by Betsy Bird
We are outraged. Sparks phones the producers and demands equal time. They say it’s too soon to put on another birdcalling group. They’re nice about it. “Keep trying. Maybe next year.”
Too late for us.
“Oh, well,” Krishnaswami says. “At least it was fun.”
Krishnaswami gets her letter. Well, her text from her mom. She’s in.
The birdcallers who stole our idea and made it on Ellen? They’re now the voices behind a start-up video game. About birds.
Sparks is inconsolable. I catch her dipping into her personal injury lawsuit fund for emergency nacho binges. She suggests we sign up for judo so we can survive the halls of any school that isn’t Prep. She types “Sparkle Freeman” on her homework. And exams.
Time passes, and we heal. A little. We send our applications to our backup schools and we say mean things about Ellen, even though we still sneak to the media center to catch a few minutes of the show. We gain perspective. Sparks admits it was a long shot.
Then Krishnaswami says, “Have you seen this?”
“Seen what?”
“We’ve gone viral!”
She holds up the phone. Someone from Ellen posted our audition tape on YouTube. It‘s received 350,000 views in one week—more than the actual birdcalling group that got to be on the show. A DJ in Los Angeles mashed up our birdcalling pandemonium with a Katy Perry song. And the YouTube comments aren’t even all that mean! Some people like my ice cream truck wailing. Some can’t get over Krishnaswami’s throat clearing. How can all of that come out of such a small girl?
But the big hit? Sparks’s half ambulance, half caw-caw, complete with her crazy awk-gly bird dance. At this point, I’m over Prep and viral fame. On the upside, we still have options for our fallback schools, so I’m not worried. Sooner or later, Sparkle Freeman and I will be on the same page.
Babysitting Nightmare
By Shannon Hale
Mrs. Grady got my number from a friend of a friend of a friend of my mother’s. I should’ve realized that meant she’d already gone through all the babysitters in her own neighborhood. But I needed the money. I was saving up for science camp.
Besides, I’d been babysitting for two years already. There was nothing I couldn’t handle. So I put on my white linen shirt to look professional and packed my babysitter bag with picture books, crafts, and my trusty cow puppet.
“That one’s Greta and that one’s Henna,” said Mrs. Grady when we got to her house. The twins were playing with Legos on the carpet in absolute silence. Four-year-old girls, curly black hair, Greta dressed in green and Henna in red. They were adorable, like little Christmas elves. This job was going to be a piece of cake.
“Dinner’s on the stove. They can have a cookie for dessert. Bedtime’s at seven thirty; I’ll be back at ten. So . . . good luck!” said Mrs. Grady. And then she ran. Literally ran out the front door to where Mr. Grady was waiting in the car, engine running. Usually moms give hugs and kisses and wave from the car and stuff like that. It occurred to me that the Gradys probably didn’t go out much. And maybe that was because they couldn’t find babysitters. And maybe that was because . . .
I looked at Greta and Henna. They were looking at me. They blinked at the same time.
“I’m Lucía,” I said.
“We know,” said Greta in green.
“We’ve been waiting,” said Henna in red.
For some reason, I got goose bumps all over my arms.
Henna brought me a book and pushed me toward the couch. “Read!” she said.
No problem! This was going well! Until I realized Greta had disappeared.
“Greta?” I called out.
She called from the bathroom. “I went poop! Come and wipe meeeee!”
But as soon as I got into the bathroom, she ran away with no pants on, yelling, “You can’t catch me. I’m the Ginger Batman!”
I chased, really hoping she wouldn’t sit down anywhere.
Meanwhile, Henna was screaming my name. “Lucía! Lucía! Lucía!”
As soon as I’d caught Greta, wiped her, and washed my hands, I ran back to the kitchen.
“What? What’s wrong?” I asked.
Henna was just standing there, staring at the refrigerator, her bottom lip trembling. “Lucía?” Henna said in a hoarse whisper. “The fridge is looking at me.”
Greta took Henna’s hand. “It sees us. The fridge sees us.”
Goose bumps again. I turned slowly and peeked at the fridge. A totally normal fridge, not looking at anybody. I sighed and turned back. They were gone. In that moment, I learned an important lesson: never, ever turn your back on four-year-old twins.
Eventually I found them in their parents’ room. Greta had already wrapped half a roll of Scotch tape around her legs.
“Did you know mummies are real?” she asked. “But their eyeballs dried up and fell out.”
Henna was hiding under the bed, whispering, “I’m hungry. I’m hungry and I see your toes.”
Goose bumps.
I tried to entertain them with some Candy Land, the books I’d brought, a tissue paper craft, but an hour later I was running out of ideas. And also free space in my bladder. I’d drunk, like, a quart of chocolate milk at home.
“I need to go potty,” I said.
Henna stuck out her tongue and went pbbbt. “That’s how our tongue goes potty.”
“You can go.” Greta smiled, showing all her teeth. “We won’t do anything naughty.”
I didn’t dare to go potty.
