Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano (But She Does Love Being in Recitals) (4 page)

When Pansy and Sam
turned to go back inside, they found themselves face to face with the orange sun rising behind Mrs. Maxwell’s
SMILE, YOU’RE IN MIAMI
sweatshirt.

“Excuse us,” said Pansy without looking up.

Mrs. Maxwell stepped one step to her left. And Sam and Pansy stepped one step to
their
left and disappeared into the house.

“What’s that?”
Mrs. Maxwell said sharply.

“What’s what?” said Moxy.

“What you’re wearing.”

Moxy looked down at her cape—she had forgotten she had it on.

“Please don’t look!” cried Moxy. But her mother didn’t look away. So Moxy was forced to toss the back of the cape over her head—even though it hurt her neck—so her mother couldn’t see it.

Here is the photograph Mark took of
Moxy hiding her face under her cape. He called it “My Sister Looks Better with a Cape Over Her Face.”

“My Sister Looks Better with a Cape Over Her Face,” by Mark Maxwell
.

“Moxy, I am too tired to play games!” said Mrs. Maxwell. “If you and Pansy aren’t in that house playing ‘Heart and Soul’ all the way through by the time I count to ten, there are going to be consequences.”

(Mrs. Maxwell always counted to whatever age you were before she took action. Moxy could hardly wait until she was 100.)

But Moxy didn’t reply. Somewhere under her black velvet cape it sounded like she was starting to cry.

“Darling,” said Mrs. Maxwell, “are you crying?”

“No,” said Moxy, “I’m sighing. It was supposed to be a surprise!”

“What was supposed to be a surprise?”

“This,” said Moxy, flipping the cape from her head. “And it’s not even finished yet!”

“But it
is
a surprise,” said Mrs. Maxwell, looking at the cape. “What is it for?”

“It’s for me to wear tonight,” said Moxy. “Pansy has one too. But we haven’t even started to make the fake ermine fur trim yet.”

The porch swing was damp and covered with a light dusting of mud from the melted snow. It was also covered with seventy-nine straight pins that had spilled from Granny George’s straight pin container. But Mrs. Maxwell sat down anyway. Mrs. Maxwell really needed to sit down.

“I thought you were wearing the pink gobs-of-glitter dress tonight,” she said. She pulled a pair of straight pins from under her right thigh.

“I
am
wearing the pink gobs-of-glitter dress. But the cape goes over it.”

“For the recital?”

“And a crown, of course.”

“Of course,” repeated Mrs. Maxwell.

“And my silver tap shoes.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Maxwell, who did.

The swing was stirring
in the slight (5 mph) breeze coming from the northeast. It was very restful. Mrs. Maxwell did not so much close her eyes as her eyes closed on Mrs. Maxwell.

Let us remember that Mrs. Maxwell had been up all night flying from Africa to Cleveland—it took twenty-one hours and two minutes. And she hadn’t had any sleep. And when she got home she didn’t go to bed. She stayed up to make 150 cupcakes with marshmallow frosting for Moxy’s party tonight.

Not that she was sleeping now, Mrs. Maxwell reassured herself. She didn’t have time to sleep. She had to make sure Moxy could stop playing her part of “Heart and Soul” because … because … because. Suddenly Mrs. Maxwell couldn’t remember why it was so important to hear Moxy stop playing “Heart and Soul.”

The reason Mrs. Maxwell couldn’t remember why it was so important to hear Moxy practice “Heart and Soul” was because Mrs. Maxwell had fallen asleep. In fact, she was already dreaming. She was dreaming there was a giraffe in the upstairs shower. It was singing “Heart and Soul.”

When Moxy realized that her mother was asleep, she took some of the leftover velvet from the capes Granny George had made and covered her mother with it so she wouldn’t get cold, even though there was only a slight (5 mph) breeze.

