Pizza Is the Best Breakfast

by Allison Gutknecht

  CHAPTER 4

  A Not-Eggcellent Plan

  “MANDY,” I HEAR MOM CALLING from the bottom of the stairs. “Come down here for a second, please.” I groan like a dinosaur at Anya and rise slowly to my feet.

  “Do you think Paige tattletaled on us?” she asks, and she sounds a little panicky.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. “But you will not get in trouble with my mom because she only likes to punish me.”

  “Mandy!” Mom calls again, and I stomp my feet over to my bedroom door and open it.

  “What?” I call without leaving my room.

  “Come down here, please.” I turn around and roll my eyes all the way to the ceiling so Anya can see, and then I shuffle my feet over to the top of the stairs.

  “What?” I stare down the steps at Mom like I am a giant and she is an ant, and she motions for me to walk down them. I lean my right arm hard against the banister and try to slide my way down so that my feet barely have to touch the steps, because I do not want to mess up my toenails on the carpet.

  “I thought I asked you not to play on the stairs,” Mom says when I finally reach her.

  “My nails are wet,” I explain.

  “Let me see.” I hold out my left arm and lift my right leg onto the banister so Mom can examine them. It is a pretty high stretch, and I am very flexible, I think.

  “They look great,” Mom says, and she is being awfully nice for someone Paige tattletaled to about me. “Where’d you get that polish?”

  I feel my eyes grow into wide pancakes then, because I forgot about that little detail.

  Mom smiles. “Don’t worry about it, I never liked that color anyway,” she says. “Keep it. But next time, ask me first, please.”

  “Okay.” I pull my ankle off the banister carefully so that I don’t fall backward.

  “You’re welcome,” Mom prompts me.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Why did you call me?”

  “Anya has to leave in a little bit,” Mom says. “Grandmom is coming over soon, and we want to have a family afternoon with Paige. I thought you’d want to tell Anya yourself.”

  “Can I go to Anya’s house instead?” I ask.

  “No, you’re staying here with us,” Mom says. “Either Anya can call her parents to pick her up or Dad will drive her home. Have her find out what they want to do.”

  “ ’Kay,” I answer. “But I wish Anya could stay.”

  “I know, but you get to see her almost every day all year,” Mom says. “You only get to visit with Paige this week. You better enjoy it.”

  I turn on my heel and walk quietly up the stairs without answering Mom, because a whole week left with Paige does not seem very enjoyable at all.

  * * *

  Grandmom turns into our driveway just as Anya’s mom’s car pulls away, and I watch as Timmy and Paige, a twin dangling off both of her hips, run to the front door to greet her. I sit on the armchair in the living room with my legs crisscrossed into a pretzel, and I do not budge.

  Paige and I have not said one word to each other since she was in my room, and I am not going to speak first. But at least she didn’t tattletale to Mom about Anya and me not letting her paint nails with us—that is something, I guess.

  When Grandmom enters, the four of them almost tackle her, but I stay in the chair, annoyed. “I love having so many of my grandchildren in one place,” Grandmom says, and she plants a kiss on each of them, one right after another, taking one of the twins from Paige. “Mandy, where’s my sugar?”

  “You can get it over here,” I say, and I still don’t move off of the chair.

  “Mandy, get up and give your grandmother a kiss.” Mom enters the living room and takes the other twin from Paige. I uncross my legs slowly and shuffle toward Grandmom, who lifts my chin in her hands and kisses me on the lips.

  “That’s better,” Grandmom says.

  “Me again!” Timmy insists, and Grandmom gives him another kiss, which I think is way too many. Only grandmoms would want to kiss a preschooler that much.

  “Yuck,” I say quietly, but Grandmom hears me anyway.

  “How could I resist five of the sweetest grandchildren in the world?” she asks.

  “Who’s the sweetest?” Paige asks her, and I am not positive, but I am pretty sure she glances at me when she says this, so I give her my “You are driving me bananas” face.

  “You’re all sweet in your own way,” Grandmom answers. “How was your slumber party last night?” She looks back and forth from me to Paige.

