Hazy Bloom and the Pet Project

by Jennifer Hamburg

  “Dabagradacha!”

  Oh, and The Baby was there. In a porta-crib far away from the dangerous spinning power saw. He was wearing goggles, too.

  After finishing the cut, Dad turned the saw off and looked at me.

  “Oh, hiya, Hazel Basil! We’re just getting under way with Milo’s loft bed.”

  I surveyed the room, which looked like a war zone. How all of those pieces of junk were going to turn into a loft bed was beyond me.

  Dad picked up two wood pieces. “All righty, if my calculations are correct, these two should be the exact same size.”

  He held them side by side. One was about three inches shorter than the other (which is 3/12 if you measure in feet).

  “Huh,” Dad said.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” I asked.

  “Oh, definitely!” he said. Then he knocked into the worktable.

  “Dad!” Milo yelped as he and I rushed to grab it before it crashed to the floor.

  “Whoopsy daisy!” Dad said. Then he secured his goofy goggles and went right back to work.

  So much for relaxing.

  I went into the kitchen to do the dishes, which, trust me, surprised me as much as anyone. But I figured it was an opportunity to distract myself from the deafening noise and get in some responsibility points while I was at it.

  I picked up a dish and it immediately slipped from my hand to the floor, where it smashed into pieces.

  Broken dish: 1. Horrible noises: 2. Good things that happened to me today: 0.

  9

  I absolutely hate to admit this, but I’m going to give it to you straight: I kind of avoided Elizabeth after school the next day. It’s just that ever since yesterday, when I’d accidentally come up with our brilliant (not)FUNdraising idea, all she (and my entire class) had been yapping about was Pet Day, Pet Day, Pet Day. It had been less than twenty-four hours, and I was tired of it already.

  Luckily for me, Milo was staying late after school for a science project and I knew Mom was coming to pick him up. So when the dismissal bell rang, instead of heading to the bus, where I knew I’d face more Pet Day jibber-jabber from Elizabeth, I hustled to the library.

  I pushed open the door to find the librarian, Mrs. Fowler, pushing a cart of books across the floor.

  “Hello, Hazel! How nice to see you.”

  Mrs. Fowler was the complete opposite of Mrs. Agnes: soft-spoken, sweet, and had never put me in time-out. I liked her. But when she asked me what I was doing there, I couldn’t exactly say I was avoiding my best friend, so I replied, “I’m looking for a book about iguanas.”

  “Wonderful! Follow me to the reptile section,” she said.

  It turned out the reptile section consisted of two worn-out books about geckos, a magazine featuring turtles, and a picture book called Can a Crocodile Cluck? with the front cover ripped in half.

  Mrs. Fowler’s reptile section needed some serious work.

  I sighed and plopped down at a table to do my homework until it was time for Mom to pick up Milo and me out front. It had been a long day and I was ready to go home.

  * * *

  I should have stayed at the library. Because as soon as we entered our house, it was clear that Dad had moved on from the buzz saw to the power drill, which made a different, even more horrible noise than before.

  With my hands over my ears, I peered into Milo’s room to see how close Dad was to finishing this ridiculous project. By the looks of things, he didn’t seem very close, since nothing in there was looking even remotely like a bed yet. What a mess. The only upside to all this ruckus was that, among the items in the war zone, I spotted a giant strip of Bubble Wrap, which is kind of the best invention ever (besides a four-pizza toaster oven). I swiped it and hotfooted out of there.

  I was popping away in the living room when The Baby waddled over and tried to grab the entire piece from me, to which I said, “Hands off, bub. That’s mine.”

  The Baby said, “Slageerat!” which I could only interpret as “Ha! Nice try, tall person, but I’m a baby, and when I see something that crinkles and pops like crazy, by golly, I’m not letting that opportunity pass me by!” Then he grabbed it again.

