“This,” he said, kissing me again. “And knowing I have Annabelle Stevens for a girlfriend.”
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to the super-amazing Laura Langlie, and the Bloomsbury team: Michelle Nagler, Caroline Abbey, Cindy Loh, Nicole Gastonguay, Donna Mark, Alexei Esikoff, Vanessa Nuttry, Katy Hershberger, Bridget Hartzler, Beth Eller, and Linette Kim.
Major props to the Brooklyn Writer’s Space for providing me with a wonderfully peaceful and almost waterbug-free place to work.
And love and thanks to my family, Leo, Lucy, Jim, and Aunt Blanche.
Books by
Leslie Margolis
THE ANNABELLE UNLEASHED SERIES
Boys Are Dogs
Girls Acting Catty
Everybody Bugs Out
One Tough Chick
*
THE MAGGIE BROOKLYN MYSTERIES
Girl’s Best Friend
Vanishing Acts
ANNABELLE ISN’T
MONKEYING AROUND
IN HER LATEST
ADVENTURE …
Annabelle and her friends are desperate to come up with enough cash to see their favorite bands at the biggest music festival of the summer. But a regular old lemonade stand may not cut it. They need to get creative with a very different business plan, and it’s not going to be easy.
READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK OF
MONKEY BUSINESS
Everyone told their parents about the concert when they got home from my sleepover Sunday morning. We all figured it would be a no-brainer. The concert was months away. It was happening over the summer, and we were all going to be around. All we needed our parents to do was buy us tickets and get a couple of people to drive us there. Unless one of Claire’s moms was willing to do it—in which case it would be even easier because her family has a minivan.
But no! Something terrible and way more annoying happened. All our parents got together on a conference call to discuss our plan, and they came up with their own crazy idea: we could only go to the concert if we paid for the tickets ourselves. Except, actually, it was more complicated than that.
My mom and Ted broke the news to me on Monday morning.
“We looked into the concert, and the tickets cost a hundred dollars each, which is a lot of money,” my mom explained over homemade blueberry pancakes, as if a yummy breakfast would make me digest this terrible news more easily. “And we figure you girls should also contribute toward the other expenses.”
“What expenses?” I asked. “All we need are the tickets.”
My mom smiled at me as if I wasn’t capable of understanding the most basic thing. “You’ve got to think about the travel costs,” she said. “You girls are asking to stay in a hotel or rent a condo, neither of which is free. Plus there’s gas and food to worry about.”
“We can bring our own food—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all around! Plus, I’ll fill my camp canteen with water so you don’t even have to spring for a soda. It’ll be great and healthy.”
Ted nodded his head, as if considering this. “That’s an interesting idea, but things still add up, sweetie.”
“What if we subsist on peanut butter alone?” I asked. “Forget the jelly!”
My mom and Ted chuckled, even though I was being serious. “I’m talking not even bread. We’ll bring our own spoons and eat straight from the jar.”
“We don’t expect you to pay for everything,” said my mom. “But we decided fifty dollars was fair.”
“Fifty dollars each?” I asked. “Okay, I guess that’s fair.”
“No, fifty dollars per kid for the food and travel,” my mom said. “The ticket doesn’t count. You’re looking at one hundred fifty dollars total per kid, and there are five of you so that’s—”
“That’s seven hundred and fifty dollars!” I shouted, horrified by the prospect.
“Very nice math skills,” Ted said, offering me a high five.
I left him high and dry because I wasn’t in the mood. “That’s not the point!” I said. “Seven hundred and fifty dollars is a fortune!”
“We’ll cover the rest,” my mom said. “Tickets for two chaperones and whatever you girls spend beyond that. You’re really getting off easy, if you think about it, because the weekend will probably cost about twice as much as that.”
“At least,” Ted added.
I looked back and forth between my mom and Ted suspiciously. “Whose idea was this, anyway? Not yours, I hope.”
