The Reinvention of Bessica Lefter (24 page)

“I’ll stop by soon!” I yelled at the window. “Have a good day in there!”

Then Mrs. Potaski waved goodbye to me. And I waved goodbye to Mrs. Potaski. And my mom loaded my grizzly fur onto the backseat. I imagined how awesome my bear outfit was going to look. My heart thumped happily all the way home.

or some reason, my mom didn’t want to make my bear outfit as soon as we got home. She didn’t want to make it until the night before tryouts in front of the school, which I thought was lame. Because I still had another practice at school. And it would have been fun for me to practice in my bear outfit at home. But my mom said, “No way. I’ll sew it for when you need it, not when you want it.”

At dinner, my fur was the topic of the night. My dad seemed excited about it. “It’s a great color. But what are you going to do for a head?” he asked.

“I’m going to use my own head. I might glue some fur to my face.”

“You aren’t gluing any fur to your face,” my mom said.

But I didn’t know if that was true.

That night, I didn’t have a single nightmare. And I also had a pretty good day at school the next day. In nutrition, I learned what a bioflavonoid was. But by the time school was over I’d forgotten what a bioflavonoid was. I wanted to get to mascot practice early, because I needed to secure a place in the front. Because last time I was in the back and I didn’t have the best view of some of the hand and arm moves. Tragically, Dolan the Puker also wanted to be near the front. For some weird reason he also decided that he wanted to talk to me.

“I’m Dolan,” he said. “I think we have gym at the same time.”

I glared at Dolan a little bit. Because when he told me that it reminded me that he’d seen me doing downward-facing dog. “I’m Bessica.”

“Why’d your parents name you that?” he asked.

I stretched my arms over my head to warm up my muscles and did some bending forward. “I’m named after the first woman in the United States to fly solo in a plane.”

“I thought that was Amelia Earhart,” Dolan said.

I shook my head. “She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.” When I told people about my name, they often brought up Amelia Earhart, so I had to learn a little bit about her.

“What’s your special talent going to be?” Dolan asked me.

I was already sick of talking to him. “I’m going to cheer like a bear mascot.”

“Yeah, but at final mascot practice, everybody who tries out does a special talent. What’s yours going to be?”

I didn’t answer him. I kept glaring at him like maybe he was lying.

“I’m going to ride around the gym and show off my mad bicycle-racing skills. I brought my own bike.”

I stopped stretching and looked at his bike leaning up against a wall. I didn’t think he was lying anymore. “Nobody mentioned the special talent part to me.”

“It’s printed on the cheer page we got.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. I dug through my backpack until I found my cheer page. There wasn’t any such thing written on it.

“On the back,” Dolan said.

I turned it over. But it was blank. “There’s nothing on the back,” I said.

“Sucks to be you. Looks like you got a bad cheer page,” Dolan said. Then he smiled a little like a jerk.

“Do we have to do our talent today?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s how they determine the final three.”

“Huh?” Nobody had mentioned a final three to me either.

“That information is on the back of the cheer sheet too.”

I looked at Dolan’s cheer sheet. Everything he’d mentioned was spelled out right there in black and white. Today was the day that we cheered in front of Ms. Rich and showed her our mascot talent. Based on the results, three people would be chosen to compete in front of the whole school.

“How did I miss this?” I asked.

“Beats me,” he said. Then he walked off and started talking to Maddie Bell.

I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t even made my bear costume yet and I might have already lost my chance to wear it. I glanced around. Alice was wearing a cool-looking fur outfit. It sucked. I should have been wearing my fur clothes too. I felt very defeated. So defeated that I left the gym and hurried into the hallway. And I pushed open the door so fast that it smashed into somebody who was carrying a soda can and knocked him down.

“Sorry,” I said. Then I realized it was Blake and I felt a little bit extra sorry. Because in addition to his parents getting divorced and his getting shoved inside a trash can, he was on the ground with a soda spilled all over him because he’d been hit with a door.

“Ugh,” he moaned.

“I hope you didn’t break anything,” I said. Then I picked up his backpack for him and held it until he got up.

“Where’s my jump rope?” he asked.

I saw it. It had skittered across the floor. “It’s over there.”

Blake limped over and picked it up. Then he took his backpack from me. And I got a very good and creative idea.

“Can I borrow that?” I asked.

“No,” Blake said. “I need my backpack.”

“Your jump rope!” I said.

Blake looked at it and then at me. “I need it for PE. It’s a doctor-approved alternative to lifting weights.”

Poor Blake. He was much dweebier than I realized.

“I’ll give it back to you tomorrow. I promise!”

I think Blake could tell that I was in a desperate situation. Because instead of telling me no again, he handed it to me.

“Thank you so much!” I said. Then I rushed into the gymnasium and sat down and visualized myself winning one of the three spots. It didn’t matter that Dolan the Puker was going to show off his mad bicycle skills. Or that Alice Potgeiser had a fur outfit. I had a solution.

After all the aspiring mascots had gathered on the mat, Ms. Rich made the announcement that we had one more auditioner. And then she introduced Alice Potgeiser and I felt myself wanting to boo, but I didn’t.

“I’m going to call you up one by one to demonstrate your cheer ability and your mascot talent.”

It was just like Dolan the Puker said. I watched as people
went up to the front one by one and yelled about how excited they were to beat the other team. There was a lot of roaring involved, and I wasn’t sure why, because I thought that bears growled.

