The Callback

by Maddie Ziegler

  “Until he dumped you for Eleanor right before nationals.” Megan’s mom shook her head. “You cried so much you looked like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Chicken. And then only you came in fifth with your solo. . . .”

  Riley’s mom scowled.

  “Would you look at the time!” My mother jumped up. “Sorry! We have to run. See you next time!”

  My mother basically pushed us out the door.

  “Whew,” she muttered under her breath. “Those two are competitive.”

  So are their daughters.

  CHAPTER

  3

  How was dance, Harper?” my mother asked, when we were in the car. I sat in the front seat, and Hailey sat in the back.

  “Good!” I said. “Guess what? We got our solos today and I’m doing lyrical!”

  “Excellent,” Mom said as Hailey started clapping. “You’re strong in lyrical!”

  “It’s called ‘Taking the Leap,’ ” I said. “That’s all I know about it, though I had to sign up for a private and she’ll tell me more.”

  As the car pulled out of the parking space, I remembered something.

  “Wait! Can I run in?” I said. “Lily ran out of dance before I got to talk to her. I need to ask her something.” I really wanted to make sure Lily wasn’t mad or anything. I’d had a weird feeling from her reaction to the solos announcement.

  “Ughhh, I want to go home. I have things to do,” Hailey said. “Can’t you just text her?”

  “I really need to see her,” I begged my mom.

  “Wait, will you help me when I get home?” Hailey asked.

  “Does it involve braids?” I said, rubbing a sore spot.

  “No,” Hailey said. “With something else.”

  “You may run in quickly if you’ll make it up to your sister later,” Mom said.

  “Okay!” I jumped out of the car and went into Sugar Plums before she could change her mind.

  “Hi, Harper!” Lily’s mom greeted me from behind the counter. “It’s pumpkin spice season! New flavor today!”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I actually was hoping to talk to Lily for one second before I went home. My mom’s waiting in the car.”

  “She’s in the break room.” She smiled at me and waved toward a door near the end of the counter. “Go on back.”

  I went behind the counter and through the door. I’d never actually been back there, and I walked into a hallway that was filled with shelves—with huge jars of toppings like gummies, chocolate chips, and mini marshmallows. There were cans of chocolate and butterscotch syrup, cans of nuts, and an enormous tub of sprinkles. I looked at all of it, wide-eyed, for a second. Yum.

  Focus, Harper, I told myself. I kept going (candy bars! cookies!) until I reached the door to the break room. When I went in, Lily was typing something on a laptop.

  “Hi!” I said.

  “Oh my gosh!” Lily jumped, startled. “You totally scared me.”

  “Sorry, your mom said I could come find you.” I waved my hands toward the hallway. “Also, this is like Lily and the Chocolate Factory back here!”

  Lily laughed. I was glad to see she was smiling. Looked like everything was okay, after all.

  “Well, I was just saying a quick hi!” I said. “I just wanted to check with you that everything is fine! With dance and the solos and everything.”

  “Um.” Lily’s smiled dropped.

  “Aren’t you excited about getting an acro routine?” I babbled on. “I mean, you’re so amazing at ballet, but you said you were tired of it and wanted to do more tumbling. So acro sounds perfect for you! Fun and bouncy!”

  “Sure! It should be fun to rehearse!” Lily said. “Fun! Lots of fun! And lyrical is perfect for you, so everything is great! Just great!”

  I could tell she was putting on a happy face.

  “Lily, what’s really the matter?” I asked. Lily opened her mouth to tell me something.

  “A little help, here!” The back door burst open, and Lily’s mom suddenly entered, carrying some boxes.

  Lily and I ran over to help her.

  “Just got new spoons,” Lily’s mother said. “Harper, would you like to test them out?”

  “That’s not really tempting, Mother.” Lily laughed.

  “No, I totally would, but I can’t stay.” I frowned. “My mom and Hailey are waiting in the car. Lily, I’ll text you.”

  We hugged good-bye. I felt better about things, but I still wasn’t entirely sure as I headed out into the lobby to find Lily’s dad holding out a cup with a straw to me.

  “This is for your mother and sister,” she said. “I see them out there waiting for you. A pumpkin spice smoothie and a small bag of sour gummies.”