  Annoyed, I picked up The Baby and was removing him from the Bubble Wrap area when suddenly, I felt the tingles and goose bumps. And then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t The Baby I was holding. It was Mrs. Agnes. Now, before you freak out like I almost did, The Baby didn’t actually turn into Mrs. Agnes, because that would be completely bananas. I was having a tomorrow vision of Mrs. Agnes … holding something round in her hand and smiling. I’m not sure what she was holding or why she was smiling about it, but the point is, by the time the vision was gone, The Baby had squirmed from my arms and was messing with my Bubble Wrap again. Argh!

  I delivered the little rascal to my mom and was heading to my room to figure out my vision when the doorbell rang. It was Elizabeth.

  Uh-oh.

  “Hi!” I said as cheerfully as possible, trying to pretend I hadn’t been avoiding her for the last several hours.

  “Why weren’t you on the bus?” she demanded.

  I thought quickly. “I had my violin lesson.”

  “You don’t take violin.”

  “You don’t know everything about me!”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Oh, fine.” She had me. I decided to come clean. “Look, the real reason is—”

  “Oh, never mind,” she said, waving her arm. Then she smiled. “I brought you something.”

  Frankly, if it wasn’t more Bubble Wrap, I wasn’t interested.

  But then she held out something, as proud as could be. “Ta-da!”

  It was a notebook.

  “What’s this?” I asked suspiciously.

  “It’s your new Ultimate Pet Day Planning Guide. Written, designed, and color-coded by me!”

  I stared at her.

  So she said, “Trust me, you need this.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes!” Elizabeth pushed past me and sat down at the kitchen table as she continued to talk. “Pet Day is one week from Saturday! That means you have less than two weeks left to plan! Don’t you want to run the best fundraiser ever? Yes! And raise the most money? Yes! And impress your parents so they’ll get you an iguana? Yes, you want all of those things!”

  In case you missed it, Elizabeth just asked and answered all of her own questions. She does this when she feels it’s easier than talking to a whole other person.

  I sat down next to her and opened the notebook. There was a calendar, a “To-Do” list, an “Urgent To-Do” list, a section for notes, and a motivational thought for each day. Elizabeth then proceeded to take me through each and every page, pointing to a never-ending list of things I needed to do:

  “These are the items for people to donate. This is a list of food to be ordered. These are the treats we need for the goody bags. This is the phone number for the pet-portrait artist—who is my mom’s friend—but you need to call her AS SOON AS POSSIBLE before she books another event. Here’s a list of art supplies we need for the posters…” On and on and on she went.

  My head began to spin. “I have to do all these things?”

  “Of course not. Everyone in the class will help.”

  “Phew.”

  “But you’re in charge of making sure it all gets done.”

  “Oh.”

  “And sticking to the schedule.”

  “Okay…”

  “And fixing any problems that come up along the way.”

  Just great. I glanced out of the corner of my eye at the planning guide, then quickly looked away. Who knew a bunch of paper and notebook tabs could make me so anxious?

  “Now, let’s go over the budget!” Elizabeth said ecstatically.

  I needed to change the subject, and fast.

  “Hazy Bloom, are you paying attention?”

  “I had another vision.”

  Elizabeth immediately set down the planning guide, and I smiled
. Because if there’s one thing my BFSB cares more about than her own brilliant ideas, it’s my tomorrow visions. She is my sidekick, after all.

  “Talk to me,” she said, leaning forward, her chin in her hands.

  I told her about Mrs. Agnes and the round … something that she was holding.

  “Something round, huh…” She tapped her pencil against her cheek. “Was it a penny?”

  I thought about it, then shook my head. “No, bigger.”

  “A Hula-Hoop?”

  “Smaller.”

  “A bicycle wheel?”

  “Why would she be holding a bicycle wheel?” I said.

  “I don’t know!” Elizabeth sighed. “We need more information. Did you see anything else?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to remember. Again, I saw Mrs. Agnes smiling … and … about to take a bite? And wait—were those chocolate chips?

  My eyes popped open. “She’s going to eat something!” I gave Elizabeth a knowing smile. “Something with chocolate chips…”

  “Why would a bicycle wheel have chocolate chips?”

