by Cari Simmons
“Well, it’s brave,” Gracie insisted.
“It’s also why I’m always forgetting my band folder,” Mari told her. “Because I’m plowing ahead without thinking about what I might be missing. Or leaving behind. Or forgetting to pack.”
Gracie grinned. “That’s why I’m here to remind you.” She expected Mari to smile back, or give her a high five. But instead Mari frowned.
“Hey, Gracie? I’m really sorry about making us miss dinner with Juliana,” she said softly. “That was one of those times I should’ve thought things through better. I know it made you really upset, and I felt bad about standing her up too.”
“I know you did,” Gracie said. “Next time you’ll think it through before you make a plan, and I’ll double-check it for you. Like we usually do. I mean, our last plan ended up getting my mom to let me come on this trip.”
“Yeah, we’re a pretty good team when we’re not busy fighting,” Mari joked.
Gracie nodded. “It’s a good thing we’re done fighting, then.”
“Girls, come on back now,” Ms. O’Hagan called from the cabin. “We’re going to head out to dinner before the snow gets too heavy.”
“Out? Where are we going?” Gracie asked as they walked—and slid—toward the cabin.
“We figured you girls were owed a dinner at the Old Barrel,” Mari’s mom said.
“But Mr. O’Hagan just got all those groceries,” Gracie protested.
Mari waved her hand in the air. “We can eat through that before we leave, don’t worry.”
“Oh, right. Seven people eat a lot,” Gracie said. “I keep forgetting! That would feed my family for a week.”
“Hey, Gracie, want to sit next to me?” Jimmy asked as they all climbed into the minivan.
“Definitely,” Gracie said, getting a big, goofy smile from him. For the whole drive to the restaurant—which was only about ten minutes—she listened to Jimmy talk about his friends from kindergarten. He didn’t even seem to remember that she’d yelled at him earlier, and Gracie felt relieved. She hadn’t meant to upset him, she’d just been too busy thinking about her own feelings to realize that she was hurting his.
“Curly fries, here we come!” Mari sang as her dad parked the car. The snow was falling faster now, and Gracie had to squint to make out the sign in front of the restaurant. It wasn’t a normal sign, it was a humongous wooden barrel, at least eight feet tall. THE OLD BARREL was painted on the front of it.
“Cool,” Gracie said. “I hope they have a big enough table for all of us.”
“They do, it’s called family style,” Mari told her as they walked into the warm, cozy building. “It’s a bunch of long tables, and you sit with whoever else is there, whether you know them or not.”
The waiter led them to a big table in the middle of the room, with a bunch of chairs pulled up along either side of it. A family with two little kids sat on one side, and Jimmy immediately took off to sit near them.
“I guess I’m not his favorite anymore,” Gracie commented.
Mari laughed. “Those kids are his age. You can’t compare to that.”
Gracie glanced at the table. On the other side were an elderly lady and a girl with blond hair. “Hey! It’s Juliana!” Gracie cried.
“Oh my gosh. Hi!” Juliana replied, jumping up. “I can’t believe you’re here! Are you at our table?”
“Yup!” Mari’s face lit up, and she hurried over to sit next to Juliana. Gracie took the seat across from her.
“You must be the friends Juli made on the slopes the other day,” Juliana’s grandma said. “I’m so glad we ran into you. I felt terrible that I had to ruin your dinner plans.”
“What do you mean?” Gracie asked.
“I was supposed to meet you here, but I couldn’t because Grammy had already promised the neighbors we’d eat with them,” Juliana said. “We left a message with the restaurant. Didn’t they tell you?” A worried expression crossed her face.
“They didn’t tell us, because we couldn’t make it either,” Mari said. “We left a message here for you too!”
“That’s too funny!” Juliana said. “They must’ve thought we were all crazy.”
Gracie could hardly believe it. She’d been so upset about them standing Juliana up, but it had all turned out fine. Just like Mari said, sometimes plans change, she thought.
“We’re all having curly fries, right?” Juliana asked.
“Absolutely,” Gracie and Mari said at the same time.
Juliana laughed. “Do you practice talking like that?”
“We don’t have to,” Mari told her. “We’re best friends.”
Gracie’s phone buzzed just as they were about to give the waiter their order. She glanced at the screen. “It’s my mom,” she said. “Can you order for me, Mar?”
“Sure,” Mari said. “I’ll just order two of mine, we want the same thing.”
Gracie got up and went out to the big old barrel on the front porch to talk. It was too loud to hear her mother in the restaurant.
