Pizza Is the Best Breakfast

by Allison Gutknecht

  “Mandy, what—how—why—I can’t—” Dad stutters, and I see him looking all around the kitchen. He opens the door of the microwave, and even from the floor, I can see it: my beautiful pizza, exploded. Orange and red cover the entire inside of the microwave, like the ugly finger paintings Timmy makes in preschool.

  “I was hungry,” I tell Dad, finally lifting myself onto my feet. “And I wanted pizza. Not dumb egg salad.”

  “Does this look like pizza to you?” Dad points in the microwave and then to my second pizza, which is lying upside down on the counter, the crackers broken and the ketchup running down the side like blood. “And how long did you set this for?”

  “I pressed three and five,” I answer.

  “Thirty-five minutes?” he exclaims.

  “That’s what it said in the cookbook,” I explain. “ ‘Bake at 350,’ but I knew I was not allowed to touch the oven, because I am very good at following that rule, so I put it in the microwave instead.”

  “It’s not even six a.m. yet,” Dad says with a sigh. “How could you possibly have made such a mess before six a.m.? Really, even for you, Mandy, this is a record.” He looks around the kitchen one more time, like he is still a little bit asleep. “Here’s what we’re going to do: You clean up this whole catastrophe you have going on in here, and if the kitchen looks pristine—even better than when you entered it—by the time everyone else wakes up, I won’t have to take away Rainbow Sparkle’s TV show this week.”

  I slump my shoulders and push my lips together into a pout, but I do not disagree. “Let me know when you’re ready for me to examine your work. I’ll be waiting on the couch,” Dad says, padding out of the kitchen and into the living room, shutting off one of the kitchen lights on his way. “And why does it look like Grand Central Station in here? You’re wasting electricity.” I watch him walk to the couch, and while his back is turned, I skedaddle to the light switch and flip it back on. Even if it was my pizza and not a ghost popping and hissing at me, you can still never be too careful when it comes to keeping them away.

  I walk over to the paper towel holder and begin to unwind a huge glob, but then my stomach growls at me—the grumblies even angrier than they were before. I place the paper towels back on the counter, lift the chair off the ground, step on top of it, and then make myself one more pizza slice, this time with no crackers. Without placing it in the microwave, I take a gigantic bite out of my white bread, cheddar cheese, and ketchup pizza.

  And no matter what anyone else says, I know it is the best pizza I have ever had.

  CHAPTER 6

  No Bossing My Brother

  I HAVE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER to see my classroom than I am on Monday morning. I am so glad to get away from Paige and Timmy and the twins and exploding pizzas and trespassing ghosts that the minute I see Mrs. Spangle, I throw my arms around her waist and squeeze her.

  “What’s this for?” she asks, but she squeezes my shoulders right back.

  “I am happy to see you,” I tell her.

  “Well, that’s a great attitude for a Monday,” Mrs. Spangle replies. “Thanks for the boost, Mandy.”

  I trot off into the cubbies, and Anya is standing in front of mine. I throw my arms around her neck from the back, and I think I tackle her a little bit.

  “You’re choking me!” she calls, but she is laughing about it, so I know I am not really hurting her. I release her, and she spins around.

  “How’s Paige?” she asks.

  “Ugh,” I answer. “Bossy. Annoying. I would like her to go home now.”

  “Who?” Natalie pipes up from behind me, and I do not even mind that she is interrupting, even though I usually do not like people to butt in on my beeswax.

  “Paige, my cousin,” I answer.

  “I thought you loved her,” Natalie says as she takes off her jacket.

  I shake my head back and forth ferociously. “Not anymore.”

  “Why?” Natalie asks.

  “Because I do not,” I tell her. “But I don’t want to talk about her anymore. I want to talk about the stickers you bought at the teacher store.”

  “I didn’t get to go,” Natalie says, and she looks pretty sad about it. “My mom said maybe this week.”

  Before I can agree with Natalie that this is a tragedy, Dennis steps right in between us, which I think is rude.