  “Paige slept with Timmy,” I answer.

  “Only for last night,” she pipes up. “I told you I would sleep in your room tonight. If you still want me to.”

  I shrug my shoulders, because Mom and Grandmom are watching me, so I cannot tell Paige no.

  “Well, maybe you two can make yourselves a midnight snack for tonight,” Grandmom says, and she digs in her enormous pocketbook until she finds what she’s looking for. “Because I got a little something for you to work on together while Paige is in town.” She holds out a book, and the cover is plastered in pictures of cupcakes and brownies and macaroni and cheese.

  “Yum!” Timmy calls when he sees it.

  “Ooh, a kids’ cookbook,” Paige reads the title. “Thanks, Grandmom!”

  “I have a little challenge for you two,” Grandmom continues. “You know that carnival that is in town this week at the Whisk Avenue parking lot? If you two learn to cook—”

  “The carnival?” I interrupt her, and my voice sounds like more of a squeak than I would have liked. “I’ve wanted to go to the carnival my whole entire life!” The carnival comes to our town every single year, and every single year Mom says we are going to go, and then we don’t.

  At least, every year since Timmy was born. We used to go to the carnival when I was still an only child like Paige. Before Timmy and the twins ruined everything.

  “I’m glad you’re so enthusiastic about it,” Grandmom says. “So as I was saying, if you two learn to cook five dishes with no grown-ups, except to help with the oven and anything with knives, I thought I’d take you there next Friday, when you have off from school, Mandy, and before Paige leaves. What do you say?”

  “Yes, I think that’s great!” Paige answers immediately, and she grabs the cookbook from Grandmom before I can say one word. “Come on, Manda, let’s get started.”

  “It’s MANDY,” I say, yelling the Y part extra loud. “It is not hard to remember.”

  “Whatever,” Paige mumbles under her breath as she continues to the kitchen without even turning around, so I do not follow her.

  “What do you say, Mandy?” Grandmom asks. “Wouldn’t you like to go to the carnival too?”

  “Yes,” I answer honestly. “But I don’t want to cook with her.” And I say “her” like I am talking about the twins’ snot.

  “Listen to me,” Mom begins. “Paige is a guest in our house this week. It’s your job to make her feel welcome. Got it?”

  “But she keeps calling me Manda instead of Mandy,” I tell her. “Plus, she slept in Timmy’s room last night, after she was supposed to sleep in mine.”

  “Then talk to her about it. Nicely,” Mom says. “Paige is a smart girl. I’m sure she’ll understand. Now, shoo. Get cooking if you want to go to the carnival with Grandmom on Friday.” Mom points in the direction of the kitchen, and I slump my shoulders and look at the nail polish on my toes, but I do not move my feet one inch.

  “Mandy, I’d really like to take you and Paige to the carnival, but this requires a little cooperation on your part,” Grandmom says. “What do you say?”

  And I say nothing, but I shuffle into the kitchen to join Paige at the counter.

  “I can’t mess up my nails,” I tell her as a greeting. “So you have to do all the messy parts.”

  “We’re going to make egg salad,” Paige says. “There are a lot of eggs and mayonnaise in the refrigerator, so we’ll have enough.”

  “I don’t like
egg salad,” I say, because that is the truth. Egg salad is slimy and goopy and tastes like wet rubber. I have not eaten egg salad since first grade, when Mom packed me an egg salad sandwich instead of peanut butter and jelly, and I left the whole sandwich in my lunch box unwrapped. Mom was not too happy about this, because it made a gigantic mess, but at least she has not made me eat the stuff again.

  “I love it,” Paige says. “Get the eggs out of the refrigerator.”

  “I just told you, I don’t like egg salad,” I repeat. “I want to make something else.”

  “Well, I want to make this,” Paige says, staring down her nose at me, and I think she might just be the bossiest person in the world, even bossier than Natalie.

  “I am not making egg salad,” I say. “If you want to make it, you can do it by yourself.”

  “Fine,” Paige says, and she pushes right past me toward the refrigerator. “I’ll go by myself to the carnival with Grandmom, then, too.”

