“Well, it tastes delicious.”
“When you get back from mallet-toe Betty’s, can we go to the craft store and buy fake fur so that we can make me some bear clothes?”
My mother looked down at me with a very frustrated expression. “I only sew hems. I don’t know how to make bear clothes.”
My mom was really bumming me out. Because we had a sewing machine I was sure we could figure it out. Didn’t she want me to win?
“I have a question for you,” my mother said. “Have you thought about calling Sylvie?”
I couldn’t believe my mom wanted to rub that terrible situation in my face right now. Then I remembered that my mom really didn’t know about the entire terrible Sylvie situation.
“I’ve already called her,” I said.
My mother’s face broke into a smile as she opened the oven and inserted her gray casserole. “How did it go?”
“Meh.” I shrugged and started to leave the room.
“Care to elaborate?”
But I didn’t care to do that. So I just kept walking.
“I need to practice. I’m not used to behaving like a wild animal. It’s harder than it sounds.” Then my mom said something pretty wonderful.
“We can stop by the craft store when I get back from Betty’s. Maybe we can make you some fierce paws.”
I flipped around and gave my mom a thumbs-up sign. “That sounds awesome! And tell mallet-toe Betty that I say hello. And that middle school hasn’t turned me into a potato yet. And tell her to get well soon. And to maybe buy a couch.”
“I’ll censor that a little,” my mom said.
I went to my room and practiced and almost died waiting for Mom to get home from Betty’s. At least ten times, I used a pencil to sketch what I felt would be the ideal costume. I needed a furry head. And a furry body. And my legs and arms needed to be extra furry. And in addition to massive amounts of fur, I wanted both my front and back paws to have claws. I was going to look amazing. While all the other wannabe mascots were trying out for mascot looking like normal people, I was going to be trying out for mascot looking like an actual bear.
To help kill time, I did practice some mascot moves. I crawled like a bear. And jumped off furniture like a bear. And I made a ton of bear noises. Also, I looked up bears on the Internet so I could figure out which shade of brown fur to buy. I decided on medium brown, which was a color that would also match my brown sneaker tongues.
I was very relieved when Mom finally came home. So she wouldn’t change her mind, I ran right out to the driveway and didn’t give her a chance to come in the house. Also, I brought her some crackers.
“Thanks, Bessica,” she said, stuffing them in her mouth.
“No, thank you!” I said. “I am going to be a bear.” When I said this, I sort of sang it a little.
When we arrived at the craft store, I had a hard time waiting until my mom had parked and turned off the car.
“Uh-oh,” my mom said.
“What?” I asked. I worried she’d forgotten her purse.
“That’s Mrs. Potaski’s car.”
I followed the aim of my mother’s finger. She was right. Mrs. Potaski’s big green monster of a car was parked in front of the craft store.
“Is this okay?” she asked.
“It has to be. I need my fur,” I said.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure she won’t say anything rude to you.”
But I wasn’t even worried about that until my mom said it. As I walked through the parking lot, I was hoping that I could just look for Mrs. Potaski’s head and avoid it. But that didn’t happen. Because before I even got inside the store, I saw Mrs. Potaski.
“Holy crud! She’s in the store window,” I said. “Painting eyelashes!”
My mother and I froze in front of the store window. This was something that Mrs. Potaski did sometimes to drum up business for Country Buttons. She sat in the store window display at a small craft table and demonstrated how to paint eyelashes on ceramic doll heads. She looked so steady inside that window.
“I don’t know how she does it,” my mom said.
“I do. She’s a frozen person,” I said.
Right as I said that, Mrs. Potaski finished one doll head and picked up another one.
“She’s a robot,” I said.
“We need to stop staring at Mrs. Potaski and go buy your fur,” my mother said.
“Right.”
When we entered the craft store, I felt pretty thrilled. There was a whole corner dedicated to fake fur. There were so many colors that I could have been any color bear I wanted. I could have been some weird, rainbow, neon-colored bear. But I didn’t want that. I wanted to be a grizzly bear and that meant brown fur.
