said Joey. “Smart people don’t take dares.”

  “C’mon, Duck,” I pleaded. “Don’t be a Mary Sue. It’s not scary dares. Just funny ones. Alex goes first. Truth or dare?”

  She pretended to think it over.

  “Truth,” she said. “But you can’t ask me anything about Scott Howell. A.k.a. Romeo.” She held her hands to her chest.

  I asked her anyway. “What was it like? Your first kiss. With Scott Towel.”

  “Gross,” said Joey. “This is boring.”

  “Don’t worry, Joey. I’m not telling anyway. It’s personal.”

  “C’mon, Alex. You know you want to. You’re just going to tell Sock Monkey anyway, and we’re going to listen.”

  “Not me,” said Joey.

  “Ask me something else,” said Alex.

  “What did you really wish the day we threw stuff into the fire?” I asked.

  “Why do you have that shirt with a swear in your drawer?” Joey said.

  “What! I don’t have — what shirt?”

  “You know, the shirt you wear that makes you itch,” Joey said.

  “Or act like a snitch,” I added, picking up on Joey’s lead.

  “Or want to get rich,” Joey said with a snort. “Or look like an ostrich.” She was rolling on the floor with laughter.

  “Or feel like a witch,” I said.

  “What is this, National Poetry Week? Wait a second. I get it. How do you guys know about that?”

  “Stevie was snooping,” Joey accused me, pointing.

  “Nah-uh! Her frog got lost and —” Joey shot me a look. “Never mind.”

  “No fair, anyway. That’s two questions,” said Alex.

  “If you answer both questions,” I offered, “you get to call the truths or dares for Joey and me.”

  “Deal,” said Alex.

  “The truth!” I reminded her.

  “First, Joey’s question. I went to this sleepover, right? We played this weird game where you had to take off one thing you’re wearing and pass it to the person on your right. I gave up my favorite braided bracelet, the one with the little heart charm? And I got stuck with that shirt. I don’t even know the girl. So, I didn’t know if it was a joke or what.”

  “But you kept it!” said Joey. “If Mom finds out, she’ll freak!”

  “I didn’t want everyone to think I was a baby, so I tried to act like it was cool. As soon as I got home, I stuffed it in the bottom of my drawer.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t exactly wear it to school. But maybe I could wear it sometime to a basketball game or a party or something.”

  “Yeah, wear it to a weird party where you play that weird game again and give it to somebody else.”

  Alex looked Joey in the eye. “So, Joey. You can’t tell, okay? This is a sisters thing. Promise?” Joey nodded.

  “And Stevie? You’re right. I didn’t wish I’d get the part of Juliet the night of the storm. I wished I’d get my first kiss from Scott. And it came true! Like magic!”

  “My wish came true for somebody else,” said Joey.

  “What was your wish?” I asked.

  “I wished I could see a blue frog. Then some people near here in Oregon found a rare blue frog in their backyard. I saw it on the news.”

  “So you did see a blue frog . . . on TV,” said Alex. “That still counts.”

  “But guess what? That’s not all. They’re going to be bringing it around to schools around here to show kids, so my wish is going to come true!”

  I thought back to the night of the storm, and how making a wish in the fire seemed like a long time ago. I’d wished for something new and exciting and different to happen. Daring, even. Making friends with a boy was new and different. And growing up sure was turning out to be more exciting than I thought. Daring? Just daring to be myself was enough. For now.

  “Stevie’s turn!” said Joey. “I know! Make her go outside in her pajamas and act like a gorilla for one minute. Or sing and act out ‘I’m a Little Teapot.’”

  “Look who’s all over this game now,” I remarked. “Little Miss I’m Too Smart for Dares.” Joey stuck out her tongue at me like a frog.

  “Go outside in your pajamas and do the Hokey Pokey,” said Joey.

  “That’s a good one,” said Alex. “But I get to call it.”

  “You didn’t even say ‘truth or dare’ yet!”

  “Truth or dare?” Joey yelled.

  “Truth,” I answered.

  “Truth, huh?” said Alex, rubbing her hands together.

  “So, my question is . . . what I want to ask is . . . Did you ever let that Wire Rims guy kiss you? You know, after that day you fell in the pool?”

  “His name’s Owen,” I said.

  “Well, did you? You have to answer the question.”

  “No!” I said. Truthfully.

  We had been hanging out a bunch these past couple of weeks — in the name of Science, of course. We were still trying to make a cloud form and get a picture of it. So far, we could have filled a scrapbook with failed attempts.

  “This is so not about Science,” Olivia kept teasing me whenever she got the chance.

  Deep down, I guess Olivia was right.
There was a small part of me that liked that Owen liked me. But I knew I was a little afraid of it, too. Being Science buddies, and friends, felt right. For now.

  Time to change the subject. “Joey. Truth or dare?” I asked.

  “Dare,” Joey said bravely.

  Alex glanced around, searching for an idea. “Your dare, Joey Reel, should you choose to accept it, but you have to, is . . . you have to kiss Sir Croaks-a-Lot!”

  “What’s so bad about that? I’ll kiss a frog.”

  “Really?” asked Alex.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Watch me!” Joey went over to the tank on her desk and scooped up her frog. She held him in her hand, with just his head peeking out of her fist. Then, she planted a kiss right on his head, warts and all.

  “See?” she said proudly.

  “Wow. You didn’t turn into a toad or anything,” I said. “But, ooh, you do have a wart growing right here.” I pointed to my cheek.

  “And here,” said Alex, indicating her forehead.

  Joey ran to the mirror. “You guys!” she screeched. Alex and I rolled on the floor with laughter.

  “Sleep here tonight?” Joey asked Alex. “In our room?” But she didn’t need to ask. Alex was already stretched out on the floor between us, bundled like a newborn in her favorite blanket, half-asleep.

  I clicked off the light, but before crawling under the covers, I pressed my face to the window, peering out past the old tulip tree.

  Outside, the dark had deepened, but there was a moon and clouds, and no wind was howling. No thunder, no lightning. Just three sisters, warm and cozy, wrapped in fuzzy blankets like we could weather any storm.

  Storms would come and storms would go. Boys would come and boys would go.

  But sisters are forever.

  MEGAN McDONALD is the author of the best-selling Judy Moody series and its companion series starring Judy’s younger brother, Stink. As the youngest of five sisters, she knows all about the real-life ups and downs of sisterhood. Megan McDonald lives in Sebastopol, California.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2011 by Megan McDonald

  Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Pamela A. Consolazio