Picture Perfect #5 (7 page)

“Wake up, Gracie! We're going sledding!” Jimmy yelled from about an inch away.

Gracie jumped, surprised to see sunlight streaming in through the window over her bunk. She hadn't even realized she'd fallen asleep over her notebook.

Jimmy grinned at her, his bottom two front teeth missing, and then jumped off the bunk bed ladder down onto the floor.

“Sledding?” Gracie mumbled.

“Yeah, Mom wants to sled in the morning and ski in the afternoon,” Mari answered from the lower bunk. “That way we can all be with Jimmy more.”

There was something strange about her voice, and Gracie was pretty sure she knew what it was. Mari was mad that Gracie hadn't talked to her last night. When Mari had come up to the bedroom after dinner, Gracie had said she was working on her paper, and then
she had stayed there for the rest of the night. But Mari could probably tell that the real reason was because Gracie was angry.

Still, it wasn't right that Mari was mad at Gracie for being mad at
her
!

“Breakfast! Mom made waffles,” Jon announced, running up the stairs. “You can sit next to me, Gracie. Jon wanted you to, but I saved you a place first.”

Gracie frowned. “
You're
Jon.”

“I told you she wouldn't fall for it!” Robert yelled from downstairs.

“You're such a dummy,” Mari said, pushing past him.

“I'm confused,” Gracie admitted, climbing down from her bunk. Her open suitcase was in the way, so she had to jump off the ladder like Jimmy had just to get over it.

“They had a bet that you couldn't tell them apart,” Jimmy explained. “Now Jon owes Robert a waffle.”

“I've known you guys for years,” Gracie told Jon. “Do you really think I can't tell you apart?”

Jon shrugged. “I wanted an extra waffle.”

By the time she got downstairs, most of the waffles were already gone, but Mari had stuck two on a plate for her. Gracie sat next to Mari and ate, but she still felt weird. Mari didn't say anything, but Gracie could tell
that her best friend noticed the weirdness too.

As usual, it took forever to get the whole family into the car and over to the sledding slope. Once they got there, though, Gracie felt a little better. It was hard to stay mad when you were flying down a hill on a toboggan. She and Mari got to the bottom at the same time, so they had to trudge all the way back up together. Jimmy came running after them as soon as he hit the bottom of the hill. “Wait up!” he yelled.

Mari rolled her eyes, but she stopped and waited. Gracie did too.

“They should make ski lifts for sled hills,” she joked.

“Yeah,” Mari said quietly.

Gracie knew she had to say something. They couldn't spend the whole day acting strange. She took a deep breath. “Why don't you care that we stood up Juliana last night?”

“Who says I don't care?” Mari asked.

“You didn't even seem upset,” Gracie pointed out.

Mari shrugged. “Sometimes plans fall through. What's the point of freaking out about it?”

“Who's freaking out? What are we freaking out about?” Jimmy asked. “You want to see my freak-out face?” He pulled off his gloves with his teeth and turned his eyelids inside out. “See? This freaks girls out.”

“Put your gloves back on, dork face,” Mari told him, reaching out to fix his eyes.

Gracie didn't know what to say. She wasn't sure exactly why the Juliana situation seemed so bad. It just did. “I figured you would explain to your parents while I was in the shower that we had to go, but instead you just sat down and ate pizza!” Gracie said when they started walking again.

“I did not. I begged them to let us go, but my dad said no. He said the whole point of a family trip is for the family to spend time together, and you and me going out to dinner isn't spending time together,” Mari said. “I didn't mean to leave Juliana there on her own—but my parents said no. It wasn't up to me.”

Gracie didn't answer. She tried to concentrate on dragging her sled up the icy hill—and on ignoring Jimmy, who was imitating her walk and her sour expression.

“You should be used to not doing stuff because your parents won't let you. It happens to you all the time,” Mari went on.

“My parents would never make me miss an appointment I made, or a dinner plan or whatever,” Gracie protested. “I just wouldn't make a plan if I knew it went against our family schedule.”

Mari burst out laughing. “That's the same thing!”

“It is not. Our rules are really clear,” Gracie said. “I mean,
you
even know what the Hardwick schedule is, and you're not a Hardwick!”

