Never Wear Red Lipstick on Picture Day: (And Other Lessons I've Learned) Page 2

  “Ooh, sounds fun,” Grandmom says. “I’ll help you pick something out tonight. Is tomorrow ­Picture Day?”

  “No, next week,” I say. “And I need something new for Picture Day. This is very important.”

  “Why is it so important?” Grandmom asks as Timmy tries to scramble up her legs until she picks him up. “You already have plenty of lovely clothes in your closet.”

  “Everybody has seen them already,” I explain. “And there are many copycats in my class—well, mostly Natalie—so if I do not wear something brand new, she might wear the same thing. And that would be a tragedy.”

  “Oh, good, you’re here,” Mom says, coming into the living room, all dressed up in high heels and everything. “The twins are already down for the night, so hopefully, you won’t hear much out of them. There’s some leftover baked chicken in the refrigerator for these two—”

  “Yuck,” I interrupt her.

  “You love chicken,” Mom says to me.

  “I hate leftovers,” I explain, but Mom begins to smear lipstick across her lips instead of answering me.

  “Can I have some?” I ask.

  “Lipstick?” Mom grabs me by the chin and plants a wet kiss on my lips. “There, now you’re wearing some too,” she says, even though that was not what I had in mind. “Tim, are you ready?”

  “Coming.” Dad walks into the room and says good-bye to each of us quickly before they both run out the door.

  “So about Picture Day . . . ,” I begin again in my sweetest voice.

  “If you’re trying to get me to buy you new clothes, that’s not going to work,” Grandmom tells me. “Especially after I just got you those sunglasses.”

  “But I cannot even wear them anymore because Natalie copycatted—”

  “I know, I know, Natalie’s a copycat. I think it’s time you and Natalie worked out your differences once and for all, don’t you?” Grandmom asks, walking toward the kitchen with Timmy trailing behind her.

  The front door flies open then, and Mom comes back into the living room. “Forgot my handbag,” she says, and she reaches toward the couch for a small bag, which is the color of a snake. She places her lipstick tube inside and heads back out again. “Love you!” she calls to me over her shoulder, and her snake bag is the last thing I see before she closes the door.

  “Come on, Mandy, let’s have some dinner,” Grandmom calls from the kitchen.

  And I don’t even mind so much anymore that dinner is leftovers. Because Mom has just given me a great idea for my new accessory, one that is lying on the floor of my closet. So maybe, just maybe, leftover things are not as bad as I thought.

  The next morning I place my fancy-dancy sunglasses on my nightstand sadly, because I do not feel like bringing them to school anymore. Instead, I grab the pink handbag that my cousin, Paige, mailed to me for my birthday. I usually hate pink, and I don’t love handbags, either, but if Mom takes her snake bag out for special occasions, I guess handbags are a pretty grown-up accessory. Plus, this handbag has fringe on the side, and it feels almost like feathers when I pet it. And there are many gemstones lining the top of the fringe, and I do love shiny things.

  The problem with this handbag, though, is that I do not have anything fun to put inside of it, like lipstick or gum. I walk around my room, and I try to push my stuffed Rainbow Sparkle inside, but she is too big. And then I place my three swirly marbles in it, but they clang together when I walk, so Mrs. Spangle might hear them and take them away.

  “Mandy, let’s go!” Mom calls from downstairs. “Your cereal is getting soggy.” I reach under my pillow and grab a handful of gummy bears, and I pour them inside my handbag.

  The reason I do not love handbags is that it is very, very easy to forget about them. You can put your sunglasses on top of your head and—ta-da!—they are right there, but you always have to think about where your handbag is. I already have to worry about my book bag and my lunch box and now this bag, too—it is very tiring.

  When I get to school, I put my handbag in my cubby, because I do not know if Mrs. Spangle thinks it is an outdoor accessory or not. When Mrs. Spangle calls my group to line up for lunch, I place the strap of my bag over my shoulder and run my fingers through the fringe. It is not so bad for a handbag, I guess—it is pretty fancy-dancy, after all, even if it is pink.

