Monkey Business

by Leslie Margolis

  “I hope you don’t have to move,” I said. “But even if you do—you’ll still go to the same school and we’ll still be best friends.”

  Rachel looked up at me and asked, “You still want to be best friends with me after I’ve been so mean?”

  “You apologized,” I said. “And you’re going to stop. Right?”

  Rachel gave me a hug. “Of course!”

  “Should I call everyone and tell them we’re cool?” I asked.

  Rachel grinned. “Definitely!”

  We spent the rest of the day at Claire’s and finished our final round of sock puppets, tricking them out like never before.

  When we got to school on Monday, we announced this was our final sale and word spread fast. We were mobbed, and sold out in record time.

  Back at Claire’s we counted our cash.

  “You guys, we made more than a thousand dollars!” said Emma.

  “We can get tickets and T-shirts,” said Yumi. “And probably even—”

  “Can we take a helicopter there?” asked Claire, interrupting.

  Everyone cracked up.

  “I’m serious!” said Claire.

  “Not quite,” said Emma.

  “Well, maybe we should make puppets for another few weeks,” said Claire. “And really go for it.”

  I shook my head and said, “Let’s quit while we’re ahead.”

  “No, let’s just get our tickets,” said Emma. “Immediately!”

  To which there was nothing to do but cheer.

  Chapter Eighteen

  At Long Last, the Panda Parade

  School was out. Summer was here. And before we knew it, fourth of July weekend had arrived.

  “I have amazing news,” Rachel said, grinning like crazy as she climbed into the van. She was the last person we picked up on our trip around Westlake. Claire, Yumi, Emma, and I were already in the car. “We don’t have to move!”

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  Rachel nodded.

  “Move where?” asked Claire.

  “Yeah, what are you talking about?” asked Yumi.

  “It’s a long story,” said Rachel, explaining everything in a rush. “We were almost going to have to move but now we don’t have to because my dad got a new job and then my grandparents decided to sell their house and lend us some money. They were moving in a few years anyway, when my grandfather retires. They said they’d sell now and move into a smaller place. And now that my dad has a job, he can pay them back over the next few years, so everything is okay.”

  “That’s amazing!” I said, giving her a hug. “I am so happy you don’t have to move!”

  “Yeah, me too! We should celebrate,” said Rachel. “I have an idea—let’s go to Indio for the weekend. I hear there’s this awesome benefit concert thing happening.”

  All of us cracked up. Now that we were together, we could finally be on our way.

  Claire’s mom Vanessa was driving, and Yumi’s mom, Yoko, was the other chaperone. They sat in the front seat, leaving the rest of the car to us.

  Minivans are basically living rooms on wheels, as far as I’m concerned. So even though we hit a ton of traffic and the drive down took more than three hours, it wasn’t so bad. We were having our own party. I sat in the way, way back on the bench seat in the middle.

  Rachel was on my right. Claire was on my left. Yumi and Emma were in the bucket seats in the middle, but the seats were swivel chairs so we were all facing one another. We had snacks, we had awesome music, and yes, we had to keep our seat belts on, but we were still able to do some pretty awesome minivan-seated choreography.

  “Oh, I love this song!” Claire said, clapping as the new Lorde song came on.

  “Me too!” I agreed.

  “When do you think she’s going to perform?” asked Claire.

  “Hopefully first,” said Yumi.

  “I think they save the best acts for last,” said Rachel.

  “Isn’t Katy Perry the best?” asked Emma.

  “No, Taylor Swift for sure,” said Claire.

  “I think they’re equally amazing,” I said.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter who’s first since we’re going to get to see everyone,” said Yumi.

  When Yoko called, “We’re here!” we all screamed.

  As soon as Vanessa parked, we scrambled out of the van and joined the tremendous line. It seemed to snake on forever.

  “I need to pee,” said Claire.

  “You can’t pee now,” said Emma. “There’s nowhere to go until we get inside.”

  “This line is crazy,” said Yumi.

  “It’s moving fast, at least,” said Rachel.

  “I hope we don’t miss anything,” I said.

  “Don’t worry, girls,” said Vanessa. “These things never start on time.”

  “And you’ll still hear the music from out here even if we haven’t gotten inside the gates,” Yoko said. She probably meant to reassure us, but the thought of not getting inside in time sounded too awful to bear!

  I had my ticket in my hand, but I got sweaty and the ticket got damp and I was afraid that maybe a damp ticket wouldn’t be valid anymore.

  “What’s wrong?” Rachel asked, because I guess she noticed me fidgeting.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I just can’t believe we’re really here. It’s unreal, you know? We’ve been looking forward to this day for so long. I keep waiting for something to go wrong.”

  “Like the tickets won’t work,” said Claire.

  “Exactly, because mine’s all wet.” I showed her the damp piece of paper.

  “Except they will. Don’t worry,” said Yumi, squeezing my hand. “Wow, you are sweaty.”

  “Told you so!”

  When the moment finally came, I handed over my ticket, half expecting the ticket taker to congratulate me, because getting here hadn’t been easy.

  We’d sold almost two hundred sock puppets. We’d suffered through fights and squabbles and bee stings and severely chapped lips and I’d even accidentally stapled the sleeve of my favorite shirt to a sock puppet.

