Ava and Pip

by Carol Weston

  “If all goes well,” Bea stated, “in just one month, we can get your sister to go from a Before to an After.”

  “Really?” I said and tried to picture Old Pip turning into New-and-Improved Pip. I couldn’t see it. “It might take at least five weeks,” I said and looked over the strips. “Mind if I add a fifth pointer?”

  “Not at all,” she said. “I made these up last night, though I guess I have been thinking about them for a while.”

  I wrote out, “Week Five: Ask someone a question each day. Listen to the answer,” because I like when people ask me friendly questions.

  “Good one!” Bea said, which made me feel good. She even scribbled it down in her own little notebook.

  “Are you going to tell Pip that you want to be an advice columnist and she’s your first guinea pig?”

  “Second,” Bea corrected. “Ben was the first, remember? But he wasn’t a guinea pig, and neither is Pip. They’re more like the timid turtle in that contest story, the one who wouldn’t stick his head out.”

  “Timmy,” I said, though I wished she hadn’t mentioned the contest.

  “Right!” Bea said. “And, Ava, we’re not doing this for my future. We’re doing it for Pip’s present.”

  “That’s a homonym,” I said, then wanted to kick myself. Since it was too late, I kept talking. “PRESENT like ‘now’ and PRESENT like ‘gift.’”

  I hoped Bea wouldn’t think this was a strange thing to say. It was a strange thing to say.

  Questions:

  1.Why, oh why does my brain work this way?

  2.Can I blame B-O-B and A-N-N-A?

  Speaking of palindromes, Bea said she liked my name. Since I did not want to be speaking of palindromes, I just said, “Thanks.”

  She said there was a book in her family’s store about an actress named Ava Gardner. “That Ava had three husbands, all famous. Frank Sinatra, a singer, Mickey Rooney, an actor, and Artie Shaw, a musician.”

  “So she wasn’t at all shy,” I said.

  Bea laughed. “What were you reading when I came in?” She reached across and flipped over my book.

  “The Witches,” I said.

  “I love Roald Dahl!”

  “Me too.”

  Funny how I’d assumed Bea was a witch and she’d assumed Pip was a snob. I guess people can’t help but judge books by their covers and people by their looks.

  At school, kids get made fun of if they’re dweeby or fat or funny-looking. But even when a girl is cute, like Bea or Pip, some people still think bad things.

  I started feeling a little guilty for having assumed that Bea was a jerk and for thinking not-nice thoughts about Alex Gladstone just because he’s dweeby and burps out loud.

  “Does your bookshop really have a cat?” I asked, because I didn’t want to dwell on my shallowness.

  “Yes. His name is Meow Meow. He’s orange with stripes. He wanders around with his tail in the air, and he knows which customers are cat people and which aren’t.”

  I told her about some of the cats Dr. Gross takes care of, like Fuzz Ball with the three legs and purry Panther with the pink nose. I didn’t tell her about Whiskers, since he’s dead. And I didn’t tell her that Dr. Gross was a grump.

  “Does he ever take care of monkeys?” Bea asked, sort of randomly.

  “No monkeys, no goldfish,” I said. “But he once removed a tumor from a mouse named Stuart Little.”

  Bea laughed again. “Okay, here’s the plan: I’ll stop by your house at 4. All you have to do is make sure your sister’s alone. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” I said, because Pip’s always alone.

  AVA THE AGREEABLE

  11/4

  AFTERNOON

  DEAR DIARY,

  At 4, Pip and I were in the living room. I was having big problems doing decimals, and she was having no problems doing fractions. I casually said, “Bea’s coming over.”

  “Bea?” Pip said. “Did you say Bea?”

  “Remember ‘Sting of the Queen Bee’?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Well, Bea thought it was mean that I thought she was mean.”

  “Wait, wait, wait! You talked to her? To Bea Bates?”

  I told Pip that Bea called and said she hadn’t known Pip was having a party.

  Pip stared at me, and I wondered if I’d been a total traitor.

  “And you believed that little phony?” Pip said.

  “I did. I do.” I looked at her. “I know I called her a thief, but now I think she’s the opposite. She’s a very giving person.”

