by A. J. Stern
I wasn’t even going to look.
“What is that, Dad?” I asked, only looking a little bit.
“It’s a schedule of all the events today. Do you want to see?”
I nodded yes, and he handed me the stapled paper. I didn’t understand what it said, but I felt so professional holding it in my hands. I really wanted to keep it. I decided it was okay to think about the conference just for a couple of minutes.
“Don’t throw this out, okay?”
“I promise. I won’t.”
“Or the highlighter.”
“It’s a deal.”
“Do you get other paper things at a conference?”
“Yes, actually. I’ll probably get some pamphlets and brochures and a name badge.”
My face almost fell off into my cereal bowl. I have always wanted a name badge that had my name on it and that is not an opinion.
“Tell you what,” Dad began. “You can have all my conference materials when I’m done. How’s that sound?”
“Fantastical!” I smiled. Now I couldn’t wait for the conference to be over so I could have all of my dad’s really workerish and official materials. I could certainly use them when I had conferences in my room with my best friend, Elliott.
“Do you think that there will be enough people to help out today?” I asked.
“I hope so,” my dad said, a little distractified with his pages and official highlighting pen. A co-worker waved at him from across the room. My dad was so lucky to have so many co-workers! I didn’t even have one!
“Because Fred Tilson said that they didn’t have enough helpers, so I was just curious about that. That is the only reason I am asking. I am not asking for any other reason in particular,” I said.
My dad motioned to the waiter for more coffee. My mother lowered her newspaper and looked over at me. Then she raised it back up and kept reading.
“Don’t you worry about that, Birdy,” my dad said. “You just concentrate on your own job.”
I sat up, excited. “My own job?” I asked. “I have a job?”
“Your job is to have fun with Mom, of course,” he said, like I was being silly that I didn’t even know what my own job was!
I scrunched up my face at him, but he was too distractified with his really special conference papers. It is a scientific fact that having fun at Princessland is not a job. Princessland is not a jobs kind of a place. Princessland is a rides kind of place. But do you know what is a jobs kind of place?
A conference!
“Henry has never had a job before, so I’m worried she might break the conference. I’m sure no one would prefer that,” I told him.
“I’m sure she’ll do just fine,” my mom said.
“I hope so,” I told her. “I really do, because Henry was really complainy. So that’s what I’m really worried about. It’s a good thing she doesn’t have a very important type of job,” I said.
“Actually,” my dad said, “she’s in charge of name badges. That’s a big responsibility.”
BADGES!? She was in charge of badges?! I could not even believe my ears about this news.
Just then, my dad looked at his watch.
“I have about ten more minutes before I have to go meet Tina Zucker.”
“Who’s Tina Zucker?” I asked.
“She’s the guest speaker.”
“Guest speaker?” I had never heard of this job before. It certainly sounded very important.
“A guest speaker is the person who makes a speech. She’ll welcome everybody to the conference and get them thinking about some of the topics of the day,” my dad explained.
“What kind of topics?”
“Something you are already very good at,” my dad said. “Creativity in the work place—how to use your imagination to help you do a better job.”
“They have conferences about that?” I asked. I did not know that being creative was a conference kind of topic. If I had known that all along, I would have asked to be the guest speaker!
A waiter came over and refilled our water glasses.
“Mrs. Pellington says I have a simply magnificent imagination!” I told them.
“And you most certainly do,” my mom agreed.
“Maybe if the guest speaker doesn’t have a good idea for a speech, she could call me on Mom’s cell phone while we’re at Princessland.”
“I’ll certainly let her know,” my dad said. “But she’s one of the very best guest speakers—”
“Or we can just wait until she gets here, and I can give her some good ideas myself. Or even just my business card,” I interrupted. Turning to my mother so she wouldn’t feel bad, I said, “And then we can go to Princessland.”
“I think she probably has some good ideas, Birdy. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“In fact,” I added, “if anyone seems to need help with anything whatsoever, they can just call me on Mom’s cell phone and I can tell them how to use all the office supplies.”
My mom looked at me for a long time.
“Frannie?”
“Yes?”
“Would you prefer to stay here instead of going to Princessland today?”
I didn’t say anything because I was still worried I would hurt her feelings.
“It’s okay if you do,” she said with a voice that had only a tiny bit of sadness in it.
“Well, kind of,” I said.
“You really want to be cooped up inside all day in dark rooms with no windows when we’re here in sunny, beautiful Florida?” my dad asked me.
“It’s beautiful in here, too!” I said.
My parents laughed. Then they looked at each other.
“I thought we would spread Princessland over two days, but I guess just going tomorrow is good enough,” my mom told my dad.
“I don’t see why not,” he said.
Then they looked at me.
“Frannie?” my mom asked in a very top-level business type of voice. I sat up really tall.
“Yes, mom?”
“I want to make sure that your father and I understand. You would prefer to stay inside today and work, is that correct?”
“Yes!”
“On a spectacularly and utterly cloudfree, beautiful day, you would rather be inside this hotel than at Princessland?”