  I threw my arms in the air. “It’s not a bicycle wheel! It’s a cookie! A chocolate chip cookie!”

  Elizabeth pursed her lips thoughtfully. “A vision of Mrs. Agnes eating a cookie. Hmmmmmmm.”

  My thoughts exactly.

  Since we weren’t getting anywhere, Elizabeth suggested we get back to the planning guide and talk about my vision later. “Now where were we … Oh yeah. First on the To-Do list: promote team spirit!”

  I sighed again. I didn’t want to talk about team spirit, for real live.

  But Elizabeth was already off and running. “It’s very important to promote team spirit and get everyone excited about Pet Day. Do you understand? Yes, of course you do,” she asked and answered all by herself.

  “How do I promote team spirit?” I asked nervously.

  “Lots of ways! You can give a speech, or make up a cheer, or hand out buttons, or bake something for the whole class to eat like—”

  Elizabeth stopped talking, because suddenly we had the exact same thought at the exact same moment. Round … small … chocolate chips …

  “Chocolate chip cookies!” we said together.

  Vision solved. We were getting good at this superhero-sidekick thing.

  10

  The next morning, after catching a ride to school with Dad, I strutted into my classroom holding a giant plastic-wrapped platter of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Well, actually they weren’t freshly baked because I’d made them the night before, after Elizabeth went home. And they didn’t have chocolate chips, because we didn’t have any, so I had to use frozen blueberries. Also, Mom kept the flour, sugar, salt, and every other white powdery ingredient known to man in clear Tupperware containers, so it took me a while to find what I needed because they all looked exactly the same. And by that time I was so frustrated that I just kind of dumped the stuff together to get it over with.

  Also, I didn’t really strut into the classroom. I kind of baby-stepped across the floor until I reached my desk so I wouldn’t drop anything. But still. I had cookies. And if I do say so myself, they looked delicious.

  “Hazel, what a nice surprise!” Mrs. Agnes said, admiring the platter. “What’s the occasion?”

  I told her the occasion was team spirit. So let’s get this cookie party started!

  But Mrs. Agnes said we’d have to wait until later in the morning to eat the cookies, which led me to wonder aloud who exactly invented the rule that cookies can only be eaten after a certain hour, because frankly, they taste the same no matter what time it is, for real live. The point is, Mrs. Agnes still made us wait until morning break. Then it was cookie time.

  I took out the platter and gave a cookie to everyone in the class (23/25 of my cookies, because I had exactly two left). Then I offered one to Mrs. Agnes.

  “Why, thank you!” she said, holding the cookie and smiling. I remembered that smile. From my vision, of course. I also remembered the next part of my vision, when she took a giant bite.

  Then, in an unexpected twist, she spit the entire thing out. Cookie crumbs and blueberry bits sprayed across her desk. I made a mental note to donate some napkins to the class.

  “Mrs. Agnes? Are you okay?” I asked as she wiped her mouth. Before I could hear her answer, I turned to see everyone else spitting out their cookies, too.

  “Ick!”

  “These are terrible!”

  “Something is wrong with these!”

  Wrong? Now, to be honest, I hadn’t tried the cookies yet. It had looked like I might not have enough for everyone, so I skipped the taste test. Also, I’m not crazy about blueberries. But I had to know what was going on. I picked up the last cookie and took a nibble. Blech! It turned out the blueberries were the least of my problems. Because remember all those clear containers in the pantry? Well, apparently the one I thought was sugar wasn’t sugar. It was salt.

  First of all, I was going to buy my mom some labels, because this clear-container stuff was ridiculous. Second of all, why in the world did my vision show Mrs. Agnes before she ate the cookie and not after, when she was spitting it out, which, although disgusting, would have been a much more helpful vision for me to have? I was so mad about my tomorrow vision giving me such useless information that when Mapefrl kicked the back of my chair during math, I turned around and kicked his chair right back. Except I missed his chair and got his shin.

