Don't Wear Polka-Dot Underwear with White Pants: (And Other Lessons I've Learned) (9 page)

“Remember to exclaim,” I whisper in her ear as I go back to my seat. And even though Natalie
does not let out one “Wahoo!” she is pretty good at being George Washington because she is very serious. And I guess George Washington really was a serious president, so maybe it is a good fit.

Plus, if I were George Washington, I would not have gotten my new periwinkle dress, which is my new favorite dress in the whole world, so the narrator is the perfect part for me. It looks like Mrs. Spangle was right all along, even if she is pretty old (and I will not talk about her being one hundred years old anymore, I've decided).

Dennis walks up to the microphone in his Teddy Roosevelt vest and mustache, and he even combed his hair out of his Mohawk. “Nature is the place—” he begins in a loud, booming voice, and his mustache flies off of his lip, flutters through the air, and drops off the stage. Dennis does not keep speaking because he is shocked, I think.

“Nature is the place . . . ,” Mrs. Spangle coaches him from the side of the stage, but Dennis stays silent. He is going to ruin our Presidential Pageant because he has a lost mustache.

Before Mrs. Spangle can tell me not to, I pop up from my seat real fast, run down the steps on the side of the stage, and pick Dennis's mustache up from the first row. Fast as a cat, I am back on stage by the microphone, and I hand Dennis his mustache.

And he looks pretty surprised, actually.

“Here, Freckle Face,” I whisper, standing far away from the microphone so that no one else will hear.

“Thanks, Mandy,” Dennis answers, and I cannot believe that he called me my real name and not “Polka Dot.” He takes the mustache from my hand and sticks it back on his lip, and he holds it there the whole time as he finishes his Teddy
Roosevelt part. The audience gives him a big round of applause when he is finished, even though I am the one who saved his mustache.

Each time I get up to speak, I am better and better, if I do say so myself. But the rest of my class is pretty good too. When our show is over,
we stand at the front of the stage and hold hands in a long line. We bow one time and then another, and the audience claps and claps, and I have never been so happy in my life.

“You made a great narrator, Mandy,” Natalie says to me as we walk down the stairs on the side of the stage. And I thank her like I really mean it.

“You were a pretty good George Washington too,” I tell her, and I am not just being polite. “Maybe sometime I could try on your wig?” I think she could let me try it on since I taught her how to not throw up and all.

“You could come over to my house this weekend?” Natalie suggests, and I say this is a good idea. Because I think getting to wear a George Washington wig is worth going over to Natalie's house.

“Do you like Rainbow Sparkle's TV show?” I ask her.

“I've never seen it.” Natalie looks down at the floor. “My mom doesn't let me watch TV.”

“That is a tragedy,” I tell her. “Only not really, because—ta-da!—you will come over my house and we will watch Rainbow Sparkle together. Just make sure you bring your wig.” And Natalie grins so much when I say this that I think her face might explode like a bubblegum bubble.

“Maybe you could try on my George Washington wig and my glasses at the same time,” Natalie suggests, and I tell her that this is the best idea I have heard all day.

“Mandy!” I hear someone call behind me in a voice that sounds like Mom's. But she never, ever calls me “Mandy” so I am super-duper confused.

When I turn around, Mom and Dad almost walk right into me, and they are smiling as big as Natalie.

“You were amazing, Mandy,” Mom says. “The best narrator I've ever seen.”

“Hey, you called me 'Mandy'!” I say this with a lot of exclaim because it is the new best thing I've heard all day.

“If that's what you like, that's your name,” Mom says, and she is being a good listener. First the dress, then the headband, now my name, so I give her a big hug.

“I'm so proud of all your hard work,” Dad says. “That was a lot of speaking you had to do.”

I agree that it was, and my parents take my picture on the stage by the microphone so I can always remember the time that I was the best narrator ever.

“Nice job, Polka Dot,” Dennis says to me, almost like he is a nice person. “Thank you for helping with my mustache.”

“No problem, Freckle Face,” I say, and Dennis
does not even stick his tongue out at me then. This might be the first time that I do not think Dennis is horrible.

Anya gives me a squishy hug, because she is wearing a pillow to look round like President Taft, and it is just about the best hug ever. I wave good-bye to Natalie, and she points to her wig and gives me a thumbs-up.

Natalie is maybe not so boring, I think.

“I knew you would make a great narrator, Mandy,” Mrs. Spangle tells me. “No one reads with expression like you.” Mom wants to take my picture with Mrs. Spangle, so my teacher leans down low so I can throw my arm over her shoulders. I smile real wide, because I am in my periwinkle dress and because I am not angry with Mrs. Spangle for not making me George Washington anymore. She may even be one of my favorite people in the world, at least most of the time.

After we leave, Mom and Dad take me to have ice cream all by myself, with no Timmy and no twins. I can barely lick the scoops into my mouth because I am grinning so much.

“Wahoo!” I call out when I am in the middle of my ice-cream cone, because sometimes a “wahoo” is just needed.

“So what was the best part of your day, Mandy?” Mom asks, and I think real hard because it is a very important question.

“I have three,” I finally answer. “My new beautiful periwinkle dress, me being the best narrator ever, and this.”

“The ice cream?” Dad asks.

“No,” I say. “This.” I circle my hand around the three of us because I am glad we are together.

And I am glad Timmy and the twins are not here, but that would not sound nice, so I do not say it out loud.

“Me too,” Mom says.

