Katy Kelly_Lucy Rose 01 (4 page)

And she said, “That is true. I do. And you look like a famous singer.”

So I stood at the top of the big steps and sang “When the Moon Hits Your Eye Like a Big Pizza Pie” and Jonique kept shouting, “Bravo!” so I sang the encore of “Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat” which comes from the musical of
Guys and Dolls
which is one of the best shows ever. I know because when we lived in Ann Arbor my mom and dad and I saw it at a matinee at the Ann Arbor Junior
High School and I loved that afternoon a lot.

Then we went down the front stairs by sliding down the banister for a shortcut and I showed her my grandfather's study which is absolutely full to the extreme of books and interesting things including a picture of my mother when she was two years old standing next to a chimpanzee who is wearing roller skates and my mother is crying. Pop says she was jealous of the monkey which was a shame since my grandfather, who used to be a newspaper reporter, went to a lot of trouble to borrow it from a circus man he was writing a story about and I say I wish we still had that monkey. Also in his office is a picture of Madam when she was nineteen years old, dressed up like a racing jockey sitting on a horse and boy, is she young looking and I think that would be a good picture to put at the top of “Dear Lucy Rose.” Plus there are a lot of lion statues in there because Pop's best friend, that has the name of Uncle Bobo, gives them to him every birthday because Pop has the horoscope of Leo and Leos are proud like lions and also willful and actually I am a Leo too. That means we both have our birthdays in August. I almost wasn't a Leo because I was supposed to come in
September but I was born three weeks early. That is lucky for me because if I was born that one puny month later I would miss the cutoff day and I'd have to be in second grade, not third. But instead it just means I am the youngest person in my class.

Finally I showed Jonique my room which is back upstairs and is nice but not red because my grandmother would not go for it in her house. To make my room real interesting, I pretended I was a tour guide and pointed at the bed. “This is a quilt that came from an estate sale,” I said. “And over here we have a doll carriage that used to be my mom's when she was six and this is a lamp that came from Mexico when Madam and Pop were on a honeymoon.”

“Your grandparents must be rich,” Jonique said.

But I told her they aren't. “It's just when my grandfather's parents bought this house mortgages were plenty cheaper than they are now.”

Before Jonique came over I asked my grandmother to please cool it with the lentils partly for taste and partly because whenever we have them Pop sings a dopey song called “I'm Just Keen About a Bean” which I didn't think would be the best thing
on Jonique's first time of sleeping over. So Madam did cool it and we had beef stew which was okay if you skipped the carrots. After dinner when Jonique and I were clearing the table, she whispered in my ear, “I was wishing for chicken fingers.”

I had to tell her, “That is one wasted wish as far as my grandparents go. The only time they ever even went to McDonald's was when their house was getting painted.”

“That's all?” she asked me.

“In their whole lives,” I said.

But that is not a complaint because after dinner we got to make sidewalk sundaes which my grandmother invented and you get to put Hershey's syrup and marshmallows and peanuts in an ice cream cone and then fill it up with strawberry ice cream plus more chocolate syrup and coconut and sprinkles and a cherry on top and then eat it outside because it is messy like you wouldn't believe and you have to wash your hands with the hose before you can come back inside and even though it makes you shivery, it's worth it. When she finished it, Jonique told Madam, “That was the best ice cream cone I ever ate.” And that was a pleasing thing to hear.

After that we had our showers and got in our PJs and we tried to put my old nightgown on Gumbo which would have been hilarious but he was not cooperating. At nine o'clock we went to bed but since we were not tired we got right up again to have a visit with my grandparents who were in their bed, which is called a four-poster and is very high and has a canopy roof on top. They were reading their books and Pop was wearing red lady-looking eyeglasses with one of the sides missing and Madam was wearing little black glasses that have a safety pin on one corner. This made Jonique laugh and I showed her that my grandparents keep a whole basket full of eyeglasses on their night table. “Since they wear the same exact prescription they just wear whatever ones they pick up first,” I told her.

“My mom only has one pair of glasses,” Jonique said.

“That is such an admirable quality in a person,” Madam said. “But we misplace ours every five minutes so now we just buy a lot at the Price Club.”

