The Secret Cookie Club (14 page)

Finally a new princess arrived (me!). To test her, the queen put a single pea under the mattress on her bed. According to the queen, if the new princess was a real princess, she wouldn't be
able to sleep because her delicate skin would be bruised by the tiny pea.

Lucky for the new princess, the king was on her side, and he put a boulder under the mattress. The next day the queen asked the princess how she slept, and the princess said not a wink because the bed was so lumpy.

Ta-da!

The princess passed the test and married the prince, and everyone lived happily ever after—except probably not the queen, but that part wasn't in the story.

The first character we talked about that afternoon was the queen, who would be played by Esmee.

“Why do you think the queen behaves the way she does?” Mrs. W asked.

“Because she's evil!” I said, looking at Esmee.

“Raise your hand please, Olivia,” Mrs. W said. “What else?” She looked around.

Esmee raised her hand. “Because she loves her son and wants him to stay at home with her.”

“
Ewww
,” said Kevin, prompting a chorus of “Ewww.”

Mrs. W laughed. “I think Esmee has a point. It may be
ewww,
but it's
understandable that the queen doesn't want to lose someone whom she loves.”

After that, we went through every important character—the prince, the king, the jester, the wizard, even the lady-in-waiting (that's who Courtney played). At last, we got to the princess—also known as
me
! Also known as
the star
!

I had a lot to say.

“Yes, Olivia?” said Mrs. W.

“The princess is totally awesome!” I said. “She's strong and says what she thinks. She's funny. She's smart. And she's brave, too.”

“That doesn't sound like much of a princess, does it?” Mrs. W said.

I was insulted.
“You take that back!”

“Raise your hand please, Olivia,” said Mrs. W. “Kevin, what do you think?”

“Princesses aren't supposed to be all that stuff Olivia just said—like strong and everything. They are supposed to be pretty and they are supposed to be nice to the prince.” He shrugged. “That's about it.”

“But that's so
boring
!” I said. Then I remembered and raised my hand so Mrs. W wouldn't have to remind me.

“Do you think the queen wants a strong, brave princess for her son?” Mrs. W asked.

Esmee raised her hand. “I think she wants the traditional kind, the wimpy kind. I mean
I
want that because
I
am the queen.”

“But a wimpy princess isn't who the prince wants,” I said. “He wants someone
cool
.”

“Oh! Oh! I know.” Courtney raised her hand. “Maybe the prince likes strong women because his mom is one. I mean, the queen's nasty, but she's tough, too. Maybe the princess and the queen are kind of alike.”

Mrs. W nodded. “Very insightful, Courtney.”

But both Esmee and I protested:
“No-o-o!”

By this time Courtney's mom and some of the other parents had arrived to pick us up.

Mrs. W stretched and got to her feet. “Lots of good insights today,” she said. “On Friday we'll start blocking, and I don't need to remind you we're off book next week. Get those lines down, everyone!”

In the car, I told Courtney her idea about the princess and queen being alike was not a good insight at all; it was ridiculous.

“Olivia,” she said, “you know it's not the same as saying you-your-actual-self is like Esmee-her-actual-self, right?”

“Of course I know that,” I said. “Why would you even ask?”

“Because it's how you're acting,” Courtney said.

“No, I'm not.”

Courtney shrugged. “Okay.”

And this was even
more
irritating because I could tell she still thought she was right, only she had decided it wasn't worth it to argue.

Olivia

“Hello-o-o!” I called when I came in the front door.

Jenny answered from the kitchen, “Hello, sweetheart!”

Jenny is usually who's home when I get back after school. For as long as I can remember, she and her husband, Ralph, have lived in an apartment downstairs in our house and helped out our family. The way my mom says it is, “Someone has to keep everything from going haywire around here while your dad and I are at work—and that's Jenny and Ralph.”

Now I headed down the hall and through the dining room to the kitchen to see what Jenny was making for dinner and to snag a snack.

“Biscuits,” Jenny announced as soon as I walked in. She was standing at the kitchen island rolling out snow-white dough. Behind her through the French doors I could see into the backyard. The rosebushes, trees, flower beds, and lawn all looked gray, wintry, and dead in the late-afternoon light.

I love biscuits, and we don't have them very often. I said, “Yum—how come?”

“Just a little treat for you, and besides, they go well with pork chops,” Jenny said. “Your parents are on their way home, by the way.”

I should have wondered why my parents were coming home early, but I was too distracted by hunger. “What is there to eat?”

“Apples right in front of you in the bowl,” Jenny said.