  I thanked her and headed out to the car, where my mom happily took the smoothie.

  “Yay!” Hailey said when I handed her the gummies.

  “Put those away for later,” my mother said. “I don’t want you eating too much sugar, if you’re still planning on—”

  “SHH!” Hailey yelled. “That’s a surprise for Harper. She has to be totally surprised for it to work, Mom!”

  “Okay,” my mom said. “Settle down, please.”

  My sister was taking something very seriously. I was glad she wasn’t going to braid my hair, but now I was a little concerned about what she might be involving me in.

  “Everything good with Lily?” Mom asked.

  “I think so,” I said, glancing in the rearview mirror. I didn’t want to say more, because my sister was not always good at minding her own business. “We’re not in a fight or anything. Just dance stress.”

  “Dance stress?” Mom echoed.

  “I’m good. I had a really good day at the studio,” I reassured her.

  “Well, your day is about to get better!” Hailey piped up from the back. “Wait till you see what we’re going to do!”

  When we got home, Hailey told me to put on clothes that could get messy and meet her in the kitchen for the big reveal.

  I went upstairs to my bedroom to change.

  My malti-poo, Mo, was sleeping on my purple circle chair and woke up when I went in.

  “MO!” I said, and picked him up. He yawned, and it was the cutest thing, so I told him. “You’re the cutest thing!”

  I sat down on the chair and put him on my lap. I was happy Mo liked my bedroom for his hangout. I liked my new room, too. The walls and bedding were white, but I had purple touches like fluffy pillows and this chair.

  I had trophies, medals, and plaques on my shelves and ribbons and award certificates on my bulletin board. You could tell by looking around my room dance was pretty much my life. I had my headbands, ribbons, and bows hanging on my closet door, and inside, old dance costumes and headgear were neatly organized.

  I leaned back and sighed, and Mo leaned into me and sighed. I scratched Mo under the collar, the way he liked it. Ahh, relaxation. I needed a little break. Ahhhh . . .

  “Harper!”

  Ergh. So much for relaxation. Hailey was yelling up to me. I placed Mo on the floor gently and stood up.

  “We are needed,” I told him.

  Mo looked at me, then jumped back on my purple circle chair, closed his eyes, and promptly fell asleep.

  “Jealous,” I told him. I sighed and went back out to the kitchen.

  “Ta-da!” Hailey waved her hands at the kitchen counter, where a bunch of pans and ingredients were set up. She was wearing one of my mom’s aprons around her neck, sunglasses, and long lacy white gloves that I recognized.

  “Ta-da . . . you stole my gloves?” I asked.

  “Oh. Heh-heh. Remember when you said I could wear anything from your dance closet?”

  “That was months ago! When we were doing Dance Challenge.” I frowned.

  “Oopsie.” Hailey peeled the gloves off and threw them at me. I caught one, and the other flew past me. “They’ll just get in the way, anyway. No, ta-da! Welcome to my new show!”

  “New show?”

  “Yes, t
he very first episode on The Hailey Channel!” she said. Hailey held up my dad’s video camera to her eye and posed. “Daddy gave me his old camera. Don’t I look professional? We’re about to film it right here this very second. I mean, Mom won’t let me put it online, but I’m going to store up all of my episodes for when I can. I’m preparing for stardom. And you’re my assistant.”

  “I’m your assistant?” I asked.

  “Obviously,” she said. “Who else do I have? Mom? She’ll be like, don’t do that—it could make a mess or start a fire or something. So it’s you.”

  “Hailey, I don’t have a lot of time right now,” I said.

  “Fine,” Hailey said, setting the video camera up on a mini tripod. “I’ll make you a producer for the show. Oh, also editor, because you know how to do that.”

  That wasn’t any more appealing.

  “Harper,” she whined. “I need to do my channel. I don’t have dance competitions like you do. I need attention too, you know.”

  I tried to hold back a smile. I wasn’t sure filming in our kitchen was going to mean fame and attention, but hey. She gave me her best puppy-dog eyes, and I cracked.

  “I’ll tape it.” I sighed. “But you’ll have to edit it yourself.”