  “Oh, no, you won’t,” I say. “Grandmom likes me better than you anyway.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Paige says. “She likes me the best, because I’m the oldest. Everyone always likes the oldest best.”

  “I’m the oldest,” I say. “Timmy and the twins are much younger than me.”

  “But I’m the oldest grandchild. You’re just the oldest in the Berr house. You weren’t Grandmom’s first granddaughter. I was.”

  I scramble in my brain to think of what to say to this, but Grandmom walks into the kitchen before I can let out one peep.

  “How are we doing in here?” she asks us.

  “Who’s your favorite grandchild?” I ask her.

  “What?”

  “Who is your favorite grandchild?” I repeat, and I say each word slowly to make sure Grandmom understands.

  “I don’t have a favorite,” Grandmom answers. “I love all of my grandchildren the same.” And I think this is a lie, because everyone has a favorite everything. “Now, how are we doing with the cooking?”

  “I’m making egg salad,” Paige says.

  “Sounds yummy,” Grandmom says. “Mandy, are you helping?”

  “I hate egg salad,” I answer.

  “Well, I bet if you help Paige with this recipe, you’ll get to pick the dish next time. Right, Paige?” Grandmom prompts.

  “Right,” Paige answers, but I am absolutely positive that if Grandmom weren’t standing next to her, she would never have agreed. “So can you get the eggs, please?” Paige asks me this in her sweetest voice, and I know it is only because Grandmom is listening.

  I sigh an enormous breath but pad over to the refrigerator, pull out the carton of eggs, and place it on the counter next to Paige. And I really wish my parents had taken me to the carnival just once in the past three years so that I wouldn’t want to go so badly now. Because if I have to spend much more time with Paige, I am pretty sure I am going to throw up egg salad all over the kitchen.

  CHAPTER 5

  Pizza Pops

  I WAKE UP SUNDAY MORNING with grumblies in my stomach again, because all we had to eat for dinner was dumb egg salad. I told everybody over and over that I do not like egg salad, and Mom said that if I really wanted to eat something else, I had to cook it myself. But there was no way I was going to cook anything else with bossy Paige around, yammering over my shoulder the whole time. No way! So I went to bed without even eating a pudding cup, which is very unfair.

  Paige slept in Timmy’s room again, because I told her that she smelled like egg salad. But I am kind of glad she is there now, because I don’t like Paige the way I used to. I liked Paige when she had Rainbow Sparkle stuff and she let me try on her click-clack boots and she told me that I was her favorite cousin. This Paige who is visiting now is no fun at all.

  I pull my Rainbow Sparkle comforter off of me and stretch down toward my feet, and I smile when I see the purple polish on my toenails. I bounce out of bed and hop up and down on the trampoline mattress that Paige is supposed to be sleeping on. My stomach grumblies get very angry then and let out a big growl, so I decide I better go find them something to eat.

  I open my bedroom door as quietly as I can and pad down the stairs, and I do not trip once even though there are no lights on and it’s still dark outside. I cannot risk turning on the hallway lights because I do not want anyone else to wake up yet, especially not Timmy and Paige. I run through the living room and into the kitchen and turn on every light I can find, just like I did yesterday morning. When the whole downstairs is bright, I let out a big gust of air, realizing that I had been holding my breath until I knew there were no ghosts in the house. All of these lights will keep me safe now, I think.

  The clock on the microwave reads 5:24. That is super-duper early, even for the twins, and I skip around the counter a few times at the thought of having so much time by myself. I open the refrigerator door, but all I see right in front of me is Paige’s egg salad, and there is no way I am eating that for breakfast. I keep the refrigerator open just to have some extra light on in case a ghost comes around, and I pull the kids’ cookbook off of the counter. I flip through the pages looking at the pictures, and then my eyes land on it: pizza. I can make my very own pizza and eat all of the corner bites by myself, and no one can say one word about it! Grandmom definitely should have mentioned this page when she gave us the book.

  I place an empty bowl in the middle of the cookbook to keep it open to the pizza page, and I read the list of ingredients: tortillas, tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, broccoli, onions, and mushrooms.

