Janine looked me directly in the eye. 'And I'm the official chaperone." She had me there. I slipped into the black jeans, then pulled a black turtleneck over my head. I had a fleece top with turquoise, hot pink, and lime green stripes and one thin line of red. It was a boxy jacket style and looked festive, I decided.
"That's bright," Janine said as I buttoned the jacket.
I found a pair of earrings I'd made out of curling ribbon and put them on, then stood back and looked at the results. Cool.
"The food is prepared. I have three large cookies for decorating later in the evening and a dozen sacked cookies for each member of the winning team. I've ordered pizza to be delivered at eight, and there's a variety of soda on ice in the cooler, plus the overflow is in the refrigerator. I also have chips and pretzels and even some fruit, should someone want a healthy alternative to the junk food." Janine ticked each item off on her fingers.
"Janine, you are the goddess of food and I thank you." I gave her a quick hug.
"You look terrific," Janine said. "Ready?" "I think so." I pulled a brush through my hair one more time. I'd decided to wear it loose. "Josh and Stacey should be here in a few minutes to help set up." As we ran down the stairs, the doorbell rang. Janine practically knocked me over in her rush to reach the door first.
"Stacey!" she said, throwing the door open. "I'm so delighted you could come. Enter!" "Hi, Janine. Hi, Claud." Stacey stepped inside. "Josh is right behind me." "Joshua, come right in," Janine called out the door. "It's party time." I hugged Stacey. "I'm so excited," I whispered.
"Now, let's see what still needs to be done," Janine said as she closed the door behind Josh. I wiggled my fingers at him in greeting as he stood waiting for his instructions from the "official chaperone." "Wait a minute," I said. "First you have to have a sticker." I peeled off a red heart for Josh (for obvious reasons) and a blue star for Stacey and stuck them on their shirts. For myself, I chose a pink heart. I wanted to be in Josh's group.
"What about me?" Janine asked.
After exchanging a glance with Stacey, I gave Janine a star.
"Stacey, you choose the music. Josh, you set out some of the napkins and plates that we'll need later for refreshments. Claudia, you start filling baskets and bowls with snacks," Janine said.
And, Queen Janine, what will you be doing? I wondered. She joined me in the kitchen. When the doorbell rang, she offered to take over and finish.
I wiped my hands quickly, then ran into the front hall. My first real guest. I opened the door. "Hi!" I said, with a big smile.
"Hi, yourself," Pete Black replied.
Pete Black? Had I invited Pete? He's a good friend of Logan's, but I didn't remember even talking to him during the past week. He must have sensed my confusion, because he added, "Logan mentioned you were having a party and that it would be cool if I stopped by." "Sure, the more the merrier," I said, quickly trying to figure out how many people that now meant. Twelve, maybe? That wasn't so many. I was "stickering" Pete with a squirrel to start the third group when I saw Emily Bernstein, another eighth-grade friend, coming up the walk with Erica Blumberg. Uh-oh. The word must have gotten out.
"Claudia, this is a great idea," Emily said, stepping inside.
"Thanks for inviting us," Erica added.
Janine had come into the hallway. She gave me a strange look but didn't say anything. Emily, Erica, Pete, and Stacey were chatting away while Josh looked on. I stuck a bear on Emily and a star on Erica, explaining that we'd be dividing into teams as soon as everyone arrived.
Before I could close the door, the Junk Bucket, Charlie Thomas's car, pulled up. Kristy climbed out, followed by Shannon, Abby, Anna, and Shannon's best friend from Stoneybrook Day, Greer Carson. I took a deep breath. This was a get-to-know-people party, after all. Still, I was starting to worry about whether we'd ordered enough pizza and if we had enough soda. Would three teams be enough?
And I hadn't included everybody in the trivia game! I gave out stickers without really thinking about who should go where. Mary Anne and Logan arrived, followed by Rick Chow and Austin Bentley, two more friends of Logan's.
"What a crowd!" Mary Anne said, hesitating in the doorway.