“Can I help you?” a clerk asked us.
“Yes, my daughter is trying to make a grizzly bear costume.”
The woman clapped her hands together. “Are you trying out for the mascot? I just helped another girl buy grizzly bear fur.”
“What?” I asked, glancing around. “Who?” I couldn’t believe that another person had an idea that was as good as mine.
“That young lady over there,” the clerk said. “With the wrist brace.”
I couldn’t stop blinking. It was Alice Potgeiser. She was standing in line in the craft store buying yards and yards of fake brown fur. What was wrong with her? Did she want to be a cheerleader and a mascot? Jerk.
“It’s okay,” my mom said. “You knew other people were trying out.”
I stomped my foot and huffed. “I didn’t know Alice Potgeiser was trying out. She’s already a cheerleader. She shouldn’t be trying out. She’s an expert gymnast. I can’t believe this!”
“Well, it looks like she’s injured her hand,” my mom said. “Maybe she can’t be a cheerleader this season.”
“I don’t care about her injury. She’s rude.”
“I didn’t mean to start a ruckus,” the clerk said. “I suggest that you select a fur that doesn’t exceed a one-quarter-inch nap.”
“What’s a nap?” I asked.
“The nap is the length of the fur,” the clerk explained.
“Oh, then we’ll need a three- or four-inch nap. I’m supposed to be a bear,” I said.
“Will you be sewing it? Because I always remind my customers to sew with the nap. Not against it.”
My mother did not look thrilled to learn this. “We’ll take three yards of this,” she said, patting a furry brown fabric that I felt could have been furrier.
I watched Alice buy her fur and walk out of the store. “Looking like a bear was my great idea. It was going to be my secret weapon.”
My mother carried the fur in her arms to the checkout stand. “Just because she dresses like a bear doesn’t mean that she’ll beat you.”
“But she’s an expert gymnast!” I whined.
“She won’t be doing any tumbling with a wrist injury,” my mom said. “You two are on an equal playing field.”
This made me feel a lot better. “Yeah. In fact, her injury probably makes her a worse bear right out of the gate.”
“I don’t know that we need to put it that way,” my mom said.
“Sure we do!” I said. Finally, my mom was thinking like a winner and we were back on the same team. “I’m going to kick Alice Potgeiser’s rude gymnastic butt.”
“There’s no need to get graphic,” my mom said.
“I’m just keeping it real.”
As we left the store, it was hard not to stop and stare some more at Mrs. Potaski. After she finished painting eyelashes on a doll head, she put it on the floor to dry. There were over two dozen heads spread out around her.
“She’s a machine,” I said.
“She’s very talented,” my mother added.
“Do you think she can hear us?” I asked.
And right when I asked that, Mrs. Potaski looked up at us. I felt a little strange. Because I hadn’t seen her since she’d split up Sylvie and me in my living room. After she looke
d at us, Mrs. Potaski did something she rarely did. She smiled. And waved!
“She’s smiling and waving!” I said.
“I know,” my mom said.
“Hi, Mrs. Potaski!” I yelled at the window. “I miss seeing you! And Sylvie!” Even though I hated Sylvie for being a blabbermouth, I still missed her.
Then I saw Mrs. Potaski’s lips move, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying.
“What?” I shouted.
I saw her lips move some more.
“Speak up!” I yelled.
“She says you should stop by,” my mom said.
I turned and looked at my mom in disbelief. “I didn’t hear that.”
“I read her lips,” she said.
I didn’t even know my mom could do that. I looked back at Mrs. Potaski and her lips moved again. So I tried to read them too. And it worked. “Holy crud! She did tell me to stop by.
“I’ll stop by soon!” I yelled at the window. “Have a good day in there!”
