Monkey Business

by Leslie Margolis

  “I’m sorry, dear,” said my mom. “It’s the way you casually talk about renting a condo as if you’ve done it a million times. … Tell you what, though. The concert does sound fun and I’m not saying no. Let me speak with your friends’ parents about it and see what they have to say. I’m sure we can work something out.”

  “Yes!” I pumped my fist.

  “I didn’t say yes,” my mom reminded me.

  “I know,” I said. “But I have a feeling it’s all going to work out.”

  “We’ll see,” said my mom. But she was smiling and her tone of voice told me everything was going to be great.

  Later that night, after two more episodes of Victorious, my friends and I headed upstairs to my room and laid out our sleeping bags.

  “That sundae was the best,” said Claire.

  “Mine was amazing too, except I’m so full, I think my stomach is going to burst,” said Yumi.

  Emma giggled. “That’s the sign it was a good meal. Bursting organs.”

  “Blech!” I said.

  “I’d never guess that this is your first group sleepover, Annabelle. You’re very good at it,” said Yumi.

  “Thanks,” I said. “It could be beginner’s luck, though.”

  “First big sleepover,” said Rachel. “First time living in a mansion …”

  “This isn’t a mansion,” I said.

  “Sure it is,” said Rachel.

  I looked around and shrugged. “It’s just a big house. Why are you picking on me? Emma lives in this neighborhood too. And her house is the same exact size. Same goes for Oliver and lots of other kids from school.”

  “I’m not picking on you. I’m simply stating a fact,” said Rachel.

  “In a not-exactly-nice tone of voice,” I said.

  “You’re too sensitive. This is my normal voice,” said Rachel. “You should be used to it by now!”

  “It’s not just your voice—it’s everything you’ve said tonight. You’re acting way harsh.”

  “You guys, stop fighting,” said Yumi.

  “Then tell Annabelle to stop bragging about her new house as if it’s some huge crazy deal,” said Rachel.

  “I’m not bragging,” I said. “I never even brought up the house—you did. What is going on with you?”

  Rachel stared at me and shrugged.

  “Seriously, tell me what you’re so mad about,” I said.

  Everyone watched us. If there were an award for creating the most awkward sleepover moment ever, then Rachel and I would be getting a big fat trophy.

  The longer she refused to answer me, the more annoyed I grew. And the more silent the room, the more unbearable it all became. Rachel was totally ruining my sleepover and she wouldn’t even tell me why.

  “Well?” I asked her again. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” she replied coolly as she smoothed out the wrinkles in her green-on-the-outside and orange-on-the-inside sleeping bag. “I’m not mad at all.”

  Rachel was a lot of things—smart, funny, frizzy-haired, and good at riding a unicycle—but she was a bad liar. Rachel was clearly angry with me. But why, when I hadn’t done anything wrong? I hadn’t even done anything different except for moving, and that wasn’t even my idea.

  Chapter Four

  Needed: Cold Hard Cash

  Everyone told their parents about the concert when they got home from my sleepover Sunday morning. We all figured it would be a no-brainer. The concert was months away. It was happening over the summer, and we were all going to be around. We just needed our parents to buy us tickets and get a couple of people to drive us there. Unless one of Claire’s moms was willing to do it—in which case it would be even easier because her family has a minivan.

  But no! Something terrible and way more annoying happened. All our parents got together on a conference call and came up with their own crazy idea: we could only go to the concert if we paid for the tickets ourselves. Except it was actually more complicated than that.

  My mom and Ted broke the news to me on Monday morning.

  “We looked into the concert and the tickets cost a hundred dollars each, which is a lot of money,” my mom explained over homemade blueberry pancakes, as if a yummy breakfast would make me digest this terrible news more easily. “And we figure you girls should also contribute toward the other expenses.”

  “What expenses?” I asked. “All we need are the tickets.”

  My mom smiled at me as if I wasn’t capable of understanding the most basic thing. “You’ve got to think about the travel costs,” she said. “You girls are asking to stay in a hotel or rent a condo, neither of which is free. Plus, there’s gas and food to worry about.”

