Pizza Is the Best Breakfast

by Allison Gutknecht

  I remove my scissors from my desk and begin cutting the squares apart, and I concentrate very hard on staying on the dotted lines. Then I study each square carefully until I decide in which order they should be glued on the construction paper. It is only when I am reaching in my desk for Dennis’s glue stick that I see it, and before I can bite my tongue to stop myself, I scream.

  And I scream pretty loud, if I am being honest. Because I am an excellent screamer.

  Anya and Mrs. Spangle both rush over to my group, and that’s when they see it too: Dennis is not using a glue stick or liquid glue or paste or anything he is supposed to in order to glue his squares to the construction paper. Instead, he is using MY STICKERS. From my sticker book! He is using the stickers like tape to hold the squares onto the paper, and even worse, he is using the gel stickers, which are MY FAVORITES!

  “Those are mine!” I yell, reaching to try to take his construction paper. My hand grabs one corner, and it rips off a big chunk, but not a chunk with any of my stickers.

  “Hey, hey, Mandy, sit down.” Mrs. Spangle puts her hands on my shoulders and presses me back into my seat. “There’s no screaming in this classroom. What’s going on here?”

  “Dennis,” I begin, spitting his name out like it’s a disease, “stole my sticker book, and now he’s using my stickers.”

  Dennis shrugs his shoulders then, like this is not a gigantic tragedy or anything. “I had to,” he explains. “Because I didn’t have a glue stick.”

  “If you need a glue stick, you borrow one from your neighbor,” Mrs. Spangle says. “Or you ask me. You don’t use Mandy’s stickers.”

  “But Polka Dot stole my glue stick,” Dennis says.

  “No name-calling,” Mrs. Spangle says. “Mandy, did you take Dennis’s glue stick?”

  “I borrowed it,” I say honestly, “because he wouldn’t let me use it and mine was empty. But he stole my sticker book.”

  “Hand them over, both of you.” Mrs. Spangle holds out her hands. Dennis and I reach into our desks, and I pull out his glue stick, and Dennis removes my sticker book. We hand them both to Mrs. Spangle.

  “Dennis, place this in your desk,” she says, handing him the glue stick. “Mandy, take this sticker book home. No more sticker books in school. That goes for all of you.” She looks around the room.

  “But what about the stickers Dennis used?” I ask, pointing to his paper. “They’re my favorites.”

  Mrs. Spangle helps me peel the gel stickers off of Dennis’s construction paper, but she still writes my initials on the board for screaming, and she adds DR right underneath for Dennis’s name, so that is something, I guess. Anya helps me reseal the stickers in my book, but their backs are now covered in construction paper fuzz and they don’t stick as well as they used to.

  I glare at Dennis before I walk my sticker book over to my cubby to place it in my book bag, and I feel tears tickling the back of my eyes. But I press my palms into them, because I am not going to cry like a big crybaby. I am not like Paige, after all.

  CHAPTER 8

  Screaming Fraidy Cats

  PAIGE STAYS AT GRANDMOM’S FOR another night in a row, which makes me very happy. I wish Grandmom would take Timmy and the twins with her while she is at it. Even if Timmy is getting on my nerves a little less than usual this week, it would be nice to be rid of them all for just one night, so that I could pretend to be an only child again.

  “Is Paige staying at Grandmom’s until she goes home?” I ask Mom as I eat breakfast (which is cereal and not chocolate pudding or ketchup pizzas, and so it is not nearly as fun).

  “No, she’s coming back today while you’re at school,” Mom answers. “And now listen to me: I want you to be kind to Paige when she returns to our house. It’s not easy to be away from home. It’s your job to make her feel welcome, no matter how bossy you think she is. Plus, you can be pretty bossy yourself, you know.”

  “I am not—” I begin, but then I stop myself, because Mom is a little bit right. But not about the being away from home part, I think. “I like to be away from home.”

  “The only place you’ve ever stayed away from home is Grandmom’s,” Mom tells me.

  “No, we slept at Uncle Rich’s house before,” I answer. “Before the twins were born.”