I stood up so excited. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” I cried. Then people at other tables turned around to look at me, so I sat down again.
“Yes,” I whispered one more time for good luck.
“You really are something else, Frannie,” my mom said with a lot of hugs in her voice.
“You’re the only child I know who’d rather work than play,” my dad said.
I shrugged. “That’s just the kind of person I prefer to be.”
“I want you to have a wonderful time on this trip, Frannie. But I think that it’s only fair that we compromise,” my mom said.
“Okay, what is the compromise?” I asked.
“The compromise is that today you can help Henry with her job, but tomorrow we are going to Princessland! No if, ands, or buts!”
“That’s a really good compromise,” I told my mom.
“Great. It’s all settled. Should we go find Henry and give her the good news?” my mom asked.
I jumped up out of my seat.
“Yes! Let’s go!”
We collected all of our things and then we went to find Henry so I could start my official job of the day!
CHAPTER 8
My parents walked me to the help desk where Henry and Fred Tilson stood.
“Looks like you’ll have some company today,” my dad said to Henry. “Frannie is going to help you.”
“Frankly,” I corrected him, with my professional voice.
“They won’t let you go to Princessland, either?” Henry asked in her grumpy voice.
“We’re going to go tomorrow,” I told her.
“That’s when my dad and I are going!” she said. “But until then, we have to work a
t a stupid job.”
“Well, the good news, Henry, is that I’m putting you in charge,” my dad said. I looked up at him with an is that a scientific fact question mark face.
“You are?” Henry asked suddenly, a little bit excited.
“Yes. You’re older. You can keep an eye on Frannie.”
“Frankly,” I said again.
“Sorry. Frankly,” he corrected.
I did not prefer the part about Henry keeping her eyes on me. My eyes were much more professional. Even if they were younger.
Fred Tilson explained our jobs to us. I turned my ears on so that I would be one hundred percent sure I heard everything he said. I did not want to have another room service accident.
“You will sit behind the badges, which are in alphabetical order.”
I am one of the best alphabetical orderers I’ve ever met, and that is not an opinion. This thought filled me with pride-itity because I already knew I would be apparently very good at this job.
“If they get out of alphabetical order, I am really good at putting them back how they were,” I told Fred Tilson. This was information he needed to know. In case he made me boss of badges.
“Let’s not touch the badges, okay?” Fred Tilson said. That did not give me a very good day feeling on my skin. Touching the badges would be the best part of the job!
“The badges are only for the conference goers. Let the adults find their names for themselves, okay?”
Henry and I nodded, but I did not agree with his “okay”—not one bit.
“I want you both to stay at that table until every last badge has been claimed. Okay? Not one badge should go unattended.”
We nodded and followed Fred Tilson to the table we would sit at and never leave until all the badges were gone. When we got there, Fred Tilson got a big box out from under the table. It was white with the words “Air Express” on it and had a picture of an airplane.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Henry is going to make sure that Tina Zucker gets that box when she comes in,” said Fred Tilson.
I stepped forward. “I have a lot of experience with boxes, Mr. Tilson. I will make sure that Tina Zucker gets the box.”
“Thank you, Frankly. I think Henry has it under control.”
“A for instance of what I mean is that whenever my parents want to put things in the basement, they put it in a box and carry it down. So I know a lot about that.”
“You may absolutely help Henry keep an eye on the box because there are extremely important papers in there.”
This is when all my skin almost jumped off me to hug Fred Tilson. I LOVE important papers!
“What kind of important papers?” I asked.
“Mrs. Zucker sent her speech ahead of time just to make sure she wouldn’t lose it. There are also handouts for the audience. I suppose there are pencils in there, too,” he said. But before I had the chance to discuss my experience with pencils, Fred Tilson wished us good luck and walked away to do his own job somewhere else.
I looked at Henry, whose eyeballs were not nearly as workerish as mine. In fact, after we sat down in our professional chairs, she started to doodle on a blank badge. Since I was not the boss of her, I could not say Names go on badges, not doodles! Which is a for instance of something I would say if I were the boss of her.
The badges were very beautiful. The names were typed with real, typed letters and not handwritten ones, like the badges I make at home. They were laid out in perfectly straight rows. Except for one tricky row that was a little bit crooked and needed to be fixed.
“What are you doing?” Henry asked, looking up.
“Just uncrookeding the badges,” I told her.
“We’re not supposed to touch anything,” she told me.
“It’s okay,” I told her. I wasn’t changing anything, just fixing something, so it could not have been against the law.
I reached out to line up the M badges a little bit straighter, and that’s when I noticed the best surprise of ever! You will not even believe your ears about this.
MY NAME WAS ON ONE OF THE BADGES!
Well, almost my name. They just accidentally put FRANCESCA MILLER instead of FRANCES MILLER. But I knew what they meant, so it was really okay.
When I picked up the badge, I noticed it was the real kind. The kind you pin to your shirt, which is what I did.
Henry looked up and bossed, “You’re not allowed to do that.”
