Monkey Business (5 page)

“I don't mind sleeping in the bathtub if it means I get to go to the Panda Parade,” said Claire. “I've always wanted to see Taylor Swift live.”

Emma pulled out her phone and looked up the concert. “You guys—the festival is happening the weekend of July Fourth. And it's a benefit concert for endangered panda bears.”

“I was wondering why it was called the Panda Parade,” said Yumi.

“Listen to this lineup,” said Emma, still reading from her phone. “Josie DeBecker, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, the Lobster Lips, Lorde—”

With each new name, we squealed.

“I am obsessed with Lorde,” said Claire. “She is definitely one of my favorite artists now.”

“I know,” said Yumi. “I just got her new CD, and I can't stop listening to it.”

“Someone told me she's still in high school,” said Claire.

“That's crazy. If I were famous, I'd totally drop out of school,” said Rachel.

“The Lobster Lips are pretty awesome too,” I said. “Jason introduced me to them over Christmas break, and now I listen to them practically every single day. I can't believe there are so many great bands playing all at once.”

“ ‘And hundreds more and lots of surprises,' ” said Emma, reading the concert description off her phone. “This festival is going to be huge. There are five different stages.”

“I don't even know what that means,” said Rachel. “But I'm excited!”

“I think it means there are tons of bands playing. Lots of headliners and then ones that we've never heard of,” said Claire. “Which is so cutting-edge!”

“Hey, Mom!” I ran into the kitchen to find my mom and Ted eating sundaes of their own. I told them all about the Panda Parade. We don't already have plans for the Fourth, right? So can I go? Please, please, please can I?”

My mom stared at me, a bemused expression on her face.

“Please take this seriously!” I told her. “This is not a laughing matter.”

“I'm not laughing,” she said.

“Well, you're about to. I can tell.”

“Oh, you know me so well, Annabelle. I am simply smiling because you're so worked up over this, which is great. The thing is, though, Indio is far away. Almost three hours from here.”

“More like two hours and forty-five minutes,” Rachel called from the living room, where my friends were clearly eavesdropping.

“I know it's far,” I said. “That's why we want to go for the whole weekend. We'll just rent a condo.” I
shrugged. It seemed so simple. Okay, I didn't really know if it was easy to rent a condo or not. The only condos I knew of belonged to grandparents. But the way Rachel had said it, well, it seemed like no big deal.

Except as soon as I'd finished my plea, my mom and Ted both cracked up.

“Hey, you promised you wouldn't laugh!” I said. “And how is that funny?”

“I'm sorry, dear,” said my mom. “It's the way you casually talk about renting a condo as if you've done it a million times. … Tell you what, though. The concert does sound fun and I'm not saying no. Let me speak with your friends' parents about it and see what they have to say. I'm sure we can work something out.”

“Yes!” I pumped my fist.

“I didn't say yes,” my mom reminded me.

“I know,” I said. “But I have a feeling it's all going to work out.”

“We'll see,” said my mom. But she was smiling and her tone of voice told me everything was going to be great.

Later that night, after two more episodes of
Victorious
, my friends and I headed upstairs to my room and laid out our sleeping bags.

“That sundae was the best,” said Claire.

“Mine was amazing too, except I'm so full, I think my stomach is going to burst,” said Yumi.

Emma giggled. “That's the sign it was a good meal. Bursting organs.”

“Blech!” I said.

“I'd never guess that this is your first group sleepover, Annabelle. You're very good at it,” said Yumi.

“Thanks,” I said. “It could be beginner's luck, though.”

“First big sleepover,” said Rachel. “First time living in a mansion …”

“This isn't a mansion,” I said.

“Sure it is,” said Rachel.

I looked around and shrugged. “It's just a big house. Why are you picking on me? Emma lives in this neighborhood too. And her house is the same exact size. Same goes for Oliver and lots of other kids from school.”

“I'm not picking on you. I'm simply stating a fact,” said Rachel.

“In a not-exactly-nice tone of voice,” I said.

“You're too sensitive. This is my normal voice,” said Rachel. “You should be used to it by now!”

“It's not just your voice—it's everything you've said tonight. You're acting way harsh.”

“You guys, stop fighting,” said Yumi.

“Then tell Annabelle to stop bragging about her new house as if it's some huge crazy deal,” said Rachel.

“I'm not bragging,” I said. “I never even brought up the house—you did. What is going on with you?”

Rachel stared at me and shrugged.

“Seriously, tell me what you're so mad about,” I said.

Everyone watched us. If there were an award for creating the most awkward sleepover moment ever, then Rachel and I would be getting a big fat trophy.

The longer she refused to answer me, the more annoyed I grew. And the more silent the room, the more unbearable it all became. Rachel was totally ruining my sleepover and she wouldn't even tell me why.

“Well?” I asked her again. “What's going on?”

“Nothing,” she replied coolly as she smoothed out the wrinkles in her green-on-the-outside and orange-on-the-inside sleeping bag. “I'm not mad at all.”

Rachel was a lot of things—smart, funny, frizzy-haired, and good at riding a unicycle—but she was a bad liar. Rachel was clearly angry with me. But why, when I hadn't done anything wrong? I hadn't even done anything different except for moving, and that wasn't even my idea.

Everyone told their parents about the concert when they got home from my sleepover Sunday morning. We all figured it would be a no-brainer. The concert was months away. It was happening over the summer, and we were all going to be around. We just needed our parents to buy us tickets and get a couple of people to drive us there. Unless one of Claire's moms was willing to do it—in which case it would be even easier because her family has a minivan.

