The Fix-It Friends--Three's a Crowd

by Nicole C. Kear

  “That’s so cool!” I said. “Hey, did you give her my card? Did she like it?”

  “Yes, she did,” said Cora. “Only her name is pronounced Mar-go, not Mar-got.”

  “But it has a T at the end of it!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes, but it’s silent.”

  A silent T! Whoever heard of such a thing?

  “Oh no!” I moaned. “That means my whole card must have seemed so dumb!”

  “It’s okay,” said Cora. “She liked it anyway.”

  Then the red double doors of the school opened, which meant we could go inside, so Cora and I did. Jude was still reading his book and didn’t even notice.

  “Earth to Jude!” I yelled over my shoulder. “Schooltime!”

  Where would he be without me, I ask you?

  Chapter 5

  I was in the middle of unpacking my backpack when I heard Miss Mabel say, “Hello, Margot!” It rhymed.

  I looked over at the door of our classroom and saw Margot Dubois. Here is what she looked like:

  1. Bright orange hair. Margot’s hair was the color of a carrot! But the color wasn’t even the most unusual part about it. Her hair was very straight and cut so that it was way longer in the front than it was in the back. I had never seen a haircut like that in all my life!

  2. Green eyes that looked like emeralds!

  3. Her clothes were covered in zippers. Her jacket had zippers up the sleeves, and the front of her shirt had a whole bunch of little zippers in the shape of a heart. Even her jeans had zippers going up the sides.

  4. In her ears were two silver earrings. They were in the shape of letters. One ear had a G and the other ear had an O. Go? I thought to myself. Go where?

  Miss Mabel walked Margot over to the hooks on the wall and showed her where to hang up her jacket and backpack. Then she walked Margot right over to my table!

  “Margot, welcome to Antarctica,” said Miss Mabel. “You already know Cora, and this is Veronica and Wren. They make a wonderful welcome committee.”

  Margot slipped into the empty seat next to Cora.

  “You’ll take good care of her, won’t you, guys?” asked Miss Mabel.

  “Absolutely!” I sang.

  “Of course!” chirped Cora.

  Wren nodded.

  As soon as Miss Mabel walked away, I said to Margot, “Hello! Welcome! ¡Bienvenidos! That’s Spanish. My friend Minnie taught it to me. She sits at this table, too!”

  “Is she invisible?” asked Margot.

  “Ummm, no,” I replied. “She’s in Puerto Rico.”

  “I was just kidding,” said Margot with a smile.

  “Oh, right,” I said. “Ha!” Then I didn’t know what to do, so I laughed really, really hard. Cora giggled, too. Wren was silent.

  “Cool earrings!” I said to Margot. “Are they sending a secret message?”

  Margot scrunched her eyebrows together, like she was confused.

  “Like, to go somewhere?” I asked. “Because they say ‘Go’?”

  “Ohhhhhh. No,” she replied. “That’s just my nickname. Gogo.”

  I felt like I was making a whole bunch of mistakes with Margot. The harder I tried, the more stuff I got wrong.

  “I love your shirt,” said Cora. “Did your mom design it?”

  Margot nodded. “It’s part of my mom’s clothing line for kids. She just started it—that’s why we moved here. The zippers were my idea. I love love love zippers. They add zing!”

  “I love zing!” I chirped. “Don’t you, Wren?”

  “No comment,” Wren said.

  For the first time, I thought maybe I should be more like Wren. I felt like I had too many comments for my own good.

  Chapter 6

  Margot sat with Cora and me at lunch, so we got to know her.

  We found out the things she loved:

  1. Her bulldog, Bernie, who was two human years old.

  2. Swimming and diving.

  3. Zippers.

  4. Saying words three times in a row, like, “It’s so fun fun fun!” and “Cool cool cool!” and “Please please please!”

  5. Disneyland, which she’s been to loads of times. She even had her eighth birthday there!

  She was just telling us her secret for riding Space Mountain without waiting in a long line when I saw Miss Tibbs walking toward our table.

  “Uh-oh. Miss Tibbs Alert!” I whispered. “She’s pretty much the meanest recess and lunch teacher in the universe. One wrong move and you’ll get the longest lecture of your life.”

