by Robin Palmer
“Oh no! What kind of incident? How big?” she asked. “Like a regular incident, or an Incident-with-a-capital-I?”
“More like an incident-in-all-caps!” I wailed even louder.
“Oh Lucy!” She grabbed me and hugged me tight, not even seeming to care about any sort of germs or dandruff that might have jumped off of me and onto her. Which was huge progress on her part, I knew. “It’s okay,” she said.
“No, actually, it’s not!” I wailed again.
This was so weird. For the last twenty-four hours, as upset as I had been, I had managed to keep it together in front of people. But now that Laurel was here—the person who I had thought I had to hide the most in front of—I actually felt like I could finally let it all out.
“Can you tell me what happened?” she asked gently.
I nodded as I wiped my face with my sweatshirt.
“So ... are you going to tell me?”
“I’m trying to!” I said, starting to cry again. “It’s just that it takes a lot of energy to talk about something so humiliating!”
I sat down at the kitchen table and took a few deep breaths. Finally, I was able to calm down and tell her the story. Which was easier to do after I remembered the box of Thin Mints I had stashed away on the top-top shelf of the pantry.
“Oh wow. That’s really awful,” she said, munching away. “I guess the good news is that now it’ll give you all the motivation you need to really go all out with the rest of your campaign.”
I lifted my head up from the table and looked at her. “What rest of my campaign? I’m done.”
“But Lucy, you can’t give up now!”
What was wrong with these people? “Um, yeah, I can. And I am,” I said firmly as I slithered down in my seat so only my chin was resting on the table. Because telling the story had brought on a whole new wave of embarrassment, all I wanted to do was hide.
She got up from the table and paced around the kitchen for a second before turning to me. “Go take a shower and get dressed.”
“Why?” I asked suspiciously. If she was planning on taking me over to Cristina’s apartment and making us “communicate in a healthy and productive manner,” which had been Alan’s idea the night before, there was no way I was going.
“Because I want to tell you a story. But before I do, we need some supplies.”
Forty-five minutes later, Laurel and I were sitting across from each other at the place where we had gone for our first real IBS when I had moved to New York: Billy’s Bakery, down on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea. Luckily for everyone involved, I had taken a quick shower and traded in my smelly sweatshirt for my peach-colored DON’T BE MEAN TO NERDS T-shirt and favorite denim miniskirt. I was still too depressed to wash my hair, but my denim newsboy cap hid the grease.
Laurel knew that when I was really upset, the only thing that could make me feel better was a red velvet cupcake. But it couldn’t be from Crumbs (too dry) or Magnolia Bakery (too heavy) or Buttercup Bake Shop (too small). In order to truly cheer me up, it had to come from Billy’s. I’m not sure what super-top-secret special ingredient the people there put in their batter, but whatever it was, it had this way of completely shifting a person’s attitude. When I mentioned that once to Mom, she said the special ingredient was probably just extra amounts of sugar, but I disagreed. I had tried eating sugar straight from the package, and instead of making me happy, it just made me sick. Although according to Beatrice, doing that did cure hiccups.
And the only thing better than one red velvet cupcake from Billy’s was three of them—which is how many were sitting between us. As I looked at them I started to cry.
“But I thought you loved Billy’s!” Laurel said anxiously. “I thought this would cheer you up!”
I sniffled. “No. It will! It’s just ... so awesome when your best friend knows you well enough to know that sometimes the only solution to your pain is a cupcake from your favorite bakery!”
At that, Laurel started to get all teary, too. Although, because she had her sunglasses on because she hadn’t had time to put on a full-blown dork disguise, no one would have been able to see it but me. “I’m still your best friend? Really?”
I nodded.
“So you don’t hate me anymore?”
“I never hated you,” I replied. “I thought you hated me because I got all mad about you wanting to be involved in the campaign!”
“Well, I was hurt that you thought my ideas were stupid,” she admitted.
“I didn’t think they were stupid at all!” I replied. “I just ... it was really important that if I went through with this, that I was doing it as me. As Lucy. And not as your unfamous little frister. I didn’t want people voting for me because they thought that if they did, they’d get to meet you.”
She nodded. “I get it.”
I sighed. “But now they’re not going to be voting for me at all, especially because I’m dropping out, so it doesn’t matter.”
She scooted her chair around so that the two girls sitting at the table behind us couldn’t see her face and start going nuts once they figured out who she was. Even with the sunglasses, her blonde hair sometimes gave her away.
“But wait—I haven’t told you my story yet.”
I used a plastic knife to cut the third cupcake in half and took my part. Granted it was a little bigger than the other half, but because of how upset I was, I figured Laurel would understand.
“Did I ever tell you about the day I went in for the Fruity Cocoa Crunchy Pebbles audition?” she asked.
“That commercial you did when you were five?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. It was my first commercial. The whole week leading up to the audition, I was really excited,” she said. “I kept practicing my lines. Well, my line. There was only one.” She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “ ‘ Fruity Cocoa Crunchy Pebbles sure are yummy!’ ” she announced in a very kidlike, commercial-y voice.
“That’s really good,” I said.