  “Deal!” Hailey said. She ran behind the kitchen island and yelled, “Quiet on the set! Episode one, take one! Three . . . two . . . one, action! Roll ’em!”

  I turned on the camera and aimed it to videotape her. Hailey turned toward the camera and flashed a huge grin.

  “Welcome to Hailey on the Daily!” she said. “I’m Hailey and I’ll be here on the daily to . . . do daily stuff! This is my sister, Harper!”

  I shook my head no as Hailey waved to me to come over.

  “I need you,” Hailey hissed, then she plastered a smile on again. “Edit that out. Okay, we’ll keep doing takes until you come over to me.”

  I remembered that this was not going to actually be posted anywhere and my phone would be the only audience.

  “Episode one, take two! Action! Welcome to Hailey on the Daily!” she said. “I’m Hailey and I’ll be here on the daily to . . . do daily stuff! This is my sister, Harper!”

  I went over and stood next to her.

  “Look happy to be here,” Hailey whisper-yelled at me.

  I smiled at the camera.

  “Smile like you mean it,” Hailey hissed. “You look like you’re in pain.”

  “I am smiling,” I said, through gritted teeth.

  “Even though she doesn’t look it, Harper really is happy to be on my show,” Hailey continued. “Today, I’m going to teach you how to bake and decorate a special cake! In honor of . . . my sister!”

  She held up a box of cake mix and waved it at the camera.

  “I’m making a mermaid cake!” Hailey said. “I picked mermaid because my sister is going to be in The Little Mermaid!”

  “Aw.” I was actually touched.

  “Also, because I saw it online and it’s so pretty,” she added.

  Hailey pulled out some ingredients she apparently had ready under the counter: eggs, butter, sugar, and some food coloring. As she cranked through the steps, the mix flew and milk splattered all over the place.

  “First you mix the stuff: two cups of this, a stick of butter,” Hailey said to the camera. “And now we make it mermaidy. Assistant, hand me the mermaid color: blue.”

  “Uh.” I looked down at the very lumpy mix in the bowl. “You might want to mix it more.”

  “No time,” Hailey whispered back. “The audience will get bored.”

  “I can speed it up in edits,” I said, forgetting I didn’t want to do edits at all.

  “You said you won’t edit,” Hailey reminded me. “Okay! Now we mix in the mermaid blue.”

  She poured a drop of the blue food coloring in and frowned. Then she poured a few more.

  “It’s too dark. It needs to be turquoise,” she said, mixing it. She read the back of the box. “Oh, it needs yellow, too.”

  She squeezed some yellow into the mix.

  “Now it’s too green,” she said. She went back for the blue. Then the yellow. It started to look like a weird soup.

  “Um, how much are you supposed to put in?” I asked.

  “It needs to be turquoise,” she declared “Mermaid color is turquoise!”

  The color she had was pretty much the opposite of turquoise.

  “I think it’s good. Ariel’s tail is greener,” I said.

  Hailey was stubbornly adding more and more food coloring. It was looking very liquidy, but finally she was satisfied with the color.

  “There!” she said. “And now we bake it!”

  She plopped everything in a pan and put it in the oven. Then we stood there.

  “This could take a while,” I said. “We should stop and do something else.”

  “Okay,” Hailey said. “Let’s clean up!”

  I looked around at the messy bowls and utensils. Fortunately, Mo barked.

  “You clean up,” I said. “I need to take Mo for a walk.”

  I hooked up Mo to his collar and took him outside. The air was heavy and sticky, and not sunny but the kind of weather that meant it was going to rain soon. I was starting to get to know the Florida weather patterns, like that it was probably going to rain for a little bit, but then the sun could come out again. I took Mo around our block and waved hi to one of our neighbors. Yeah, Florida was starting to feel a little bit like home.

  I had barely made it to our driveway before I heard Hailey calling me.

  “Harper!” Hailey called out the back door. “Harper, the cake’s ready!”

  Wow, that went fast. I went back to the kitchen with Mo.

  “Hello! Hailey on the Daily with your new favorite cake—Hailey’s mermaid cake!” Hailey said cheerfully.