  “Hello there,” said Miss Tibbs. “Miss Conti, won’t you introduce me to your new friend?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Miss Tibbs, this is Margot. Her name is spelled with a T at the end, but it’s silent.”

  “It must be French,” said Miss Tibbs.

  “Bien sûr,” said Margot.

  “Parlez-vous français?” Miss Tibbs asked Margot.

  Then Margot said a whole bunch of stuff in French that I did not understand at all. But it must have been funny, because Miss Tibbs threw her head back and laughed.

  “Oui oui,” said Miss Tibbs to Margot, still smiling.

  I didn’t know Miss Tibbs spoke French! And I’ve known Miss Tibbs for three years! Also, Miss Tibbs has never, ever laughed at any of my jokes, even though I am pretty famous for being one of the funniest second graders at our school.

  When Miss Tibbs walked away, Margot said, “She doesn’t seem mean at all! She seems really nice.”

  “Well, she’s not usually like that,” I said quickly. “She’s in a really good mood today for some weird reason.”

  “You speak French so well!” said Cora.

  “Oh, thanks. My babysitter back home taught me,” she said. Then she looked really sad all of a sudden. She cleared her school lunch tray and went to the bathroom.

  Cora said, “Poor Margot. She’s so homesick. We have to be really nice to her. We have to make sure she feels included.”

  “Okay,” I said. The truth was that I wasn’t so sure how I felt about Margot and I sort of liked things the way they were. But I knew Cora was right, so that week I invited Margot to do lots of stuff.

  I invited her to my birthday party.

  I invited her to sit with Cora and me at lunch.

  I even invited her to play tag at recess with my tag gang—Noah, Camille, and Cora. After all, with Minnie away, we were missing a player.

  Margot played tag with us every day that week. On Friday, she said, “Hey, do you guys want to play Blob Tag?”

  “What’s that?” Camille asked.

  “Oh, it’s the best best best! When the person who’s ‘It’ tags you, you have to hold hands, and every time you tag someone, they join on the end of everyone holding hands. You hold hands until you get everyone. It’s awesome!”

  I really wanted to play Air Tag because it’s the only kind of tag where Noah doesn’t win. Noah is the absolute fastest person on the ground, but in Air Tag your feet can’t touch the ground, and that really slows him down.

  I was about to tell Margot “No thanks,” but everyone else was already saying “Yeah! Sure!” and nodding with excitement.

  So we played Blob Tag.

  Was it fun?

  Sure.

  But I still didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.

  Chapter 7

  I was starving after playing Blob Tag at recess, so I couldn’t wait to gobble my lunch. Dad had packed me a salami sandwich, made just the way I like it, with four slices of salami and two slices of provolone cheese stuck in the middle of soft Italian bread.

  “Deeee-lish!” I said.

  Cora opened up her lunch box and sighed.

  “Loco Lunch Box again?” I asked. She nodded.

  “What’s Loco Lunch Box?” asked Margot as she opened up the milk carton on her school lunch tray.

  “That’s what we call it when my mom runs out of time in the morning to pack a lunch and just tosses weird stuff into my lunch box,” Cora explained.


  Cora showed us what was inside her lunch box:

  1. A little packet of duck sauce.

  2. Half of a cinnamon-raisin bagel.

  3. A really big radish with the stem still on it.

  “It’s not the worst Loco Lunch Box,” I said. “I bet we can fix it. Duck sauce might be good on a cinnamon-raisin bagel.”

  I can find the silver lining in any cloud.

  But did Margot want to see the beautiful silver lining I found? No!

  “Duck sauce on a bagel?” Margot grimaced.

  “Okay, then, Cora, you can just take half of my sandwich,” I offered. I always fix Cora’s Loco Lunches. I’m a professional fixer, after all.

  “Why don’t you just get the school lunch?” asked Margot. “They have BBQ chicken today. It’s pretty good.”

  Margot stabbed a piece of BBQ chicken with her fork and handed the fork to Cora.

  “Oh, Cora won’t like it,” I explained to Margot. “She’s very picky.”