  “Oh, Ava! You’re a very gullible person!” Pip threw her book down and started stomping around the room.

  Since Aesop says honesty is the best policy, I told Pip the truth. “Bea said she helped her brother ‘come out of his shell’ and now she wants to try her method on you.”

  “Are you kidding?! I don’t need her help! Or her method!” Pip said “method” as if she were saying “poison” or “booger” or “throw up.” I didn’t say anything, and Pip said, “Seriously, Ava, thanks a lot! I bet she’s just looking for a new way to humiliate me!”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What’s she planning to do anyway? Sprinkle me with popularity powder?” I could tell that Pip was mad, but also a tiny bit curious.

  “She isn’t planning to do anything. She has tips for you to do. Pointers.” I didn’t mention all our meetings or our five-week master plan.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I do not need a personality transplant.”

  I wanted to shout, “Yes, you do!” But I just sat there and didn’t say another word.

  At 4:05, I started wondering if Bea was even coming. “Where’s Dad, anyway?” I asked.

  “Upstairs, putting new wallpaper in the bathroom. He said he had to repaper it and then he looked all happy, because, you know, R-E-P-A-P-E-R. You know what? I’m going to go help him.” She started walking upstairs.

  “No! Stay here!” I said. “I’ll give you M&M’s.” I still had some from Halloween.

  Pip hesitated. She can never resist M&M’s. Especially green ones and Minis.

  The doorbell rang.

  Pip stood frozen in place like a statue. It rang again. I waited. Pip waited. It rang one more time. “Well,” Pip finally said, “aren’t you planning on opening the door for Bossy Bea, your new best friend?”

  I did, and Bea burst in holding a bike helmet. “Hi!” Bea was beaming. “How’s it going?” she said, walking right in. “Pip, I hope Ava told you I’m sorry about your birthday. I had no clue we were both giving a party on the same day.”

  Pip didn’t say anything, but since she usually doesn’t, I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

  “Want some gum?” Bea said and offered us some pieces.

  “What flavor?” I asked.

  “Lemon lime,” she said. I took a piece, but Pip didn’t.

  “Pip,” Bea began, “Ava says you’re a good student and good artist, but that you’re a little shy.”

  Pip glared at me, and I basically died.

  “I was thinking,” Bea continued, “that you should take another look at the other kids at school. They’re not Olympic athletes or famous musicians or anything. Most are just regular.” Now Bea turned to me. “So that’s why Ava and I think you could put yourself out there a little more.”

  When Bea said my name again, I could feel Pip’s eyes burning a hole in my head. I wondered if she felt as if we were all playing Battleship, and Bea and I had found her hiding place and were ganging up on her with torpedoes.

  I didn’t want to upset her, and I felt bad that she was being even more speechless than usual, if that’s possible.

  Finally Pip started talking. “Listen, Bea, thanks for the apology but—”

  “My brother used to be s
hy,” Bea jumped in. “Pip, I think I can help you too. Just give it a try?”

  Pip looked cornered. She had obviously not been expecting this pep (P-E-P) talk. Should I have prepared her? Warned her?

  “Give what a try?” she said.

  “Your first assignment.”

  Pip frowned. “I have enough homework.”

  “C’mon. Just let me explain?”

  Pip shrugged, but it was obvious that she was listening.

  “Okay, every day this week,” Bea began, “all you have to do is smile at one person you don’t usually smile at. It can be a teacher. Or a cashier. Or someone’s mom or dad.”

  Pip didn’t say anything, so Bea kept going.

  “It can be someone next to you in line, or someone you’ll never see again. Or even someone who looks like he or she could use a smile. I’ll stop by next week, and you can tell me how it went.”

  “That’s it?” Pip said.

  “That’s it.”

  “Just smile?”

  “Well, you could try to make a little eye contact too.”

  Pip looked at me, and our eyes made a little contact. Hers were saying, “Ava, I might have to chop you up into tiny pieces.”

  “You don’t have to be someone you’re not,” Bea reassured Pip. “Just seven little smiles is all we’re asking.”