Then Mrs. Potaski waved goodbye to me. And I waved goodbye to Mrs. Potaski. And my mom loaded my grizzly fur onto the backseat. I imagined how awesome my bear outfit was going to look. My heart thumped happily all the way home.
or some reason, my mom didn’t want to make my bear outfit as soon as we got home. She didn’t want to make it until the night before tryouts in front of the school, which I thought was lame. Because I still had another practice at school. And it would have been fun for me to practice in my bear outfit at home. But my mom said, “No way. I’ll sew it for when you need it, not when you want it.”
At dinner, my fur was the topic of the night. My dad seemed excited about it. “It’s a great color. But what are you going to do for a head?” he asked.
“I’m going to use my own head. I might glue some fur to my face.”
“You aren’t gluing any fur to your face,” my mom said.
But I didn’t know if that was true.
That night, I didn’t have a single nightmare. And I also had a pretty good day at school the next day. In nutrition, I learned what a bioflavonoid was. But by the time school was over I’d forgotten what a bioflavonoid was. I wanted to get to mascot practice early, because I needed to secure a place in the front. Because last time I was in the back and I didn’t have the best view of some of the hand and arm moves. Tragically, Dolan the Puker also wanted to be near the front. For some weird reason he also decided that he wanted to talk to me.
“I’m Dolan,” he said. “I think we have gym at the same time.”
I glared at Dolan a little bit. Because when he told me that it reminded me that he’d seen me doing downward-facing dog. “I’m Bessica.”
“Why’d your parents name you that?” he asked.
I stretched my arms over my head to warm up my muscles and did some bending forward. “I’m named after the first woman in the United States to fly solo in a plane.”
“I thought that was Amelia Earhart,” Dolan said.
I shook my head. “She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.” When I told people about my name, they often brought up Amelia Earhart, so I had to learn a little bit about her.
“What’s your special talent going to be?” Dolan asked me.
I was already sick of talking to him. “I’m going to cheer like a bear mascot.”
“Yeah, but at final mascot practice, everybody who tries out does a special talent. What’s yours going to be?”
I didn’t answer him. I kept glaring at him like maybe he was lying.
“I’m going to ride around the gym and show off my mad bicycle-racing skills. I brought my own bike.”
I stopped stretching and looked at his bike leaning up against a wall. I didn’t think he was lying anymore. “Nobody mentioned the special talent part to me.”
“It’s printed on the cheer page we got.”
“No, it’s not,” I said. I dug through my backpack until I found my cheer page. There wasn’t any such thing written on it.
“On the back,” Dolan said.
I turned it over. But it was blank. “There’s nothing on the back,” I said.
“Sucks to be you. Looks like you got a bad cheer page,” Dolan said. Then he smiled a little like a jerk.
“Do we have to do our talent today?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s how they determine the final three.”
“Huh?” Nobody had mentioned a final three to me either.
“That information is on the back of the cheer sheet too.”
I looked at Dolan’s cheer sheet. Everything he’d mentioned was spelled out right there in black and white. Today was the day that we cheered in front of Ms. Rich and showed her our mascot talent. Based on the results, three people would be chosen to compete in front of the whole school.
“How did I miss this?” I asked.
“Beats me,” he said. Then he walked off and started talking to Maddie Bell.
I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t even made my bear costume yet and I might have already lost my chance to wear it. I glanced around. Alice was wearing a cool-looking fur outfit. It sucked. I should have been wearing my fur clothes too. I felt very defeated. So defeated that I left the gym and hurried into the hallway. And I pushed open the door so fast that it smashed into somebody who was carrying a soda can and knocked him down.
“Sorry,” I said. Then I realized it was Blake and I felt a little bit extra sorry. Because in addition to his parents getting divorced and his getting shoved inside a trash can, he was on the ground with a soda spilled all over him because he’d been hit with a door.
“Ugh,” he moaned.
“I hope you didn’t break anything,” I said. Then I picked up his backpack for him and held it until he got up.
“Where’s my jump rope?” he asked.