“Hi, Mom. Are you at the no-phones hike again?” she joked. “Or are you actually allowed to talk now?”
“I can talk all I want,” her mother said happily. “Whenever I want! We ditched the wellness spa.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t take it anymore. They said I had to eat steak for breakfast when all I wanted was yogurt,” Ms. Hardwick told her. “It was the last straw. I packed the bags and we made a break for it!”
“You just left?” Gracie could hardly believe it. Her mother was not the leave-in-the-middle type.
“That’s right! I found a beautiful little bed-and-breakfast in Maine, and we’re here for the night,” Ms. Hardwick said triumphantly. “Dad doesn’t have to go for hikes in a wheelchair, I don’t have to eat dinner food for breakfast, and we can call you any time we want. There are no rules at all!”
“Wow. What does Dad think?”
“I would ask him, but he’s asleep in the big chair near the fireplace,” her mother replied. “So I think he’s okay with it.”
“I can’t believe you did that, Mom,” Gracie said. “You’re such a rebel!”
“Well, rules were made to be broken,” Ms. Hardwick said.
“Can I tell you that the next time you won’t let me hang out with Mari?” Gracie asked.
Her mother chuckled. “Yes, you can. I promise, Gracie, from now on I’m going to try to relax a little. Maybe we don’t have to have such a strict schedule all the time.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” Gracie said happily.
“You’re obviously fine without us,” her mom went on. “I guess I have to stop thinking of you as my little girl—you’re grown up enough to take care of yourself. And I just got a taste of having to follow someone else’s rules when I’m perfectly capable of deciding what I want for myself.”
“Yeah,” Gracie said. “It’s not much fun, is it?”
“No,” Ms. Hardwick replied emphatically. “I’m sorry. I always thought my rules were there to keep you safe and healthy, but I guess you might not see it that way.”
“Well . . .” Gracie thought about it. “I still like having some rules.”
“Good, because you still do,” her mom said. “So what are you doing tonight?”
“Having dinner with the O’Hagans and our new friend, Juliana,” Gracie said. “And I’m going to write my report for Mr. Ferrone tonight. I’ve been taking notes all weekend, and now I know exactly what I’m going to say.”
“I’m proud of you, Gracie. It was a really good idea for an experiment.”
“You know, Mom, it was my idea. Mine and Mari’s,” Gracie admitted. “Mr. Ferrone didn’t assign it, he’s giving me extra credit for it.”
“Oh.” Her mother was quiet for a moment. “Well, good for you for taking initiative and getting some extra credit. I think we both learned something this weekend.”
Gracie grinned, relieved that she had finally told the whole truth. “Thanks for letting
me come here, Mom. This has been the best weekend ever!”
CHAPTER 15
Only Child vs. Multiple Children: A Case Study
This experiment began as a way to examine the life of a family very different from my own. I have a family of three. My best friend, Mari, has a family of seven. During my weekend away with this big family, I attempted to compare and contrast the two different experiences.
I noticed a lot of differences. For instance, with multiple siblings, you always have a friend. There is always a brother or sister around to play with, tell jokes with, or just hang around with. As an only child, I don’t have a built-in friend in my house or my car all the time. I guess you could say that I am lonely, and kids in a multiple-sibling family aren’t lonely.
However, just like you always have a friend in a big family, you also always have an enemy! Siblings are not really enemies, but sometimes they can act that way. There is always a brother or a sister around to tease you, complain about you, laugh at you, or throw something at you. (One observation I made was that multiple siblings seem to enjoy throwing things at one another a lot.) Therefore, I’m lucky that I don’t have a built-in enemy in my home, and a kid in a big family is not so lucky.
Based on these two observations, I concluded that it wasn’t any better to have siblings than it was to be an only child, and it wasn’t any worse, either. While it is nice to have a friend, it is annoying to have an enemy.
Another difference I noticed was that only children don’t have to share as much as kids with lots of siblings. This is because a big family uses up a lot more resources than a small family. My house has only two bathrooms, but Mari’s house has three. Even so, Mari has to share the bathroom and I don’t. Mari’s family eats through a lot more food than mine, a lot faster. Everything they do uses up more resources, like when it comes to hot water in the shower. In my family, we can each use as much hot water as we want. In Mari’s family, they have to share the hot water or it will run out.
I think they all eat fast because they’re afraid the food will run out too. And they’re right! It does run out. I developed a theory about sibling rivalry based on the idea that multiple siblings are all competing for the same scarce resources. They have food competitions in order to get the food before it’s eaten. They have a lot of other kinds of competitions to get an even more important resource . . . attention. I get my parents’ attention all the time—even when I don’t want it—but the parents of multiple kids can’t be involved in every single thing their kid does. The kid has to do something really bad to get attention! (Or really good, I guess.)