“So?”

“So everybody knows what to expect and when things will happen,” Gracie said. “I wouldn't make a plan to meet a friend when I knew that I couldn't do it. I don't make plans if I can't keep them.”

Mari stopped halfway up the hill. “But you still never get to do anything. So what's the difference?”

“Yeah, what's the difference?” Jimmy demanded.

“The difference is that you said we could meet Juliana for dinner. It was your idea!” Gracie cried, ignoring Jimmy.

“Well, I didn't know my parents would say no,” Mari told her. “How could I know that unless I asked them?”

“But . . . but that's what I mean. You shouldn't have made the plan unless you were sure you could do it!” Gracie said. “Why did you think we could meet Juliana for dinner?”

“I was hoping my parents would say yes,” Mari replied. “But they didn't.” She kept going up the hill, pulling her sled. Gracie watched her go. She'd always been a little bit jealous of Mari's easygoing family, but
now she didn't know what to think. Mari was acting a little bit
too
easygoing—she didn't even care that she'd blown off their new friend.

“Want to see my freak-out face again?” Jimmy asked.

Jimmy was cute, but Gracie couldn't get excited about the goofy stuff he was doing when she and Mari were having what felt like their first-ever fight. “Maybe later.”

“Here, Gracie, I'll pull your sled up for you,” Robert said, grabbing the rope from her hand as he jogged by. “I want to prove to Robert that I can pull two as fast as he can pull one.”

Gracie glanced over her shoulder to see Jon jogging up behind him. “Robert, I know that's Jon,” she said. “You guys can't fool me. And you already ate all the waffles.”

“Now the bet is for dessert, not waffles,” Jon told her.

“What if I make a doofus face like Jon does? Do I look like him now?” Robert asked, stopping to cross his eyes and stick his tongue out one side of his mouth.

Gracie had never seen so many ridiculous faces on the O'Hagan boys before. “You always look like him, you're identical,” she said patiently. “But I can tell you apart.”

“I told you,” Robert grumbled.

“No, I told you,” Jon said back.

“She can always tell who I am too,” Jimmy put in.

Gracie couldn't help laughing. She shook her head and kept walking. The O'Hagans were crazy, but they were fun. Maybe she would never understand the rules—or the not-any-rules—but she could still enjoy being part of this big nutty family while she was here. And she wouldn't enjoy it if she kept fighting with Mari.

At the top of the sledding hill, Mari was waiting for her. “Race you down?” she asked, not meeting Gracie's eyes.

Gracie could tell her best friend was as confused as she was about their fight. “Definitely,” she said, giving Mari a smile to let her know everything was okay.

“Excellent!” Mari jumped onto her sled and took off. Jon and Robert were a second behind her. So Gracie threw herself down onto the sled and pushed off, flying down the hill facefirst on her stomach. Bits of snow pelted her cheeks and made her squint, but this position made her faster than usual, and she blasted right by Mari and her brothers.

“Gracie wins!” Jimmy yelled from somewhere behind them.

“Let's do it again,” Gracie cried. “That was awesome!”

By the time they got back to the cabin for lunch, Gracie was exhausted. After sledding, they had gone skiing for a couple of hours, and each time down the slope was a race. Then getting back to the car was a race. And once Mr. O'Hagan got out all the cold cuts and rolls to make sandwiches, it turned into a competition over who could put the biggest sandwich in their mouth.

“I don't get it. Didn't we already figure out who had the biggest mouth in the fry-eating contest the other day?” Gracie asked.

Mari and her brothers all looked confused. “This is a
sandwich-eating
contest,” Mari said, as if that explained it.

“Are you going to spit your sandwich out like you did with the fries?” Jimmy asked eagerly.

“No,” Gracie told him. “I'm out of the food contests. I'm just going to eat like a normal person.”

“You can judge, then. Robert wants you to,” Robert said. He and Jon had switched sweatshirts since they got back to the cabin. Gracie sighed.

“Robert, I know it's you wearing Jon's shirt,” she said.

Robert groaned, but Jon looked impressed. “You really
can
tell us apart, Gracie. We have to step up our game if we want to fool you!”