  I plop my handbag on the cafeteria table next to my lunch box, and the gemstones click against the top of the table.

  “Pretty bag,” Anya says to me.

  “Yeah,” Natalie agrees.

  “Thank you,” I answer proudly. “My cousin, Paige, gave it to me.”

  “I think I have one just like it,” Natalie tells me, and my eyes grow wide like pancakes then, because there is no way I am going to let Natalie copycat my handbag, too.

  “You cannot bring it to school,” I tell her. “You already stole my fancy-dancy sunglasses.”

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t steal your sunglasses,” Natalie says. “I got my own pair.”

  “That is pretty much the same thing,” I say. “Because now I cannot wear mine anymore.”

  “Yes, you can,” Natalie says. “I think it would be fun. Anya could get some too, and then we could be triplets.”

  “Twins are not fun, so triplets are even worse,” I say, opening my lunch box. “Oh, blech.” The inside of my box is soggy from a leak in my sandwich bag. There is mayonnaise all over my napkin, and the whole thing feels like a damp twin.

  “Anya, help me,” I say, picking up the napkin carefully between two fingers while Anya wipes up the rest of the mayonnaise with her own napkin. We bring them to the trash can in the middle of the cafeteria.

  And when we get back, my handbag is gone.

  “Hey!” I yell. “Who took my handbag?” I look straight into Natalie’s eyes, but she only shrugs, ignoring me. “Did you take it?”

  “No.”

  “Then who did?”

  Natalie shrugs again.

  “Natalie!” I slam my palms against the top of the cafeteria table, and it kind of hurts a lot. But that’s when I hear it from over my shoulder: words coming from the most terrible, horrible voice.

  “Mmm,” the voice begins, “gummy bears!”

  I turn and see Dennis placing an entire ­handful of gummy bears—my gummy bears—into his mouth. I feel my insides bubble up until they come out of my mouth in the ­loudest, screechiest, most piercing scream I have ever created.

  And I am pretty impressed with the scream, if I am being honest.

  But the lunch aides are not, because they all come barreling over to where I am standing. Natalie has her hands covering her ears, as if I might start screaming again at any moment.

  “What happened over here? Who’s hurt?” They talk over one another, all looking at me because I am the only one still standing.

  “He stole my handbag!” I explain, pointing at the boys’ cafeteria table.

  “Take a seat, young lady,” the lunch aide with the kittens on her sweatshirt yells at me, and I do not think it is right for someone who wears cats that look so friendly on her shirt to sound so mean. “You had no reason to scream like that over something so silly.”

  “But—but—” I cannot even get my words out because I am so upset. “He stole my handbag, and he ate my gummy bears!”

  “Who?”

  “HIM!” I turn around and point right at Dennis.

  “Come with me, young man.” The lunch aide waves her finger at him. “What is your name?”

  “Dennis!” I answer for him. “Dennis Riley!”

  “That’s enough from you, thank you,” the lunch aide scolds me. “Mr. Riley, I assume that handbag isn’t yours. Please return it.” Dennis throws the bag in my lap without saying a word as the aide leads him out of the cafeteria.

  “He should be very, very punished!” I ye
ll after them. “And never touch my things again, Freckle Face!” I slap my empty handbag down on the ­cafeteria table and glare at Natalie.

  “I know you saw him take it,” I say, and Natalie shrugs again.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have been so mean about the sunglasses,” she replies. And with that, I take the entire rest of my lunch and dump it all into the trash can in the middle of the cafeteria.

  Because Dennis and Natalie have made me lose my appetite.

  CHAPTER 3

  Wahoo Girl

  DENNIS IS BACK IN OUR CLASSROOM after lunch, which I do not think should be allowed, because ­Dennis shouldn’t be able to come to school again for the entire rest of the year. Maybe not even until we go to middle school. Or maybe he should just move.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask as I walk to my seat, and for once, Dennis keeps his big mouth shut. He is sitting with his hands folded on top of his desk, and he does not even look up at me.

  And Dennis looks pretty sad, actually, which kind of makes me happy.