And then later when Jonique and I were under the estate sale quilt in my room in the dark and you
could hear the pigeons on my porch, Jonique said, “Mrs. Washburn gets on my very last nerve.”

And I said, “Mine too.” Then I told her that I call Adam Melon Melonhead in my mind.

“That is hilarious,” she said and then she laughed so hard she snorted.

And then we were quiet for a while and I thought Jonique might be asleep but then I thought she might not so I said, “Hey, Jonique.”

And she said, “Hey, Lucy Rose.”

And I said, “Here's a thing about me: My parents got a separation so now my dad doesn't live with us.”

“That's what I already figured out,” Jonique said.

“You did?” I said. “How come you didn't say anything?”

“Because I thought it would make you sad,” she said.

“Sometimes it does,” I told her.

On the next Monday I got an e-mail from my dad and it said: “Hello, L.R., BBBBBBBBBBB. See Bees. Get it? Dad.”

See Bees is the first two-word palindrome I ever heard of. My dad is smart like I can't believe. It comes from being a teacher, I think. I e-mailed back the palindrome of “Wow.”

And he wrote back “XOX” for one hug and two kisses and also for another palindrome.

A good thing is that instead of having New Words today we got to make Pilgrim people out of dried leaves that you peel off of corn on the cob. The greatest thing was that the teacher for Pilgrim people was Mrs. McBee. Man-o-man, was I surprised. She was wearing turkey earrings and carrying a big box of stuff and then she said, “I need a volunteer.”

And I called out, “Pick me! Pick me, Mrs. McBee!”

And she did pick and it was me and I got to stand up in front and be in charge of the gluing for the demonstration of making Pilgrim bodies. And then Jonique got to glue the eyes on the Pilgrim man and Sam got to help make the Pilgrim lady and
Melonhead didn't get to be a volunteer at all and I will tell you privately, his Pilgrim wasn't so hot looking.

Today I had a very tricky idea. When my mom was in the shower I made an e-mail letter to [email protected]. And here is what it said: “Dear Lucy Rose, Do you know any way to get a man and a lady who are separated to go back together?” I signed it “From Someone You Don't Know” and I clicked on SEND.

I got an answer from my “Dear Lucy Rose” e-mail and here is what Madam wrote: “Dear Someone I Don't Know, When people get separated the people who love them best usually wish they would go back to being a couple. Kids wish this especially— not that I am saying you are a kid—but the truth is that there is not a way.”

That is not what I call good advice.

Our Thanksgiving dinner is always at Madam and Pop's but all of the other years of my whole life my mom and dad and I got there by plane. This year my mom and I walked over in the morning and right away Madam gave us the job of making pies. Pecan is Madam's best pie and pumpkin is Pop's so we made both of them and while we were waiting for them to cook my mom opened the bottle of vanilla extract and put some on her finger and rubbed it behind our ears for perfume and Pop said we smelled delicious. Then my mom and I cooked the cranberry sauce and Madam made mashed parsnips which aren't so bad and Pop cooked the turkey because that is his number one cooking job every year and we all set the table with Madam's plates that you have to be really careful with because they came from her old aunt. Madam had a big bowl of yellow flowers for the table but when I gave her the Pilgrim people she said they were the best decorations ever so we put the flowers on the little table in the hall and the Pilgrims on the big table with us.

Before we ate we all held hands and Madam said, “I am thankful to have my daughter and granddaughter so close by.”

My grandfather said, “I am thankful to be in the bosom of my family,” which is a very embarrassing word and I don't know why Madam didn't say something considering she thinks “butt” is so terrible.

My mother said, “I am thankful for new beginnings.”

I said, “I am thankful for one good friend named Jonique McBee.”

And then I figured out that this month things did get better.

