Can You Say Catastrophe? (2 page)

It's the friends you can call up at 4
A.M
. that matter.

—Marlene Dietrich

Thursday, April 25, 5:35 P.M.

Just home from Billy's house

Super fun but super weird afternoon

This afternoon at Billy's started out really fun, but then something happened that I wasn't expecting, and super fun turned to super weird.

Fun part first. Billy and Brynn and I went to Billy's after school to finish our Science Fair project. (That wasn't the fun part.) After we put everything on our display board and wrote our conclusion, we were sitting on the floor of Billy's family room drinking lemonade and eating popcorn and mini Reese's—our snacks of choice since third grade when the three of us vowed to always be best friends and eat the same after-school snack for the rest of our lives, or at least our school lives. That's when the fun part happened.

Billy and Brynn and I were sitting on the floor with Billy's mom's iPad, looking at old photos of Billy, Brynn, and me from grade school. There were pictures of us from birthday parties, school plays, and holidays. “Aww, we were so cute!” I said, pointing to a picture from fifth grade of us all dressed like hippies on Halloween.

When Billy pulled up a picture of the three of us from Colonial Night in third grade, we all collapsed into a laughing heap. Billy was George Washington, I was Martha Washington, and Brynn was Betsy Ross. We looked so funny in our costumes. That was the night we became friends, when Brynn and I couldn't stop laughing at Billy's jokes about wig troubles, and we've been inseparable ever since. The Three Musketeers—that's what Billy's dad calls us.

Honestly, I don't know what I'd do without my friends. Even though Brynn can have her moments, she's been my best friend since kindergarten. She's an only child, so she's more like a sister I actually like than a friend. And Billy has kept me laughing since the day I met him.

Like today, when he did his recap of what happened to Charlie Bonner in fifth-period math. I saw it when it happened, but it was even funnier when Billy put his spin on it. First of all, no one likes Charlie because he always makes fun of other people. But today he got back everything he's ever dished out.

Charlie hates our math teacher, Ms. Crawford, and, to be fair, with good reason. Ms. Crawford always calls on Charlie to come to the board to work out the problems no one else can figure out. So today, when she called on Charlie, he was prepared to get back at her. He had an egg in his shorts pocket and he told everyone before class he was going to crack it on Ms. Crawford's head when she called him up to the board. I have to admit, I couldn't wait to see him do it, but what happened was so much funnier. The egg broke in Charlie's pocket when he was walking up to the board. There must have been a hole in his pocket, because egg was dripping down his leg as he stood in front of the class.

“The yellow part looked like petrified pee, and I won't say what the white part looked like,” said Billy to Brynn and me.

Billy was pretending to do the problem on the board and shifting around and covering up his pants with his hands. It was a spot-on imitation of what Charlie looked like this afternoon. I laughed so hard, lemonade came out of my nose. Brynn had to run to the bathroom.

When we finally stopped laughing, Brynn brought up one of our favorite topics: camp.

“Fifty-one days till we leave!” she said.

Every year, Brynn does the countdown to Camp Silver Shores, and she's always the one who makes sure we have everything on the list neatly packed in our duffels.

“I can't wait to go,” I told Billy and Brynn. “Four amazing weeks with no parents or sisters to drive me crazy. My mom is making me nuts. My birthday party was a nightmare.”

Brynn nodded like she agreed. “Total nightmare.”

I cringed. It was one of those times when you don't actually want anyone to agree with you. I love Brynn like a sister, but I don't always like when she says whatever's on her mind. Lately, she's into this whole I-want-to-be-a-journalist-when-I-grow-up thing, and she says good journalists aren't afraid to speak the truth. Which is fine if the person talking is on TV, and they don't know you, but not always fine if they're your best friend.

Anyway, when Brynn said my party was a total nightmare, I ran my tongue over my teeth, which Billy says I do when I'm nervous. Billy looked at me and caught me doing it, and that's when the thing happened that made the afternoon SUPER WEIRD.