“No, just stop,” Gracie said. “I don't want to judge a contest, and I don't want to
be
a contest, either.”

Jon didn't answer, and everyone else seemed uncomfortable. Gracie bit her lip, feeling bad. Her voice had sounded a little sharper than she had meant it to, and maybe she had hurt their feelings. She didn't mind if they wanted to keep competing, but she was exhausted from doing it all morning.

“Check it out!” Jimmy said into the silence. “I'm a unicorn!” He grabbed a bun, opened one end a little, and stood it on top of his forehead like a horn.

“Gross! I already put mayo on that,” Jon cried.

Everyone groaned and laughed, and Mari's mom rushed over with a bunch of wet paper towels to clean off Jimmy's head. Gracie felt a rush of relief. She hadn't meant to spoil the fun mood, and Jimmy's antics seemed to make them all forget what she'd said.

Her cell buzzed in the middle of all the craziness. “It's my mom on the phone,” she told Mari. She ran upstairs to answer.

“Hi, Mom! How's the spa?” she asked.

“Actually it's both of us,” her father's voice replied. “You're on speaker.”

“We had to call you early today, because we won't be allowed to use the phone later,” her mom said. “Again.”

Mom sounds annoyed,
Gracie thought. “That's okay, Mom. I can talk now.”

“I know, sweetie, I just don't like being told when I can and can't call my own daughter,” her mother replied.

“Can't you just go outside if you're not allowed to talk in the dining room?” Gracie asked.

“It's not the dining room tonight. It's a mandatory nature hike,” Mr. Hardwick said. “No phones allowed. They're going to collect them before we leave, so they can be sure we'll be able to immerse ourselves in the beauty of the moonlit woods.”

“It's a safety hazard,” Ms. Hardwick complained, her tone worried. “What if Gracie had an emergency and needed to reach us?”

“I'm with the O'Hagans, so they would take care of me,” Gracie pointed out.

“Sure, but you never know,” her mother replied. “I just think it's very dangerous to take away people's phones.”

“The hiking guide will have a cell,” Mr. Hardwick said.

Gracie's mother gave a loud sigh. “Mm-hmm,” she said. Gracie had heard that a million times before—it meant her mom was skeptical.

“Well, I bet the hike will be relaxing,” Gracie said. “But, Dad, what about your broken toe?”

“I'm going in a wheelchair,” her father replied. “They've got a guide here who will push me. They say being in nature is important for my healing process.”

“It's ridiculous. That poor guide pushing him the whole way,” Gracie's mom put in. “They should just let him stay in the room and meditate or something.”

“How about you, Gracie? Are you having a good time?” her dad asked, changing the subject.

“Yeah! It's . . . it's crazy. But good,” Gracie said. “It's kind of hard to keep up with Mari's family, honestly.”

“Why?” her mom asked.

Gracie thought about it for a moment. “You know how Mari is always sort of bouncing around? She's so full of energy all the time?”

“We've noticed that,” Mr. Hardwick agreed.

“The rest of her family is like that too. All the time,” Gracie said. “They turn everything into some kind of contest, and they're all always trying to top each other.”

“That sounds like fun,” Gracie's mom said.

Gracie was so surprised that she didn't know what to say. She had never thought that her mother even knew what fun was.

“It is fun,” Gracie admitted. “But I'm really, really tired.”

Her parents laughed.

“And things are not organized,” Gracie went on. “There are so many people! It takes an hour to get into the car every morning. And no one ever seems to know what the plans are.”

“It sounds like you'll have a lot to write about for your school paper,” Mr. Hardwick said.

“I will.” Gracie felt a stab of guilt, remembering how she'd tricked her parents to make them let her come here. “I'm going to write a great paper.”

“I'm glad you're having fun, sweetie,” her mom said. “At least you're getting a vacation! This wellness spa feels more like work than fun.” A loud bell chimed. “Ugh, there's the yoga bell, we have to go now. You have a good time, Gracie. Say hi to the O'Hagans.”

“I will,” Gracie said, and hung up. But from the sound of the chaos downstairs, she doubted if the O'Hagans would even hear her.