Katy Kelly_Lucy Rose 01 (6 page)

On the first day we went to the Full of Beans store and I got a red sweater and orange gloves and
some farmer overalls and a jacket that looks like a teenager would wear. After I came out of the dressing room my dad said, “I'm glad I didn't go to the mall in Ann Arbor because you have grown so much, everything I bought would have been too small.”

I was surprised because I don't feel like I've grown at all except for my feet.

On the second day I got to invite Jonique over for a swim and lunch at Union train station where she got chicken fingers FINALLY and I got a Hebrew National hot dog with relish and ketchup and we both got chips and Sprites. Jonique asked my dad all about being a teacher and then she asked him, “Do you get to call the principal by her first name?”

And he said, “Yes, but only when there are no kids around.”

And Jonique said, “When I am grown I want to be a math teacher first.”

“I think you'll be a fine math teacher,” my dad told her.

“And then I would like to be a principal,” Jonique said.

And my dad said, “I would too,” which was something I never knew before.

Then Jonique said, “If you are ever a principal and I am a teacher, can I call you by your first name?”

He said, “Yes, but only when there are no kids around.”

She said, “It's a deal.”

And I said, “If you get to be a principal don't make the just-starting teachers feel nervous, okay?”

And he said that was a deal too.

On the last day my dad and I had room service muffins and they came with the tiniest jar of strawberry jam that is the cutest thing in America. I saved it for my mom for a present. Then, while we were eating, I asked my dad, “Can you move to Washington and can we go back to being unsepa-rated?”

But he said, “I'm sorry because I know you would like that, but no. Your mom and I talked it over a lot, Lucy Rose, and this is what we need to do.”

I am sorry too but that is what I had the feeling he would say. He also said he loves me and misses me and that my mom is one good mother and I said, “I am one person who agrees with that.”

And he said, “I'll come see you on Presidents' Day weekend for sure.”

And I told my dad, “You are one good pal and one good pal-indrome.”

Then I told him that came from original thinking.

And he agreed.

If I was the writer of “Dear Lucy Rose” this would be my best recommendation for kids: Do NOT eat licorice before breakfast, especially if you have the kind of mother that is firm about breakfast and not wild for sugar, and I do have that kind exactly

Here is why I know this is good advice: Back at Halloween I made a deal with myself that I would eat one piece of candy every morning. I also made a deal that I would not tell my mom because it is for sure that she would not approve. So, I have been keeping all my candy under my bed in a party shoe box from the Payless store which is a secret from everybody except Jonique. Every morning after I brush my teeth I eat one piece, usually while I put on my socks and if it is chewy it lasts until I tie on my cowgirl bandana if I am wearing it which I usually am. In November I ate the Twix bars and the Skittles and the peanut M&M 's. And in December I ate the plain M&M's and the Snickers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
plus the chocolate Santa that was in my stocking.

So now that winter break is over the only things left are the not-so-hot ones like Goldeberg 's Peanut Chews and stretchy orange circus peanuts which I actually hate and one teensy box of hard raisins and some stuck-together black licorice. And since I am going from best to worst and I like licorice better than raisins, I ate it. Actually I ate all the pieces because since they were stuck they only count as one. And when I got downstairs my mom said, “Lucy Rose, what is the matter with your teeth?”

And I said, “Nothing.”

But she said, “Did you eat something?”

So I said, “No,” and kept my lips down so she couldn't look. And then I sat down at the new table for a V8 juice which I love but this is the thing I never knew before: When your mouth tastes like black licorice and then you drink V8, it turns into the worst flavor you could ever think of. I mean the absolutely, extremely worst. And I couldn't spit it out. And that was the very minute I started to learn the hardest lesson.

We were having a rushing morning because we were late like anything which is rather usual for us.
My mom was putting cream cheese on a bagel so I could eat it on the walk to school, and right then she said, “Shake a leg, Lucy Rose. Drink your juice so we can hit the road.”

I did not want to tell her about the lie so I swallowed it up and it tasted so bad it made me feel woozy in the stomach and in the head. I was still trying not to talk on account of not wanting to show my teeth but nodding my head to say yes made it feel even spinnier. And then we had to rush into our coats and I smooshed my feet into my cowgirl boots and we got going but I felt terrible like you could not believe. We walked down Fourth Street, past Mrs. Greeley 's house which has a SOLD sign in the front yard and past an old, used-up Christmas tree someone put out for the trash and then we turned on Madam and Pop 's street which is Constitution Avenue and my mom kept saying we should step on it and I should eat my bagel. And thinking about the cream cheese made my stomach feel even sicker. Then I saw Nada from grade 6 walking ahead of us and Melonhead and his mother were just across the street waiting for the light to change
and all of a sudden I threw up and it got in the grass and on my cowgirl boots and a little on my new jacket.

My mom said, “Eye-yi-yi,” which is what she says when she 's got stress and this was an extremely lot of stress for her and for me because I could see that Nada turned around and was looking and I could hear Melonhead 's mother tell him, “That is not funny, Adam.”

And I could hear him say, “Yes it is.”

And my mom was what Madam calls beside herself. “I can 't believe I didn 't realize you were sick!” she told me in her soupy-sad voice. “I 'm so sorry, Lucy Rose.”

She kneeled down on the sidewalk and wiped my face with old Kleenex from her pocket and gave me a hug. Then she whooshed me off to my grandparents' because she had to get to work because of
News at Noon
needing art and when we got inside I heard her say to Madam, “I just feel rotten leaving her when she 's got the flu.”

When she said that I felt even worse.

