Monkey Business

by Leslie Margolis

  “Oh, he’s adorable,” said my mom.

  “Thanks,” I replied, proudly.

  “I agree—very cute,” said Ted. “And I think your plan is brilliant. I’m so proud of you girls, and I wish you all the success in the world.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I can’t really take any credit. It was all Claire’s idea.”

  “But you made this, right?” asked Ted, inspecting TJ.

  “Yup,” I said. “And that’s my old sock, too.”

  “I hope you washed it first,” said Ted, holding it away and making a face.

  “It’s definitely clean,” I assured him, giggling as I took the sock puppet back.

  “I’d like to be your first customer,” said my mom. “I’m sure your new baby brother or sister would love this.”

  I bit my bottom lip and thought for a moment. “We’re supposed to wait until tomorrow at lunch,” I said. “But I suppose I can make an exception. You know—since you’re family, and all.”

  My mom grinned. “I appreciate that. How much is it?”

  I started to say six dollars but stopped myself because I had an idea. This could be a great opportunity. “Well, that one is special,” I said. “It’ll be one thousand dollars.”

  My mom laughed, figuring I was kidding. And I was, but I kept a straight face.

  “One thousand dollars for one sock puppet?” she asked. “Isn’t that a bit, um, much?”

  “Well, yes,” I said. “But think. All we need to do is sell one and we’re totally set!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sock Puppets to the Rescue

  I left my house early and walked to school faster than usual. I was so excited, it was hard to keep from running. This was a really big morning. Once on campus I noticed other kids moving sleepily, dragging their feet and yawning, but not me and my friends. We were all on high alert, standing at our locker banks at the ready. Emma especially looked poised for some serious business dealings.

  “Is that a suit jacket?” Yumi asked her.

  Emma brushed some imaginary dust off the shoulder of her navy-blue blazer. “This is part of my debate team uniform,” she said. “I’m wearing it for good luck. And because you know, you’ve gotta dress for success.”

  “It’s a little preppy for my taste,” said Claire. “But I respect your philosophy.”

  “Thanks,” said Emma. “Now let’s get to work. I’ve figured out the perfect plan, and here’s what we’re going to do. First we need to go to the busiest place at school. Then, Annabelle, you show Claire the sock puppet monkey and Claire, you pretend like you’re seeing it for the very first time. Act impressed and make sure you’re super-loud and enthusiastic about it. You know—to attract a lot of attention.”

  “I’ll act like I’m seeing the greatest thing ever invented,” said Claire.

  “Perfect!” said Emma.

  “What, that’s your big plan?” asked Rachel, always the skeptical one.

  “Yeah, we’re gonna create buzz—it’s called viral marketing, and it’s going to work,” Emma explained. Then she turned to me and said, “You, too, Annabelle. Be sure to keep up the energy!”

  “Got it,” I said, giving her a double thumbs-up.

  We all headed over to the main quad. Our timing was perfect. This was total Birchwood Middle School rush hour.

  I positioned myself between three large crowds of kids, and pulled TJ out of my backpack. He looked even cuter than he did last night! “So, check this out,” I said to Claire, shouting over the noise and holding TJ up high over my head. “Isn’t this the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life?”

  “Omigosh!” Claire exclaimed, even louder. “That is awesome. I love sock puppets! Where’d you get it?”

  “Some girl named Emma sold it to me!” I yelled. “And, apparently, there are a bunch more that are just as cute—maybe cuter. They’ll all be available at lunchtime.”

  From the corner of my eye, I noticed a few kids watching us.

  “It’s seriously the cutest thing I have ever seen!” Claire bellowed. “I must have one, immediately!”

  Just then Yumi walked by. Claire yelled to her, “Hey, check this out!”

  “What is it?” asked Yumi.

  “A sock puppet!” I exclaimed, going through the entire explanation all over again—even louder this time.

  “That is awesome! I totally need one!” Yumi yelled.