My mom smiled. “All of us parents got together and came up with this solution. And we also decided not to name names. It doesn’t matter who had the idea because we all think it’s a wonderful plan.”
“You do realize that we’re in the sixth grade, right? And that none of us has actually had a paying job before. Probably because, technically, it’s illegal for children to work in this country.”
I took a bite of my pancakes. They were delicious, but I wasn’t going to say so out loud. Not with the kind of news they’d just dropped on me.
My mom sighed and said, “The concert sounds like a lot of fun. But it’s also expensive fun. You girls are old enough to appreciate that, and we think you’re old enough to figure out how to make it work.”
“Plus, you’ll appreciate the music more if you work hard to earn the money for the tickets,” said Ted.
I gulped down my last bite of breakfast. “All our favorite bands are playing—we will appreciate it no matter what!” I insisted.
“I know this seems like a crazy thing, but trust us,” said Ted. “We know what we’re doing.”
I narrowed my eyes at Ted, because if this whole crazy plan was his idea, well, that seemed way unfair. My mom has been my mom ever since I was born. Meanwhile, Ted has only been my stepfather since December. His opinion shouldn’t matter that much!
I didn’t say any of this out loud because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but my mom must’ve read my mind. “As I mentioned before,” she said, “all your friends’ parents and I agreed we weren’t going to name names.”
“So this is basically one gigantic conspiracy,” I argued. “Which is sad because the concert money is going toward such a good cause. Don’t you care about the pandas?”
“Of course we do,” said my mom.
“You are smart and so are your friends,” said Ted. “I am totally confident that you’ll figure out a way to come up with the money.”
There was no getting through to them, so I cleared my plate and grabbed my backpack.
“Oh, before I forget,” my mom said. “Want to come shopping with me after school on Friday?”
“Totally!” I said. “There’s this new jeans jacket I’ve been wanting.”
My mom laughed. “Okay, we’ll see if we have time for that, but I have a bunch of shopping to do for the baby and I thought you’d want to come.”
I shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
“Great.” My mom smiled. “It’ll be fun. I’m taking the afternoon off, so I’ll pick you up after school.”
“Sounds good,” I said, heading to school.
It wasn’t until lunchtime that my friends and I were finally all together so we could discuss this debacle.
“I cannot believe they’re doing this to us!” Claire cried, burying her face in her hands. “We’re only twelve years old. How are we supposed to come up with seven hundred and fifty dollars?”
“They might as well ask us to earn a billion dollars,” I said.
“See,” Claire announced, even though everyone at our table was privy to the same conversation, “it’s worse than I thought. Annabelle is only eleven.”
“Wait. Are the rest of you twelve already?” I asked. I looked to all my friends, who nodded. Yes, they were all twelve. “I can’t believe I’m the shortest one and the youngest one in the group!”
“Believe it,” said Yumi. “But you’re almost twelve, right?”
I nodded. “My birthday is June sixteenth—in three more weeks. ”
“That’s totally weird,” said Claire.
“Why would I do any of that?” I asked, feeling a familiar sense of uneasiness in the pit of my stomach.
Rachel shrugged and turned back to her peanut butter and banana sandwich, taking a large bite and chewing. Like having a mouthful of food was an excuse to not explain herself. Except it wasn’t. But did I even need her explanation when I kind of knew what she was getting at?
“Are you asking me if I’m going to have the same party as Nikki because we both live in Canyon Ranch?” I asked pointedly.
Rachel gave an exaggerated shrug. “You said it. Not me.”
I looked to my other friends, but no one would meet my eye. It seemed like none of them wanted to get into the middle of my fight with Rachel, and I didn’t blame them.
Except now things were all awkward and we ate in silence. Finally, though, after a few minutes Emma stuck up for me. “I have lived in Canyon Ranch since I was born and I’ve never even been in a limo.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Now, let’s get back to the concert money,” said Emma as she pulled out a notebook and pen and started making some calculations. “I’m just saying it’s not as impossible as it sounds. Think about it. There are five of us. Today is April fifteenth, and the concert isn’t until July Fourth. That’s almost three months away. We’ve got plenty of time to figure out how to raise the money.”
