The Secret Cookie Club (16 page)

“May I have one more?” I asked my mom when I was done.

“If I say no, I risk the wrath of the school nurse,” Mom said.

Troy looked at me, then Mom. “Are you guys speaking in code? And can I have another one too?”

“Better ask your sister,” Mom said.

Normally I would've said no on principle, but I didn't. “Sure, if you want.” Then I even held out the plate—causing my parents to glance at each other again.

Finally, my father picked a last cookie crumb off his plate and said, “That was delicious. But I've got desk work to do. If you'll excuse me.” He stood up.

Mom pushed back her chair as well. “I've got a report to shareholders to write.”

Troy and I were still finishing our second cookies, and now—
awkward!
—we were alone at the dinner table together. I figured my brother would make his escape as soon as possible, but to my surprise, he actually spoke to me. “How was math tutoring?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Did you learn anything?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“ 'Cause I had this idea about cookies and fractions. It's fractions you don't get, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“If you let me eat one more, I'll show you.”

“Ha!” I said. “Now I see why you're all of a sudden helpful.”

Troy grinned. “No lie. Do you want me to show you?”

“No,” I said. “You can have another cookie. But I'm the smart one and you're the athlete. If it turns out you're smart too, there's nothing left for me.”

I was kind of kidding and kind of not. Troy's face said
he was listening, but then he went ahead and ignored what I had said. “I didn't get fractions at first either. What confused me was how you multiplied them and got a smaller number, but divided them and got a bigger number. It made no sense.”

This was one of my problems with fractions too, but I would never admit it. “You just want to show off,” I said.

My brother surprised me by looking hurt. “Suit yourself. I've got my own homework. Are you coming to the game tomorrow?”

“I have math tutoring,” I said. “But what do you care? Mom and Dad will be there.”

“You're right,” Troy said. “I don't care. You're just my dumb little sister who can't even do fractions.”

“You take that back! Just because I'm not the star athlete that everyone falls all over themselves for. You think you're so great.”

Troy hesitated. “Is that what you think?”

I felt a little bad. Was it possible to hurt my brother's feelings? I never thought so before.

“Totally,” I said. “I could star in a hundred shows and
Mom and Dad would never pay half the attention they do to you. And they would never tell you you can't play baseball just because you're having trouble with math homework, either. Baseball is too important.”

Troy sighed. “I know, Livvy. It's awful.”

Livvy is how my brother used to say Olivia when he was little. He hadn't called me that in roughly forever.

“Sports aren't even fun anymore,” my brother went on. “I'm not me. I'm just Joe Athlete. And if Joe Athlete doesn't succeed—break records, get a scholarship—then he's nobody, a big fat failure. Or worse than that, just a rich kid. I don't even
like
being the center of attention,” he said. Then he paused. “Not like
some
people.”

I might've been mad about that last part, but I was too surprised. “I didn't know—” I started to say, but my brother kept talking.

“Here's the thing, Livvy. I'm sore all the time. People think football is tough, but our coach works us like crazy. Sometimes after practice I'm so tired I think I'm going to die.”

It is too bad my brother had to go and say all that, because on top of the letter from Emma, it made something happen in my head that I totally didn't expect . . . and neither did Troy.

“
Don't die!”
I wailed, and then I started to cry.

Poor Troy. His eyes were big as saucers. “Holy rats, Livvy! I didn't mean it for reals! Sheesh—” He handed me a napkin. “I knew you were a drama queen, but this is ridiculous.”

I sniffed back tears and told him about the letter from Emma. This time he listened.

“Awww,” Troy said when I was done. “That's tough for your friend, but that kid's not me, and most people's brothers grow up, you know. I'm going to grow up too.”

“I hope so.”

“And another thing,” said Troy. “You don't need a tutor. I can help you with fractions. Only it's hard for me to find the time with practice and everything.”

“Do you really hate it?” I asked. “You could quit. You could explain to Mom and Dad . . .”

Troy shook his head. “No, I can't. People are
counting on me. Maybe after the season's over.”

“Thanks for offering to help with fractions,” I said.

“Can I make another suggestion?” Troy asked.

“If you have to.”

“Take your tutor some cookies.”

Thursday, May 19, Lucy

I must have been facing the wrong way when the soccer ball hit me in the head. All I know for sure is one second I was standing on the field at school waiting for the whistle to blow, and the next I was lying flat on the grass, looking up into the pale gray sky. My right ear was stinging.

Then the worried faces gathered around.

“Lucy, how many fingers am I holding up?”

“Who's the president? What day is it? Do you know the year?”

“On a scale of one to ten, Lucy, how much does it hurt?'

I couldn't think about so many questions at once. So I didn't answer, just blinked a couple of times . . . and then the faces seemed even more worried.

“We'd better call nine one one,” said Mrs. Kamae, my PE teacher. “We can't take chances with concussion.”

“Wait—no, Mrs. Kamae,” said my best friend, Emmaline Woolsey. “I think it's just Lucy being how she always is. Are you okay, Lu?”

I sat up and rubbed my ear. “Fine, I think.”

“No stars? No headache?” Mrs. Kamae asked.

“Stars?” I was confused.

“I
mean
,” said Mrs. Kamae, “you don't see stars flashing in front of your eyes?”

“It's daytime, Mrs. Kamae,” I said.

Emmaline looked at Mrs. Kamae. “See?”