  “I know that you took my glue stick,” he says to me.

  “You don’t know anything, Freckle Face,” I tell him.

  Dennis puts his nose very close to mine, so close that I can smell the hair gel in his Mohawk, and I think he uses way too much.

  “Just wait until you see what I glue things with now, Polka Dot,” Dennis whispers, and he walks out of the cubbies before I can answer.

  “What’d he say?” Anya asks.

  “Nothing,” I say. “I’ll take care of him.”

  But thanks to Dennis, I am much less excited to be back at school than I was five minutes ago.

  * * *

  Dennis is on his best behavior for the rest of the day, which I think is suspicious. He does not take any of my things or call me any name-calls or bother me one bit. In fact, by the end of the day, Mrs. Spangle announces that Dennis can pick a prize from her treasure box for not getting his initials on the board all day, and he skips off happily to claim his reward.

  And when he smiles at me extra wide on his way back to our group, I then know for sure that he is up to something.

  “What’d you pick?” I ask.

  “None of your business,” Dennis answers, and he sticks his prize in his desk before I can see.

  “Come on, show me,” I say.

  “I said, none of your business, Polka Dot,” Dennis repeats, and I am almost happy to hear him call me “Polka Dot,” because at least he is acting normal again.

  I reach into my own desk to pull out my sticker book, just so I have something nice to look at as we pack to go home. I move my fingers around the left side of my desk where the book usually is, but I do not feel it. I pull out all of the folders and books and papers that are on that side and place them on my lap, then I look in between each of them one by one. Nothing.

  Just as I am about to reach inside again and remove everything on the right side of my desk, I catch Dennis watching me.

  Not just watching me—laughing at me.

  “Looking for something?” he asks.

  “You took it,” I say.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dennis responds, so I shoot my hand in the air and wave it in Mrs. Spangle’s direction.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Dennis says. “Unless you want to talk about what you did with my glue stick.”

  I remove my hand from the air slowly and stare at Dennis. “Give it back,” I say.

  Dennis shrugs. “I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I slam my palms onto the top of my desk, and they make a louder noise than I was expecting. Mrs. Spangle whips around and looks at me.

  “Excuse me,” she says with a warning in her voice. “Mandy and Dennis, your group was having such a good day today. Don’t tell me that’s going to change now.”

  I remove my hands from my desk and place all of my belongings back inside of it, but I keep my eyes on Dennis the whole time. Then, when I’m sure Mrs. Spangle isn’t watching, I rock my chair back on two legs to get closer to Anya.

  “Dennis stole my sticker book,” I whisper in her ear, and Anya turns her head around and stares at me with wide pancake eyes.

  “Are you sure?” she asks, and I nod my head.

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll get it back tomorrow.”

  I bring my chair back down to four legs carefully so that Mrs. Spangle doesn’t hear, and I glare through narrow eyes at Dennis until the bell rings.

  * * *

  I bang in the front door after school, and I am greeted by the sound of the twins wailing. This is not a surprise, because all the twins do is wail.
r />   The crying sound is coming from the twins’ room, so I decide to stay far away from there as I walk toward the kitchen for a snack. Paige is standing behind the counter, one of Mom’s aprons draped around her neck and covering the front of her clothes. White powder is sprinkled over most of the countertop, though I cannot tell from where I am if it is flour or sugar or salt. But I am pretty sure that if I were the one who was making such a mess in the kitchen, I would be in pretty big trouble about it.

  I walk toward the pantry without opening my mouth, and then I hear Paige say, “Hand me the spatula.”

  “No!” I answer instantly, whirling around to face her. “I am not—” But Paige is not even looking at me; she’s looking down to the ground. And then I see a plastic spatula being raised toward her hand.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Paige says without glancing at me. “I was talking to Timmy.” And Timmy comes crawling out from behind the counter then, and he does not look very happy about it either.

  “We cooking,” he tells me.