"There are a few more people than I expected," I admitted. "And not everybody that I expect is here yet." "You said to let our other friends know about the party," Mary Anne reminded me.
I didn't remember exactly what I'd said, but it obviously hadn't come out the way I'd meant it. I gave everyone in that group stickers too, then greeted Jeannie, Joanna, and Shira, who were followed by Mal and Jessi.
There was a solid wall of people around the table where we'd set out the food, as well as a crowd in the living room. I looked outside and saw no sign of other unexpected guests, so I closed the door. Someone turned the stereo up a notch. I started for the living room to turn it down again, then saw it was Janine adjusting the knobs. She was talking to Greer, who had on a star that matched Janine's.
In fact, when I settled down enough to notice, I realized that people were mixing with each other pretty well. Joanna was talking to Kristy and Austin Bentley, while Shira was giggling with Emily and Jessi. Mal, Josh, and Mary Anne were sitting on the steps leading upstairs, deep in conversation - about what, I had no idea.
"Thanks for coming, everybody!" I shouted, wondering if I could be heard above all the noise. Janine rushed to my side, smiling. The noise level dropped a bit and a few people turned my way.
I raised my voice a little higher. "I gave out three kinds of stickers. Find the other people who are wearing the same kind you are. They're your team members." I took a deep breath. It was much quieter as people moved to find their teammates. They stood in silent clumps, looking at me. I caught Josh's eye and he smiled, making me feel better. "I'm going to pass out sheets with trivia facts about some of the people here. You'll need to talk to each other to find who the fact is about." Pete said something I couldn't hear and everyone around him laughed.
"The winning team will be the one which correctly identifies the most people," I added.
Janine handed me the sheets she'd typed up, and I passed them out. There were exactly enough. Janine must have made extras. "Let the games begin," Janine added.
"I thought there were going to be fourteen people here," Janine said quietly to me. "I count twenty and with me, twenty-one. I didn't really think we'd use all those sheets." Twenty-one. That sounded like a lot. I had thought eleven or twelve people would show up.
"I ordered pizza for fifteen," Janine continued.
"We'll make it stretch," I replied.
"The snacks are almost completely gone already," Janine pointed out, "and I figured on two sodas per person." I squirmed a little.
"Where did the extra people come from?" Janine asked. "How could you have been so far off on your total?" I was more worried about stretching the food than about exactly how many people were present. After all they were here and they weren't going to leave.
"We still have the giant cookies," I reminded her. "And everybody's probably eaten dinner so they won't be that hungry." "People do seem to be having fun," Janine observed. "I guess it's all right. I think I'll try to match person with fact." I smiled. "Okay," I said. I headed for the den. The star team was already there, filling out their sheets.
"Is there a prize?" Rick called to me as I passed his group in the living room.
"First choice at pizza," I said.
"I hope you ordered sausage and bacon. We're ripping through these questions." "Claudia, no fair if you work with your team. You know all the answers," said Kristy from the dining room.
"That's right," yelled Pete, "no fair." "I promise I won't help anybody," I assured them.
Then I heard it and my heart practically stopped - the sound of breaking glass coming from the direction of the living room.
Chapter 11.
Either Janine was faster than me, or she was already in the room when it happened, because she was on her knees picking up pieces of the shattered vase when I arrived - along with just about everyone else in the room.
"Be careful of the broken glass," Josh warned me.
Mal was standing back, staring at Janine and the vase, her face bright red and her eyes shiny with tears. "I'm so sorry," she said, "I'm so sorry. I'm such a klutz." Why couldn't it have been anyone other than Mal? I thought.
Jessi hurried to Mal's side and put an arm around her. Stacey, Abby, Kristy, and Mary Anne squeezed through the crowd to join her too, reminding her that it was an accident.
"Maybe you can glue it back together," Logan suggested.
"I don't think so," Janine said, shaking her head.
"It's just a vase," I said, trying to convince myself as well as everyone else. "Don't worry about it." Still, I could barely stand to look at all the tiny pieces scattered over the floor. What would Mom and Dad say?
