“What happened?” Mom wanted to know as soon as Cleo was in the van.
“She deserved it,” Cleo said, slamming the side door shut. Why couldn’t they have a nice minivan with the doors that quietly slid themselves closed at the push of a button?
Mom turned in her seat to look at Cleo. “I know she said something about you being adopted. It must have been pretty bad for you to hit her in the mouth.”
“You hit a girl?” JayJay said with awe. “Why did you hit a girl?”
“If a boy had said what Lexie Lewis said, I would have hit a boy.”
“What did she say?” Mom asked.
“Can we talk about it later?” Cleo clutched her backpack to her chest.
Mom sighed, giving her that Disappointed Mom look that made her feel all broken up inside. “All right. But you’re not wiggling out of this one, Cleo. You will tell me.” Mom eyed her in the rearview mirror. “And the Nerf gun? Cleo! What were you thinking?”
She wanted to say, Sometimes you can’t think — you just need to trust your instincts. But in this case, a little more thinking probably would’ve been a good idea.
After lunch, Cleo took her backpack to the kitchen. She made sure the coast was clear and then she dumped “Nicki’s Breakfast Cookies: Everyone thinks they’re disgusting” in the tall trash can, being sure to cover them up. She rinsed out the baggie — Mom was a fanatic about not adding to the global landfill — and put it in the drying rack. Then she realized seeing the baggie might remind Mom to ask about the cookies, and she didn’t want to have to break it to her just how badly they’d flopped, so she stuffed the plastic bag in the trash too, being extra sure to cover that up.
Then she went to her room and shut the door. She dragged her desk chair over to the closet. If she stood on her tippy toes, she could reach high enough. She pulled down the flat white box and set it on her bed. She took the chair to the door and jammed it under the doorknob.
She sat on her bed and placed the box on her lap. She took off the lid and lifted out the little outfit inside. A lavender top with eight sewn-on orange butterflies. Lavender pants with satin orange ruffles around the bottoms. They looked like doll clothes, they were so small. This was what she’d been wearing the day her parents had gotten her. Clothes from her birth mom. Purple and orange. Her and Fortune’s favorite colors.
Underneath the lavender-and-orange outfit was a pink ruffly dress with pink ruffly underpants. This one was from the foster mom. In the one picture Cleo had seen of herself wearing it, she was bawling. She didn’t blame herself. The dress was horriful times a hundred.
She searched for the little plastic bag and plucked it out from among the ruffles. She admired the sparkly gold chain with the shiny heart pendant. She stood in front of the mirror on her closet door and held the tiny heart earrings up to her ears. Mom didn’t want her ears pierced. Maybe when she turned eleven, she said. Cleo bugged her about it constantly, but so far, Persuasion Power™ hadn’t gotten her anywhere with this one.
She took out the necklace and put it on. It was something she did every once in a while — not a whole lot, but sometimes.
It was hard to think about her. This person known only as her “birth mom.”
She was African American–Filipino (which meant Cleo had relatives all the way over in the Philippines — in Asia!). She had been a college student when she got pregnant. Cleo’s birth father was African American. And that’s pretty much all Cleo knew.
The lavender outfit, the jewelry, and Beary, the floppy purple bear that she slept with every night, were all she had of her. Her birth mom had left them with Cleo when she handed her over.
Why else would your mom give you away?
She tried not to think it, but the question kept repeating, as if Lexie Lewis were inside her head, mocking her over and over.
She stood on her bed. She put the side of her face against Fortune, trying to imagine it was soft and warm, but it wasn’t. It was just some paper on a wall. An ache so deep it went all the way to the bottoms of her feet caused her eyes to water.
She looked through bleary eyes at Fortune’s radiant face. She had wanted to believe this woman was her birth mom. Tried so hard to believe it. And she’d made what this woman had done okay by thinking she’d had to place her for adoption. Because she was destined to be Fortune and she couldn’t let anything stop her, not even a baby.
But it was a fantasy. It was only a fantasy.
She ripped the poster from the wall and tossed it to the ground.
