Pizza Is the Best Breakfast (4 page)

“We do not have enough polish,” I tell her. “You better go in Timmy's room and play with him.” I unscrew the bottle of purple polish and reach out for Anya's foot. “Stinky toe, please.” Anya places her foot on my knee, and I paint careful strokes of purple up and down on her big toe. Without saying another word, Paige walks out of my bedroom and closes the door behind her.

“That might have been kind of mean,” Anya whispers to me.

“
She's
kind of mean,” I say. “If she weren't, she would have slept in my room last night and not Timmy's. And she would know my name is Mandy. With a
y
. Not a stupid
a
.”

“Right,” Anya agrees, and I concentrate very hard on painting all the rest of her toenails perfectly, without spilling one drop.

And when Anya begins to paint my own nails, I have never been more sure that it is much more important to have a best friend than it is to have a favorite cousin. Because your best friend will never, ever choose your dumb brothers and sisters over you.

“MANDY,” I HEAR MOM CALLING
from the bottom of the stairs. “Come down here for a second, please.” I groan like a dinosaur at Anya and rise slowly to my feet.

“Do you think Paige tattletaled on us?” she asks, and she sounds a little panicky.

“I don't know,” I tell her. “But you will not get in trouble with my mom because she only likes to punish me.”

“Mandy!” Mom calls again, and I stomp my feet over to my bedroom door and open it.

“What?” I call without leaving my room.

“Come down here, please.” I turn around and roll my eyes all the way to the ceiling so Anya can see, and then I shuffle my feet over to the top of the stairs.

“What?” I stare down the steps at Mom like I am a giant and she is an ant, and she motions for me to walk down them. I lean my right arm hard against the banister and try to slide my way down so that my feet barely have to touch the steps, because I do not want to mess up my toenails on the carpet.

“I thought I asked you not to play on the stairs,” Mom says when I finally reach her.

“My nails are wet,” I explain.

“Let me see.” I hold out my left arm and lift my right leg onto the banister so Mom can examine them. It is a pretty high stretch, and I am very flexible, I think.

“They look great,” Mom says, and she is being awfully nice for someone Paige tattletaled to about me. “Where'd you get that polish?”

I feel my eyes grow into wide pancakes then, because I forgot about that little detail.

Mom smiles. “Don't worry about it, I never liked that color anyway,” she says. “Keep it. But next time, ask me first, please.”

“Okay.” I pull my ankle off the banister carefully so that I don't fall backward.

“You're welcome,” Mom prompts me.

“Thank you,” I say. “Why did you call me?”

“Anya has to leave in a little bit,” Mom says. “Grandmom is coming over soon, and we want to have a family afternoon with Paige. I thought you'd want to tell Anya yourself.”

“Can I go to Anya's house instead?” I ask.

“No, you're staying here with us,” Mom says. “Either Anya can call her parents to pick her up or
Dad will drive her home. Have her find out what they want to do.”

“ 'Kay,” I answer. “But I wish Anya could stay.”

“I know, but you get to see her almost every day all year,” Mom says. “You only get to visit with Paige this week. You better enjoy it.”

I turn on my heel and walk quietly up the stairs without answering Mom, because a whole week left with Paige does not seem very enjoyable at all.

*  *  *

Grandmom turns into our driveway just as Anya's mom's car pulls away, and I watch as Timmy and Paige, a twin dangling off both of her hips, run to the front door to greet her. I sit on the armchair in the living room with my legs crisscrossed into a pretzel, and I do not budge.

Paige and I have not said one word to each other since she was in my room, and I am not going to speak first. But at least she didn't tattletale
to Mom about Anya and me not letting her paint nails with us—that is something, I guess.

When Grandmom enters, the four of them almost tackle her, but I stay in the chair, annoyed. “I love having so many of my grandchildren in one place,” Grandmom says, and she plants a kiss on each of them, one right after another, taking one of the twins from Paige. “Mandy, where's my sugar?”

“You can get it over here,” I say, and I still don't move off of the chair.

“Mandy, get up and give your grandmother a kiss.” Mom enters the living room and takes the other twin from Paige. I uncross my legs slowly and shuffle toward Grandmom, who lifts my chin in her hands and kisses me on the lips.

“That's better,” Grandmom says.

“Me again!” Timmy insists, and Grandmom gives him another kiss, which I think is way too
many. Only grandmoms would want to kiss a preschooler that much.

“Yuck,” I say quietly, but Grandmom hears me anyway.

“How could I resist five of the sweetest grandchildren in the world?” she asks.

“Who's the sweetest?” Paige asks her, and I am not positive, but I am pretty sure she glances at me when she says this, so I give her my “You are driving me bananas” face.

“You're all sweet in your own way,” Grandmom answers. “How was your slumber party last night?” She looks back and forth from me to Paige.

“Paige slept with Timmy,” I answer.

