Don't Wear Polka-Dot Underwear with White Pants: (And Other Lessons I've Learned) (5 page)

“Gymnastics,” one of the girls answers. “The three of us are in the same gymnastics class, so we're practicing.”

“That's dumb,” I say to Anya. “The playground does not even have a trampoline.” The trampoline is the only thing I ever did when I had to go to a gymnastics birthday party. You cannot bounce up and down on the grass like you can on a trampoline because grass is not very jumpy.

“Oooh, what kind?” Anya asks the other girls.
I forgot that Anya took gymnastics when she was little, but then she stopped because she ice-skates now.

“We were doing forward rolls,” one of the girls says. “But now we're doing cartwheels.”

“I love cartwheels,” Anya says, and before I can blink, she throws her hands on the ground, sticks her feet in the air, and turns in a circle.

Anya can do a lot of things, I guess.

The three other girls from the gymnastics class do cartwheels too. And then Natalie gets ready to do one.

“Natalie, you better let me hold your glasses so you do not break them,” I tell her, and I hold out my hand to take them. I am sure Natalie cannot do a real cartwheel, and so she will probably crack her glasses in tiny pieces. I am very considerate, I think.

“No, thank you,” Natalie says, and before I
can say one more thing about the glasses, she does a perfect cartwheel and her glasses do not even fall off. And if Natalie can do a cartwheel, I do not see why I shouldn't be able to do one too.

“Stand back, everybody,” I say, because I want to make sure everyone is paying real close attention. “My turn.”

“Do you even know how to do a cartwheel?” Natalie asks.

“Of course I know how to do a cartwheel,” I say, even though I have never actually tried one. But I am sure I can do one if Natalie can, with her glasses on and everything, so I am not too worried.

I take a deep breath, lift my arms in the air just like Anya did, and roll to my right.

And next thing I know, I am on the ground.

This is not how this cartwheel was supposed to go.

Worst of all, the other girls are laughing, which does not seem very nice to me. Even Anya is laughing, so I do not take her hand when she reaches it out to help me stand up.

This is why Anya is my favorite person in the world
most
of the time and not
all
the time.
Because she knows how to do a cartwheel. And because sometimes she laughs at me, and that is a pretty rude thing to do.

The lunch aides blow the whistle then, and I am happy to hear it even though I usually hate that whistle sound. I cannot believe that I do not know how to do a cartwheel and Natalie does. This is a real tragedy—a big, humongous tragedy that I must fix immediately.

ONCE WE HAVE SETTLED DOWN
from recess, Mrs. Spangle says, “I am going to assign your parts for the Presidential Pageant.” I have to uncross my arms then, even though I am still angry, because I cannot let out a “Wahoo!” with my arms crossed.

I sit at my desk super-duper straight, and I even fold my hands like Natalie because it looks very presidential, I think.

“I want everyone to remember that all of the parts for this assembly are important,” Mrs.
Spangle says. “Even if you do not receive the role you had hoped for, I want you to work very hard at learning your lines so you are the very best president you can be.” And I wish Mrs. Spangle would just hurry up and tell me that I am George Washington already.

I tap my toes against the floor and wiggle my fingers on the desk because I am nervous and jumpy. I would like to see my lines right away, but Mrs. Spangle is taking her time picking up an enormous pile of papers from her desk.

“These are your scripts,” she explains. “I've highlighted your lines in yellow marker so you can see where your part is. I'm going to call your name, and when I give you your script, you can flip through to find your section. Anya.” She hands Anya a thick pile of stapled pages, then she does the same for ten more people who are not me.

“Dennis,” she calls, and Dennis takes his script and flips through it quickly.

“Yes, Teddy Roosevelt!” He shoots his fist in the air. “Mustache, here I come!”

“No calling out, please,” Mrs. Spangle reminds him, and I am shaking so much with excitement now that I think I am going to fall over.

“Mandy,” Mrs. Spangle finally says, and she hands me my very own script with
Mandy Berr
written at the top. Not
President Mandy Berr
, which I would have liked better.

I move the pages around quickly and look for the words “George Washington.” I see many yellow marks across the lines, but no presidential names—only the word “Narrator” where the name “George Washington” should be.

“Who is President Narrator?” I ask.

“No calling out, Mandy,” she says.

I raise my hand but Mrs. Spangle does not
call on me, even though this is an
emergency
.

“Now that you all have your scripts in front of you,” she begins, still ignoring my hand, “let's go over who is playing whom.” I wave my hand back and forth in case she cannot see it.

“First, Mandy is going to be our narrator,” Mrs. Spangle continues, motioning for me to lower my hand. “She is going to introduce all of our presidents to the audience.”

I shoot my arm in the air again.

“Yes?” she calls on me.

“I am supposed to be George Washington,” I explain, and I feel tears tickling the back of my eyes.

“The narrator is going to be a great part for you. You'll see,” Mrs. Spangle says. “Now, who's next? Follow along in your scripts.”

Natalie raises her hand.

“Right, Natalie, tell everyone your part.”

“George Washington,” Natalie answers.

My chin drops and my eyes widen into huge pancakes, and I push on them with my fingers to make the tears stop tickling. Because I am absolutely positive that this is the worst news I have ever heard in my life.