  But while I was in the middle of talking, Cora stuck the bite in her mouth and said, “Not bad.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Right?” Margot asked.

  “It’s actually really good!” said Cora as she chewed. And, to my amazement, she walked over to the school lunch line and told the lunch lady her name so she could get a tray.

  “But Cora hates school lunch,” I said. I was talking to myself, but Margot answered me.

  “People change their minds sometimes,” she said.

  “I guess,” I said. But what I was really thinking was that Cora never changed her mind before Margot showed up. And I was worried, because there was no telling what Cora might change her mind about next.

  Chapter 8

  That Sunday, I invited Cora to come over so we could plan my birthday extravaganza. She said she couldn’t because she had to go to swimming lessons.

  “Since when do you take swimming lessons?” I asked her.

  “Since today. It’s my first one!”

  I knew right away where she got the idea for those swimming lessons. After all, Margot loved loved loved swimming and talked about it all the time. I knew it was no big deal, but it just made me jealous.

  On Monday morning, before Margot got to school, I invited Cora to come over my house after school.

  “You can help me make party hats for the guests!” I said. “We can put sequins on them, if you want.”

  Sequins are Cora’s weakness. If something involves sequins, she can’t say no!

  But she did exactly that.

  “Oooooh, that sounds fun, but I can’t,” she replied. “Margot’s mom invited me to visit her studio. She wants to thank me for showing Margot around. She’s going to teach me how to sew!”

  I suddenly felt really angry.

  “But you didn’t even help her that much!” I protested. “And I’ve helped her with tons of stuff!”

  Cora’s big brown eyes got wide with surprise. Then she looked down. I felt bad that I had made her sad. I wanted to apologize and do our secret handshake. But then I thought about how Cora was going to a real fashion studio and didn’t even invite me, and I was too mad to be nice.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said really quickly, “because I just remembered that I have to…” I tried to think of an exciting activity. “I have to meet with Ezra … to finish recording my demo album.”

  “Cool,” said Cora.

  “Cool,” I said back.

  At recess, I did not ask Margot if she wanted to play tag with us, but she did anyway. Everyone except for me was super excited to play Blob Tag again, so that’s what we played, even though I didn’t want to. Margot was It, and guess who she tagged first?

  Cora.

  I watched them hold hands and run around the yard, and I started to feel so sad that I just stopped in my tracks.

  My stomach hurt. I sat down next to the fence and waited for Cora to come over and ask me if I was okay. But she didn’t even notice. She was too busy laughing her face off like a dumb hyena.

  “Miss Conti, are you all right?” came Miss Tibbs’s voice.

  “Just taking a break,” I said as I looked up at her. Miss Tibbs looked different. I looked at her really closely for a few seconds and then I realized what it was.

  “Miss Tibbs!” I exclaimed. “You changed your hair!”

  Miss Tibbs had always had gray hair cut in exactly the same way—in a bob with a big bunch of bangs. Now her hair was cut in a new way that was much shorter and more stylish. It was also brown!

  “It’s brown!” I exclaimed.

  “The woman at the salon called it ‘roasted chestnut,’” Miss Tibbs said. Then she smiled a real, actual smile and fluffed her hair gently, like she was in a shampoo commercial. “Do you like it?”

  “I love it!” I gushed. “I really do!”

  “Thank you,” she said. Then she walked away in the direction of Matthew Sawyer, who was feeding the leftovers of his lunch to a line of ants by the trash can.

  What on earth has happened to Miss Tibbs? I wondered. Did someone hypnotize her? Did she swap bodies with someone else, someone very nice and friendly? Why the heck is she so happy?

  I wanted to tell Cora all about it. But Cora was still holding hands with Margot at the other end of the playground, far away. Far, far away from me.

  Chapter 9

  At dismissal, I saw Margot’s mom. I knew it was her right away because she had the same orange hair as Margot and she looked super fashionable in high-heeled boots, a purple knitted poncho, and very big, black sunglasses.

  She was holding the leash of the most adorable bulldog ever. He had big floppy cheeks that looked really wrinkly and thick brown-and-white fur. His big brown eyes looked so kind and smart. His collar was black leather and had BERNIE written in rhinestones on it.