“Only for last night,” she pipes up. “I told you I would sleep in your room tonight. If you still want me to.”

I shrug my shoulders, because Mom and Grandmom are watching me, so I cannot tell Paige no.

“Well, maybe you two can make yourselves a midnight snack for tonight,” Grandmom says, and she digs in her enormous pocketbook until she finds what she's looking for. “Because I got a little something for you to work on together while Paige is in town.” She holds out a book, and the cover is plastered in pictures of cupcakes and brownies and macaroni and cheese.

“Yum!” Timmy calls when he sees it.

“Ooh, a kids' cookbook,” Paige reads the title. “Thanks, Grandmom!”

“I have a little challenge for you two,” Grandmom continues. “You know that carnival that is in town this week at the Whisk Avenue parking lot? If you two learn to cook—”

“The carnival?” I interrupt her, and my voice sounds like more of a squeak than I would have liked. “I've wanted to go to the carnival my whole entire life!” The carnival comes to our town every
single year, and every single year Mom says we are going to go, and then we don't.

At least, every year since Timmy was born. We used to go to the carnival when I was still an only child like Paige. Before Timmy and the twins ruined everything.

“I'm glad you're so enthusiastic about it,” Grandmom says. “So as I was saying, if you two learn to cook five dishes with no grown-ups, except to help with the oven and anything with knives, I thought I'd take you there next Friday, when you have off from school, Mandy, and before Paige leaves. What do you say?”

“Yes, I think that's great!” Paige answers immediately, and she grabs the cookbook from Grandmom before I can say one word. “Come on, Manda, let's get started.”

“It's MANDY,” I say, yelling the
Y
part extra loud. “It is not hard to remember.”

“Whatever,” Paige mumbles under her breath as she continues to the kitchen without even turning around, so I do not follow her.

“What do you say, Mandy?” Grandmom asks. “Wouldn't you like to go to the carnival too?”

“Yes,” I answer honestly. “But I don't want to cook with her.” And I say “her” like I am talking about the twins' snot.

“Listen to me,” Mom begins. “Paige is a guest in our house this week. It's your job to make her feel welcome. Got it?”

“But she keeps calling me Manda instead of Mandy,” I tell her. “Plus, she slept in Timmy's room last night, after she was supposed to sleep in mine.”

“Then talk to her about it. Nicely,” Mom says. “Paige is a smart girl. I'm sure she'll understand. Now, shoo. Get cooking if you want to go to the carnival with Grandmom on Friday.” Mom points
in the direction of the kitchen, and I slump my shoulders and look at the nail polish on my toes, but I do not move my feet one inch.

“Mandy, I'd really like to take you and Paige to the carnival, but this requires a little cooperation on your part,” Grandmom says. “What do you say?”

And I say nothing, but I shuffle into the kitchen to join Paige at the counter.

“I can't mess up my nails,” I tell her as a greeting. “So you have to do all the messy parts.”

“We're going to make egg salad,” Paige says. “There are a lot of eggs and mayonnaise in the refrigerator, so we'll have enough.”

“I don't like egg salad,” I say, because that is the truth. Egg salad is slimy and goopy and tastes like wet rubber. I have not eaten egg salad since first grade, when Mom packed me an egg salad sandwich instead of peanut butter and jelly, and I left
the whole sandwich in my lunch box unwrapped. Mom was not too happy about this, because it made a gigantic mess, but at least she has not made me eat the stuff again.

“I love it,” Paige says. “Get the eggs out of the refrigerator.”

“I just told you, I don't like egg salad,” I repeat. “I want to make something else.”

“Well, I want to make this,” Paige says, staring down her nose at me, and I think she might just be the bossiest person in the world, even bossier than Natalie.

“I am not making egg salad,” I say. “If you want to make it, you can do it by yourself.”

“Fine,” Paige says, and she pushes right past me toward the refrigerator. “I'll go by myself to the carnival with Grandmom, then, too.”

“Oh, no, you won't,” I say. “Grandmom likes me better than you anyway.”

“No, she doesn't,” Paige says. “She likes me the best, because I'm the oldest. Everyone always likes the oldest best.”

“
I'm
the oldest,” I say. “Timmy and the twins are much younger than me.”

“But I'm the oldest
grandchild
. You're just the oldest in the Berr house. You weren't Grandmom's first granddaughter. I was.”

I scramble in my brain to think of what to say to this, but Grandmom walks into the kitchen before I can let out one peep.

“How are we doing in here?” she asks us.

“Who's your favorite grandchild?” I ask her.

“What?”

“Who is your favorite grandchild?” I repeat, and I say each word slowly to make sure Grandmom understands.

“I don't have a favorite,” Grandmom answers. “I love all of my grandchildren the same.” And I think this is a lie, because everyone has a favorite everything. “Now, how are we doing with the cooking?”