Billy smiled at me in a sweet way. “I thought you looked cute at your party,” he said, like he really did think I looked cute. Then, he stretched his leg across the carpet and touched my big toe with his. Our toes just kind of sat there for a minute, touching each other like they had minds of their own and they didn't want to stop touching.

IT WAS SO WEIRD!

Our body parts have touched before, but somehow this time it felt different, like Billy was touching me on purpose. I looked at Brynn to see if she noticed, but she didn't look like she thought anything seemed weird or different. She just kept going on about camp.

Even if Brynn couldn't feel the difference, I could.

I looked at Billy to see if he could feel the difference too, but he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at his mom's iPad like he was trying hard to find one particular photo. Then, he curled his toe away from mine like he wasn't even sure he knew it had been there in the first place.

Billy was acting like nothing was any different. So I acted like nothing was any different. But to be honest, things felt a little different.

9:35 P.M.

Complete humiliation

Can you go to jail for locking your younger sisters in the attic until you're old enough to leave for college? I don't care. I'm taking my chances. I hate them. They have zero respect for my privacy.

Tonight, after I showered, I came into my room and locked the door. I read in a magazine that if you stand with your back arched, it makes your butt look bigger. I really want my butt to look bigger, so I dropped my towel, looked in the mirror, arched my back and stuck my butt out. It actually did look bigger. I touched it to see if it felt bigger, but it felt the same.

Then I looked in the mirror at my front.

The article I read also said scientific evidence suggests that stimulation of breasts makes them grow faster. The only boob I really want to grow is my left one. So while I was standing there naked with my back arched, I rubbed my left boob. I waited to see if anything happened, but it didn't, so I rubbed it a little harder. The article didn't give specifics on how long to do it, so I kept rubbing.

But then the worst thing happened.

I heard giggling, and it was coming from under my bed. I snatched up my bedspread, and my evil, spying little sisters were not only hiding under my bed, they had my cell phone! May started snapping pictures of me. Naked! I grabbed my phone and both of their arms and pulled them out from under the bed. May was laughing like crazy, and June was rubbing her chest and imitating me.

I've never screamed so loud in my life. “GET OUT! YOU'RE NEVER ALLOWED BACK IN HERE! IF YOU EVER SO MUCH AS TOUCH MY PHONE AGAIN, YOU'RE DEAD!”

I pushed them out the door and slammed it shut behind them. After I deleted the naked pictures of myself on my own phone, I kept screaming at them through the closed door. But all I heard was more laughing. I'm so furious. My throat hurts from screaming.

And I still have one boob that's smaller than the other.

10:52 P.M.

I can't sleep. I can't stop thinking about everything that happened today. Billy's toe touching mine. Naked pictures of me on my own phone. A boob that refuses to grow. Fifty-one days till camp. I can't wait to go away with my best friends and leave my sisters and parents behind for four perfect weeks. Mom just came into my room to tell me it's time to turn my light off. Which part of her doesn't understand that I'm thirteen?

She doesn't need to come into my room to tell me to turn my light off. What is the point of being a teenager if you can't make simple decisions like when to turn off your light?

Friday, April 26, 5:45 P.M.

The humiliation continues

I was just forced to roam the streets of my neighborhood yelling for my dog. Sadly, for me, it was not the first time this has happened.

Even more sadly, I know it will not be the last.

There is no love sincerer than the love of food.

—George Bernard Shaw

Friday, May 3, 4:45 P.M.

I'm a torture victim

Tonight is the grand opening of the Love Doctor Diner. The night when everyone in Faraway is going to be at the diner. The night that my mom has made matching red vinyl jackets for my entire family with the logo of the Love Doctor Diner embroidered across the back of them. She's insisting we all wear jeans and white Ts and the jackets she made. This is cruel and unusual punishment for being born into what is clearly the wrong family for me. I'm not even sure it is my family. It seems so obvious that in no way do I share DNA with these people.

I don't want any part of this. I'm going into the kitchen to speak my mind.

4:53 P.M.

I'm back from the kitchen. I spoke my mind and, as usual, no one (specifically Mom) cared what I had to say.

“I'm not wearing this,” I said to Mom and handed her back the jacket she made.