Mom and Dad always talked about it like it was such a brave and loving thing her birth mom had done, recognizing she couldn’t give Cleo the home she deserved. But at this particular moment, Cleo wasn’t buying it.
If her birth mom had known what a great kid Cleo would become, she would have found a way to keep her close. Cleo crawled under her comforter and hugged Beary to her chest. She didn’t try to keep herself awake.
Someone was knocking on her door. Dad called her name. Cleo looked at the clock on her nightstand. 2:38. Dad was home already?
She shuffled across the floor, rubbing her eyes. She removed the chair and opened the door.
“Cleo, what have I told you about blocking your —” Mom’s eyes went to the chain around Cleo’s neck. “You got down the things from your birth mom.”
Cleo turned away. She quickly gathered the baby outfits, stuffed them back in the box, and shut them in her closet. She left the necklace on.
“Don’t you have soccer?” she asked Dad.
“My assistant’s covering for me.”
Mom picked up the poster of Fortune. “Why’s this on the ground?”
“I took it down.”
Mom peered into her face. She set the poster on Cleo’s desk. “Sweetie, what’s going on?” She led Cleo to the bed and they sat. “What did that girl say to you?”
Dad pulled up her desk chair.
Josh’s face appeared around the door frame. “Did Cleo get kicked out of school?”
“She had a hard day,” Dad said, heading for the door. “You and Jay play in your room for a bit. I’ll come in a few minutes.”
Josh sped off.
As soon as the door was shut, Cleo spilled it all. Caylee accidentally hitting Lexie with the tetherball. Cleo seeing the bloody loose tooth in Lexie’s mouth. How she’d tried to convince Lexie to let her pull it. “I guess I got a little pushy.”
“You?” Dad said, smiling.
“Then she called me a freak.”
“And so you hit her?” Mom suddenly didn’t sound so understanding.
“No. I told her I wasn’t a freak.”
Dad nodded. “That sounds like a good response.”
“Then she said, ‘Why else would your mom give you away?’ ”
Mom inhaled sharply. She put her arm around Cleo, as if to protect her from what had been said. Her eyes sparked. “Oh honey, I am so sorry.” She lifted Cleo’s chin. “Listen to me. You know there is nothing wrong with being adopted.”
Cleo nodded, although she still wished she hadn’t had to be.
“And you have no reason to be ashamed. It’s that girl . . . what’s her name?”
“Lexie Lewis.”
“Lexie Lewis should be ashamed of herself, and she will be after I get ahold of her. She will rue the day she met Cleopatra’s mother.” Cleo had no idea what rue meant, but if it had anything to do with being sorry, then Cleo rued the day she had met Lexie Lewis.
“Nicki, calm down a minute.” Dad put his heavy hand on Cleo’s leg. “It’s understandable you were angry,” Dad said. “You were hurt. But it’s not okay that you took it out on Lexie the way you did.”
“I know. I just lost it. I think I understand better how Josh feels when he goes berserk. I’m really sorry.”
“Does Lexie know that?”
Cleo bit the side of her mouth. “I apologized. Kind of.”
Dad looked at her tenderly. “I know you’ll find
a way to make it right with her. Now” — Dad crossed his arms — “as for the Nerf gun . . . you knew you were breaking a rule when you brought that to school, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” She searched for the words that would make that part of her actions right, but she was having a hard time finding them. It had been a dumb risk. “I guess I just wanted to make up for Saturday going so badly.”
Dad nodded. “Hmmm.”
She might as well tell them now about the video of Josh — get all the punishments over with at once. “And there’s more bad news.” The phrase jogged her memory. Caylee had said the exact same thing that morning . . . but she couldn’t remember what Caylee’s bad news was.
“Go on . . .” Mom prompted.
“I used Dad’s tablet to record me yanking Josh’s tooth, then I put it on YouTube.”
“You what?” Mom said.
“YouTube. The video-sharing website?”
“I know what it is, Cleo! I just can’t believe . . . you know how to do that?” She looked astonished. Dad looked like he was trying not to smile.
“Actually, Ernie Junior, I mean, E.J., did it, but I know how to now!”
