The Steps

by Rachel Cohn

“Frosties?” I mumbled, still dazed.

  “Frosted Flakes, sleepyhead,” Jack said. I have always been a Cocoa Puffs girl myself, so I didn’t care about the Frosted Flakes.

  “Bagel?” I asked.

  “Penny went out and got you bagels this morning,” Jack said. He said it like this was a special favor she had done for me, which I didn’t like. They looked like such a family, and I felt uncomfortable that everyone was doing special things for me. I knew they were trying to be nice, and even though I didn’t want to be part of their family, since I fully expected that Jack would come to his senses and come home to America, I still didn’t appreciate being singled out with special treats, like I was a guest instead of a member of the family.

  I made a face when I saw the bagel. It was pasty looking and small. I broke off a piece to sample. Dry, tasteless. Conclusion: Awful! If it’s one thing I know besides clothes, it’s bagels, and this was no New York bagel.

  “How ’bout some of those Frosties?” I asked.

  “You’re a very picky eater,” Lucy said.

  “I have high standards,” I answered back.

  Frosties. Conclusion: Yuck! No wonder they didn’t call the cereal by its proper name, Frosted Flakes. This cereal tasted nothing like what I expected from Tony the Tiger. The cereal tasted like sawdust sprinkled with sugar. I didn’t know what scam these people in Australia were trying to pull, but their attempts at American breakfast foods were terrible, insulting even.

  Jack said, “Nothing here seems to please you, Annabel. What would you like to have for breakfast?”

  “How ’bout lunch?” I said. Because breakfast in Australia was a joke.

  Angus said, “We could get Kinder Surprises from the milk bar! Annabel, Dad told me you don’t have Kinder Surprises in America. It’s this chocolate candy with a toy inside!”

  I shrugged like that was no big deal. “Milk bar?” I said. “What’s that?” Milk bar? What tilted kinda thing could that be?

  “The store, silly!” Angus said. He shook his head and looked toward Jack like, She doesn’t know what a milk bar is?

  “It’s a convenience store,” Jack said. “Like the corner store or the neighborhood bodega.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Milk bar” sounded to me like some cocktail lounge where cows sat on barstools and ordered some fancy drink on the rocks.

  Penny butted in. “Lucy, how would you like to take Annabel into town for lunch? Just the two of you.”

  I figured Lucy would squeal with excitement, but now she shrugged her shoulders. She said, “Okay, I guess, if Annabel wants to go.”

  I totally did not want to go, but I looked at Jack’s face, and he was staring at me with such hope, and I remembered I had promised him I would at least try.

  “Well, okay, but only if you want to go,” I said. I said the words in Lucy’s direction, but I didn’t actually look at her.

  “Only if you want to go,” Lucy said, this time in my direction but not to me.

  “GO!” Jack and Penny said at the same time.

  Chapter 8

  This I will admit: Even though I was used to Manhattan skyscrapers and massive apartment buildings, I thought it was kind of cool that the Steps could live in a major city like Sydney, and yet their neighborhood, which was called Balmain, was really cozy and quiet, lined with pretty little Victorian cottages. As Lucy and I reached the top of the hills near the center of Balmain we could see the skyscrapers of the Sydney skyline and harbor. It was like being in Brooklyn, except the neighborhood felt very peaceful and, with its quaint cottages and willowy trees, somewhat enchanted.

  At first Lucy and I didn’t talk much. I don’t know why she was so quiet. I knew I wasn’t saying anything because I was mad about her stealing my dad, and because I had promised Justine that Lucy and I would never, ever become BFs. Justine was not happy about Lucy or about my going to Sydney. (Justine conveniently forgot she was the one who had bailed on our Christmas vacation plans in the city because skiing was so much more fundamentally important than hanging out with her very best friend.)

  Lucy was wearing navy Adidas running pants with the buttons on the side. She would have looked totally cute, except she was wearing a brown-and-orange-striped T-shirt with the name of some Australian football team on it. I was wearing a short white denim skirt with a scoop-necked navy tee that said NYC on it in big white letters. My tee would have looked perfect with her running pants.

  As we strolled down the main street through Balmain we passed by several cool clothes shops that were selling leather skirts and feather boas and snakeskin-print blouses. I figured I’d better tell Jack to take Lucy shopping in these cool stores for her next birthday. These stores were ready for her fashion emergency.