 . 
.
 .

Mrs. Spangle is my least favorite person in the world. I am even angrier with her than I am at anyone else, and I am angry with a lot of people right now.

Making Natalie George Washington in our Presidential Pageant is the worst thing that Mrs. Spangle could have done—Natalie, who does not know how to exclaim or to make her hair white or to be the first at anything. Natalie knows how to do a cartwheel, but that is not going to get her very far in being the best George Washington ever, which would have been me. I am positive that Natalie is
not the president of her family like I am the president of mine.

I am stuck being the narrator, and I don't even know what the narrator is, but it is not a president, and so I am very, very upset. I think Mrs. Spangle felt a little bad because she called me to her desk and told me that the narrator has the biggest speaking part of anyone in the show. And that she knows that I read with expression, so this is why she gave the part to me. And that the narrator is the storyteller who holds the whole assembly together.

But the narrator is not a president, and this is the problem that Mrs. Spangle is missing.

And the narrator is really, really not George Washington.

And George Washington is Natalie. Natalie! That is almost as bad as George Washington being Dennis—maybe even worse, because at least
Dennis knows how to exclaim. Dennis gets to be Teddy Roosevelt, which is also terrible, because he will get to wear a fake mustache and I have always wanted to wear one.

Plus, I cannot do a cartwheel, which I never even knew that I could not do before. And I am not speaking to Anya, even though she said that she was sorry three times. So this day has been like a huge, gigantic flop.

When I get home, Mom asks, “How was your day?” and I say, “Horrible,” and she does not even ask why because the twins are drooling or pooping or crying or doing something else that is gross. So my day gets even worse.

I sit on my bed with my bag of gummy bears, but I do not even feel like eating one. I am reading the script that Mrs. Spangle gave me, and she is right: I have a
lot
of lines. And the lines have a lot of exclamation points, and I love exclamation
points, which Natalie does not know how to read.

I get the tiniest bit more excited about being the narrator, and I try reading some of my lines out loud to myself.

“What you doing, Mandy?” Timmy wanders into my bedroom even though there is a sign on my door that says
TIMMY
with a gigantic
X
over his name.

I want to tell him to get out, but I also want to read my narrator lines to someone, so I am stuck between a rock and a rock. (Dad always says he is stuck between a rock and a hard place, which really makes no sense because a rock
is
hard. So I think it should be “stuck between a rock and a rock.”)

I stuff my bag of gummy bears under my pillow before Timmy can see it.

“What does that sign on my door mean?” I ask.

“No Timmy,” he answers, and he looks pretty
sad, actually. But I need to make sure he understands the rules if I am going to let him come into my room.

“Good,” I say. “Now come listen to me practice my lines.”

Timmy's eyes get real wide, and I think it is a little weird that he is so happy about me reading these narrator lines to him. Even if there are a lot of lines and I do read with expression.

Timmy does not come over right away, like he thinks I am playing a trick or something.

“Hurry up and come here,” I tell him. “I am not asking, I am telling.” I can say this to Timmy because Mom is not here to tell me not to.

Timmy crawls onto my bed and sits right next to me so our legs are touching, which I do not like. But I let him sit that way just so I can make sure he does not move and find my gummy bears by accident.

“I got a very gigantic part in the second-grade Presidential Pageant,” I tell him, and Timmy looks at me like I am a big deal, which is exactly what I wanted. “You are not allowed to come.” And then he looks sad again.

“But you will not really care, because I am going to practice my whole part for you now,” I continue. “You have to be very quiet and never, ever talk. Or move. I need to concentrate. Okay?”

“Okay, Mandy,” Timmy says, and sometimes he is not that bad for a three-year-old, I guess.

I read my whole part to Timmy one time and then another, and he stays very still and silent. When I am finished, he claps his hands for me, which I kind of like a lot.

“Close your eyes,” I say. “I have a surprise.” Timmy squeezes his eyes shut real tight and puts his hands over them. I reach under my pillow, open my gummy bear bag, and pull out one bear
of each color. Then I stuff the bag back under my pillow before Timmy opens his eyes and sees its hiding spot.

“Hold out your hands, but don't open your eyes,” I say, because I like to be in charge like a president. Timmy listens. I place the gummy bears into his hands, and they are warm and gooey from mine. “Open.”

Timmy opens his eyes and he smiles real wide. “Thanks, Mandy!” he says, and I kind of almost like my brother right now, except not too much.

“Eat the red one last,” I tell him. “Red is the best.”

“Dinnertime, you two,” Dad calls up the stairs, so Timmy sticks all the gummy bears in his mouth at once and starts chomping on them, which is not how I just said to eat them. I wrinkle up my nose and give him my “You are gross” face.

My family is supposed to eat dinner at the humongous oval table in our kitchen, but now it
is always covered with twin stuff. So Mom makes Timmy and me eat at the picnic table in the toy room while she and Dad take care of the twins, which is the worst way ever to eat dinner. Because even if I kind of like Timmy today, I have already seen way too much of him. And plus, that picnic table is for babies.

“I am eight years old!” I call to my parents from the dumb picnic table.