  This crazy plan seemed to be working. We were definitely making a big scene, and plenty of kids turned their heads. They were intrigued—I could tell. So I went on. “They’re all handmade, too. From organic cotton.”

  Claire looked at me quizzically with one raised eyebrow, and we both had to struggle to keep from laughing. Okay, I kind of made up the part about the socks being organic, probably because I was around so much organic cotton these days—what with my mom and Ted getting ready for the new baby.

  Luckily, though, Claire recovered from her surprise quickly. “I love organic sock puppets!” she exclaimed.

  I was super-impressed with her performance. Every time I thought she’d reached her peak of enthusiasm, she outdid herself.

  “Me too!” Yumi shouted. Both of them were now jumping up and down and holding hands, like they’d just found out Katy Perry was their substitute teacher for the day.

  A crowd formed around us and people seemed to be whispering to one another, wondering what was up. I struggled to keep from cracking up at the absurdity of it all. Emma’s crazy plan was working! I felt like we were all characters in a really funny play.

  I wanted to start selling the puppets immediately, but the first bell rang before I could ask Emma to break out our supply, so I stuffed my puppet into my backpack and ran to homeroom.

  The morning seemed to last forever, and yet I couldn’t recall a thing I learned in class. Other than the fact that I didn’t want to be there! I was too excited about lunch. Nervous, too. What if we couldn’t sell enough sock puppets? What if we couldn’t sell any? What if people laughed at our efforts? Sure, my friends and I thought our sock puppets were spectacular works of art, but what if we were all fooling ourselves because we wanted so badly to go to the Panda Parade?

  The suspense was driving me bonkers. I seriously felt ready to burst with anticipation, like if lunchtime didn’t happen soon, I would spontaneously combust.

  And then, when lunch finally arrived, things got super-crazy. Here was how it all went down: we sat down at our regular table and lined up all the sock puppets. They looked even better than they had last night! The entire display was awesome and people noticed.

  Oliver was the first kid to walk over, although that was no great shocker. My boyfriend was a plant. Not a fern or a rhododendron or a stick of bamboo. I mean, I’d texted him a script right after first period, with instructions to memorize his lines and deliver them at lunch. And, luckily, he was totally game, not to mention a really, really good actor.

  “Hey, what are these?” Oliver asked, sounding completely innocent.

  “These are sock puppet monkeys,” said Claire, holding up one of the puppets as if it were a fancy diamond necklace and she was a fancy spokesperson on QVC, offering him an exclusive and limited one-time offer. “Handmade, one-of-a-kind objects of art.” She cradled the puppet in one hand and used the other to sweep over it in flourishes, like a magician.

  “What are you doing with them?” he asked, looking back and forth between us.

  Claire was still wiggling her fingers around the puppets, and now Rachel had joined in too, waving both hands like a hula dancer at a luau.

  Yumi giggled, but I did my best to ignore her.

  “Selling them,” I said, all business, handing him a turtle I’d made out of an old green sock. It had blue eyes and a brown plaid shell. I was particularly excited about the plaid—each little diamond shape had been carefully stitched with a color of embroidery thread called burnt sunset, which was a fancy term for orange.

  “This is so cute,
” said Oliver.

  His sparkly eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled in the most adorable way, but I couldn’t let that distract me. I had a job to do!

  “Want to buy it?” I asked. “His name is Mr. Wright and he costs six dollars.”

  “And the money goes to a good cause,” said Emma. “It’ll help save the endangered pandas.”

  “And it’ll help promote our contemporary music education,” Yumi added.

  I had to stifle a laugh. That sounded so much better than saying we needed to raise money so we could go to a concert. And I guess it was technically still true.

  “Well, how can I say no?” asked Oliver, gallantly pulling his wallet from his back pocket.

  “You can’t,” I said, grinning as I took the crumpled bills from him. “Thank you for the exact change.”

  “No problem!” said Oliver. “I learned my lesson at the lemonade stand. No IOUs allowed.”

  “That’s right,” said Emma, taking the money from me and putting it in our cash box, since she was the official treasurer.