  Lucy led me into a small restaurant where you order at the counter. She stopped before we were all the way through the door and said, “They serve Mediterranean food here, like hummus and falafel and shish kebabs.” She pronounced the word “ke-BAB” instead of “ke-BOB.” “Is that okay with you, Miss Picky?” I could tell by her tone that she had figured out that I was not interested in being buds with her.

  I stared into her baby blue eyes, the eyes I had been studying so intently in pictures for months before coming to Australia. “I luuuv that kind of food,” I said, so sugary sweet even I couldn’t believe my ears.

  Maybe she was relieved I wasn’t being mean—or “ornery,” as Bubbe says I can be sometimes—because Lucy seemed to sigh with relief. She obviously didn’t understand sarcasm. She said, all excited, “There’s loads of meatless foods here. I love this place. I can’t believe Mum let us come all by ourselves!”

  Just then, two girls just about our age walked into the restaurant and purposefully bumped into Lucy, spilling their Cokes on her T-shirt.

  “Ooh, sorry!” one of the girls said. The girl totally did not mean it. Both of the girls were taller than Lucy and me, and while their outfits were much more put together than Lucy’s, those girls were not nearly as pretty as she was. Maybe because they had the mean faces of bullies with nothing better to do than pick on people.

  “Loser,” the other girl muttered at Lucy, then she shoved Lucy and walked over to sit in a booth.

  Lucy sprinted into the bathroom. I ran after her and found her crying over the sink.

  Now was not the time for my attitude problem. “What was that all about?” I asked.

  Lucy was crying really hard and wouldn’t say anything. She just kept shaking her head and trying to bite back her tears, so her eyes and lips were getting really swollen.

  I waited for her to answer, and when she didn’t, I wet down a paper towel and began wiping off her face. “You’d better tell me, or I’m going to tell your mom what just happened.”

  “Don’t do that!” Lucy cried out.

  “Then talk,” I said. I patted her shoulder and promised myself I could do something “ornery” later to make up for this temporary truce.

  “I don’t know why they do that,” Lucy said. “Ever since I came to school here, it has been horrible. The kids tease me about being from Melbourne and because I like Melbourne footy teams and they’ve all known one another since kindie and no matter what I do, it’s wrong! I hate my new school! I hate Sydney!” She started crying all over again.

  “Okay,” I said, “first, you have to stop crying. I’m from New York, and I’m going to take care of this. But I need to know a few things first. How long have you been in this school?”

  “For a year. Angus and I just finished our first year at our new school in Sydney. We moved up here this time last year.”

  She huffed a little but seemed to be calming down.

  “Who’s your best friend?” I needed to know, in case reinforcements were necessary.

  “Her name’s Jenny,” Lucy sobbed all over again. “She lives in Melbourne. I don’t have any friends here.”

  Her BF was in Melbourne. I knew that was way far away, at least a day’s drive, because last year when Jack visited me in
New York, he and Penny and the Steps were living in Melbourne, and he pointed it out to me on a map. Jenny in Melbourne would be no help to Lucy in Sydney.

  “What are those girls’ names outside?”

  “Their names are Devon and Yasmin.” Beastly names for beastly girls, I thought.

  “Lucy,” I said, “listen carefully. You just come back outside and follow my lead.”

  “I can’t!” she wailed. “I can’t go out there, so long as they’re still there!”

  “You can, Lucy, and you will. If you don’t go back right now and show your face, they will only treat you worse. You can’t let those dumb girls get the better of you.”

  I dug into my backpack and pulled out an extra T-shirt. Bubbe says always to carry a spare shirt and plenty of moist towelettes in case of emergencies.

  “Put this on,” I told Lucy.

  “Really?” she said. She was finally interested in something other than those girls outside the bathroom. The spare tee was identical to the one I was wearing.

  “Yes,” I said. “You can’t mess with fools like those girls if your outfit isn’t properly coordinated.”

  “Oh,” Lucy said. When she came out of the bathroom stall wearing the matching NYC tee, I saw, as I had suspected, that the shirt looked perf with her navy Adidas running pants. I pulled out a compact powder case Bubbe had given to me, and I tidied up Lucy’s tearstained face.