  “We can bring our own food—peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches all around! Plus, I’ll fill up my camp canteen with water so you don’t even have to spring for a soda. It’ll be great and healthy.”

  Ted nodded as if considering this. “That’s an interesting idea, but things still add up, sweetie.”

  “What if we subsist on peanut butter alone?” I asked. “Forget the jelly!”

  My mom and Ted laughed, even though I was being serious. “I’m talking not even bread. We’ll bring our own spoons and eat straight from the jar.”

  “We don’t expect you to pay for everything,” said my mom. “But we decided fifty dollars was fair.”

  “Fifty dollars each?” I asked. “Okay, I guess that’s fair.”

  “No, fifty dollars per kid for the food and travel,” my mom said. “The ticket doesn’t count. You’re looking at one hundred and fifty dollars total per kid, and there are five of you so that’s—”

  “That’s seven hundred and fifty dollars!” I shouted, horrified by the prospect.

  “Very nice math skills,” Ted said, offering me a high five.

  I left him high and dry because I wasn’t in the mood. “That’s not the point!” I said. “Seven hundred and fifty dollars is a fortune!”

  “We’ll cover the rest,” my mom said. “Tickets for two chaperones and whatever you girls spend beyond that. You’re really getting off easy, if you think about it, because the weekend will probably cost about twice as much as that.”

  “At least,” Ted added.

  I looked back and forth suspiciously between my mom and Ted. “Whose idea was this anyway? Not yours, I hope.”

  My mom smiled. “All of us parents got together and came up with this solution. We also agreed not to name names. It doesn’t matter who had the idea because we all think it’s a wonderful plan.”

  “You do realize that we’re in the sixth grade, right? And that none of us has actually had a paying job before. Probably because, technically, it’s illegal for children to work in this country.”

  I took a bite of my pancakes. They were delicious, but I wasn’t going to say so out loud. Not with the kind of news they’d just dropped on me.

  My mom sighed and said, “The concert sounds like a lot of fun. But it’s also expensive fun. You girls are old enough to appreciate that, and we think you’re old enough to figure out how to make it work.”

  “Plus, you’ll appreciate the music more if you work hard to earn the money for the tickets,” said Ted.

  I gulped down my last bite of breakfast. “All our favorite bands are playing—we will appreciate it no matter what!”

  “I know this seems like a crazy thing, but trust us,” said Ted. “We know what we’re doing.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Ted, because if this whole crazy plan was his idea, well, that seemed way unfair. My mom has been my mom ever since I was born. Meanwhile, Ted has only been my stepfather since December. His opinion shouldn’t matter that much!

  I didn’t say any of this out loud because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but my mom must’ve read my mind. “As I mentioned before,” she said, “all of your friends’ parents and I agreed we weren’t going to name names.”

  “So this is basically one gigantic conspiracy,” I argued. “Which is sad
, because the concert money is going toward such a good cause. Don’t you care about the pandas?”

  “Of course we do,” said my mom.

  “Don’t stress about this, Annabelle. You’re smart and so are your friends,” said Ted. “You’ll figure out a way to come up with the money.”

  There was no getting through to them, so I cleared my plate and grabbed my backpack.

  “Oh, before I forget,” my mom said, “want to come shopping with me after school on Friday?”

  “Totally!” I said. “There’s this new jean jacket I’ve been wanting.”

  My mom laughed. “Okay, we’ll see if we have time for that, but I have a bunch of shopping to do for the baby and I thought you’d want to come.”

  I shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  “Great.” My mom smiled. “It’ll be fun. I’m taking the afternoon off, so I’ll pick you up after school.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “See ya later.”

  It wasn’t until lunchtime that my friends and I were finally all together so we could discuss this debacle.

  “I cannot believe they’re doing this to us!” Claire cried, burying her face in her hands. “We’re only twelve years old. How are we supposed to come up with seven hundred and fifty dollars?”