  “Can you help me take it out of the oven?” Hailey asked. I pulled out some pot holders and opened the oven door. I carefully took out the round cake pan and put it on the stove. Hmm. It looked lumpy and kind of brown. I poked at it. It wasn’t even solid inside—it was drippy and lumpy at the same time. Yeeks.

  “It looks terrible!” Hailey said. It’s not even a mermaid color!”

  “Let’s bake it more—” I tried to tell her, but it was too late. Hailey already had a packet of blue icing out and was pouring it on the cake.

  “Hailey, no! Not until it’s cooled off!” I warned.

  Of course, the cake was way too hot and the icing got all gross and slid/melted all over the cake. Hailey’s face fell.

  “It’s a disaster!” Hailey wailed. She looked really upset. “My mermaid cake is disgusting!”

  “It’s only your first try.” I tried to console her.

  “This is the first episode in my series. I used my allowance on this! It needed to be great!”

  And that’s when Hailey punched the cake. She was so mad she just pushed her whole hand in. Icing and goo flew up around her and all over the table and floor.

  “Hailey! Stop! Mom is going to flip out!” I yelled. But then I saw the icing and goo on her face. She had huge clump of blue cake dangling from her nose. I couldn’t help it, I cracked up.

  “What are you laughing at?” Hailey said, still mad.

  I picked up my phone and swiveled it around so she could see herself on-screen.

  “Oh,” she said, cracking a tiny smile. She wiped her nose off.

  “Today on Hailey on the Daily, Hailey gets into a fight with a cake,” I said in a goofy narrator voice. “But the cake fought back. Hailey has lost to a cake.”

  I moved the camera to the squashed cake.

  “Excuse me!” Hailey said. “I didn’t lose. The fight has just started.”

  Then she plunged her fist into the cake again. And again. It splattered up on her, and I laughed.

  “See? I’m beating the cake!” Hailey said, laughing.

  “It’s still winning.” I grinned at her. She now had brown cake and blue icing and cake goo all her face and c
lothes. Hailey gave me a fake glare. And then she stuck her face right into the cake.

  “Dead.” I laughed as Hailey smushed her face around into the cake. Then she lifted her face up and was completely covered in cake. She looked hilarious.

  “Nice look,” I said. Before I could stop her, Hailey ran over and gave me a huge, cakey hug.

  “Ack!” I said. I wasn’t expecting that—Hailey actually didn’t even like hugs. Well, maybe she only liked them when she could squash goo all over me. She was giggling as she hugged me harder. “Mermaid goo!”

  “I can’t believe you did that to me!” I said as she hugged me.

  “I’m just getting you ready for your school play,” Hailey said sweetly. Then she unattached and picked up a bottle of pink-and-silver glitter sprinkles.

  “Whoa!”

  “JK! The top is on!!” Hailey said, pretending to sprinkle them on my head. “Tricked you . . .”

  All of a sudden I felt a tickling of sprinkles on my hair.

  “Uh-oh,” Hailey said. “The top came off!”

  “HAILEY!” I put my hand up to my head—and came up with a handful of glittery, sticky goo.

  “Oops.” Hailey giggled. “Hey, you’re sparkling.”

  I shook my hair and glittery sprinkles flew out.

  “What on earth is going on here?” My mom walked in the door. Hailey and I froze.

  “Uh . . . ,” we both said.

  “Hailey got in a fight with . . .” I pointed. “The cake.”

  “You should see the other guy!” Hailey added, a chunk of cake falling off her ear. She tilted the cake pan toward my mom.

  “Well.” Mom shook her head and paused. “You definitely . . . beat up that cake. Just clean up the mess. And that includes yourselves.”

  CHAPTER

  4

  Harper,” Lily said to me the next day as we left English class. “Are you sparkling?”

  I groaned. I’d showered twice last night to try and get all the cake goo out of my hair.

  “Hailey and I made a cake with glitter sprinkles,” I said. “They kind of spilled.”

  “On your head?” We both laughed. Yikes. “Hey, did you bring some cake for lunch? Any to share?” Lily asked, as we walked down the hall.

  “Trust me, you don’t want any of that cake,” I said, then remembered. “And also, shoot! I’m sorry but can’t go to lunch today. I have to go to something for the school musical.”