“Thanks. Anyway, then the morning of the audition, before my mom and I were going to drive into the city from New Jersey, I started to totally panic. And I hid under the bed. For like an hour.”
“You did? But you hate small, dark spaces,” I said. “Almost as much as you hate germs. They give you hives.”
She nodded. “Exactly,” she said. “So after looking for me all over the house, my mom came into my room and saw my pink sneaker under the bed and told me to come out, and when I wouldn’t, she had to crouch down and slide underneath the bed, too. But she got stuck.”
I gasped. “She did?” Wow. This was almost as good as a telenovela.
“Yup. So because she was stuck, I was stuck, too. Even if I wanted to get out, I couldn’t,” she said. “She shifted around to try to find a way to get unstuck, and asked me what was wrong. I told her that I didn’t want to go to the audition because what if I screwed up my line on national TV and everyone in America saw it.”
“And then what happened?” I asked excitedly. Laurel was a really good storyteller. Especially the way she left just the right amount of pause time between sentences so that you were just dying to hear what came next.
“So she explained how an audition is just an audition. You haven’t been chosen yet, so the only people who are seeing it are the people in the room like the director and the casting director and it’s not actually on TV,” Laurel said. “That made me feel a little better. But it was what she said next that was the thing that really changed my mind.”
“She said that if you guys didn’t figure out how to get out from under the bed, you’d suffocate and die from lack of air?” I suggested breathlessly.
“No. Although I do remember I was starting to get kind of woozy.” She leaned in and grabbed my arm. “What she said was that heroes weren’t heroes because they weren’t afraid,” she whispered. “They were heroes because they had courage, which meant that even though they were afraid, they didn’t let that stop them. They did whatever it
was they needed to do anyway.”
Huh. I liked that. It was catchy. In fact, it was so catchy, it would have been a great thing to use in one of my State of the Grade addresses, had I been elected president. Which would not be happening because of the I-was-just-so-humiliated-I-have-to-drop-out thing.
“And then she said that if I didn’t show up for the audition, I’d never know whether I would have gotten it or not. And if I never knew whether I would have gotten it or not, I’d never know whether I was any good at commercials. And if I never knew if I was any good at commercials, then I’d probably never get an audition for a movie or a TV show, and if I never—”
The thing was, sometimes when Laurel was telling a story, she tended to go on and on. “Okay—you can stop now. I get the picture,” I said.
She whipped off her sunglasses and grabbed my hand. Luckily, the girls had already left. “Lucy, now is not the time to quit. Now is the time to call on the heroness inside of you!”
Was heroness even a word? Maybe it was like my Lucyness, which is something that Mom always brought up even though I had no idea what she was talking about.
“If you let fear get in your way and you just give up,” she went on, “you won’t be able to serve as an example of what can happen if you feel the fear but do it anyway.”
She was right ... and if this had been a Very Special episode of Madison, now would be the time I jumped up and said, “You’re right!” But this wasn’t a Very Special episode of some TV show. It was my life.
“Nice try, Laurel, but no,” I said.
“Lucy, you have an opportunity that very few people in the world get. The opportunity to be a role model. A role model for everyone who isn’t popular, or who is considered a little weird because they keep period logs and—”
“Wait—I keep period logs. You think I’m weird?”
“No. I don’t think you’re weird, but some other people might find that a little weird.”
I shrugged. Well, those people were stupid because anyone with half a brain would know that being able to see where you fell in the whole period situation compared to your classmates was very important.
“You’re a role model because you show people that normal girls are just as cool and just as special as popular ones,” she said.
“Or famous ones?” I asked quietly.
She smiled. “Yes. Just as cool as famous ones,” she replied. “Come on, you know that no matter how many ‘Coolest Celeb’ gossip-blog polls I win, I totally don’t believe any of it.” That was true—she didn’t. “I mean, as far as I’m concerned, I am so not cool.”
I shrugged. “Well, I think you’re the coolest,” I said. The whole love-of-organizing, and alphabetizing, and Purelling once an hour may not have been cool, but when it came to big-frister things like believing in me and giving me pep talks, she was the best. “So what happened with the bed?”
“Huh?”
“You and your mom. Stuck under the bed before the audition. Without any air.”
“Oh that. Well, she sucked all her breath in so she got a little flatter and was able to wriggle out and then I got out. We went to the audition and even though by that time we were late and they had just finished seeing the last person, Mom convinced them to let me go in. I got the gig and then a month after that I got a guest role on F.B.I. Newark and the casting director of that was best friends with the casting director over at Kidz TV and then I got Madison.”
“Wow. So that bravery thing really paid off,” I said, impressed.
“I guess so,” she agreed. “So you’ll keep going with the election?”
I thought about it. Was it bravery that kept a person in the race after being completely humiliated, or was it just plain stupidness? I wasn’t sure. But what I was sure about was that if I was going to keep going, I would need some help.
“Okay,” I finally said. “But under one condition.”
As soon as we got home, I called an official emergency campaign meeting for after dinner.
“You do know that the season premiere of America’s Worst Dancers is on right now, don’t you?” Beatrice asked as she walked into my room and flopped down on my bed. That was her favorite show.