Mrs. Kamae nodded. “Yeah, she's fine. But to be on the safe side, Lucy, I think you'd better sit out today.”

“No!” I protested. “My team needs me!”

It was true, too. I'm not usually good at games. I don't have what Mrs. Kamae calls “killer instinct.” (She had to explain she didn't
mean that literally. She just meant I'm not very aggressive.) But for some reason, when I kick a soccer ball, it goes where I aim it. I have a “knack,” Mrs. Kamae says. She wants me to go out for the school team next year.

“You can play tomorrow,” Mrs. Kamae said. “And tell your mom if you feel funny later—nauseated, or anything.”

“I will,” I said, not bothering to explain that I might not even see my mom later. She had a new waitressing job, and if she went out after, she often didn't get home till I was asleep. I could tell my grandmother, maybe, but she'd just tell me to drink a cup of tea, and could I fix one for her while I was at it.

School ends at three fifteen. Clarissa's mom gave me a ride home, as usual. Clarissa and I are the only kids in my neighborhood who go to public school—me because we don't have the money for private and Clarissa because her dad is on the school board and it would look bad if he sent his daughter to private school. Clarissa's mom is always nice, but I feel like a mooch for getting rides all the time.

Some days I walk, but on Thursdays I can't be late for my job watching Arlo, Mia, and Levi.

Inside our house it was so still it felt like no one had moved since morning when I left. “Hello Nana!” I called. She didn't answer, but I didn't worry. She is a little deaf and spends most of the time in her bedroom, which is on the far side of the kitchen.

I dumped my backpack on my bed and looked around for something to wear to watch the triplets.

My room used to be as gloomy as the rest of the house, but last year I asked my mom if we couldn't do something about it, and to my surprise she said why not? So we went to a paint store and spent a whole weekend turning the walls bright yellow.

Then I made collages out of old magazines and comic books and whatever I could find and sprayed them with lacquer and hung them up. So now, even if the bedspread is ancient and the dresser wobbles and sometimes my clothes are mounded on the floor in a heap, at least my room is colorful.

Now I kicked off my shoes and traded my capris for
gym shorts and my top for a ratty old T-shirt of Mom's. It's not like my school clothes are so special, but babysitting usually equals grass, jelly, and juice stains, and laundry is not my favorite chore.

Clothes changed, I made my way through the house to check in with my grandmother.

“There you are, Nana. Have you even been out of your bedroom today?” I asked.

My grandmother has long streaky gray hair that she pulls back and then clips on top of her head in a free-form sculpture that's different every day. She wears Levi's and T-shirts with the names of old bands on them—the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, Jefferson Airplane. She almost never wears shoes because she almost never goes outside. Her skin is pale as paper.

Now she was sitting in the room's only chair, reading a fat book. The blinds were drawn and a lamp was on.

“No reason to go anywhere,” Nana said. “I've got everything I need right here.”

“It's Thursday, so I've got babysitting, remember?” I said.

“Lucy, I am not demented. I
know
the days of the week.”

I ignored this and nodded at the book in her lap. “Which one is that?”

“
Bleak House
,” she said.

My grandmother only reads books by Charles Dickens. “Is that the one with Jarndyce versus Jarndyce—the legal case that never ends?”

Nana nodded. “I like the depiction of evil lawyers futilely beavering away at meaningless work. It's like the real world, only it's funnier.”

My grandmother believes lawyers cheated her out of her money, leaving her—and my mom and me—in “straitened circumstances,” aka broke. Also, my grandfather was a lawyer, and he and my grandmother got divorced when my mother was little, long before I showed up on the scene.

“I have to go,” I said.

“Give Maya, Rambo, and Leland my regards,” Nana said.

My grandmother knows the triplets' actual names perfectly well. It's no use trying to correct her.

“Yes, ma'am. I will. See you for dinner.”

We live in a town that's known for being wealthy—Beverly Hills—and our house is the smallest and most ordinary on our street, maybe in the whole town. It was built in the 1940s in a style called “ranch,” which has nothing to do with the salad dressing or with horses and cows. It just means it has only one floor. Most of the other houses on our street are new enough that I remember when they were built. One by one, little ones like ours were torn down and gigantic ones went up. Now our house looks like a midget among giants.

Anyway, with the low ceilings and the drapes closed, our house is kind of dark, which my mom says is just as well because it makes it harder to see the peeling wallpaper, dust, and shredded places in the furniture where Mitzi the cat (she's dead now) sharpened her claws. Because its floor is black slate, the front hall is even darker than the other rooms. This explains why I didn't notice till now—when I was almost out the door—that there was a letter on the hall table addressed to Lucy Ambrose.

My mother must have gotten the mail today on her way to work and then come back and set it there for me.

I thought it was from my dad until I picked it up and saw how nice the paper was—cream-colored stationery, not like a greeting card you'd buy at Thrifty Drug. Also, my name and address were printed in type. There was no return address on the front, but when I flipped the envelope over, I saw an address on the flap in slightly raised letters—Kansas City, Missouri.

Oh. My. Gosh.

Olivia!

For a minute I couldn't believe it. Secret cookies had really happened! Way back last summer we had planned it, and way back last fall I had sent cookies to Grace. Then Grace had sent cookies to Emma and Emma to Olivia—and I was the last link in the chain. It had come full circle just the way it was supposed to.

What were the odds of
that
?