  “What’s the matter, Dennis?” Anya teases him. “Cat got your tongue?” But Dennis doesn’t answer her, either.

  “Take your seats, everyone,” Mrs. Spangle calls. “Mr. Jacks will be in to talk to all of you in a few minutes.”

  I feel my face get hot then, and I snap my head around to look at Anya. She looks back at me with jumpiness in her eyes, because having the principal come to your classroom is never a good sign. It is a terrible sign, really.

  I glance over at Natalie, and she looks much more terrified than Anya and I do, because I don’t think Natalie has ever seen Principal Jacks in her life. Even at school assemblies, she probably looks away. Because the principal means trouble, and Natalie is allergic to trouble.

  I have met Principal Jacks face-to-face only one time, and it was by mistake. On the first day of school in kindergarten, my teacher sent me to the office with the attendance sheet, and I got a little bit lost. Well, I found the office, but I did not stop at the secretary’s desk like I was supposed to. Instead, I walked straight back into Principal Jacks’s office, and there he was, sitting at his desk, staring at me.

  Principal Jacks kind of looks like an owl, if I am being honest. He has round glasses and no hair on his head, except for some tufts on the sides that look like feathers. And owls can be pretty scary when you see them up close. So when I accidentally went into his office, I froze on my own two feet, and I could not make them move forward or backward. I just stared at ­Principal Jacks and thought about how he looked like an owl.

  Finally, Principal Jacks said, “Mrs. Gradey, looks like we have a trespasser,” and the secretary came to fetch me. He was not very mean about it, so that is something, but that does not mean that I am any less scared of him today. This is why, when he walks into Mrs. Spangle’s classroom, I am almost as nervous to see him as Natalie seems to be.

  “Good afternoon.” Principal Jacks stares down at us through his round owl glasses. No one says a word.

  “Good afternoon,” Principal Jacks repeats.

  “Good afternoon,” my class mumbles back to him.

  “I hear we had some more excitement in the cafeteria today,” he says, and I turn to look at ­Dennis. Dennis’s ears turn bright red at the tips, and he does not look up from his desktop.

  “This isn’t the first incident of this kind, unfortunately, and frankly, I’ve had enough of this lack of decorum in the cafeteria. The students of Roselee Elementary School are better than that. Am I right?”

  My class and I all nod our heads.

  “In order to help us work on our behavior, we’ve been planning a little cafeteria contest for you all, which I’ve decided to put into place sooner rather than later,” Principal Jacks tells us. And before I can think better of it, I hear a “Wahoo!” escape from my mouth, because I love a contest. But then I throw my hands over my lips, because I can’t believe I just “wahooed” at the principal. I look over at Mrs. Spangle, and she has her face bent down toward the floor, her shoulders shaking.

  “You like the sound of that?” I hear Principal Jacks ask, but I keep looking at Mrs. Spangle, trying to figure out why her shoulders are trembling up and down.

  “Excuse me,” Principal Jacks says, and he snaps his fingers. And I have always wanted to learn to snap, so I stare at his hand and try to figure out how he did it.

  “Mandy,” I hear Mrs. Spangle’s voice say. “Mr. Jacks is talking to you,” and I take my eyes away from Principal Jacks’s hand and look back at Mrs. Spangle. I can tell then by the smile that is still stuck in the corners of her mouth why her shoulders were shaking after my “Wahoo!”: she was laughing! And I love to make Mrs. Spangle laugh.

  I turn back to Principal Jacks, and my stomach suddenly feels shaky from nervousness.

  “You like the sound of the contest?” Principal Jacks asks. “I didn’t even tell you what it’s for yet.”

  “I just really like contests,” I answer quietly.

  “What do you like about them?” Principal Jacks asks, and his owl eyes seem to be grinning at me.

  “I like winning them,” I answer honestly, and now it is Principal Jacks’s turn to laugh at me. But he is not laughing at me in a mean way—he is laughing like he thinks I am funny.

  And I kind of really like Principal Jacks right then.