  “They may as well ask us to earn a billion dollars,” I said. “And I’m only eleven.”

  “See,” Claire announced, even though everyone at our table was privy to the same conversation. “It’s worse than I thought. Annabelle is only eleven.”

  “Wait, are the rest of you twelve already?” I asked. I looked to all my friends, who nodded. Yes, they were all twelve. “I can’t believe I’m the shortest one and the youngest one in the group!”

  “Believe it,” said Yumi. “But you’re almost twelve, right?”

  I nodded. “My birthday is in three more weeks.”

  “What are you doing for your birthday?” Rachel asked. “Are you going to rent a limo? I heard Nikki rented a limo for all her friends and they went to the mall to get makeovers and then they went to Malibu to have seafood at this super-fancy place on the beach. She made all her friends wear dresses or skirts. No pants allowed!”

  “That’s totally weird,” said Claire, shuddering. “A dress code for a birthday party is insane, and yet, so totally Nikki.”

  “Why would I do any of that?” I asked, feeling that same sense of uneasiness from the sleepover in the pit of my stomach.

  Rachel shrugged and turned back to her peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich, taking a large bite and chewing. Like having a mouth full of food was an excuse not to explain herself. Except it wasn’t. But did I even need her explanation when I kind of knew what she was getting at?

  “Are you asking me if I’m going to have the same party as Nikki because we both live in Canyon Ranch?” I asked pointedly.

  Rachel gave an exaggerated shrug. “You said it. Not me.”

  Emma cleared her throat and said, “I have lived in Canyon Ranch since I was born and I’ve never even been in a limo.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Now, let’s get back to the concert money,” Emma said as she pulled out a notebook and pen and made some calculations. “I’m just saying it’s not as impossible as it sounds. Think about it. There are five of us. Today is April fifteenth, and the concert isn’t until July fourth. That’s almost three months away. We’ve got plenty of time to figure out how to raise the money.”

  “It’s a lot of money. At least for me,” Rachel said, staring at me.

  “It’s a lot for all of us,” I said.

  Claire nodded and pulled out her phone to use the calculator. “But Emma is right. When you break it down, you can see we have to come up with two hundred and fifty dollars a month. That’s about fifty-six dollars a week, or eight dollars a day. Divide that by five, and each of us has to raise less than two dollars a day.”

  “Totally manageable!” said Emma.

  “But that’s if you include today. If we start tomorrow, we’re already behind,” said Rachel.

  “Not necessarily,” said Emma. “Let’s start by pooling what we have so far.”

  “Good idea. Who has money?” asked Claire, looking around the table. “I have twenty dollars left over from what my grandma gave me for Easter.”

  “You get money for Easter?” asked Rachel.

  “Only this year because my grandma felt guilty for celebrating with her boyfriend’s family instead of us.”

  “I counted my savings after my dad broke the news to me last night,” said Yumi. “I have eighteen dollars and seventy-five cents, mostly from babysitting for my little sister.”

  I scratched my head and thought for a moment. “I haven’t counted my money in a while, and I’m not even sure where my piggy bank is, but I think I have something like six dollars, plus a jar of pennies.”

  My friends nodded, none of them very impressed.

  “The jar is pretty big,” I felt the need to add. “There’s probably at least three dollars in there. I’ll count it when I get home from school.”

  “Perfect,” said Emma. “If we assume your estimation is correct, that’s nine dollars. And adding that to Yumi’s and Claire’s money, it means we have forty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents.”

  “I have thirty dollars, plus I got a quarter as change when I bought my lunch. So that makes seventy-eight dollars.” Emma turned to Rachel. “See! We’re actually way ahead of the game.”

  “Yeah,” said Claire. “What do you have?”

  Rachel shook her head. “I’m totally broke. I only get seven dollars a week for my allowance, and I already spent this week’s money on frozen yogurt.”