  She handed Pip the strip of paper. Pip looked at it suspiciously, as if it really had been dipped in poison or boogers or throw up. I knew she recognized the handwriting—and besides, the turquoise was a dead giveaway. I hoped Pip wouldn’t be too mad that I’d opened our home to a girl whose guts, one month ago, we’d both decided we hated.

  “Mind if I get a glass of water?” Bea asked. We went to the kitchen, and she got herself a glass. “Thanks,” she said and put it in the sink. “I’ll be back in a week.”

  After she left, Pip said, “Who does she think she is, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, hoping Pip felt at least a teensy bit flattered. It wasn’t every day that a popular seventh-grader dropped by.

  AVA WITH HOPE

  11/6

  BEFORE SCHOOL

  DEAR DIARY,

  Pip didn’t say anything about Bea’s visit, so I didn’t either. Not to her or anyone.

  After dinner, I put a small pile of green M&M’s on Pip’s desk. I’d been saving them up. I also wrote her a joke:

  Question: Why did the worker at the M&M factory get fired?

  Answer: Because he kept throwing out the Ws.

  She didn’t say anything about the M&M’s or the joke, and since I was bored, I decided to clean my room. I was still looking for my missing pen.

  Well, I kept putting things away and did not find the pen. But at least I found the top of my desk!

  AVA WITH ABUNDANT M&M's

  11/7

  SATURDAY AROUND NOON (N-O-O-N)

  DEAR DIARY,

  “Abundant” was one of the bonus words on yesterday’s spelling test. After the test, we had to switch papers with the kid next to us and grade each other’s. Chuck got a 65. He said spelling doesn’t matter because of spell-check. I said that wasn’t true, because spell-check can’t always help you (and I wrote this part down) “fined yore miss steaks.” He studied my words and smiled.

  For homework this weekend, Mrs. Lemons gave us an assignment to write about something we read and say what we learned from it. I thought about my lost magic pen and the moral, “No use crying over spilt milk,” and I asked if I could write about an Aesop’s fable. She said sure.

  But which one?

  “The Milkmaid and Her Pail”? Naa. Meh. Nuh-uh. (Is that how you spell those words?)

  “The Ant and the Grasshopper”? Maybe. I could write about how people (not just ants and grasshoppers) should plan ahead.

  “The Tortoise and the Hare”? Maybe. I could write about how people (not just turtles and bunnies) should strive to reach their goals.

  I started thinking that I’m not good at planning ahead and setting goals. Then I realized that it was okay because I’m only in fifth grade. And then I watched an origami video and started folding paper flowers.

  AVA, AESOP FAN

  11/7

  AFTERNOON

  DEAR DIARY,

  After reading (and rereading) a bunch of fables, I decided to write about “The North Wind and the Sun.” It’s about a bet between the wind and the sun on who can make a traveler take off his coat first. The wind blows and blows as hard as it can, but the more it blows, the more tightly the traveler holds on to his coat. Then the sun takes a turn, and instead of using all its might, it just shines and shines warmly and normally. Next thing you know, the traveler removes his coat. The moral? “Kindness wins where force fails.”

  Here’s what I think: when I wrote that Queen Bee story, I thought I was being kind, but I was really being blind.

  Here’s what else I think: you can’t force people to change, but you can help them try. Like, Bea and I aren’t forcing Pip out of her shell, but if she does the assignments, maybe she’ll inch out on her own, step by step.

  Speaking of Pip, this morning I saw her smile! Our postman rang the doorbell and handed her a bunch of letters. Instead of just taking them silently, she smiled and even said, “Thank you.” The postman’s eyes got big, and he said, “You’re welcome.” Then he shot me a look that said, “I didn’t know your sister could talk.”

  That may not sound like much to you, Diary, but to me it felt like a mini miracle.

  AVA THE AMAZED

  11/8

  3:30

  DEAR DIARY,

  Dad said he got an e-mail from Misty Oaks Library and that the story contest winners have been posted online.

  “All of them?”

  “All of them,” Dad said.

  “Even the honorable mentions?”

  “Of course,” Dad said. “So I finally got to read your story, Ava. And I liked it. It was like a fable.”