  When I was in fifth grade, when Jack first moved to Australia and Angelina and I moved in with Bubbe, I had to transfer from a school in Greenwich Village to the Progress School on the Upper West Side. The boys tried to trip me, and the girls never talked to me at lunch. It was terrible. I didn’t know anybody except Wheaties, who had gone to the same nursery school as me, and let’s just say having Wheaties as the only kid who knew me did not qualify me for popularity. Wheaties wasn’t all bad, though. When no one wanted to eat lunch with me or pick me for kickball or dodge-ball teams, Wheaties always tried to keep me company. He would sit with me at lunch and ask if I wanted a bite of his wheatgrass sandwich (as if!), or he would show me the liner notes of his favorite CDs when both of us were sitting on the bleachers during PE games. “You are so bizarre,” I would say. “So?” he would say back.

  At that time Justine was best friends with—get this!—Brittany Carlson, and Gloria and Keisha were inseparable, as they have been since first grade and probably will be until they’re like thirty years old or something. Anyway, no one really talked to me, and I missed Jack so much, and I remember I was so miserable. Then one day the funniest thing happened. Brittany and Justine had a fight. What do you expect, though, when two such bossy people are best friends? Then Brittany asked a girl called Rebecca, who was meek and quiet and followed Brittany around like a puppy, to be her best friend. Soon after, Justine plopped herself down at the lunch table between me and Wheaties. She offered me half her PB&J sandwich and said, “So, you dress really cool and you seem pretty smart, do you want to be my best friend?” I nodded yes and after that my days trapped in the social dungeon were over. From that day forward I was accepted into the class at the Progress School. But I promised myself I would never forget those early months of fifth grade when I ran home from school every day and cried and was sure I’d never belong or have a best friend.

  “C’mon, Lucy,” I said. I grabbed her hand for a split second to make her feel strong.

  I strutted right over to Devon and Yasmin’s booth. They were guzzling Cokes and giggling.

  “Scooch over, Devon, ’kay?” I said. I sat my bum inside the booth and nudged the bum of the girl with the gold necklace proclaiming DEVON in swirly rhinestone letters. That look is so ’80s.

  I could tell Devon was totally shocked, because her mouth kind of dropped and she moved over right away to make room for me.

  “You too, Yasmin.” I gestured my hand to Yasmin. “Make some room for my girl Lucy on your side.”

  “But . . . ,” Yasmin started to sputter, completely confused.

  “MOVE!” I said. I was firm but sweet. Yasmin jumped in her seat, then moved.

  Lucy’s face was horrified, like she wanted to yell Stop, Annabel! I shot her a look back: Sit! Lucy reluctantly sat down next to Yasmin, but at the farthest end of the seat, so her leg was practically dangling in the aisle.

  “Ladies,” I said. “How you doin’?” I talked in an exaggerated New York accent so I would sound like I was in a gangster movie. I pointed at Devon and then at Yasmin. “Lemme make somethin’ clear here. You toucha my sister, I breaka you face.” I was borrowing from a sign I’d seen in Little Italy in Manhattan: YOU PARKA IN MY SPOT, I BREAKA U FACE.

  “You’re not her sister,” Devon accused. “She’s from Melbourne, and you have an American accent!”

  Lucy’s courage found her. “Annabel is too my sister, she’s my stepsister, but she is my sister and she’s from America. See, she brought me this shirt from New York. She’s from New York!”

  “Wow,” Devon and Yasmin said.

  “And I’m here to tell you, lay off my sister.” I laid on the New Yawk accent really thick.

  Devon turned to me and asked, “Do you, like, know famous movie stars?”

  “No,” I said, forgetting all about my gangster voice. “But my best friend Justine knows Leonardo.”

  “OhmyGod!” Devon screamed, grabbing her hair. Well, okay, Justine was rollerblading once in Central Park and breezed right past some scruffy-wonderfiil guy who looked just like Leonardo. She wasn’t positive that the beauty guy was Leonardo, but in her heart it was.

  “Justine goes rollerblading with him in Central Park sometimes,” I continued. “When he’s in town.”