  My ears perked up. Rachel got seven dollars a week for an allowance? That was a big allowance as far as I was concerned and I decided to tell her so.

  ‘That’s a lot of money,” I said.

  “It’s only a dollar a day,” said Rachel. “You can’t buy anything for a dollar.”

  “I don’t even get an allowance,” I said.

  “You don’t?” asked Emma.

  “Nope.” I shook my head. “My mom says I have to help out around the house because it’s my house too. I shouldn’t be rewarded for making my bed or doing my dishes, for instance. It’s my bed and my dishes and part of the garbage is mine too. When my mom asks me to do something, I’m supposed to do it.”

  “So what happens when you need to buy something?” asked Claire.

  “Well, I just ask,” I said with a shrug. “If I want to go to a movie or I want a new outfit or something, I’ll tell my mom, and if she has the money, she’ll give it to me. And if not, she’ll tell me. Or she’ll say that whatever jeans I want are too expensive and I can get a less-fancy pair or we can wait until the ones I want are on sale.”

  “Well, whenever I want to go to a movie, I have to use my own money,” said Rachel.

  “But you always get money, every single week no matter what,” I pointed out. “Which means you could see two movies every month if you wanted to—and buy popcorn.”

  “As long as I do my chores,” said Rachel. “It’s not like I can just ask.”

  “I told you it’s not that easy,” I said. “I don’t always get what I want.”

  Rachel frowned as if she didn’t believe me.

  “Let’s get back to the concert,” said Emma. “Right now we’ve got seventy-eight dollars.”

  “Which means we don’t even have enough money for one ticket,” said Rachel.

  “True,” said Emma. “But we do have plenty of cash to start a business with.” She turned to Yumi and asked, “You said you’ve been earning money babysitting?”

  “Yup,” said Yumi. “I’m in charge of my baby sister every single night for twenty minutes while my mom makes dinner.”

  “How much do you make?” I asked.

  “Five dollars an hour,” said Yumi. “So that works out to be eleven dollars and change every week.”

  “You are so lucky,” sa
id Claire. “Maybe we can all babysit for Suki.”

  Emma scratched some numbers into her notebook. “We’d have to babysit for one hundred and fifty hours to make enough money.”

  “We do have three whole months,” Yumi pointed out.

  “Yeah, but do you think your parents need that much help?” I asked.

  Yumi thought about this for a minute. “Well, Suki has another babysitter. I’m more of a mother’s helper, which means I watch her when my parents are in the house but busy with something. They say I can’t babysit for real until I’m fourteen.”

  “Too bad,” said Emma.

  “Yeah,” said Yumi. “Anyway, I don’t think she’d pay all five of us to watch Suki at the same time.”

  “Okay, so much for babysitting,” said Emma, crossing it off her list.

  “Wait, I know a five-year-old named Sienna,” said Rachel. “She moved into Annabelle’s old house and her mom also has a baby. Maybe I could be a mother’s helper.”

  “Good idea,” said Emma. “Definitely look into that and report back. And in the meantime let’s think of some sort of business we could run.”

  “Why don’t we set up a lemonade stand?” Claire suggested. “It’s perfect now that the weather is warming up. Who doesn’t love lemonade?”

  I looked around at my friends. The smiles on our faces told me that we all loved lemonade.

  “I sold lemonade on my corner last Fourth of July and I totally cleaned up!” Rachel said.

  “I know, I was there,” said Claire. “And how fun was it?”

  “It was the best,” said Rachel as they high-fived each other.

  “How soon can we get started?” I asked.

  “Well, we need lemonade and a stand,” said Emma. “And we probably have to do some sort of advertising so people actually know we have a stand.”

  “And we have to figure out where to set it up,” said Yumi.

  “Wherever there are thirsty people,” Rachel said.

  “And wherever it’s super-hot,” I said. “Good news—I’ve been checking the weather constantly ever since we moved. Saturday is definitely swim weather. Which means it’ll be lemonade weather too. How about we meet after school at my house. We can figure everything out.”