“It’s okay,” I told her. “It has my name on it.” I felt bad that they forgot to make Henry one, but the badge makers probably knew I had had jobs before.
“Francesca is the long name for Frannie?” Henry asked me.
“Sometimes,” I told her. “But mine is Frances.”
That’s when I wondered just a centimeter whether this really was my badge since I wasn’t even supposed to be here at all. And also since it wasn’t my exact name. But who else’s could it have been?
Henry shrugged and continued drawing, and I sat and waited as patiently as I could. Finally our first customer came! I knew he was a top-level person because he was wearing a bow tie. I stood up and held my hand out for him to shake, but he was too busy looking at the badges.
“Hello, sir. Can I help you find your name?”
“I got it, thanks,” he said, scanning the table and picking up the badge with his name: ED STERN.
Soon, other people started coming in. Everyone was moving very quickly and no one asked for help! That’s why I decided to stand closer to the front of the table. Then everyone would understand that I was a worker.
At three badges left, a very tall woman came in, but didn’t see her name.
“Do you need help?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said, a little bit crossishly. This gave me a bad day feeling on my skin. “Where’s Mr. Tilson or Mr. Miller?” she asked me in a very angrified way.
“I’ll find them,” Henry said as she got up and ran as fast as possible. The lady crossed her arms and watched Henry run across the hotel lobby. When Henry came back, Fred Tilson was with her.
“Fran?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”
“There’s no badge for me,” she said.
“Of course there is! I saw it myself,” he said, walking to the table. Fran and I followed him and the three of us stared at the badges. Even though I didn’t know Fran’s entire name, I looked, anyway.
“That’s strange,” Mr. Tilson said, looking at all the names.
He turned to Henry. “Did you see a badge that said FRANCESCA MILLER?”
Uh-oh.
Henry looked straight at the badge that was pinned to me, and then so did Fred Tilson and Francesca Miller.
“Frannie! What are you doing wearing that?” he asked me, sounding scoldish. “Please give Mrs. Miller her badge.”
I looked down at my chest.
“I’m sorry. I thought it was for me,” I told them.
“The instructions were not to touch anything,” Fred Tilson said.
I unpinned the badge and handed it to Fran.
“Our names are almost the same,” I told her. “My name is Frances Miller. That’s why I got confused.”
“An honest mistake then,” she said as she pinned my almost name to her shirt. She did not smile, though, and it is a scientific fact that you can smile at “honest mistakes.”
Then I got a great idea. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my gold pilot wings.
“Do you want to wear this for a little while?” I asked. “That way you can wear something of mine like I wore something of yours!”
She looked down at the gold wings and smiled. “That’s very sweet of you to offer, but I think you should hold on to the wings.” I was very proud of myself for being so smart about getting her to smile.
After Fred Tilson told her what room to go to, he told me I was getting a new job. My ears did not like that sentence.
Fred Tilson moved the box from under the badge table to a chair in the co
rner. “I want you to sit right here. Don’t move,” he said, pushing the box a little under the chair. “When Mrs. Zucker comes, make sure she gets this box. All you need to do is point to it. Do not touch it. Okay? It’s very easy.”
I nodded as I sat down. Then I realized something. “How will I know it’s her? I’ve never met Mrs. Zucker before,” I told him.
“She looks like a ballerina, actually. She’s very tall and graceful with black hair always pulled back in a bun.” Then he went off with his co-workers.
I couldn’t wait until Mrs. Zucker walked through the doors. I’d point to the box and show Fred Tilson what a great worker I am after all. And then next year, I’d get to be the boss of Henry!
But that’s not what happened.
Not even at all.
CHAPTER 9
I waited for six hundred years for Tina Zucker, but she never came! It was probably already tomorrow! My legs were getting bored.
When I looked over at Henry to see what she was doing, she wasn’t there! I couldn’t believe it! There was still one badge left! We were not supposed to leave the table until everyone had their badges! And I was not supposed to leave my chair until Mrs. Zucker had her box!
This was a true emergency. The kind of emergency that needed very quick attention! Maybe there was a way for me to do both Henry’s job and my own. If I sat where Henry had been, then I could still see the box. That way, when Mrs. Zucker came in, I could point to the box from the badge table, like Fred Tilson said. Oh, Frannie, I thought. You are a genius of the earth.
When I sat down at the table, I stared right at the box under the chair. Suddenly a worry flew into my brain. What if the reason Henry wasn’t here was because she quit! That was probably it! She was probably upset that Fred Tilson gave me her box-watching job! I had to fix things right away.
Uh-oh! I looked over at the hotel lobby and saw Henry talking to her dad. Oh no, she was quitting! I had to get her to un-quit. If I did that in front of Fred Tilson, then he would love me so much and forgive me for my big, bad badge mistake!
I tried waving to Henry, but she didn’t see me. I had no choice but to run over to her. But when I was halfway there, her dad left and Henry turned around and started walking toward me. A big disappointment puddle fell at my feet that I’d missed my big chance.