  “Well, I hope you’ll want to win this one after you hear what the prize is,” Principal Jacks continues. “Each day the lunch aides are going to be handing out raf f le tickets to those students who they feel are doing the best jobs of being courteous, well behaved, and mannerly in the cafeteria. Every time you get a ticket, you can write your name on it and stick it in the giant jar that Mrs. Gradey is going to place outside of the office. To get the ball rolling, we’re going to hold our first drawing on Wednesday afternoon, which is what special day around here?”

  My classmates shoot their hands in the air, but no one shoots it as high as me.

  “Yes, you again,” Principal Jacks calls on me. “Boy, we have an eager beaver in this one, don’t we, Mrs. Spangle?”

  And I am not sure why Principal Jacks is calling me a beaver, but I do know that next Wednesday is Picture Day, which is practically the best day of the year. “Picture Day!” I blurt out, and then I follow that up with another “Wahoo,” just to see if it will make him laugh again or, even better, snap his fingers.

  “Right,” Principal Jacks says, and he chuckles. “Our first drawing will be on Picture Day, and the chosen winner each week will get to have lunch with me. But remember, you can’t win without a raf f le ticket, and you can’t get a raf f le ticket without perfect behavior in the cafeteria. The better your behavior every day, the better your chances of winning. Understood?”

  We nod our heads up and down.

  “Oh, and I forgot to mention: These lunches are going to take place in the Teachers’ Lounge on Fridays. We’ll do it as many times as we need to in order to make the Roselee Elementary School students the best-behaved cafeteria-goers in the entire nation. How does that sound to you—what is your name again?”

  Principal Jacks is looking right at me.

  “Me?” I point to my chest.

  “Yes, the ‘Wahoo Girl,’” Principal Jacks answers, and I am pretty happy that Dennis is so down in the dumps right now, because if he were not, I am almost positive he would give me the new namecall of “Wahoo Girl.”

  “Mandy,” I answer him. “Mandy Berr.”

  “Well, how does that contest sound to you, Mandy Berr?”

  “Excellent,” I answer. “I would like to win it.” And that is the truth, because not only do I like to win things, but I would definitely like to have lunch with Principal Jacks, since he thinks I am funny. Plus, the lunch is in the Teachers’ Lounge, and I have always wanted to see inside of there, because students are not usually allowed. And I think it is probab
ly a very interesting place, with vending machines and everything.

  “Great,” Principal Jacks says. “I hope you all feel the same and will be on your best behavior in the cafeteria this week and, well, every week. And I hope we never have to have this kind of conversation again.” And I am not positive, but I am pretty sure that he’s looking in Dennis’s direction right then.

  But Dennis still does not look up from his desk, and even his Mohawk is starting to look droopy.

  And I am sort of glad that he is acting so unhappy, because that is what happens when you steal handbags and gummy bears. Especially when they belong to me.

  CHAPTER 4

  Raffle Losers

  “I AM GOING TO HAVE LUNCH with the principal,” I announce to Mom in the kitchen after school.

  “Ooooh,” I hear Timmy’s voice answer, but I do not see him anywhere.

  “Oh yeah? Sounds exciting. How did that happen?” Mom asks.

  “He is having a contest for us to win a lunch with him. Whoever has the best behavior in the cafeteria gets a raffle ticket.”

  “What’s a raffle?” Timmy’s voice interrupts again.

  “WHERE ARE YOU?” I yell. “You are annoying me.”

  “Hide-and-seek!” Timmy calls back.

  “You cannot play hide-and-seek and then talk from your hiding spot,” I say. “That makes no sense.” Although, if I am being honest, I am kind of impressed with wherever Timmy’s hiding spot is, because I still do not see him anywhere. I peer underneath the table, behind the counter, and around the curtains, all very quickly so that Mom cannot tell I am looking for him. Because I try to never, ever play games with Timmy. He is a preschooler, and I am a second grader, and that would just be humiliating.

  Plus, Timmy is gross.

  “Find me!” Timmy’s voice calls out again, and that’s when I spot the piles of Tupperware stacked up on the kitchen floor, outside of the cabinet where Mom usually keeps them. I whip the door open and find Timmy crouched inside, smashed down like a turtle that has rolled onto its back.