"You are absolutely correct, Claudia," Janine said, standing up. "We'll clean this up so that no one is injured, and it will be fine." She smiled weakly.
"I'll clean it up," Mal offered.
"Let me show you where the broom and dustpan are kept." Janine led her into the kitchen.
The doorbell rang. I wondered who hadn't yet shown up.
Joanna, Kristy, and Austin were standing at the open front door by the time I reached it, each one holding a pizza box.
"We need money," Kristy called to me.
I wove my way through the crowd again and found the money Janine had set aside for pizza. By the time I'd paid for it, the only thing left was a slice of Canadian bacon and pineapple. I decided to wait for cookies.
"Here, I saved you a piece." Josh appeared at my side and handed me a slice of pepperoni. I bit into it and kept walking.
"Claudia," he called after me. "Come in here with me for awhile." "Can't," I said with my mouth full. I kept walking.
Mal and Jessi were still in the living room, cleaning up the glass. Joanna and Jeannie had taken up a spot on the steps, while Austin, Rick, Pete, and Logan were watching sports news on the TV. What had happened to the teams?
"Claudia, could you please join me in the kitchen?" Janine yelled through the crowd.
"What's wrong?" I asked when I'd fought my way to the door.
"We have depleted the food supply," Janine announced.
"We still have cookies," I said.
"But I've had several requests for more pizza. If we'd only known exactly how many guests..." It was too late to worry about that. I'd thought I knew how many.
"What do we have on hand? I'll bet we can find something." I pulled open the pantry door. There was an unopened jar of hearts of palm, some pineapple, tomato sauce, and a can of beans.
"There's frozen pizza dough," Janine said.
"Then we'll make our own pizza." I pulled the cans out of the pantry and lined them up on the counter. "It takes, what, ten or fifteen minutes to cook?" "We haven't got any mozzarella cheese." I joined Janine in front of the fridge.
There were, however, a few slices of American cheese. "We can use this. It'll be a Kishi special." "I'll see what I can do." Janine turned on the oven and took out our pizza pan.
I found some carrots and a carton of health-dip in the refrigerator. I scraped the health-dip into a bowl and cut up the carrots. There was also cold spaghetti, but I didn't think that would interest anyone.
"Maybe the smaller cookies should be dessert rather than a prize," I said.
Janine slipped her pizza, into the oven. 'Announce the cookie-decorating competition now. It's becoming very noisy in there." I'd been so busy trying to figure out what to feed everyone that I hadn't noticed the noise. Now, however, I realized the party was much louder than it had been.
I picked up the three giant cookies and the decorating supplies that Janine had collected and carried them into the dining room. Shira, Stacey, and Rick were walking around balancing pizza boxes on their heads. I checked to make sure there weren't any breakables around.
Mal and Jessi were still in the living room. The glass was cleaned up, and they were sitting on the sofa, talking. "We're going to decorate cookies now. Find your team," I said. They looked up and nodded but kept talking.
In the den, another group, led by Shannon, was singing what sounded like camp songs. "Cookie time," I said, "in the dining room." The boys in the group immediately jumped up and ran for the door.
Before I could explain that the cookies were for decorating, Austin had broken one and was handing out the pieces.
"I love these!" I heard Anna say. She opened a jar of colored sprinkles and poured some into her hand.
"Let me try some," said Erica, taking the jar.
"Icing in a spray can!" Pete squirted some into his mouth.
"That's gross," Kristy said, grabbing it.
"I didn't put my mouth on it," Pete said. "It's good. Have some." He reached for the can and pressed the nozzle, causing a line of icing to ooze out onto Kristy's arm.
"Yuck!" she said, but she licked it off.
"The icing tastes good on cookies too," said Abby. She took the can from Kristy and sprayed some on a piece of cookie, then ate it.
Emily took one of the icing cans and made a face on a cookie. Abby tried to press red hots into a cookie and it broke, sending pieces shooting across the dining room table.