  “You are supposed to be cooking with me,” I tell Paige. “Not Timmy. Grandmom said so.”

  “You were at school,” Paige answers.

  “I have to go to school.”

  Paige shrugs. “That’s not my problem. I am on vacation this week.”

  “In my house,” I point out.

  “You didn’t want to cook with me anyway,” Paige says, and I think about this for one second, because that is the truth. But that still does not give Paige the right to cook without me.

  “Timmy, stand up, you’re in my way,” Paige continues before I can answer her. “And wash your hands so you can help me with this.”

  “Stop bossing him around,” I tell her. “You are not the boss of everybody.”

  “I’m not bossing him around,” Paige says. “We’re working together.”

  “No, you’re being bossy,” I say. “Timmy, isn’t she being bossy?”

  “Yep!” Timmy answers, and I almost like Timmy right then, except not too much.

  “Told you so,” I say to Paige, and she squints her eyes at me in a not-nice way.

  “Why don’t you just leave us alone? We were having a nice time until you came home,” she says to me.

  “Timmy, were you having a nice time?” I ask.

  “No!” Timmy answers, and he stands up and walks over to me, like I am his favorite person in the room instead of Paige.

  “Come on,” I say. “You don’t have to listen to her anymore.” I march out of the kitchen, and Timmy follows behind me, stomping his feet on the ground almost as loudly as I do.

  “Now you’re bossing him around,” Paige calls after me.

  “I am allowed, because he is my brother!” I yell back. “Not yours!”

  Mom walks toward us with one twin drooling on her shoulder. “Everything okay out here?” she asks.

  “It is now,” I say, and Timmy trails me up the stairs, leaving Paige all by herself in the kitchen.

  Which is just the way we both like it.

  CHAPTER 7

  Mattress Removal

  WHEN I REACH MY ROOM, I march inside and straight over to the bouncy mattress on the floor. Timmy stands watching me from the doorway, not sure whether he should step inside.

  “Well, are you going to help me?” I ask, and I lift up two corners of the mattress, which is heavier than it should be for something that is so good at being a trampoline. Timmy runs in my room and flops on top of the mattress, which throws him a couple of inches in the air.

  And this is why it is very difficult to get help from a preschooler.

  “You’re making it even heavier!” I tell him, and he scrambles onto his feet again.

  “What you doing, Mandy?”

  “I am taking this dumb mattress out of my room because I do not want Paige to think she is allowed to sleep in here anymore,” I say. “Now try to lift up one of the other corners for me.”

  Timmy walks to the other end of the mattress and follows my directions, but the mattress doesn’t budge.

  “Humph.” I frown. “Maybe we can kick it out.” I stand on the side of the mattress farthest from the door and lift my right foot all the way back to kick it, just like I am about to kick a soccer ball.

  “You break toes,” Timmy says, reminding me of the time that I kicked my foot into the bottom of the kitchen counter and accidentally broke my longest toe.

  “Good point,” I tell him. “Plus, I might chip my toenail polish. Maybe we have to drag it.” I step back over the mattress to the other side, and it throws me around like it is a moon bounce. I bend down toward the corner closest to the door, wrap both of my hands around it, and try to move it along the floor.

  And it moves!

  “I am a genius,” I tell Timmy. “You push from that side.” So I pull on my side of the mattress, and Timmy pushes on his, until we have moved the entire thing out of my room and into the hallway. Timmy looks up at me then, waiting for me to decide what to do, and I am glad he thinks that I am the real boss of this house.

  “Do you want it in your room?” I ask him, and he shakes his head back and forth ferociously.

  “Then we’ll just leave it here,” I say. “She can sleep in the hallway.”

  Timmy nods his head in agreement, and I like that he is on my side.

  “Good teamwork,” I say, and I reach out my hand for Timmy to shake, just like Mrs. Spangle makes us do after we finish a game of kickball. Timmy slaps my hand like a high five instead, but I do not even mind too much.