Firstly, it is changing table time at school and now Jonique is all the way over by the supply closet and I am near the front, which I happen to know from the lunch aide is where Mr. Welsh puts talkers. The good thing is I have Pierra Kempner at my table and she is a kind of girl who is fun plus almost all her clothes and her sneakers and her coat are purple which Jonique and I think is cool but which our mothers would never go for. And I have Emily Kate and she is like my grandfather says: a good egg. But here's the really bad worst news: Right across from me is Melonhead. And all day long he kept flicking paper bits at me and I stared at him hard and mean so he would know to CUT IT OUT but he didn't. So finally I told him to STOP IT and Mr. Welsh told me to SETTLE DOWN and he didn't want to hear about the paper bits.

But even that is not the biggest thing I am thinking about. The biggest thing is that I have a
problem that, like Madam says, is looming large, which means is extremely big and on your mind a lot, and it is Jake. So when I got home from school today I asked Madam to make me a recommendation on how to get a turn with that guinea pig. But at that minute she was working on answering a problem question for “Dear Lucy Rose” from a lady who has a daughter who has tantrums to get stuff that she wants. The lady said she is at her wits' end plus she is embarrassed every time they go to a store and she was Fed Up in Friendship Heights. I told Madam that my recommendation would be that the lady should say “FORGET IT” and BE FIRM about it and Madam said that was about the right answer but that her editor needs two hundred and fifty words so she would have to stretch it out. She said we would talk about my problem at dinner.

But at dinner my mother said, “This is news to me, Lucy Rose. You never mentioned wanting to bring Jake home.”

“That's because it was supposed to be a surprise,” I said.

And then she made a big confession that she was
not wild for rodents and I said, “Guinea pigs are also small mammals.”

And she said, “I am really sorry, Lucy Rose. But whatever they are they make me feel all wiggly inside and cold outside and I know that is silly but that's just how I feel and I can't help it.”

My face went so sad that everyone was quiet and then my mom said, “Do they have any other kind of animal we could watch?”

I was thinking what if I had a tantrum like the girl in the letter? Would I get my way? But just by taking one look I could tell my mom is going to be firm on this one plus I could tell she feels sorry about it. But not as sorry as I feel.

Today I got a Christmas card from my Michigan friends, Annie and Frannie, and it had their picture on it and I was glad they looked just the same as before. They wrote inside that my dad paid them one dollar EACH to walk his dog that used to be our dog and has the name of Ellie May. I used to walk her for free and I wish I still could but I am a
little glad that we left her in Ann Arbor because my dad needs the company, I think. I am bugging my mom for a new dog for here and I told her I would take care of him every minute but she said I have to go to school and she has to go to work and it wouldn't be fair to leave a puppy alone all day. I say no guinea pig and no dog is no fair.

Since yesterday was Sunday and my mom had off from work we borrowed Madam and Pop's station wagon, which, if you can believe it, is purple, and we went to Frager's Hardware store and bought a Christmas tree that is called Fresh Cut and we went to Grubb's and got a box of candy canes. When we got back to our house I helped my mom put the lights on our tree which took forever on account of they were tangled and then we decorated it.

After dinner, when it was eight-thirty at night which is my exact bedtime and I had already brushed my teeth, my mom let me come downstairs and have cocoa with her in the living room.

She is usually serious like anything about LIGHTS OUT, especially on school nights. But instead we sat on the floor and looked at the Christmas tree and I was glad we had the decorations from before in Ann Arbor but I wondered what my dad was going to put on his tree. Then when I said it my mom pulled one big surprise and let me stay up even longer. We went into the kitchen and we mixed flour and salt and water and food dye to make dough and then I squished some of it through the garlic press and made hair so I could make one ornament with curly black hair that looks like Gumbo and one with red hair that looks like me. When I was done we put them in the oven to make them cook until they got dry and when they did I wrapped them both up in red tissue paper and then I broke off a little piece of our good-smelling Fresh Cut tree and tied it to the front. This morning we sent them by FedEx to my dad in Ann Arbor.

This afternoon I got an e-mail from my dad and it said: “Dear Lucy Rose, Of all the ornaments I have
ever seen, the ones you sent me are my favorites.” And that was a fine feeling for me.

This morning my mom went to work and had to do a lot of it because she is new and the old people get to pick days off first which my mom says is just fair because when they were new they worked the weekends. For Madam and me this was double A-OK because we had one big plan.