  “Right, but that was with me and Dad,” Mom says. “It’s not the same if your family is there.”

  “You said we’re Paige’s family.”

  “We are. But we’re not her immediate family—I’m not her mom, Dad’s not her father, you’re not her sister,” Mom explains. “In fact, she doesn’t even know what it’s like to have a sister. I’m sure it’s hard for her to be away from what she knows.”

  “I don’t think we’re so bad,” I say. “And anyway, I think she should learn what my name is. She keeps calling me Manda.”

  “I’ll talk with her about that when she gets back this morning,” Mom says. “I agree—that is something simple she can do for you, call you by the name you like. But I think you could make some compromises yourself. Remember how excited you were to have Paige visit? It bothers me that you two are wasting all this time when you could be having fun together.”

  “She’s not as fun as she used to be,” I tell Mom honestly.

  “Promise me you’ll try harder with her this afternoon,” Mom says. “I bet you’ll find that the same Paige you liked before is still in there.”

  “I don’t think so,” I answer.

  “You still want to go to the carnival with Grandmom on Friday, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you better try,” Mom says. “Remember, you have to cook five dishes out of that cookbook Grandmom gave you. You wouldn’t want Paige to get to go and not you.”

  And that is the truth, so when Mom goes into the twins’ room, I scurry off of my chair and grab the cookbook from the pile on the counter. I run into the living room and stuff the book in my book bag, because there is no way I am going to let Paige get a head start.

  * * *

  Without any stickers to trade at school, I whip out the cookbook in the cubbies to show it to Anya.

  “Why’d you bring that to school?” Natalie asks. “You can’t cook here.”

  “I know.” I say “know” extra loud because Natalie asks a lot of questions. “I brought it because I did not want Paige to cook out of it while I am at school. Because she might make five whole recipes, and then Grandmom will take her to the carnival without me, and that is not okay.”

  Anya takes the book from me and flips through the pages. “Ooh, these look great,” she says, pointing to a picture of marshmallow ghosts. “And they should be easy to make—you just stick pretzel sticks in the marshmallows to hold them up, then use chocolate chips for the eyes and mouth. You could totally cook them.”

  “That’s not really cooking,” Natalie says. “You’re just putting them together. It’s more like a craft.”

  “I just have to make five things out of this book,” I tell her. “It doesn’t matter how hard or easy they are. But I hate ghosts, so I don’t really want to make those.”

  “Why do you hate ghosts?” Natalie asks.

  “I think there’s a ghost in my house,” I answer. “I think it snuck in from the Packles’ porch. They always put up a big ghost display on Halloween, and when they took it down, I think a ghost escaped.”

  Anya’s and Natalie’s eyes both grow wide at this story, and I feel goose bumps crawling up my arms just thinking about it.

  “Boo!” a ghost calls from behind the curtain on the other side of the cubbies, and Anya, Natalie, and I all scream, though not as loudly as I did about the stickers. The ghost cackles a laugh at us, and then he appears from behind the curtain.

  Only it is not a ghost at all. It is Dennis. Being terrible.

  “Knock it off, Dennis!” I yell at him.

  “Polka Dot’s a fraidy cat,” he says. “Fraidy cat, fraidy cat.”

  “Be quiet, Dennis,” Anya says. “No one
’s talking to you. Go away.”

  Dennis makes haunting sounds and wiggles his arms in the air, trying to scare us again, before he finally leaves the cubbies. I take my cookbook back and toss it toward my book bag.

  “This is why I can’t make marshmallow ghosts,” I explain. “Because ghosts are as horrible as Dennis.”

  * * *

  Paige is sitting on the floor of the living room surrounded by the twins when I get home from school, so my afternoon is not off to a great start.

  “Hi, Mandy,” she greets me, and I am kind of shocked then, because Paige is finally calling me by the right name, so Mom must have had a talk with her about it.

  “Hi,” I answer, and I remember what Mom said about trying really hard to be nicer to Paige. “How was Grandmom’s?”