“Not to mention An Insider’s Inside Look Behind the Scenes of the Real Eighth Graders of San Francisco,” added Alice.
“I know, I know—I’m TiVoing them right now. We can watch them after,” I said.
“Did you happen to TiVo the PBS special about the oldest-living tree?” Malia asked excitedly. “Because I spaced and forgot.”
“Uh, no,” I said. “Sorry.” I liked Malia a lot, but she had awful taste in TV programs.
“So what’s so important that you had to call this special emergency meeting?” Alice asked. “I thought you were going to quit the race.”
“Yeah,” Malia said. “Once you finally come back to school.”
“There’s been a change of plans,” I replied as I walked over to my bathroom. “I’m going to go through with it.”
“You are?” Beatrice asked, impressed.
“Really?” Malia asked excitedly. “What made you change your mind?”
“A conversation I had with an old friend,” I replied.
“Can I be the one to videotape you casting your vote?” Alice asked. “Because I’ve been practicing with my camera, and I’ve gotten a lot better at it.”
“Huh. I can’t decide if that’s totally brave ... or totally nuts,” Beatrice said.
I rolled my eyes. “Have-Nots, I’d like to introduce you to the newest member of our team,” I announced excitedly, flinging the door open.
“How is a cat going to help us?” Beatrice asked, confused.
I looked down to see Miss Piggy waddling out before plopping down on the rug and starting to groom herself. “Not her,” I said. I leaned my head into the bathroom. “It’s your cue,” I whispered. A second later, Laurel came out wearing a Have-Not T-shirt with a Lucy B. for Prez! button pinned over her heart.
I walked over to my desk and picked up the campaign rules and regulations I had downloaded and printed out. “Now, as you guys know, the election is Monday, and final speeches are tomorrow. Our only chance at winning would be if I gave a completely awesome speech tomorrow.”
“No offense, Lucy, but if it’s like the one you gave a few weeks ago, we’re in big trouble,” Alice said.
“Yeah, I know. Which is why I’m not going to give one.” I turned to Laurel. “She is.”
“But she’s not running—you are,” said Alice, confused.
I held up the rules and regulations. “Yeah, but nowhere in here does it say that the person running has to be the one giving the speech.”
Beatrice grabbed them from me. “Let me see those.” She looked them over. “You’re right—it doesn’t.”
“So if that’s the case,” I went on, “why not have someone who’s used to giving speeches in front of thousands of people do it?”
They all looked at one another. “Okay, now you’re talking big-city ideas,” said Beatrice. “That’s genius!”
“But what about ... you know,” Alice said.
“What’s ‘you know’?” I asked.
She nodded her head toward Laurel. “That whole thing about how you didn’t want to ask ... someone ... for help because of the f-a-m-o-u-s thing,” she whispered. However, because Alice was Alice, the whisper was closer to a yell.
“It’s okay. I was thinking about it, and I know that I am who I am. And it doesn’t matter how I win at this point. It’s what I do after I win that’s the important part,” I replied. I ran over to my closet and reached for a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa I had smuggled in from the kitchen. “Now, everyone get comfortable. We’ve got work to do.”
chapter 9
Dear Dr. Maude,
Guess where I am? If you guessed “hiding in the girls’ room,” you’d be right. I know, by now you probably think I’m pretty weird, but if YOUR future was about to be decided in ten m
inutes—actually, I take that back ... EIGHT minutes!—YOU’D be freaking out, too.
Okay, maybe because you’re you, you wouldn’t be (BTW, my mom loved your book Get It Together Already, People: Ten Foolproof Ways to Calm Yourself Down That Will Work Even If You Are a Fool). But because I don’t have as much life experience as you do, I am freaking out. A lot.
It’s kind of a long story, so I won’t go into all of it now, but basically all you need to know is this: Not only are Laurel and I friends again, but I decided not to drop out of the campaign. AND I asked her to be part of it. Sure, maybe some people—or a lot of them—might vote for me just because she and I live together, but you know what? That’s fine. Because it’s what I do AFTER I win that really matters.
If for some reason you do end up reading this in the next few minutes, please wish me luck. Or rather, wish Laurel luck, because she’s the one who’s about to give a speech about me. But if you don’t end up reading it until this weekend, you can still wish me luck because (a) the baby shower for Ziggy is this weekend and (b) the actual voting part of the election isn’t until Monday. After Monday, I won’t need it. I mean, I WILL need it, but I won’t. ... I think you get my point.
yours truly,
Lucy B. Parker
If there was ever a day that I was glad we had worked on coming up with good disguises for Laurel, it was today. With Laurel dressed in a long plaid skirt with a buttoned-up white blouse with frilly lace collar, ugly brown loafers, a short, blechy brown bob wig, and thick black-rimmed glasses, Alice and I had no problem sneaking her through the halls and hiding her in the janitor’s closet until it was time for the assembly. If anyone did look at her, it was with confusion, as if they were trying to figure out if she was an Amish exchange student.
The plan was that soon after the assembly started, Malia would say that she needed to go to the bathroom and would go get Laurel, who would then change into her normal clothes. After that, Malia would sneak her in through the back of the auditorium to where I was waiting backstage.