An Intermission
is when you, the Reader, take a break from reading this book. Not a long break. You can’t, for example, go to Paris (unless of course you’re already in Paris). But you can get up and get some gum. Or pet the dog. Or call a friend who is also reading this book, to see if they’ve gotten to the Intermission Part yet. But then you must come back. Because the story is just heating up….

The sound
of Moxy and Pansy practicing “Heart and Soul” did not wake Mrs. Maxwell. What woke Mrs. Maxwell was the vibration of Granny George’s sewing machine.

The reason the sound of Moxy and Pansy practicing “Heart and Soul” did not wake Mrs. Maxwell was that Moxy and Pansy were not practicing “Heart and Soul.” They were upstairs in the guest room bathroom watching Sam cut the last white bath towel into five-inch strips with
the sharp scissors
.

With
the sharp scissors
.

Out on the porch
, Mrs. Maxwell yawned and asked Granny George that age-old question: “How long have I been asleep?”

“Two hours and twenty-one minutes,” said Granny George. Granny George paid very close attention to time.

Mrs. Maxwell had also been asleep long enough for Moxy to have almost finished making the fake ermine fur trim out of the old white guest towels.

In fact, at the very moment when Mrs.
Maxwell was yawning on the swing, Moxy was perched on the edge of the pink sink in the guest bathroom. She was watching Pansy put black dots on the second-to-last strip of what had recently been a whole white towel. Pansy was using Ajax’s permanent black Magic Marker.

For his part, Mark was taking this picture of Sam cutting the last towel into five-inch strips with, as I say (and it bears repeating),
the sharp scissors
.

The sharp scissors
are so sharp that children under the age of eighteen are not allowed to touch them—
even
if they happen to find
the sharp scissors
in the middle of the living room floor standing on their head with the sharp end sticking up.
^*

Shall I go
into detail about how to make high-quality fake ermine fur out of white bathroom towels? Or is it so obvious it would be a bore? If you already know how to make fake ermine fur trim out of white guest towels, please skip this chapter and go to Chapter 49.

Moxy Maxwell’s last-minute, high-quality fake ermine fur recipe:

What you’ll need:

1. Two old white towels.
   

2. One big (really fresh) permanent black Magic Marker.
   

3. One pair
   sharp scissors
   or small sword.
   

4. Granny George.
   

DIRECTIONS:

• Say “Please” and then ask someone to cut the white fluffy towel into long strips, perhaps 5 inches wide—perhaps more, perhaps less.
  

• Say “Please” again and ask someone to make big black dots all over the strips of the old white towels using the permanent black Magic Marker.
  

• Ask Granny George to please sew the black-and-white dotted strips of
  bathroom towels around the outside of the capes.
  

• Add more dots as needed.
  

Yield: Enough ermine for two regular capes.

Here is a picture
Mark took of what Mrs. Maxwell saw when she finally reached the bathroom door. He called it “A Shot of Chaos.”

“A Shot of Chaos,” by Mark Maxwell
.

Sam, put
the sharp scissors
down now!” cried Mrs. Maxwell.

It’s a good thing that Sam had great reflexes and a lot of common sense. Otherwise, he might have cut himself when he heard Mrs. Maxwell’s voice behind him. Instead, he stopped cutting.

“Now turn slowly around,” instructed Mrs. Maxwell.

Sam turned slowly around, keeping
the sharp scissors
in clear view of everyone.

“Easy now, Sam,” said Mrs. Maxwell as she approached him.

When she was absolutely sure Sam wouldn’t make a sudden move, Mrs. Maxwell took
the sharp scissors
from him.

Then she sat down on the edge of the pink guest-room bathroom tub.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Pansy. She was apologizing as much to Moxy as to her mother.

She was apologizing to Moxy because she had heard their mom coming up the stairs and she hadn’t warned Moxy. Pansy hadn’t warned Moxy because her heart had been bouncing around in her chest like a cartoon heart. And she had been afraid that if she opened her mouth, it might come bouncing out.

“I’m sorry too,” said Sam. Sam was very good with mothers.