“You're not wearing this?” She repeated what I said, but she didn't say it like a statement. She said it like a question that was so absurd it didn't need to be answered. Then she handed me back the jacket and told me to go get ready, because we had an opening to go to and Dad was counting on all of us to do our parts.

I didn't like the sound of that. “What does ‘do our parts' mean?” I asked.

Mom made her you're-going-to-like-this face, and instinctively, I knew I wasn't. “We're all going to be servers tonight.” She said it like it was going to be a grand adventure that my entire family was taking together. Maybe May and June and Mom and Dad are taking it, but there's not a chance I'm going to serve pie to my friends in a tricked-out jacket.

“NO WAY!” I yelled at Mom. Then I kept on going, even though I knew by the look on her face that I should stop. “I'm thirteen now, and you can't keep telling me what to do.”

It wasn't the first time I'd had this kind of talk with Mom. Just this morning before school, I was at the kitchen table trying to finish my math homework, and Mom kept standing over me asking why I hadn't finished my homework last night. I could hardly think to do my math, so I stopped trying to divide fractions and looked up at her.

Me: Do you know what a helicopter parent is?

Mom: Do YOU know what a helicopter parent is?

Me: I asked you first.

Mom: Don't get fresh with me, young lady.

The conversation with her completely ruined a perfectly good plate of frozen waffles.

So this afternoon, I crossed my arms and waited for the full effect of my words to sink in. I waited for Mom to say something reasonable like, “I'm sorry, April. Of course, you're a teenager now and you deserve to make your own decisions.” But all she said was, “Young lady, this is not a democracy. Now go get dressed. Tonight is an important night for your father, and we're leaving soon.”

Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. On a scale of 1 to 10, I think tonight is going to be a -44.

10:35 P.M.

I was wrong about tonight. It was a -3,456,789.

It was the most embarrassing night ever. When Mom, May, June, and I got to the diner, Dad was already setting up. There were tables of food, racks of pies, and strolling musicians. The whole place, which is already heavy on the hearts motif, was decorated with extra hearts. There were hearts hanging on the walls and stuck to the windows and printed on the napkins. Dad even had heart-shaped candles and heart glitter confetti he gave to May and June and me to sprinkle across the tables. The whole thing looked like something Brynn and I would have made up to play when we were seven. The only kind-of cool thing Dad had was a blackboard by the front door with the pie and quote of the day written on it, kind of like they do at Starbucks. I love finding cool quotes, and the quote he had written on the blackboard tonight was one that I found and gave him.

Anyway, when we were done sprinkling confetti, Dad lined us up and gave us what he called our “marching orders.” Serve pie. Be friendly. Make sure people enjoy themselves. More blah, blah, blah about how we are the Ambassadors of Love at the Love Doctor Diner, and it's up to us to make people want to come back and eat here again.

The Ambassadors of Love? What planet is my dad from?

Before I could beg him to shutter up before he opened, people started pouring in. Everyone I have ever known was there. My grandmother, my aunts, my cousins, my friends, my teachers, my neighbors, my pediatrician, our vet, the lady who works at the dry cleaners, the man who runs the concession stand at the baseball park, the lifeguard from the pool, even the crossing guard from my school.

“Go!” said Dad, like it was time to spring into action.

He handed May and June plates of what he says will be his world-famous pecan pie. He tried to give me one. “Take this pie to Mrs. Wallace,” he said.

I didn't budge. I rolled my eyes in the direction of my overweight neighbor. “I don't think Mrs. Wallace needs pie.” But Dad seemed to disagree. He took my arm and gave me an I-don't-like-your-attitude look. “Young lady, I expect you to be pleasant around the customers.” Then he stuck the plate in my hand and sent me off.

There were lots of things I wanted to say to Dad, like: Do I look like I'm wearing a T-shirt that says waitress on it? Did I ask you to open a restaurant with a neon sign of a heart with a stethoscope wrapped around it right in the middle of town? And if the answer to all these questions is no, why am I stuck serving pie? But I couldn't ask any of those questions. All I could do was pull my jacket up around my ears and hand out pie to everyone I know. It was bad enough handing it to old ladies from my neighborhood, but it was complete humiliation handing it to my friends.