“Will you cut one up for me?” I asked sweetly.

Jenny wiped the flour from her hands, opened a
drawer, and got out a knife. “Honestly, child, was there ever anyone so helpless?”

“Sure there was. Like Marie Antoinette, for example, and Cinderella's stepsisters. From what I hear, they were totally
useless
.”

Jenny set a plate of apple in front of me. “You are funny is what you are,” she said.

I looked up to say thank you and noticed frown lines between her eyes. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing, sweetheart. How was princess practice?”

I told her while I ate the apple. Then I volunteered to cut out biscuits. When my parents walked in, sixteen were lined up in neat rows on the sheet pan, and I was rerolling dough scraps.

“See what a nice job Olivia is doing with the biscuits,” Jenny said before my parents could say a word.

I expected praise for being helpful, but when I looked up, I saw frowns instead—and that was when, at last, my math skills kicked in. One parent plus one parent equals Olivia is in big trouble.

Olivia

Like you have already figured out—like I
should
have figured out—Mr. Driscoll had called my parents at work, and that's why they both came home early.

They said they were disappointed in me. They said when you came right down to it, I had been lying to them
and
lying to Mr. Driscoll. They said the lying was the worst part, worse than the bad grade in math.

If you have ever been in trouble, you know how I
felt. Partly, I was ashamed for messing up, and partly, I was angry because anger is normal if you're scolded. I thought about running away to someplace where people were nice and would understand me. I thought about throwing myself in my parents' arms the way I did when I was little and no one blamed me for anything.

Finally, my parents' anger wound down, and they got to the point, my punishment. This was it: I would have to stay after school every single day and work with a math tutor until my math grade rose at least to a B.

“But what about Acting Studio?” I whined. “We have rehearsals and—”

“Acting Studio is a privilege,” my father said, “and privileges are reserved for people who deserve them. Anyway, as I understand it, your next rehearsal is on Friday, and there is a math quiz on Friday morning. Let us see how well you do on that.”

“But everybody's counting on me!” I said. “I am the star!”

My father raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps the trouble is that's how you see yourself.”

We were still in the kitchen. It was after six o'clock. At some point Jenny had baked the biscuits, taken them out of the oven, and gone downstairs to her apartment, but I hadn't been paying attention, not even to the delicious buttery smell of biscuits baking.

“Can I eat dinner in my room?” I asked. “Since everyone hates me.”

“ ‘
May
I?' and no, you may not, and no one hates you,” my mother said.

I stomped upstairs after that, then stomped around my room a few times, too. I opened my math binder and shut it again. I would show them. I would
never
learn fractions. Not if I lived to be a hundred years old.

I heard my brother come home from baseball practice. I heard the shower in his bathroom running. Soon after that, it was time for dinner.

“Who would like to give thanks?” my mother asked when we were all seated.

I said, “I will!” which prompted suspicious looks from my parents. “It's my turn,” I added politely.

“All right, Olivia,” said my father.

“Dear Heavenly God on High, dear Jesus Christ, and dear, dear Holy Ghost,” I began. “Thanks
eternally
for this delicious dinner we are about to receive, and thanks
especially
for the biscuits that Jenny made for me because they are a sign that at least someone around here still loves me. Amen.”

No one echoed my “Amen.” Instead, Troy looked up and asked, “What was that about?”

My father started to answer, “Your sister got into some—”

But I interrupted. “Don't you
dare
tell him! It's not any of his business at all!”

“Never mind,” Troy said. “It's not like I care.”

After that, Mom asked about baseball practice and my brother was so busy talking he didn't notice no one listened. That's the way my brother is. Totally self-centered.

Olivia

When I walked into my class the next morning, I made myself as invisible as possible . . . but not invisible enough. In fact—I swear—Mr. Driscoll was lying in wait for me, like a tiger on the lookout for Bambi.

“Olivia? Did your parents speak to you?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Then for now we'll say no more about it—except that your tutor will meet you here after school.
Please sit tight when the bell rings.”

“Okay.”

I swung my backpack off my shoulders, sat down, and unzipped it to pull out my binder. From her desk behind me, Sophie spoke up. “Tutor? For what? I thought you were smart.”

“I am smart,” I said.

“If it were me, I'd be embarrassed to have a tutor,” she went on.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Oh! I didn't mean you should be embarrassed. Everyone has their own unique strengths, Olivia.”

Sophie is a white girl with brown hair, blue eyes, and freckles. She is not my good friend, but I never thought anything bad about her—till that moment. “Sophie?” I said. “Are you trying to make me feel worse? Or better?”