  He howled.

  Ten seconds later, Mapefrl and I were ushered into the hallway by Mrs. Agnes, given a lecture about our “childish” behavior, and then informed that from now on we’d be forced to sit next to each other at lunch until we figured out how to get along. If that’s not torture, I don’t know what is. Except perhaps eating one of my cookies.

  11

  Lunch was a nightmare. Actually, it was worse than a nightmare, and, trust me, I’ve had some bad nightmares (including a recent one where The Baby grew fangs and gnawed his high chair in half). This was a nightmare because I was now sitting next to Mapefrl, and in case you were wondering, we were not figuring out how to get along. Instead, he was drawing a comic strip about a superhero named Burp Man. Who burped. A lot. As Mapefrl kept demonstrating.

  So gross.

  Even worse, word had gotten around about my horrible blueberry-salt cookies. Most kids were nice about it, saying they were sorry it had happened. But I saw a few other kids snickering as they walked past, which was not helping my bad mood.

  By recess, just when I thought I couldn’t handle another cookie comment, Summer Beckett skipped over to where Elizabeth and I were standing. I didn’t know Summer too well, but I did know that she was a) also in third grade, b) named after a season, and c) the team leader for Mr. Plinker’s class fundraiser. It was also my impression that she was a little bit snooty.

  “Hi, Hazy,” Summer said.

  “I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS SALT!” I shouted back.

  She looked confused. Then she handed me a flyer. “For our fundraiser,” she said.

  There were three third-grade classes in all. I knew that Ms. Simone’s class was doing a car wash for their fundraiser. We, of course, were doing Pet Day, and even though I didn’t exactly think of it myself, I was pretty sure it was the most creative idea of all three classes put together. Until I looked at Summer’s flyer.

  ALOHA! JOIN US FOR THE FIRST-EVER LIPKIN LUAU!

  Okay, that was a very close second.

  “You’re having a luau?” Elizabeth asked, her eyes wide with envy.

  “Yep,” Summer chirped. “It’s going to be amaaaaaazing.”

  Well, she didn’t have to rub it in. Sheesh.

  “Oh yeah?” I piped in. “Well, our fundraiser is Pet Day, and it’s going to be more amazing. We have everything planned already. EVERYTHING!” I’m not sure why I added that part, but I can tell you it led to several follow-up questions.

  “Really? When is it?”

  “I’m not quite sure�
��”

  “Where will it be?”

  “We’re still trying to—”

  “What’s going to be there?”

  “Uhhhhhhhh—”

  Wasn’t it time to go back inside?

  Summer gave me a funny look and said, “Sounds like you haven’t figured everything out.”

  She turned to go, but not before handing me something in a napkin. “Oh, I made cookies for our class. You know, for team spirit. We had extras.”

  Elizabeth jutted out her chin. “No, thank you. We don’t want your—”

  “I’ll take one!” I interrupted. Even in this circumstance, turning down an actual, no-salt chocolate chip cookie just seemed unnecessary.

  Though I hate to admit, it was the most delicious chocolate chip cookie I’d ever had.

  12

  Mom was mad, and I could tell this because she was yelling at the sink. I don’t know why she takes out her anger on inanimate objects, but when she’s in this kind of mood, I don’t ask questions. What made it worse, however, was today she was mad because of me.

  Apparently, after I made my disastrous cookies the night before, I’d forgotten to put away the milk, so it spoiled. Mom discovered this after I’d left for school, and The Baby had nothing to drink, which resulted in a thirty-minute tantrum (from The Baby, not my mom). Then, The Baby found the butter (which I also forgot to put away) and smushed it all over his head. Mom had been trying to get it out of his hair all day, with no luck.

  I’d wondered why The Baby’s hair looked so shiny.

  When Mom finally turned her famous laser glare at me, she said that not putting things away after I used them is irresponsible behavior, and because of my actions, she now has a baby who keeps smushing things on his head to see if they’ll stick.