Brynn and her parents got there first. “April, I've always loved you in red,” said Mrs. Stephens. She wrapped a bangle-braceleted arm around me and smiled as if she actually liked what I was wearing. Brynn's mom is very fashionable and she's always nice, but unlike her daughter, she's not always brutally honest. I know she wouldn't have been caught dead in a jacket like mine.

Brynn's dad was nice too. When he saw me, he wrapped his big arm around me and asked how his “other daughter” was doing.

Brynn wasn't as nice as her parents. I don't think she was trying to be not-nice—she was just being Brynn. When I handed her a plate of pie, she stuck her pretend journalist mic in my face. “Tell us, April Sinclair, do you think red vinyl will be in this fall?”

When Billy and his family arrived, things went from bad to worse.

Billy and I have barely spoken since the toe-touching incident, which is totally weird because we usually talk every day, but he hardly said anything to me in school all week. It's not like we're mad at each other. It's just like we're pretending the other person doesn't exist. I wouldn't be pretending that, except Billy is, so I'm stuck doing it back and I'm not even sure why.

It's confusing, and to make matters worse, I can't talk to Brynn about it. I know if I tell her about Billy's toe touching mine and that I think it happened in more-than-just-an-accident way, she'll say I'm crazy. She'll say that the three of us are best friends and that toes or other body parts touch all the time, especially when we're doing things like lying around on the floor. Then, she'll probably say something that she'll consider to be totally honest like, “April, do you think you're being a good friend when you make it seem like Billy likes you more than he likes me?”

That's what I was thinking when Billy and his family walked into the diner.

“There are the Weisses,” said Dad. He handed me plates and pushed me in their direction. “Please help them find a place to sit.”

I wanted someone else to give them pie and help them find a table, but they were already looking at me and it was pretty clear that's what I was supposed to do. I steered them through the crowds of people laughing and talking and eating every known Southern delicacy.

When I gave them their pie, Dr. and Mrs. Weiss both said they could use some pie after the drive over.

“Ha, ha,” said Bobby, Billy's older brother, who got his license last week. “My driving isn't that bad.”

Dr. Weiss laughed like he was just teasing Bobby.

All the Weisses were chatty except for Billy. It was so un-Billy-like. I guess it's what Billy has been like lately. Normally, he would say something to make me laugh, but tonight, he just sat there eating his pie.

I didn't really want to stand there and not talk to Billy, so I walked off like I had some official Love Doctor Diner server business to take care of. That was a big mistake because the person I walked into was Matt Parker. I actually walked right into him.

He stepped back and looked at me. “Cool top,” he said.

“It's a jacket,” I said back. The minute the words left my mouth, I regretted them. What's wrong with me? Why would I say something so dumb?

Matt shrugged like he didn't care if it was a top or a jacket.

I could feel my face turning as red as my jacket. I tried to think of something clever to say, but while I was thinking, Matt just said, “See ya,” and walked off.

He must think I'm a total freak.

I certainly looked like one.

Saturday morning, May 4

Too early to even write the exact time

All I wanted to do this morning was sleep off the humiliation of having to serve pie in a custom-made jacket to my not-so-secret crush. However, sleeping is now impossible because apparently Gilligan chose to leave home early and my Dad went out looking for him.

The sun isn't even up, but I am. Listening to my Dad yelling for my dog outside my window. My only hope is that this is all a nightmare, and that I'll go back to sleep, wake up, and see that my family is normal, my dog is asleep by my bed, and that I'm one of those girls who always says cute, clever things to boys.

Still Saturday morning

A little later

Still too early to write the exact time

I couldn't fall back asleep, which means two things:

1. What I hoped was just a terrible dream was not.

2. I'm going to the kitchen to eat pancakes.

9:17 A.M.

Back in my room

I went to the kitchen. One of the good things about my mom is that she always makes pancakes on Saturday mornings. Except, guess what was for breakfast this Saturday morning? Leftover pie.

Who feeds pie to their children for breakfast?

I officially hate pie.