  Because at least Timmy agrees with me that Paige deserves to sleep in the hallway.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, when I am lying on my bed reading a Rainbow Sparkle book and minding my own beeswax, I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. They pause outside of my bedroom, right near where Timmy and I left the bouncy mattress. A couple of seconds later Paige appears in my doorway.

  “Why is my bed in the hallway?” she asks.

  “Because I don’t want it in my room,” I tell her.

  “So where am I supposed to sleep?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Wherever you want. But not in my room.” I turn back to my Rainbow Sparkle book, signaling that it is time for her to go. She takes the hint and leaves my doorway, and I go back to reading in peace.

  “Amanda. Down here. Now,” Mom calls from the bottom of the stairs, and I groan like a dinosaur and slide off the top of my bed like a snake. I walk out of my room and down the stairs as slowly as I can, and that’s when I see it: Mom and Paige sitting on the living room couch, Mom’s arm around Paige’s shoulder.

  And Paige is crying.

  “You’ve made Paige very upset,” Mom says. “Care to explain yourself?” And I am too busy thinking about how I have never made an older kid cry before to come up with a good answer to Mom’s question.

  “I’m waiting,” Mom says, interrupting my thoughts.

  “I moved her mattress,” I finally answer.

  “To where?”

  “The hallway.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I do not want her to sleep in my room.”

  “You have to learn to share your space and your things.”

  I feel my eyes grow into enormous pancakes then, because Mom is not understanding me. “I was sharing,” I say. “Paige is the one who never has to share anything because she doesn’t have any brothers or sisters. So she thinks she is the boss of everybody, and that is a lie.”

  “I think you owe Paige an apology. A big one,” Mom tells me.

  “Why? She is the one who is mean to me.”

  “I’m waiting, Amanda.”

  “Plus, she only calls me Manda even though I keep telling her my name is Mandy.”

  “I’m going to count to three,” Mom begins.

  “Timmy should have to apologize too. He helped me move the mattress.”

  “I’ll speak with Timmy next. This is about you. One . . .”

  I sigh a huge sigh then an
d look at Paige’s face, which is red and splotchy around her eyes from crying.

  “I’m sorry I moved your bed,” I say, then I look back to Mom. “Am I done?”

  “Paige was already going to have a sleepover at Grandmom’s tonight anyway,” Mom answers me. “But when she is back, I expect the two of you to work on getting along. You are family. You’re going to fight sometimes, of course, but it’s more important that you are there for each other.”

  I do not say one thing about this, and neither does Paige. And when Grandmom comes to pick her up, she does not even call me to the door to give her some sugar. Instead, she takes Paige to her car all by herself for the whole night, because maybe Paige really is her favorite grandchild.

  * * *

  I walk right past Mrs. Spangle and into my classroom the next morning, and she calls after me, “Boy, not even a hello this morning after a hug yesterday. What did I do to deserve this?” I scurry back over to her and give her a hug like I mean it, and for a minute I think about telling her about Dennis and my sticker book. But if I do, then Dennis will definitely tattletale on me about the glue stick, and I do not feel like being in trouble at school, too, since I am already in trouble at home for moving Paige’s bed.

  I deposit my things in my cubby and walk over to my seat. Dennis is already sitting at our group, but he has his face buried inside of his desk, looking for something, and all I can see is his Mohawk.

  “Remember, your seatwork sheets are at the front of the room. Cut out the squares that show the scenes from the story we read yesterday, and then glue them in the correct sequence onto the construction paper. Who can remind me what ‘sequence’ is?”

  I shoot my hand in the air, but Mrs. Spangle calls on Natalie.

  “The order things happened in the story,” Natalie answers.

  “Excellent,” Mrs. Spangle says. “When you finish gluing your story sequences, you can color in the pictures on each square.” I pick up my sheets from the front of the room and return to my desk, and I am shocked to see that Dennis already has his squares cut out and placed on the construction paper, ready to be glued, because Dennis does not usually do any work quickly, if he even does it at all.