  “It was fun,” Paige says. “Do you want to play with Samantha, Cody, and me?”

  “I don’t play with the twins,” I answer. “Anyway, they are not even good at playing.”

  “Okay.” Paige looks down and wiggles a rattle in front of one of the twins’ faces, and she looks pretty sad about it actually.

  “But,” I continue, “if you want to cook with me out of that cookbook, I will. You know, so we can both go with Grandmom to the carnival.”

  “I’d like that.” Paige nods. “Do you want to pick the recipe?”

  “Yes.” I nod my head and throw my book bag onto the couch to open it. I unzip the zipper and reach inside. I pull out my homework folder, my reading book, my pencil box, the Rainbow Sparkle windup toy that I am not supposed to bring to school, and seven ponytail holders.

  But no cookbook.

  I look inside the bag and can’t see much in the dark, so I turn the whole thing upside down and shake it.

  Nothing.

  “Oh no,” I say. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”

  “What is it?” Paige asks.

  “The cookbook is missing.”

  “No, it’s not, it’s in the kitchen,” Paige says. “Isn’t it?”

  “No, I brought it to school. But it’s not in my book bag.”

  “Why did you bring it to school?”

  “That is not important,” I say. “The important part is that it was stolen.”

  “How do you know it was stolen?” Paige asks. “Maybe you lost it.”

  “I didn’t lose it,” I say. “I don’t lose things. They get stolen.” And I am absolutely positive I know who the cookbook thief is, and this time, I can’t even blame a ghost.

  CHAPTER 9

  Ghost Hunting

  “I THINK WE SHOULD TELL Grandmom,” Paige says. It is a whole hour after I discovered that the cookbook is missing, and we are sitting at the kiddie table in the toy room, deciding what to do. “If we tell her the book was stolen, then she can’t expect us to cook five things out of it in two days.”

  “We already cooked the egg salad,” I remind her, and I make a face because egg salad is still disgusting.

  “Even so,” Paige begins, “we won’t be able to cook anything else without recipes. We should tell her what happened to the book.”

  “But then she’ll ask why I brought it to school,” I say.

  “Tell her you brought it for show-and-tell,” Paige suggests, and this is not a bad plan.

  I nod my head. “Maybe,” I say. “But I bet Grandmom would like it better if we still tried to cook something without the book.”

  Paige thinks about this for one second. “You’re probably right. But I don’t remember any recipes off the top of my head.”

  “Come on,” I say, and I stand up and scurry into the kitchen to open the pantry door. “I have an idea.” I examine each shelf of the pantry until I find what I am looking for: a box of pretzel sticks, which has probably been wedged into the corner of the pantry since before the twins were born, because no one in this house really likes pretzels. These sticks crunch so loudly when you bite them that they make my teeth hurt and scratch the top of my mouth, but finally, they are going to be put to good use.

  “Do you see any marshmallows?” I ask.

  “Your mom keeps marshmallows in the house?” Paige asks like she is shocked. “Mine doesn’t.”

  “Sometimes,” I say. “But when she does, they’re usually hidden somewhere.” Paige stands on her tippy toes, and it is very useful that she is ten years old and taller than me, because she spots it: a gigantic bag of marshmallows hiding behind the cans of green beans.

  “Yes!” I yell. “Now we just need chocolate chips. Boost me onto the counter.” I pull out one of the bottom drawers, which is filled with dish towels, and step on top of it, then I use my arms to get onto the counter while Paige pushes me up from behind. I kneel in front of Mom’s baking cabinet, and I dig through the containers of flour and sugar until I find the bag of chocolate chips. “Got them!” I close the cabinet door and slide back down to the floor.

  “Are you going to give me a hint about what we’re making?” Paige asks.

  “Marshmallow ghosts,” I say. “Anya saw them in the cookbook—you know, before it was stolen—and I think I remember the recipe.”

  “Ooh, I hate ghosts,” Paige says. “I think there’s a ghost in my house.” And my chin drops toward my chest.