“It’s a lot of money. At least for me,” Rachel said, staring at me.
“It’s a lot for all of us,” said Claire. “But Emma is right. When you break it down, you can see we have to come up with two hundred and fifty dollars a month. That’s about sixty-two dollars a week, or nine dollars a day. Divide that by five and each of us has to raise less than two dollars a day.”
“Totally manageable!” said Emma.
“But that’s if you include today, and if we start today we’re already behind,” said Rachel.
“Not necessarily,” said Emma. “Let’s start by pooling what we have so far.”
“Good idea. Who has money?” asked Claire, looking around the table. “I have twenty dollars left over from what my grandma gave me for Easter.”
“You get money for Easter?” asked Rachel.
“Only this year because my grandma felt guilty for celebrating with her boyfriend’s family instead of us.”
“I just counted my savings after my dad broke the news to me last night,” said Yumi. “I have eighteen dollars and seventy-five cents, mostly from babysitting my sister.”
I scratched my head and thought for a moment. “I haven’t counted my money in a while, and I’m not even sure where my piggy bank went, but I think I have something like six dollars, plus a jar of pennies.”
My friends nodded, none of them very impressed.
“The jar is pretty big,” I felt the need to add. “There’s probably at least three dollars in there. I’ll count it when I get home from school.”
“Perfect,” said Emma. “If we assume your estimation is correct that’s nine dollars, and adding that to Yumi’s and Claire’s money it means we have forty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents.”
“I have thirty dollars, plus I got a quarter as change when I bought my lunch. So that makes seventy-eight dollars.” Emma turned to Rachel. “See! We’re actually way ahead of the game.”
“Yeah,” said Claire. “What do you have?”
Rachel shook her head. “I’m totally broke. I only get seven dollars a week for my allowance, and I already spent this week’s money on frozen yogurt.”
My ears perked up. Rachel got seven dollars a week for an allowance? That was a big allowance as far as I was concerned and I told her so.
“That’s a lot of money,” I said. “I don’t even get an allowance.”
Leslie Margolis lip-synched a flawless rendition of Madonna’s “Holiday” at her middle school talent show. She did not win and maintains that the competition was rigged. In addition to the Annabelle Unleashed novels, she is also the author of the Maggie Brooklyn Mystery series. Leslie lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband, two children, and their scrappy mutt. Definitely visit her online for games, quizzes, and more!
www.lesliemargolis.com
EVERYONE IS
GOING WILD
OVER THIS SERIES!
Don’t miss the Annabelle Unleashed series from Leslie Margolis.
www.lesliemargolis.com
www.bloomsbury.com
www.facebook.com/bloomsburykids
DISAPPEARING DOGS? MISSING BOYS?
CHOCOLATE GHOSTS?
NOT WHEN MAGGIE BROOKLYN SINCLAIR
IS ON THE CASE …
Be sure to check out Leslie Margolis’s mystery series, featuring supersleuth Maggie Brooklyn.
www.maggiebrooklyn.com
www.bloomsbury.com
www.facebook.com/bloomsburykids
Copyright © 2013 by Leslie Margolis
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
First published in the United States of America in January 2013
by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
E-book edition published in January 2013
www.bloomsbury.com
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Margolis, Leslie.
One tough chick / Leslie Margolis. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: As the school talent show nears, Annabelle’s plan to display her dog training skills goes awry and she is asked to be a student judge instead, which seems perfect until her friends begin asking for special treatment.
[1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Talent shows—Fiction. 4. Middle schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Family life—California—Fiction. 7. California—Fiction.]
I. Title.
PZ7.M33568One 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012023275
ISBN 978-1-61963-000-0 (e-book)
One Tough Chick Page 13