  I figured there’d be some sort of acknowledgment about the hardships we’d endured and everything we’d accomplished. Except she simply scanned my ticket with her little scanner and handed it back to me and said, “Enjoy.”

  “I will,” I said.

  My friends and I walked through the gates and looked around. The place was mobbed!

  “I’ve never seen so many people in one place!” Rachel shouted over the noise.

  I had to agree. The place was huge and there were people everywhere. I kept getting jostled by random people and really had to focus on not losing my friends. There was a gigantic stage straight ahead, except we were so far away, the people looked like tiny toy figurines.

  There were four other stages—smaller ones—two on each side. And lots of booths in the middle selling T-shirts and french fries and popcorn and burritos.

  I checked my watch. It wasn’t yet noon. We still had time.

  “Let’s wander,” said Claire, linking her arm through mine.

  “Hold on a second!” said Yumi’s mom. “We need a plan. You girls need to stick together. No one can go off by themselves. If you need to go to the bathroom—take a friend. If you need to get a snack—take a friend. We are going to meet at this flagpole every hour. Everyone understand?”

  “You mean you’re not coming with us?” Claire asked, her eyes bright.

  Vanessa put her arm around Claire’s shoulders. “We discussed this with everyone’s parents and decided you girls are old enough to be on your own. As long as you check in with us every hour.”

  Yoko pointed to the flagpole in the center of the field. “You’ll be able to see the check-in spot from wherever you are.”

  I couldn’t believe we were going to get to wander around by ourselves. It was thrilling and scary and amazing we were old enough to do this.

  We got popcorn, and elbowed our way as close to the front of the sta
ge as we could get. There were teenagers and old people and every age in between.

  “We still have ten minutes. Maybe we should walk around some more!” Yumi shouted over the noise.

  “But then we’d give up this spot,” said Emma.

  Suddenly a loud clap of thunder boomed across the sky.

  “Wow, that was so loud, I felt it in my bones,” I said, covering my hands with my ears.

  The crowd let out a huge moan of disappointment.

  “It cannot rain,” said Emma. “We worked too hard to get here. It cannot rain!”

  Except as Emma said this, the skies seemed to open up and the rain came pouring down in giant sheets.

  We ran for shelter, except there was so little. Just one area near the food where they’d constructed a gigantic wooden overhang, and everyone seemed to have the same idea that we had.

  “The concert cannot be canceled,” yelled Claire.

  My face was soaking wet, so you couldn’t have seen the tears. Three businesses, three months, a three-hour car ride, and here we were. Claire was right—the concert could not be canceled. The universe couldn’t do that to us!

  I glanced at my watch. At twelve o’clock, precisely, the rain let up, as if by magic, or through the sheer force of our collective wills.

  The clouds drifted away and the sun came out.

  The ground was soaked and there were giant puddles everywhere, but none of us cared. We grabbed hands and ran back to the stage and ended up in an even better spot than before.

  Soon a woman in a navy-blue suit came out to talk about the pandas.

  “Thanks to your help, more than one million dollars have been raised to help the pandas!” she yelled.

  “Yay!” We all clapped.

  And then the lights dimmed and the spotlight shined in the center of the stage and out she came. The crowd roared so loudly, my ears hurt. We were in the center of everything!

  We were shaking with excitement and shivering from cold and soaked through to our underwear, and I didn’t know where the shivering stopped and the shaking began, but it didn’t matter. This was our moment.

  As the first band stepped onto the stage, fireworks shot through the sky. And when the lead singer began to sing, I felt just about ready to explode with excitement.

  I could give you a play-by-play, list every single song that every single band played. Show you all the dance moves. But it wouldn’t do the night justice. It was simply something you had to be there for, the kind of experience that was impossible to re-create. In a word: perfection. In two words: pure bliss.

  I was twelve and so were my four best friends. We were at the concert of our dreams. When it ended, we’d still have the entire summer to look forward to. Life was awesome. In fact, it was beyond awesome.

  Well, except for the disaster that happened right before Labor Day. But that’s a story for next time!

  Books by Leslie Margolis

  THE ANNABELLE UNLEASHED SERIES

  Boys Are Dogs

  Girls Acting Catty

  Everybody Bugs Out

  One Tough Chick

  Monkey Business

  *

  THE MAGGIE BROOKLYN MYSTERIES

  Girl’s Best Friend

  Vanishing Acts

  Secrets at the Chocolate Mansion

  Copyright © 2014 by Leslie Margolis

  All rights reserved.

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  First published in the United States of America in September 2014

  by Bloomsbury Children’s Books

  Electronic edition published in September 2014

  www.bloomsbury.com

  Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Margolis, Leslie.

  Monkey business / by Leslie Margolis.

  pages cm

  Summary: A huge music festival is coming to town, and sixth grader Annabelle and her friends

  can’t wait to rock out … that is if they can come up with enough cash to buy the expensive

  tickets.

  [1. Friendship—Fiction. 2. Moneymaking projects—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M33568Mo 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2014005048

  ISBN: 978-1-61963-394-0 (e-book)

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