  “You have a ghost too?” I ask, and it comes out as sort of a squeak. I lower my voice then, because I do not want Mom to hear, and I whisper, “I am pretty sure there is a ghost in my house. I think it escaped from the Packles’ Halloween porch.”

  Paige nods her head very seriously, like this story makes absolute sense. “The ghost in my house smells like ranch dressing. Sometimes, when it’s early in the morning and I’m the only one awake, I’ll come downstairs and smell ranch dressing everywhere.”

  “Have you ever seen the ghost?”

  “Nope,” Paige answers. “Have you seen yours?”

  “No,” I say. “I do not want to either.”

  “Our ghosts must not be that scary though, right?” Paige asks. “I mean, don’t you think they would have done something bad by now if they were?”

  “I guess so,” I say. “How do you think we can get rid of them?”

  Paige pauses for a second, and then she lifts a single marshmallow out of the bag.

  “By eating them, of course,” she says with a smile, and she pops an entire marshmallow in her mouth, handing me one to do the same. We stuff our cheeks with marshmallows until we can’t fit anymore inside, and we have to concentrate very hard on chewing so that we don’t spit them out.

  We then begin to use the marshmallows to create the ghosts. We stick the pretzel rods in the bottoms of them as a handle, and we push three chocolate chips into the sides of the marshmallows so that they look like the ghosts’ eyes and mouths. When we each have one finished, we hold them up by their pretzel handles so they can speak to each other, like in a puppet show.

  In my best spooky voice, I ask Paige, “What do you think they’re going to do to us now?” while I wave my marshmallow ghost around like he is floating.

  In an equally spooky voice, Paige answers, “I’m afraid they’re going to bite our heads off,” and then she sticks her entire marshmallow ghost inside her mouth and chomps down. I do the same to mine, and I am pretty sure these marshmallow ghosts are the best recipe I have ever made.

  And for the first time all week, I remember why Paige truly is my favorite cousin.

  * * *

  “Dennis stole my cookbook,” I say to Anya the minute I see her at school the next morning. “He took it out of my book bag.”

  “No way,” Anya says. “He is terrible.”

  “Will you help me get it back?” I ask.

  “Of course,” Anya answers, and this is why she is my favorite person in the world. “I’ll go distract him. You look in his book bag.”

  “What if it’s not in there?” I ask.

  “Then we’ll check his desk.”

  “What if he took it home?”

  “I bet he didn’t,” Anya says. “You stay here.” She points
toward Dennis’s cubby. “When you see me talking to him, make your move into the book bag.”

  I hide behind the curtain in the cubbies and watch Anya walk over to Dennis’s desk. She stands behind his chair so that Dennis has to turn around to talk to her and is facing away from the cubbies. Anya is pretty much a genius, I think.

  As fast as my legs can go, I run over to Dennis’s cubby and unzip his bag. I don’t like touching Dennis’s things because they are covered in all his gross Dennis germs, but this is an emergency. I open the book bag as wide as I can and look inside.

  “Yuck,” I say. Dennis’s bag is filled with dirty tissues and candy wrappers and bottle caps and action figures (which he is not supposed to have in school) and a bunch of other dumb boy things.

  But no cookbook.

  I stuff his bag back in his cubby and march straight over to his desk. I do not even care about Anya’s plan anymore, because I am furious.

  “Give it back,” I say as soon as I reach him, and I say each word like there is a period after it.

  “What are you talking about, Polka Dot?” Dennis responds.

  “Give it back,” I say. “I know you have it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “GIVE. IT. BACK!” I am yelling now. “It’s very important!”

  “I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Dennis answers. “I didn’t take any of your ugly things.”

  I step right over to Dennis so I am standing above his Mohawk, and I push my way toward his desk. I look inside and begin dumping out all of the contents—folders and notebooks and crinkled-up papers and dried-up markers and dusty raisins. They hit the floor one right after the other as Dennis scrambles to catch them.

  “Mandy! MANDY!” I whirl around at the sound of Mrs. Spangle’s voice. “What on earth is the problem now?”