Mom scratched her forehead. She looked stumped. “I — I don’t know what to say. I think I should be angry, but I’m not sure.”
“It’s already gotten almost eight hundred views!” Cleo announced, since Mom hadn’t grounded her on the spot.
“Eight hundred?” Now it was Dad’s turn to be astonished. “How —?”
“Probably because the link was on the flyer I handed out to everyone at school. My advertising worked!”
Dad crossed his arms. “Joshy went viral. Wow. Ooo! I’ll show it to my students. That will definitely raise my cool quotient.”
Cleo gave Dad a Don’t get your hopes up look — arms crossed, one eyebrow raised, lips off to one side.
“Hold on.” Mom sounded grave. Cleo slumped. She should have known Mom wouldn’t let it pass so easily. Here came the consequence. “I want to see this YouTube hit first!” She wrapped her solid arms around Cleo. “I was bummed I missed the actual event. Thanks to you, we’ve got it recorded!”
Cleo relaxed, grateful for her real mom’s real embrace.
“And if you’re wondering — yes, there will be a consequence for taking your father’s tablet without asking.”
Oh well. At least she could count on her mom to be consistent.
The whole family gathered around the computer to watch Josh and Cleo on YouTube. They watched it four times, laughing hysterically every time, especially during the slow-motion part. Cleo imitated Josh’s yell, low and stretched out, sending JayJay into fits. Even Josh giggled.
Mom was in the middle of telling Cleo that although the video was very funny, she wouldn’t be using the tablet for the rest of the month, when a loud crash came from the kitchen. Everyone froze. “Barkley?” Mom called. He’d been watching with them but was nowhere in sight at the moment.
They hurried to the kitchen. Mom stopped in the doorway, jamming up traffic behind her. The tipped trash can had spewed garbage everywhere. “Barkley! Bad dog!”
Barkley wasn’t listening. He was finding and gulping down Mom’s breakfast cookies! He gobbled at least five of them before Mom grabbed him by the collar and pulled him away. “Hey, why are my cookies in the trash? Cleo, I thought you took these to school today.”
Cleo stood frozen. Dad looked her in the eye.
Pizza and PepsiCo.
“I did,” she said.
“Oh.” Mom looked at the mess, the corners of her lips pulled down.
Dad put his arm around Mom. “Sorry, honey. Come on, gang, time to swab the decks!” Mom stooped to pick up some hot-dog packaging and a banana peel.
“Hey, at least Barkley loves them!” Cleo grinned at Mom, but she was too busy scraping up coffee grounds to notice. Barkley had his tail between his legs. He whimpered. Cleo knelt and looked into Barkley’s eyes. “You made a big mess, boy. I know how you feel.” She went to kiss his nose, but he licked her face first. His breath no longer had the horrible fishy stench. It smelled sweet. “Mom,” she said, “I think your cookies have worked a miracle!”
Mom glanced up from some egg slime. Dad kept throwing stuff into the trash can. Conveniently, Josh and Julian had taken off. “What are you talking about?”
“Barkley’s breath! It actually smells good!”
Cleo could see the lightbulb going on in Mom’s head. “Oh, that’s funny. I bet it’s the anise. It’s a natural breath freshener.”
Dad came over and sniffed Barkley’s mouth. “Mmm . . . not bad.”
Now Cleo had a lightbulb moment. “Mom, I think you can sell these at the farmer’s market after all!”
“I’m not sure a dog’s testimonial is going to win many people over.” Mom went back to the egg goo. “ ‘They’re irresistible: I even pawed through garbage for them. Woof!’ ”
Dad chuckled.
“Not people.” Cleo felt her smile growing. “Dogs. You’d be selling them to dogs.” Her smile felt almost as wide as her face. “Well, to the owners of dogs, but they’d be for the dogs!”
For a second, Mom looked surprised — or maybe insulted, Cleo wasn’t sure — then she threw back her head and laughed.
“And I know what we can call them,” Cleo said. Her very enterprising mind was firing on all cylinders. “Cleo’s Canine Cookies!” Mom laughed harder. She even snorted once.