  Oliver took Charlie and walked him back over to his side of the cafeteria.

  And moments later we had an actual audience of real kids who were genuinely interested in our sock puppets. Hannah moved in closer and so did Lennon and Eddie, who are in my gym class. Maddy and CJ from French class seemed intrigued too. Taylor and Nikki watched suspiciously from their regular table, eyes narrowed and arms crossed over their chests. But that was kind of how they watched everything. I didn’t really care if they thought our sock puppets were dumb. The point was—they’d noticed them. And that was good enough.

  Since no one else was actually approaching us, I waved Hannah over, calling, “Hey, come check out what we made.”

  “Are these the sock puppets that everyone’s been talking about?” she asked, walking closer.

  “Everyone’s been talking about them?” Claire asked, amazed.

  Emma elbowed her. “Of course they have and these are them.”

  Hannah picked up one of Yumi’s Dodgers dogs. “You really put this all together yourself?” she asked.

  “We did,” said Yumi. “Want to buy it?”

  “My little cousin is coming to town this weekend, and he’s the biggest Dodgers fan in the world. He’d love this!’

  “Awesome!” I said.

  Hannah pulled some crumpled bills out of the front pocket of her shorts and also counted out a dollar in quarters and handed it all over. As she walked away with her sock puppet, I noticed all the boys who sit at the other end of our lunch table watch. They’d been ignoring us up until a minute ago, but now Corn Dog Joe set down his corn dog and slid across the bench seat so he was closer.

  “What are those things?” he asked, his brown eyes darting back and forth between me and our display.

  Claire went through the entire explanation again—loudly—really focusing on the handmade elements and how carefully each doll had been constructed. And before we knew it, a small crowd had gathered around.

  Joe bought a blue elephant puppet, and as soon as he left, three more kids came over.

  Everyone wanted to know about our sock puppets. And better yet—lots of kids were pulling out their wallets, digging for change in their backpacks, and pooling their money so they could go in on a sock puppet together.

  It was wild.

  By the time the lunch bell rang, we’d sold out.

  We didn’t have time to count all the cash, but I knew we had each made three monkeys and there were five of us, which means we’d sold fifteen. At six dollars each, that meant we’d made ninety dollars. In other words, in forty-five minutes we’d sold enough monkeys for almost one ticket to the Panda Parade.

  “This is crazy,” I said to Emma as she placed the money in our cash box and locked it. “If we have another six lunches like this, we’ll be set!”

  “I know,” she whispered, her eyes bright with excitement.

  “Emergency crafting session at my place tonight!” Claire yelled, throwing her arms over her head in a victory stance.

  “You’ve been waiting all your life to use the phrase, ‘emergency crafting session,’ haven’t you?” asked Yumi.

  “You know me too well,” Claire replied, putting her arm around Yumi and giving her a squeeze. “See y’all later!”

  We parted ways, and I headed to science. But on my way there I noticed something distressing. Oliver and Tobias were throwing Charlie the turtle back and forth across the breezeway like a football.

  “Hey, what are you doing to Charlie?” I called.

  “These are really aerodynamic,” said Oliver. “Look at how far he goes.”

  Oliver tossed him again before I could protest. And then I noticed something else fly by in my peripheral vision.

  Apparently, another kid with a zebra decided to throw her sock puppet too. Except no one was there to catch the poor thing—Zinnea, I think her name was. She landed even farther in the grass, facedown, her hot-pink mane ruffled. Seeing Zinnea splayed out on the lawn got me a little upset, even though she’s just a sock puppet.

  I bent down and picked her up, brushing the grass off her nuzzle.

  “Hey, that’s mine!” yelled a skinny girl with braids and glasses.

  “Sorry, but she wasn’t really designed to be used like a football,” I said, handing it back to the girl.

  “I actually tossed her like a softball,” said the girl before hurrying away, her sock puppet tucked in close to her chest.

  “Come on, Annabelle,” Oliver said with a laugh. “Be a good sport.”