But no! Something terrible and
way
more annoying happened. All our parents got together on a conference call and came up with their own crazy idea: we could only go to the concert if we paid for the tickets ourselves. Except it was actually more complicated than that.

My mom and Ted broke the news to me on Monday morning.

“We looked into the concert and the tickets cost a hundred dollars each, which is a lot of money,” my mom explained over homemade blueberry pancakes,
as if a yummy breakfast would make me digest this terrible news more easily. “And we figure you girls should also contribute toward the other expenses.”

“What expenses?” I asked. “All we need are the tickets.”

My mom smiled at me as if I wasn't capable of understanding the most basic thing. “You've got to think about the travel costs,” she said. “You girls are asking to stay in a hotel or rent a condo, neither of which is free. Plus, there's gas and food to worry about.”

“We can bring our own food—peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches all around! Plus, I'll fill up my camp canteen with water so you don't even have to spring for a soda. It'll be great
and
healthy.”

Ted nodded as if considering this. “That's an interesting idea, but things still add up, sweetie.”

“What if we subsist on peanut butter alone?” I asked. “Forget the jelly!”

My mom and Ted laughed, even though I was being serious. “I'm talking not even bread. We'll bring our own spoons and eat straight from the jar.”

“We don't expect you to pay for everything,” said my mom. “But we decided fifty dollars was fair.”

“Fifty dollars each?” I asked. “Okay, I guess that's fair.”

“No, fifty dollars per kid for the food and travel,” my mom said. “The ticket doesn't count. You're looking at one hundred and fifty dollars total per kid, and there are five of you so that's—”

“That's seven hundred and fifty dollars!” I shouted, horrified by the prospect.

“Very nice math skills,” Ted said, offering me a high five.

I left him high and dry because I wasn't in the mood. “That's not the point!” I said. “Seven hundred and fifty dollars is a fortune!”

“We'll cover the rest,” my mom said. “Tickets for two chaperones and whatever you girls spend beyond that. You're really getting off easy, if you think about it, because the weekend will probably cost about twice as much as that.”

“At least,” Ted added.

I looked back and forth suspiciously between my mom and Ted. “Whose idea was this anyway? Not yours, I hope.”

My mom smiled. “All of us parents got together and came up with this solution. We also agreed not to name names. It doesn't matter who had the idea because we all think it's a wonderful plan.”

“You do realize that we're in the sixth grade, right? And that none of us has actually had a paying job before. Probably because, technically, it's illegal for children to work in this country.”

I took a bite of my pancakes. They were delicious, but I wasn't going to say so out loud. Not with the kind of news they'd just dropped on me.

My mom sighed and said, “The concert sounds like a lot of fun. But it's also expensive fun. You girls
are old enough to appreciate that, and we think you're old enough to figure out how to make it work.”

“Plus, you'll appreciate the music more if you work hard to earn the money for the tickets,” said Ted.

I gulped down my last bite of breakfast. “All our favorite bands are playing—we will appreciate it no matter what!”

“I know this seems like a crazy thing, but trust us,” said Ted. “We know what we're doing.”

I narrowed my eyes at Ted, because if this whole crazy plan was his idea, well, that seemed way unfair. My mom has been my mom ever since I was born. Meanwhile, Ted has only been my stepfather since December. His opinion shouldn't matter that much!

I didn't say any of this out loud because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but my mom must've read my mind. “As I mentioned before,” she said, “all of your friends' parents and I agreed we weren't going to name names.”

“So this is basically one gigantic conspiracy,” I argued. “Which is sad, because the concert money is going toward such a good cause. Don't you care about the pandas?”

“Of course we do,” said my mom.

“Don't stress about this, Annabelle. You're smart and so are your friends,” said Ted. “You'll figure out a way to come up with the money.”

There was no getting through to them, so I cleared my plate and grabbed my backpack.

“Oh, before I forget,” my mom said, “want to come shopping with me after school on Friday?”

“Totally!” I said. “There's this new jean jacket I've been wanting.”

My mom laughed. “Okay, we'll see if we have time for that, but I have a bunch of shopping to do for the baby and I thought you'd want to come.”

I shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

“Great.” My mom smiled. “It'll be fun. I'm taking the afternoon off, so I'll pick you up after school.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “See ya later.”

It wasn't until lunchtime that my friends and I were finally all together so we could discuss this debacle.

“I cannot believe they're doing this to us!” Claire cried, burying her face in her hands. “We're only twelve years old. How are we supposed to come up with seven hundred and fifty dollars?”

“They may as well ask us to earn a billion dollars,” I said. “And I'm only eleven.”

“See,” Claire announced, even though everyone at our table was privy to the same conversation. “It's worse than I thought. Annabelle is only eleven.”

“Wait, are the rest of you twelve already?” I asked. I looked to all my friends, who nodded. Yes, they were all twelve. “I can't believe I'm the shortest one and the youngest one in the group!”

“Believe it,” said Yumi. “But you're almost twelve, right?”

I nodded. “My birthday is in three more weeks.”

“What are you doing for your birthday?” Rachel asked. “Are you going to rent a limo? I heard Nikki rented a limo for all her friends and they went to the mall to get makeovers and then they went to Malibu to have seafood at this super-fancy place on the beach. She made all her friends wear dresses or skirts. No pants allowed!”