The biggest difference I noticed was that multiple siblings are used to being part of a group all the time. They don’t seem to need privacy as much as an only child does. They are used to dealing with a lot of unexpected things happening, so they are more laid-back about things like schedules and rules, and getting dressed in the daytime.
Once I made notes about all of these differences between only children and multiple children, I realized that I had done this entire project backwards! Instead of thinking about the differences, I should have been looking for ways that these two types of families are the same. The similarities are much more important than the differences, because they aren’t small things like food and bathrooms. The similarities are big things, like these:
Only children respect their parents. So do multiple children.
Only children love their family members and want to spend time with them. So do multiple children.
Only children are who they are because of their families. So are multiple children.
Only children are who they are because of their friends. So are multiple children.
It doesn’t matter if you are an only child or if you have a million siblings. As long as you are a good person, a good daughter or son, and a good friend . . . you are okay!
“I’m so sad we’re leaving,” Gracie said the next afternoon. They’d spent the morning on the slopes, racing with Mari’s brothers. But when Juliana showed up, the three girls had taken a break from the competition and tried out a new trail together. It was so much fun that they did it two more times before they finally had to say good-bye. The weekend was over, and Juliana was heading back to New Orleans, but she’d promised to keep in touch by email.
After lunch, Gracie had helped Mari and her brothers remake the giant snowman, since he’d melted a lot during the sleet. It had been such a great time that she hated to stop playing, but the sun was sinking and they had a long drive home.
“Maybe you can come with us again next year,” Mari said. “Who knows what Kat will be doing? College girls have busy lives.”
“Or maybe you can come with my family on our ski trip,” Gracie suggested. “And then you can write a paper about how bored you are with only a quiet, small family.”
Mari giggled. “I would not be bored.”
“We’ll see,” Gracie joked.
“Well, they’re not the same weekend. Maybe we can do both!” Mari cried.
“The car is packed,” Mr. O’Hagan called. “That means there’s just one more thing to do before we go.”
Mari, Jimmy, Robert, and Jon all groaned.
“What is it?” Gracie asked, worried.
“It’s the family picture!” Ms. O’Hagan said, laughing. “They only pretend to hate it.”
“No, we really do hate it,” Robert said.
“It’s so lame,” Jon agreed.
Gracie caught Mari’s eye. “Is it?”
“Um . . . no, it’s actually fun,” Mari admitted. “The twins just think it’s uncool to be in a picture with your family. You know, it’s embarrassing.”
Gracie rolled her eyes. “You guys spend every minute together having fun, but you don’t want to be seen together?”
“They love it, you’ll see. We put it on our holiday card every year,” Mr. O’Hagan said.
Ms. O’Hagan was busy setting up a camera on the roof of the minivan.
“Can we take it in front of the snowman?” Jimmy asked eagerly.
“You bet,” Mr. O’Hagan said. “Everyone line up.”
Even though they’d all complained, Mari and her brothers ran over to pose in front of the huge snowman, and Gracie laughed as they tried out a bunch of silly poses.
“Okay, we’ll have thirty seconds from when I set the camera,” Mari’s mom announced. “Is everyone ready?”
Gracie backed up so she wouldn’t be in the frame. They obviously didn’t want a tagalong in their family photo.
Ms. O’Hagan set the camera, then ran over to the group in front of the snowman. They all linked arms and waited for the flash.
“Hang on, where’s Gracie?” Jimmy asked.
“Gracie! Get over here!” Mari cried.
“But . . . it’s just family,” Gracie said.
“That’s why you need to be in it,” Mr. O’Hagan said.
“Hurry!” Mari yelled.
Gracie raced over and flung her arm around Mari’s shoulders. She smiled her best smile for the camera . . . and then Jon and Robert suddenly began tickling her and Mari.
“Aaahhh!” Gracie and Mari screamed together, laughing, just as the camera clicked.
SNAP!
BACK AD
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
CARI SIMMONS once wished on her birthday candles that she would write a book—and it came true! She lives and writes in Portland, Oregon, and this is her first series.
LAURA J. BURNS is a big scaredy-cat about skiing, but likes to imagine her characters doing it! She and her family live in New York with their two silly dogs.
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CREDITS
Cover art © 2016 by Cathi Mingus
Cover series design by Steve Scott
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