“That’s not bad,” Dad said. “I like it.”
“I’ll help you sell them.” She had another idea! “And what about my Canine Carrier Capsule (trademark)? We could sell those with them. We could even package them together! And I could write a training manual for how to teach your dog to carry messages, and —”
“Whoa, whoa. One thing at a time,” Mom said. She went to the sink to wash her hands.
Barkley stood there panting — totally clueless about the great idea he had just inspired.
“We could make real money with this,” Cleo said. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry so much.”
Mom’s forehead wrinkled. “Worry?”
“About having enough to pay bills.”
Mom and Dad looked at each other. “Oh, honey,” Mom hugged her again. “Don’t you worry about that. We’ll be fine. God always provides.”
They were quiet, and for a moment, Cleo felt like her piggy bank was full.
“I think you’re onto something, Cleo,” Dad said. “But there’s one requirement.”
“What?”
“Your mom and I become your board of directors.” Dad picked up another Canine Cookie and tossed it to Barkley. The dog caught it midair and gobbled it down. “All decisions related to the running of your businesses get passed by us first — including any social media marketing campaigns.” He smiled.
“Isn’t the CEO usually the chairperson of the board?” Cleo asked.
Dad laughed. “Sometimes, yes, I believe so.”
“All right, then. It’s a deal. You’ll be my board, and I’ll be Chairgirl of the Board!”
“Hi, Cleo.” Caylee had called her. “So . . . will you be at school tomorrow?”
Cleo sat on her bed, refolding the baby clothes from her birth mom so she could put them away properly. “I think so.”
“What did Principal Yu say?”
“He said I had to go home.”
Silence. Finally, Caylee spoke. “I’ve never seen you like that.”
“Me neither.”
“It kind of freaked me out.”
“Me too.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come over. I mean, after Mr. Boring . . . stopped you. It was just . . . well, I was sort of —”
“It doesn’t matter. Hey, guess what? I’ve got another business idea!” Cleo had a sense she should be asking Caylee about her “more bad news,” and she would — just as soon as she told her about Cleo’s Canine Cookies™! She told her about the trash can
incident and her happy discovery that Barkley’s breath smelled good after eating a bunch of the cookies. “I was wondering if you’d take some shots of Barkley for the label. He’s going to be the face of Cleo’s Canine Cookies — and related products — and you’re a way better photographer than me. My pictures always turn out blurry or off center, but not in a cool, artistic way like yours. Or the subjects look like zombies from Planet Doofus. Your shots always look inspired, like pieces of art! Plus, you’ve got that nice new camera.”
Caylee sighed. “I —”
“Please, Jelly! Pretty please with a gummy pizza on top?”
“Okay.”
“Great! Can we do it this afternoon? How about after Fortune? Ask your mom if you can come over and watch it with me. We’ll take the pictures after that. Then you can eat dinner with us!” She was on a roll. “These dog cookies are going to be a huge hit, Caylee. I can feel it! This isn’t a little tooth-pulling operation or selling fruit from our trees. This is going to be a real business, with real profits!”
More silence. Longer this time.
Cleo looked at the phone, then put it back to her ear. “Are you still there?”
“Is that all you can talk about?” Caylee suddenly sounded mad.
What had she done wrong? “What?”
“Business! Money! All you ever talk about are your businesses and how to make more money. Not everyone is into money like you are, you know.”
“I’m not —”
“I’m not into money like you are.”
“I — I thought you liked my ideas. You said you wanted to be my COO.”
“Money isn’t everything, Cleo. It doesn’t make all your problems go away — and, and . . . it can’t make up for a person not being there!” Click.
“Caylee?”
Had Caylee just hung up on her?
Cleo stared at the phone, waiting for her friend to call back, and then when she didn’t, trying to figure out if she should call her. Okay, so money wasn’t everything — she knew that — but it was still something. People needed money to live, to go to the doctor, to buy things for their kids. She looked at the little outfit on her lap. She traced a butterfly with her finger.
It can’t make up for a person not being there.
Cleo Edison Oliver, Playground Millionaire Page 9