“And me three,” Dad says. “By the way, I have something for you.” And I cannot believe he spent all this time having a present and not giving it to me.

“Mandy's very own gummy bears,” Dad says, and he hands me the most gigantic bag of bears I have ever seen. “All for you, as long as you promise not to hide them in your room. Deal?”

“Deal!” I answer, even though I cannot absolutely promise that, because sometimes a gummy bear hiding place is just needed.

“How about,” Mom says, “you do your narrator part for Grandmom and Timmy when we get home? I'm sure they would love to hear it.”

“Only if I get to play all the parts,” I say. “
All
of them.”

“You got it.” Dad laughs at me. “You still want to be president, huh?”

I nod real fast. Because I want to be in charge
like the presidents, of course, but that is not the real reason.

The real reason is that I want to be the first president ever to wear a periwinkle dress, a Rainbow Sparkle headband, and a pair of polka-dot underwear.

1. DON'T WEAR POLKA-DOT UNDERWEAR WITH WHITE PANTS.

2. ALWAYS HAVE A BAG OF GUMMY BEARS AVAILABLE.

3. NEVER SQUEEZE CATERPILLARS LIKE GUMMY BEARS.

4. SUGAR DOES NOT BELONG IN HAIR, EVEN IF GEORGE WASHINGTON DID IT.

5. DON'T SAY YOU CAN DO A CARTWHEEL IF YOU CAN'T.

6. DUMBBELLS ARE HEAVY. AND ALSO DUMB.

7. BABIES HAVE NO SENSE OF HUMOR.

8. IT'S NOT NICE TO TAKE YOUR NEIGHBORS' KEYS WITHOUT ASKING.

9. TEACHERS DON'T LIKE TO BE CALLED “OLD.”

10. NOT EVERYBODY GETS TO BE PRESIDENT.

THE CENTER OF OUR PIZZA
pie is missing because Dad is no good at giving directions.

The best part of a pizza slice is the first bite because the point is skinny and it is mouth-size and it never has any crust. Crust is useless because it has no cheese. I always try to make my brother Timmy eat my crust so that he will give me his first bite points. Mom says this is not allowed, but Dad does not because he is no good at giving directions.

Dad is also not a very good babysitter, if I am being honest. If he were, he would have said,
Mandy, do not touch the pizza until I come back.
Instead, Dad left me alone in the kitchen with the big, steamy pizza pie box, and he ran off to the twins' room.

One of the twins had started crying, because the twins are always crying, and I knew waiting for Dad to give me a slice could take all night. So I opened the pizza box, lifted the slices one by one, and bit off each delicious point before plopping the rest of the slice back in the box.

It was the best pizza pie I have ever had.

Only Dad does not think so, because when he comes back into the kitchen with a crying twin and sees the center of the pizza missing, his face turns as red as a tomato. He looks over at me slowly, so I cross my arms and stomp my foot and yell, “I had no dinner!” before he can say one word.

Dad turns away from me, digs through the twins' diaper bag, and walks back toward the twins' room with a package of wipes in his hand.

“Follow me,” he calls over his shoulder. I keep my arms crossed and drag my heels on the kitchen floor.

“I had no dinner!” I repeat when we get to the twins' doorway.

“You need to learn to be patient, Mandy,” Dad says. “Even Timmy did not take bites out of all of the pizza slices, and he's only three. You're eight—you should know better.” And this makes me angry because I know I am better than Timmy, which is why Timmy is hungry right now and I am not.

“You are a bad babysitter,” I inform Dad. “I am going to tell Mom on you.” Dad laughs, which I think is rude.

“And what are you going to tell her?” Dad asks.
He begins changing the diaper of one of the twins, which is smelly and awful, so I hold my nose shut.

“Yow dow nawt ghive guwd dewektons,” I answer.

“What?”

“Yow dow nawt ghive guwd dewektons,” I repeat.

“I can't understand you when you're holding your nose,” Dad says.

I whip my hand away from my face and yell, “YOU DO NOT GIVE GOOD DIRECTIONS!” real fast, and I guess I say it pretty loud, because the twin starts to cry again.

“Mandy,” Dad begins in his “This is your warning” voice. “I think you should come here and help me change Samantha's diaper.”

“No, thank you,” I answer, and I am polite and everything.

“It's not a choice, Amanda,” Dad says, and
I know that he means business. Dad only calls me “Amanda” when I am about to be in trouble, because he knows that I hate it.

I sigh a big puff of breath and shuffle over to the twins' changing table. I put one hand over my nose and my other hand over the twin's mouth and say, “Stop crying,” which I think is pretty helpful.

“Mandy, no!” Dad pulls my hand away from the twin. “You can't cover her mouth like that—she won't be able to breathe.”

“Then what do you want me to do?” I stomp my foot again. I would like to go up to my room and be in trouble by myself, but I stay put because I do not want to make Dad call me “Amanda” again.

“Here.” Dad fastens the twin's new diaper and picks her up under the armpits. “Play with Samantha until I finish changing Cody. See if you can get her to stop crying.”

I stare at Dad over the hand that is still covering my nose. I never, ever hold the twins because they are damp and gross and no fun at all. Dad looks back at me, neither of us moving, and the twin continues to howl.

“Amanda,” Dad says, “either you play with Samantha right now or no Rainbow Sparkle TV show for—”

“Fine.” I whip my hand away from my nose and reach out for the twin, because I am not having Rainbow Sparkle taken away from me again. No way! I wrap my arms around the twin like she is a pile of dirty clothes, and I sit on the floor.