  “We worked hard on those,” I protested.

  “And I totally appreciate it,” said Oliver. “This is better than my Nerf football.”

  “Yo, toss it over here,” Tobias called. “I’m wide open.”

  “Of course you are,” I said. “You’re the only two playing this ridiculous game!”

  Oliver ignored me, faked right, and then threw his turtle to the left. Tobias caught it and brought it in close to his body and charged through the hall with one arm out.

  I shook my head and tried to laugh it off as I walked to class.

  On my way there I noticed the pink elephant I’d made sticking out of someone’s backpack. It was a person I didn’t even know. I think she was an eighth-grader or she was at least tall enough to be one. I couldn’t believe even eighth-graders wanted these things. The plan was working out better than I’d imagined.

  After school we went to Claire’s where we confirmed that we’d made ninety dollars.

  “This is so super-fantastic!” I said.

  “I know,” said Emma. “But it also means we need to start working even harder. I’ve gotten text messages from five different people asking us when we’re going to have more sock puppets. These things are trending big time, which is why we’ve got to strike now—keep up the supply while the demand is still great. Things can change in a flash.” She snapped her fingers.

  “Wait, did you just demonstrate how fast a flash actually is?” asked Claire with a laugh. She snapped herself. “Is that the scientific definition? Snap!”

  “Don’t make fun,” said Emma, sticking her tongue out at Claire. “This is serious stuff. Right now we’re on a rocket ship and we’ve got to keep up.”

  “If we’re on the rocket ship, won’t it carry us along with it?” asked Claire.

  “You know what I mean,” Emma said. “We need to double our inventory. Selling out is great, but we only had fifteen puppets. I’d like to show up to lunch tomorrow with twice that many.”

  “So let’s get started!” I said.

  Pretty soon we were up to our elbows in yarn and sequins and googly eyes and socks.

  We listened to the new Katy Perry album from Claire’s computer, heads bent over our sewing. And for the first time in a while I felt hopeful about the Panda Parade—as opposed to scared that we wouldn’t be able to raise the cash in time.

  “I love how we’re all working like there’s no tomorr
ow,” said Claire.

  “That expression actually makes no sense whatsoever,” said Emma. “We’re working like there is a tomorrow—a tomorrow where our sock puppets are going to be in huge demand.”

  “Lucky for us,” I said.

  “I can’t believe we had to suffer through two failed businesses for this,” said Rachel.

  “You know what they say,” said Emma as she glued an eye onto her aardvark puppet. “Third time’s a charm.”

  We worked in silence for a while, and I was happy to see that the next few puppets came easily to me. I made a baby lion with an orange-and-yellow mane, an elephant wearing a red jumper, and a dalmatian puppy.

  An hour later Claire’s mom Mollie came into the dining room and said, “You girls are working so hard! If it’s okay with your parents, may I take you all out to dinner?”

  “We really shouldn’t stop,” said Emma. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “But we can’t sew on an empty stomach,” said Rachel. “I’m going to text my mom and ask for permission.”

  “Good idea. Me too,” I said as I pulled out my phone.

  “You got an iPhone!” said Rachel. Except from the harsh tone of her voice, she sounded more like she was accusing me of something horrible.

  I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. This was the exact conversation I was hoping to avoid—I didn’t even realize that I’d been hiding my new phone from her since I got it. But I kind of had been—subconsciously, I suppose.

  “It’s not new. It’s actually pretty old. Ted gave me his old one when he upgraded to the latest model.”

  Rachel looked down at her phone and sort of pouted as she said, “Of course he did.”

  I didn’t say anything as I texted my mom, but I was plenty annoyed. I knew what Rachel was thinking and it wasn’t fair. Why’d she have to make me feel bad for every new thing I got? And why’d she have to ruin our perfectly good afternoon?

  I didn’t ask her any of this out loud because I didn’t want to fight. Instead I tried to pretend she’d never even said a word about my phone. That’s how everyone else was acting.