  Devon and Yasmin sat in stunned silence, practically drooling onto the table. They looked at Lucy with new appreciation. Yasmin asked Lucy, “How many times have you seen Titanic?”

  Lucy didn’t even know how horrible her answer was. I think she was so happy they were talking to her and not making fun of her. “Never, actually. It came out so long ago and our vid machine is always breaking, and we’ve been so busy, with moving from Melbourne and Beatrice being born, I just . . . I just . . . haven’t seen it yet.”

  I was on Lucy’s side, and even I was looking at her like her head had just sprouted tree branches. She couldn’t be that hopeless—but she was! No wonder she was having a hard time at school. At the Progress School on the Upper West Side, boy bands and clothes styles come and go, but we will never, ever be over Jack Dawson, a.k.a. Leonardo, even if it came out like a million years ago.

  Then I had a brilliant idea. I said, “Devon and Yasmin, why don’t you guys come over so we can watch Titanic and you can explain all about Leonardo to my sister?”

  They both looked kind of embarrassed, like, What if someone sees us going into that weird girl from Melbourne’s house? I didn’t exactly want to encourage Lucy’s becoming friends with such jerky girls, even if they did love Leonardo the Most Beautiful, but I knew that if Lucy could become friendly with Devon and Yasmin, then other kids, better kids, would have the courage to talk to Lucy and be her friend. I fixed Devon and Yasmin with my coldest, most meanest New York squint-stare.

  “Well, all right,” Devon said quietly.

  “When?” I demanded.

  “Soon, I guess,” Yasmin said, but you could tell she wasn’t serious.

  “Tell you what,” I said. I scribbled the Steps’ address on a napkin. “Here’s our address. Come by tomorrow at noon, and we’ll make popcorn and watch the movie.”

  “Your American accent is so cool,” Yasmin said.

  “You sound just like those people on the telly,” Devon said.

  They got up to leave. “We’ll see you tomorrow?” I said.

  “Yeah,” they answered back. They both looked at Lucy. “Well, bye, Lucy,” Yasmin said.

  Lucy’s face was flush with pleasure and relief.

  “Bye!” she called out.

  I might not have been pleased about the Steps, but so long as they were
my family, no one was going to mess with them on my watch.

  Chapter 9

  Go figure. Lucy was titanically unimpressed with Leo. I almost—almost—admired her total freeze on Leo. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” she said after the movie. She said he totally was not cuter than Chandler on Friends, Lucy’s favorite megastar guy. “Anyway,” Lucy said, “Rose was the real hero of the movie, not Jack. She was the person I most admired in the movie.”

  Devon, Yasmin, and I sat on the pillows on the floor, drowning in popcorn and chocolate, with our tongues hanging out of our mouths. Did we hear Lucy correctly?

  I thought, Oh no, Lucy, don’t say that in front of Devon and Yasmin when you finally have two almost-supporters in Sydney. But I think that Devon and Yasmin, like me, were impressed that Lucy could be so strong and indifferent to Leonardo’s charms.

  “Wow,” Devon said, “I never met any girl who wasn’t absolutely crazed over Leo.”

  “You’re like this anti-Leo girl,” Yasmin said. She handed Lucy an invitation to a birthday party. I had seen the invitation in Yasmin’s pocket all afternoon, and I knew she had been deciding all day whether or not to give it to Lucy. Maybe being anti-Leo made Lucy more interesting and mysterious to Devon and Yasmin. “So come by this party or something.”

  Yasmin’s voice wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about inviting Lucy, but she had invited Lucy nonetheless. Lucy’s rosy face was pleased . . . and relieved. Like maybe she could see the light at the end of the social dungeon tunnel.

  I wondered if it was Angus’s fault that Lucy hadn’t fallen under the Leo spell. That boy was one big pain. All through the first half of the movie he kept trying to distract us. He kept standing in front of the TV, smooching his lips together and making fish gurgle sounds, then he would wave and sway his arms like he was an octopus. Angus must be some kind of fishetarian. He just loves fish. It’s the one food he won’t eat, and all he ever wants to do is look at books about fish. Whatever! But his fishy behavior was a bit much. Finally, after Lucy shouted at him to bugger off, Penny made him go upstairs with her, Jack, and Beatrice. I think Penny was just happy that Lucy was having friends over.