Instead I spent the next half hour as a human shield, putting myself between the twins while they tried to hit each other with boxes of cereal.
“I’m going to pull off your skin!” Greta screamed at Henna.
“I’m going to bite off your fingers!” Henna screamed at Greta.
“Aah!” I said. “You are so creepy! Why can’t you just call each other poopyheads like other kids?”
There was a rare, brief silence. And then . . .
“POO-PEE HEAD!” they shouted at each other. And then at me. At the table. At the cat, who was shivering behind the couch.
They were so busy yelling poopyhead at everything in the house I thought I could sneak to the bathroom. But while I was in there, they stopped yelling poopyhead. I got a cold, sinking feeling in my gut.
I’ve never peed so fast in my life. I rushed back into the family room. The girls startled.
“We’re not doing anything!” said Henna.
“We’re not!” said Greta.
That sinking feeling sunk even deeper.
I peeked into the toy box. It was full of water. The toys were floating.
“What did you do?” I wailed.
“We made an aca-quarium!” said Henna proudly.
Greta lifted up a sopping wet teddy bear. “But bears can’t swim,” she said. “Poor little bear.”
Henna whispered, “He drowned.”
While I bailed out the toy box, the girls went ahead and ate their allotted cookies. Plus a bonus cookie.
“More cookies,” said Henna.
“You already had two cookies. No more now, okay?”
Henna glared at me from beneath lowered eyebrows. “You should say yes.” She walked away and looked back over her shoulder. “Remember what happened to Mr. Bear?”
I let her have another cookie.
Eventually, dinner happened. Probably best not to get into details. I may have cried a little. Spaghetti sauce doesn’t stain white linen shirts, does it?
Science camp, I reminded myself. Just remember, it’s all for science camp.
While I was scraping spaghetti out of the curtains, the girls sneaked out the front door.
I caught them two blocks away, still running. Good thing I’ve been exercising because I had to carry them both back. And the
y’re squirmy.
“Stop cruckeling me!” yelled Henna.
“I don’t know what cruckeling means,” I said.
“Cruckeling is like scrumping but harder!” yelled Greta.
I locked the front door and barricaded it with kitchen chairs, grabbed their pajamas, and tried to get them dressed. The Tickle Monster trick worked with Henna—who said she loves monsters—but not Greta.
“Come here, Greta,” I said. I didn’t have the strength to chase her again. My legs felt like cooked noodles.
Greta danced away from me and into the kitchen, waving her arms into the air and humming.
“Greta, bring your rear end over here right now,” I said, trying to sound like my mom.
“What’s a rear end?” Greta asked.
“It’s your . . . you know, your butt.”
“This?” asked Greta, wiggling it at me.
“That’s not her butt,” said Henna. “That’s her bum.”
“They’re the same thing,” I said.
“No, they’re not!” said Greta.
“Yeah, a butt is yucky and a bum is gross!” said Henna.
Greta began to sob. “You don’t like me! You don’t like my bum! YOU DON’T LIKE MY BUUUMMM!!”
“Good grief!” I said. My mom said that a lot, and I was beginning to understand why.
I promised them we could watch one short show before bed if Greta would let me get her into pajamas.
I turned on the show and collapsed onto the couch, thinking I might have a chance to catch my breath. Every few seconds one girl would run back into the kitchen and stuff another cookie into her mouth. I pretended not to notice.
When the show was over, I pulled out my secret weapon: the cow puppet. No one can resist the cow puppet.
“You twooo look like goooood girls,” I made the puppet say. “Time for bed, mooo!”
They stared, unblinking.
“I eat cows,” said Henna.
“On hamburger buns,” said Greta.
I swear I felt the puppet tremble.
For its own safety, I stuffed the puppet back into my bag and I herded the girls into their room myself.
“Can I have another cookie?” asked Henna.
“There aren’t any more cookies,” I said. “You guys ate them all.”
“No more cookies?” Her face turned red. She screamed, “NOW THE WORLD WILL BURN!”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Uh-oh, Henna is sad. Better give her five more minutes to play,” said Greta. “Or, you know, the world will burn.”
Okay, five more minutes. Which turned into a hit-Lucía-over-the-head-with-pillows game.
“That’s it,” I said, rubbing my head. “Now it’s really, really time for bed.”
“Five more minutes,” said Henna.
“We already did five more minutes,” I said.
“Sixteen more minutes,” said Henna.
Greta flopped around on the floor, rolling back and forth. “I don’t have any bones. So oozy . . .”
“That’s because you’re tired,” I said, which was a mistake. For four-year-olds, they were really good at explaining what “tired” was and why they didn’t have it.
When I finally had them settled into bed, I tried to leave . . .
“Don’t go, Lucía!” screamed Greta. “What if something realizes I’m food and eats me!”
“I bet you don’t taste very good,” I said.
Greta stared at me with an open mouth, shocked and offended. “I do too taste very good. I taste like cookies!”
I couldn’t argue with that.
In the end, I moved their pillows and blankets onto the floor and lay between them. They snuggled up into me like kittens with a mama cat.