  Even though my feelings were still really hurt and I didn’t feel like talking to Margot, I could not resist petting that big bundle of cuteness.

  “Is this Bernie?” I asked Margot.

  “Yep,” she said, smiling. “Watch out. He loves to lick.”

  I knelt down and scratched Bernie behind the ears. He wagged his tail and licked my arm like it was a big juicy lollipop.

  Right then, Dad walked over to pick up Jude, Ezra, and me. As we walked out of the playground, Dad said he had to stop at the Monroe for a few minutes before we went home.

  The Monroe is the building where my dad works as a super. If something breaks, he has to go over and check it out, even if he’s not supposed to be working right then.

  “Is it a Mr. Luntzgarten problem again?” I asked Dad.

  Mr. Luntzgarten is a man who lives on the fourth floor of the Monroe. He’s a curmudgeon. I love that word because it means exactly what it sounds like—a cranky, crusty grump. Mr. Luntzgarten has no wife and no kids and no pets, and he is retired from his job. That means he has a lot of time to scold people, and the person he likes to scold most is me.

  His favorite thing to do, besides scolding me, is calling my dad to tell him about stuff that’s broken. Half the time it’s not really broken, but my dad always has to check it out anyway because he is a super and that’s what supers have to do.

  “There’s a leak on the seventh floor,” said Dad. “For once, it has nothing to do with Mr. Luntzgarten. Actually, I haven’t heard from Mr. Luntzgarten in a few weeks—not even to complain about the birds. He always complains about birds chirping outside his window this time of year.”

  Ezra laughed. Ezra lives in the Monroe, so he knows all about Mr. Luntzgarten and his complaints.

  “Hey, can we hang out at my apartment while you check out the leak? I have the key,” said Ezra. Except Ezra talks at the speed of light, so it sounded like “Heycanwehangoutatmyapartment (breath) whileyoucheckouttheleak?Ihavethe (breath) key.” If you had just met Ezra, you would never understand what he was saying. But I have known him ever since I was a tiny child, so I can understand him with no problem.

  “Yes,
Ezra’s house, pleeeeease?” I asked Dad.

  I love hanging out at Ezra’s house because:

  1. He has the best snacks.

  2. He has the cutest cat.

  3. He has a computer there, so he can record my demo album.

  4. He lets me play with anything I want and never shouts “Get your grubby hands off!” like Jude does. Ezra is way nicer than Jude. Sometimes I wonder how they are friends.

  “Sure, if it’s okay with your mom,” said Dad. Then he said, “Hey, wait a sec. Where’s Cora? Isn’t she coming, too?”

  I shook my head hard. Then I said to Ezra and Jude, “I need to call an emergency meeting of the Fix-It Friends.”

  “Without Cora?” Ezra asked.

  “Definitely without Cora,” I said.

  On the way over to the Monroe, Dad told me that he’d called the House of Bounce about my birthday party. Great news! We could have the party there in two weeks!

  “But we’ll have to keep it small,” said Dad. “Just a few friends.”

  “So, like, fifteen people?” I asked him.

  “More like five,” he replied.

  “How about ten?”

  “How about eight?” Dad asked. “To match your age?”

  I counted the people I’d already invited on my hands. “Cora, Camille, Noah. Minnie—if she’s back—Ezra, Jude, Pearl, and me. That’s eight. With Margot, it will be nine. I invited her, but I could just uninvite her. After all, we just don’t have the room. Nothing personal. I’ll tell her tomorrow.”

  “Well, hold on a sec,” said Dad. “We can’t un-invite people. And I think it’s nice that you invited her. I guess we can make it nine.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “I don’t want to break your bank.”

  “You don’t? Then how come you keep asking for a pony and a trip to Disneyland?” Dad chortled with laughter as we walked into the Monroe lobby.

  We were getting into the elevator when who should walk in but Mr. Luntzgarten? He looked pretty much the same as always. He was wearing the same black coat with the same brown, checkered hat that makes him look like a person in an old-fashioned black-and-white movie. But his humongous white eyebrows were not all scrunched up the way they usually were. Also, a strange sound was coming from his mouth. Humming!