  I do not like broccoli, onions, or mushrooms, so I take those off of the list right away. I look around in the refrigerator, peering on all of the shelves and in each of the drawers. There is a package of bright orange cheddar cheese slices in one drawer, but nothing that says “mozzarella.” I place the cheddar cheese on the counter, and I read the list of ingredients again: tortillas, tomato sauce, pepperoni.

  Hmm.

  I look all around the refrigerator again, but I do not see any of these things. I place the bag of white bread next to the cheddar cheese, and then I pull the jumbo-size bottle of ketchup out of the refrigerator door. Ketchup is much better than tomato sauce anyway, I think. Because ketchup is best friends with French fries, so it has very good taste in friends.

  The only thing missing now is the pepperoni, and I study the picture of the pizza with the small circles of pepperoni slices sprinkling the top. I look in the pantry, and the only round things I see are these salty crackers that Mom sometimes gives us as a snack with the cheddar cheese. This means that the crackers taste good with the cheese—plus, they are round, so they will be a good pepperoni substitute.

  I roll up the sleeves of my pajamas and get to work. But even if I stand all the way on my tippy toes, it is still hard for me to reach everything on the counter. I walk into the toy room and turn the light on, then I pick up one of the chairs from the stupid kiddie table where Mom and Dad like to make me eat with Timmy. I carry it into the kitchen and place it next to the counter, and I step on top of it. Now I am the perfect height.

  I undo the twisty tie on the bread bag and place a slice on the counter in front of me. I look back at the recipe: Spread tomato sauce on top of the tortilla. I lift the gigantic bottle of ketchup, turn it upside down, and flip open the cap. An enormous stream of ketchup shoots out of the bottle, onto the slice of bread, and onto the counter, too, and I quickly flip the bottle back over and hop off of the chair to get a spoon. I then spread the ketchup all over the slice of bread with the back of the spoon, and I look like a real chef now, I think.

  Top with cheese. Assemble pepperoni slices and vegetables.

  I make a face at the word “vegetables,” and I pull a slice of cheddar cheese out of the package. It covers most of the bread slice, but not all of it, and cheese is the best part of pizza anyway, so I take another slice out of the package. Then I place four crackers on top of the cheese so that they look like pepperoni.

  Bake at 3
50, the recipe says, and since I do not know how to turn on the oven without a grown-up, I lift up the corners of my pizza, carry it carefully over to the microwave, open the door, and place it inside. Then I press 3 and 5 on the microwave’s number pad, followed by the ON button. I watch my pizza start to turn around and around inside, and I lick my lips as my stomach grumblies start to complain again.

  While I wait, I decide to make myself another pizza, because I am very, very hungry. The microwave whirls and hums as I assemble another ketchup-smothered bread slice, topping the whole thing with two slices of cheese again. I perfectly place the crackers into position, lift up the pizza, and begin to step off of the chair to bring it to the microwave.

  Pop!

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Hisssssssssss.

  POP!

  I slip the rest of the way off of the chair and accidentally throw the second pizza over my head. The chair topples onto its side with a crash, and I hit the floor with a thud. The pizza splats back onto the counter, while the popping sound continues from across the kitchen. I start crawling on my hands and knees as fast as I can toward the living room, trying to hide from the ghost that I am sure has snuck into my house, even though all of the lights are on and everything. My knees scrape against the floor, but I duck down as far as I can and scramble out of the kitchen. I glance over my shoulder to make sure a ghost isn’t following me, and then I slam right into it: the ghost himself.

  “Arghhhhhh!” I scream at the top of my lungs, and I try to back away from the ghost, scooting across the floor on my bottom.

  “Mandy, Mandy, it’s me.” Dad stoops down so his face is next to mine, but he is still hard to see in the darkness of the living room. “What is going on in there?”

  “I thought you were a ghost!” I tell him.

  “What is that sound in the kitchen?” Dad steps over me to investigate, but my heart is beating so hard that I am sure it is going to have a fight with my stomach grumblies. I hear a beeping sound, and then the whirl of the microwave stops. One last pop echoes across the room.