“You’re a good tuckler,” said Henna. “You know how to snuckle.”
“Nice Lucía,” said Greta, patting my head. “Good girl, Lucía. You get a cookie.”
I was afraid to say it. “There aren’t any more cookies.”
“There are always more cookies,” Henna whispered.
I heard a crunch. Where had that one been stashed, in her underwear? She offered me half of it. I said no thanks.
Henna kept chewing and wiggling. Greta went still, her head resting on my shoulder.
“Santa Claus is not evil,” she sang under her breath. “He will try not to kill you when he comes into your hoooooouse . . .”
I must have dozed off because the window was dark when I woke back up. Greta and Henna were both snoozing beside me.
I carefully scooted out from between them and tiptoed back into the kitchen. I was cleaning up the dinner dishes when Mrs. Grady came through the front door.
“How’d it go?” she asked, looking around as if expecting to see the girls. Or perhaps a fire or flood.
“Um . . . pretty good,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “You know, they’ve got a lot of energy. But I guess they worked it all out because they’re asleep now—”
“They’re asleep?” she said.
She ran down the hallway and peeked in the room. She wandered back, her face all dreamy.
“They’re asleep! They’re actually asleep. Usually when I have a sitter, the most I can hope for is that everyone survives and property damage is minimal.”
She handed me some bills, three times my usual fee.
“We’d love to have you back,” she said with a super-cheery-hopeful smile. “Anytime!”
“I . . . I’ll think about it.” We headed toward the door, passing the glass cookie jar. “Sorry about—” letting the girls eat all the cookies, I started to say. But I could see the jar was nearly full. “How did that happen?” I blurted out.
Mrs. Grady smiled. “There are always more cookies,” she said.
Goose bumps.
Dear Bella and Rover (Again)
By Deborah Underwood
Dear . . . Bella . . . and . . . Rover,
I . . . am . . . a . . . snail. I . . . move . . . slowly. When . . . my . . . insect . . . friends . . . and . . . I . . . race . . . I . . . always . . . lose. How . . . can . . . I . . . be . . . faster?
Love . . .
Olivia
Dear Olivia,
Here’s the thing: snails are not exactly built for speed. But there are a lot of cool things about YOU that your insect friends can only dream of! Right, Rover?
You bet! Snails have great sturdy shells! If it starts raining pebbles . . .
Raining pebbles?
You never know! If it starts raining pebbles, your insect friends will be in trouble, but you can just pull yourself into your shell and you’ll be safe! And the best part is that you leave beautiful shimmering rainbow trails wherever you go! I wish I could leave rainbow trails when I go for a walk! Instead, I leave poo—
Never mind! Olivia, Rover is absolutely right. Why not focus on the things that make YOU amazing? And instead of racing with your friends, find something that you’re all good at to do when you’re together. For instance, Rover is good at ripping up tennis balls, but I’m not.
And Bella is good at clawing her way up the window screen, but I’m not.
But there’s one thing we both love and we’re both great at . . .
TAKING NAPS!
And it’s nap time right now. Good luck, Olivia!
Love,
Bella and Rover
Can We Talk About Whiskers?
By Jennifer L. Holm, art by Matthew Holm
Everyone thinks that the brand of shoes you wear or the sport you play is what’s important in middle school. But the truth is that it all comes down to whiskers.
I should know.
My name is Babymouse.
And I have the worst whiskers in the entire world.
My whiskers have always been crazy. I’ve
tried just about every whisker-straightening treatment that exists. Leave-in conditioner. Gel. Mousse.
This morning I decided to try something different: flat-ironing. The flat iron seemed pretty easy to use. The first whisker I ironed turned out great. It was so easy that I decided to turn up the heat to the top setting to get the rest of them as straight as possible. Unfortunately, I turned up the setting too high and ended up with . . . toasted whiskers.
Typical.
When I got to school, I kept my head down and went straight to my locker. I was wearing a filmy scarf to hide my burnt whiskers. Naturally, my locker didn’t open on the first try. Locker had a mind of its own. And it didn’t like me one bit.
I was struggling to open up the metal beast when I saw her: Felicia Furrypaws.
AKA the Queen of Perfect Whiskers.
Felicia was the most popular girl in school. She always had two or three girls trailing after her like fans.
“Your whiskers look fabulous, Felicia,” one of the other girls said.
“They’re so shiny!” another observed.
“And straight!” the third added.
“I got whisker extensions,” Felicia announced to the admiring group.
“Whisker extensions?” I blurted out.
Felicia looked at me and raised one perfect eyebrow. “Yes, they’re the latest. Everybody’s getting them.”
I guess everybody didn’t include me because I hadn’t even heard about them.
“Picture Day is next week. I want to look good,” Felicia said.
Picture Day? My stomach fell.
Then Felicia said, “By the way, Babymouse. I love your scarf. Can I try it on?”
“I—” I started to say.
“Thanks!” she interrupted and whipped it off, revealing my sad whiskers.