At my grandparents' I got a big fuss made over me for being sick. Madam rushed around and got me ginger ale which she only allows in the case of
parties or emergencies and she put my school clothes and my jacket in the washing machine and gave me her softy slippers and Pop 's Penn State University T-shirt to wear. She took my temperature and, even though I didn 't have one, propped me up in bed with a lot of pillows in case I felt weak. Pop brought the little TV into my room which is something Madam recommends against in “Dear Lucy Rose” but she made an exception because she said I was so sick with a virus. By then I felt good in my stomach but bad in my heart and was wishing I did have a virus instead.

There was not much on TV except
Oprah
and I am not one for that show especially when there are crying ladies on it. So instead I was lying flat looking at the ceiling at a little crack that looks like a piece of broccoli when Pop came into my room with the Chinese checkers which is what he plays because he hates Parcheesi. I got the red marbles and he got yellow and we jumped around and Pop didn 't say too much and then after a while I said, “I have a truth to tell you, Pop.”

And he said, “You do?”

And I said, “Yes. It is the truth about a big lie.”

And Pop said, “A really big one?”

Then he listened about the licorice and how my mom asked me if I ate something and that I said “No.” And I said about the V8 and even telling it made me feel sick all over again. Then I told him how I felt bad about getting free ginger ale and TV from Madam and even worse about making everybody, especially my mom, think I had a virus. And then I started to cry.

Pop gave me a big hug and patted my hair for a while and then he said, “The thing about lies is that big or little, they make you feel bad but they usually don 't make you throw up.”“I wish I never said it,” I told him.

And he said, “That is usually the feeling good people get after they tell a lie.”

So I said, “What do I do?”“Well,” he said, “the only way to fix a lie is to tell the truth and that 's called being honorable.”

So at 6:00 I went downstairs and sat on the steps and was nervous and waited for my mom. The minute she came in I ran up to her and made a big confession.

She said, “Thank you for telling me the truth, Lucy Rose.”

I said, “It 's because I 'm honorable.”“I 'm glad you weren 't really sick,” my mom said. And then she sat on the steps and I sat on her lap and after a while she said, “What do you think your punishment should be, Lucy Rose?”

I hated to say it. “No TV for the longest time,” I said. “And no candy.”“Those are two ideas,” she said.

And then she was quiet and after a few minutes she said, “Throwing up in front of Adam Melon is probably punishment enough.”

When I came home from school today I told my mom, “That is one thing you were right about.”

“I was?” she said.

“Every time I got near Melonhead he would make throw-up noises and hold his nose and he would not stop talking about it until Mr. Welsh asked him if he would like to go stand in the hall until he could find his manners.

”“That 's annoying,” my mom said.

“It gets worse,” I told her.

“When we were on the
playground and Mr. Welsh was not, Melonhead started singing a song he made up called ‘Hold Your Nose, It 's Lucy Rose’ which made me wild with anger.

”“I don 't blame you,” she said.

“But then Jonique told him, ‘Adam, If you don 't quit it I will tell everyone about the time you stepped in dog poop.’ And he said he didn 't care but I think he did because he stopped singing. And then later when I was waiting for Madam to pick me up and he was waiting for his mom and we were the last two from third grade I told him that he should think of other people 's feelings, especially mine, and he said something that I could not hear very well but it sounded kind of like ‘Sorry.’”

“That sounds like a wretched day,” my mom said.“It was,” I told her. “Wretched like you can 't believe.”

I talked to my dad on the phone like I do every weekend and I told him about the whole thing. He said that one time he ate bad ham salad and threw
up in front of his whole 5th grade class so he knows my pain. And he said that ever since then he has not been one for eating ham salad and I said I thought that after this I would not be one for eating black licorice. And he said, “Well, Lucy Rose, everyone has to learn about not lying so it 's good to learn it early.”“Did you learn early?” I asked him.“Yep,” he said. “When I was 8 years old I was mad at my sister so I hid her shoes so she'd be late for school and when Glamma found them in the laundry basket I told her I didn 't do it.”

So I said, “What happened?”

And he said, “When my sister had to stay after school I felt bad and confessed and Glamma made me tell her teacher what I did.”

Even though it happened a long time ago, my dad 's story made me feel pretty much better. And it made me feel like he was not so far away.

All day I was still thinking about everything that happened and I wrote an e-mail that said: “Dear
Lucy Rose, I would like to make you a recommendation and that is that you tell kids not to lie. Signed, A Person Against Lying.”

When I got home from school there was an e-mail and it said: “Dear Person Against Lying, Good idea. I will.”

We have an all-valentine rule which Mr. Welsh is extremely serious about. The rule is that everyone has to bring a valentine for everyone else otherwise it isn't fair which is a plan I would be on the side of except it means I have to give one to Melonhead, which I do not feel like doing even if he did say “Sorry” which he might not have.

Today I got to go to Jonique's after school and Mrs. McBee gave us valentine's milk which was really strawberry Quik and Jonique said, “When you do your valentines I think you should be allowed to skip Melonhead.”

And I said, “I am one girl who agrees with that idea.”

Today at recess I waited by the door to ask Mr. Welsh for an exception to the valentine rule. And the first thing he said was, “Why?”

And I said, “What if I only have 22 cards and we have 23 people?”

And he said, “If that happens you should make the last one by hand.”

“What if I forget someone?” I asked him.

“You won't,” Mr. Welsh said. “You have a terrific memory, Lucy Rose.”

Plus, I thought, that would actually be a lie.

“What if I don't want to give every single person a card?” I asked him.

“Your other choice is to give nobody a card,” he said. “But I don't think that is much of a solution, do you?”