  More like a libel! I thought and felt bad all over again that I’d based Queen Bee on Real Bea. Dad said, “Mom will want to read it too.”

  “Did the library e-mail the parents of all the kids who won or got mentioned?”

  “I bet Mrs. White e-mailed everyone in town!” Dad said. “Or at least everyone with a library card.”

  I felt so wobbly I had to sit down. I used to like picturing people reading my story, but now I just want the story to go away.

  AVA

  11/9

  DEAR DIARY,

  Nobody said anything about my story today. Maybe I’m going to get off easy after all?

  At dinner, Dad asked, “What’s an eight-letter word that if you keep taking one letter away, it will still be a word all the way down until it’s just one letter?”

  Mom, Pip, and I had no idea what he was talking about, so Dad got out eight index cards and wrote one letter on each. They spelled S T A R L I N G. Suddenly I understood what he meant, and I went first. I took away the L so it was STARING. Pip took away the A so it was STRING. Mom took away the R so it was STING. I took away the T so it was SING. Pip took away the G so it was SIN. Mom took away the S so it was IN. And I took away the N and it was…drum roll please…I!

  STARLING, STARING, STRING, STING, SING, SIN, IN, I! Cool, right? But then I started getting attacked by questions.

  1.Did I commit a SIN?

  2.Will I get STUNG?

  3.Will everyone soon be STARING at me?

  AVA…VA…A

  11/10

  BEDTIME

  DEAR DIARY,

  Nothing bad happened today either, so I showed the word-bird trick to my language arts class. They liked it.

  Chuck had a trick too. He made a boxer’s fist and wrote M, E, A, and T under his knuckles so his fist said MEAT. Then he lifted his pointer finger, so his
fist said EAT. He put it down, so his fist said MEAT again. Then he lifted two fingers, and his fist said AT. And then he opened up his whole hand and inside, he’d written JOE’S. He said, “Get it? EAT MEAT AT JOE’S!” (Maybe he should be a comedian instead of a boxer.)

  Speaking of words, tonight, my family played a game of Boggle, and we added a new rule: double points for palindromes.

  When I was really little, Mom and Dad used to give me points for one-letter words (like A or I) and two-letter words (like AN or IN). That made Pip mad because her words had to be at least three letters.

  Now that I’m almost eleven, mine do too.

  Well, I found S-E-E-S and E-Y-E and G-I-G and S-O-L-O-S and T-O-O-T. But so did everyone else, so those got crossed out. Mom and Dad both found L-E-V-E-L, so they canceled each other out. I got double points for B-O-O-B, which Pip thought was funny. And Pip got double points for B-I-B. I was tempted to tease her about being a baby with a B-I-B and P-U-L-L-U-P diapers, but when Pip acts babyish, it’s worse for everyone. Plus, I’m trying to be kind of kind—like the sun. I’m on a kindness kick!

  To tell you the truth, I’m also glad that Pip didn’t yell at me (or tell on me) after Bea’s visit. It’s strange, but we’re both sort of pretending it never happened.

  During the game, Mom said, “Ava, I read your story at work today. I even showed it to Dr. Gross. We thought it was clever.”

  For a second, I felt really good. Then I remembered what I’d written, and I felt more like a big balloon soaring high in the air that gets pricked and makes a bunch of farty noises and becomes a deflated crumple of shriveled rubber, lying splat on the ground.

  Mom changed the subject anyway. “And, Pip,” she said, “Dr. Gross said you’ve grown up a lot and have a beautiful smile.”

  Well, Mom’s boss never says anything nice about human beings, particularly children. He’s better with animals, particularly furry ones. (Mom says he’s not that great with reptiles.) Whenever Pip and I go to Dr. Gross’s clinic, he looks at us suspiciously, as though he thinks we might turn off the lizard lights or open the birdcages or let the dogs loose. Every so often, he’ll act nice and show us an X-ray of a rabbit or a dog tick under a microscope. But mostly he’s a grump. Mom says Dr. Gross complains that it’s hard to be a vet because regular doctors have to know about just one species but vets have to know about a lot of species.