I saw it. It had skittered across the floor. “It’s over there.”
Blake limped over and picked it up. Then he took his backpack from me. And I got a very good and creative idea.
“Can I borrow that?” I asked.
“No,” Blake said. “I need my backpack.”
“Your jump rope!” I said.
Blake looked at it and then at me. “I need it for PE. It’s a doctor-approved alternative to lifting weights.”
Poor Blake. He was much dweebier than I realized.
“I’ll give it back to you tomorrow. I promise!”
I think Blake could tell that I was in a desperate situation. Because instead of telling me no again, he handed it to me.
“Thank you so much!” I said. Then I rushed into the gymnasium and sat down and visualized myself winning one of the three spots. It didn’t matter that Dolan the Puker was going to show off his mad bicycle skills. Or that Alice Potgeiser had a fur outfit. I had a solution.
After all the aspiring mascots had gathered on the mat, Ms. Rich made the announcement that we had one more auditioner. And then she introduced Alice Potgeiser and I felt myself wanting to boo, but I didn’t.
“I’m going to call you up one by one to demonstrate your cheer ability and your mascot talent.”
It was just like Dolan the Puker said. I watched as people went up to the front one by one and yelled about how excited they were to beat the other team. There was a lot of roaring involved, and I wasn’t sure why, because I thought that bears growled.
“Bessica Lefter,” Ms. Rich called.
I walked to the front. I swung my arms a lot and yelled “F-I-G-H-T! F-I-G-H-T!” Then I felt like I was losing the crowd, so I yelled, “I’m a bear!” Also, I started jumping rope a few times. And I sort of ripped off what Dolan the Puker had said and I cheered, “Watch my mad jump-roping skills!” I jumped around the room. Everybody was laughing.
“Nice talent!” Ms. Rich said. “We’ve never had a mascot jump rope before.”
I was so happy to hear that I didn’t pay total attention when the other people went. Also, I got out my phone and texted Grandma. “I just tried out for mascot! A
nd I make a great bear!” And Grandma must not have been in a cave because she texted me back, “Right on!”
After practice I felt a little nervous and unsure if I was good enough to win a spot or not. Because some of the people had cool talents. Maddie Bell played the flute. Alice Potgeiser, while in her fur suit, did amazing high kicks. And this one girl named Pia Jardin did magic and made a stuffed pigeon fly out of her backpack. It was cool.
When I walked out to the car I was exhausted.
“How did it go?” my mom asked.
“Tomorrow we find out if I made the final three,” I said.
“Wow,” my mom said. “I bet you did great.”
That night I was really hoping to get a postcard from Grandma. But that didn’t happen. And the next day, when I woke up, I felt so hot that I thought maybe our thermostat was broken. In fact, I didn’t even get up.
“You’re sick, Bessica,” my mother said. “You need to stay home.”
“But I find out if I’m a winner or a loser today. I’ve got to go!” I tried to get out of bed. But not very hard.
“I’ll call the school and find out,” my mom said.
“When you get home?” I asked. “I don’t think I can wait that long.”
My mom shook her head. “No, I’ll call right now.”
I couldn’t believe that was even an option. I kept my head on my pillow as my mom called the school from my bedroom. She explained I was sick and that she wanted to get the results. When she smiled and pumped her fist over her head, I knew.
“Did they say who else won?” I asked.
My mother nodded.
“Tell me,” I said. “I have to know.”
My mother sat down next to me and put her hand on my forehead. “You have a little fever.”
But I didn’t care about my little fever. I cared about my mascot competition.
“Did Alice make it? Did the secretary say the name Alice Potgeiser?”
My mother took her hand off my forehead and petted my pixie. “Yes. But don’t worry about that now.”
I reached up and held my mother’s hand. “Who else?” I had to know. I couldn’t imagine staying home all day with a fever and not knowing.
“Dolan Burr,” my mother said.
The Reinvention of Bessica Lefter Page 16