“Bessica Lefter,” Ms. Rich called.

I walked to the front. I swung my arms a lot and yelled
“F-I-G-H-T! F-I-G-H-T!”
Then I felt like I was losing the crowd, so I yelled, “I’m a bear!” Also, I started jumping rope a few times. And I sort of ripped off what Dolan the Puker had said and I cheered, “Watch my mad jump-roping skills!” I jumped around the room. Everybody was laughing.

“Nice talent!” Ms. Rich said. “We’ve never had a mascot jump rope before.”

I was so happy to hear that I didn’t pay total attention when the other people went. Also, I got out my phone and texted Grandma. “I just tried out for mascot! And I make a great bear!” And Grandma must not have been in a cave because she texted me back, “Right on!”

After practice I felt a little nervous and unsure if I was good enough to win a spot or not. Because some of the people had cool talents. Maddie Bell played the flute. Alice Potgeiser, while in her fur suit, did amazing high kicks. And this one girl named Pia Jardin did magic and made a stuffed pigeon fly out of her backpack. It was cool.

When I walked out to the car I was exhausted.

“How did it go?” my mom asked.

“Tomorrow we find out if I made the final three,” I said.

“Wow,” my mom said. “I bet you did great.”

That night I was really hoping to get a postcard from Grandma. But that didn’t happen. And the next day, when I woke up, I felt so hot that I thought maybe our thermostat was broken. In fact, I didn’t even get up.

“You’re sick, Bessica,” my mother said. “You need to stay home.”

“But I find out if I’m a winner or a loser today. I’ve got to go!” I tried to get out of bed. But not very hard.

“I’ll call the school and find out,” my mom said.

“When you get home?” I asked. “I don’t think I can wait that long.”

My mom shook her head. “No, I’ll call right now.”

I couldn’t believe that was even an option. I kept my head on my pillow as my mom called the school from my bedroom. She explained I was sick and that she wanted to get the results. When she smiled and pumped her fist over her head, I knew.

“Did they say who else won?” I asked.

My mother nodded.

“Tell me,” I said. “I have to know.”

My mother sat down next to me and put her hand on my forehead. “You have a little fever.”

But I didn’t care about my little fever. I cared about my mascot competition.

“Did Alice make it? Did the secretary say the name Alice Potgeiser?”

My mother took her hand off my forehead and petted my pixie. “Yes. But don’t worry about that now.”

I reached up and held my mother’s hand. “Who else?” I had to know. I couldn’t imagine staying home all day with a fever and not knowing.

“Dolan Burr,” my mother said.

I tightened my grip on my mother’s hand. “The puker.”

“You feel like throwing up?” my mother asked. She touched my forehead again in a more concerned way.

I shook my head. “No. My stomach feels normal.”

“Let me get you some Tylenol and some crackers and juice.”

“Cool,” I said as I closed my eyes. “I am so happy.”

“I am so proud of you.” My mother bent down and kissed my forehead. “Let me call work. I don’t think I can get it off, but I can probably work a half day.”

“Okay. When will you make me my fur pants?” I asked.

“I’ll start on them when I get home.”

Those were the sweetest words I’d heard in a long, long time. I felt so hot and tired. The world hummed around me. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” I said.

I didn’t even hear my mom come home. Hunger woke me around lunch. And then I heard a very happy sound: the quiet motor of the sewing machine whirring in the kitchen.

“Are you making my fur outfit?” I called.

My mother came into my room and brought me a glass of orange juice. “This fur is very hard to sew. We might need to use glue.”

That didn’t sound ideal. But I didn’t have the strength to disagree. “Will we glue the fur to my real clothes?”

“I think so.”

“Won’t that ruin my real clothes?”

“Probably.”

“Can you try to sew it again? I like my real clothes.”

My mother set down the glass of orange juice and left the room. I heard the sewing machine whirring away. And then I fell asleep. And when I woke up, I was looking at an awesome pair of fur pants.

“Wow. Did you end up using glue?” I asked.

My mother shook her head. “I sewed them. It nearly killed me, but I did it.”

“Cool,” I said. “Where are my paws? And my fur top?”

My mother looked like she was on the verge of tears. “No top. No paws. Just pants.”

I gasped a little, even though I was weak and that was hard to do. “But I need to look better than Alice Potgeiser.”

“They’re not going to vote for the person with the best
fur suit. They’re going to vote for the person who’s the best mascot.”

It was official. My mother was no longer on my team. “They will vote for the best overall bear. If I only wear fur pants, then I’m not an overall bear. I’m just a half-bear.”

My mother groaned. “You’re going to have to make it work.”

“But I’m sick. You shouldn’t grouch at me when I’m ill,” I pleaded.

“You’re right. I’m taking a lunch break.”

And I didn’t see my mom again until I woke up all sweaty and tired, in time for dinner.

“Mom! Mom!” I called. But she didn’t come. I thought about yelling for her again, but then I decided to call Grandma. Because every time I’d gotten sick while Grandma lived here, she’d brought me movies to keep me from getting bored and ginger ale to settle my stomach. I wished I had those things now.

Me:
(cough)
Grandma, I am very sick.

Grandma:
Sweetheart, I’m sorry to hear that, but I can’t talk right now.

Me:
But I’m very sick.